Delightful Skies

  The sky is beautiful for all beings, on all occasions. There is no need to hoard the sky or even the clouds. They belong to everyone who can see or who imagines. When we open to this reality--that the sky is owned by all---then we can also open our hearts, minds and vision.

    What prevents us from delighting in the sky? I would say, attachment to the clouds , or the thoughts that circulate in our minds. As soon as there is an attachment to thoughts, we start to proliferate and identify with them until they become our prison. Anytime we catch ourselves suffering, it's because we are jammed in thoughts, especially anxious or grasping thoughts, especially about wanting to be something o someone. And this leads to a sense of discontentment.

   I truly believe that education must teach us the basic of contentment. Without inner contentment--the ability to appreciate the free sky--we become consumers of, or consumed by, our thoughts. This is a genuine hazard that we need to learn to release at any given moment.

   Delight begins when we practice just awareness. This is not the same as being intelligent. It simply starts with unembellished awareness. Resting in awareness is the beginning of real peace.

Patience and Right View

  Sometimes, a plant won't grow because some factor wasn't ripened. It's not that the plant itself is defective, but there may be some condition that didn't prevail when it could have. When we accept that not all conditions ripen in the moments that we expect, we might adopt a more calm approach. We aren't blaming the plant for not growing. Instead, we try to figure out how that missing factor can be added or implemented.

    By reflecting more deeply on cause and condition, I believe that we can eliminate the sense of blame that can lead to intense suffering. Blame, whether for ourselves or others, is one way we might hold someone responsible. But this can sometimes cause a lot of intense anger or hatred. So instead of blame, we might decide to see the situation as the combination of shifting forces that are subject to change or influence. Instead of punishing the plant for not growing in a desired way, I can analytically decide why the plant may not be growing in the way I expected. 

    Even the human brain can be seen in this way. A person who is angry is not "inherently" so, but is so as a result of many conditions co-arising in the mind due to past and present factors planted there. We can't blame a person for those feelings since they are there as a result of complex conditions beyond that person's control or influence. When seen in this way, the anger in a person is impermanent, not inherently a part of that person, and is reason to treat the person compassionately.

   Conditioned arising is one way that we can let go of attributing success or failure to one factor that's beyond our control. We can then experiment with changing conditions that are within our control to see if it gets the desired result we want. This is a much more manageable way of tacking problems.

The role of suffering in Patience

  I am currently reading a book about patience, called Perfecting Patience by Dalai Lama. One area the book describes is how, by accepting suffering as an inevitable part of life, we can more readily embrace tolerance and patience. There is another aspect, which is that we learn to embrace suffering as part of the spiritual path. But when I read about this aspect of patience, I wonder if it means resignation of sorts. What's the difference between true tolerance and resignation?

    According to Buddhist teachings, suffering comes from attachment of some kind, usually to thoughts. If I continue to think and dwell on something that hasn't yet happened or isn't really my total responsibility, I become a prisoner to the thought. I add proliferations of thoughts until it becomes bigger and bigger. Then it gets out of control. Only through the grace of the present moment--it's sheer weight of being--can I be released from the tyranny of the thought. That comes from just being present with what is, like a fist that is opening up to the contingent moment.

    Embodiment is an easy reminder: I am here, in this moment, and nowhere else. Even something like getting up to go to the washroom during work break is one opportunity to relax into the steps. We can even imagine ourselves in that moment as Sisyphus, taking his break from the next roll of the rock up the hill. 

   One enemy of patience is simply overthinking and overcalculating. When I let go of trying to calculate my life--like trying to figure out every move and every step exactly--then a breath of fresh air comes in. I am able to release myself from the pressure to constantly align myself to my inner goals.

   Most importantly, when we realize that the world does not go according to our plans, we can treat this not as inconvenience but more as opportunity to reflect: does the success of this outcome really make a difference to who I am? What if the plan simply fails? Am I a failure because of it? And who is this I anyway? The ultimate tolerance is in realizing how the ego endlessly demands, yet many of these demands are not actual needs. They are nice to have but not absolute shoulds. So when we think this way, we can breathe more and enjoy what is happening rather than seeing it as a burden or tribulation.

Snowfall in January

    The snow is a beautiful tonight, and there were few cars on the road. I reflect: this world really is as pure as snow.

   The mind, just like the snow is pure. We only need rest in the moment, knowing that snow melts and turns into spring again.

    The cold will become warm and then cold. Being aware of these cycles will help us to become whole.

Inspiration in Here and Now

  Why do we fail to be inspired? We take this moment as something that has happened before. And we start to think there is someone walking this treadmill. The belief that someone is born and dies is the root of all this tossing and turning. If, for a moment, we can turn to the witness that is in all things, then there is no sense of having to do something or complete something to prove one's worth or individuality.

   The desperate drive to become something or someone can take all kinds of forms, solidifying into the need to be visible or counted in some way. We even measure our worth in terms of our output or how we wish to please others. But in this moment, the mind is not born or destroyed. It doesn't come into being as a result of achievements, and it doesn't arise as a result of being evaluated as having worth. All of these latter events are conditions created by the mind. 

    Some people might still treat "being in the moment" as a kind of goal. For instance, a practitioner remarks "I want to live in this present moment all the time", as though there were any other moment to live in! When we stop making an achievement out of anything, we realize that we have always been "this moment" all along, and there is nothing to achieve even in that. Then we can truly relax into whatever state of being arises.

  Even the idea of "unconditioned" can be taken to mean something opposite to the causes and conditions of the mind. But truly unconditioned mind goes beyond all dualities. Thus, the unconditioned mind is not something that ever requires achievement, and it does not need to be affirmed. It just is, and we can rest in it. We don't need to grasp it or achieve it in any way.

True Happiness Has No Face

 Shifu's Dharma talk today is called "Different Levels of Sensual Happiness". I am inspired by this talk to consider how to engage the world more joyfully, with a mindset of happiness. While Master Sheng Yen pointed to a bouquet of flowers, he remarked on how the way we arrange flowers has become an art in itself--something we can appreciate in terms of its forms. Others in the group shared how the one thing that gets in the way of seeing daily beauty is the ego, and its desire for control.

  When you really look deeply into the flower, you will the the whole universe is in the flower. Seeds, soil, sun, wind and rain are all contained in it, so it's already complete in itself. Pan out even further and this "arrangement" points to an elegantly connected cosmos. Everything has its right place because the mind is able to recognize it and give it its full due. What divides art from non-art is that art factors the mind as reflecting all the forms. The flowers are never isolated from our eyes or our mind. When we take out a reference point, everything just is: it's no longer siphoned through a wanting self.

   It's funny how easy it is to forget the beauty that is in all things. Look deeply at anything without desire or striving and it becomes a perfection. But if we still see imperfection, we only need to let go even further, zooming out to see there is no self in it, no striving or will. Like a beautiful canvas, we only fail to connect to its beauty because we see from the filters of desire or craving.

This kind of happiness has no face. The moon has different phases--some bright, some dark---but we can still accept it fully for what it is, beyond its individual forms. Even in defining something as beautiful is limiting to a prescribed form: something we expect to see and feel that is an object. But what's beyond those forms? There is a question we must continually engage.

Link to Video:

Different levels of sensual happiness (GDD-899, Master Sheng-Yen)

The Angry Gods

 I am preparing a lesson plan on the Odyssey and reflect on how much we talk about the gods as "angry" or vengeful. In Buddhism, there is a class of gods called the angry gods or "asuras", who are said to possess many great powers due to their previous merit and blessings. Yet, these gods are extremely protective of their powers and compete with each other endlessly. To be with the asuras is to have so much power and yet to feel despondent when such power could be taken away by others. From a human's perspective, the gods have all the luxuries of life, and we therefore don't imagine they would need anything. However, perhaps the more we possess, the more we fear losing what we have. This is what explains the notion of jealous gods who continually fight with each other to keep the power they have.

   It would be interesting to do a study describing how qualities such as anger can reflect a certain stage in human consciousness in which we are controlled by our fears and a threatened loss of control. It's possible that early states of humanity somehow required angry gods in order to set a tone of authority that would form the basis for law. Once a state becomes more stable, the gods tend to be more peaceful and even diplomatic, because they feel more secure in their power. During times of peace, gods can afford to relax and extend more grace, especially when they have no other gods to compete with!

   We don't think that we owe the gods any compassion, just as we look up at those with wealth and envy their perceived life (and lack of relative hardship). But in Buddhism, even deities suffer the loss of good karma as well as the eventual withering away of their powers. Studying power in others can be one way we can learn the limits of human excesses, but also that no being escapes from suffering. Even when we seem to have everything, a restless mind still feels itself deficient and wants more.