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.
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.
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)
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.
When our minds are fixated on gaining something, we tend to be narrow. We define things in terms of what we predefine rather than seeing the totality and resting in it. This can take the form of a kind of empty space or a feeling of not knowing what comes next or what to do next. It's important in that moment not to try to "add anything" or "subtract" from the experience as is.
If we are trying to add something, it's like sticking a conclusion on top of something that has already concluded. We are straining to complete an already completed moment, which adds to our view that the moment is incomplete. This only creates vexations.
On the other hand, trying to subtract from experience through simplifying it, is yet another subtle form of vexation. It is as though we are seeing a big banquet and then we tell the host that this is too much food and we are overwhelmed by the selection---so much so that we can't make any choice.
In between these is the view that mind in the moment has already been perfected. We don't need to add anything new to it or take away from it. We are free to observe things arising as they are.
This practice needs a sense of clarity and being in the moment that is sometimes hard to realize. But we can use anything to practice on it. When we are working, we practice resting contentedly in the exact nature of the work itself even when we may sense we lack the tools needed to perform the job thoroughly. Simply observe the unfolding process and trust that the mind is already deeply connected to it. When resting, we simply rest in the enjoyment of resting, without adding more or less to the experience. Encountering others, we don't need to add anything additional to what is really unfolding, and there is no need to placate others. This involves simply letting things be, but also open to taking on whatever needs doing. In other words, we don't need to be afraid of any phenomena.
We often try to do well for ourselves by climbing a ladder: leaving behind the bad in favor of the good. I would suggest a different approach, which is to integrate disowned elements of the self.
Platform Sutra talks about the sentient beings that exist within us:
Learned Audience, to take refuge in a true Buddha is to take refuge in our own Essence of Mind. He who does so should remove from his Essence of Mind the evil mind, the jealous mind, the flattering and crooked mind, egotism, deceit and falsehood, contemptuousness, snobbishness, fallacious views, arrogance, and all other evils that may arise at any time. (p.60)
When I read this passage, I reflect on how we contain all of these different elements of sentient beings. There isn't a single thing that a person has done, thought, felt, etc. that does not also reflect within ourselves. When I react to someone else, I create in my mind the idea of that person's motivation, and then reject that person for their perceived motivation. But what I am rejecting is really my own creation, since we can never truly know a person's mind. At most, we can guess, but beyond that, our guesses are based on our own train of thought. So we create cloud beings out of our mind that, at most, are only shadowy things that have no real substance.
Subduing or removing all these selves requires love and equanimity. Love: we accept and take in all these elements as parts of the same mind, just like the waves are parts of the same ocean. We don't separate or cast our one wave. Instead, we treat them all as just different forms. Even if we cannot embrace all these different forms, perhaps we can see that they are potentials that lie within all of us, which can emerge from many complex conditions. At the very least, we can cultivate the humility to know that what we don't like about someone is a seed that is within us. We can choose to accept that what we dislike is only temporary and arises from conditions.
Second is about equanimity. Having a balanced view allows all those states of mind that are unwholesome and partial to arise without taking over the show. To identify too closely with those elements of mind is to become imprisoned to them. They become compulsions rather than being integrated elements within the whole.
Lastly, I try to observe deeply the mind that beholds all these elements. Is that mind inseparable from these mental states, or do the mental states only pass through mind as a function? Staying in that sense of mind can allow us not to become entangled in the sub-personalities.
When I let go of clinging, naturally they liberate because these sub-personalities were always pure to begin with. It's like imagining that our toy soldiers were really "real", only to find that they were only real because we made them to be real through our imaginations.
The Sutra of Hui Neng. H.K Buddhist Book Distribution Press.
“The assertion about individual marks that really have no existence, concerns the distinctive marks as perceived by the eye, ear, nose, etc., as indicating individuality and generality in the elements that make up personality and its external world; and then, taking these marks for reality and getting attached to them, to get into the habit or affirming that things are just so and not otherwise.
Gautama, Buddha. THE LANKAVATARA SUTRA (pp. 11-12). Independent. Kindle Edition.
The outdoor park meditation was beautiful tonight. When I was meditating, I felt a sense of oneness with the sounds and was able to connect with them all equally--the rumbling of underground trains, the sound of children laughing, a violin playing classical music, and so on. What a vibrant and living community I am living in. I soaked in the sounds with a kind of innocence that brought me back to summer.
We never step on the same path twice, and the park already seems to be a dream to me. Interacting in any situation, it's best to take things in a relaxed way that always brings us back to the present. Fashi recommended a method of taking one part of the body and focusing 80% of the body and 20% on the environment.
It takes a lot of practice to steady the mind and focus on the moment. But when I reflect on it, all the sentient beings are there to support us on this journey. Even when I feel that it might be otherwise, I know that everything around us is a reminder of the three seals: impermanence, no self and emptiness. If we are able to see this aspect in all things, then joy will naturally arise in our minds. On the other hand, to affirm that things are "just so" and "only just so" is to buy into the mistake that there are fixed identities and realities.
