Belonging and Being Separate

I decide to walk along Don Mills after work, to meet my friend and colleague at a restaurant. It feels good not to be indoors or inside a bus. The ground appears to have the remnants of an earlier rain-shower, now evaporating into a hazy mist. I gaze out past the bridge at the ensuing traffic. The cars are going down the same road that they always have. But are they the same cars, and is it for the same reasons? I feel a sense of freedom that comes from surrendering the tightness of my body and the feeling of being obligated to other beings.

I want to explore one of the most perplexing contradictions in my life, namely between the desire to belong) and the freedom of being alone. In fact, there is no real ‘contradiction’ at all. But there are certain kinds of attachments there. Too much belonging can lead to a very mechanical existence of trying to keep up with those around me. It becomes like me comparing myself to other people and being afraid of falling behind from them. The irony is that the more I wish to belong with others, the narrower my existence becomes. In the effort to keep up with the things that might make me agreeable to others, I lose my inner passions. But I also end up fearing the loss of others, particularly those from whom I am somehow borrowing passions. I sometimes have compared this to the moon reflecting the sun’s light.

Some people have suggested the alternative to be a kind of rugged individualism. There are people who are so into their own creativity that it overshadows their need for the companionship of others. Thoreau is perhaps a paradigmatic case of the self-made person. But even Thoreau acknowledged his connection to the natural world, perhaps more so than other people.

I start to sense, in fact, that both ‘the need to belong’ and ‘the need to be alone’ are attachments to false concepts.  Belonging is the attachment to the concept of merger, which never fully happens in the end. At the end of the day, I go home as me (or a temporary version of me) and you go home as you. We have different experiences, and there is no way of saying that we see the same things. Not only that, but it is never possible to make an impression on everyone all the time, so the effort to belong all the time is rather futile. We have to be able to allow others to have their shining moments as well, which requires surrendering the sense of always being approved or recognized.

On the other hand, total ‘solitude’ is also illusory, because there is no such thing as a single solitary being. We are always being with or among other beings. But the real problem is that I don’t really know from one moment to the next who I will be and in what configuration, so I try to seek a very clear and certain sense of myself. But is that clarity ever possible? I have heard many people talk about being “secure within themselves”, but I wonder what this experience really refers to. The closest I can get to it is a sense that, no matter what happens to us, all is okay in the universe. This might be described as the sense that some fundamental part of us is being taken care of. I don’t need to ‘make myself’ any more than a tree needs to make itself grow. And we can’t measure growth in any other way except in terms of the thing itself. To try to use a yardstick to describe a tree’s development is already deviating from the tree’s unique tree-ness.

By denying both total belonging and total separation, I try to suggest that each moment is a creative merger around these themes. They are almost two different forces that spin around us (centri-pedal and centrifugal), and one can only stop to wonder how they combine and recombine at various moments in life.  For example, there are times when I am very gregarious around people and get lots of energy being around great conversation, while there are other times when I feel completely shut down and unable to connect.  When I ‘shut down’, what is this really expressing? Is it the unrequited desire to feel recognized by others, or is it the defiant desire to move away from all company? As I say this, I recognize that for the most part, I am not in control of this much of the time. But I can see the spectrum of emotions without saying that one is me and the other is not me. Both belonging and separation are familiar to my being. But are they my whole being?

Freedom in Harness

The sun shines today. The day is hazy and warm. People slowly recover back to the working schedule after a weekend of drizzle. I recall the car I had witnessed on the Lakeshore that had struck a pole on the weekend. It reminds me that I don’t know when my time on this earth is done. I can never tell the completion of the action.

In the last few blog entries, I described the value of humility. I am not sure today why I got onto this concept, but I am reminded of Frost’s words, “you have the freedom when you’re easy in your harness”. I recall hearing this line for the first time from my High School English teacher, who had taught me creative writing. I take the line to mean that one has to regulate one’s mind tightly in order to feel liberation. I am reminded of yet another line from Albert Camus, “fidelity to his limits”. I am trying to say that too much confidence can limit a person.  For example, if I am thinking that tomorrow is going to be the same as today, I will mistakenly think that I only need apply a simple principle to achieve the same result tomorrow. In fact, do I know what will happen tomorrow? Even if the mind is limitless, human being still have to face their responsibilities. But ironically, these same responsibilities become conditions for humans to practice using their minds and knowing true mind. Without those things that ground us, it is hard (albeit not impossible) to inquire into mind.

The other point I feel compelled to make is that sometimes things really do feel bad, and it doesn’t seem useful to try to cover up bad feelings by referring to abstract concepts. Krishnamurti describes the process of fully being in our loneliness rather than trying to conceptualize it, or any other state of being, as a concept that is distant from experience. When we encounter a rock or a pressure, we should really know the magnitude of that pressure rather than trying to flower it over with concepts, such as void or emptiness. This isn’t to say that those concepts don’t describe realities. It is to say that they co-exist with the magnitude of concrete experience. In that sense, rather than trying to avoid or  step around the concrete (or deny its existence), the notion of emptiness can help me to better get through and be with the concretes  of life, and feel those concretes deeply.

The other thing I do notice is close to Carl Rogers’ and Krishnamurti’s viewpoints: namely, that emotions need to be accepted and fully acknowledged if I am to process them and continue on the journey. Anything else simply pushes it into the background and suppresses that emotion. I think that one way to look at it is to enjoy the emotion but with a sense of resignation to it. It is still my rock and my burden, but because I fully acknowledge it, I don’t push it away and I can become intimate with its serrated edges. This also releases the fear that comes from potentially not being able to successfully avoid the emotions themselves. Compassion seems to arise when I recognize how hard it is to do this practice, and it’s that ironic detachment that counts. I am able to behold that this is not a part of me  (I am a witness to it) but it really is a deep part of me (I cannot separate from the reality of it). The temporal weight of flesh always meets the eternal non-being.

Leaves in the Hand

The skyline is covered in a mist, obscuring many of the buildings in Toronto’s downtown core. The CN tower looks like a candle that has burned into a stump-like base. Walking along the lakeshore toward Old Mill, I am reminded of many things. The fallen branches from trees are the reminders of yesterday’s heavy rains. The waters of Lake Ontario bring in bits of fallen tree branches, floating among bits of decayed plants and debris. The lake starts to look more like cold brown soup as it passes through the bridge toward Old Mill.

Fallen branches make me think of a story in Buddha’s time about the Buddha grabbing a handful of leaves and asking: what is more precious, the leaves in the hand or those found in the whole forest? The question is a kind of puzzle. It reminds me of the vastness of the universe, but also the fact that we only live in one moment at a time. No matter what a person chooses to do with her life, opportunities to do other things will be lost. And no matter what a person tries to do, it all ends in impermanence. A hand can only cover whatever it can in the moment. Of course, the obverse is: does grasping reality in the hand give a picture of the whole?  I think one thing I reflect on is: there is no complete, perfect knowledge. There are only moments where a person sincerely tries to act on what is loving and humane, based on the skills and experience one has. But it seems important to understand that the handful is only a handful. This awareness gives me the humility to understand that there may be other leaves with their own unique textures, and no two handfuls of leaves are the same. In this way, I need to let go of the illusion (all too dominant in North American culture) that we can be all knowing in some area of life.

Does this mean that one should be pessimistic and not cultivate any ambitions or goals? On the contrary, I think it means that life consists of delicate balances. I often mistakenly believe that a good result is simply coming from applying myself to something diligently, but experience suggests otherwise. There are many minute conditions that go into the making of a result. Many people contribute to a single success in life. I suspect that a lot of what results in life is coming from good merits that have ripened from the past.  Another factor is the kinds of ‘luck’ that arise from our care for other people. Caring for others in some way, be it listening or simply loving someone as they are, already creates a positive life experience. These forms of care don’t necessarily result from ‘hard work’ or ‘building knowledge’, but there does seem to be a connection with being fully present with someone. And this form of being present is a skill. In a funny way, it is also a skill to let go of the sense of time altogether, when others’ needs require that one suspend the sense of chronologic time.

The other day, I was in the Thursday evening meditation session, and the leader was discussing some key distinctions between Mahayana and Theravadin Buddhism with a practitioner. The discussion was supposed to end at around 9 pm, but, in fact, the discussion became quite intense and involved. I could see the instructor intensely trying to reach the practitioner and to show her a fresh way to look at her practice. I decided to allow their conversation to continue in spite of the fact that, as a time-keeper, I need to keep control  of the session time. It turns out that the clock on my phone read 10:37 pm when I next take stock of the time…almost two hours of conversation. And still, I decided that interrupting the moment might not be such a good idea. The moment seemed more precious and crucial than taking stock of the time.

Of course, when I told the instructor about the time, he looked visibly ruffled. “Oh my gosh, I’m in trouble,” he said, realizing that he had to inform his cousin’s wife that he will be late for his evening’s rest in their home. Yet, somehow, it felt important for me to allow the teacher to speak from his heart,  for however long we could possibly stay in the meditation room.

I think that I knew not to interrupt the flow of the conversation, because experience tells me there are more important things than keeping track of time. Sometimes, the most important moments in life don’t have any time assigned to them. And they happen when I have released all expectation that there should be a special time for anything. Another example of this happened to me this morning as I was doing moving meditation exercise with a visiting Fashi. Though a full fifty minutes had passed through the whole exercise, it really didn’t feel that long at all. I had released my sense that the moving exercise is only a preliminary to the ‘real’ practice of sitting. I saw that this moment is always the moment when mind is manifesting. In letting go of that sense of ‘the real thing happens in one hour’, I was able to experience the unique quality of each moment.

I think that all life is cobbled together from the materials of the moment. Even this blog is the same: choppy, soupy, inconsistent, and makeshift. Sometimes I write about books I read, while other times I write about walks. Does it have to be consistent? It happens to be what I can grasp in this given moment.

Spiritual Humility

Knowing that I am falling, does this mean that I am past the point of redemption? Sometimes knowing that I am falling is the only way to open up to something higher than myself, such as a teaching.

Knowing the impurities of mind, does this mean my soul is damned? Sometimes the awareness of impurities is the path to health and healing.

I was at the Buddhist class today, and I had this thought. Even though the discussion of the Three Wisdoms (listening, thoughts, action), the Three Studies (Silas, Samadhi and Prajna) seemed pretty clear as a well-worn map, my thoughts about it were pretty muddy. I started to think: how on earth can I keep watch of all the things that happen in mind, and maintain purity of mind? How can I strive to have right effort, right concentration, right thoughts, and right actions at every moment in my life? The task started to look daunting to me, as I contemplated this notion. For a while, I really had a sense of the magnitude of spiritual practice. It is not an easy thing to maintain a relaxed attitude and follow all the phases of the noble path. But something else happened in the meantime. For a brief moment, the magnitude I felt about this task invited me to let go and admit my lack of preparation for this task.  I had to admit that I am always beginning in this practice, with whatever I am at this moment. Knowing this itself means I let go of the desire to perfect myself. There really isn’t a ‘self to measure’ in this practice. As soon as I think there is a self, that thought has already passed. This doesn’t mean that I don’t try to change anything, but it means that I need to be prepared to let go of who I think I am at any given time in the process. This is a kind of gentle yielding into the present moment.

I was also reminded of a few teachers I have come across in my readings who stressed the importance of elevating others over oneself as a form of spiritual practice. St Francis of Assisi is one of those teachers, as he practiced a kind of spiritual impoverishment. He elevated even the smallest of creatures above himself, and considered himself to be a kind of servant to all beings. The anonymous writer of Cloud of Unknowing was another such writer who seemed to be going into this direction of self-emptying, as was the nameless  writer of another great book, Way of the Pilgrim. Of course, this form of self-impoverishment is very hard to do, and I don’t think that I am able to achieve it yet. But often, by really facing the fact that I am not ‘there’ yet, I let go of the fetter of the self-assured ego. I am no longer put in a position where I am falsely believing I have things ‘all together’ and there is nothing new to learn from other beings. By self-emptying, I am able to experience the gifts that others have, without pressuring myself to adopt or covet those same gifts.

I think that this might also be described as knowing that we are really just waves on an ocean, and our existence is one moment in many eons. Many Buddhist sutras seem to suggest this approach of opening the mind into an inconceivable vastness. If the Buddhas are as many as the grains of sand in a beach, what are my own problems and vexations compared to that? Thinking in this way, I become less attached to my own minor achievements in life. And in this way, I may start to surrender to forces in the universe that might better assist me. I believe this is where the balance between the Three Wisdoms (listening, thought and action) come into play. Too much thought without listening creates a kind of stubborn thinking that overlooks the knowledge that other beings have. Of course, listening without thought can also create a passivity that doesn’t make the thought my own.  But it does seem to me that modern North American culture values active thought and speech over listening, and this is unfortunate. It potentially denies the power of yielding the ego to the mysterious circumstances and forces around us, thus enriching the compass of my experience. But the experience of humility might also help me to realize that 'not knowing' what others may know is not going to annihilate me, and appreciating others for their gifts does not invalidate my own gifts.

Two Curiosities

I come into work with the plan: Fridays tend to be quieter, so I can start to buckle down and finish entering records to increase the stats. I get into a flow of diligently staying with the experience of doing the task. My focus narrows to what is in front of me. But every so often, I need to stop and answer a question from a co-worker, or engage the trickier aspects of the business. I try to resolve the ambiguous cases, the problems that don’t have a yes or no answer, and the unknown, undiscovered grey areas. I notice the ways in which I stop to reflect and have to open my mind in a certain way, especially when I am faced with new situations. It is not easy to stop when I am anxious to meet the ‘targets’ I assume for myself.

There seem to be two processes involved when I am at work. One is the process of trying to do as much as I can with what I know, trying to accomplish a lot in a little time. The other is a more reflective, often collaborative task where I start to wonder, ‘what do I really know?’  In fact, I learn that what I ‘think’ I know is really just a set of conventions, and it is always possible to explore other questions until I am no longer certain what I do know. And these two processes seem to create different lines of inquiry. I refer to the first process as ‘strategic curiosity’. That is, I am asking the question of ‘how’ I can be more productive and reduce the time to do certain things, as well as maximize the value from the company perspective. The second curiosity is being mindful of my more basic assumptions about life, including my emotions and the purpose of work. One might think of this latter as an ‘ontological curiosity’, because it is open to the question of the value of life and the meaning of experience as it is, not as it is supposed to be. While strategic curiosity assumes that there is a definite goal to pursue and one must align with that goal, ontological curiosity questions that boundaries around any goal, and wonders if fulfilling the goal is truly the goal of work. It is the curiosity of stopping, looking and wondering with a completely fresh mind. And I think this ontological curiosity is always present in the periphery of my experience, waiting to be ‘re-discovered’ again and again.

At work, the more I am involved in a specific task, the better things seem to flow for me.  I start to get into an uninterrupted groove, where I am no longer feeling I am separate from the task itself. Being really unified with the work requires a let-go attitude, and it is hard to sustain over a long period of time. But there is also the different flow that needs to be cultivated. It is the flow of being prepared to stop what I am doing at any time. It is the ability to ask, `what is happening for me at this moment? How am I feeling? What thoughts underlie my actions? Is this constructive for my being as a person? To truly be in flow, I can’t just attach to the pleasant experiences of work or get lost in the easy parts of the job. I also need to prepare to stop or be stopped, since the rhythm of experience consists of these long strides and stops. I need to make space to challenge whether what I am doing is comprehensive and considers the full picture of work life. Otherwise, I could be doing things that only overburden the body and mind.

Each moment is a new beginning. I don’t need to continue from where I was two seconds ago. I can move if I need to move. This is the flow that comes from not confusing the previous moment with the current moment. And I try not to get lost in the endless train of thoughts which often form a pressure in the mind. For example, I might say that today I was giving myself pressure to achieve a lot of things for the sake of increasing quarterly statistics. But a deeper inquiry might lead me to ask, who is being pressured to achieve? Is this pressure so real that it impinges on my whole being? How am I even able to witness this experience if it is impinging on all my whole being?  I think this is ontological because it doesn’t just assume that one is a means to a specific end. When there is a gap between who I think I should be and an awareness of this ‘such’ moment now, I can find room to breathe. I can explore and question whether the idea I have of myself is sustainable or not. It is sometimes a good thing that we are never fully unified with our own ideas. Because ideas regarding what I should do are tentative. They work in some cases, but it is nearly impossible to apply a simple set of rules of principles to all that we do.

But am I suggesting that I should do away with all strategic curiosity? No, I don’t think that one needs to do that, and there are still things to achieve at work. But I think that all strategies need to be seen in the context of a greater ethical life that is based in the mind. For example, if someone pushes himself to the very limits of exhaustion and abusing his own body to achieve a goal, is this really productive?  If I decide to cut corners and do things speedily to achieve statistical results, will this not create more problems down the road? If I cling to my ideas of ‘good work’ and ‘good use of time’ will this not affect my health when I am forced to step aside from my role or do non work-related activities with co-workers? I need to be able to see that the ‘pressure’ comes from specific trains of thoughts. It is not that the outside environment ‘pressures’ me to increase my speed. It is that I get caught up in those thoughts, and this vexation results in the anxiety to avoid feelings of pressure. Instead of accepting the pressure as a feeling that is arising, I link it to trying to eliminate pressure by keeping up with a certain standard.  But standards do not need to become dogmas. They can be adjusted according to a person’s condition. And I can allow for the possibility that the experience will never match what I expect from that experience, because the expectation is only a kind of thought. It is already removed from the present moment. If I contemplate that deeply, I realize that there is a big ‘unknown’ between the expectation and the real unfolding experience. Things often look ‘easier’ in thought than they are in the unfolding present experience. With that in mind, do I need to chain myself to those thoughts?

This discussion seems abstract, but one way I think of this is ontological curiosity deals with the effects of experience on basic being and mind. It is about having a beginner’s mind, resetting back to an original experience of ‘what it is for me now’ rather than always operating from a thought of how it is supposed to be. Without that perspective, I get ensnared in vexations and expectations of how I should think, feel and perform as a person. And sadly, schools don’t teach this fundamental awareness because it is somehow taken for granted that one experiences one’s own being and nature. Quite often, such an experience is clouded by the anxiety of achieving and failing to achieve. And I am pretty guilty of harboring this anxiety myself.

It's OK to Feel

I have been struggling with a certain part of a Buddhism workshop that I have been helping to coordinate in the coming weeks. This part has to do with mindfulness of feelings. We have this exercise where we get people into pairs and have them describing a particularly emotional experience, or something that involves conflict.  The first telling is really focussed on the content of that experience: what “he” said, what “she” said, etc. After relaxing the body and mind, the participants then re-tell the story using more awareness of the sensations and a more compassionate attitude. If I understand the exercise correctly, I think it is supposed to be about learning to experience situations directly rather than through the media of thoughts and judgments. I think the reason for this is that the higher up one goes in the ladder of abstractions, the easier it is to get into dualistic thinking. The true ‘feel’ of an experience becomes blurred by convenient ways to symbolize the whole transaction.  I believe that this is exactly what Alfred Korzybski was getting at when he coined the term ‘ladder of abstraction’, in his work on General Semantics. Korzybski proposed that language needs to be readjusted to allow for multiple factors and situations, rather than resorting to “A/Not A” logic. Korzybski felt that we don’t live in a black and white universe of abstract concepts.

Part of me wonders, however, is there a significant place for feelings and emotions in Buddhist philosophy? Aren’t emotions just attachments? And doesn’t Chan in particular simply treat feelings as one of the five aggregates, not worthy of revealing significant truths about the mind or the universe? I have started to puzzle over the place of emotions in the meditative experience.

I see two potential challenges when I am experiencing emotions in daily life. The first thing is that I become afraid of the feeling itself and immediately go to a level of judging myself or how I can ‘manage’ the feeling. This often takes the form of substituting thoughts for direct understanding and acceptance of the emotions I am actually having. Examples of this happen when I immediately judge that I don’t like a person whenever there is an uncomfortable feeling around someone.  Another potential challenge is that I start to think that certain feelings I have entitle me to certain ways of being treated. An example would be if I feel ‘hurt’, and how that sometimes justifies a kind of defensive position toward those whom we feel have hurt us. Of course, both challenges show how stuck I can become in abstract concepts, and how comfortable it is to go there when there is a tender feeling.

What I have started to realize recently is that thoughts always take place after the feelings themselves. In that sense, it is doubtful that thoughts can shape the feelings themselves or make them into something different than what they are. While thoughts might serve to mask or suppress emotions, it’s hard to say whether this really helps a person or hinders a person’s inner processes. Sometimes a feeling will just happen, and it is hard to tell where it is coming from or why. Trying to reverse that feeling by understanding why it is arising is an almost endless task. But more importantly, it might be helpful to not try to reverse the feeling at all. I have found that accepting the feeling and being fully aware of the feeling as it is can take a great deal of suffering out of the feeling itself.

Why is this? I think one of the reasons is that the true suffering comes from the judgments we make about ourselves when we have specific emotional states. Feelings get tremendous amounts of approval or disapproval in the societies in which we grow up and inhabit. If anger is frowned upon in most societies, feelings of anger might already lead me to think that I am out of control, or simply not kind or patient enough toward others. The less I accept an emotion, the more I will start to judge myself and then feel that I also need to defend myself against others who might see my vulnerability. The same goes with other emotions such as jealousy or lust. If I stop judging myself for having an emotion, I might struggle less to cover up the emotion or justify ‘who I am’ in light of the emotion that arises. In this way, I just allow the emotion to be in its own way without adding that layer of judgment to it.


From my own experience, I have found that this awareness of feelings as they are helps me to create more space to accept my unfolding being as it is. I am not trying to hold myself up to an image of who I expect myself to be, as I begin to make room for those purely felt experiences to happen. In that sense, the invitation to ‘just feel’ or allow feelings to naturally come to mind without judgment, is useful. Carl Rogers, who wasn’t a Buddhist, has even explained how his patients come to realize that they are not static beings, as they see the unfolding of their emotions over time. This realization seems to come close to the realization of impermanence that is described in Buddhism.

As far as the role of emotions goes in Chan and/or spiritual practice, I am still not so sure. I think that it’s important to be honest in how I feel about situations. I have a tendency to look to the spiritual practitioner or teacher as a model for how I should behave, and this can conflict with my true feelings at times. But if I am not honest with myself, I will end up spending more time suppressing feelings than really approaching them with full awareness. Only with full awareness do I see that the feeling doesn’t have this ‘self’, and is one part of a total experience. Being aware of feelings is certainly not the same as ‘identifying myself as an emotional person’ or ‘being that feeling’. These latter are both judgments that are based on attachment to a concept of self. So I think that the direct experience of emotions is an important part of meditative life, but the real gold seems to be in recognizing their nature as impermanent and having no self. It is only in that sense that we can accept the feelings as we would any other phenomena, as flowers in the garden of mind. Indeed, this means that there can be ‘angry’ Buddha, ‘depressed’ Buddha and ‘cranky’ Buddha, as much as there is ‘happy’ Buddha and ‘social’ Buddha. All the expressions of emotion come from the same source. But because I fully accept them as part of that fundamental nature and as impermanent parts, I am not fettered by them. And they don’t need to define that sense of who I am. This seems to be a way to harmonize emotions that doesn’t devolve into self-glorification. It might even give me more energy to serve others, since I am no longer so at war with my feelings.But in another sense, if I am open into inquiring into this anxiety and learning to be fully with it, that in itself can be a transformative relationship to all fears.

A Lunch Gathering

                 It turns out I am in the wrong place. The first table is for the all you can eat lunch, while the second is for the a la carte menu.  I find out a bit too late as I seat myself in the last empty space at the Spoon and Fork. I am beside strangers, and young strangers at that. Can I speak their language, I wonder? I quickly relocate to the table of my familiar colleagues and co-workers. I choose a curry vegetable dish from the menu and place my order. Meanwhile, the younger folks are using an I Pad to order their all you can eat dishes. They need food, but they don’t need servers to take their orders. Things have changed.

                As I wait for the food to come, I start to contemplate the dynamics of conversation. When I am not conversing, I am waiting to find a way to join the conversation. And sometimes I just listen.  Occasionally I even look outside the window to gaze at the passing butterfly fluttering between plants. And I see the occasional stranger. In this situation, I wonder what it is like to be able to roam freely out there, unencumbered by social engagements or group gatherings.  I note the contrast between my time, others’ time and “company lunch” time. And I see that they are very different things. I see that the two kinds of life, solitude and society, thrive on each other. Through solitude, I give myself the space to reflect on what I value deeply, and this replenishes how I see myself in relation to others. And I also start to note the details, like the way the glass of water shakes when someone is using hand gestures to make a point. Yes, even the water in a glass communicates when it needs to.

 Is there ever a moment when one is truly alone? It’s funny how when I am truly letting go into accepting solitude, unexpected things will connect with me. Water will connect with me, as will the moving sun. Everything in motion, down to the smallest fork, can tell me something and connect dynamically with me. On the other hand, if I am so anxious to be like by others, I might start to miss those invisible connections. That is why I am learning to try not to be so anxious to connect with others. But it’s not meant to be easy. It’s a process of realizing that being in solitude with others is not going to make me disappear or become a pariah to others. It might also be a chance for me to realize that people may come to like or appreciate my reserve, even when the world often pressures people to be very expressive. It is always refreshing to find someone who is simply at peace with themselves, and does not need to be propped by any gesture from others. But that is a quality that all people must have within.

I recall one story I had read in one of Master Sheng Yen’s talks, where he describes how he was in solitary retreat and yet did not feel alone. He recalls being able to detect the presence of snakes and other animals around him. This remarks leads me to believe that being lonely is not necessarily about  being physically away from other beings. I suspect that ‘feeling lonely’ is more like a special kind of longing for a memory. In that sense, the lonely person is never ‘alone’ after all, but is haunted by that memory of someone who is no longer present. With solitude, there is a state of not being haunted by memories, and not being so fettered by the past. And that solitude can be a space where spontaneous connections arise, but they still arise in mind. There is no illusion of two separate minds who are playing hide-and-seek with each other. Rather, there is a kind of equanimity about it. I am not chasing after connections but allowing spontaneous connections to arise from the situation itself.

One of the skills I am trying to learn is that sweet spot between anxiously struggling to ‘say anything’ to be connected, and withdrawing from the conversation altogether. They are like the twin poles of ‘being’ and ‘non-being’. A desire to ‘be’ is that struggle to grasp others for approval and to feel that I belong ‘with’ a group. And that seems to involve trying to create a pleasant memory and then grasping that memory as though it were a precious jewel. At the other extreme is the safety of shutting down when the anxiety to connect is too great. This is almost like the desire for annihilation, for ‘rest’ from being with others, and for the end of anxiety altogether. The true middle way is finding that I can be accepting of myself even when I am not connecting in ways that I desire. In accepting myself, I might also see that I can still contribute socially without having to generate a special feeling about the situation. I can put down the self a little in those situations and accept the anxiety of potentially not finding acceptance.

A Multicultural Garden

Wychwood Barns on St Clair and Wychwood Avenue has a beautiful art gallery, sporting what I can only describe as a universal outdoor garden.  Had the gallery itself not been closed this evening, I would not have chanced upon it at all. There are various plants coming from many different countries, such as Tibet, Poland and the Philippines. Something about this project of a multicultural garden resonates with me. It is a way of embodying diversity, rather than simply mouthing it or agreeing with it in theory alone. It also seems a rare gift to work with something of a given culture and witness how it stands alongside other cultures. What results is a beautiful tapestry that upholds the notion that differences are a source of strength. Each type of plant from each country has a unique quality and color that cannot be imitated by anything similar to it. I suggest the possibility that, in really working with concrete forms of diversity, people may be able to change the way their minds understand the qualities of things themselves.

Master Sheng Yen talks about the balance between reason and emotion in a chapter of Chan and Enlightenment called “Emotion and Reason: Dealing with Complex Relations”. He remarks, at one point:

Emotion keeps the activities and survival of society running, just like lubricant in a machine, making life more meaningful. Nevertheless, from the Buddhist point of view, we must dissolve emotion layer by layer, and enter the state of reason. What we mean by a subjective attitude is caring only about one’s own ideas and opinions, disregarding the thoughts of others.  Not considering others, not putting oneself in their position, is “emotion”. On the other hand, thinking first of others in all situations, seeking to lessen one’s own self-centered mentality and behavior, is “reason” (p.71-72)

I think that Sheng Yen’s distinction between reason and emotion is very unique and worth examining in some depth. One part I resonate with the most is that fine balance between using feelings to enrich one’s life and not getting drowned in one’s own subjectivity. Feelings become like the flowers in a garden. They enrich the experience of being, provided that they are not losing sight of a bigger picture of inter-being. One way I understand this is that how I interrelate with other things anchors my emotions. Without the sense of inter-relatedness, I could not really gauge whether an emotion were really benefiting either myself or others. One could imagine a virtual world (and there are such things!) where people just spout out the first emotion they have. Online chat-rooms abound with this kind of attitude. As long as we stand protected by the online screen, we can say whatever we feel in the moment. But is that truly beneficial? If we were to say or feel the same way in front of a real person, would the same ‘benefits’ we feel apply? Reason, at least for Sheng Yen, serves as a ballast to lessen the self-centered effects of only focusing on one’s own emotions. Reason demands that we see ourselves in a plenum of being with others. What we do and feel toward others only has consequences if we can imagine a world beyond personal reactions to things. Sheng Yen compares this idea to being in the same boat. He remarks, “we repair the craft and improve its performance so that we all may reach safe landing earlier. As we are also on board, we will arrive at the other shore safely as well.” (p.72).

              

           Sheng Yen’s argument is subtle, because there are many variations that are possible when reason and emotion intertwine. The most common error might be that of using emotions alone to make decisions, rather than considering the whole situation or calming the mind first. But when reason is applied without a sense of emotion, I could end up forgetting how others around me feel and experience life. Sheng Yen argues that even when people make mistakes, a whole variety of reasons may account for it. He remarks, “from the perspective of compassion…their offences may have arisen from their family background, social environment, or physical and psychological factors.” (p.79) I interpret this to mean that we should try to cultivate an orientation toward others. Reason and emotions are tools to help us do this, but in the end, reason and emotion are just helpful functions of mind. Any of these ‘functions’ could be abused or taken too far if they lose sight of their natural function in a state of inter-relationship. I am sure that most are familiar with a person who uses reason to isolate herself from the world, just as there are others who use emotions to barricade themselves from responsibilities. Both situations entail a lack of balance. And they both require letting go to try to get a handle on what is of most benefit to the most people at this present moment.

              

            For this reason, I suggest that reason and emotion should ideally supplement each other to promote the most diversity of viewpoints and behaviors. Under this view, I would suggest that diversity of being and inter-being has its own inherent value, because it honors all the riches of experience without attaching to one function or appearance.

References

Sheng Yen, (2014) Chan and Enlightenment. New York, NY: Dharma Drum Publishing

               

The Feeling of Falling Behind

          There are two meditation retreats that I will help to organize in the coming months, but somehow I had put off the planning. Regret comes to mind, and then a sense of disbelief. How did I let myself fall behind so much on these things? This isn’t the person I am accustomed to.  I recall a dream that often terrifies me a little bit. It is the one where I have two weeks to prepare for an exam, and I haven’t attended a single class. It is the one where I begin to wonder why I had waited for so long to address what I had missed.

                

           I am normally the sort of person who plans things way in advance. I set deadlines for myself even on a daily basis at work. I think I have been schooled in the idea that I should try to set a target every day, even if I never quite reach that target in the end.

Shifu Sheng Yen has also compared making vows to setting a target, when he remarks that it is better to have a vow and break it than to never have a vow at all. I tend to extend this idea to daily life. I am under the impression that having something to aim for is more productive than having an attitude of ‘just do what I can’. Is it possible that the mind requires these skillful means to experience what its own capabilities are? I am not sure.  I contemplate this question as I go to the dentist today.     

In the dentist’s office, a dental hygienist dressed in green with a white face-mask greets me and ushers me to the dentist’s chair. I hunker down into the chair as she prepares her instruments. The dentist’s office starts to look more child-friendly.  Some instruments have purple handles, which are reminiscent of the grape flavored candies we used to have as kids. It reminds me of mimicry. The instruments now try to resemble precisely the kinds of candies that the dentists tell the kids to avoid.

The dental hygienist quizzes me, just as I am about to have instruments in my mouth. She asks me how work is going and whether I have any vacation in July. She smiles throughout. I can’t see the smile from behind her sterile mask. But I can hear it in her voice.

“What is the last movie you went to see?” Her voice is ebullient as she pokes the jagged crevasses of my back teeth.

I draw a blank. I laugh nervously between gulps of air.

“I think it must have been Interstellar,” I venture.  But I start to search for more recent movies that I must have seen in between.

The hygienist gasps. Yes, it seems quite a while since I had last seen a movie. I must have left it behind some time ago. And what happened? I feel a yawning abyss. I picture tracks in a vast snow-covered field being covered by more and more snow. Soon there are hardly any traces of where the tracks had been. I can’t see, through all the haze, why I haven’t seen a movie in a while, any more than I can tell why I fell behind with my project planning.

“Too busy,” I murmur. My head sinks back into the blue vinyl pillow.

“I heard that there is going to be a new Vacation movie. But Chevy Chase looks so different now from when he first started those movies.”

I nod.

“Not that he needs to make any more movies,” the hygienist points out. She pokes into the gum line just above my front teeth.  A sharp string shoots up into the top of my gums. I taste a faint metallic tinge of blood. I worry what the hygienist thinks of my flossing habits.

“He should be getting royalties from the Christmas Vacation movie alone,” I reply.

The hygienist laughs. She leans forward and tells me to open wider to get to the back teeth.

This banter goes on for a while. We start to lament a career that was big in the 80s but might have hit a steep decline in the ensuing decades. I start to feel more relaxed than before. Gone was the fear that I would be scolded for neglecting my flossing routine. I sink deeper into the couch. I feel protected by the mint-flavored polish she administers into my mouth, in generous helpings. My mouth slowly fills with gritty sand as the spinning wheel cuts away the plaque. A spray of saliva and food jets out in sprinkles just within my range of sight.

When the hygienist finishes her cleaning, she gives some final tips on flossing.  Her voice remains calm and polite. She notifies me of the ridge of a bony stray tooth that needs extra care. This tooth hides somewhere between two other jutting teeth.  It looks forever eclipsed and overshadowed by the dominant teeth around it. Then she hands me a new instrument called a Sulcabrush, which promises to be even easier than the handle-floss I had been using in the previous years. In fact, it resembles the kind of brush I used to clean cassette tape heads. It doesn’t look like it could brush more than a little dust. Yet, it looks so gentle. I decide to give it a try later in the evening.

As I leave the dentist’s office, I think: this time I will try to be more present with everything. I won’t procrastinate. This is a fresh start. My teeth feel more spacious. I stick a piece of peppermint gum in my mouth to try to preserve that fresh, clean feeling. But then the pressure awaits me as I hop on the train. I wonder how much I need to do to catch up.  I decide to detour into the dollar store to buy a hardbound notebook. After purchasing the notebook, I write on the cover, “Keith Brown- tasks”.  This will be my new task list that will prevent me from falling behind.

But thoughts have a way of getting complicated. I wonder, is there ever a way to measure that from which we fall behind? And isn’t the measured life not  such a real life at all? It is like writing down tasks in a book. While this can be a useful thing to do, and certainly worth my while, it doesn’t tell me what I need to value the most. To do that requires a heart that doesn’t cling to things.  If I am always worried about meeting every standard around me, I might end up forgetting what is most fundamental for growing into a human being.

 So while it is certainly a good tool to have a task list, I question whether that is the real measure of what is deepest to me in life. And of course, the dance is like this: I pave a road, the trees grow into it; I stray from the road, the map pushes me back; I stare at the map and lose the scenery; the map blows away, the scenery returns. Soon the map and the scenery are all the same reminders. And the road is covered in snow again.

The Architecture of Beltline Walking

The Toronto Beltline Trail stretches from a little detour on Mount Pleasant cemetery, and stretches past Eglinton West Subway station. It reaches into the deep stretches of York region, going past Caledonia and into a little-known street called Bowie Street. It is a blend of simple trees lining the walkway, old electrical lines, family homes, and graffiti-eaten warehouses. But the graffiti is quite artistic. It sports a strange mixture of the cartoonish and the surreal. I decide that the art must capture the essence of personified animals, without bordering on the boringly real.  

One of the graffiti paintings sports an alligator on one side, and a whale on the other. The whale on the left has an unmistakable row of baleen along its mouth. Somehow, baleen has become for me a hallmark of what it means to be a whale, whether in a photograph or a drawing. It has become a kind of cultural marker that allows me to quickly note it as a whale, rather than as a big grey fish.  I wonder if I had been able to otherwise identify it any other way. Such is the way we communicate with each other. We use codified markers to signal what we mean, rather than trying to spell out in detail what a whale (or anything else) should look like.

Walking from Yonge to Caledonia Street, I lose the sense of time. Though my body may feel tired, I don’t actually feel that tiredness mentally. Why is that? I imagine making the same trek along an urban scene, such as what I normally see on a busy main street in Toronto. I imagine that perhaps I wouldn’t even make it past the 30 minute line, let alone the 2 hour line. I remarked this to Judy, my hiking companion, and she could see this as well. As we reached the end point of the walk, we started to do quad stretches to counterbalance the effect on our calf muscles.

What is it about the landscape itself that helps me forget that I should be feeling tired? Or should I be feeling tired in the first place? This question makes me think about where tiredness really comes from, as well as the nature of being tired. The trees on this walk talk to me, and they sing about impermanence. Could the big square skyscrapers along Bay and King Street do the same? The families with their backyard barbecues remind me of togetherness. I wonder if the average pedestrian on a busy intersection in Toronto could spot the same scene of ‘together’. I believe that a walk in a natural path such as this gives me an exhilarating sense that I am not a prisoner to the body. Even though I might be physically tired, my mind is replenished with evidence of its own nature: its interconnection with things around it, its changing perspectives, its winding gregariousness, its awareness, and its lack of self, and the simple companionship of soul. These signs of being are found in the kinds of settings that most remind us of our basic nature. In the urban core, on the other hand, the complex geometry of nature is hidden behind utilitarian box-structures. It’s all grand, but there is no evidence that buildings twist and shake the way trees do. And so when I look at those buildings, I forget who I am. I become entranced by the architecture of sameness, rather than being reminded that nothing is ever the same from one minute to the next.

Is it any wonder that concrete is called as such? I think it’s because the concrete city represents the illusion of something that is ‘fixed’ and ‘more real’ than anything around it. Concrete suppresses death and change, while signalling death to the natural elements it conceals. In fact, concrete is hardly ‘concrete’ at all. I see evidence of its wear in the warehouses we pass by. Some look so derelict that I wonder if and when they stopped being used altogether. But most of all, people find ways to humanize the concrete, even if it is through street art or the art of spray-paint swearing. Both spell out a defiance against an architecture that emphasizes fixity and the illusion of solidity. But in doing so, they break the monotony of sameness and herald something more organic. They make walking enjoyable. They put an element of sentience into the buildings. And most of all, they put an end to the exhaustion we feel when we travel long distances on foot. This leads me to suspect that the root of mental exhaustion is not ‘constant change’ as some would suggest, but, rather, constant, illusory sameness. That ‘sameness’ deadens the mind’s ability to see its own still but ephemeral nature. It also tempts the mind into mindless diversions, feeding one thought after another. 

For this reason, I feel that a walk in a city nature trail is quite a limitless contemplation.  And it is a source of energy that hopefully will not be paved over by condominiums or other such projects.

A Beach Side Dance

The night is cloudy but the air is crisp. It’s a typical mild June night. The ships at Queen's Quay are gently sailing across the water. Their red and green disco lights glimmer in the darkness. Caribbean music reverberates with the energy of staccato beats and the occasional hollers. A group called “Jazz Cubano” is playing at the floating stage just beside HTO park. There must be at least 10 members on the stage, and all of them brandish warm smiles and big instruments. They start out slowly with a big sound, but soon the crowds of people are up and dancing. I get lost in the crowd and see a dog sitting by his lonesome in the midst of the dancing couples. I bend forward to allow the dog to sniff my hand. His wet nose gently touches my fingers, and I gently stroke his head. For a moment, I feel a kind of connection with the dog that I could not feel with the dancing strangers.

Why did I come here tonight? What was my motivation? It was certainly not to dance. Dancing is not the thing that I enjoy. I suppose I came here to relax and to observe. I reflect on the total situation. I am practicing not attaching to any particular situation or scene. I don’t really wish to engage. But I am asking this question: for countless millennia, we engage in this sort of dance. The partners meet, they laugh, they caress, and they disappear. Sometimes they come home together, and sometimes they part ways afterward. I feel my steps gently sinking into the sand beside the boardwalk. Why do they do it? Why dance? What does it mean for people to synchronize their motions for a brief period, and then disappear back into the crowd?

 A child is sitting alone there, making a sandcastle. She smooths her palms across a speckled plateau of sand.

Dancing represents, for me, the way in which the mind creates its object and zeroes in on it, only to find that the mind is really discovering itself. It is not really anything new. It is a part of its own nature. We create this dance continually. We keep pushing to see how close we really are to nature, to people, and to the universe. But when the dance dissolves, we are left to realize that it is a creation of mind. We spin, we project, we romanticize, but what is the romance about? What is it about our partner that is fundamentally missing in ourselves? We strive to fill that supposed void. But soon we look deeply and wonder: what is the cause of all this commotion? Life is a balance between allure and resignation. We are called out from ourselves, then discover we are more than we think is ourselves, and then become disillusioned that the other is not permanent. The other is a wave in the ocean. And this allure keeps going and going endlessly, until we become aware that the other simply calls us to our own fundamental being. The other invites us to step outside of the shell of defenses and see something that is just being, and has nothing to do with status, concepts, and tight deadlines. Though it appears that the other is inviting us to merge with them, in reality the result is a greater realization of ‘just being’.

This morning, I was reading an essay by Aldous Huxley, in an anthology called Do What You Will, called “The One and the Many”. The essay talks about how Western cultures have tended to gravitate around this notion of monotheism, and has, in doing so, rejected the diversity of experience, passions and emotions. There is an interesting tension that Huxley describes. On the one hand, modern civilization could not have existed without the structured sense of time and rationality that monotheistic cultures tend to lean toward. On the other hand, dogmatically adhering to one way of being ends of alienating and repressing other ways of being, including the sensuous aspects. Huxley argues that people lose the basic connection with their being if they only stick with conditioned ways of thinking and relating to the world.

While I agree with what Huxley is suggesting, I think that the problem stems from the fact that Western cultures sometimes don’t know how to approach desires. From a psychoanalytic perspective, desires often represent disowned, ‘dammed’ energies. Instead of lingering to figure out what kind of space a desire invites into the mind, the tendency is to simply funnel off the energy of desires into diversions. One way of looking at it is to be mindful and ask, what is the unity that desire points to? Right now, I crave that object as though it were separate from me and had a quality that I want to embody. But what happens if I simply refrain from trying to capture that object (or devour it) and see what the desire is trying to tell me? What if I befriend the desire itself and the sense of lack that it signifies, instead of trying to satiate the desire to get rid of it? This friendly relation to desire might open up areas of me that I never realized I had before. Perhaps it could mean a greater tolerance for frustration, a deeper observation of suffering, or being able to empathize with the desired person , for example, rather than trying to possess that person. In this way, one needn’t fear passions or emotions. One can perhaps stay with them long enough to become acquainted with their unique styles and energies. Doing so might transform these desires by aligning them with a broader perspective on my interrelation with others. For example, feeling anger, I might be able to be more patient with the complex reactions I might harbor toward a person, rather than desiring that these energies be somehow different. In addition, those energies no longer appear to be different from the rigid self I uphold.

References

Huxley, Aldous (1929), Do What You Will.  London: Chatto and Windus.

Everything is OK at Work

Work can be a joyful experience even when it seems rushed and constantly changing. Work is a lesson in impermanence. Does the work of today apply to tomorrow’s work? Hardly, because the rules of work are changing, and so is the technology. What counted as efficient and effective ten years ago is hardly the case in today’s world. And it won’t be like this in tomorrow’s world either. In the same way, I also have to adjust myself to the pressures I face today. They are different from when I first started in the company. And what I am seeing is the wave of the future, when work depends more and more on teams of experts who are in a shared dialogue about the soundest practices of the moment. I no longer see too much of a place for experts who are working in isolation.

I have recently tried to adopt a different approach to work. Whereas in the past, I measured myself in terms of how much I can accomplish in a day, I am slowly respecting the fact that there is no single way to judge one’s abilities or accomplishments at work. It depends on the targets, but it also depends on the immediate needs at hand. As soon as I start to associate myself with how much I do in a day, I then form a mental picture in my mind regarding who I am. This ‘mental picture’ can often create an unreasonable pressure which isn’t called for given the situation and its requirements. Not only this, but I compare myself to others, even though the nature of our respective work may be quite different. While some work requires quick decisions and high volumes, other kinds of work demand slowing down and being more aware of the process. Most kinds of work appear to operate somewhere in between these extremes. There is always a tension between doing things with precision and accomplishing many tasks in rapid succession. It also requires an equal balance between habit and reflection. It does help to see this in a contemplative way. By “contemplative”, I mean that ability to contextualize the balances and imbalances in terms of a single, all embracing totality. And this totality is the still mind in between the thoughts. And it is suchness.

Work has its rhythm of stops, starts, sprints, and slow periods in between. How is it possible to measure the efforts of work? Recently, I suggested to a colleague to do a thorough research on each entry she was required to verify, only to find out later that the manager didn’t find this all too necessary in many cases. In the beginning, I felt bad. My mind contracted around the judgment of myself as being somehow inefficient or unable make a good decision.  But later, I began to contemplate the experience. I realized that even the misjudgment was an opportunity to share experiences with a colleague and talk about the research process itself. The other observation is not to see the change in course as a repudiation of my previous efforts. It is more an invitation to loosen my tight view of self and accommodate other perspectives. By measuring myself in terms of one or two limited criteria for success, am I not somehow limiting myself? From another perspective, any kind of ‘criteria’ I use to judge myself is going to fall short of what the mind can do in different situations. In either case, the method is the same: always question the boundary of how I judge myself and define who I am. Am I really ‘that person who I say I am’? Am I really that limited ‘ideal’ into which I want to squeeze myself and mold myself? Most goals and goal seeking behavior can be positive, but it depends on the conditions and what is most right to the situation. This kind of perspective takes a lot of faith and practice. There is a bit of reflection in there, but there is also faith in meditation practice to calm the mind and allow wisdom to arise.

Sadly, nearly all goals I set for myself are going to be limited. They are provisional only, and they are only meant to bring about the best possible benefits for the present moment. But a goal I make today is not necessarily going to be useful in tomorrow’s world.  Vows are different from goals. I may have a goal to be a great researcher, but this goal is conditioned by what I am able to do, including the external environment. With vows, there is simply a wish there, and that wish is not dependent on the external circumstances or what I have learned.  While the achievement of goals often depends on the ability to obtain resources, vows have a different character. They are more about resetting the mind so that I am not serving a limited self. I have to keep using methods and practice to let go of narrow self-perceptions. This process gives me the space to see that situations don’t come with a self. They are just passing moments with their own unique challenges and problems. 

The Round Shield and the Clear Blue Sky

It’s a resting place for the mind: cool and clear breaths, coming in through the nostrils. Feel the subtle movements of the clean air brushing against the nostrils. The exhalations come out through the diaphragm and cause the whole body to breathe out any stale air.  And this is a refuge. There is nothing simpler than watching the breaths. There is nothing more vital to life. It is just a choice, not to concentrate awareness, but to make awareness so relaxed and clear that it is easy to let go of everything. And then the breath is a natural focus point, not compulsive or forced.

One of the participants in today’s meditation class compared the first sitting to holding up a big round shield to thoughts. Rather than allowing the thoughts to naturally come in, the shield tries to shut out thoughts together. But later I explained another kind of analogy: the thoughts are the clouds in a clear sky of mind. Rather than treating thoughts as the enemy that need to be shut out of the mind, thoughts are seen as merely clouds that come and go. And no matter how imposing and grim the clouds might look, they cannot block or obstruct the nature of the sky itself. No cloud can ever match the vastness and the unlimited nature of the sky. No matter how many millions of clouds have passed through the sky, can one say that the sky gets ‘tired’ of the clouds? Does the sky ever collapse because the clouds are too heavy or there are ‘too many of them’? In fact, it’s the nature of sky that it doesn’t even become blocked by the clouds. The clouds simply pass through the medium of sky without bumping up against the sky’s nature. I think this kind of analogy works for beginning meditation practice because it is a good way of showing the difference between thoughts and awareness. It is almost to show the kind of substance of awareness that makes it more spacious than thoughts.

Once the participant had understood the analogy and applied it to the second round of sitting,, she described her thoughts as just ‘popping’ in and out of her mind. She started to realize that she didn’t need to use mind to shield herself from thoughts anymore. Rather, she allowed those thoughts to come up and disappear again, as she rested her awareness on the basic function of the breath. I further related an analogy I had recently read in The Path of The Buddha which describes poison in an ocean. A drop of poison or impurity in an ocean is not enough to affect the ocean itself. If one has confidence that mind is the same way, the thoughts tend lose their poisonous sting.  In fact, no thoughts are inherently dangerous. It’s the tendency to cling to thoughts in a compulsive or protective way that tends to make the thoughts dangerous. At that point, they produce specific outcomes which often seem beyond control. What is required is a perspective of resting mind on mind itself, so that the thoughts are seen to move and shift about in their own time. By having this standpoint to observe thoughts moving in and out of the screen, the thoughts don’t seem so real. It is as though one were watching a play and suddenly the stage starts to wobble for no apparent reason. That tendency to wobble then causes the audience to snap out of their rapture with the story being played out on stage. It reminds people that this is just a scene in a play, and the mind needn't attach to the scenes in such a sticky way that often happens in daily life.

The practical aspect of this is hard to realize, because it sometimes seems too good to be true. When I am on the subway and there is a teenage boy spreading his legs into the seat  I occupy, what arises in mind? Maybe irritation or some other feelings arise in mind. I could go on to say, “I don’t want these kinds of thoughts; I want to have more peaceful, comfortable thoughts, but not this kind of unpleasant sensation.” But in doing that, I am reacting to the previous thoughts I had regarding the situation. And this produces a lot of inner turmoil. I first see the feelings and label them as “not good”, and then I look for more pleasant thoughts and feelings to replace the “not good” feelings. In fact, at every moment, each feeling is part of mind itself. But when I react, I compare two different thoughts and prefer one thought to another. And this is vexation, because I already tried to reject the previous thought. But if I acknowledge that all these states are part of the same nature, do I need to struggle against some states and seek others? This would be like trying to take a painting and eliminate certain paints because I don’t feel they belong in that painting. But of course, when I look at a painting, my role is simply to see how the totality hangs together. It is not my role to take out paints because I don’t happen to like them that day. Such a mentality is attachment, and it is painful.

So when I go back to the situation on the subway, what might ‘clear blue sky’ look like? I think it might start by acknowledging that the feelings arising are part of the nature of mind. But they are not a fixed characteristic of ‘me’. They are impermanent and subject to any number of new conditions. So I can relate to them in a softer and more tentative way, because I start to directly experience how they are arising and where they might be going. And again, that direct awareness is always tentative. It is not trying to create closure or conclusions. It is just being with the situation as it unfolds without adding judgments. The more purely I stay with the pain and not attach other thoughts and meanings to it, the more provisional it looks, and the more it becomes an internal process. I stop feeling suffering when I fully own that pain and not try to reject myself for the pain.

         The other point about that experience is that I can almost start to engage in it in a phenomenological way. When I say this, I mean that I approach the experience without throwing so much baggage into it. I start to become curious about the shape of the experience rather than trying to look for reasons or explanations for it. And finally,  there is an acknowledgment that I am trying to get at the authentic way of the experience rather than judging it or myself according to its shape and contours. And I am observing it in this way to become acquainted with the experience and to try out its contours. To me, this might be a tentative sketch of what clear blue sky being might look like. But of course, this needs to be tried out and explored further in daily life. I hope that this blog is an invitation to explore the state of being further in daily experience.

References

The Path of the Buddha (1956) ed. Kenneth W. Morgan. New York: Ronald Press Company

A Snail's Life?

I saw a snail on the small road just beside my apartment, getting dryer in the morning sun. Seeing that it might get stepped on or run over, I gently curled my thumb and index finger to pick up the snail’s shell.  I expected the snail to struggle or stay stuck on the concrete, due to its sticky pseudopod. Instead, the snail retracted into its shell. I looked for a place to deposit the snail. I gingerly planted the snail in a bed of moist grass. But later, as I left the spot, I wondered if perhaps it would have been better to nestle it somewhere on an old tree. It was too late, and someone was coming up behind me on a bicycle. I figured that I would look strange going into a grassy area in search of a missing snail. I kept on my journey to work instead.

The snail’s life is so much different from my own. And I have to wonder, did I do the right thing, to save the snail from what I felt to be a poor fate? Wouldn’t this creature be vulnerable to birds and other animals once it is placed on a grassy spot or area? The dilemma of compassion is that sometimes I am motivated by pity or some feeling of foreboding of what could happen to the snail’s life. But there are also times when that feeling can cloud my judgment, and thus lead me to end up doing something that ends up being destructive. In this way, feelings of wanting to help need to be supplemented by the wisdom that comes from helping in a sound way.

The lesson that I can learn from this creature’s life is that I need to look at it closely from its own perspective to understand what the snail’s best interests really are. What kinds of foods would it eat? What conditions allow it to thrive? What kinds of predators does it need to avoid? These kinds of questions require me to suspend my feelings or personal preferences and consider that not all beings have the same conditions as me or as my thoughts lead me to think. To enter into support of a being is to acknowledge a deep difference between the being itself and how I see that being. And quite often all I can really and truly know is how the being appears to me at a given time. The rest is a very tentative mystery which can be framed as a hypothesis about how beings are.

Of course, when I reflect on this example as applied to human life, the dimensions change quite a bit. I cannot pretend, in the case of other people, that I am not able to see what could make another person happy or have a better life. There are many obvious cases where it is easy to tell what kinds of needs a person has. And I think that in most cases, it seems that when I greet a person, I operate from a view that this is how I would wish to be treated by others. In that sense, I can gauge my behavior by how I might feel in the same situation. This seems to make sense, and it seems to be a good basis for fundamental ethics. But on the other hand, I begin to see that ethics cannot start and end purely in my own subjective frame of reference. If it stays within this frame, I end up becoming less tolerant of others’ frames of references, because I am locked into a view of how I might react in a similar circumstance. Unless I am able to reflect on situations where another person’s help did not match my own needs, I probably might end up assuming that others want what I would want in the same situation. This is hardly a model of empathy! It is only a kind of projecting of my own desires onto someone else.

It again seems to go back to this recurring idea in Buddhism that we tend to see others from the perspective of aggregated conditioning. I often don’t see the real person with her complex motives. Instead, I “experience” my own expectations and conditioning projected on the other in front of me, as well as past memories and conditioning. For me to break out of that conditioning requires that I see things as they are behaving in the present, rather than seeing the reflections of my past thoughts superimposed onto the unfolding moment.

Practicing some kinds of meditation such as huatou, I am able to shatter this loop of conditioning, at least temporarily, for a sustained period of time. And I think the way it works is that it puts me in a state of the intrinsic experience of doubt. This doubt operates as a kind of ‘not knowing’: I don’t know where “I” begins and the object world around me begins. And in this not knowing, I start to lose the self-reference that I have about situations happening. For example, this pain that I experience in my legs is not ‘my pain’, and it is not ‘an issue’ for my consideration. When I start to wonder who is sitting and who is having pain, I am asking, what is the real source of all the pressing thoughts and emotions? By getting into this question and letting go of the conceptual answers (all answers, for that matter), I start to engage in a mystery. There is simply no place for the mind to roost anymore.  And over time, the sense of preferring and trying to adjust starts to fade a bit as well. I am more able to see things from a less self-involved and much calmer perspective.

   Given this experience, would it perhaps make me in a better position to help a snail? It might be best to find out from the snail itself.

Sheng Yen, (2009), Shattering the Great Doubt : the Chan Practice of Huatou. Boston, MA: Shambhala

Abandoned Doll on A Park Bench

This morning was rainy and wet. As I strolled past a small park to get to work, I spotted a plastic doll and some old books sitting on an otherwise abandoned park bench. For a brief moment, I wondered: to whom do these items belong? Judging from the condition of the objects, I assumed that a homeless person had left them on the bench overnight, or perhaps someone in some kind of mental distress. I looked around me to see if anyone was there who could claim these objects. A feeling of fear and discomfort immediately crept over me. I almost thought that the objects were inviting me into some unknown or dangerous space. Still curious, I walked by and carefully edged past the park bench and the adjacent walkway. I kept a brisk rhythm as I dodged the drops of rain. I sidled into the subway station at 6:43 am.

When I saw these objects, I automatically searched for some form of awareness. I attached the object to some separate mind that put them there. And that shaped how I reacted to the objects. Even if there was nobody I can pinpoint as the “owner”, I still imagined that the abandoned objects must belong to someone. And who could that be? I looked for the other voice, the other mind, the other being. But in reality, I was only projecting my own awareness onto the doll. I see my own fear in the doll. I see mistrust, and I fear some other person who is separate from me. I fear someone who might be opposed to ‘me’.  In those brief moments, my mind is disturbed. But what am I really seeing? Am I seeing the actual form of the doll, or am I seeing the mind? Are all those feelings and thoughts coming from the items on the bench? Or is it coming from awareness?

I wonder if most of what I see comes from the same processes. One process is that I think there is a separate “me” that is going to work. And I inhabit that “me”, and I spend time protecting “me”, trying to survive and trying to get through the day. Then I think: there are separate beings out there with their own separate awareness. And maybe those beings might be against my own will, or maybe they will be with me. I make distinctions: this person is friendly, this person isn’t helpful, that person is ‘neutral’, and so on. I continue to do this with each situation. I distinguish ‘my will’ and ‘my preference’ from that of ‘the world and others’. But all these distinctions seem to be based on attaching ‘me’ to this body and ‘these feelings’. And I separate ‘me’ and ‘my feelings’ from other beings, and other feelings. This is a very constricting belief. What is the alternative?

This doesn’t seem to be a rigid pattern that is fixed. I can question the process. But questioning the process requires really basic inquiry. One line of inquiry is to ask, “what can I do to be safer and protect myself?” But the inquiry I am talking about is different. It doesn’t necessarily assume that there is a separate self. I might ask: what makes me think that my being is separate from what is outside my body? I feel my body, I see my hands, and I see the doll. But why do I assume that this body is “me” and the doll is “not me”? Are they not coming from the same experience? The same goes with feelings. Where do the feelings come from? Do they belong to me? This kind of inquiry doesn’t mean that there are no reactions. But it means that the reactions are part of a total experience.

 It is hardly possible to separate elements of that experience into what is mine and what is ‘out there’ or someone else. In that sense, what is experienced is always from the same awareness. When a reaction arises in mind (such as fear), do I think the fear is ‘me’? Then I would attach to that fear and ignore the other qualities of the experience. But if I try to convince myself that the fear is not part of me, I am also still creating another sense of self. So, I can just notice the reaction, but I don’t need to believe that it is linked to a self. I just see it as a reaction arising in mind. But then there are a lot of things arising in mind. Is the reaction the ‘true me’? If I look at it, there is no reason to think that the emotion is closer to ‘me’ than other elements of that experience. They are all equal parts of the experience. So I don’t need to attach the reactions to a self. I can observe the reaction as part of a total process.

When I am dreaming, what part of me wakes up from the dream? Can I tell ‘who’ wakes up by looking at the dream itself? In the dream, “I” am all the parts. I am all the actors in the dream. It would seem a bit absurd to try to separate the ‘me’ in the dream from ‘others’ when it is all one big dream. But in waking life, I still try to separate an actor from the things around me. Do I need to do that? When at work, the boss says “you need to help with this”. I see that help needs to be given, and I follow the instruction. Who gives the instruction? And who accepts the instruction? To function in the workplace, do I really need to clearly separate these in order to harmonize and get the work done? In fact, there is interaction of different elements. Do I need to make a clear distinction between what comes from me and what is in the environment?

As I walk home today, I see the same doll sitting on the park bench. It is sunny and warm. The morning rain forms a faint shadow of a puddle on the sidewalk. And I pass by again. There is no fear this time. I see the doll in a different way. And I pass a sign that reads: “Please Do Not Park Between Signs”. The sign seemed to be telling me to keep moving, and don’t get stuck in one place. So I walk away from the park and head home.