What's In a Voice? A Monologue

I am a voice, or so I say,
I make my way to this empty page
What do I do but mouth the starts...
Of a hypothetical me-and-you

I start out with an impulse, an urge to scratch
I arise from the incoherent babblings,
with mom and dad gazing down, in pleasurable rapture
waiting for the voice to say something coherent
in a language they know, a loving phrase of recognition:
such words as 'daddy' or
'no' or 'know' rounded off with a solid, upper-case O:
the lyric of the surprised, the bald spot of a monk's shaved head
what once was mere sound rounding up
into vowels and consonants, cascading into commas
and well-advised periods.
tapering off into spacious silence
after the pregnant pause, the muted exclamation

funny how when I was in school, I was taught the 26 characters
(Form)
and I paired the twenty six of them into longer nuances
(Sensation)
screams sighs, whiffs, the heavy force of gravity on the balls of feet
(Perception)
avoiding the designated bullies, the authorities, who pound for pound
(Volition)
choose your fate in carefully parceled marks, marks  the spot
(Consciousness)
the thought that I am you and You are not me. And I go here
thus far I am a here and not a there.

But You being there and not Here, the heir
to a different School Form, perhaps a one more Advanced and higher one than I
so I feel the stirrings of a new found tie, binding me downward
(and inward)
the tie of wanting to succeed, or better still, wanting to survive
it seems there is only so much room for success on this tiny rock of the sun
only so many to get the promotion or stay on the ball
so I fall
into the insecurity of being only this tiny lower case 'i', muted cries
and lies, sighs, and only the occasional highs
the wiles of jealousy impinging on nervous eyes
(I's that are too plural to see together in one big whole)

so do I choose to rebel or distinguish myself
or perhaps better still extinguish "myself"
who is this voice anyway, but a passing thing of word and number?
an eye-sore, or an I-sore, a bump in the flesh of passing night
a knife through the back of a prickly pair
of yearning eyes

who am I?
what sees with these human eyes?
who speaks and who cries?
who speaks truth and who lies?
where lies this truth?
who said it?
who said?
who?

Eternal Agains

Some time ago, I was saddened to hear news of Roddy Piper’s death. Roddy was, as I recollect, a famous wrestler who reached his peak in the 1980s, not only as a professional wrestler but as an aspiring movie actor. It was around the time of his death that I started to google search a famous science fiction movie he was in, called “They Live”. This movie had a rather outlandish premise: something involving an alien conspiracy, and a pair of sunglasses that allows people to see the aliens hiding in human’s skin and clothing. Back in 1988 or so, I remember watching this movie with my dad and my brother and thinking that the special effects were rather interesting, in spite of the strange plot. It is a typical reality-bending type of movie which has one questioning what is real and what isn’t.

Google searches do have a way of getting me off topic. I ended up googling another actor in that movie, Raymond St Jacques, and this somehow brought me to a music video by his son, Sterling St Jacques: a little known video called “Again”. I was quite shocked to read that Raymond’s son had died in 1984, a few years earlier than his father, a seasoned actor who appeared in many Westerns and action adventure movies.

I watched this video by Sterling St Jacques, a bit entranced by how unusual and even silly it appears. On the one hand, it is a kind of typical early 80s music video: not much plot, a lot of headshots, an opening sequence with a fainting girl, and a very cheesy set to boot. But there was something about the singer’s facial expressions and the song’s lyrics that kept me lingering on that music video for a while.

Throughout the music video, we pretty much only see Sterling St Jacques’ face. His eyes are about to tear up in many places, as he sings the lines, “I tried before, and all I saw was sadness/but now I’m sure I’m walking toward gladness”. While the lyrics don’t sound so original in places, the range of St.Jacques’ expressions is quite startling to look at. In some places, he smiles broadly, while in other places, a single tear falls down his face. And during the whole performance, I begin to wonder, which of these emotions most fits the song itself? Is St Jacques really sure he’s walking toward gladness? We never even learn if the tears he sheds are real, or are just a camera effect. But what is amazing is the stillness of this performance. Though we only see Sterling’s face, in less than four minutes, we see a kind of reality unfolding, where love is lost, recollected, and found again in a new form. But when I hear the words “See me go again, falling in love again,” I can’t help but feel that he’s been through this one too many times: love lost, love reclaimed, sadness encroaching. And the tear that Sterling St.Jacques sheds is the knowing tear. It’s the tear that suggests a foreknowledge that perhaps all love leads to loss.

Since I saw this video back in August of this year, I have been a bit haunted by the tune, as well as the way this video is presented. Sterling’s presence and relatively still position throughout the video reminds me that the mind is not moving even when emotions appear to move. Sometimes we even say this to our participants in the meditation class: even when their bodies are moving in the opening exercise, the mind is still and clear about what’s happening. But I am also reminded of the ‘again’ of Kuan Yin, her resolve to shed tears for all sentient beings as they too descend into their ‘agains’. Over time, I believe that the heart embraces that pain, because again-ness also opens the opportunity to connect and to assist someone in the path to liberation. But again also simultaneously opens up a path to unending delusion, as one starts to spin in one’s wheels with desire or hopes.

 

References

 

Sterling St Jacques, “Again” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubg6wfX5UY4

Beyond Happy and Unhappy

Monday morning brings a bit of rain. I am on the subway and see the downtrodden faces, on their way to work and school, crowded and cramped together. Feelings of tiredness emerge in me; the sense of not being terribly motivated but still trudging forward. And I just try to see that this is all the mind, yet the mind is not limited to what I am seeing. The mind is in this present but simultaneously beyond it. And for a while, the thought arises, "this isn't working. I am feeling unhappy." But what happens is a kind of space opens up for both the happy and unhappy experience. It is a wide space which allows both possibilities, 'happy' and 'unhappy' to emerge in this immense space and time. I no longer feel I have to swing to the safety of a  happy thought, the way a monkey swings between the vines of trees. There is a space there that floats around and inside the thoughts.

There is a beautiful chapter in Stephen Levine's book Becoming Kuan Yin, and it describes how Miao Shan (who would later become Kuan Yin) descends into Hell after her father orders her to be executed. The father is enraged because Miao Shan does not want to follow his ideas or expectations that she marry and continue the family line. Miao Shan's power of compassion causes the executioner's axe to turn into a flower, whereupon the king orders the executioner to also be killed. But Miao Shan's compassion is so boundless and great that she takes on the form of death in order to protect both the executioner and the king from Hell, and she takes on their deeds by descending to Hell herself.

To me, Miao Shan seems to represent the awakened mind and heart of compassion, which is capable of descending into the depths of any kind of karma. How is it possible for the awakened or compassionate mind to follow the bad karma of the executioner?  I believe that this compassion is always present with and beside all beings, and this story is a kind of allegorical tale for how the true mind abides in all karmas,whether good or bad. Levine writes:

"In hell she [Miao Shan] taught mindfulness of the present, where all the feelings that assault the mind and tear at the heart reside, where all the emotional afflictions find their home. She said to instead find from moment to moment your heart's awareness of what's happening while it's happening...She taught the denizens to have compassion for themselves and others, to reach through themselves to the intimate next door" (p.36)

According to this story, it is in Hell that Miao Shan transforms into Kuan Yin. But why did she have to undergo the torment of seeing and experiencing others' pain in order to become the embodiment of compassion, Kuan Yin Pusa? Perhaps it's because Miao Shan needed to see the extent to which beings suffer from affliction. Levine remarks:  "Miao Shan saw...what pulled people into such dreadful environments. That perhaps no other word needed forgiveness more than this one." (p.35) 

Is it possible that there is a kind of value in witnessing suffering, including one's own, as a way of opening a space for compassion? This is interesting. I think that if a person does not sense suffering or the reasons behind suffering, it may be very difficult for them to cultivate compassion. It would be like trying to protect myself from things and not allowing myself to feel the fragility of life's wants and fears. It's not impossible to have compassion in that case, but sometimes one might need to experience suffering in some way, be it in oneself or in people around oneself.

It might sometimes be useful in times when one feels suffering or alone, to see that state as a window into all beings, all longing, all the states of being thrown into the world, In this way, that state of suffering can be a bridge where I reflect that everyone has something going on within them. Otherwise,the suffering feels like isolation, when in fact, it is a deep communion with others, as Miao Shan's story illustrates. 

Levine, Stephen (2013) Becoming Kuan Yin: The Evolution of Compassion. San Fransisco: Weiser Books.

Identities: Found or Constructed?

The question I am raising has to do with an idea that I found in an article called “Defense of the Romantic Poet? Writing Workshops and Voice” by Lensmire and Satanovsky. The authors are talking what kinds of assumptions underlie the teaching of writing in classrooms. One particular paradigm that the authors describe is the Romantic view, which emphasizes self-discovery as the goal of writing. Under this perspective, individuals discover a voice that uniquely belongs to themselves and through the writing process, need to go beyond formality and convention to discover that true voice that is within them. The emphasis in the Romantic view is on liberating oneself from rule based authority or learning in order to ‘find one’s own unique voice’, and this often goes with a spontaneous expression of emotions.

 Many people say that I am too emotionless in my writing style, so they might advocate that I go with the Romantic view and bare my true emotional self to the whole world. But there is another view which suggests that selves are not discovered but are, rather, co-created through social groups. For example, when I am writing for a specific topic in a classroom, I have to actively choose which parts of myself to reveal and how I communicate that self to others. In that sense, I can say that the self is a constructed narrative. Under this view, the self is not ‘discovered’, as though it were concrete and never changing, but is always being negotiated among other selves, in larger institutions and discourses.

 I don’t think that these ways of looking are necessarily incompatible. I think that the Romantic view of writing and self-expression happens to be an in vogue and fashionable way of expression. But it’s not the only way, and it doesn’t work all the time. For example, when I am trying to learn how to approach something that is new to me, or want to change some part of myself, expressing my feelings about this project of learning needs to be supplemented with an account of what I struggle to learn. There needs to be some “other” situation that is not me, or else the feelings have nowhere to move or space to breathe. With novels and personal biography, it is definitely more artistically appealing to have a narrator who shows a grounded connection with her feelings and her sense of the world. But does this kind of communication work when explaining a process, or undergoing a spiritual learning? I suspect that spiritual narrative in particular is a balance between emotional free writing and some thematic contemplation. And the notion of self here is continually changing.

Lensmire D & Satanovsky, L (1998)  Defense of the Romantic Poet? Writing Workshops and Voice. Theory Into Practice (Autumn 1998)

"the true beauty of ourselves as nature"

I read a beautiful passage from a Buddhist nun named Reverend Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, where she writes from a Buddhist perspective on racism. Manuel remarks:

"There is nothing more powerful than looking out on nature and seeing the varied expressions of life, taking in its myriad forms that touch our hearts or that disturb them. We ourselves are just as magnificent as anything expressed in nature as nature.  We need only be that magnificence. Yet, when we try to 'be' magnificent, discrimination and discernment enter into our minds. We leave out who and what we think is not magnificent. We exclude whatever we judge to be lesser in our minds, which leads to manipulative action and to formation of ideologies that bind us to the true beauty of ourselves as nature" (From The Way of Tenderness, p.47)

This is such a deep and beautiful quote which for me tackles an important question, how Buddhism addresses or even explains social discrimination. But what also resonates with me here is the process that Reverend Manuel uses to help her readers understand the process. In the beginning of the passage, there is simply an unconditional respect for seeing life in its different expressions. Then there is the claim that we are just as magnificent as the natural world. This is true simply because all beings are born into mind, But the truly rich part about this narrative comes when Reverend Manuel remarks, "when we try to 'be' magnificent, discrimination and discernment enter into our minds." When I read this passage, I really started to reflect on the difference between acknowledging the magnificence that is one's natural birthright, and the magnificence that a person 'tries' to become by assuming a superior position to others. And why does this happen? It happens because somehow the original magnificence that is already mine and yours gets clouded or lost. It's not that we really lose magnificence, but it gets obscured, and people end up trying to discriminate themselves from others i different ways.

What's the reverse of this situation? Maybe it seems not easily reversible, but the magnificence that belongs to all beings needs to be recovered, and it needs to be directly experienced as well. But it takes a radical act of not trying to be anything, to get to this state. This not trying to be something is not the same as not doing anything. It seems an acknowledgment that all beings, in all their diversity, are worthy of the very greatest love and compassion. Not only this, but if a person even senses in a tiny way that she or he has to earn this love and compassion through some effort or another, then this kind of thinking progresses into the violence of trying to be 'better than' someone else in some way. As soon as a person has this tiny feeling of not being worthy,of having to strive to be worthy in one's basic being, it's best to put this down and try to come back to the fundamental magnificence that all sentient beings have, without exception. When a person is able to connect that emerging vexation within to the violence of the world, one can take a step back and start to recover the value that nobody ever needed to earn or even be privileged with.

Manuel, Zenju Earthlyn (2015) The Way of Tenderness: Awakening Through Race, Sexuality and Gender Boston,: Wisdom Publications

Holding A Door

                After work tonight, I left the library in a bit of haste, trying to get to the gym on time. But as I was walking down the broken escalator, the thoughts I had during the day were coming back to me.

I was reflecting earlier in the day on a problem during lunch hour. I had the thought: if people practice spirituality for a long time, do they somehow start to neglect the phenomenal experiences or dismiss them as ‘illusory’? And would this mean that spiritual practice leads to a neglect of social activism? How do those two practices really connect with each other? I couldn’t find an answer at all, and I think ruminating on that one after lunch was a mistake for my stomach. I let it go as I went back to my projects at work.

                Later during the day, I read the following lines from Keren Hering’s book, Writing to Wake the Soul. It reads: “A spiritual practice…requires our internal consent, a willingness to sit still long enough to receive—and be changed by—what comes” (p.26). I tried this practice of just receiving the world as it is, and a totality, without imposing any sense of bounded ‘me’ against the other impressions coming up. And what I found was, as I was descending the escalator step by step, there is no disconnect between being and doing. The doing of something is always within a totality that is already present, already here, and already available. There isn't this disconnect between being and going to do something. The boundary is somehow artificially created, perhaps out of some anxiety of wanting to keep these terms separate. I wonder: perhaps activism is just what is happening in this moment. It doesn't need some special alien motivation, it is what arises when defenses have come down and one sees interconnection with all experience. Walking is walking, sitting is sitting.

                And when I came to open a door to the subway, it felt natural for me to see the confusion of two teenage girls who couldn’t decide which door to take, and then hold the door for them. They said a very surprised (or maybe just embarrassed) “thank you”. I sensed an older man carrying a small bicycle-like vehicle behind me, and I held the door for him as well. I ended up just being a door for a few other people coming in from the subway as well. Why? I think in that moment, I only really had to be the door, to hold the door, to not have any sense of me doing anything at all. And that was a relief from all the pressure of those doubts coming up from earlier in the day.

                If someone were to ask me, why learn about spirituality or do a kind of practice (such as prayer or meditation or mindful walking), I would have to say then that it is not about emptying the contents of experience or mind. It is to learn to fully receive those contents, or to frame them as part of true and total mind. From there, anything is possible, including a heartfelt activism. But most of the time, the state of mind can be very coarse and untrained. It takes practice to keep receiving the world in this way, not putting “I” here and assigning “world” to there. That is why spiritual community and practice is so important.

Hering, Karen, (2013) Writing to Wake the Soul: Opening the Sacred Conversation Within. Hillsborough, Oregon: Beyond Words

doing and refraining

During the meditation today, there was a lot of noise coming from outside the quiet room, where people were having some kind of a party or gathering. I slowly came into my practice, and eventually started to see all the noise as just a process coming into mind. I do not need to pick and choose certain elements or project any dramatic element to the noise itself. Nor do I even need to do anything in particular with any of the elements that are happening or coming up. Of course, there were moments when thoughts would come up regarding what could happen, but that is all part of a process, and I don’t even need to privilege the ‘I wish’ thoughts over the ‘this is what is happening’ thoughts. In the second part of the meditation, the instructor asked us not to even think that we are meditating at all, but to simply allow whatever we are to be what it is. Since my mind had been calmed up to that point, I was able to better observe myself with curiosity, rather than labelling my desires in terms of good or not good.

I am reflecting, in retrospect, on that tricky moment during the practice when the thought came to my mind, “I really need to be doing something to make the environment better for the participants.” I think it’s tricky, because it relates to who I am really addressing when I say “I need to do this” or “I need to change this”, In that moment, am I really able to know what others’ needs  are? And is the thought pointing to true need, or is it really just a desire for quiet that masquerades as a ‘need’? I have often encountered students in particular who are asking whether meditation is able to help people achieve goals or take action on things if it somehow advocates an attitude of acceptance. Many students equate acceptance with passivity, and they express a caution toward meditation in the sense that they find acceptance to negatively affect their ability to take actions or change conditions around them.

It seems that in this situation, any action is okay as long as it does not distinguish self from others in such a hard edged way. If I am treating phenomena as a part of the mind’s experience, I won’t be so harsh to that experience. Being harsh would be similar to me having a scary thought and scaring myself with the thought at the same time. It wouldn’t make sense to divide oneself in this way. But does this mean that people just do nothing and let phenomena ‘be’? Not necessarily. It could be that some things could be done to accommodate all the phenomena, or at least making sure that nobody needs to control a situation or dominate others in doing so. I think there needs to be a process where I am comfortable enough to know that the thoughts are coming from mind, nothing more, and that any result of interactions would not be detrimental in any way. In other words, it is okay to try to make changes, but doing so requires that one knows the mind source of all changes. If I don’t see that, I will invariably start trying to control phenomena to suit the ideal image I have of myself and ‘my’ world. This takes the form of insisting that things go one way, or not being happy if they don’t. If I can accept the outcome no matter whether my suggestions are implemented or not, then I know I am ready to suggest the change. Otherwise, it may be the chance for me to practice trying to find the true source of all the phenomena and experiences.

The Suffering of Choice

At work, there is always a question that gnaws away in the background, and that is, what to do first? It is sometimes tricky to juggle different priorities, and I am sure that others experience such a thing in their working lives as well. For example, many teachers I interact with tell me that their school lives suffer from such a tight and cramped workload, where there is very little opportunity to apply the theories or principals they might be learning in the process of doing graduate studies. They have to decide how they are going to incorporate each theory or practice they learn in formal studies of education into their real classrooms. One even related how it often felt as though trying to adopt a new educational project or initiative sometimes seems like an ‘all or nothing’ approach, which seems daunting for busy teachers. It often ends up that the teacher compromises between what she wants to adopt wholeheartedly, and the little time she might be able to spare in her classroom life.

Of all the eight forms of suffering I had learned in the Buddhist class I had attended last Saturday, I don’t think there is a suffering called ‘the suffering of choice’. In fact, when I check my handy notes, I see the sufferings of birth, old age, sickness, death, bereavement (loss), hatred, desire and lack of control. But I don’t see ‘choice’ here, though I have a feeling that maybe there should be a new category for it! On the other hand, much of the pain of making a choice could relate to having too many desires, expectations or wishes to control specific outcomes, and these fall under the suffering categories here.

When I talk about suffering of choice, I am probably describing a kind of existential anguish that comes from being a conscious being, and having several thoughts and possibilities to entertain. It seems that in not having a choice, one can rest in the belief that it isn’t in one’s capacity to decide differently. In that case, one can always find an authority to blame when things don’t go well. But I can’t think of a situation where a person does not have a modicum of choice available to them, even if that choice only relates to an attitude change. I think it was Victor Frankl who described in his book The Doctor and the Soul that even when we lack ability to act on what we wish, we can still adjust our attitude to meet the present situation. But the subtle pain of choice is always there. I think that pain takes the form of a kind of void: nothing I do or decide to do ever closes off my possibilities, so there is always something open, a kind of risk or vulnerability to the moment that cannot be foreclosed. The other painful part of choice is that it does involve a sacrifice of some kind: I can never do everything that  is within my range of possibility. In that sense, each moment curtails the infinite possibility. And then, I need to define myself in that moment.

One thing that helps me from last weekend’s talk is that pain is a real and core part of the meaning of existence. I recall the Venerable remarking that life is not about securing the most happiness or joy, but, rather, it involves facing karmic retribution and making new vows in place of that. If I sometimes feel that life is about trying to keep oneself afloat, that feeling I have is the result of the past and present karma of believing there is a separate self to maintain. So I need to work through that, and there is no short cut to understanding that there is no permanent, enduring self that chooses. From that perspective, it is okay if one does feel pressure or the pain of choosing. But I think the difference between the existential and Buddhist approach is that existentialists assign suffering to the pain of a permanent selfhood. According to some kinds of existential thinking, I can never get away from the ‘me’ that chooses, no matter how hard I try to avoid making choices. But in Buddhism, even that self needs to be uprooted or questioned. Otherwise, I will always keep thinking that this ‘self’ will be okay as long as I surmount ‘this hurdle’ or ‘that problem’. It is like a criminal on death row who says to God, “please spare me just this one more time…I promise not to commit any crime again if you have mercy on me.” It is this ‘if only’ thinking that makes me believe that there is salvation just around the corner if I just make a good bargain with the universe. But if one lets go of that for a moment and realizes that the struggle and suffering come from cherishing an illusion of a permanent self , then all the vexations will transform into things that are light and manageable. I am no longer then striking deals with the universe to spare this small self that I am always trying to protect. I am then able to breathe a bit more and focus more on this present moment, not worrying excessively about what hasn’t yet happened, or a choice that hasn’t been made.

Building the Onion

On the subway today, I was reading a chapter from Master Sheng Yen's book There is No Suffering, where he talks about how to contemplate the aggregates of the mind by choosing a specific sense, such as sound or sight. Sheng Yen writes:

         "The sense faculties and objects are the physical and psychological components inside and      outside the body. If you successfully complete your contemplation and wisdom arises, then the practice is realized. The goal is to realize that while the sense faculty ,the sense object, and the sense consciousness are empty, they also exist" (p.63)

It is interesting to reflect that in the Heart Sutra, there is this expression, "form is emptiness, and emptiness is form". And while a lot of emphasis is placed on the former (form is emptiness), I am sometimes prone to neglect the other side of the equation, that emptiness itself is form. I think perhaps this is due to the fact that the practice emphasizes addressing one's attachments to forms. But there is also the danger of attaching to emptiness as well, such as when a person thinks that 'nothing matters' since everything is completely impermanent anyway,

While going through the threads of emails for my online course today, the thought came to mind that what I am learning from my classmates is similar to building an onion. Most people are aware of the expression, 'peeling an onion' to signify peeling away the layers of an onion (or the self, or whatever) to see what's underneath that. And according to this metaphor, one never fully reaches the end, since the onion itself is nothing but an aggregrate of layers, all heaped together into one vegetable. But, when I am taking a course and interacting with others in a complex situation, it is not enough that I conclude that all those layers of learning are empty of a permanent foundation, or all positions that everyone have are just subjective or relative. I have to be able to take that understanding of emptiness and use it in that situation, to really grasp the meaning of both sides of the equation, form= emptiness, emptiness = form.

How do I experience this? I experience it as a kind of continuous process of building connections, wherever I go, and not expecting any of these connections to be permanent in any way. Another metaphor I can think of is that I am willful in what I do, but my will stops before any illusion of finality. It is as though everything I am doing in that present moment is deliberate, but I am leaving behind the thought of the outcome. I am leaving a space open where there is always another brick to be laid down.

Some might wonder what the value of building what is impermanent could be? It is hard to say what the answer is. But when I think of all the activities I have enjoyed the most, I can say the essence of that activity is always changing. Even reading a book is not a static action. It requires a continual shift in objects of awareness. But the fact that these activities are always in flow does not mean that they are valueless. On the contrary, it seems that the flow of things confirms their value in changing and adding new layers of discovery and insight into things of the present. The changing nature of one's most engaged activities seems to be a glimpse of how the universe is. And with this kind of universe, there is simply no need to be attached to a specific outcome, based on like or dislike. One can learn to enjoy the process of doing something as a reflection of a greater process that is always happening in mind.

The Showboat

Time with others begins on Monday morning: a trip to the gym to see my trainer, followed by a new regimen of stretches. A meeting with a classmate who is working in mindfulness, a trip to the library, a literature search, an online classroom, editing someone’s work. There are times when I feel that I am shuttling between different worlds, different people and different needs. And it often seems like that scene in John Barth’s The Floating Opera, where the narrator reflects on the comings and goings of different people, and how he often feels he only gets a very small glimpse or a window into their lives. The narrator compares this process to standing on the bank of a river and seeing the showboats passing by, with a wide assortment of characters on each boat. The narrator does not see all the moments of everyone’s lives, but only really gets to see a few tiny moments, or points where people briefly connect and then disappear.

Does this sense of impermanence make the comings and goings of others seem somehow more distant, or even wistful?

Reflecting on it, I think about how I have often tried to establish a social life based on the idea of helping and being helped, supporting and being supported. I do think it’s important for people to find some ways of serving others, because it uplifts one’s being and skills. A person becomes more of an active element in the interaction, bringing out parts of themselves that perhaps they never knew could exist. This helping mode also lends confidence to a person and gives them a feeling that they can help others in some capacity. It is very grounding also to be able to let another person help me from time to time. Receiving help fully and whole-heartedly can be a way of allowing someone else to bring out their own abilities. But I think the most difficult relationships for me are the ones where there is no particular role that I have to play. Maybe in those situations, I am just somehow being there, with all that I am, and observing what happens. This feels uncomfortable at times, because it doesn’t have a definition of sorts.

This morning, I was reading an excerpt from a book by Maurice Friedmann, which focuses on the notion of Otherness, based on Martin Buber’s philosophy of the I and Thou. What Friedman wrote was interesting to me. He talked about how Buber really emphasized the importance of personal or identity confirmation that relationships can bestow upon people, whether as givers or as receivers. However, too much pandering to this desire to ‘be confirmed’ can, in Buber’s eyes, lead to a kind of cowardice. According to Friedman, Buber maintained that it is better to be true to oneself and risk not being confirmed, than it is to lose one’s true nature and be forever trying to get confirmation.

I am not too sure where I sit with this, but I think that having a perspective of Buddhist teaching and practice, I don’t need to feel that I am ever separated from other minds. It is only an illusion that sees this self as separate. Even in the absence of communication with others, I can still reach out and transfer merits, or even seek out the support of other minds when it is needed. The idea that there is a separate identity that always needs to confirm itself is a burden. But without faith in a natural inter-being, I can see how people feel that need to confirm who they are, to feel validated in some way. I empathize with it, even though I know that there is another way to see life. I can only pray that more faith will allow people to overcome their feelings of alienation.

Awakening to the Sound of The Bell

              During lunch today, I was talking to two meditation group members and close friends about the meaning of dreams. I asked them if they remembered their dreams, and we started to talk about the potential dream symbolism.

These days, I am not the kind of person who analyses his dreams so much.  But at one time, in my teenage years, I received a book as a birthday or Christmas present, Sigmund Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams. I will never quite forget that book. This book seemed to get me started on quite an interesting train of thought, because it introduced me to the idea of  the unconscious. I guess you have to picture it: a 16 year old guy who already had quite a few vivid dreams, now receiving a book which says that all dreams have a deeper meaning. And I started to feel that there are simply no accidents in life: everything has an underlying personal meaning that could be deciphered, given a bit of soulful archaeology. In my old journals, I wrote plenty of dream analyses, in the hopes of understanding what the dreams are trying to say to me. After a while, the notion of the unconscious started to look more and more like Melville’s Moby Dick, a kind of endless, gigantic quest that has no clear definition or end to it. I soon became weary, realizing that there are almost endless ways of interpreting our experiences, let alone our subconscious ones. And I also began to feel that interpretations are always tentative, and they are perhaps meant to enrich life rather than provide a definite, driving direction. Even dreams are impermanent. By the time I had reached my undergrad first year at York, dream analysis had fallen out of my radar, and I had started to look into other ways of seeing the world.

Recently, I have not been recollecting too many of my dreams. I am not too sure how to articulate it, but I stumbled upon an analogy of dreaming in the Surangama Sutra Part V, Chapter 3, which has helped me articulate my reluctance. The Buddha explains to Ananda and the congregation that sound does not depend on consciousness or sensory perception, but is the result of direct awareness. The example he uses is that of someone who is deep in a dream, and thinks he hears the sound of a drum beating. He wakes up, realizing that the sound is actually the sound of rice pounding, not the sound of a drum at all. Nonetheless, as the Buddha later concludes, this does not mean that the man was mistaken about the sound itself. He was, all along, able to hear the sound, only he had mistaken the source of the sound for something else. This goes to show that awareness is always operating truly and purely, even in deep sleep.

But from this example, I begin to wonder whether the sound is ‘really’ coming from the pounding of rice after all. From a Buddhist view, it is not. In fact, the sound always starts in mind, and becomes associated with the things that most occur along with that sound. But the sound always arises in awareness, not from an external object. Regardless of what objects come to mind when I hear the sound, the source of the sounds is the same. The point here is to suggest that dreams and waking life are not necessarily so different from each other. They both involve mostly unconscious associations between distinct objects that touch one deeply. But regardless, the story Buddha talks about suggests how easily the mind can associate distinct qualities with each other that aren’t related. For example, I might associate maple syrup with a bad childhood memory, whereas someone else might see it as a symbol of Canadian pride. Which of these is the ‘true’ and correct view? Both involve associations of some kind, some mutually agreed upon and others derived in total solitude. But these associations are also subject to change, just as the maple syrup might acquire a different significance in the future. Knowing these things to be impermanent, one can see that the symbolic elements that dreams point to are also impermanent. In a sense, this means to me that while one can learn something in dreaming life about one’s karma, the contents of the dream itself do not say much about the true self. The true self only arises when I start to see a little bit past the phenomena to point to that which is aware of the sound, sights, etc.  in the first place.

So nowadays, when I hear the alarm bell in my clock, I am more concerned with the sound of the bell than the dream from which it dragged me…

References

The Surangama Sutra: With Excerpts from the Commentary by the Venerable Master Hssuan Hua. A New Translation (2009) Buddhist Text Translation Society.

Middle Paths

At the Buddhist class today, Venerable GuoSheng talked about the Twelve Links of Conditioned Arising as well as the Middle Path, particularly toward the afternoon session. Venerable GuoSheng is a wonderful speaker, and extremely funny, charming and engaging to listen to. And she organized the class in a way that balanced stories with concepts so nicely.

It is still difficult to wrap my head around the twelve links, and it will take me some time to integrate that teaching into my daily life. However, as I mentioned during the sharing, I developed a deep respect for the role of causality, particularly how the mental and physical realms interconnect. Just as space and time interconnect in some rather complex ways, so consciousness and material worlds also connect in similar ways.

I liked how the Venerable described how a person’s thoughts and intentions have a great part to play in creating positive relationships with others. Even when other people might not consciously know or understand it, there is a feeling that people get around others, particularly when a relationship is strained. To harbor negative thoughts toward someone else only perpetuates the vicious cycle, and it becomes illusory. Why? Well, I think it’s because whatever I am thinking now about someone is already gone. People are always changing, views are changing, and the conditions that make people think and say things are changing as well. So if I keep clinging to one image that I have of someone, I am only making my relationship to that person more strained than it needs to be. And sometimes even if the thoughts are positive about the person, I remind myself that they too relate to something that is past. And I should not rely on thoughts of the past situation to assess what is happening now.

The Venerable reminded me that the most constructive approach in relationships is to dedicate what we are practicing to the well-being of others, even those we might not agree with or get along with. It is wonderful how she reminded the class that even monastic teachers are human beings, and they too have emotions! I think the difference is attitude as well. To really know that the emotion is there in mind, but is not identical to the nature of mind, is so helpful. It provides a needed inner space to behold an emotion without endorsing it or suppressing it.

In the afternoon, the Middle Path became a topic for discussion. I used to think of the Middle Path as something similar to Aristotle’s adage, ‘everything in moderation.’ But after listening to the afternoon talk, I was forced to take a more nuanced approach to this concept in Buddhism. Middle, if I understand correctly, means not attaching to one extreme or another. The way I understand this is that every situation could be viewed either positively or negatively, or a mixture of both. The Venerable used the example of how DDM Toronto’s property was established. While some rejoice in its size and convenience, others wish for a space for overnight retreats. In this way, the situation of having a property is neither absolutely good nor absolutely bad. It is depending on the cause and conditions of the ‘knower’ who is making the assessment. If I contemplate the relativity of views both from the perspective of position (space) and duration (time), then there is no bedrock, fundamental view on the value of this property. The only fundamental aspect is change itself, which is always happening in our relationship to the new property. In this sense, I neither need rejoice nor bemoan the conditions. I just see them as they are unfolding, and I never conclude an absolute success or failure, given that conditions constantly change.

The views of conditioned arising and the Middle Path are not meant to be these doctrines that I map onto the world. Similar to the Four Noble Truths, I see these doctrines as ways of adjusting one’s attitude in practice. For example, contemplating the twelve links of conditioned arising is a way for me to see that my situation now is constructed out of a complex interplay of forces, which begins with ignorance of our condition and ends with lamenting the loss of the body (death). If I slow down my awareness, I see where I attach significance to my likes and dislikes. I also see how this attachment in turn arises from my belief that I have a body which is a distinct “I”. If there is no such thing as an I interfacing with the world, is there any need for craving and hatred to arise? In this way, I am less eager to conclude that the world is a fixed and solid place for my likes and dislikes. The world becomes a much more fluid and less solid place, where more possibilities can arise and disappear.

Last, the Venerable gave us a homework which asked us to reflect on the difference between a picture from when we were a baby to a picture of us now. I would like to conclude with a short paragraph about this exercise:

His eyes are barely opened as his tiny hand strokes his right ear. And he sits comfortably in a yellow blanket, maybe unsure about his fate or when he will be fed. Does he know, in this comfortable frame, where he will be and what life will be like? What will he think 40 years from now?

….He sports a tie and glasses, with a grey shirt. He smiles awkwardly into the camera, his neck off a little to one side. His face and demeanor speak of times of learning, times of tears, times of ignorance, times of renewal. He gives his best, he gets a few wounds, he survives. He works even if work means a lot of failure and embarrassment. He goes out even if it means risk of rejection or disappointment. He laughs, even if the body ends, who knows when…

Fully Confused

I want to start with a statement and try to find my way into it. The statement (which is more like a hypothesis at this point): The way to spirituality is not to arise out of confusion, but to be more fully, deeply confused.

 I think this statement means that one surrenders to a reality that one simply does not know, and to be with the utter anxiety of not knowing. This anxiety is a huge mental gap. It is perhaps close to that feeling I get when I lose something that I know must be somewhere, even close to me or on my body. And there is also the push from within that says, hey, you should know this. You have it. You are it. How did you not know? So you can imagine the utter anxiety this might provoke: of not knowing on the one hand, then knowing that one should know. And there is with this the accompanying fear that I might die not knowing what I already know, or at least have the potential to know. Maybe it is the fear of not really knowing who I am.

 All the knowledge of the world and even the universe is there to be received. Not taken or stolen, or borrowed, or bought, but just received, as a kind of gift that comes with open hands. Yet, I am convinced that I need to earn it by ‘knowing’, through some ritual that assures me I took all the right steps to know. In the Lotus Sutra, there is a story about the father who recognizes his son but, in order not to scare him, decides to hire him as a stable hand to do some menial jobs. Gradually, the son begins to learn that indeed, he is his father’s son. But he has to go through that whole process of discovering that he didn’t need to be the stable hand, or ‘move up’ in any position to get to knowledge of what he already is. I suppose the hardest part would be for the son to recognize that he doesn’t need to win the approval or the title of a son. This is similar to ourselves, perhaps, because we learn early on in life that we need to ‘acquire’ some special insight through some special effort. And if there is a point where all one’s efforts are exhausted or prove to be ineffectual, a kind of panic starts to ensue. Why isn’t this working for me? And the only way to deal with that panic is, right in that moment, to completely let go of trying to erase anything, to surmount anything, to progress to anything.

 But of course, this is a reality that I am not prepared for, as long as there is still “I”. It is only the promise of what awareness already is and reveals, in spite of the self’s protests.

 

 

 

 

 

Studying Afflictions

             On the second Friday evening of each month, we gather together with books and cups of tea. The room is surrounded by Buddhist books, and we sit together on soft chairs, books splayed in front of us, and trying to decipher the meaning of our teacher (Shifu’s) words. What does it say about our families, our relationships, or our loved ones? Why do we spend time together here, trying to make sense of the writings? What do people literally take home with them after coming to such a discussion?

            In one of the chapters in Chan and Enlightenment called “Chan and Mental Health” Master Sheng Yen talked about the importance of knowing one’s state of mind as a way of dealing with conflicts or difficulties/ And one person in the group had mentioned how hard it is to truly apply this concept in daily life. I think the reason is that normally, we take people to be separate from the mind. What I see tends to be ‘out there’, and I am not able to check in with the sensations I am experiencing at the time I form impressions. Even before I can see that I am afflicted already, I already see people and things around me as separate from me. In that way, I try to seek some pleasant experience for myself and avoid something that is unpleasant. From this experience of self/other, I start to desire. I want to control a certain experience or have things go a certain way.Of course, by the time all of that gets rolling, it seems too late to go back and calm the mind. That is because I am already caught up in the notion that I have to ‘go back’ to something that has always been there, in every experience.

         In fact, as Master Sheng Yen notes, one does not need to go back to some original source of peace ‘here’ as opposed to out there. Rather, it is the actual awareness of affliction that already brings us back to original awareness. The awareness of affliction is the actual way beyond it. Here is what is written in Chan and Enlightenment:

           When affliction arises in us, we should reflect on its source. By doing so, the affliction in     question will tehn diminish relatively. When we realizethat we are afflicted by craving, then its magnitude will naturally lessen. When anger afflicts you, if you can sit back, reflect, and become aware that you are angry—so angry that you feel utter pain—then ask yourself, “Why am I asking for suffering and looking for trouble?” Then your agony or hatred will be alleviated.Look into your mind as the source of your affliction rather instead of looking outwards at the environment (p.209)

 I think what this passage means is that I need to look deeply into not just the source of the affliction, but also its necessity. Looking at the source, I can see that all those emotions are coming to mind; they are not environmentally induced. One can see that in the different ways that people can respond to the exact same situation. But there is also the added question, “why do I have this suffering?” This is interesting, because I observe in myself how I often use the same negative thought over and over almost as if to punish myself. What Shifu is saying is that it is myself presenting myself with that thought, not anyone else. If I can see that I am the creator of those thoughts, then a lot of my emotions around those thoughts can diminish, because having these emotions would almost be like hiding something from myself, and then becoming upset for hiding it and forgetting where it is hidden.

 I agree with the practitioner that it takes a lot of practice  to apply this principle. But in a sense, there  is nothing we need to undo, as long as we know that even the vexed thought is just our own thought. I can be as upset as I want to be, and there is nothing in mind to tell me otherwise or to prohibit me from doing so. But as soon as I realize that there is really no necessity to be upset, then I can be at peace with it, whether I choose to be upset or not. I think the suffering comes from the false belief that I am forced to be upset, through either my own making or someone else’s/ Actually, if I realize it as a choice, I no longer need be afflicted by it. Realizing it as choice does not mean controlling the mind or thoughts. It means knowing that the thoughts are all of mind, and they are equal. The happy thought is not any more special or different from the sad or the angry thought. But because of the added view that these emotions ‘force’ me to be a certain way, I split myself in two and resent the emotion. The practice is about letting go of the splitting altogether and not preferring one emotion to the other.

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

Writing as a Meditation and Spiritual Practice

     I am reading an interesting article by Donald Graves called “What I Learned From Teachers of Writing”. I like Graves’s observations, because he is someone who has researched the effects of teaching writing on children, as well as the relationships between reading and writing. Perhaps not surprisingly, Graves observes that children “want to write…if we let them” (p.32), citing heavy curriculum demands as one reason why children don’t find the time to write. Not only this, but Graves also suggests that children learn through writing, and even evolve the notion of ‘point of view’ particularly in the process of sharing writing. What I gather from Graves is that writing is a deeply social process, in that it first gets children to articulate their own perspective, after which there is room to compare or articulate other perspectives around the personal narrative itself.

     Can one even say that writing is a moral and spiritual process? I guess it can be, depending on how it really goes for students, as well as how writing is taught. I recall that especially when I was a teenager, much of my writing was ‘personal’ to say the least, and contained strong opinions. I found that, at times, the more I wrote, the more deeply I felt my own position as a writer. In my second year of university, I had a philosophy professor who suggested to the class not to present a personal argument at all, but to expound on other thinkers and let their views speak for themselves. At the time, I was worried about this approach, because I had felt that it would be taking too much from other thinkers’ ideas rather than coming up with my own ‘original’ thought. But I think the professor’s point was to deepen how a writer sees other perspectives. This professor also pointed out the valuable suggestion that one should look deeply at another thinker’s views, rather than rejecting them outright or assuming that the other is wrong. The assumption that there is something deeply important and nurturing about another writer or perspective actually seems to change the experience of the discovery process, and it might even lead to a different style of writing altogether, which delicately explores contours rather than suggesting dichotomies.

 

      There must be ways to encourage students to adopt multiple points of view when writing. But at the same time, Graves is really emphasizing on how much students benefit from writing personal narratives. It seems that the best way for young people to write is to write what they know. Teachers, in this vein, would attempt to encourage children to write about the everyday things I their lives, rather than venturing too far off into the worlds of television, drama, video games, etc. This is where a tricky balance starts to appear. Too much emphasis on ‘others’ perspectives or the ‘creations of others’ can sometimes lead to only summarizing what others have said, in fear that too much creativity in interpretation might be ‘off the mark’ of what the other really meant. This approach overlooks the reality that all reading is an interpretation made by a specific person in a very unique life-world. In addition, I am afraid that an overemphasis on ‘other perspectives’ can lead to passivity and failure to develop ways to reflect on how it relates to one’s own situation in this current moment. On the other hand, I can see where over-emphasizing self-reflection or personal narrative might over-privilege the notion of the autonomous writer. And this can lead to attachment to ‘my’ perspective, as opposed to ‘theirs’—when indeed, subjects are always shifting in terms of what they know and experience.

 I think that one way to understand the process of writing is: if one writes enough, one can begin to see that one’s perspectives are bound to change, even if the change is only a change in mood or energy, or personal resources, etc. In that way, one might start to attune to the fact that there are no solid ‘subjects’ that stay the same at all times. People change at every second of life, and daily (or regular) writing might just start to capture glimpses of that darting and fleeting unknown, where there is no permanence or fixedness anywhere. One writes in order to write ‘out of and beyond’ the character one thinks one is. But it’s tricky to know how writers shift from the personal opinion to the view that perspectives are shaped by many invisible conditions. It takes wisdom or some kind of understanding to see that what I write now is just the result of prior conditioning, and that conditioning is bound to change from one instance to the next. Writing, like breathing or chanting, can become a meditation on shifting selves and impermanence. In that way, writing can tap into principles of how the universe functions.

Graves, Donald (2004), "What I Have Learned from Teachers of Writing" Language Arts Volume 82 No 2.

Seeing What's There

         There is a plan, and then there is the execution. Are they the same? Often not. After work, I go to the print store to see if I can scan pages from a Buddhist text to share with participants in the study group. I ask the clerk for a copy card, and she softly asks me a series of questions: how many pages I will scan, what other things I will do with the computer. She charges me $3.60 for the whole thing, and I have ten minutes to do my scanning. The scanner takes two out of those ten minutes to warm up. And when the first pages of the scanned document come up, they reveal a big black crease, almost like a black hole or an exploding fountain of ink in the center of the scanned page. It is like a modern, digitalized Rorscharch test. So I try again: only this time, I press down hard on the book, in the hopes that the pages I scan will surmount the heavy crease inside the book and show all the words. Surely, I reflect, there must be a trick to this… as I imagine a muscular arm crushing the book’s crease until all the pages clearly show through.

            My ten minutes are up, and not even two pages have been successfully scanned. The computer locks out. I have the option to go back to the clerk and refill my card, but I decide against it. I walk out of the store. I imagine that a photocopy of the pages would show up much more clearly. Then again, perhaps it is easier for me to simply type out the contents of the pages and send them via email. Not only this, but writing out a whole chapter would perhaps be the best way to learn the chapter, even though it would take me quite a while to do it. Or would it take that long? The possibilities float in my mind like lofty, airy feathers. But they all have to wait. I head to the gym to start a daunting workout.

            It’s hard to come back to the gym after a long hiatus away from it. I even hesitate after handing the gym employee my dusty old card dating back to 2009, thinking all the magnetic stuff probably rubbed off of it years ago. 2009 is almost seven years ago. Luckily, the card remained intact in my wallet, along with an obscure and oversized yellow card I had for the Track and Field center on Church Street. Though that gym was quiet and peaceful, there wasn’t a wide selection of weights or exercises to choose from when I had gone there. I spent much of my time on the track itself, but not much time on weights.

            Today’s workout is a mixture of today’s and yesterday’s pain. Today’s pain consists of the stretch and strain of biceps, as I overdo the arm exercises this time. Yesterday’s pain is just the shadowy acidic pain I feel in my legs every so often from cramps. The first half hour is great, but then I decide to overdo it on deadlifts. I feel the slight aches here and there in the sides, as I head to the mats to do sit ups, and every other ‘up’ exercise I can think of (leg ups, hand ups, head ups). When it’s quarter to eight, I decide to get changed and go home to continue writing and making posts in my new course. I walk home and reflect that it was a good idea for me to do some work out, especially the seven minute treadmill at the beginning. I feel better, and I seem to have more energy. But then, I also reflect that I can overdo it, thinking I need to overload my muscles with successively higher weights. I decide just to appreciate the fact that I feel better, even though I didn’t do as many reps as I wanted to or expected myself to do.

I manage to find time to write down more ideas I have about my final paper. And now I am writing this piece for the blog. Who is doing all this? Not sure. But whatever or whoever I think it is, can’t really be ‘it’ at all.

Why do situations never happen in the way that thoughts happen? Thoughts are quite often neatly packaged plans. They spell out the heart’s wishes, as well as the steps needed to fulfill those wishes. But situations are not the same as thoughts. Situations are just situations. The thought arises, “lift that 30 pound weight and swing it valiantly 12 times over your head”. And the situation that arises is, “I inch that 25 pound weight slightly past the forehead, 8.5 times”. We usually take sides with the previous thought, because it looks better. It’s the tall and handsome thought, the one that proclaims what should or could come next. It’s no wonder that the present situation is compared with the previous thought, and found wanting! But both thought and situation are just separate occurrences. They don’t relate. Neither thought nor situation has any say in how things play out. They are both just temporary phenomena.

            So what does it mean to just ‘see what’s there’? I guess it means, I see what I thought  I should do, then note what arises after that, then see that they are both just phenomena. The thought doesn’t determine what is happening in the moment. If I can just let go for a moment and see the phenomena as it arises after the intention, I see that it has its own effect. And I relax into that effect. If I have the thought, “do 12 reps” and only 8 come out….letting go would mean seeing that 8 reps has its own peculiar joy and existence. It doesn’t require the label of ‘worse’ than 12. It has its own unique being or effect. Even if I cannot do 12, 8 reps has its own benefit. It keeps me humble. It helps me not overshoot myself. It has its own release mechanism in my body. I can just see the unfolding situation as it is and find a way to appreciate it as it is. Not always possible, but it’s a kind of practice of letting go of comparing and judging based on a preconceived thought of what should happen in a situation.

Looking at Health and Illness

               I remember reading an article by Master Sheng Yen about how, when he went to a specialist, the specialist told him that he had found many impurities in Shifu’s blood. While this seemed to be alarming at first, the doctor later explained that all bodies have some kind of impurities within them, and that it is a natural part of life for bodies to break down in some places. Master Sheng Yen used this example to suggest that the body is a place where impurity is bound to occur. Even with the best of intentions, a person can still develop different illnesses or imbalances at any given time.

               

              As I read this passage recently, I wondered what it means from the daily perspective of life. In some respects, as strange as it seems, I think that it means that one can appreciate both health and illness. When I see the body functioning well and can enjoy strength of health, I can appreciate the way it’s been able to balance itself and clear away any obstructions. I can appreciate the ways that it has helped me function up to this point in my life. On the other hand, when the body is not well, I can also appreciate the fact that this is a sign of the body being impermanent, as are all human being’s bodies. In other words, I don’t blame myself, or think that I am somehow not supposed to have this bodily state happen to me. I try to see it as a natural experience that connects me with all human beings. In this way, I let go of feelings of self-blaming, or regret. I see the body’s state as always pointing to the impermanent, always fragile state of all things.

         

              Is it not often the case that people often only appreciate things when they lose them or they are in danger of losing them? I don’t know. I think that there are ways to better appreciate one’s physical and mental health. Perhaps the most important way would be to make life simpler. Having fewer desires for personal power, or fame, or great amounts of success, might be one way to be able to appreciate what is in front of a person, including one’s body. But appreciation does not keep the body from becoming ill. If I am over-attached to keeping the body in a particular state of being, this only makes the pain seem even worse. And it attaches a self to this body, as though this image I have of the body is ‘me’. Actually, this is just a thought of who I am. In that moment, it is definitely not me at all. It doesn’t mean that one shouldn’t take care of the body, since this is essential to a good sitting meditation practice. But it means that one should not think one is limited to the current image one has of the body as ‘myself’.

Just tonight, I talked to my previous gym trainer from years ago about the imbalances I felt in my low back. He was explaining to me how he too had also the same problems with his back, being in the construction business now. He even explained to me that he feels terrible when doing core exercises, even when he knows it has to be done. I was initially surprised, but also realized that nobody escapes from pain, even a person who has the highest level of strength. And it is something like a going concern. It doesn’t end just from achieving a certain level of fitness.

Ocean Waves

      The sky tonight was an eerie grey, with swirling clouds that looked purple in places. To the northwest, there was a patch of yellow light, which made it appear to be day and night in one single moment.  Heading up along a street called Vaughan Road, I pause to wonder where this road will take me. And I find that the road gets closer to the place I used to live in Rogers Road, with the tiny strip plazas and the coin laundries. I am nostalgic for the diverse cultural mosaic there, as well as the sense of aliveness in all the people and two storey apartments.

     Today, for some reason, I was thinking a lot about religious conflict. It might have been from my watching the movie Z for Zachariah, a film which explores the conflicts that happen when people get together to survive after a nuclear holocaust. There is a scene in the movie where the couple decides to dismantle a church that the main character’s father had built. The protagonist argues that God had kept her alive, and the continued survival depends on God. The other characters in the movie argue that God is in the heart, and the wood from the church could be used to build a water mill. Apparently science wins out in the end, if only temporarily. This part of the movie lead me to wonder: who is right in this situation, and is there a ‘right’ way? And I find that the conflict continued to linger for a while.

    

    When a group of people have conflicting views, the tendency seems to be on convincing the other side that their view is the correct one. I also found that to be a skill that people are encouraged to cultivate in school. In Seventh Grade, for instance, I had been asked to convince a class of twenty students that a certain brand of taxicab is superior to others. This was introduction to debate 101. And I remember feeling anxious that somehow the way I presented would not be convincing enough, as though identity were bound in that presenting.

    When I was meditating this morning, the thoughts just came and went like bubbles. If thoughts are seen as bubbles, are they worth defending to the death? Actually, the more I see the thoughts as equal in quality, the less substantial they seem. It is as though one were being provided continuous subway service every thirty seconds. With such availability, there is no need to be anxious for one train, as the next one will come in its stead. So it is with viewpoints. Views are a dime a dozen, and they constantly change with the tides, according to new circumstances or information. But one often forms an attachment to views when they perceive that they are somehow being threatened by what appears to be a conquering viewpoint. And one should be on guard here, because what is it that makes the view or the thought powerful? Thoughts don’t have minds of their own. It is this mind, the mind used to read these words, that brings thought to life.

     If I recognize the transience of thoughts, then does the sense of a bounded, fixed subject disappear? Maybe or maybe not. It makes me more sensitive to the fact that I am a subject. I am bounded by a subjective sense of body, and my position limits me in some ways. It’s the very knowing of this that could be liberating, because then  there is no illusion that there is a fixed, unchanging “Self” and “Other”.

Merciful Mind

    A couple of years ago, when I saw Thich Nhat Hanh at the Sony Center, I recall him saying that meditation is ‘coming home to our suffering’. I would like to explore this idea in light of what I read in Stephen Levine’s Becoming Kuan Yin.

    I think that different religions and spiritual practices will see suffering in different ways. For example, there are some religions that emphasize our kinship with a higher being,  and the reality that suffering turns one to that higher reality, or essence. I even recall the metaphor that Iris Murdoch has used in her writings, of suffering as a kind of separating the soul’s highest good from the soul’s dross. Suffering, under this view, purifies until people can see the real form of things. From what I have read and understood from Buddhism, suffering arises from attachment to certain kinds of views, thoughts, relationships, and opinions. If I find some space to disengage somewhat from these things, then I no longer really suffer from them.

    One of the biggest forms of suffering is the belief that a person has some special role to play in the universe that is somehow static and stays the same in all situations.  This belief is extremely problematic, because the roles we play are continually changing, as are the needs of self and others. When identities are continually shifting across different social situations, it’s hard to maintain the view that our identities are these static, fixed entities. One often needs to simplify herself in a sense and recognize what is driving her to seek an unchanging place or role in the universe.

If a person feels this privileged sense of place or importance in the world, it isn’t long before she or he starts to resent moments of pain or times when the self is simply not considered significant. How often have you been in situations where you didn’t feel significant to others, or as important as you wanted to feel? It has happened to me, and I am sure that it can happen to all beings sooner or later. But it seems that the pain of not having a static self that is considered ‘important’ (a kind of ego) is an inevitable part of life.

It takes a lot of kindness and inner forgiveness to let go of always wanting to live pain-free and powerful. Levine suggests that Kuan Yin embodies the element of turning toward pain itself with a spirit of mercy and forgiveness toward pain, when he remarks:

Kuan Yin suggests developing a merciful consciousness and sending loving-kindness, even forgiveness, into our pain rather that judging it as a punishment or a curse. Taking our judgment off the cross to embrace our pain instead of further rejecting it and condensing it to suffering. Forgiving ourselves for being, even involuntarily, in so much pain….Cultivating a merciful consciousness of that which suffering endures and the compassion necessary to equalize the imbalance. (p.87-88)

I like Levine’s choice of the term ‘merciful consciousness’, because it entails a new way of thinking or relating to one’s pain.  It means that one does not need to stigmatize pain, or think of pain as a form of punishment for what one hasn’t done, or hasn’t done well. And the converse of what Levine writes about is a person who only measures her worth by her ‘successes’, rather than being able to see one’s worth even in the midst of pain or illness.

      It would probably take many pages to expound upon what merciful consciousness could mean. One form of mercy is to take real quality time to really feel that one is okay, no matter how severe her pain happens to feel. By okay, I am talking about the feeling I genuinely give myself when I recognize the pain I am feeling in the moment, and don’t blame myself for having that pain. Even when the pain comes from my own decisions in life, it’s important to recognize that no being wants to suffer, and often the decisions I make come from a genuine desire to avoid suffering. Even when the outcome might not be what I expect, there is still a being who wants to get out of suffering, and that being needs love and mercy.

Levine, Stephen, (2013), Becoming Kuan Yin: The Evolution of Compassion. San Francisco, CA: Weiser Books.

Competition and Spiritual Life

During the study group meeting today, we explored the question of what kids of competition might be considered acceptable to Buddhists. According to Master Sheng Yen, competition “represents the nature of animals, not the nature of humans, least of all does it represent Buddha-nature. So this competitive attitude brings affliction to human beings.” (Chan and Enlightenment, p.208) While we were discussing this topic, something that came to my mind was, are there situations where competition becomes a social situation with which people simply need to contend? Or is ‘competition’ more like a state of mind that can be reversed or eliminated through a spiritual practice of compassion and tolerance?

It’s quite clear from our discussion and from the readings that people do supposedly need to create in order to survive. Competing with others and trying to view oneself in comparison with others has often been a strategy used to measure a person’s performance, particularly with Bell Curves in schools. It is said to ‘motivate’ people to create more or perhaps create the best product there is out there. But when I examine these premises more closely, I start to see how suspect they really are. When something is so ingrained in one’s mentality or education that it seems ‘obvious’, that obviousness is sometimes a clue that suggests an entrenched attachment to an ideology. After all, it might be easy to conclude that we need pressure from other people to bring out our personal best, when this does not necessarily bear out in reality. Most people don’t need any prodding to do something passionate, especially when they are not pressured by a final outcome.

To go deeply into a spiritual viewpoint, one must be able to account for the social ‘obviousness’ of competition, and to know that it is deeply a part of the social conditioning. It seems that the roots of this conditioning are the view that there is a separate which I call ‘mine’, as well as the view that I am measurable in terms of the outputs of other beings. What isn’t said here is that the belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more I see myself in relation to what others achieve, the more I am bound to work harder to keep ‘myself’ abreast and not fall behind. It is rare for someone to willingly risk ‘falling behind’ in order to penetrate the illusion of falling behind. And because it is a collective karma to believe that competition is required for human survival and progress, it is perhaps difficult for individuals to break out of that and see that all competition is relative to an isolated set of qualities. It just so happens that the more abstract, de-contextualized, and isolated the qualities or variables happen to be,  the further removed they are from capturing the efforts and thoughts of a real person. Numbers can only speak for these isolated qualities. The more a person describes them, the less they capture a person, and how they truly work, or what complicates the nature of work itself.

But there is a deeper legacy to competition in the sense that it has become such a ‘naturalized’ part of what is thought to be a human’s experience. People often can become afraid that without that tendency to compare one’s achievements to others, there would simply be no benchmark or point where one would feel impelled to contribute socially. With this view comes a lack of confidence that human beings can find motivation just in the mind itself, in the way of being and treating all experiences as part of ourselves. 

Where Unconditioned Comes From

    I came across a book by Stephen Levine called Becoming Kuanyin: The Evolution of Compassion. Besides being a beautifully illustrated book, this book sparkles with a refreshing, honest simplicity and a kind of understanding of what Kuanyin represents in the heart of Buddhism. I would like to share some thoughts about it.

   While Kuanyin refers to the bodhisattva of compassion, Levine goes deeper into the storied understanding of Kuanyin. He remarks, "To know KuaYin we need to let go of all that is unloved, judged, forged from old mind clingings. She is the unconditional love beyond the conditioned mind." (p.1). Most figures of love that I recall from Greek mythology represent the more conditional edges of love. I think, for example, of Hera, who jealously guards after Zeus. Even psychoanalysis extends the notion that love is something that is 'forged' (note the reference to love as a 'building') out of the materials of jealous longings for a parent. It is easy to see that the love in therapy is a love for something that is scarce, unpredictable, not always accessible, or simply unknowable. From that ambiguity comes the dichotomy of reason and emotion, light and dark, good and bad, and the struggle to love becomes the struggle to secure the 'better' half of another person.

    In contrast with dualistic notions of love, Kuanyin's love is said to be unconditional. As Levine notes, this unconditional love is only accessible when one lets go of 'old mind clingings': the habits of defense, craving and attachment that characterize human interactions. To do this, one must get to a place where the mind isn't really sullied by judgments. I suppose it's hard to appreciate or grasp this mind, but it can happen when the stillness of the mind becomes apparent, and one is not busy connecting thoughts together to create complex thoughts, judgments. In this sense, unconditional means that there is nothing to reject or to seek. Even those clinging thoughts that arise in one's mind can be 'beloved' when they are seen in context--that is, when they are seen as a part of one's true mind, and not connected in some complex way to each other. Here, I am reminded of what is written in The Surangama |Sutra, about the tying of knots. Buddha remarks to Ananda, "consider some worldly person who wishes to untie a knot, how will he know how to untie it? You have never heard of space being broken ino parts. Why? Spae has no shape or form. Therefore, it can neither be divided nor put together again." (p.175)

     I think that the old mind clingings are like untying the knots. Trying to untie the knots are the real issues that people have, not necessarily the old thoughts themselves, but it's the way we try to fix thoughts so that they go in a way that we like, Levine describes Kuanyin as an embodiment of coming back to the home of the true mind, and not using old attachments as a foundation for responding to things. Levine describes the 'edgeless presence, and I think this refers to the delicate ways of Kuanyin. Rather than trying to save some beings and condemn others, Kuaynin uses the power of soft illumination to see the thoughts as they are, and to know what conditions are behind those thoughts. Paradoxically, knowing this conditioning is itself unconditioned, because illumination is not based on any prior conditioning.

      Even though I am not close to embodying this kind of spiritual power of Kuanyin,it is useful to reflect on the qualities of Kuanyin, if not as an archetypal way of being. Appreciation and beholding are qualities of Kuanyin that are not easy to teach, and they often don't appear to be ways of knowing that are taught. More often, knowledge is often defined in terms of how well people can speak persuasively for one thing and against something else, rather then being able to behold all perspectives in a situation, even when they cannot be reconciled. Beholding tension and lovingly turning to it is especially difficult to embody, but this seems to be what contributes to the edgeless aspects of Kuanyin. Because thoughts don't really conflict with one another, they can be infinitely beheld without having to use domination to subdue some thoughts.


Levine, Stephen, (2013) Becoming Kuanyin: The Evolution of Compassion. San Fransisco, CA: Weiser Books.

The Surangama Sutra: With Excerpts from the Commentary by the Venerable Master Hssuan Hua. A New Translation (2009) Buddhist Text Translation Society.