Knowing Who We Are

   We had the honor of having Venerable Chang Zhai attending the Thursday evening meditation practice tonight. Chang Zhai is a wonderful nun whose soothing and quiet voice had an immediately calming effect on the group today. Her guidance had a lot of presence to it, and what I liked the most was the walking meditation. We had a slow walking session that was long enough to be like a sitting meditation. I enjoyed the fact that all I needed to do was settle the mind into walking, much the same way one would do on the cushion. I definitely enjoyed this process, and Venerable had remarked that it is best not to see the walking meditation only as a 'break' from sitting meditation. I certainly emotionally resonated from this practice today.
    One of the participants had asked the question: between negative experiences and deeply positive ones, what experiences are more important to meditation practice?  The Venerable's answer was simply that they are all equal. Whether the experience is deemed as positive or difficult, each experience one has while meditating can provide a portal into one's being and see how a person responds to situations. When I asked Venerable to clarify what a person can do with this kind of knowledge, she remarked that there are times,for instance, when serious pain might elicit seeing a doctor. However, most of the time, one's reaction to pain is based on attachment to the body. There are certain states of feeling that one deems as undesirable, because they compare that state of mind to something better. Perhaps the memory of some pleasant feeling arises and gives a person the impression that this peaceful feeling is what is needed to arise. So they use that pleasant sensation as the 'benchmark' through which to measure subsequent sensations. But meditation is not really about this. Rather, it is really about learning to abide in all the states of being. I liked Venerable Chang Zhai's point that meditation is a window to know who we are. If a person uses this attitude to discover oneself rather than just trying to populate one's mind with pleasant experiences, then the meditation becomes a sort of welcome adventure.
   I think that the key defining characteristic in this practice is clarity, rather than focusing on one emotional state. As long as I am very clear about emotional states in particular and accept them, I am not attaching to them. Is this not a paradox? It is, but in a way, attachment always comes from the illusion that these states are permanent fixtures rather than just states of being that come and go. As soon as I fix on even one, that 'becomes' who I think I am, and that view colors the way I see the world. To take a simple example: if I suddenly get fixated on the number of tasks I can do at work, I then measure myself (or sense of self) based on the number of things I can do. If I cannot succeed, due to whatever causes and conditions arise, I then start to feel panic for not achieving the basic sense of self-hood I am creating. But if I relax into the situation, I then start to see that all the things I do are not set in stone, and do not determine who I am, They are based on many conditions.
     Does it make sense to say that everything that happens to a person is based on free, personal will? Some philosophers would say so. But it is perhaps not the most practical thing to think. While it's important to be determined and diligent in what one sets out to do, it makes no sense to do it with at tense, win/lose mentality. Otherwise, one will start to miss out on the fact that a lot of cause and conditions determine the outcomes of situations. I am not in total control over what I think or feel at any given point in time. But if I open a space to be very clear about what's happening inside me and accept it fully, I may not need to operate from a win/lose mentality. In this way, there is an opportunity to learn about myself rather than set up impossible standards to fulfill.