Does Life Require Attachments?

 During the group practice, we talked about life and death as well as the meaning of huatou practice. And one of the ideas that came out was this question: does attachment equate with life? In other words, does life somehow require attachments in order to perpetuate itself? I think the question is a bit complicated by the related question, namely, is 'perpetuating life' a value in itself?  
  I think that first and foremost, having attachments is not the same as loving life or loving in general. Attachment is more like a kind of mental prison that arises when a person objectifies desires. For instance, if I have attachment for a specific food, I invest energy into that food that is actually my own energy. It isn't the food that is saying to me 'hey, I am delicious'. Rather, it is the mind that endows the food with those qualities. Only through the right conditions arising in mind can food even be said to be delicious. If a favorite food is served on a nice plate, it looks appetizing, but what happens when the same food has been sitting outside for a week, and is served on a used paper plate? Without fully knowing the conditions that arise to create the experience, we must take the object as our own desire. But we don't recognize that it is only through the workings of cause and condition that something can appear desirable. Attachment is thinking that an object has a special power which is may or may not have independently of conditions.
    Can love or like exist without attachment? I think the answer is, yes, it can and does exist, because love is an awareness of the conditioned nature of our loved ones. Knowing that a person's child will grow up, change, grow old and die does not make them less lovable, even though they are subject to so much change. In fact, it's been said that the true marking of a love is that it survives the natural changes of life, through trust and a deepening understanding of self and others. But if I felt that the loved one has to stay a certain way forever (such as a five year old child remaining as a five year old), this would be attaching to a thought that is actually not meant to last. Rather than allowing the child to grow and my attitudes to change and evolve over time toward the child, I might end up fixating on the image I have of her or him at a certain time and age in life. I think that would be a kind of attachment, because it wants to fix our current state of being to that thing as though it were a permanent state of being.
   For this reason, I think that less attachment means more, not less, love. It means that I have more room to see a person in all their dimensions and to let go of my personal hang-ups about how I would like that person to behave, even though I might still have preferences in that direction. It doesn't mean that I don't desire the other person any less or wish them any the less for happiness. Rather, this love has an ability to be flexible, to grow and to account for all the stages, ups and downs of another person/people's life. I think that would be a love that grows with time, rather than diminishing when the conditions fade away. But that is another reason why contemplative practices (such as meditation) can help people to love better by offering a space that is different from the usual attachments one has. I am not even suggesting that one let go of attachments, but rather that a person makes room for other things besides attachment, just as an artist has room on her canvas for many scenes, colors and textures.
   On a certain level, I do believe that life itself is an attachment. I would say that attachment is an unavoidable aspect of life. But I think there is always room to cultivate more than attachment, and this accounts for the creative arts and other novel ways of being in the world. They are precious evidence that one can live through challenging oneself to see more to life.

A Dream Within a Dream

A fish realizes that it is a dream within a dream.
Then: who is dreaming about the fish?

The above was something that came to mind while reciting huatou in the group sitting. In meditation, one is never encouraged to take these thoughts seriously. But , just before the first question arose, there was a terrible wrenching feeling: if I let this body go, what will be left of 'me'? What's there to hold onto? But then even the realizer is also a dream. What makes the dreamer different from the dream or 'more real' than the dream?

In the second question, there is persistence in asking, who exactly is watching the dream? If this question isn't raised, one is lulled into thinking they have 'figured out' the dream, only to have a residual belief that there is a separate subject 'observing' the dream. But no matter how hard one tries to reach the subject, all that is experienced is inside the dream itself. If this stage isn't reached, there is still an attachment to the 'being' who is watching the dream. And that too is an illusory thought.

If every thought that emerges is just another delusion or false answer, where does one go from there? Maybe the best way is simply to pray that the answer will spontaneously arise, but not from intellect. Why does prayer make sense here? It's not the prayer that supplicates to an invisible god, but the kind of prayer uttered when one's self is utterly cornered: there is simply no way to turn anymore, and all pretenses are dropped. There is even a desire to be in the question long enough that attaching to the dream doesn't happen again. Again, the though emerges, clear and simple:

May all beings awaken from their collective dream.

Inevitably, the bell rings. And there is no answer. In some Hollywood version of this dream, you might have the meditator who reaches satori (enlightenment) simply in hearing the sound of the bell. But most of the time, it's just a bell. What's different this time? Only that there is space in mind for a bell to be a bell, instead of pointing to a desired state of being. And the second difference is that, this time, the bell belongs to no one.

When All That Dust Settles...

   I walked through Fairview Mall after work to have my cellphone replaced. It seems that, at least according to the amiable salesclerk, my cellphone is simply getting too old, and too slow to accept the latest downloads of new updates. All this information reminded me that phones these days are connected to huge networks, where information is continually being exchanged. And the more information is downloaded, the more complex the phone ends up being. I almost became nostalgic for that long-begotten time when my cellphone was only good for the occasional text. Being permeable to any influence can definitely slow things down, as well as complicate them considerably.
   There is something about technology that offers an interesting metaphor into spirituality. I am thinking about that difficult balance between allowing things to arise according to present conditions, and not allowing mind to be stirred by them. If technology is subject to 'slow down' through the latest downloads, I can only imagine how this can also affect the 'hardware' of one's own brain and body. But here is an interesting question: when the brain and body 'slow down' from fatigue or over-use, does the mind also 'slow down'?
    This question interests me, because any time we talk about 'slow down' or 'speeding up', we are seeing that behavior relative to something else. When we tell a person to 'hurry up', we are often only looking at the person's behavior relative to a thought of where we need to be at a certain point in time. But what would that person's behavior look like from the perspective of the number of things she needs to do per day? If I see the whole person, it's not so easy to tell whether the problem is that of 'needing to hurry up' or 'needing to slow down'. This is because 'hurry up' and 'slow down' are relative to a king of arbitrary reference point. And this reference point often overlooks the kinds of conditions that might be influencing something.
    The scary thing is, if for a moment one were to see the relativity of time, there would be almost nothing to hurry toward. But when all the dust settles, does mind not seem to emerge more clearly?

What to Carry

     Today, the load was heavy in my bag in the morning, as I headed to the library to do finishing touches on a chapter I am working on. And for the early evening walk, I decided to return with am much lighter weight. And this simple reflection leads me to wonder about how much we can carry in life and how much we need.
     I have found that when my knapsack is heavy, it means that there is a lot in my mind: things I feel responsible for, errands, and meeting that require a laptop. And when I am more reflective of it, I realize that there are only so many things I can do well in a single day, and perhaps it's best to be honest with myself on how much I can realistically do for myself.
    I think a lot of this relates to the topic of mindfulness. I ask myself: if I give myself too many things to do, do all these things make me happier? Actually,  the real happiness is not coming from the number of things I can finish in a day, but from the awareness itself. For instance, if I am doing something haphazardly, or only following wandering thoughts, I cannot fully savor the experience I am having in front of me. It is as though the mind were caught in a moment that has already passed. The same metaphor can go with carrying a large weight up a mountain. Although that weight may contain all the possessions one could possibly require on a long trip, the load itself only adds an extra burden to the journey of climbing the mountain. It is as though the whole purpose and meaning of the journey is subverted in favor of hypothetical doubts about one's ability to survive with little.
     The funny point about this is that it's not necessarily about quantity. It is more a way of being with individual moments in time. If I am relating only to thoughts that have already passed, I see the present in light of the past, and it starts to look unsatisfactory. But if my mind is resting in whatever arises now, then there is no need for me to compare to the past event. Then the quality of that experience is fresh and new. This is living in a way that is not burdened by what has already past, but has faith in the mind that is ever 'here'.

Do We Need Magic?

  During the Surangama Sutra discussion group, I had a question, and that is: when a mind is truly aware and cultivating equanimity toward all situations, is it really necessary to use magic to influence things? The reason I ask this question is that the Sutra is describing in some detail how reciting a particular mantra, the Surangama Mantra, will eradicate all kinds of obstructions and lead a person to accomplish her or his wishes. I wondered, if a person reaches the point of no longer 'wishing' anything for herself, is magical power even necessary at that point? Or is 'magic' really just a way of thinking that is reserved for unenlightened beings, similar to Arthur Clarke's observation that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?" And here is my other question: does the true understanding of something (or everything) make things less magical? What if all beings in the universe had exactly the same kinds of powers. At that point, would there be any need to be impressed by magic, let alone 'believe in' magical things?
    I tend to be less inclined to follow the esoteric path, which stresses magical abilities and rituals. The reason is that I think 'magic' tends to be a relative view. As I suggested above, things only appear magical either because there are no known explanations for it, or it is new...or if only certain people have access to the power. Arthur Koestler talks a lot about this in his book, Lotus and the Robot, where he chronicles some of the magical powers that people in India witness in yogis and gurus. Examples would include levitating, walking on water, etc. My mundane observation is: truly, if everyone had access to such a power, would it seem magical? It might seem strange ad unexplainable, but it's doubtful if a well-known or familiar process would be deemed magic just because there is no (known) causal explanation for it.
   But from the Buddhist view, would having magical powers be wonderful? I am sure that there are beings who have had to tap into latent psychic energies to save others in dire situations, and this would be an act of compassion. However, this is quite different from equating magic with a kind of intelligence or wisdom power. Even though I have heard of teachers performing incredible feats, I doubt that I could ever equate magic with wisdom. This is especially true in cases where the teacher prides her or himself on having magical abilities. Wisdom isn't necessarily about showing one's psychic power so much as knowing when or when not to use such powers.
    But, to return to my original topic, 'Do We Need Magic?', I believe that it's exactly when a person lets go of being awed by magic that the world itself becomes 'magic'. It sounds strange, but my thinking is that people normally evoke magic when they need security of some kind, such as through more material things or escaping painful situations. But no matter how much magic is used to obtain what we want and avoid what we don't , the pattern is still following the same samsara which got us into this world in the first place. In fact, magic only reinforces the mind's tendency to seek greater influence over other beings, as though there were a self in charge of everything that happens around it. On the other hand, when one has truly let go of wanting good results and getting rid of 'negative' ones, the world suddenly becomes everyday magic. That is, everything starts to go 'my way' because there is no longer a 'my' anymore, and all the options start to look like the true mind.

No Single Cause for Anything

 A walk down Cherry Street makes me realize that it's been a year now since I had last gone on this adventure. A lot has changed, but in this area, much has also stayed the same. I suddenly notice that what used to be a golf driving course has now expanded to include a drive in movie theatre. It's one of the many things I hadn't noticed previously but am now privy to take in with my senses awakened. I begin to wonder why there are situations when I am able to see a lot of things, and others where the view somehow fails me.
    The modern life, particularly medicine, tends to treat the body as the central point where things begin and end. I was reflecting today how a person can visit a doctor and complain of symptoms such as poor concentration, sad moods, and low energy. And after a short 10-15 point questionnaire, the person is diagnosed with depression or anxiety, which then calls for a specific prescription. But throughout this diagnosis, have other factors been considered? Even the weather can have an effect on one's mood, as well as social pressures, work stress and family situations. So why are doctors quick to diagnose a person's pain in terms of a chemical imbalance in the brain?
    One of the issues is that of assuming that a person knows exactly where the source of their pain or challenges are. The mind is tricky in the sense that whatever it alights upon comes to seem quite real, when it is often momentary. For instance, if a person has read an article stating that jaw issues can cause certain kinds of headaches, the person might automatically associate headaches with jaw pain. No sooner does this arise then they will start to ask for special surgery on the jaw, assuming that the jaw causes headaches. But even the die-hard scientists in the world would agree that there is no real single-factor theory for anything that arises. There may be special tendencies for headaches to start in a certain area of the body, but these tendencies also need to be activated, usually by some social stress or position of the body.
   A similar kind of thing often happens in meditation. I found in my own meditative practice that I sometimes get into 'fix it mode' with whatever pains or problems are arising in mind. In other words, I want to do something to fix the pain, at which point I start to hypothesize on the most effective methods and positions to deal with the pain. Little do I understand that looking for single-cause answers is only driving me to a frantic form of suffering. It usually arises when I alight upon a potential problem, reach out for the solution based on the problem, and then assume that this phenomena is the source of all my problems. But, as I suggested above, there could be many mitigating factors in determining why something works in some situations. The world does not operate in such a linear manner of single cause/single effect. In fact, the actual mindset of seeking out fundamental causes can rive a person to even greater amounts of suffering.
    Perhaps the best solution in these cases is no solution at all. Instead, one way to reflect on our challenges or illnesses is to actually contemplate the many factors that exacerbate or add to the challenges. It's only when I reflect on the multiple-conditioned aspects of a problem that I can let go of trying to attribute it to an 'enemy' cause. Seeing the nuanced and rich layers of how we behave can also make us much more tolerant and forgiving toward ourselves and others as well.

Holding a Door

   I decided to perform a kind of simple experiment today:  I decided to hold the door for many subway patrons, even though it was not necessary for me to do so for so many people. I wanted to demonstrate for myself what it is like to be 'last' and to yield to others. I found that in the process of doing this experiment, not that many people stopped to thank me for my gesture. In fact, there was one person who decided to open the other door herself, rather than allowing me to hold the door for her. I recognize that holding the door for someone else can be way too eccentric, particularly if the other person is a stranger. And there is also an element of intrusiveness to it. For instance, I notice that some well-intentioned homeless people will hold a door for Tim Horton's patrons on Yonge and Bloor, perhaps in expectation of a tip. I find myself feeling awkward in this situation, and sometimes the "kind" gesture seems imposing. I reason that perhaps the kindest gestures are the ones that are really done for their own sake, rather than with the intention of reciprocation. Not only this, however, but the whole manner in which a person holds a door can determine its significance. If I am holding the door only to deface or deprecate myself, I need to be careful that the 'defaced' self doesn't also become a kind of fixed identity that I carry with me, either for pity or some other reaction. In other words, the selfless awareness of opening the door needs to be sincerely known and felt.
   The point of holding a door (among other gestures for strangers) is not necessarily to win the stranger over to you or y9our view. Nobody really wants to be treated as a potential convert, even to the church of Kindness! I think the value of holding a door is that it shifts away from the door-holder's self-reference toward a formless space where two or more people are meeting and doing things in a state of mutual concern. I think Heidegger referred to this state as 'sorge' (not to be confused with "storge" which is Greek for familial love). If a person is really in that moment, then there isn't 'me' holding a door for 'you'. It is just a natural occurrence which is the result of people harmonizing their energies in light of the physical world. To hold a door is to conserve the energy needed to lift the door again. This kind of energy conservation is being done all the time, and it flows with the way people co-exist.
   But as soon as I 'expect' gratitude or a smile for holding the door, I lose that perspective of seeing me, you and the door as equal. Instead, I hold another thought before the experience and desire the thought over and above the experience. So I can experiment using the door experiment with how my mind reacts to not being reciprocated. Do I become resentful? Do I burn inside? Do I start imagining what a 'more grateful' person would do, and idealize that example over what just happened? All of these are just thought projections that only add more confusion and suffering to the simple experience. But  if I have faith that there is something bigger than the combination of all these parts (me, you , the door), then something miraculous happens: a space opens up in mind where I am not attaching to any of the elements. I start to expand when I realize that there is something much more than these fixed phenomena which I label as 'me', 'you' and the 'door'. Just what that 'bigger' thing is, nobody can really say, but it is the promise of a bigger unity which can prevent people from attaching to life's disappointments and unreciprocated actions.

flexible practice

  I am thinking about this metaphor, "Not biting off more you can chew", and how this is applicable to me. Just after meditation tonight, I had a conversation with the leader about the notion of making Chan (and spiritual practice) truly one's own. It's not so easy as following a formula, and the conversation constellated around this idea that each person will have a very different spiritual struggle which can't be replaced using a pat answer or formula. When there are simply no formulas.
   It may be tempting to say that only the very strong or focused person can embark on a spiritual practice, but this can lead to a very nihilistic attitude. A somewhat different attitude might be to do whatever is most suitable for a calm mind, and not to attach to fixed notions of what a spiritual practice is  supposed to mean or be. I think this flexible way of looking at  spiritual life can make it much more playful, and allows for greater risks than thinking that there is only one way up a mountain.
    Is spiritual practice an 'art', in this sense? I believe so, but I also think that some amount of commitment is required to engage in practice. If one's practice is too loose, it becomes no different from ordinary and everyday attachment, where a person gets hooked on the same story lines: she or he did this to me, I don't like this, etc. To keep going in this way is to lead to suffering, regardless of whether one accepts these thoughts or not. But on the other hand, a very tight practice can be quite exhausting, and it looses the point that what we are seeking is already very deeply present; it doesn't really require an object of any kind.

Mind as a Mystery

  If one's mind is already as perfect as Buddhism often says it is, why do we need to rest our thoughts on the breath or a specific object in meditation? This questions seems like a simple one, but in fact, it is not so simple to explain or describe. After the sitting practice this evening, a newcomer to meditation had remarked on how staying with the breath had felt quite boring, and she felt herself drifting into wandering thoughts. It's one thing to explain what happens over time when the desire for more thoughts and stimulation starts to settle. But again, I go back to this question: if mind is already inherently perfect, do we even need to get rid of the 'bored' feelings?
   I think that the method (or object) of meditation is so necessary, because it trains people to use their mind to contemplate in specific ways. One of our teachers often uses the analogy of computer software and viruses: while it's true that the computer's operating system is always intact, it's the software itself that can distort the way the computer operates. That operating system always remains pure in its action, but it gets twisted into all sorts of notions and powers which determine what it will do. In a sense, settling the mind allows me to enjoy the mind's original nature; neither attached to things nor negating them, not limited to experiences yet encompassing them. It is as though one knows deep in one's heart that they are out of jail, and it fills them with so much joy that they are willing to visit the jail again to free the other prisoners. You work with the phenomena, but you are not so bound emotionally by the phenomena. You know that this phenomena  does not define who you are, but we are also not defined by 'getting away' from phenomena either.
    For instance, during the meditation tonight, I had initially been bombarded with so many wandering thoughts. It was hard to settle the mind. But over time, I started to inquire through the method of huatou: just what exactly is this mind that I am supposed to be 'settling'? What does it really look like anyway? Can I point to anything and say, 'this is it', or  'this is my true mind'? And then over time, it just became more mysterious: the whole process of trying to settle what I can't even really grasp. It's a bit like trying to understand the physics of a cloud. It would be a great dishonor to the cloud to try to reduce its being to an equation, so think of the mind. At that point in the process of using huatou, it no longer seems to matter so much whether this mind is settled or not, since the meaning of mind becomes so much harder to grasp. Even 'settling' the mind seems to be one function, while having scattered thoughts is another. The two functions never intersect at all; they are just choices that we choose to engage in.
    I think that through this process, things do settle. But I think it's most likely because I am not so much focused on individual functions as the totality of this mysterious and changing process called mind. The point of the repeated method is not to cram mind into one tiny space, but to allow people the platform to behold the mind.

Dreaming of Waking Up

We were talking in his small, almost completely bare, and not too clean cell. There was no furniture, not even a book--only a sleeping-mat on the floor and a primus-booker, on which he boiled his rice himself. When I asked him about the ultimate purpose of spending his life in this fashion, he answered with a single word: 'Self-realization'. I asked him what came afterwards. He answered: "If one dreams that one shall soon wake up, one does not ask oneself what one will do in waking life.'

from Arthur Koestler, The Lotus and the Robot, p.85

The passage from Koestler interests me for several reasons. Throughout Lotus and the Robot, Koestler encounters Indian traditions of yoga, and starts to reflect on the qualities of teacher and student such as the charismatic relationship. Magic often prefigures into these relationships, as the student tends to see the teacher as having god-like powers. The teacher in turn can draw her or his power from the student's awe, and Koestler even reports that the roles in this relationship can often switch or interchange. There is something playful and even somewhat provocative about the descriptions of these kinds of relationships. However, they are never provocative to the point of encouraging unhealthy attachments.

But if, as the speaker in the above quotation suggests, everything is a dream from which one will soon wake up, are these roles we play to be taken so seriously? During the 2 day Living Chan retreat, Fashi had talked about the ability to be "Kinged", that is, the ability to allow myself to yield to someone else, or to make them king. Now why is it so necessary to do this? It's necessary because it allows me to get over the idea that "I" am only in this body, and nowhere else. I think that it's only in light of seeing life as a dream that such a position is tenable. After all, people tend to want to have their way about things, particularly if that way leads to their own comfort and happiness. The person that Koestler describes in the passage is a bit opposite, because he is looking toward a time of awakening when all he sees are just impermanent moments in time.

If people realize that even their roles are impermanent, are they going to make a big deal if their partner decides to take the remote, or take charge of what they will see? I think in this way, power can be seen as not pointing to static relationships or roles. Rather, they are pointing to combinations that allow people to lessen the grip on ego. But the problem is that power as a static concept needs to be transcended. If this doesn't happen, both parties will be deceived by the appearance of separate beings who have these separate powers. In actuality, both beings (me and you, king and subject), are parts of the same dream and are inseparable from the dream itself.

The problem, as Fashi pointed out in both retreats this June, is that people typically attach to their comfort within the dream. As a result, there isn't an opportunity to take risks and allow oneself to challenge the dualistic view of 'this is me, my wants, my tastes, my favorite emotions', and 'that is you: the provider of my comforts or the person who threatens to take away my comforts, or the oblivious 'neither of the two'." This kind of rumination leads to the view that this is not a dream at all but a kind of arena where people fight to get what they want. And in doing so, people never realize that the dream will end (all things are impermanent after all), including all the things one attaches to as one's self: one's likes, one's preferences, and so on.

Koestler, Arthur (1960), The Lotus and the Robot. London: Four Square Books.

Seeing Generously

When I read Buddhist texts, the emphasis on generosity tends to be around doing selfless deeds with intention of benefiting others in some way. The basis for generosity tends to be depending on the person's character and needs. I am often fond of reading the passage in the Surangama Sutra where Guanyin is said to give according to everyone's individual goals, paths and needs. I think this is hard to do, and at times I think that the abilities of a bodhisattva depend on a deep appreciation for the nuanced ways of individuals: how they are, how they suffer and what they must go through as unique beings in the world. Without that ability to see into the way people really feel, it can be difficult to meet their needs. I have to say that I am not even close to being at that level. As a beginner, I can only really start with those with whom I am most close, and have humility to know that I might not always know how to treat others with whom I have little acquaintance.
    I came across a wonderful passage in Troy Jollimore's book, Love's Vision, where he describes an idealistic attitude toward loved ones and how they can best be treated:

It is no wonder...that we think it important to be loved if to love someone is to place her at the center of one's world. For to be valued in this way, to be installed at the center of a lover's universe, is to have one's reality and individuality truly and fully acknowledged. Only the lover, after all, looks closely, carefully, and generously enough to truly recognized the beloved in all her individuality. The great horror of not being loved is that one ceases to matter, that the mental and emotional events that fill one's days are not really events at all, for they happen only in one's own mind and not in any part of the outside world. (p.89)

As I was reading this passage, I wonder, is the model of the ideal lover the same as the model of the ideal bodhisattva? Hardly so, I suppose, because according to Jollimore's description, the lover is someone who takes the loved out of a perceived 'interior' that is away from the outside world. Actually, a person who is on the bodhisattva path would probably not distinguish between inner and outer so much, since both 'inner ' and 'outer' arise from the same mind. And the main purpose of the bodhisattva ideal is not necessarily to elevate one person's experience over others but rather to liberate others from attachment to what she considers to be 'her' experiences.  

But on the other hand, the kind of attentiveness that the lover shows for the beloved can be similar to a special kind of compassionate mindfulness, which sees a person in all her or his dimensions rather than only one or two things. What a doctor sees is often based on her training in medicine, and the same kinds of limitation or conditioning affects how others see things, whether one is a Christian, a Buddhist, a Marxist, or whatever. But if a person sees with fullness, she or he is not attached to any 'ism'. At that stage, the person is no longer trying to filter what she or he sees in someone else through a particular ideological lens or preferred view of things. Rather, there is almost a kind of 'seeing for the sake of seeing' or pure illumination which arises when a person lets go of trying to control another person to suit an agenda or hold onto something. Maybe this is close to wisdom, and I think it's possible for this kind of thing to happen in close relations with others. This is a kind of seeing with generosity, seeing without self. Hard to do, but a noble way to look at love.

Jollimore, Troy (2011), Love's Vision. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Creating New Situations Using Mind

  During the second day of the Living Chan Workshop, we had explored the different ways of responding to situations, without falling into the usual mistakes of dualistic thinking (such as creating a self and an other, confusing the image with the true person, and so on). I started to realize afterward how difficult it is for me to stop myself from falling into the various traps that arise in the mind when we take the image to be something that has awareness. For instance, I was thinking: whenever I have some conflict with someone else, how much of that conflict really happens in face to face situations, and how much through the arising of an image in mind?
     One thing I really got from this workshop was to contemplate that all images are creations of mind. Just as an image has no awareness of its own, so it would not make much sense for me to treat these images as capable of harming me, unless my awareness allows them to do so. The problem is that I hardly ever stay with the awareness of images as images: instead, I have the tendency to embellish those very same images to the point where they seem to be an actual person. How often do you find yourself having an imaginary conversation with someone, only to realize that this same conversation is just an amalgamation of memories from the past?
    I think that it's quite valuable to see how the mind is set free once I begin to realize that my memories are not bound to specific encounters with people. I can play with the phenomena, to the point where they are storied anew. An example would be reframing an encounter with a difficult relationship as a student-teacher one. Could it be that those who create challenges for us are also in a strange way  our own teachers, here to help us to overcome certain habits? Much of this reminds me of neurolinguistic programming (NLP) which operates from the same principle of being able to flexibly vary one's thoughts to fit situations or reframe perceptions of things. There are simply an infinite variety of ways of interpreting one's experiences and encounters, simply because what we experience are not discrete, fixed beings which are forcing us to think in fixed ways. In this way, memories become the medium through which experiences can be created and recreated in accordance with new attitudes and ways of seeing.

Education Beyond "This Body"

    During the Living Chan workshop today, I was astounded to realize how much doors open up when one is not taking one's body to be oneself. In fact, there is so much in the universe that is ignored if I only focus on the body. During my walk home from Willowdale to Steeles, I thought about how the sense of wonder is too frequently ignored when education only focuses on feeding, clothing and 'advancing' one's own body and being over and above other beings. In fact, there is so much more to the universe than this, and it almost seems as though education is only preparing people to advance themselves over others. It's a survivalist mentality, and in a sense if a person is not mistaking themselves for this limited body (seeing the whole universe as their own experience), one does not have a limited life. It's a life that goes beyond one's personal resume, but it's hardly a confining or isolating life for that reason.
    Do the ideas of 'not taking the body to be me' contradict success ideals in the schools? For instance, if I choose not to limit myself to protecting and advancing 'this body's interests', does this mean I will simply do nothing in life? I argue that this would not be the case. I think, on the contrary, being too anxious about one's body tends to limit how one behaves in life. I remember years ago, I was taking two night courses and happened to go out to see a play one night. I was so preoccupied with my studies during the play that I could not fully be in that moment to enjoy it. And I found later that I really didn't need to be so obsessed with studying since I knew the material fairly well. By worrying about the future, I missed an opportunity to see the abundance of what is presented before me at every given moment. I think that similarly, when we limit our lives to personal advancement, we somehow impoverish ourselves and our possibilities to be and learn in the world.
     There is no actual way to truly determine what things 'advance' our bodies when the nature of competition in the world is constantly changing. I might think that computer programming is the way of the future, but if everyone thinks so, will I then have a job in it? Education might increase my likelihood of succeeding in this area, but there is no guarantee. The point is that it's sometimes better not to attach what I am learning and experiencing to a permanent body or livelihood. At best, I can say that the field or education can prepare me in certain ways, but it's important not to attach to the thought that I need to be a specific way in order to survive. After all, that in itself is just a thought.

the courage not to be

  Paul Tillich coined the term "The Courage to Be" to refer to the faith that one's life is ontologically meaningful. I started to also think a little bit about the opposite, which I refer to as the courage 'not to be'--that is, not to necessarily affirm one's existence as a separate entity. But I think that this kind of courage needs to be explained, as it is not to be confused with nihilism, or the belief in nothing.
    For instance, does the view of 'non being' mean that one simply does nothing or sees oneself as 'a nothing'? I think this is a kind of trap, because there is a self lingering in there, namely the self that desires non-being. Non-being has a kind of effect of creating a kind of 'nihilistic self' which thinks it is alone in the universe. But when I reflect on where I have gone in my life, I don't think I could say I have ever existed totally in isolation. There are always supports beyond this body which sustain my being and are inseparable from who I am. So this courage 'not to be' could not possibly mean that I have the courage to isolate myself.
    I think a perhaps more nuanced vision of the courage to \not be' is to see that one is never separated from anything. It might therefore start with an inquiry into where 'this body' really begins and to honestly see that there is never this ultimate separation of all things. But this takes a lot of courage because it means giving up a comforting illusion in the self that chooses only pleasant things and shies away from what is uncomfortable. Actually, even discomfort is part of one's real being. But if I take all of it to be me and don't reject it, I might find that nothing is terrible, and I can face everything with a kind of happiness. But if I only identify with pleasurable experiences, I limit my sense of being, to the point where survival depends on preserving emotional comfort or pleasure.
   The important point, I think, would be not to limit who I think I am to comforting experiences, but to open up to all experiences equally. The more I can do this, the less attached I am to the comforts of approval, or always 'having my way', or even creature comforts. I think, then ,that the expression "Courage not to be" might be changed to "the courage not to take my thoughts to be me", or the courage to embrace the totality of mind.

"Choose the Happy One"

 Fashi gave a very interesting discussion after the meditation tonight. He talked about how, as long as we do not think that the person in front of us is a separate being who is 'creating' our emotional states, we can choose how we feel and react to the situation arising in mind. But there are several conditions that need to be unpacked. The first is about the method of being fully aware of the body at all times as a way of being present. Fashi mentioned that it is not easy to use a method such as watching the breath when a person is engaged in daily conversation, but the feeling of the body's movement becomes the anchor for what a person does. As an example, I am currently using my fingers to type into the keyboard, and that becomes the main focus for my body in the moment.
    The second principle that Fashi mentioned is to know that whatever we encounter is arising in mind, so there is no reason to like or dislike what we see. Here is an example I can think of: if a person creates a terrible image, would she or he be scared by the image knowing that they created it? Another example is that if a memory comes to mind about my boss, I can know that this present experience is not interacting with the previous memory of my boss. If I am really knowing this, I can choose not to react to the image or identify the reaction as "me". As Fashi had remarked, why would I choose to be unhappy if I really know that these images are arising in mind?
    The interesting point is that even if anger were to arise, I don't identify the anger as myself. I think this is the third principle. If a person does this practice expecting to have a happy result, she or he will only feel frustration because  they are focused on the idea of 'becoming something'. I think this is the most subtle problem that can arise with spiritual practice: the expectation (and the condition) that if I do something, I will automatically feel happiness. But Fashi's point is to say that every moment is a choice to be happy. Happiness is not a result, but  a choice in the same way that we can choose to color a canvas  with either red or blue  colors. But because of conditioning, I believe that there is a tendency to see happiness as conditioned on specific things, such as having a nice job, a good education, good looks, and so on. If one re-frames the meaning of happiness as a choice, one is given a whole range of new actions and experiences that would otherwise not have arisen if one waits for happiness to happen in a passive way.

The Role of Pressure in Working Life

 After the group meditation tonight, someone had asked Fashi about pressure and the feeling of being pressured to perform at work. Of course, many in the GTA feel pressured just to survive, and they feel that worrying is one way to get things done more quickly and efficiently.
       I have often reflected on how I have believed that worrying makes me work more efficiently. The classic example would be related to exams. There have been times when I have lived by the adage: "as long as you keep your hand moving, you should be able to finish on time." But, as Fashi had suggested during the group discussion tonight, worry doesn't necessarily accomplish anything. More than anything else, it can actually attract the kinds of results that one fears the most. An example would be how excessive worrying can lead to making careless errors, being absent minded and going through the motions just for the sake of accomplishing something. These are exactly the kinds of behaviors that a worried mindset would encourage, but they aren't the kinds of mindsets that necessarily get things done well. I have observed especially in myself a tendency to confuse the feeling of worry with a sense of getting things done or 'moving along'. Yet, without worry, one can be more in the moment and do things smoothly with a full mindset.
  Fashi also noted that worrying about something doesn't make the problem go away. There are certain situations which are inevitable, such as when a company has to downsize and lay off even its most effective workers. No matter how hard I might try, there is a lot here that is not within my control at all. In fact, very little is within my control to begin with, and it is exactly within this point of 'no control' that a person can precisely relax into what she or he is doing in the moment. For instance, if I always believe that everything starts and ends in the organ between my ears, my whole head will be tight and strained, as though  I were trying to squeeze everything out of my brain to get something done. But in reality it seems that the things needed to accomplish things are evenly dispersed throughout the mental environment: in materials, in resources, in people around me, and even in the climate. Would I be able to even get to work if there was a tornado or a heavy snowstorm? Much of what people try to do is really a kind of response to things that have already been set, including weather and environmental conditions in the workplace. Can all or any of these factors be within one's control? If not, it is best to receive whatever can be controlled with a relaxed mindset, such as 'go with the flow'.
    One way of  looking at this problem is to approach it from the view of "everything you experience is you." Now what does this mean, exactly? If I feel worry, I might automatically think, "I am that worry", and keep continuing to be worried. But if I trust and understand that the worry is only one part of an unfolding and changing experience, will I hold so tightly to that worry? Am I really 'worry'? Am I not also the boss, the environment, the plants, the work? All these things exist in mind and through mind, so they are said to be part of me. So why do I only focus on one thing at the exclusion of all the others? In this way, I can embrace worry as part of me without identifying it as 'me'. I think the important aspect is to have a way of knowing that what I am aware of doesn't exclusively define awareness or foreclose it.

Seeing with the Mind

  What does it really mean, to see with the mind? I was reflecting on this idea after Fashi's retreat in the past 3 days. I think about it from the perspective of Gestalt: what I see already contains a structure which is not in any external phenomena. When I see a cat, I am not just seeing a four legged creature with feline features. I am also seeing my previous experiences of other cats, my interaction with them and my habitual responses to them. All of this happens so quickly that in a sense, I am unaware that it was created by all these previous causes and conditions. It is as though the cat comes to me in a pre-packaged form, with all the emotions I would expect in my response to a cat.
     If I really stop to reflect, there is always a kind of nuanced background in every experience. I might think that something is terrible or good, but both responses are the result of very complicated processing. I am often inadvertently bringing my previous thoughts into the present situation without realizing that it is coming from the past thoughts stored in mind. Fashi had mentioned during the retreat that whenever a person sees another person, that seeing contains all the previous karma the two have had with each other. I interact with the previous experience, not with the person in front of me. So in that moment, there are things I can do and choices I can make. I can either go back to the same habit of seeing, or I can simply generate new thoughts or conditions. I am never bound to the past thought. Fashi also used the example of language to demonstrate this idea. When I put together the sentence, "Hello, I am Keith", I am connecting the "Hello" with "I" and so on, without realizing that "Hello" has already passed. I connect the things together to make a single sentence, but I never realize that this 'sense' I am making is not coming from the sentence itself but from my habit of joining the words together to generate meaning. Not only this, but I also take this "I am Keith" (a name, a label) to be the true being that is aware, rather than seeing it only as a word. It seems that we are making these kinds of assumptions all the time, never quite realizing that they are 'so' because we make them so.
     Another example might be the word 'queer'. At one time, "queer" was used in a way to isolate homosexuality. Nowadays, the word is used in a much more positive way to challenge dominant social norms. Is the word good or bad? The meaning of the word is always changing based on the contexts that people individually and collectively create around it. If I see it in this way, there is nothing that can be 'said' about anything that is ever absolute, because words are only creations of the mind. Just as we create a context and meaning around one word, so we can also create multiple and very different meanings around the same word or sound. Another example: even though the word 'grass' tends to evoke something that grows on the ground and is green, it can also refer to 'grass jelly' or 'lemon grass', all of which don't refer to this image in the mind of what I think grass 'means'.
     So what can one do with this? I think that in order not to be entangled in the mind's creations, it's important to use meditative methods to anchor the mind, and simply not to get lost in connecting things together to make meanings. There needs to be a space of awareness that is not stuck to meanings, in order to realize that meanings are creations of mind. The second is to get into the habit of looking for what is aware, rather than being attached to objects of awareness or taking them to be the self.

Learning from the 3 day retreat

  The three day meditation retreat has just passed, and I felt overall renewed by the experience. I would have to say that it is something that doesn't quite sink in until I am back in Toronto and seeing how distracting city life can be compared to the retreat environment. There was part of me that did feel quite changed by this experience, though I can't quite put my finger on it. Altogether, I would say that I suffered my share of back, knee and thigh pains, and there were times when it was hard for me to stay on the method of my practice. And there were also times when these feelings discouraged me, and made me wonder how far I can really go with practice. Yet still, in spite of all these misgivings, I found the retreat to be an essential experience for me, because it grounds me in an awareness of where I am really at with practice. I am hesitant to say that my practice is not as good as I wish it to be. But then, the point of this experience is not necessarily to measure oneself, but to let go of all measurements.
     Fashi was quite clear about not getting stuck in identifying with our thoughts. He used the example of how meditation practitioners tend to want to eliminate scattered thoughts and replace them with clear mind. But in reality, both 'scattered thoughts' and 'clear mind' are in themselves results of the mind. It's not that the mind is closer to 'clear' than it is to 'scattered', but that in fact, both states of mind are equally true mind. So there is no need to be uncomfortable with these states of being, but to see that they are both emanations of the same mind. Another interesting point is that no matter what we experience in meditation, that experience is already a kind of object of the mind. It has no ability to be aware, so in that sense it is not the real mind. To know this is to say that nothing we ever can settle for in meditation is ever the real mind. Meditation is always about seeing past the barriers of thought into something that can never be captured by thoughts themselves.
    Is it possible for a person to be 'terrible' at meditation? I often had this thought when I was in retreat this weekend, simply because it was quite hard for me to settle at the beginning. But even this 'being terrible' is a thought, and if I were to grasp at it, it would only lead me to argue with the other thought that says "you're not so bad". In fact, I kept fluctuating between feeling resigned and then feeling determined to get back into an uncomfortable sitting position to 'hash it out'. But the actual true mind has nothing to do with these discomforts and misgivings. It is more about seeing that every thought is in the same ocean and has the same substance as water. One needn't pick and choose, and the joy of meditation is relaxing in the knowledge that all thoughts have the same essential origin, even though they may display very different things.

Bestowal

 After group meditation tonight, I was thinking about the discussion we had around thoughts being somehow beyond ''good and bad', 'true' and 'mistaken'. From a perspective of absolute mind, there is no such thing as a truly 'mistaken' thought, because all thoughts are in the moment: they are not interacting with past or future thoughts, so there is nothing to compare them to. Have you ever had a situation where you were so convinced that something was 'true', only to later realize that there is some key evidence somewhere that renders it untrue? It's not that 'true' became 'untrue'. It's that you once had a thought of something being true, and then the conditions changed where a new thought arose to say, 'this is not true'. In fact, true and untrue simply don't arise in the pure thought itself. It's only in comparing thoughts that we develop these distinctions of true and not true thought.
    It reminds me of the long-standing debate about whether a person is esteemed for their own sake or for the sake of the one who is esteeming the other. Is it an actual person who determines whether they are 'good or bad' to someone else? Actually, people don't affect our judgments, since the judgments of what are good and bad come from our own mind as "esteemers" (or as beholders). Hence, there is an expression: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". More often than not, one's judgments about others are based on comparison with memories or older thoughts. Have I ever made a judgment over something I see after meditation? Well, what I notice during longer retreats is that the mind is less prone to making judgments, because it is simply in the moment, and not comparing the current thought to a memory or a previous one. As soon as I do compare thoughts over time or string them together, I 'story' the experiences I am having, by populating my mind with connections between one phenomena and another. Once the mind is calm and clear, there is not even a sense of needing to connect one thought to another. It's a bit strange, but it seems that only a very agitated mind is in the habit of putting thoughts together and making judgments around those thoughts.
    But to go back to the question, from the perspective of true nature of mind, is there really a 'good' or 'bad' thought? It s only when one is caught up in distinctions across different thought that there is even a perceived necessity of preferring one thought to the other. But in doing this, we create castles in the sand, because all thoughts are continually changing. Imagine trying to perfect a sandcastle! That is what we do when we try to shape our awareness according to the thoughts we tend to like the most.

Contemplation

 Tonight after the group sitting, Guo Xing Fashi shared about the two methods of concentration and contemplation, and how the two connect. I learned that concentration (samatha) is normally the first stage of trying to fix the mind on a particular object, such as the breath. Fashi mentioned that it's best if the object be simple--even to the point of boring--before the mind can be relieved of many desires and stimulations. When the mind is calm and settled into a particular object, it can the illuminate all things evenly as they are. This stage is known as 'contemplation', where the practitioner starts to see the real nature of experiences in light of the mind that illuminates them. Things no longer seem so emotionally laden, 'sticky' or in a person's face when they start to practice in this way. Another expression that Fashi used at this point is the 'effortless effort'. This concept refers to the notion of not taking things to be so 'in one's face' real that one starts to attach to them. For example, we might see the image of someone with whom we had difficulties and then start fighting with the image. The shortcut is to see that the image is not the true situation, any more than a rope is a snake.
    It's much harder, it seems, to investigate the mind in daily life. Fashi had noted that unlike with contemplation, investigation is a more direct search for the essence of mind, not connected with phenomena. We are said to 'contemplate' impermanence, but 'investigating' mind is much more subtle. One way is to simply ask the question: who is having this experience? Getting into the habit of doing so in all situations can help a person see that things aren't so integrally connected in a big story line. In fact, it loosens the tendency to  try to see things in terms of one big story where the ego is in complete control.
    I have found that it's difficult at times to create the conditions for calm equanimity. When meditating, I simply cannot force things into being a certain way. And I find that if my tendency in daily life is to hold tight onto certain fixed interpretations or timelines, I will sometimes extend this same mentality into meditation practice. There are times when, in using the method, I want to get rid of all the difficult  or distracting things that arise, and I end up pointing to something that I don't even know exists to help me. But I see the method that Fashi is describing more as not seeing phenomena as opposed to the method, and not trying to even expect anything from the method itself. In this way, all those difficult states of being can be transformed into awareness, rather than being rejected or suppressed. It is like discovering everyday functions of the mind for the first time.

Doubting vs Believing

 Tonight, I have been reflecting on Peter Elbow, who wrote an article on the 'believing game' vs 'the doubting game'. According to Elbow, there are two very distinct ways of interpreting events: one which looks at things through a critical, deconstructive lens (doubting), while the other with a more inspirational, faith-based perspective (believing). The current vogue in academia is to play the doubting game, particularly by looking at events in terms of underlying power dynamics. There is a certain clarity in this method and approach, because it allows people to be refreshingly clear and honest about the kinds of social motivations for what they are doing. For example, when we are in any organization, we don't just look at what inspires  people to be there, but what hidden agendas (socially based) might be influencing them in that situation. But I would have to argue that there is a price for the honest clarity of these approaches, and that price is to strip people down to the lowest elements. Are people, I wonder, entirely motivated by power? And how can we even frame power in relation to intention and motivation? Is power even at all about motivation?
     I suspect that people are not just doing things for power, even though power may be a consideration in what they are doing. When I look at people, I tend to see them as complex and deeply nuanced beings, who have complex reasons and motivations for what they do that even they themselves may not fully comprehend. Knowing the social dimensions or political aspects of what people do is certainly one way of looking clearly and honestly at their behavior. But I think it would be a great injustice to reduce people to elements of power or powered relationships. It might be more helpful to suggest that there is no final reduction to anything, since the way we see things is always immersed in our own particular ways of seeing, which are also interwoven with social/psychological elements.  And even the way people relate to each other is constantly in a state of flux  or change.
    So what is the alternative "believing game" made up of? I think what underpins the believing game is the way in which people assume that other people's intent is not to harm. In Buddhism, the attitude is that every being possesses the seed of wisdom and compassion within them. There isn't really a defective person or being in Buddhism, even though beings are prone to make mistakes due to misguided views or distorted lenses. If I at least believe that beings have this wisdom already in them, I am not trying to somehow replace who they are with a theoretical template that is foreign to their being and thriving. Instead, I am trying as much as I can to understand their ways so that their Buddha nature is clear to me, This is quite different from the Machiavellian view which has inspired a lot of the post-modern critical approaches to looking at selves and others. Under this latter view, people are only units in a greater scheme of dominant power and oppression. Much of that may be true, but it's not the only thing in the universe. And again, I think that focusing too much on dominance/oppression overshadows and even (dare I say) oppresses the aspects of ourselves that are connected to wisdom and compassion.
       Without the fundamental faith that people of all cultures and walks of life have wisdom, it can be quite easy to perpetuate power games and struggles. I certainly hope that this belief in people's wisdom does not disappear in academia.

Elbow, Peter (2008), "The Believing Game: Methodological Believing" http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=eng_faculty_pubs

A Compelling Myth

 There are times when I am not able to see the end of certain philosophical discussions. And I think some of them are a bit futile, because they mix together things that aren't really necessarily related. An example of this is the idea that Eros (love or libido) is a kind of 'raw' energy that gets channeled into either good or bad actions, depending on how we 'use' the energy. I think that Freud was a kind of advocate of this general idea, as did Rousseau. Throughout his writings, Rousseau kept trying to find a way to refine Eros to the point where it could extend to the general love of all people or the general will. In fact, I believe that Rousseau's theory of education was based on the notion of refining the raw energy of emotions into an altruistic love of all people. But I am wondering if this is ever a possibility at all, at this point in time. I have to wonder, can love of particular people or close ones ever be related to the love of all beings, let alone extended to everyone? Can the love of one extend to all beings? I tend to be thinking lately that the two (love of one and love of all beings) aren't really related to each other at all. The love we have for significant others isn't at all related to a general love for all humanity. Each path seems different albeit necessary. While one focuses on the particulars of a relationship, the other tends to focus on a general sentiment and trust of living beings.
     The promise of channelling one thing into another is almost like the alchemists' search to transform all metals into gold. It's compelling, a little bit like taking something we desire and turning into all manner of different shapes for use. But I begin to realize that any spiritual practice involves a combination of many very distinct elements. There needs to be instruction, guidance, group practice, individuals willing to support the spiritual community, time, material amenities., etc. According to the Surangama Sutra, to use one example, there is nothing we can see or feel that is not conditioned somehow by other interrelated events. Even something as simple as a light in a room is preconditioned by a variety of events and circumstances, such as an open space for light to shine, an eye to see the light, a mind to recognize light, etc. If any one of these elements is missing, the phenomena of the light just cannot exist. The same sort of thing surely should go for Eros. Eros is not necessarily an energy per se, but rather a set of conditions which happen to come favorably together in certain social contexts. But the dream of being able to extend Eros infinitely in all directions to embrace all things is a compelling fantasy: one which often ignores the principles of cause and condition, to the point of pretending omnipotence.

Not Dwelling in Thoughts

    It's important not to live in one's thoughts. I found this happening today, after spending some time doing literature review in the library and reflecting. My reflection is that most of what I think about is not necessarily based on long-term planning, but is often the result of short-term desires. And I had this moment later in the evening after watching a movie that things are impermanent and ever changing. What seemed important in one instant of time actually proves insubstantial in the next moment. Thoughts might seem to have a certain power over the mind, but there is never a thought that is so extremely powerful that it holds a certain fixed supremacy over the mind. I wonder if you've ever had those moments when you realized that your thoughts are just like dreams: passing away like clouds, only to be replaced with new, completely different, thoughts. And yet, how often have we been in situations where we think there is one 'supreme' thought that holds the highest value in organizing one's life. It's a little bit like looking for the latest gadget or trend.
    One approach I have sometimes taken when dealing with this situation is to try to 'prioritize' thoughts in terms of a dominant world view of philosophy. An example might be Marxism. According to the classic Marxist view, any thoughts that refer to an afterlife or religious theme are really just a distraction from the real struggles of this world, much of which are related to working life and labour. A Marxist, I would imagine, would prioritize her thoughts around this idea that labour is the center of life, not religions. Conversely, a religious thinker might say that 'labour' is only a distraction from the real matter at hand, which is the afterlife, heaven, or God. Which one of these views is correct? I have often debated these things in my mind when I was studying philosophy. But lately, I am feeling that these debates could go on endlessly. And if one is not careful, they can be counterproductive in the sense that they can really absorb a person in concepts that don't really address or alleviate suffering or desires.
     If I were to 'add' a thought to all of this, I might be doing a disservice to the topic, in addition to contradicting the point. But what I am recommending is that people observe how thoughts influence them over time, to look into the unreality or impermanence of thinking. It's not to say 'get rid of thoughts' but to seriously investigate, as would a scientist, the question of which thoughts are most valuable and which thoughts are only temporary desires for quick fixes.
     I am even getting to the point where I realize that the 'prioritizing' of thoughts is a little bit like the comparison of the chess player who is playing both the black and white pieces. Aren't both pieces being operated by the same player? If so, why is the player getting agitated and determined to 'beat' her or himself? In the same way, I am beginning to marvel at how a lot of my thoughts are aimed at trying to dominate the previous thought. Both current and previous thought have no relation to each other and are both not so permanent. Why chase after these thoughts to begin with, and what does one hope to accomplish through it?

A "Damaged" Good

   I was in the library today exploring some additional literature on my Loving Kindness Meditation writing project. I came across a book with a rather promising title, Be Nobody by Lama Marut. Marut's thesis is that much of the suffering in today's affluent societies relates to trying very hard to be a special or unique identity. It is as though one's survival somehow depended upon being special, different or in some ways indispensable. And Marut also describes how the source of depression is this endless struggle to overcome a fear of mediocrity: again, a modern bugbear,the 'curse' of being so average as to be somehow anonymous and indistinguishable from others. Marut cites Madonna as an example of someone who has achieved great success in the music industry, but is ironically driven by the need to avoid 'mediocrity''. Marut poignantly remarks:

The idea of a 'special self' one wishes to construct through accomplishment tends always to outstrip the reality, leaving one feeling incomplete, inadequate, and continually running to try to catch up." (p.14)

Marut suggests letting go of the shallower accomplishments one strives for in favor of a deeper self that is often embraced in religious and spiritual traditions. But I also wonder, why is it that successful people find it so hard to simply enjoy their own success? Could it be that the striving to be successful is addictive in itself, and overshadows a gratitude toward what we have?

The example I want to use is that of someone who suffers from a defective product or a broken good. Let's say you scratch a piece of furniture you have, or cause a serious dent in something like a car. Your immediate reaction might be to say that the car or whatever it is has been 'damaged' and you might even scramble to get it repaired or, in the worst case, replaced. But then you can stop and wonder: is it so damaged that it no longer functions the way it is meant to function? Can I still use it? Can it get me through the week? Working with broken or damaged things can be an interesting hobby, and it might teach people a certain gratitude for the way things function in spite of circumstances. A computer may look like a piece of junk when it's been around for a long time, has accumulated dust, and may be outmoded compared to the latest product, but it still might happen to work. The same goes with bodies. I remember watching a movie recently where one of the characters uses the term 'stupid good health' to refer to the tenacity of the human body to withstand even the most challenging pressures or diseases. One's body can be dysfunctional in some ways, but is it ever completely so? Could one re-frame the experience in a way that honors what is still doing its function. This is to say that there is much more that is working than 'not working', yet one often focuses only on what appears defective or deviant from the norm,

I am suggesting that the "root" problem that Marut describes might not necessarily be in addiction to accomplishment or to a sense of self. It's possible that addiction to self masks a deeper inability to enjoy our experiences as they are using a gratitude perspective. If we are unable to get what we desire, we can still re-frame what we have as offering many advantages. It is 're-imagining the real', in other words, in order to see the real with all its advantages. Over time, we get used to having so many things conveniently at our disposal, but what happens when we see these advantages for the first time, and are able to enjoy them as though we were just given their unique advantages? And could the simple gratitude of enjoying all of our advantages in this moment be a way to 'be nobody' and enjoy it?

Marut, Lama ( 2014 ) Be Nobody. New York: Atria

(Mis)managing Time

  After my short trip to the gym tonight, I recalled how I had finished work relatively late, late enough that I could not even sit down to have a real dinner. There are times in my life when things just get to be like that, and this evening was hard to wrap up. I have felt that there are many changes happening with testing new programs at work. Lately, I have been telling myself not to resist the pressure to accept all these new developments.  "Resisting" change sometimes takes the subtle forms of wanting things to be neatly in place, rather than being open to sudden or spontaneous changes in the schedule of things. I am practicing trying to relax into the situation itself to see what key things it is trying to tell me, rather than seeing it as an obstacle to some other goal. And of course, it's not easy, since it is quite natural to plan for specific outcomes, as this is the way society is also structured. Without a sense of structure, it would be difficult to meet deadlines or even get to work in the morning.
    What sense does flexibility have in terms of prioritizing life? If a person is 'too flexible', does she or he run the danger of losing their sense of what's important to them? I find that these are questions I think about recently. Many books in the Buddhist tradition (or 'mindfulness') tend to couch the problem as 'living in the now' as opposed to trying to live in an imagined future or past. But I don't think that it means that people should not make plans. When I am aware that plans are conditioned according to the changing circumstances, my planning can be done differently. It does not need to be that I get rid of plans just because everything is impermanent. Rather, I can keep the broad orientation of what I want to do and include the new things that arise. I think the analogy might be that of a fluid organism that is expanding to take in new things. If you ever watch an amoeba in a microscope (or at least in a picture), you might have seen this idea of a simple organism that is always expanding to include new things, without losing its structural integrity. If an organism has no such integration, it wouldn't survive at all: there would simply be no way for such an organism to keep itself intact. But on the other hand, if the organism remains rigid and impermeable, it simply could not eat or interact with the environment to survive.
    Writing is a good example of a practice that involves a balance between structure and flexibility. "Pushing" oneself to write or have "something to say" can be detrimental to creativity, because it just creates a lot of tension around something that is quite natural, like speaking. But if I go to the other extreme and say that writing should have no structure, I will soon end up not even finishing articles or paragraphs, since I no longer have the driving force to motivate me to go. So the flexibility part ends up serving specific functions, and it takes faith to know that we can already steer in the right direction without pre-conceiving how we should live or do things.

Spiritual Views of Food

   The other day, one of my language students had asked me whether the Buddhist celebration of Vesak involved fasting of any kind. My student was in some ways reflecting on the Muslim traditions where people fast as part of their spiritual life. I had suddenly recollected on how Buddha had gone through many periods of fasting, before he had almost reached the point of wasting away. A young woman had then spotted him and had given him some sweetened milk, which allowed the Buddha to continue his journey toward enlightenment. Many scholars have interpreted this event in the Buddha's life as particularly meaningful in that it reminds people of the Middle Path toward consuming things: neither indulging in food out of craving nor denying things out of a misplaced belief in 'self-denial'.
    Meditative practice sometimes reveals our complicated relationships with food, particularly as the practice can increase a person's sensitivities. Just in the car tonight on the way from group practice, the facilitator was sharing about how he develops a kind of sensitivity toward sweet things while on intensive retreat, to the point where he can even sense a mental confusion after tasting a candy. Long after retreat, the facilitator will often have sweet things, since they are commonplace in Western society, but the period of not eating sweets makes him sensitive to their effects on the mind. The discussion made me realize that there are so many things that can bring a person to a state of confusion, including the everyday stimulants of caffeine or the sugar found in chocolate and soda. The confusion would come from craving: wanting something and then getting excited about having it. I have to say that my weak points are caffeine and sweets, and they are such a source of excitement to the senses. Is the solution then to cut them out altogether?
       For health purposes, I would say it's best to minimize stimulating foods as much as possible. It's easy to say, but hard to do in a society that values fast pace and almost constant stimulation. I am even tempted to say that curbing the habit of stimulating the senses requires a different kind of environment: one that is a little less competitive and certainly more natural. I think it's also important to get a sense of when people use food as a stimulant. For example, I have noticed that I tend to desire sweet or caffeinated beverages when I am under pressure or might feel emotionally isolated. It's almost as though the sugar or caffeine will lift me out of an emotion that I don't particularly like or enjoy. Here, it takes a lot of compassion to just be with that emotion rather than giving into the temptation to go into a more 'exciting' or joyful one. A second point is to be curious about difficult or heavy emotions. If I cultivate more gratitude toward emotions that feel tense or difficult and even embrace them, I will have less recourse to trying to switch to something more joyful or stimulating. And this attitude of equanimity also ends up helping the meditative practice as well.
    I don't  necessarily think that any food is 'bad' for a person. For instance, there doesn't seem to be that many foods that are harmful to people as long as they are in moderation. I think from the Chan perspective, the problems would arise when people are not aware of the habit energy that is behind consuming the foods that one enjoys. That habit energy is often accumulated emotional things, and food  is sometimes a way to assuage the habit or hide difficulties. If I am not aware of how I am approaching the foods that I enjoy, I will miss the attachments I create. I have already hinted at how these attachments are often hidden in the 'object' of the food itself, and it's hard to disentangle from the object of craving unless I face the difficult emotions that go into that attachment.
   Attachment is always a combination of avoiding things I don't enjoy, liking the pleasant, and ignoring the nature of the pleasant/unpleasant. It would be helpful to observe these challenging emotional energies without using food as a way to block them out. And this  bare observation can be one way to overcome enmeshment in cravings for food or other substances.

Passive and Active Spirituality

 Over the last day or so, I have been pondering the meaning of passive and active when it comes to spiritual practice or philosophy. In his book, The Challenge of the Mind, Oryuhu Okawa describes two kinds of religion: one which relies on other beings' powers and another which suggests the inner worth of a person. The latter point of view suggests that human beings could have 'divinity' within them and need not think of themselves as spiritually impoverished or dependent on a spiritual power for salvation. This evening after the group meditation, I also had a chance to listen to Master Sheng Yen's talk about active vs. passive. While Okawa tends to see passive and active forms of spirituality as different (if not opposite), Sheng Yen sees the two as parts of a whole. For instance, in cases where a person is interacting with others, there is always a combination of taking initiative and waiting to hear from others. The former tends to be considered 'active' while the latter is a more passive kind of responsiveness to others.
    I tend to think that there is never a completely active or passive spirituality. For instance, if I think that everything is completely under my control, I begin to wonder who this "I" is, and how does it know it is 'in control' at all? I am reminded of examples where people might think they are doing well in a social situation, only to find that others find them to be too imposing, not giving others space to be themselves. Even when we try to measure ourselves, we are limited by the standards we use or the narrow ways we measure our own achievements. I am also thinking that nobody ever lives in a vacuum, and people have to act within the boundaries of shared customs and rules. John Locke is one philosopher who seemed to stress that even property rights are protected by shared rules. There is on inalienable action that is always right for one person, since we are always living in the context of larger communities. In that sense, in order to be constructively active, one has to also observe others and yield to others to a certain degree. Both are part of human associations.
    I  could also extend the same analogy to spiritual life. If spiritual life is too individualistic and 'action focused', it often loses sight of the sacred mysteries of spirit life. We often don't fully plumb the depths of our being, even when we are taking full charge of our actions (or so we believe).I think in a sense that action is the beginning of spiritual life, in the sense that being active is what allows people to discover how they are in different situations and how the mind works. But in another sense, it's only the starting point, and much of spiritual life is discovering what can't be quantified as an action necessarily, a kind of unspeakable sacredness of being itself. Okawa tends to underplay this in his explanations, where he stresses how Buddha nature is something we need to realize through a structured program of action. But somehow I am afraid that too much activism ends up making spirituality into a sophisticated philistinism, a kind of 'salvation through good deeds'. I think somehow spiritual life needs to preserve the delicate balance between acting upon the world and receiving its mysteries and communities.

Okawa, Ryuho (1994, 2004), The Challenge of the Mind. Great Britain: Time Warner Books
Sheng Yen, "Being Active vs Being Passive", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj1lYcWXumY