Doubt is Healing?

   During the guided meditation practice tonight, I found that I was able to bring the huatou question into the body and resolve body pain toward answering the question. Something happened tonight and that is that I started to really feel the body relaxing in a way that I never felt before. There was a kind of pain to it, almost as though I had been resisting letting go, but I just kept practicing not holding on to the body muscles so tightly. Over time, it became easier for me to recite the huatou with sincerity, because I was no longer so heavily invested in keeping the body held in a certain tight way. And after the practice, there was a kind of still resolve. It is as though no thoughts were really swaying me anymore, and I was able to be clear about the things around me.
     I can't really say what the 'secret' to this is, but it's like everything in meditation; there is an element of inquiry to it. What I start to realize is that in order to fully trust the process of relaxation, I have to fully go into this question of who, to the point where there is no longer this determined self that is clinging so tightly to the body. A lot of my own pain is caused by this subconscious 'holding' of the body in a certain position, and then taking this body position to be the real self. But with some determination not to attach to this self-concept or notion of being (perhaps even a body-armoring of sorts), I am able to see that this body can ease up a bit, and there is no longer such a strong grip on the body. It's amazing how the practice of progressively letting go through the questioning process is opening up a lot of energy and often unifying otherwise disjointed experiences of body.
     The point, however, is not to 'make' the body comfortable, as though this 'body' were something solid and enduring or permanent. Rather, the point is to see that this body does not have an enduring self attached to it, and to really feel that there is no enduring self to it. But this takes a kind of doubt sensation: a bodily-felt experience of not being able to trace a self, and letting go of the solid assumption that there is a monolithic self that inhabits the body. For this reason, I think the method of huatou can be used to heal body energies, because it frees up the sense of a self armoring around the body. However, all of this is only a hypothesis, and I still need to test it out through meditation. The main thing is to have an orientation to work with in relating huatou method to the body.

Two Wings

   I have been reflecting recently on this metaphor I had once read about in Master Sheng Yen's writings, about how the practice of Chan is like two wings on a bird. One of the wings represents the wisdom of letting go (or renunciation) while the other represents the compassion of embracing life and living beings. Are these two tendencies completely opposed to each other, or are they in fact complementary to each other?
     To give an example: if someone does something to me that I dislike, I might take the approach of wisdom and try to see what it is exactly that is bothering me. Most likely, what bothers me is not the actual person but the thoughts and images I connect with the person. If I go deeply enough into this idea, I will end up with the discovery that everything is just a kind of changing aggregate that comes together for an instant, but is no longer present in the next. In that sense, I am taking this 'who' and challenging it, to the point of wonder who is even observing the other person. This concept is fine, but at the end of the day, there are still people, just as there are still mountains as mountains, and rivers as rivers. So the question is, how can this awareness of the aggregate nature of things help arouse compassion?
    If I only stay with the notion that things are aggregates, I will end up with a perhaps nihilistic point of view, wondering if there is anyone to be compassionate toward. But this notion is necessary, because there is no enduring state of being. In a sense, I think contemplating the emptiness can help a person eliminate anger and greed. But if one is staying in that place, it may not arouse kindness or compassion. This is why it seems that there needs to be this other wing on the bird.
      I think the compassion comes when we take this aggregate experience and extend it even to the thinking subject. When I start to see that even this "I" is a bundle of changing aggregates, all I can do is let go of self-clinging and start to see the suffering that comes from all such self-clinging. But if I am only using this concept to negate others, it doesn't go far enough to knowing that even the thinking self is empty. At that point, the thinking itself starts to soften and there is an open space where there isn't a solid "me" or "you" anymore. Perhaps this could be the space of love, if you want to label it as such.

"Just Thoughts"

    During sitting meditation, there is a process where a person is seeing thoughts as "just thoughts", and this way of seeing is facilitated by the state of calm relaxation. But during the day, why is it that one cannot do the same thing with all their experiences? If a person realized that the life off the meditation cushion isn't that different from life on the cushion, they might be able to see life as just like a kind of retreat. At that point, one is interacting mainly with thoughts. And even if the thoughts are very powerful, there is a very relaxed and calm method of dealing with the thoughts themselves. Life would involve observing one's reactions with a kind of gentle and open spaciousness, realizing that they are temporary and bound to disappear with new conditions.
   How can this sort of insight benefit a person? I think that for one thing, it makes a person realize that they are not interacting with 'people' or 'minds' at all, but are mainly interacting with their own thoughts, based on the previous conditions. It is as though one were with people but having a separate dream. To give an example, I might see a person who reminds me of someone else and have a negative reaction to the person which has nothing to do with them whatsoever. But because I am engaging in some thought that seems unpleasant, I engage in an argument with it. Is this productive? It hardly is, yet how often do I engage in this kind of behavior and end up creating suffering to myself. At that point, it is as though I am in my own thoughts or world and not aware of suffering around me.
     I have a feeling that the mind is already naturally compassionate: it loves and swims in love. But I notice that from early times, I had developed a kind of mistrust in myself. As soon as the love I felt wasn't reciprocated, I would start to think that I did something wrong: it was my fault somehow, or maybe I need to toughen up and 'take it like a man'. In any case, there is a self created there: a kind of sense that something needs to be done about the feeling of rejection, and only "I" (whoever this "I" is) can do something about it. Had I not taken the experience so personally and simply let go of it, I would have gone back to the natural compassion that is always there: always feeling connected with others no matter what. Could it be that this feeling of rejection causes the self to arise and try to take control by asserting its identity? I will leave that to psychologists to mull over.
     

under the stars

   He was a freewheeler: a man who came to the earth from somewhere and might disappear to some other place. And he is living under the stars.
   He is inspired by the sun and the wind, but never stays long enough with either of them to become scorched by one or blown away by the other. He skips, jumps and wails like a bear. Nobody can explain his crazy moods: his tendency to paint pointed brush strokes in the sand, or his frightening ability to identify what you are most looking for, somewhere out on that beach. He sings the songs that everyone sings, yet somehow the songs never have an ending. And he always leaves something under your doorstep just as he is about to skirt town.
    And who is this man? Maybe he is the living and moving spirit in all of us, that longs for completion while simultaneously knowing that all is indeed quite complete in itself. He is the actual way of all things: to pass in and out of the seasons, to plant corn, harvest corn, and kill corn in sweltering waves of heat and snow. He is the angel and the devil at once. And maybe he is the free floating giddiness one feels when they have reached the highest point of doubt, not knowing quite what the world is, who one is, and how she got into this world.
    Can anybody live with such a person? It's a howler to know, in fact, that too much life can kill us all. That's the reason why humanity invented doors with locks. It's to keep out the sources of anxiety and fear, where wild men can steal away into one's homes and take everything they thought would last or was theirs to keep. And that's the reason why humanity built binding contracts. It's to keep out the grief of a capricious heart; to civilize the world and make sure that things stay long enough to work through the tensions of life. But through and through, everyone is forced to acknowledge the tricky fox within themselves, as well as to account for him.
     In this 'vignette', am I celebrating the wandering trickster? In a sense, yes, but in another sense, I would say that civilization had better not get carried away with the archetype of the trickster. I think it's because impermanence is not something to be idly played around with. For instance, many people might interpret impermanence as an invitation to engage in a free-wheeling lifestyle. But, I think differently: it's a way of seeing that things can be created and re-created in new ways that innovate on existing traditions. It's not that society should be torn down and raised up anew, but that we take what we have learned from the world so far and keep finding new ways to express it and explore it. In this way, harmony is preserved while acknowledging that things are continually changing within that harmony.

Expecting Neither Easy Nor Hard

    This morning, I had the rather onerous task of having to proofread a chapter I am submitting for a publication. Though I am familiar with proofreading, I am certainly much less familiar with the aspect of having to conform to APA standards. And it is certainly a lesson in form: there are so many formalities with publication formatting, at least in the sense that it is designed to keep things consistent and neat. But one of the interesting things is that I had simply assumed that the task would be easy, given my previous editing experience with academic papers and student writing. How mistaken I am to realize that editing papers for publication is quite a delicate art, and it requires much practice to detect the common mistakes in formatting that I would normally make (such as not putting periods where they are meant to be in references).
      Later on, as I started to do the editing in more detail, I let go of the expectation that this task is meant to be 'easy'. In fact, I was able to see that my notion of easy/hard were simply inappropriate comparing of very different activities: namely proofreading school papers vs. proofreading for publication. And I also realized that most of my understanding of what is easy or hard is based on this kind of false comparison of present and previous experiences. Had I accepted the possibility that the task would take some effort and new learning on my part, I might have even received the opposite effect of thinking that the task is easier than I had anticipated. This happens a lot when a person is nervous about the responsibilities of doing something that seems difficult.
      It seems best not to impose any expectations on new situations, especially when we really cannot estimate in all certainty how much effort something will take, let alone what kind of effort is involved. It seems that the best way through this difficulty is to recognize expectations but be open to revising them with new information. Otherwise, the actual desire to be freed of expectation becomes yet another expectation that one imposes on her or himself. Can you imagine walking into a situation and being so vigilant of arising 'desire' or 'expectation'? To me, that would be like trying to walk with one's legs taped together. It doesn't seem possible to never have an expectation, because they seem to function as estimates of how much effort one thinks will be required to perform a task, particularly when it's an unknown or completely new experience. But if  I quietly observe the expectation and what it creates in me (for instance, conflict and disappointment), I can then gently steer myself in the direction of adjusting myself. So this morning, I was somewhat able to do this, when I realized that the task of editing would take much longer than I had anticipated. Once I accept that my previous expectation was a little off, I can then create new attitudes to address the challenge.

       This approach also creates a healthy matching between the task done and the real effort that is required. Sometimes a person has to 'buckle down' or focus more, or do something with more resolve than what I felt was needed from the beginning. But at the same time, through repeated awareness that expectations don't match what unfolds, one starts to be less attached to thoughts about 'easy' or 'hard' and might be more inclined to see themselves continually evolving to meet the changing challenges.

Struggle for Survival

  I have a number of times been revising and reworking my attitudes toward work and competitive life. It's almost a kind of curse-word, to say that the world is competitive, especially when educational theories are really stressing the value of cooperation in achieving the same shared ends. But when I stopped to reflect on it today, even cooperative learning implies a kind of push toward continual improvement in performance and operations. I wonder, how does the contemplative practice of meditation relate to competition? Does it enhance competition, hinder it or transform it in some way?
     I am starting to reflect that there is nothing inherently vexing about 'competing', particularly when one isn't attaching to 'me' competing with 'you'. Now is it possible to experience competing without experiencing a separate "I" and "you"? I think that there is an ability in me to see a drive toward more efficiency that is not tied up with others at all. It's almost like a kind of acceptance that humans do live in a world where there are comparisons made. It doesn't mean that anyone is identified with those comparisons, but on the other hand it's not to be lulled into a comforting illusion that comparisons don't exist. So there is a sense that there is no need to expect comparison or competition to go away.
    On the other hand, it's also important not to be too identified with competitive spirits at work. Of course, the idea is to do one's very best work given the circumstances- and think of new ways to improve one's way of work. But then the trap becomes when a person starts to assign credit to different people, based on their subjective notions of who contributes what and at what amount. That is when human 'output' is measured, often without any nuanced observation of how work is done and how people experience working life. But if we don't know how people work and what people experience in working, what or how can we measure anything related to performance? This is a grey area, because in the end, all designations of value are quite subjective. Not only that, but whenever I feel I am off the mark of where I need to be, a tension takes shape in mind. And strangely, the only way to resolve it is by doing what one imagines will get them 'further' in life. But this too is subjective, and it can create all sorts of feelings of unease.
     Another way of putting it is that life is full of movement but one should never be quick to judge the result as 'better' than the beginning. A more apt metaphor at work might be to refer to cycles. Sometimes a person works, sometimes rests; sometimes leads and sometimes yields. The situations might call for different things, and all one can do is flow naturally with cycles of pressure while not identifying with it. Could competition just be one of many dances that human beings do to convey cosmic movement? If so, how did it ever become about  fixed, quantifiable result?

Feelings are Like Sun, Rain, Clouds

   In the Buddhist teachings that I have read, there is often an emphasis on seeing external phenomena as illusory, in the sense that they are impermanent. But it seems that feelings get left out of the equation if one is only thinking about external objects as impermanent. For instance, some might interpret the practice to mean that it's silly to feel anything for the things around us, since an insight into impermanence will show them to be ephemeral. But the thing is that we also inhabit a place of emotions, and emotions also need to be faced as part of the total experience of life. If I am not in touch with how I feel about situations arising, I will end up suppressing emotion out of some false belief that it is nobler to do so. Actually this approach is a little bit like shortcutting to some place where there is total 'neutrality' or no emotion at all. It almost sounds a bit like the dream of some kinds of Western philosophers and scientists: to reach the 'view from nowhere' or a kind of pristine view that is all about reason and rejects emotions as 'irrelevant'.
     But does this approach work in daily life? I think that if one lives this way, one leaves out a whole lot of rich insights. For instance, if I try to deny my wish for contact with other beings, I might then rationalize my existence as a kind of permanent solitude. The problem is that it overlooks the value that a wish for contact can have, especially the healthy way that wish can be used to create deep bonds with others. If I kept telling myself that 'all relations with others are impermanent' and then protected myself from desiring relations, this leaves out the rich learning and insights that relationships offer. It would be like trying to make one's life conform to an oppressive logic that is life-denying. I don't think this is what Buddhism is about. I think that it's the opposite: when I know that my emotions are not based on permanent, enduring situations or objects, I can be more accepting and forgiving toward emotions, to the point where I can face them and become curious about them. This is a tricky balance, because I might also start to lose the insight into the impermanence of emotions if I become overly attached to them. The middle way, perhaps, is to acknowledge emotion while knowing their conditioned nature.
     Pema Chodron is one Buddhist teacher who has talked about the vulnerability of Buddhist practice. Reading her books has helped me to debunk the misunderstanding that spiritual practice is about distancing from emotions. According to Chodron, when we start to practice taking in all the suffering emotions of all beings and breathing out joy to others, there is no longer any reason to 'transcend' emotions. Emotions become the material through which we can feel genuine connection with others, if not a vulnerable closeness. When I am really open to my own sadness and extreme desires to be loved and nurtured, I can use that desire to create genuine compassion for other beings, who really aren't that different from me. Even though everyone has their own hard skin and might show vulnerability in different ways, I would have to somehow believe that all beings want the same things, and struggle with the same desires to belong, to be needed, and to find meaning in their daily life. Instead of trying to use a logic of impermanence to distance myself from emotions, I use the practice to be more fearless about emotional states, knowing that they are bound to change or lead to new actions or insights. Emotions are no longer meant to be feared at that point.
    Paradoxically, what I learn from Pema Chodron is that the way to understanding emotions is through being fully with them, seeing them as subject to flux of life. If I try to hide emotions, that hiding only creates more problems or symptoms, as I try to block the energy of emotion. Chodron suggests that the way to deal with emotion is not to deny it but to connect its rawness to all sentient beings. I find that this can be a great way to use emotion for the good of myself and others.

Surrender and Grace Too

                                                                                                                                                                                                          When we talk about the spiritual aspects of “surrender”, does it mean that nothing is left to be done? I tried this thought experiment before the group meditation practice tonight. I asked myself: what would it feel like right now if there was absolutely nothing I needed to do to somehow improve myself emotionally? What if, I am ‘already there’ by virtue of grace? Does it mean that there is nothing more to do? When I entertained this thought, I at first felt a certain kind of relief that was very distinct and freeing. It even allowed me to move freely and enjoy what is happening around me, knowing that it does not affect what happens to me. But then later, during the moving meditation, it almost felt as though I had let go of the principle too quickly, and frivolous thoughts started to arise. I went from being too strict to being too loose in terms of the functioning of mind. So where is this ‘sweet middle’, and where does it fit into a spirituality of grace/surrender where it is assumed that one surrenders one’s ‘self power’ to ‘other power’?

               When we talk about faith, I think there needs to be faith in something, and that something ends up sustaining the faith. In the case of Pure Land Buddhism, the faith relates to the infinite compassion of Buddha’s vows. This seems to be very important, because without a strong direction toward an all-embracing compassion, it can devolve into a kind of stage-view of practice. I have heard many people suggest that the Pure Land is a temporary place which is comfortable enough for someone to attain enlightenment. But from a practical point of view, what does this mean? I think again, it means that a person uses the all embracing compassion of Buddha’s vows to direct the mind toward its own nature. Without this practice of directing the mind to itself, the compassion can be interpreted as a kind of comforting feeling. But does compassion really mean a comfortable feeling? Certainly one aspect of compassion is to fully relax, but there has to be something besides this and beyond this relaxed state. It seems that the Pure Land is a kind of place where one can then fully practice wholeheartedly.

        To put it into a different context: if someone who has infinite compassion and vows had said to me “I will not achieve liberation until every being becomes liberated by reciting my name”, I would first of all feel the relief of a compassionate being. But something else would also happen. I would start to value compassion so much that it would start to become the direction of life. It’s not only that I would want to enjoy the compassion of someone else, but I would also be so touched by that compassion that I would want to embody that relationship of compassion. That is, I would even start to imitate the Buddha’s compassion in some small way. Otherwise, the compassion would become a kind of dead-end feeling of comfort, and even the heaven would become a bit stifling. Another way of saying this is that because compassion stresses the inseparability of “me” and “you” (and their mutual interpenetration), I would no longer be content to live the life of just receiving the compassion of someone else. That is because such a view remains locked in a stifling dualism, and the very act of receiving compassion already entails opening up to a very different way of being, which does not entail separation or isolated beings.

         I think that if someone were truly practicing Pure Land, perhaps two things would be evident. One is that Pure Land is not something ‘out there’ to be desired after one’s physical death, but is rather a way of being ‘here’ in the world, where one is not caught in vexations or attachments. The other is that a person wouldn’t be locked in a state of just receiving or enjoying compassion. Rather, the act of receiving boundless compassion would be an invitation to look into the boundless aspect of one’s experiences. I think this is where the true power of Pure Land comes from: a kind of opening or broadening of one’s inner horizons to accommodate a no-self or a space where there is no need for a separate sense of self. That is, when one realizes she is fully and unconditionally loved, there is no need to make plans only for this one limited concept of self. And it would then be easy to be so grateful for this gift that one would use it to try to investigate, in every moment, the who of the moment: who has this experience. And this would be the ultimate compassion that any being could provide to us—the insight that we are not really separate, cut off selves, and we are not in danger from other selves, as such. Is not the universe itself compassionate by virtue of having this empty quality to it? Then it would become very easy to go into huatou, because one has this grace, this sense of not having a separate self to fend for itself.

Full Surrender

  This past weekend, I managed to find a copy of Selected Works of D.T. Suzuki, Volume II: Pure Land. In fact, I had been meaning to read this book for some time, since I have always had an interest in Pure Land Buddhism, but it's only been this last little while that I have been able to look at it. It seems that this book and Kierkegaard's Works of Love complement each other, especially in the sense that they deal with themes of salvation via faith, as well as the role of grace in spiritual life. And lately, I am beginning to try to understand it more from a psychological perspective than from trying to figure out which spiritual path is the 'true' path of grace.
    Lately, I have also been thinking that grace is a state of mind. I would even go so far as to say that this state of mind doesn't come from outside, but can actually be induced in some way. This is a rather controversial statement in itself, and it's not the one that religious views like the Shin sect would adhere to. According to the Shin sect of Pure Land Buddhism, it is entirely 'other power' (tariki) and not 'self power' (jiriki) which determines whether one is saved or not (or at least brought to a state of grace in this world). Not even prayers or petitions (see Suzuki, p.112) are sufficient to control or influence the ways of grace. One must completely surrender the ego in favor of a complete abandonment to the saving and vow-generating power of Amida Buddha.
     Now, I am not so sure whether the West, with its focus on individualism and free will, is quite ready to embrace a psychology of surrender. There are times when transcendental philosophers can talk about it, but it is couched in such a way that the surrender is about a temporary experience. We even say 'surrender to the moment', and this safely protects a person from having to surrender to every moment or even eternity. What is it about this attitude of surrendering to other power that makes sense, and what part seems problematic or challenging? I think the most challenging aspect is that choosing to surrender to some higher power or being is still a choice that has to be cultivated by a self, or through an act of will. This is where I think the idea of tariki can get challenging fast, because it raises the question of what acts of will, if any, are going to bring a person to such a state of surrender, or whether surrender completely relies on the other. In fact, there is a mystery to this state of things, and Suzuki rightly warns his readers not to succumb to a dualistic thinking on the Pure Land doctrine. After all, the prayer and the prayed-to are not that much different: they are both aspects of oneself. If I don't accept that Amida is not a part of this very mind, then I succumb to debates about 'who' surrenders and 'who' really wills the surrender to happen. And these tensions only become impossible when a person is committed to dualistic thinking.
     The way I believe it might be working is that the mind uses a form to channel the compassionate vow to deliver all sentient beings. But it also uses this formality as a platform through which there is no room for the self to take credit or 'elevate' itself in some illusory way. This is very tricky, because a lot of times what a person is really channeling is an enlarged view of the self when they are looking toward a divine or spiritually awakened being for help. How, then, can I really know that my surrender is genuine and when it is only surrendering to a false sense of self or hope? I think that one has to really be honest about this and look to the actual experience of surrender itself. If the sense of surrender is freeing a person from a desire to 'advance' oneself in some way, or gain advantage over a previous way of being, then this is not quite a full surrender of tariki. There is still a self that thinks to affirm itself through an act of worshipping its own projection. I am thinking about all those 'get rich' schemes on TV where the motivational speaker promises to make you into a "new you" after you pay large sums of money for the product or service being advertised. Here, the same thing arises: I see someone who has 'made it' in some way that reflects my understanding of success, and then I see 'myself' in that person, projected into the future. This is one form of surrender, but the surrender is not really a surrendering of the self or the ego.
     A second kind of surrender feels different. I think it can be characterized as completely giving up the hope that one has the power to 'make it' in an enduring way that will address all the existential suffering of one's heart and world. What's left after giving up the hope is a kind of compassionate longing for all beings to be released from the struggle to 'make it' in an unreal or false way. It's only when a person has reached that full surrender that they can truly see how painful and hard it is to suffer under the delusion that "making it is just around the corner". That desire to be ultimately successful in one's life has such a tremendous pull on a person that it can create a pretty enduring and stable sense of anxiety throughout one's life; the anxiety of not living up to one's expectations of what they should be or what life should be.
      Again, this latter type of surrender would not likely be a hit in places where success is defined according to one's visible accomplishments, actions, wealth, etc. In fact, this surrender would allow me to continue to play the game of accomplishment and success, but it would give me the calm of knowing that I don't need to rely on such accomplishments for my own inner being. This is because with tariki, the self has already been delivered by a compassionate being whose vows are infinitely embracing all beings. And to have faith in this unconditional. powerful compassion can go a long way in easing the desire to continually 'better' oneself.

Suzuki, D.T. (ed. James C. Dobbins), Selected Works of D.T. Suzuki, Volume II: Pure Land. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

The Garden Hose: A Modern Parable

  While Bill was fixing the sprinkler system, he thought about the heroic days when garden hoses were snakes. For a moment, as he wrestled to fix the hose so that it wasn't squirting all over the place, he wondered what things were like in the good old days, when there were real snakes. Would he feel more recognized by others to know that the snakes were actually really alive and real threats to the community?
    As Bill quietly strolled into his house on a hot summer night, his wife Heidi stood in the door waiting for him. She tried to hide the smirk on her face as Bill hung up his coat and tried to hide the water stains on his shorts.
       "Sir, you do look like you peed yourself," Heidi said demurely. She offered to take Bill's wet coat, but Bill shyly skittered back to the kitchen. He truly looked like a dog who had been spanked a few times for something, though he wasn't quite sure what it was. Was it the fact that he didn't operate the sprinkler properly, or that he had not sufficiently asked for help when he needed it? Or perhaps both?
      "I know I am no so good at sprinklers and stuff, but I am trying," Bill said, softly. "And in any case, that's not exactly what I was thinking about anyway. I was thinking about the fact that here in the Canadian jungle of suburban To-ron-to, there is hardly any wild animal to fight or tame. I don't see snakes, I don't see rabbits, or even so much as a mosquito here. I am saying: the fact that there is nothing for me to tame means there is nothing so much as a challenge for me."
      Heidi clucked her teeth in mild disdain. "Oh, is that what you think? Are you saying that the only way to prove that you are anything is to conquer something outside yourself? Such a strange attitude. And besides, your garden hose out there proves to be more of a challenge than you would ever expect."
      Later that night, Bill pondered what his wife had said. Was the garden hose too much of a challenge or perhaps too little? If the garden hose was something threatening and fearful, would he have paid more attention to what he was doing to make sure it was doing what it should be doing?
      Shortly after Bill fell asleep in front of the TV, he was awakened by an eerie tap. He peered down to see that a green slimy thing was crawling up his shirt sleeve and across his neck and shoulders. Bill groaned. Could this be...? He stifled a moan, for fear that Heidi would wake up and see that he was scared of a snake.
          But was it a snake after all? Bill could feel the texture and he knew that something was not quite right. And he suddenly realized that it was not what he had originally thought after all. It was the familiar feel of the garden hose that he had come to know and despise after so many futile attempts to get it to work without wetting his pants.
        But this time, the nozzle of the garden hose was starting to move up and down, as though it had possessed lips. Bill was amazed. Could this be the worst drug trip that he had never had, or was he perhaps only lucidly dreaming? Bill jumped up to grab the rake leaning against the far wall of the living room, but it was too late. The garden hose had by now insinuated itself around Bill's terrified body.
     "Look, sir, uh---please don't eat me, or wet me, or whatever it is that you want to do with me."
     The garden hose started to gyrate its nozzle, until golden spiked teeth started to form along its sides. The nozzle contorted into a kind of wide grin, as the water droplets inside formed tiny bits of foamy saliva. Overall, it gave the distinct impression of a rabid dog.
      "You are quite pathetic, Bill, did you know that?" the garden hose shrieked, between tiny blasts of spray from its mouth. "You said you wanted something to conquer...and when the time comes for you to conquer a silly little garden hose, you whimper like a baby. What does that say, huh?"
     "I guess my fear is bigger than my courage after all," Bill murmured. "And I can't believe that I just said that to you. Am I crazy or what?"
     Bill suddenly waited for Heidi to peep up and say this was all a bad prank. Sadly, the garden hose continued between staccato spits and sprays.
      "The biggest fear is the one that nobody knows how to conquer, after all the wild beasts have been conquered. It is the fear of what is inside you, that you can't define or can't measure."
      Bill looked down at his chest, as though searching for that thing that nobody could define.
      "I just don't get it. All I ever feel is bored and empty when I am trying to fix you. I don't even want to go to the garage and find the instruction manual for you."
       The garden hose let out a raspy huckle- something midway between a hiss and a chuckle. "That is exactly the problem, isn't it Bill? The thing that weighs down on you, what is it? What is that thing that prevents you from going to find the manual? What is the root of that lethargy?  What is the one elusive fear that keeps you petrified, when all the other fears have been taken away from your pretty suburban life?"
       Just then Bill was awoken by Heidi.
       "Wha-what's that?" Bill asked.
       "What's what?" Heidi was holding the garden hose in her hand. "Looks like you were so tired last night that you had dragged the garden hose to bed with you. I would have thought that a teddy bear would have been sufficient, honey."
        Bill stumbled outside and dragged the garden hose with him. He realized then and there what the garden hose had said to him. And he also came to understand that there are many, many things in the world that are very much present, which he did not take the chance to talk to yet: the birds, the trees, the sun, the house, the day. Where would he start?
         Bill suddenly realized that his fear of death was unfounded, when everything he could see, feel, taste and hear around him and inside him was deeply, fully alive, only waiting to tell its story. And he didn't even need to get a manual to find out.

Seeing and Principle

    I have been thinking lately about the subtle balance that takes place in spiritual practice between allowing oneself to see things as they are and seeing them through the lens of principle. And I realized recently that it is not so possible to see things as they are without some kind of principle or understanding involved. For instance, I might think that what I am seeing in front of me is a computer. It seems so evident that it is, from the fact that I have seen it before and I am seeing it so calmly, eyeing all its details and nuances. But in fact what I see is always only a partial view, and it's not a full view of the object by any means. For instance, I am not seeing what this object in front of me will look like at a later time, given the present causes acting upon it. And I am certainly not really reflecting on the conditions that went into this computer: the work that was done on it and so on. So in that sense, am I really fully seeing the computer as it is? I would be hard pressed to say so.
    If I am truly experiencing something, I am aware that it is not something that only exists in this time, but actually is the conglomeration of many moments in time. In fact, I am creating this 'thing' every moment through a process of abstracting from different appearances, which don't have a connection. Sometimes, in the Chan group, the Fashis will say that the body that is mine today is not the same as that of yesterday, much less a few seconds ago. Is it self-evident that this is so just by looking at something with a calm or clear mind? Sometimes we can see impermanence just by having a calm mind. But other times, it's not so evident how causes and conditions come together to create a new event unless I hold that principle in mind. Because of my habitual tendency to see objects as isolated things that are separated from their temporal or spatial arising, I will often overlook that the object I see is the result of causes and conditions, including the awareness itself.
     Is meditation, then, a matter of retraining the mind to see through a very new principle? I believe that in a sense it might be closer to 'detraining' the mind to stop viewing phenomena as separate things and to see that they are only elements of a greater sense of impermanent interbeing. It is not so simple as just seeing a cup as a cup, or a computer as a computer. That's because this kind of seeing is already conditioned by habitual ways of conditioning, much of which is not seen at all. A cup is only a cup because we are habitually using it for certain things, such as holding tea. Even if I try to strip my observation of the cup down to these 'simple' functional elements, I still need to see that the functions are still determined by how the mind regards it and previous existing thoughts.
   Without studying or at least reading about principles such as no-self or impermanence, it might be tempted to say that meditation is about seeing mountains as mountains, rivers as rivers. But this can only happen when I am no longer attached to seeing them as such. I then become aware that a mountain could very well be a river and vice versa, only the current social karma simply defines mountains as mountains, rivers as rivers.  There is no need to say that this will always be the case, and part of the journey is to be willing to question things that are taken for granted: cherished ways of knowing that could very well change as the conditions change.

Time: A Narrative Reflection

Bill walked through the corridors hastily, strapping the bag across his frail shoulders.  He imagined what the crowd would say when he arrived: the parted forced smiles, the sighs, and the unbeknownst smirks. Well, he was late again! And what could he do, or what could he say? Bill told himself to cheer up. He picked up a handkerchief from his shirt pocket and wiped the sweat from his furrowed brow.

Sheila was the first to greet him. Her sympathetic smile withered a little bit, as she started to realize that Bill had not come with any gift whatsoever. Well, typical Bill, she thought, as she tried to forget that Bill was the most important person in the party.

“Bill, you know this is a very important day for you. Why didn’t you bring anything? So much as flowers, a card, or perhaps a box of chocolates? I mean, this is the last day for you do be late?”

Bill lingered at the front steps for a while and stifled a groan.

“The way I see it, Sheila, is that the world needs me to be this way. If everyone were so damn on time, there would be absolute pandemonium. Think about all the riots that would happen as people compete to be the earliest to enter the stores in the mornings; the earliest to be in church; the earliest to be at the party. And those poor hosts…”

Sheila shook her head in disbelief. “Those poor hosts? What is so ‘poor’ about hosts who have guests that are always on time? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

“Wonderful, you say? Are you serious? The hosts would be scrambling to put the food on the table because all these guests are coming on time. And they would be so stressed, realizing that they have to greet each and every one, and somehow thank them all for being on time.”

Bill cringed, balking at the thought of all the guests who are on time. And deep within, he reflected that there must be some ulterior motive for everyone’s being on time: maybe in expectation of a heavenly reward, or a gift, or even some paltry recognition. To try to be on time all the time must have some catch to it. After all, what did people really want, to come to a place at a scheduled time?

John, the local pastor at the church, suddenly recognized Bill and strode forward, extending his clammy palm.

“Bill, it’s so great that you finally made it. I was overhearing your conversation with Sheila, and I thought: I am only so happy to receive you whenever you come. After all, it’s not the exact time that counts, but it’s the heart with which you come to the party that is so crucial. After all, we are not keeping track around here.”

Bill could see a slight discomfort in Sheila’s face, as though taken aback by John’s strident confidence. She shook her head and crossed her arms.

“John, no offence, but do you really think that nobody keeps track of the time around here?”

Sheila pointed to the clock on the far end of the church: a large gothic style grandfather clock. Apparently it had once been a cuckoo clock, but someone had taped up the cuckoo door and rigged the sound so that there was no cuckoo sound to be found.

John nodded. “I know that we have watches, we have clocks, and we have cellphones. But Sheila, honestly, these things are just temporary measures. I mean, they don’t measure a person’s life or the quality of one’s existence. Why put so much faith in time, as though it were the objective measure for a person’s achievements or success?”

            Sheila glanced down at her own watch, a quizzical expression forming on her face.

            "If people didn’t have time, how could they accomplish anything? Heck, how would we even know that we would need to be here to begin with? We couldn’t even know where to meet, when to meet, and what the expectation is.”

                John laughed heartily. “Sheila, have you no faith that you would somehow order your life even in the absence of such technological marvels as watches or clocks? How do you think people did it in antiquity? People knew when it was important to gather and share, simply because it felt important, and it was a shared experience. If people were only bound by mathematical instruments, would there not be a total chaos in the world? Why do we take the measure to be the real person, the real mind?”

                Bill listened intently to both sides, and quietly wondered whether both were not secretly right. After all, isn’t time simply a human invention? Wouldn’t it be safe to say that the clock is simply a way to conveniently help people to be on time? Bill reflected on all the times when he didn’t have the heart to go somewhere, but it was somehow necessary for him to be on time. The trip to the dentist was one such example. Bill swished his tongue over his mouth, realizing that he had not felt his teeth for quite a long while.

                The clock struck 12 pm, and the cuckoo’s voice petered into a garbled moan. All the church leaders gathered to the front of the pulpit, while the various onlookers took their seats. Bill suddenly knew that it was truly his time.

                He strode forward to the coffin at the front of the church and peered down at the face. A familiar face, no doubt: the face that was in the mirror every morning, for the past fifty seven years.

                As John presented the final parting words, Bill sighed, realizing that he had been true to his style to the very end. Indeed, Bill had been late for his own funeral.

 

Reflections in a Shopping Mall

   Before tutoring session tonight, I had the thought in the shopping mall. My reflection was something like: here are dozens of shoppers, each with different needs and wants. What is the best gift that they can receive, whether in a mall or anywhere? And what is it that even strangers can give to each other? The one thing that came to mind is relaxed attitude is the simplest gift: the gift of non-reacting, simply being in the place of the moment without judging it or trying to be somewhere else.
    This doesn't sound like a very stupendous gift, but in a sense, it really is. The problem I see is that this isn't considered a gift, since people are continually trying to give more than who they truly are. This is how identification is formed with the things around us. For instance, I might attend a party thinking that the most important thing is the gift I bring to it, such a food or wine or other item. And I might become so absorbed in getting the perfect gift that I am no longer really there in that moment to receive people or even to be a guest. It is as though the act of giving has overshadowed the simple being that itself forms a kind of gift.
    What happens, though, is that people accumulate ideas about how they should be and what gifts to bring to others. No matter who I am I would always feel that there is something more I could be, and this something is what causes me to not be present. It is as though there were always some perfection around the corner. But if I realize that everything I do is just an expression of this single way of being that is always changing, would I think that there is a perfected self around the corner? Maybe then I would be more confident to know that there is nothing that needs adding. Even gifts are just expressions of a kind of vital and changing way of being.
    Sometimes even 'broken' gifts, unsent gifts, or incomplete ones are even more precious than so-called 'complete' gifts, because they point to something that is more eternal than what a gift is or embodies. There is something touching about a cracked gift, because the crack is what tells us that the gift itself is not as important as the intention behind it, the compassionate motive, or the open mind that originates the gift. The crack creates an empty space that opens up something else to arise. Have we ever experienced in relationships the notion of the empty space? That would be that place that nobody could ever predict about another person which allows new things to emerge, even endless possibilities. Without this tiny crack, there would be only a completed and self-contained form that is always what it is without new possibilities of expression. Could this gift be more precious than the perfection we seek in typical gifts or objects?
   

The Art of "No Time"

 During the group meditation practice, one of the practitioners had asked a really interesting question: do thoughts remain in time, or do they somehow disappear? Are moments in time eternal, or are they constantly changing? What do we do with those moments?
   There were a whole range of different possibilities on what time is about and how it relates to practice. Some talked about the role that time plays in the cycle of cause and conditions, using the annual rings of a tree to show how memories transform into something else and leave their traces. That is, there is nothing that does not have a continuity somewhere else, or in something else. But at the same time the question interests me in the sense that I don't think anything ever happens to moments in time. They are constantly popping up and simultaneously disappearing, so it's not even possible to speak of something 'happening in time'. But what is the practical implication of this?
   Shortly after the discussion, I thought about two analogies from the gadget world. One has to do with a toy I used to have called Etch-a-Sketch. When I was very young, Etch-a-Sketch was a very popular toy in which a person could sketch out a picture on a grey screen and then shake it out using the 'sand' embedded inside. This kind of screen was so re-usable precisely because nothing 'sticks' on the screen and the images produced on it are erasable and subject to recreation at any given moment. As long a I don't get fixated on the illusion that the picture I am making is lasting, the toy becomes a game as well as an exploration into what could be created using very simple lines.
       The interesting thing about Etch-a-Sketch is that the materials used to make the images never really change: nothing is ever added to the contents, and nothing is ever 'erased' from the screen itself. Rather, the whole contraption is completely reset as soon as the picture is shaken off the screen. Can we say that the pictures formed on the screen 'go' anywhere? Where do they go? Some might imagine, as perhaps I did, that the picture 'disappears' into the sand. But if that were the case, no new pictures could be generated. In a sense, there has to be a process where new pictures can arise, and only if the previous are continually arising and disappearing can there be room for new images. Could this be an analogy for time? If I imagine that the picture goes into a storage area in the back of the Etch-a-Sketch, then I start to conceptualize of a thing called time. But if there is no such storage granted, would time have anywhere to exist?
      The second gadget I am thinking of is the cellphone. The one I currently own is a Samsung Galaxy with a very big screen for taking photos and viewing pictures. I am thinking that with all the marvels of this technology and its applications, the materials used to make the images are all essentially the same. From that perspective, nothing really transpires between one application and the next. But if I am absorbed in the individual functions, concepts of space and time start to emerge. I see the internet application in a certain place, start to press it often when there is free Wi-Fi, and then start to realize that I have to go to work soon. All these things happen instantaneously, yet the mind thinks that the features are all taking place in an order or sequence that exists 'outside' the mind. But without the mind, there would be nothing to interpret the signs and images on the screen itself, and thus no sense of space or time. And without attachment to these features, perhaps there wouldn't be any illusion or space or time at all. That's because there is no sense of the mind moving from one action to the next in some determined sequence.
      Both of these technologies illustrate the principle that everything is completely cycled back into something else. Yet everything is simultaneously new. While the previous image has no connection to the current image, they do connect insofar as they are of the same material.

What Phenomena Could Be

 During the group meditation tonight, I felt somehow influenced by Huayen to see things in a different way. What I thought were once pains I could now see were just particulars in a total, shifting context, or a scene that is forever changing and interpenetrating with other scenes. What I have often thought to be bothersome thoughts, I could now also contextualize as something that is part of an unfolding perfect picture.
     What does that mean, to see things as already perfect the way they are? I think that in order to really do so, a person has to shake their fixed points of reference to the point where things are allowed to be seen as perfect. What I mean by this is that seeing imperfection is the result of a self-reference. When I see something as 'not perfect', what do I use to gauge its imperfection? Typically, I use the previous memories, my past feelings about the thing, and my expectations of what it should be or look like. But what would happen if there were simply no fixed reference point for this phenomena? What if the mind was so clear and unattached that there were simply no rules about how to judge an experience? Could one not then begin to see that 'imperfection' is a relative concept? Once imperfection is rooted out of awareness (or is no longer an attachment), what is left is the sense that things are happening for exactly the conditions that come before it. And in that sense there is a kind of full acceptance of what is happening as the result of conditions that arose prior, without the sense that things should somehow be a different way.
      Can anyone really experience this? It's hard to do so, and maybe only an enlightened person can. The most I could do (and not very much) was to just know that thoughts have already disappeared as soon as they have arisen, so there is just no need to judge the past according to the present thoughts. The other experience is the awareness that particular phenomena are not interfering with mind at all. Typically, meditation is characterized as stilling the mind. But if phenomena are mutually vital to the present moment, is there anything that really needs to be stilled? Perhaps the only thing that is stilled is the sense that thoughts are continuous and even 'compete' with each other, when in fact, they don't do this kind of thing at all.
        By acknowledging that thoughts can co-exist in harmony, it's possible to establish a different relationship to one's thoughts. Rather than seeing thoughts are 'competing' for control or attention, is it possible to see thoughts as waves in the same ocean of mind? If that is the case, is there ever a 'best' thought? Or is it possible to reframe thinking itself as something that does not pick and choose thoughts but sees them all as simply impermanent forms of mind? I feel that this attitude might allow the mind to harmonize with thinking, even very chaotic thinking, as long as it is not attached to specific thought forms.

Morning Equanimity

   This morning it turns out, I felt insufficiently rested. Though my body ached a bit as I woke up, I told myself that this is the everyday suffering of having to wake up and start the day anew. And strangely enough, this very thought that suffering is a foundation actually motivated me to push forward. Why is that so? The thought gave me room to drop my attitude of wanting the body to be more relaxed or to somehow have its optimal feeling in that moment. I think this also allowed me to be more unconditional about what I was experiencing at that moment.
    It is interesting how the sometimes very sober, perhaps negative assessment of things can give a person more strength than its opposite, 'positive' counterpart. I should preface here by saying that positive and negative are relative terms. When I try to put a positive spin on something that feels painful, the contrast often accentuates the pain, or makes it seem like an element that should be out of the picture. On the other hand, when I fully accept the pain as present and even appropriate in that moment, I give mind space to just take in what's in front of me. It's perhaps no wonder that in Buddhism, the First Noble Truth is about suffering. It's facing suffering that is often the biggest task; once it is faced honestly and openly without rejecting, it can become a kind of adventure to understand it and contemplate it directly. Only then can a person start to unpack the layers of mind states which compose the suffering itself.
      I have recently been reading Soren Kierkegaard's book, Acts of Love, which describes the commandment in Christianity to love one's neighbour. What does it really mean to "love one's neighbour"? Kierkegaard points out that neighbourly love is based on a respect for the other who is not ourselves, and without distinction based on personal preference. If I even slightly admire someone for their social status or look down on someone else for their clothing, I have already strayed from this commandment, since I no longer love all beings "equally". I see parallels between this concept and the concept of compassion in Buddhism. Compassion, as embodied in Guanyin Pusa, is like a rain which falls evenly on the whole forest, even though it may have different effects on different kinds of plants. Where does it come from, this compassion? For a Buddhist, it would likely come from an insight into the interconnection of all beings. For Kierkegaard, the compassion or love for neighbour comes from a commandment, which in turn arises from God's forgiveness toward humans.
      Both kinds of compassionate love are not preferential, and there is a kind of ruggedness to them. In order to practice the commandment to love one's neighbour, for instance, one simply does not wait for the feeling to arise; it is seen as a direct 'shalt' which oversteps emotions toward engagement with neighbours. Similarly, compassion can arise from equanimity: not giving preference to one state of being or another, thus seeing that all states have an equal legitimacy in the mind. What is also interesting is the sense of relief that such a commandment would engender, to a mind that is so used to acting upon impulses and feelings. I think it's the relief that comes from non-preferential seeing: seeing with a broad mind that does not pick and choose between people based on their appearance, what they wear, what they eat, where they come from, and so on. Is it possible that Kierkegaard's notion of the eternal command to love one's neighbour has a parallel in the bodhisattva path of equanimity and compassion for all beings? Could they both be aiming at achieving a relief from the suffering that comes from using emotional states to choose one's behaviors, rather than using the principle of no-self? I think that in both cases there is a kind of parallel shift away from acting upon emotional whim or inspiration, and toward acting on the principle that underlies those appearances. In the case of Buddhism, the principle might be impermanence or emptiness. In Kierkegaard's writings, the principle could very well be the love of God which is said to reach down to all people equally.

Seeing Through Projection

   While paying for coffee this morning, my debit card wasn't working, and somehow it was declined twice. I had a couple of emotional reactions. The first is that of panic: "My card is not working anymore!" Then the second was embarrassment, realizing that I was holding up the line. When I finally found cash to pay for the coffee, I apologized to the woman who was waiting behind me. But the lady did not respond to me, and I moved on to get the milk.
    When I look at this situation, I realize what mistakes I am making in how I see the world. The first mistake is that I somehow see people around me as separate from me. In the moment when I am apologizing to the lady, I see myself as someone who did something wrong, and I see the person behind me as someone to whom I am accountable. Then, when the lady does not respond to the apology, vexation arises, as though an expectation of reply were disappointed. But all these things arise because of the mistake of thinking I am separate from other people. I create this inner drama, and fuel it by my sense of separate being that has these insatiable 'needs' for approval or acceptance.
     The same sort of thing happens with desires. I often think that desire is all about trying to merge with something else, such as a sugar treat. But actually, desire implies an illusion of separateness. When I see the thing I like in the dessert store, I start to have the thought: "that thing is over there waiting for me; I want that." And rather than accepting the image as already arising in mind, I project it out there and then think it's something substantial out there that I can grasp or hold onto. It is like having a war with oneself, in a way, and creating all the actors and actresses in one's own internal battlefield. Which one of these things belongs 'out there' and which one is truly me? Is it not all like the clouds in the sky?
     Another example has to do with anger. If anger arises inside me, I often might assume that the anger comes from something outside me which I somehow have to reject. But in fact, anger is just conditioned arising. There can be any number of reasons behind the anger, and none of these reasons has an object. Yet, sure enough, the mind thinks that there is 'someone out there' who is causing anger to arise, and then rejects the someone out there as responsible for the anger. A different approach would be to accept the anger as a phenomena arising in mind and not to assign it to a particular person or thing. It is just natural phenomena, and it doesn't really have an object at all. For instance, anger could be triggered by different sets of conditions, such as the state of the body, or lack of sleep, or a memory. Do any of these particular things have a particular object outside of mind? What if, rather than projecting the anger outward, I were to simply accept that it is the condition of mind, and one of many? How would that be?
      It takes practice to see this way, because the projection normally happens very quickly. But it seems that the important thing is not to see things as separate from the mind but to somehow own the conditions that are coming from mind. If there is anger, it's not coming from outside the mind but is the condition of this very mind. This would be taking responsibility for the conditions rather than thinking they are separated from mind.

The Key to Writing..

      While travelling to St Clair area, there was a man sporting the T shirt which read "The key to writing is to write everyday". I think about how this adage of making something a daily habit can apply to just about everything, including meditation practice. My thinking is that it doesn't necessarily matter what it is exactly that we do repeatedly for ourselves, but that the process of doing something for its own sake becomes a reflection of ourselves and our complex nature.
    It is like what Judy mentioned to me today, which is that everything is under the sky, and the clouds are constantly forming new and complex shapes that are unique in themselves and disappearing. So it is with writing everyday: there are times when I feel quite inspired to write, and other times when it is a struggle and I am either very tired or simply at a loss of what to write. Somehow, I begin to feel that none of this writing is exactly about content. Even though my writing is mostly about philosophical or meditative themes, I think the point of writing itself is deeper. It reflects the process of life itself, in the sense that there is an endless flux running through the soul. And if I had simply told myself to write every so often when I was most "inspired" to do, I wouldn't capture that sense that writing captures the ins and outs of life. Time doesn't wait for inspiration to happen, and in a similar manner, writing doesn't have to happen when there is some magical inspiration arising in the mind.
    Of course, I think the same thing applies to meditative practice. The interesting thing with meditation is that there is often a very subtle clinging to what it 'should' be about that prevents a person from seeing what is actually happening. When I was meditating this morning, for example, I had a lot of scattered thoughts. And part of me thought this was terrible, and I kept trying to find ways to calm and become focused. But when I look on the whole of it, this is a relationship like any other: it is the 'going through' of the unideal moments which counts for a lot, because that is how I come to know my tendencies. In a sense, the writing process is the same, because it illuminates my tendencies to meander, to run out of inspiration at times, to have to stretch myself to be creative, to get distracted and so on. Just as meditation has the anchor point of the breath, writing also has the anchor of the page or the screen.
     Does this process of writing help me to be more patient with myself or with who I am? I think that perhaps that might be the longer term process of writing, but in the beginning I think that most people write to express themselves. Somehow in that expression there is always a search for some fundamental or ultimate self. But as I progress in writing, I see that there is no 'fundamental' self, only a lot of shifting circumstances and conditions. The search for the true self sometimes ends up being like looking for the one cloud which best captures the sky. Can it ever be done?

Post Retreat Reflection

  The one day intermediate retreats often teach me one thing, and that is the importance of acknowledging facticity of experience. I think 'facticity' is more a word coming from Heidegger, but it might map onto the idea of cause and condition in Buddhist philosophy. And during the one day retreat today, I had this experience where the leg pain seemed to great that I simply found it impossible to exert any effort to 'soothe' it or transform it in any way into something else. And the interesting thing is that during the sharing afterward, the facilitator talked about how meditation often appears to be a physical 'embodied' experience at the beginning, but then later it starts to appear that al the bodily conditions can be rooted in specific states of mind. That is, the key to being able to deal with states of pain is to contextualize pain in terms of wider states of mind.
   However, I found that toward the end of the day, the only thing I could really do was to completely and utterly accept what was happening to me in that moment, without trying to adjust anything. How did I accomplish that? Well, I found that simply asking 'who experiences this pain?' lead me to experience the absence of a single fixed person who feels pain. This was very powerful for me, not in the sense that it eliminated the pain but more in the sense that there was no self that was pushing it away anymore. The pain was at times experienced as a kind of pure sensation, and there was simply no self to say "I" feel this pain. But at times this experience was quite difficult to sustain, and there were times when I had to accept that I was not 'okay' with the pain at all. Now again, is there an "I" in this particular experience?  Not a permanent one, but in those moments, I had to realize how hard it is to let go of the belief and attachment to self-experience.

The Body and the "I"

    What does it mean to have no self? Surely, when I am called by my name "Keith", this is a self. So why does Buddhism talk so much about no self when there are definite labels? I think this is a serious question that I am pondering currently.
    For instance, if a person feels hungry, they feel their own distinct bodily sense. I don't feel someone else's hunger, and when someone else is eating in the room, it's not 'this body' that feels full. So in that case, is it not proper to refer to this body as me and someone else's as them? The problem is that I attribute the body to a distinct and separate self. But when I reflect on it, there isn't a separate body at all. For instance, if the body were relaly separate from the environment, there would be no need to eat or to move from one place to the other. The body would just be where this 'me' is situated, so there would not even be a need to look outward. But in fact there is an outside and an inside. So why do I limit the sense of "I" to this one single thing I call a body?
    When there is some unpleasant sensation or feeling, there is a tendency to protect the body as though it were the only thing that I can safely call the self. Even when that feeling is coming from a verbal statement, the sense of self kind of recoils into the body. I try to figure out ways for 'this body' to be protected from harm, whether real or imagined. But pain is unavoidable. In order to be social beings, there are many emotional risks. Can one make one's body immune to the emotional pains of being social?
    The paradox is that the more I try to protect 'this body'  from the perceived threats of the environment, the more suffering will be felt. This suffering takes the form of trying to anticipate or plan around every perceived danger. Such a life would be very difficult to inhabit. It would be like trying to anticipate every possible 'terrible' thing that could happen to this body. But what would happen if I did not at all identify with the body or with what others are labeling as 'me' or 'my body'? Then the way of seeing would be quite different.
     People tend to think of others as bodies. When I think of a person I know, I am imagining the familiar body that they inhabit. Recently, in the news, I see the image of the actor Hugh Jackman, and there is a big fuss over the fact that he looks much older than in his other pictures. People start to speculate whether it's a makeup job for an upcoming movie or if it is his 'real body' or if it is due to illness. It's interesting that the media really scouts for the person's 'real' body, as opposed to the body that is ravaged by illness or disease. I remember once reading about how the soul in heaven is supposed to take on the form of the body that is in its 'prime', which is often assumed to be in one's 30s. The search for the self is often the search for the body that one cherishes the most: the body that is considered the most complete, the most attractive, the most matured, and so on. It's as though this image of the body sets the standard for a person's true being.
      When someone points out that "I" made a mistake, are they pointing to me, or to their thought of my body? Normally, people talk but they are imagining the image of the person rather than seeing the person. But the true 'body' is actually a shifting form that is continually being generated. It is not even really one 'body' that holds it all together. Instead, the body is a kind of concept that is supposedly bringing together different moments in time. If there is no distinct unchanging substance called a body, does it make sense to point the finger at this "I", to say it is the source of suffering or happiness? These questions seem trivial but they are part of investigating what it means to protect the sense of self by way of the body.
        One way of dealing with criticism is to try to deflect criticism from the body that I believe is me. I might say, "I wasn't myself that day" or "I was tired", "my body hadn't been fed when I made that remark." In other words, I try to  salvage the sense of an unchanging me which is separate from all the actions. But what if there is no separate unchanging substance that I could refer to as myself? There may still be consequences to actions taken, but the body itself is part of a changing flux. Would it then make sense to limit who we think we are to this image  of the body?
       Sometimes, when I make an embarrassing mistake in front of others, I am afraid to look at myself in the mirror afterwards. But I wonder, what does the image have to do with the previous action? Why blame the image for the action? Yet the habitual way is to attach to this image of the body and say 'it' is responsible for all the behavior. Or we make reasons why "it" is not responsible. Both views are somehow very limiting, because they treat the body as the ideal locus  of action and thought. It overlooks the many conditions that go into the present moment, opting instead to separate body from environment.

keep on going

  There are times when I encounter such strong obstacles in meditation practice, that I tend to think that they are insurmountable. I fail to realize that what I think are obstacles are my way of rejecting the situation and trying very hard to avoid certain things I dislike. In those moments, one can only just face what is happening and try to see it with compassionate eyes. And I find that this kind of compassion is very natural when we reach low points in our lives, and are able to face what is causing the problem.
    My biggest fear and worry in life is personal inadequacy: the feeling that I am simply not good enough to meet challenges, and the thought that something terrible will happen to me if I fail to meet those challenges. At times, I have to just let go of the worry and do my best, but there are other times when the fear of inadequacy gets too overwhelming. In those moments, the only thing I can do is somehow believe that I can find a way through it, as well as to be open to the present moment. And if my mind is open, I have found that there is always some way that I can keep going on.
     The huatou practice is really special in the sense that it does not depend on external environment. One can simply use this meditative practice to investigate the source of all experience, rather than wrestling with the contradictions of experience, which can give rise to all sorts of challenges. But it is also helpful to know that one is not dependent on others to try to solve existential questions, and that these kinds of questions can be sorted out through some spiritual practice. I can only hope that intensive huatou practice will help me improve my skills in facilitation of meditation practice, as well as to be more confident in the practice and what it means.
    When there really isn't a concrete, unhanging self, all one can do is exert efforts, without knowing what the real self is.
     

Allowing Meditation to Work on You

   During the group meditation, I had this idea of completely trusting and allowing the method to be fully experienced, as though it were working on me, rather than me working on "it". What I mean by this is that I normally approach familiar things with this preconceived notion of myself as the actor who is actively 'working' on something to somehow mould or shape it into something that is favorable. Quite opposite to the attitude of meditation, this attitude tends to assume that there is a desired end result to practice, and my goal is to somehow make my experience into the mould of this stylized, idealistic experience.
    How or what does 'allowing something to work on you' mean? I think it means taking something to be for the first time. When I was doing the yoga exercises at the opening, I just treated the exercise as though I had heard it for the first time. I savored the words from the instructor and allowed the words to guide my movements, whereas before I would simply interpret the words through the filter of my previous experience or habit. This way, I was really connecting to the sounds from the facilitator, rather than only connecting to memory or expectation.
      At times when I was trying to do the same with meditation practice, it felt a bit like trying to open a very tightly shut door. The door would give way at times, only to slam back in my face. And in those moments when I allowed myself to experience huatou as a raw question, it felt so releasing. What or who was being 'released'? All the self-reference points I cherish were being shifted and eased in that moment. The experience is like any tectonic shift: extremely painful and vulnerable, with a distinct fear of what is unfamiliar or new. And there is also this added sense that all my familiar reference points are falling away. What is this mind anyway? Can I really approach mind as it is unfolding now, without filtering it through these blinders?
     It's not so easy to allow something to work on me because deep down inside, I am desiring to hold onto something that I know is mine, or 'me'. Yet, when I catch those glimpses of 'something working on me', I feel such a relief, like I am taking off this heavy armor which I thought was supposed to protect me, but is really just unnecessary burden. What is really being lifted is expecting something to be a certain way and not tolerating any other way. In this sense, meditation becomes devotion to something that is such an integral way of being but has somehow become foreign to us. We have to somehow rediscover what is always there, but do so by throwing out our preconceptions of what must follow from a certain activity.

Temporarily...

   This morning, I decided to do meditation before going out to work-something I am not accustomed to. I found that my spine was much more supportive to my practice in the mornings, leading me to believe that my posture likely suffers during the day from a lot of sitting. In addition, morning meditation seems to have the added advantage of being easier to sustain, as there are much fewer wandering thoughts in the morning. Although I wasn't able to sustain the stillness of mind for very long, the morning meditation very much did help me.
    Although many books have been written about Buddhist concepts such as impermanence and emptiness, I would have to say that it's only through dedicated practice of a specific method in mediation that these concepts have meaning. Why is that? I think it's because none of these are real concepts at all, but are more similar to ways of being. For instance, Francis Cook remarks, "Primarily, the doctrine of emptiness is an attack on the conceptual mode of grasping the world. It says that although words and concepts are normally valid for purposes of accomplishing our business, they are totally invalid from the standpoint of the highest truth." (p.42) If emptiness is more of a way of seeing than a fixed concept, it is nearly impossible to know emptiness simply through a concept. To do so is to try to fix something that was never meant to even be a 'thing' to begin with. Of course, one has to use language to be able to get emptiness or understand its direction, but after that, the concept can just become another impediment.
    For example, if a person simply uses the word 'impermanence' to remind themselves that things are going to pass, they only add another concept which they believe is permanent. But even the concept itself is not permanent. It is conditioned, in fact. If a tiger were to suddenly run into the workplace and start chasing me, would the word 'impermanent' come to mind? It may or it may not, but it probably won't do me much good because it's a kind of distracting thought. If on the other hand, I had an insight into impermanence, it is no longer just a word or a thought. It is a mode of being where thoughts are able to come and go freely, because none are regarded as having a fixed duration or even continuing from one moment to the next. Each thought is gone as soon as it has arisen. So if I speak of the thought as 'changing', I am still assuming that it starts as one thing and simply changes to another. But again, the thought has already passed, so nothing is said to have changed.
     I say this because I sometimes think that having a calm mindset is much more important to  practice than calling up ideas or words from a book. While the latter are pointers that are quite important to practice, they are unable to capture the true experience of thoughts' instantaneously arising and perishing.
    I have also often heard people use impermanence as a way of consoling themselves: well, our lives are impermanent anyway, so why bother putting hopes in anything? But is this the true meaning of impermanence? The problem is that one secretly holds onto what she hopes to be permanent, while trying to defeat it with the thought that "all things are impermanent". But these thoughts have no connection to each other, so there is no way to 'defeat' the first thought with the second. Perhaps a more accurate way to describe impermanence is that both these thoughts simultaneously exist and disappear as soon as they arise. So the past and present don't actually interact, contrary to other notions of impermanence which emphasize 'continuity in the midst of change'.

Cook. Francis (1977) ..The Jewel Net of Indra. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Press.

A "Compassionate" Thought Experiment

 
    Whenever you are in a  crowded commute, try to imagine the following: every being  on the bus or subway is  someone that you will  eventually encounter or have  encountered before. If you have not encountered that person recently, it is simply because the causes and conditions haven't yet  ripened  for it to happen.  And there is an infinite stretch of time available to encounter all the beings, so there is no need to worry about meeting everyone in a single lifetime.
    Now the second part of this exercise is to contemplate: what would it be like if we had something that these beings don't have, and they have something we don't have? It would be as though each of one us were puzzle pieces in a totality, and we were entrusted to somehow  figure out how the pieces interlock with each other. But the interesting thing is that the more I reach out to other beings to find out what is missing and how my piece complements theirs', the more I  question: who is this "I" anyway? If what I have to give  is always a part in the whole, where does my piece begin and where does it end? Is it not the case that we are always influenced by  the way others interact with us?
     To put in in a slightly different way  that is more understandable: at any given moment, what "I" have experienced is never completely whole, because there is always some potential new experience to encounter. I have certain distinct functions based on my previous experiences: skills, habits, and ways of thinking that have been influenced by my education, interests, work life, and so on. But at the same time, none of this collection of experiences and education is ever 'completed'.  It is always being applied to the present moment where there are endless possibilities, combinations and new experiences with others. Furthermore, one can never say that they are ever completely independent, since they are always intermingling with new experiences. The 'self' we conceive to be our identity is never closed off, but it is influenced by what happens around it.
     Now, in a concrete situation, how might this viewpoint influence the way I interact with people or view them? One thing is that it curbs the tendency to view other people with a self-reference. Typically, I see people in terms of likes, dislikes and indifference. I crave to be with those I like (to the point of wanting to think about them a lot), while I try to avoid those who I dislike (to satisfy my desire to be happy) and I disregard those who are neither harmful nor particularly beneficial. This view is selfish, because it only sees people in terms of the self and its comforts. The previous experiment suggests that we can curb this view when we start to see a bigger picture of our encounters with other beings. While we do have gifts to develop, these gifts are always unfolding in the context  of a totality. No being is excluded from that totality, since each part interacts with every other part (directly or indirectly).
    The second point is that it converts desires and dislikes into something quite different. I am not sure how to describe it. I was at the subway this morning and I asked myself: how does my experience of people around me  change when I realize that all of this is a totality, and there are no completely separate identities? It doesn't necessarily cause me to feel loving toward everyone, but it converts my experience to one of endless becoming and possibility. What I am seeing 'now' is not the full picture and nor can it ever be complete. It is endlessly moving toward something else that is unknowable but is all-encompassing. In a sense, when I like or dislike, I am already limiting those possibilities, as though I have attached a fixed meaning to something that can never truly be fixed.
     What I have described is just a kind of thought experiment, and it is likely to change over time. But perhaps it is a starting point to viewing people in different ways.

Camping Meditation

 This past weekend, I had the opportunity to help with a pilot project of camping meditation, which took place at Lafontaine Camp grounds in Georgian Bay. The purpose of the meeting was to scope out the area and to work out a tentative program for a possible outdoor meditation program in 2017 at Dharma Drum Mountain. I am not going to go too much into the project itself, since this would take quite a long time to explore. Rather, I want to explore some of my own observations on the relationship between my experience of Chan Buddhism and this specific camping experience I had. I am well aware while writing this that Chan can be experienced differently according to people's various capacities, practices and affinities.
   I think that there is some mysterious connection between Chan and nature. I have yet to see a study which really explores the interconnections between nature and Chan, but Master Sheng Yen remarks:

Within the confines of your own home you may feel you are the master, but if may others live there, the sense of being in your own space begins to diminish. When you go into the country, the expanse of sky and earth  form one big universal house and you can feel very small. At the same time, in that great open space you would feel that all nature is yours, and even with other people there, you still feel a sense of spaciousness. (p.33)

I felt a similar sense when I was on the camping trip and doing meditation this weekend. City life does in fact make people feel that they are often masters of their lives. I am thinking about how convenient it is to find food in the city and even to turn on a faucet or a light switch in the expectation of clean water and light. While spending time in the non-service area (read: no hydro), I began to see how everything that I take for granted in the city is based on complex supporting conditions. But when a lot of conveniences are reduced, we are all left to take in the sounds, sights and smells around us, as well as to see that there is only a very thin tissue between ourselves and the universe of other sentient creatures.

The tent seems to symbolize this interconnection the most. While meditating in the tent, the four of us had experienced all the sounds of the natural world, separated only by a very thin mosquito netting. As I closed my eyes to start the meditation practice, I began to feel a certain power in the way the sounds were all separate yet coalescing and co-existing together. And I also began to appreciate the vastness of life. What I experience in my relations with those I know is only a tiny part of all the relationships that living beings share with each other. Even though I may not feel connected to the spider which crawled into the inside of the tent, we are both in some ways contributing to the same world, and there is some collective karmic affinity that we are able to experience the other in some way.

There seems to be some intrinsic joy in meditating close to nature and being able to sense certain things or connections there. Part of it is what I alluded to before. Even to close your eyes or behold a landscape such as a forest or a lake can give you and idea that the world is much bigger and less controllable than the habitual worlds one occupies. And this vastness is nothing to fear. Rather than excluding, it envelops the listener. There is a sense that the world participates in a shared unity, even when it may seem that sentient beings are divided from each other by different perspectives and concerns.

Somehow, I feel a linkage between nature and the kinds of relationships that can only develop with a healthy solitude. What do I mean by 'healthy' solitude? I am referring to a kind of solitude that increases the sense that one is already connected to the world and universe in ways that go beyond words and verbal communication. To be with plants and animals in a silent way is a kind of step in realizing the depth of connections that aren't really said at all. Sheng Yen remarks, "When I was in solitary retreat, I knew that I was together with all sentient beings in innumerable worlds. Even though I seemed to b alone in a small, enclosed room, actually I was living in the company of many ants who found their way inside, and insects outside of the hut created all kinds of sounds in the evening." (p.24) With this perspective and attitude, could anyone ever feel alone in the universe?

Sheng Yen (2012), Tea Words Volume One. New York: Dharma Drum Publications