On Mental Fortitude

  I have to admit that I don't quite get the soldier-like "man up" moftifs in Santideva's writing, and I don't think that I ever will quite understand it. He is explaining in Line's 17-20 of "The Perfection of Patience" that "Some, seeing their own blood, show extraordinary valor, while some faint even at the sight of others' blood" (Line 17). In Line 18, we read, "That comes from mental fortitude or from timidity. Therefore, one should become invincible to suffering, and surmount pain." (p.63) The part I do understand is that mental fortitude and timidity are really only states of mind, and they are the real forces that practitioners have to contend with when facing their challenges in life. Again, it goes back to the notion of where anger, fear, hatred, and other mental afflictions arise. It's certainly never in a specific object that endures. In a sense, I think Santideva is alluding to the fact that nothing can really prevent a person from being courageous in the sight of blood (or other things of that matter). Mental attitudes can always be aroused no matter what conditions happen to be present in the moment, since the conditions are themselves only temporary and not independent events.
    Santideva is also referring to the fact, on Line 17, that blood itself is never the 'cause' of fear. If it were the primary cause of fear, everyone would naturally (and perhaps mechanically) faint at the sight of blood. But as Santideva points out, fainting or not fainting depends on the mental attitudes of the person, not on a specific object such as blood. Santideva is pointing to the understanding that nothing is ever inevitable cause for a state of mind. One's state of mind is an evolving co-creation of many elements which are interrelated. In this regard, flexibility of mind can allow people to embrace qualities they thought they didn't have.
    An example that might prove somewhat more concrete is that of seeing a large shadow and being terrified, only to realize later that the shadow refers to a tiny mouse. You might say that 'seeing the shadow' makes me afraid, but that is only because I associate the shadow with a thought of what it might be, which is in turn associated with aversion. For instance, I might associate the shadow with something that is capable of jumping out at me or subduing me, which could be based on previous memories of an uncertain situation. Does the shadow 'cause' me to be afraid? No, not any more than the mouse causes me to be afraid. But because the shadow triggers a lot of memories or images which evoke fear, I think that the shadow is 'scary'. So in this regard, the shadow is thought to have properties which are really only based on the way I am seeing it, including the way consciousness links the image to another image or thought.
    Now, is it ever possible to 'will' myself to be courageous in the face of something feared? I think that the strength that Santideva is referring to might be more akin to clear awareness than to a deliberately willed resolve. When I am clearly aware of the conditioned nature of my feelings or attitudes toward things, I am less inclined to project those elements onto specific forms around me. That sometimes does give me a mental space to behold them in new or less polarized ways.

Santideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva (selected chapters only). Translated by V. Wallace and A. Wallace. Snow Lion, 1997.  .

"Insensitivity" Training

Prior to the group meditation practice tonight, I was anticipating that the room would be cold. I told the young lady in the t-shirt that the towels we provide our participants can be used to cover not just the legs but also the arms, chest, or anywhere else that feels cold. But I also reassured the participant that people forget the temperature once they really start to meditate.
   Of course, sometimes, it can go the other way: most people report heightened sensitivity to sensory inputs after they meditate. I have heard of one meditation practitioner who becomes acutely sensitive to sound when she meditates in a deep samadhi. Many even regard it as a special power to gain additional sensory abilities after meditating for long periods of time. Is it true that Buddhists would value greater sensitivity to perceptions?
    From my reading of Santideva, I would have to say perhaps "no" to the question of whether Buddhists value acute sensitivity from meditative practices. After all, sensitivity could be a kind of attachment to sounds, smells, tastes, or touch, and the aim of many Buddhist practices is to lessen attachment rather than heighten it. Along these lines, Santideva uses many natural metaphors to illustrate the dangers of heightened sensory awareness, particularly when it comes to registering pain. He remarks, "Cold, heat, rain, wind, traveling, illness, captivity, and beatings should not induce a sense of fragility. Otherwise, the distress becomes greater." (Line 16, p.63)
   Santideva's point is to say that the 'sense of fragility' only increases one's feeling of distress over commonplace events. But where does this sense of fragility arise, exactly? Throughout this text, Santideva challenges his audience not to narrow their awareness to predefined categories, like "suffering" and "happiness", "good" and "bad", etc. If, for instance, I anticipate that something like temperature will be problematic, I already categorize the experience in terms of pre-existing categories, which only serve to judge the experience itself. The sense of fragility that Santideva describes typically comes from a person who is finicky about almost everything, and I imagine that Santideva may even be describing a pampered situation. When a person is living in extreme comfort, they sometimes become very protective of that comfort by rejecting anything that is just a little bit uncomfortable. But on the other hand, Santideva forces his audience to put things in perspective. Are the inconveniences of life really that bad? He remarks:

15. Do you not consider the pain of bugs, gadflies, and mosquitoes, of thirst and hunger, and the irritation of a serious rash and the like as insignificant? (ibid)

Here, Santideva is posing an interesting question: if one traces one's discomfort back to the original sources, do those discomforts really seem so terrible? Most of the problems one experiences seem large to the senses, but then again are only the coming together of temporary conditions. Waiting in long line-ups is one good example of something that can be emotionally difficult, but in itself would not be anything more than a bit inconvenient.
   Is Santideva suggesting that practitioners become like 'rocks with no senses'? From what I can see, Santideva is suggesting that people should never throw problems out of proportion, but can use their practice to see things from a greater context of cause and condition. After all, a 'fly' is only considered a problem in isolation. When I consider it in the greater context of other beings, without a self-reference, I stop personalizing the problems and start to see that they are conditions, none of which are directed at "me".

Santideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva (selected chapters only). Translated by V. Wallace and A. Wallace. Snow Lion, 1997.  .

Reversing the Attitude toward Suffering

  It seems that by habit, people tend to think of suffering as something that is undesirable or to be avoided at all costs. I think, for instance, that suffering is the obstacle to liberation, without considering that perhaps suffering itself is a form of awakening if it is treated as such. Santideva has this to say about suffering in the chapter "The Perfection of Patience", in Way of the Bodhisattva:

11. For loved ones and for oneself, one does not desire suffering, contempt, verbal abuse, or disgrace; but for an enemy, it is the opposite. (p.62)

This passage seems rather straightforward, almost to the point of common sense. But then the question becomes, what does Santideva say about wishing friends wellness and wanting to inflict suffering on an enemy? Rather than exhorting his audience to love the enemy, Santideva chooses a different kind of tactic, namely, reversing the equation of suffering with something that is evil or to be avoided at all costs. Hence, in line 12 he remarks:

Happiness is obtained with great difficulty, whereas suffering occurs easily. Only through suffering is there release from the cycle of existence. Therefore, mind, be strong! (ibid)

It's interesting that Santideva equates happiness with 'great difficulty', thus reversing the common idea that happiness is somehow 'easy' or smooth. If suffering is easily at hand, why not use the suffering of daily life to release from the cycle of existence? Santideva suggests that suffering is a kind of short-cut to ending the cycle of birth and death, because it can take a person to the point of no longer desiring existence in such an attached or clinging manner. If one's friends or family only enjoyed pleasurable moments, they would not have such an 'easy' access to liberation, because happiness only increases one's attachment to life.

Finally, Santideva compares his own suffering in spiritual life to ascetic practitioners, many of whom have appeared to endure greater suffering than himself. In line 13, he remarks:

The devotees of Durga and the people of Kamata needlessly endure the pain of burns, cuts, and the like. Why then am I timid when my aim is liberation? (ibid)

Here, Santideva suggests that many ascetics 'needlessly' endure great amounts of pain, presumably for a low payoff. Why , then, should one be afraid of pain when the true aim is liberating oneself? Wouldn't the goal of liberation be well worth the cost, considering what other practitioners have endured for the sake of much less? To be clear, it looks as though Santideva has a particular bias toward his own school of awakening. However, he points out that suffering could be endured when a person understands its true place in a spiritual practice. To go through suffering is to eventually acclimatize oneself to its presence, and thus to overcome one's fear of suffering itself. Hence, Santideva remarks:

There is nothing whatsoever that remains difficult as one gets used to it. Thus, through habituation with slight pain, even great pain becomes bearable. (p.63)

The real benefit of undergoing pain, according to Santideva, is that it allows people to embrace much bigger experiences, as they grow accustomed to what used to be considered unbearable. Santideva suggests that the more one embraces suffering, the more expansive one's mind and experiences can be. This is surely an encouragement for all people to persevere in their small pains, with the prospect of being able to endure greater ones in the near future.


Santideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva (selected chapters only). Translated by V. Wallace and A. Wallace. Snow Lion, 1997.  .

Undisrupted Happiness

    In Line 9 of the chapter "Perfection of Patience" in Way of the Bodhisattva, Santideva remarks, "Even if I fall into extreme adversity, I should not disrupt my happiness. When there is frustration, nothing is agreeable, and virtue is forsaken." (p.62) As I am reading this passage, one question that comes to my mind is, how does a person have undisrupted happiness? Part of the perspective that Santideva shares with us is found in the next line of the text, where he writes, "If there is a remedy, then what is the use of frustration? If there is no remedy, then what is the use of frustration?" (ibid, Line 10).
    Santideva uses a very intriguing logic to point a way toward an undisrupted kind of happiness. He does this by suggesting that regardless of whether there is a cure or no cure, there is simply no point in feeling frustrated at all by any emerging situation. Why is that? As in previous lines of this chapter, Santideva is revealing how the real adversary is not anybody or anything, but the kind of emotional attitudes which habitually arise from likes and dislikes. This is why in the previous sections, Santideva is viewing anger and hatred as 'adversaries' in themselves, rather than looking toward the supposed objects of anger. If I know that the real affliction is emotion itself, then I turn toward the emotion and ask: truly, is this emotion necessary? If not necessary or integral to bettering my situation, why should I even bother to keep that emotion? Using this same logic, Santideva finds a way to let go of frustration in all occasions and reach a state of equilibrium, where it is possible to maintain a state of continuous happiness.
     It interests me that Santideva's logic is quite the opposite to modern psychology in the West. Western psychology of emotions tends to treat emotions as products of events or objects. If I dislike something, it's thought that the object of the dislike triggers me to feel dislike. If only I can just take away that dreaded or detested object, then I will be okay (or so they say). But according to how Santideva writes, it's often the emotion itself (in this case frustration) which becomes the source of attachment. If I am frustrated, I am really responding to the emotion of frustration, rather than a specific object. It stands to reason that if only I wasn't attached to the emotion at all, there would be no problem. But normally, I solidify the emotion into something that is outside me or that belongs to something else. What if instead of doing this, I simply realized that I could question the emotion itself, and go directly to the heart of whether it is working for me or not. Is it worthwhile for me to feel depression? Does frustration really get me anywhere? Besides eliciting the occasional pitying glance, what benefits do 'sad' emotions have? Santideva is immensely practical when addressing these sorts of questions.
      Yet another point Santideva makes is that the emotional states we choose to take on (or discard) have a deep impact on our virtues or moral character. Santideva never stops reminding us that we are moral beings, particularly when he remarks: "When there is frustration, nothing is agreeable, and virtue is forsaken." Again, if virtue is forsaken, the emotion becomes nothing more than a burden which ends up isolating a person. Santideva keeps engaging us to push the question: what true value do emotions have in our lives? If we can maintain this pragmatic attitude, perhaps we can reach a state where we choose to remain joyful and calm in the midst of arising circumstances.

Santideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva (selected chapters only). Translated by V. Wallace and A. Wallace. Snow Lion, 1997.  Other translations by the Padmakara Translation Gorup.

Perfecting Patience II

 Continuing in Santideva's chapter "Perfecting Patience" from Way of the Bodhisattva, I read the following line:

Finding its fuel in discontent originating from an undesired event and from an impediment to desired events, anger becomes inflamed and destroys me. (Line 7, p.62)

Santideva seems to get to an interesting point here, which is that our anger and suffering is mostly related to some undesired event. But the flipside of this 'undesired' event is 'an impediment to desired events'. It's interesting, because in a sense Santideva is suggesting that there isn't an undesired event without some underlying desired event. If, for instance, I am in a long lineup waiting to pay for groceries, I might think that the long lineup itself is giving me suffering. That is, it's the 'undesired event'. But in actuality, what is the true source of discontent?
    Put it this way: what if I am lining up at the supermarket, and then realize that outside the supermarket is one of my worst enemies from the past waiting to do me in? Would I then think the lineup itself is bad? Or another, less extreme example: what if raking the leaves is preventing me from going indoors and having to clean a very dirty toilet? Is raking the leaves so unpleasant when viewed in light of cleaning the toilet? I guess that tastes in housework might vary, but the point is that the root of suffering here is the desire for some other experience than what I am having. My sense of suffering in a long lineup doesn't come from the line itself, but is the result of a secret or latent desire to be somewhere else at that particular time. But what if I were to recognize, as Santideva does, that the root of suffering is this 'impediment to desired events'? With this recognition, would I not think twice about desire itself? If desire turns the moment into a nightmare, what would it be like to simply let go of that desire to be somewhere else?
    Again, as in the previous lines of this chapter, Santideva alludes to the way in which anger itself is a kind of enemy. It's not anyone else who causes me harm, but anger itself is the source of the harm. I wonder if perhaps thinking in this way might help a person recognize that their pain comes from needless desires for faraway things. What would it be like turn from desiring that future thing to wanting what is in the moment, right now?

Santideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva (selected chapters only). Translated by V. Wallace and A. Wallace. Snow Lion, 1997.  Other translations by the Padmakara Translation Gorup.

Perfecting Patience

    In his chapter "The Perfection of Patience" in Way of the Bodhisattva, Santideva describes anger and impatience as things which only estrange a person from others. I take it that I have a great deal to learn from this chapter, because it can train me to become more patient and accepting of all situations around me. I think I would like to spend some time going through the concepts.
    Santideva's first task in this chapter is to show the disadvantages of impatience, as a spur toward the mindful cultivation of patience. How he does this is by showing how dreadfully isolating impatience can be. He remarks "the mind does not find peace, nor does it enjoy pleasure and joy, nor does it find sleep or fortitude when the thorn of hatred dwells in the heart." (p.61, line 3). He later goes on to suggest that friends and dependents fear an angry person (lines 4-5) and may even wish to harm that person. What I get from this passage is: anger and impatience only breeds the same anger and patience in others. Therefore, anger only ends up perpetuating one's misery when it isolates oneself from other beings. Not only this, but Santideva remarks on how anger can taint a person's virtue, even that merit which has been accumulated over a long period of time (line 1).
     Santideva's strategy in this chapter is very interesting. He essentially takes the notion of hatred and turns it upon itself. Rather than being angry or impatient toward a particular being, I reflect on how the true source of my misery is the anger itself. Thus, anger itself is come to be known as the source of problems, not any particular object. Interestingly, rather than abolish the aggressive, rejecting tendencies of anger, Santideva seems to exhort his practitioners to take this very same 'rejection' and use it to 'reject' the impatient attitude of rejection itself! Is this a contradiction? Maybe not so much, considering that rejection is only harmful when it reflects an attachment to certain states of being. For instance, if my rejecting behavior is related to wanting to seek the desirable object and avoid the undesirable, then this very state of rejection becomes a form of vexation and suffering. On the other hand, on can take this exact same rejecting attitude and turn it upon the tendency to reject itself, which thus becomes a formless practice in the sense that there is no object to reject.
     It is as though I were redirecting anger from an object to the mere reflection of an object. In the former case, there is some belief that I am fighting a tangible, permanent object outside of me--something with an enduring substance that lasts forever. But in the latter case, I start to realize that the true source of suffering is not any object, but rather the tendency to objectify, which is actually an intangible quality of volition or 'mental construction'. Then I can take the anger I feel toward the object and redirect it to my tendency to reject. I think that this 'redirected' anger feels much more manageable, because suddenly the 'object' of anger turns out to be an intangible tendency of mind, among many other conditions going into the illusion of a tangible object. It is as though, rather than fighting a dragon, a warrior were suddenly to realize that the 'dragon' is just a shadow on the wall constructed by the eye at a certain angle.

Santideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva (selected chapters only). Translated by V. Wallace and A. Wallace. Snow Lion, 1997.  Other translations by the Padmakara Translation Gorup.

What is Wisdom?

   In the course of my readings this week, I came across the notion that wisdom is simply not taught in schools in the same way that more commonplace skills are taught, such as problem-solving, inductive reasoning, and so on. I am often lead to wonder, however, what is 'wisdom', and is it really something that can ever be made into an object and achieved? And then I realize too that I am not altogether even comfortable with the term 'wise', because in essence, it always contrasts with a different term, such as "ignorant" or "foolish". I actually wonder, is there even such a distinction between wise and foolish when wisdom has been fully realized? This is what I had arrived at today.
     I really suspect that my apprehension has to do with the way thinkers in this area typically reduce the question of wisdom to a series of dichotomies: rational vs. emotional, objective vs. subjective, wise vs. foolish, etc. I wonder whether such an approach really arrives at authentic wisdom, because it just sounds like the repetition of an ages-old struggle to divide the world into two distinct categories, where one is considered good and the other 'not good'. I have to wonder, is such an approach even able to define wisdom? In a sense, the reason wisdom is so elusive is that it is simply too vast to operate under such categories. Nor does a wise person necessarily 'strive' for wisdom the way a car-collector might strive for a vintage Cadillac. Wisdom seems to involve a level of experience that has nothing to do with even the words 'wisdom' and 'ignorance'.
     Of course, in conventional circles, one still needs to use such terms as wise/ignorant, good/bad, rational/emotional, etc. but my sense is that a wise position encompasses divisions and moves beyond them in a dialectical process. For instance, if we reject something in ourselves very much and then want to replace that rejected quality with something else, the wise move would be not to follow that desire at all. Rather, it would be to embrace both the rejected and sought-for qualities, while going beyond them. If we look at the plays of Shakespeare, do we see Shakespeare trying to side with the good guy and banish the bad? In fact, one hardly ever gets a glimpse of Shakespeare's opinion about his characters, because Shakespeare the author never seeks one character and rejects the other. He simply reveals and reflects them, warts and all, for everyone to see, and he often does so humorously and lovingly. There is a certain transparency about Shakespeare's writing which makes it non-polemical. Can we then say that he writes wisely?
      Another way to put it is that wisdom is able to see what works best for living creatures, without judging a creature for not living up to those 'bests'. It is like this: if it were not for the 'bad', how can there be 'good'? Should we not feel a little grateful for what we refer to as bad, because of its ability to point us to what is good? In the same way, why banish any quality if it is really working within a totality that embraces many qualities?

Each Dance a Completely New One

    In the group meditation, I am familiar with this concept of beginner's mind, but lately, I am challenging myself: how well do I generate 'beginner's mind' in daily life? The teaching is perhaps very subtle--so much so that I doubt that one can reduce it to a formula. To do so would be a little bit like telling a child to keep her eyes on a hot stove by literally "bulging at the eyes". This is neither possible all the time nor particularly desirable. The alternative is to have the notion that there is simply no enduring situation, so it's best to approach all situations with the gentleness of someone offering a sip of tea.
    To go back to this notion of impermanence: does it all entail that one should just not care about the changes in life? I don't think this is quite what it means, because, again, it starts to sound like a trite formula: "care" vs "not care"...and sooner or later even the seeming relaxation of 'non-care' can become quite straining. In fact, there is no escape from either care or non-care. For example, everyone needs to be able to take care of situations, lest one lose touch with their connection to other beings. But on the other hand, too much 'care' can be a kind of attachment that leads to suffering of different kinds. When a person is liberated from idealizing any views, I wonder if it would perhaps allow them to better move through different situations without attachment.
    Another way to look at it is that one often makes the mistake of trying too hard to rationalize the world into distinct categories or opposites: 'care' and 'not care', 'love' and 'hate', 'anger' and 'calm', etc. But what happens when a person decides not to categorize herself at all? What if she simply lets go of identifying with either caring or non-caring, or any other supposed marker of one's identity. Would this not liberate a person to benefit others?

Wishing for the Best

  What I find interesting in the readings on Buddhism is that the notion of 'karma' is directed less toward actions than it is to intentions. For instance, a person can build something quite enormous as a form of sacred worship, yet that enormous structure doesn't necessarily help the giver unless she has a pure intention: that is, there is a desire to use the structure to spread teachings of buddhadharma or spiritual practice. I often wonder, however: is intention ever enough? Has it not been said by George Bernard Shaw that the road to hell is 'paved with good intentions'? Why, according to Shaw, is "having a good intention" not sufficient? I suppose that answering this question might take me into a discussion on ethics in today's society.
   One of the biggest problems with intention-based ethics is that it is hard to truly discern what my own intentions are, much less someone else's. In fact, there may be complex and deeply mixed motivations for undertaking an action: one might build a monument to help others and acquire a reputation for being a benevolent person. Another example might be the case of someone who fears going to hell or a negative place when they pass on to the next life. Is that person motivated to do good things out of a real sincere wish for others' welfare, or is she or he only trying to avoid an unfortunate fate? It seems that Buddhism accommodates both kinds of intentions by offering different sorts of paths. One path consists in doing things for the sake of bettering one's future conditions to practice and be liberated. Another path is doing things purely for the sake of others' welfare. The latter seems less inhibited by concerns of what will happen to oneself. After all, if I set my goal as the betterment of others, I might become less preoccupied with my own wishes, desires and needs. And paradoxically, if I worry less about the results of what I do, I might in the end be better off for it. These are examples, however, where an intention may not be clearly discerned or even fully recognized in mind.
     Another issue with intention-based ethics is more popular coming from the West: we sometimes hear the expression, 'walk it the way you talk it', or 'put your money where your mouth is.' Somehow, intention has often been characterized as coming before the action rather than arising during an action. The result is that there is an emphasis on result-oriented ethics in today's world. Not only are corporations expecting results, but people are more and more looking to the result rather than to the intention. To take an example: if I simply wish for something to take place, that wish may not translate to action , and might even just remain in the imagination. Wishing without an accompanying action is seen as somehow weak or possibly even hypocritical. It is, after all, very nice to wish to end world hunger, but how does that wish translate to real action?
      I suspect that modern Western ethics will be slow to catch onto the Buddhist notion of making wishes as a form of offering toward other sentient beings. The chief reason is precisely because people don't often trust the power of intention to make things happen. But another reason is that Western philosophy may not yet have found a way to transform the power of words into actions. In Buddhism, there are many practices which form a bridge between language and action. Chanting is one of them, where a practitioner plants the notion of the chant in their heart, and this later shapes the person's outlook and actions in the world. Normally, prayers in Buddhism express vows and intentions. For instance, we have the vow to deliver innumerable sentient beings, cut off endless vexations and master limitless approaches to dharma, finally attaining Buddhahood. If I just mechanically recite these lines, I am probably not going to embody them in life at all.
    But when do words change from being 'empty' or 'dead' to something alive and vibrant in a person's being? I honestly don't know how thoughts and contemplations translate into actions, or what psychological mechanism goes on there. It could be that this kind of question requires further study and investigation into the emergence of an action based on a planted vow, prayer, or intention. For instance, at what point does a person turn a thought into the confidence to do something with that thought? At what point, and under what conditions, does that come to happen? Again, I have no clue, but I suspect that there are definite emotional and psychological stages involved, from the framing of a particular desire to a stated intention or plan to put it into action. One stage might even be an incubation stage, where a person becomes fascinated with an idea but doesn't yet know how to implement it.
   I wonder if the reason why we see so much 'hypocrisy' is that a person is still trying to bring their fascination with an idea into a concrete, embodied form. Until that form or idea is truly internalized, it merely becomes a kind of dry yet interesting statement about how one should behave. But later, when one's allegiance to an idea is fed and sustained, an action naturally arises somewhere down the road. Could this be how vows and intentions truly work--that is, as ways to incubate or sow seeds in the mind for a future action?

The Snowball

   When I was a kid, I used to marvel at these glass snowballs: the kind you find at Christmas time where you shake the ball and all the snowflakes kind of disperse over time. As I mentioned to the group practitioners tonight after meditation, grown adults often don't like the idea of dispersal, or of being in an 'unsettled' state. But I sometimes wonder if perhaps one can see the state of being unsettled as similar to a Christmas snowball: not good and not bad either, just the debris floating in all directions until it finally settles. Can one confidently face the world in this same way?
    There are often times in my life when things seem unsettled because of changes, including changes in the workplace. But I often reflect on how this state of change eventually turns into something else: the snowflakes never do stay up in the air or in water forever. Yet when something unsettling happens, I often assume that this unsettled state is permanent unless I do something about it. More often than not, I am not really in control of the situation that's changing, and all I can do is respond to the fraction of it where I have some degree of assurance. But when there is a mass upheaval in a company or department, there isn't that much that a single person can change. In those cases, 'watching the snow settle' might be the only source of repose one has. But why not simply enjoy the state  of being unsettled? Why wait for settling to occur?
    To be clear, there seem to be two kinds of 'settled'' in meditation practice. One seems to be the one that we are always seeking, when we say, "I just want to settle down and put down my thoughts." This wish to settle seems to arise from a desire that things happen a certain way. But there is a more subtle kind of settling: that is the kind where mind is no longer perturbed by moving objects or the chaotic mess of snowflakes. In fact, mind doesn't even label these things as chaotic/still, hot/cold, this or that. Rather, the phenomena is okay because the mind is settled in its own nature. This is not the kind of settling that is waiting for phenomena to behave in a prescribed way, but it's the settling that comes from a full acceptance even when things appear not to have a prescribed order or predictability.
   I think that this latter practice is extremely difficult, but actually, it seems to be a key part of meditation. When I am not desiring things to be better, or more pristine, I can see a mind that doesn't pick or choose, or make distinctions between warring categories. This mind can't help but be settled, yet it is beyond even the distinction of settled/unsettled.

Self Protection

  In his book What the Buddha Taught, Walpola Rahula remarks:
 

Two ideas are psychologically deep-rooted in man: self-protection and self-preservation. For self-protection man has created God, on whom he depends for his own protection, safety and security, just as a child depends on its parent. For self-preservation man has conceived the idea of an immortal Soul, or Atman, which will lie eternally. (p.51)

I think this is a powerful statement about how people tend to cling to notions of self as a way of protecting something that seems precious or inviolable. But what  is it exactly that is so cherished that it needs this much protection? One of the analogies I read about is that of the fragrance of a rose. When you are close to a rose (or any other flower), you get this vague essence that travels around the flower, but you can't quite pin down where it is coming from. Similarly, there is this vague sense of I that travels around like a shadow. And it's hard to pin down because, like any other fragrance, one can easily become accustomed to its presence and forget that it is even there.
    If I go the other way around it and start to see that the things around me are only aggregates (that is, lacking an essential, fixed self), would that be any consolation for me?  It might be, but the dilemma is that the self never dies that quickly or easily. I am thinking of an example of a great Buddhist master once facetiously asked the student: "Are you attached to your body?" When the student replied No, he isn't, the Master then asked, "Is it okay if I then take your arm away from you?"  In this story, the example tries to show how we might think that we have no strong attachment to a concept of self, but then something comes up which triggers a knee-jerk reaction. At that point, the habits are stronger than mindful attention, and one simply succumbs to the reaction of fear.
    Does this mean that I should simply let go of all responsibility, because there is no guiding essence of self that defines who I am? Well, that would be committing the error of nihilism, at least according to the teachers of the Middle Path in Buddhism. A different way might be to say that it's only through a vigilance in the present that one's true responsibilities become evident. It's not a specific self that is being served in the midst of those responsibilities but, rather, a kind of principle of benevolence and wisdom. When my mind is clear and not clinging to narrow sense of self, then there is more space to really act according to the present needs, and not according to protecting the self.

Rahula, Walpola (1959), What the Buddha Taught. New York: Grove Press.

Fatherly Fears

   I was reading about King Sudhodana this week, who is the father of Gautama Buddha. What I learned from the readings this week is how loving this father is toward his son, even though he is quite terrified to see his son potentially leave his kingdom to become a monastic or a hermit. Gautama Buddha, so the prophecy is told, has two possible destinies: one is to become a great ruler over all of India, while the other is to completely abandon the kingdom altogether and become a home-leaver (ultimately, the Buddha). King Sudhodana's fears are that his son will not inherit his throne when his father dies. And even though it is prophecied that the son could be a great spiritual leader who could heal all sentient beings' suffering, the father would much rather see his son take the crown and rule the kingdom well.
    Much of this story strikes me as a kind of parable. In a sense, all humans might be said to live in two worlds. The first world is the one we are born into, and it's predominantly about acquiring the things we need to be comfortable and contribute to a greater society. All humans have a 'kingdom' of their own: a school, a workplace, a community center with which they frequent. And quite often the only thing that would stop a person from going on expanding one's kingdom like this would be death or the prospect of illness. Now, the other world is something like a timeless world, in which there is no birth or death, and there isn't the suffering that comes from desiring to preserve this "I", or this kingdom. But the challenge is that because I am so identified with my worldly kingdom, the thought of leaving it for something that is formless, is quite frightening. It is like a kind of leap of faith to go over to this other way of being, that isn't attached to 'mine' or even perpetuating a certain kind of society.
    The social perspective might be expressed somewhat like this: if everyone were to decide right now to take the Buddhist path toward nirvana, what would happen to the human population? One person in the class today suggested that the entire human race would be wiped out, if that were to happen, because people would simply stop wanting to be born as human, much less anything. Not only this, but people would stop procreating. Her conclusion was that it is therefore best for the human race if people adopt a variety of different perspectives and beliefs.
     I myself tend to disagree with the idea that humans would wipe themselves off the planet if they were all Buddhists. The reason I say so is that there really isn't a world to be destroyed in the first place. It's a creation of mind and collective karma, and so it would not make sense to try to separate the mind from phenomena and say that phenomena will 'disappear' someday. What I am saying is: I don't think that samsara is a physical realm or a substantial realm that is separate from nirvana. The two realms are just different ways of seeing and being. It wouldn't make sense to say that one has to leave behind the physical world to attain a spiritual world, since they are ways of seeing the world. It would be like saying: I just killed someone in my dreams! How is that possible that someone in your dreams could die in your hands? After all, the person is only part of a dream, as is the dreamer. But once it is ascertained that the world is just this (impermanent), then there ceases to be any need to annihilate or change into something else.
    Question is: was Buddha's father right to feel afraid?

Empathy

 I am reflecting tonight about this whole self-psychology movement which I had learned about while taking an undergraduate course in psychotherapy at York University (I must have been about 23 at the time). What I remembered from that course is that Heinz Kohut, one of the founders of 'self-based' psychology, was concerned with a process where selves emerge that are capable of soothing themselves when things don't go according to plan, thus developing a kind of inner resilience in the face of challenges. According to this view, a narcissistic personality (or at least a dysfunctional one) arises when there is a failure to develop certain kinds of empathic connections with  a parental figure, which would in turn allow the child to fully integrate parenting, soothing elements into one's personality. Therapy comes into play when a trained caregiver starts to take on or transcend the role of the 'lost' parent who didn't fully equip the growing person into someone who is capable of supporting herself or creating self-soothing within themselves in the face of challenges. The therapist starts to heal the patient's spirit by allowing the patient to sufficiently mirror the kinds of empathy that the therapist shows the patient, thus allowing the patient an insight into her own being.
    Some of what is described in this theory 'mirrors' (pardon my pun) the genuine efforts of bodhisattvas. It's been said many times recently, in different contexts, that a bodhisattva's actions are not in any way intended to convert a person to a Buddhist or spiritual path. On the contrary, bodhisattvas completely accord with the person they are with, under the intention of aiding the person in front of them with what they most need as individuals. Under the same token, finding out what a person needs is not about memorizing a philosophy and then passively applying it in conversation with a person. This would be more like the way that some religious groups 'proselytize' with others. It would be more faithful to understanding the bodhisattva path to say that it is about intimately knowing a beings needs before really being able to address them. I think this basic empathy is something that Kohut was also studying in his theories about parent-child relationships that go sour.
         I wonder if perhaps, in the eagerness to embrace Buddhist teachings on 'final' enlightenment, people at times overlook the way that persons are often in a state of development. Just what state of development a person is in is really up to the bodhisattva to discover. If I eagerly strive for a total enlightenment in the belief that one size fits all, I will not consider that each sentient being has different needs. I think this is where the practice of empathy becomes such an important tool in spiritual practice. By fully acknowledging another person's stories and meanings, I learn to accept that enlightened being is not about opposing or rejecting phenomena but totally embracing the impermanent, ever changing nature of those appearances. In this way, my body and mind remain relaxed and able to harmonize with any situation.

Reflections on Onions

  While reading the chapter, "Three Gradual Steps" in Surangama Sutra, I had some puzzles about why Buddhists are discouraging eating onions. Some of this puzzle was resolved as I read the chapter. According to this chapter, onions and other strong-smelling plants of the leek family have a tendency to repel Dharma protectors and attract hungry ghosts and demons, thus leading a practitioner away from her or his practice and path. In a sense, the ingestion of onions represents some kind of energy that is unwanted, such as desire, and can tempt someone away from the true teachings. Perhaps a more 'modern' explanation for this phenomena is that people tend to be distracted by foods that have a strong taste or odor, and thus become unseated from awareness and mindfulness. In this sense, the 'demon' would be generated by a craving mind or a mind that is overstimulated. I suppose that the same can also be said for any food that is intoxicating in some way.
     The puzzle I have is that if one takes the words in this sutra literally, it would mean that the power of a single vegetable (and its properties) has the ability to repel a compassionate being from protecting practitioners. It seems a bit strange to me, considering that the path of Buddhism stresses equanimity and treating all beings with the same measure of compassion. From this perspective, it perhaps makes little sense to say that a bodhisattva would reject or fail to protect a practitioner simply due to onion breath!  But on the other hand, if I take this principle not as the rejection by a compassionate being but as a principle, it starts to make more sense. Food that stimulates or might be harder to digest tends to become overwhelming to the body and mind. For this reason, Buddhist lifestyles tend to advocate plain and simple food that is not encumbered with too many flavors or spices. In a sense, one might say that it's the mind that creates the distraction by choosing strong flavors or odors in food.
      I think another important aspect of this chapter is how it stresses that we are deeply steeped in dependent origination. There are certainly conditions which favor practice and those which simply don't. To try to pretend that such conditions don't exist is almost like courting disaster. It's not that one shouldn't tolerate diverse conditions, but one needs to be aware that some conditions can be more difficult to practice than others, depending on level of practice. I wonder if this is because even though all sentient beings have Buddha nature, they are still embodied beings. Embodiment itself has many risks, including the temptations of the senses, being 'tricked' by appearances, and being simply overstimulated. What I am getting from this chapter is that if I just put anything into my body without discerning what it is and what effect it has, even Dharma protectors won't be able to help me. This is because I have lost awareness of the conditions which would make it more difficult for me to practice with sincerity.

The Ascetic Life

   It's interesting to read the story about Buddha's life, and to wonder about his period of asceticism. Many people are familiar with the way in which Buddha tried to train his body in many traditions before he finally had discovered the mind. In one sense, Buddha had integrated the concentration and discipline of asceticism by channeling it into a very intense determination to practice and realize the true spiritual path, particularly in a world of many sensual temptations and desires. But in the end, the Buddha simply could not accept or embrace ascetic life, particularly when it tried to see a 'next life' as better than this life. In a sense, Buddha was pointing out how ascetics contradict their practice by proposing that self-denial and fasting will eventually lead to greater happiness in the next life, or even paradise. If, as ascetics suggest, the life of sensual pleasure is unwholesome and full of suffering, why do ascetics often aim to reach a heavenly state where there are infinite pleasures of the senses? I believe that the Buddha was detecting a duality here, where the mind desires something more than a limited body or self. But this subtle duality creates all kinds of tensions and expectations, which often only makes suffering worse.
     Buddhism teaches a middle path of sorts: not to indulge in sensual pleasure (through attachment) and yet not trying to reject the sensual in favour of some heavenly image. I sometimes wonder, however: this day and age in North America, one hardly sees anyone close to resembling an 'ascetic' or one who trains her mind through diligent practice of self-mortification. Isn't modern Western culture in danger of constantly succumbing to sensual indulgence? But as soon as I pose this question, I start to realize that asceticism does still exist in subtle ways.  For instance, people often believe that if they punish their bodies by refusing to eat, they will magically reach an ideal body type which is considered highly valued by the society. Could this self-punishment not also be a kind of murky attempt at a spiritual path? I think any philosophy which poses something out there to be attained for the sake of 'being okay' can easily slide into asceticism. Perhaps deep down inside, people genuinely feel that they need to deny themselves certain senses or experiences in order to heal the mind and body.
   Although ascetic life is not so formalized in Western culture today, there are certain tendencies it represents. I think it has a long history of being associated with a Puritan work ethic, especially in suggesting that one can gain more by renouncing present pleasure. There is a subtle clinging to becoming which characterizes this fetish for 'inner growth' or 'self denial'. It is as though we have been taught all so often that we will have more if we forsake the 'easy' attainments of the senses and everyday pleasures. But what often results from this tendency is a kind of vigilance, where the self affirms itself through acts of sacrifice, often competing with others to see who 'sacrifices' the most. I wonder if this modern fetish for 'growing out' of one's skin or shedding skin, could perhaps be a holdover from the ascetic practices of early historical periods.

A Moral Life Revisited

  One of the things I am reading about in my class on Buddhist foundations: Buddha was at one time allegedly tempted by Mara (the god of delusion or the sensory world) into living a moral life. Yes, you read it correctly: living morally can be a temptation! But how, and in what context? Many Western philosophies (such as Kant's, to use an example) uphold the moral as the very high pinnacle of civilized living. They even equate moral with rational, meaning that the moral life is the highest achievement of a rational life. In this contact, Kant would probably argue that one can never be tempted into being moral, because moral life entails a subjugation of personal will to a life of duty. Thus, the moral life is precisely equivalent to a surrender to a higher principle.
    But Buddhism has a different narrative, because in many of its stories, moral gestures end up becoming distractions from the path. Kings who build complex buildings for merit are often cut down by bodhisattvas, because they are trying to build these edifices for their own sake, rather than seeing the building as part of a selfless life. In this way, living morally entails that one is trying to be the moral self, but this in turn detracts a person from the more serious concern of questioning (and subverting) this very self who is the subject of moral agency and doing. I believe that Kierkegaard has a similar kind of idea in his concept of Stages in Life's Way: while the ethical refers to an impersonal decision to act morally and subdue passion, the eternal mode of being goes beyond the ethical by acknowledging that the moral self is an obstacle to knowing and trusting God. If I am only taking myself to be the end result of a moral life (a 'better me'), this very self is actually getting in the way of a genuine relationship with God. This latter can only be referred to as a contemplative 'seeing' beyond the self, through unity with God.
     Moral life is perhaps also tempting because morals assume fixed ends that can be fulfilled to a certain extent. But going beyond morality entails the possibility that nothing will ever be finished. To go back to Kierkegaard: no human could possibly ever earn the love that God gives them, let alone accumulate merit worthy of comparison with others. From the perspective of God, all humans are so deeply mired in sin that it would be absurd to compare one person to another. I think Buddhism has a similar understanding in its concept of non-discriminatory awareness. By not making concrete distinctions between 'me', 'mine' and 'yours', I stop trying to rack up 'moral points' for myself. Instead, my practice becomes a glimpse into a mind which has no fixed sense of self. And this is where one can connect with compassion, because there is no longer this comparison going on, and the release from the burden of comparison can truly help a person be compassionate toward others. I no longer feel "I am special" compared to others, and don't deify someone else as 'better' than me.

Letting Go Amidst a Busy Life

   This period of my life seems quite busy. I was thinking about what the notion of "letting go" really means when a person is caught up in a life of abundance. And tonight, after the meditation, I watched a video of Master Sheng Yen where he talks about how taking on responsibilities can be a gain in merit as long as the intention is pure. If on the other hand, the motivation for doing many things is a kind of personal fame, then there is an opposite 'subtraction' effect going on. Sheng Yen compares it to taking money out of one's own bank account. There might indeed be a benefit, but it's only short term.
    Does this discussion imply that a person just take on more and more for the sake of other beings? Is there not a limit to what one can or cannot do? I think the correct attitude might be to be willing to do many things, but not to be attached to any results. If I expect certain things to be completed or resolved by certain fixed times, then taking on more responsibilities only adds to the burden of expecting quick results. But what happened if I simply let go of expecting any result whatsoever? I think that in that case, the giving would be what is needed in the present moment, and would not be dictated by any future reward that one might perceive.
    If there is a comparison I can think of, it might be that of a child.  A child rarely tires of anything, unless there is some sense of duration or finality imposed upon it. For example, have you ever seen the way children delight in the simplest things? Children often live in a timeless state, because there isn't that added pressure of trying to gain a result or even finish a project. Perhaps children have sense of something being enjoyed for itself rather than as a means to something else.  It isn't that the child is not busy, but that she is not attaching any meaning to what she does, let alone other motivation. In this way, the child can be very busy but not attached to 'a self being busy.'

The Mustard Seeds

   During the class tonight, our teacher explored the parable of the mustard seed in Buddhism. According to this very famous story, Kisa Gotami is a person who is so blessed by the birth of her child because it is the one relationship which allows her to connect with others. When the child dies, Kisa Gotami becomes so despondent that she cannot even bear to face the reality of death. Finally, after consulting with the Buddha, the Buddha suggests that her child can be revived if Kisa Gotami can bring back mustard seeds from a family which did not experience any death. After going from one household to the next, she realizes that there is not one family that has escaped death and the ravages of time, and it's at that moment that her mind reaches a profound state of peace and inner acceptance.
   I tried to understand within myself: what is the complicated secret of this story? Why would Kisa Gotami suddenly feel so much relief in knowing that there isn't a single household that does not experience death in the family? Part of me believes that much of this story centers around the journey that Kisa Gotami must go through to find out that no family escapes from death. Think of all the things that Kisa Gotami needs to do before she can see that there is no escaping death: going door to door, appealing to others for help, seeing the helplessness of others, and realizing that others have suffered the same as she. For me, the power of this story seems to lie not in a concept of impermanence, but in a process of coming to realize the one-ness of all sentient beings in a shared suffering. Even though I may appear to be well off compared to someone else, it's not long before illness might strike, even in the healthiest household.
     Then there is also this theme of inescapability. Things are so because there is something existentially given about them which cannot be avoided no matter how hard one tries. Once Kisa Gotami realizes she has absolutely no way to escape from her present situation and loss, she becomes free from the struggle to get rid of painful emotions. To know that others share in Kisa Gotami's suffering must be a kind of liberating experience, in the sense that it signifies the cessation of striving to be somewhere else.
     The universal theme of interconnection is probably the most touching aspect of this story. As long as I can open up to the fact that everyone is in this life together, there is a relief from trying to protect the self from the pains of daily life. Throughout this narrative, there is not one mention of emptiness, or dependent origination, or middle path. Yet, all of these concepts seem to hinge around the theme that all things are related to each other, in a constant motion.

What's the Question?

   I always remember this famous story in Buddhism about the prince who tries to build very elaborate structures for the sake of Bodhidharma, only to be told that they are of no value. Of course, the Prince gets enraged, and begins to wonder what could possibly be 'good enough' to bring merit. What he doesn't realize in that point and time is that the practice is never about achieving any secure sense of good in the first place. It is rather an insight into a non-self, perhaps even a great dying to the self.
    Before going to my first class in Buddhist studies today at U of T, I was quite nervous and anxious, thinking that I would be completely lost on the first day. Now I am never too sure why I have such anxieties, or where they come from. Perhaps it has something to do with feeling disconnected for different reasons. But what touched me was the sharing of the group and how everyone has something very unique and different to say. And I started to realize in the midst of that sharing that there is something much more beautiful than a society which focuses on fixed achievements. There is  certain beauty in the fact that everyone's path intermingles with others and the combinations enrich each other. There is a kind of beauty in interconnection which simply cannot be captured using the paradigm of 'building up'. This is simply because what is 'building up' for one person cannot possibly apply to everyone's situation.
    I was also quite intrigued by the questions that people asked, which I had never thought of before at all. One of my classmates had wondered out loud, "Was the Buddha really this big smiling guy that can be found in the statues"? In other words, he wanted to know whether the statue of the Buddha is a facsimile of an actual person of the Buddha. It lead to a discussion on a paper that was delivered at a conference called 'How Tall is the Buddha?' I started to realize that I never mustered the courage or curiosity to ask such intriguing questions. Now that I am in this class, maybe I have the space to ask questions that are not about making an impression or trying to hide one's "lack of spiritual attainment." In other words, I can start to ask questions that are playful and fun rather than questions which have a predetermined answer.

The Rush of Life

   I was reflecting today on how I have had this unfortunate weekend of being late: arriving late, leaving late, and having to push certain events. And I am thinking: what is the deeper lesson to learn from this? At first, I believe it has something to do with simplifying my life a bit. It is quite violent for me to try to cram a lot of things in one day, and it's unfair to my health as well. But I also think that these kinds of situations challenge me to rethink my notions about time, and what I do with time.
   For instance, I think that I have had this idea for a long time that I need to make "productive" use of the time I have. But what does "productive" mean? I think this is tricky, because there is a difference between doing something because it's always "been done before" and originating some new action. The latter often requires space and time to unfold, much of which might even consist of periods of apparent non-doing. If the mind is incubating certain thoughts or ideas, it is often quite active in trying to seek answers or solutions, but none of this is arising in the form of concrete actions. It is as though there is this fertile creativity happening in the background, and yet there isn't yet a visible application for it.
    If I am always trying to fill spaces with things to do, I wonder how much of this process of filling space and time is really considered 'productive'. For instance, if a person only acts for the sake of filling time, the incubating stages of ideas can become lost. And certainly a lot of research suggests that there need to be periods of uncertainty before something can be created. I recall that when I was in high school, the times when I was most inspired to create or write a story were just after these periods of uncertainty: it is a bit analogous to having this urge to label something that one vaguely recollects, but has yet to manifest that label. So it is with anything new. But if I am constantly filling my time with routine actions, I may not be tapping into the creative powers that happen unconsciously, especially when one is not so engaged in filling time.
    During our Chan study group on Friday, I was also struck about the discussion about dreams and their role in the creation of new moments. One of the participants had shared an experience where he had been intimidated by rock climbing until he had a very vivid dream about having the confidence and courage to climb a difficult mountain. Once the seed and possibility had been planted in this person's mind, he felt encouraged to actually do the rock climbing activity. This is an example of how the subconscious mind can influence a person to undertake what is otherwise unimaginable. It also suggests to me that if I only limit my possibilities to what I have done in the past to this day, I am also closing myself off to new possibilities which have been undreamt of up until now. So would it be possible for me to find time in between the 'rush' of time to be still and allow new ideas to surface? I take it as a challenge for me!

Teaching as a Struggle to Learn

   Today, my writing student was telling me a little bit about her own experience in teaching another student as part of a volunteer program in a community centre. She was explaining how she often had to learn the very difficulty that her student is going through in order to be able to help her with it. In a way, she was describing how the act of teaching becomes a way of recognizing what the teacher doesn't know, or at least would like to know more about. I thought about this and I realize, it's only by going through the same difficulties as students that teachers can really reach into their lives, as well as learn about their situations. Could it be that people connect to each other in the deepest way through shared difficulties?
     It sounds a bit humanistic and perhaps even cliché, but I suggest that much of this challenges the traditional view that a teacher needs to be a kind of 'expert' in a certain subject or field. Of course it's important for the teacher to at least have a passing interest in the subject areas they teach, so that they are motivated to keep learning within that field. But the pressure to become an expert can be mitigated, especially in a time period when teachers are more expected to prepare students for gruelling exams and standardized tests. It can also give the student greater confidence and empowerment to know that their teacher is on a similar learning path with them. There are no points in life when anyone is a total expert in some subject area, and even Einstein was known to suggest that his own struggles with mathematics are bigger than those around him.
    Writing is a very good example of what I am talking about. Although I encourage my students to brainstorm and go through the standardized 'stages' of process writing (brainstorming, clustering ideas, drafting, revising, etc.), I myself have difficulties even getting past the brainstorming part. There are times when I even skip this process, because the feeling to write may just come over me very quickly, and I find that brainstorming only loses the momentum to write that is already existing in me at that time. There simply isn't a unified standard out there for how to write, or in how many stages. But the very fact that I wrestle with these decisions can qualify me (perhaps) to share my journey with others. I think this is the valuable aspect of daily writing which doesn't come out until the writing becomes a daily habit. At that time, you start to get into an instinctual feel for what to write about, based on your previous practice in writing.
    Schools often pressure people to become experts in writing and logical thinking. But the ironic part about this is that the more students are pressured to become anything, the more the withdraw from regular exposure to the activity due to fear of failure. It makes no sense from this view to expect students to become experts. On the contrary, it's only by treating writing or other skills as a form of play that they can become enjoyable and even mysterious. When I am writing this blog, I often haven't the slightest clue what it's going to be about until my fingers start to do the typing. Sometimes I end up surprising myself in the process of doing so, but isn't that the real goal of learning: to surprise ourselves and discover something new within?

More about Illusion

  We had a very thought provoking discussion in our study group tonight about the role of dreams in daily life, and how the life of sentient beings, at least from a Buddhist perspective, is very much a prolonged kind of dream. It's not that each individual is 'locked' into their own state of being. Rather, it's that collectively, communities create shared dreams. To use one example: people grow up believing that a red light means 'stop'. Over time, that signal is internalized to mean danger, or caution, even when it is only a red colored light and nothing more. It's only because many people collectively agree on the shared meaning of the light that there can be a meaning to begin with. The same is true for miniature communities. From an outsider's point of view, a Star Trek or Comic Con convention may seem a bit strange, especially if the members invent new terms for alien languages. But is that any different from the everyday languages we are using today?
    One of the members talked about her understanding from Chan teachers: everything in daily experience is using supernatural powers. This is not easy to understand, but the concept is something like: when I raise my hand, is there really a 'me' raising the hand? The entire experience of the body is a kind of complex creation. The body is not simply something I am born knowing, but as some philosophers such as Merleau-Ponty have suggested, it's a felt sense that is developed through certain repeated behaviors and choices. There is nothing solid or even particularly unified about this repertoire of sensing and responding that is then called a body. Really, it is quite an amazing conjuring trick, to feel that there is this 'body' that is originating the experiences of lifting or perceiving a 'hand'. But it is truly a creation that is being sustained day after day. There is even an experiment called the 'phantom arm' which shows how easy it is to train our minds into believing that a fake plastic arm is really 'our arm' and has the ability to feel pain. This is why a person often recoils when the phantom arm is hit with a hammer. It's not that I feel pain at all, but the mind conjures up the possibility based on a set of previous encounters.
      I guess the idea behind supernatural powers is that there is no end to the possible illusions that we operate under. But once we explain the relationship between dreams and what we think are 'real facts' about those dreams, we just fall into further illusions of an underlying truth. While it's said that H2O is the universal formula for water, this does not replace the taste of water, or the fact that it is used to cook noodles. All these things are functioning in some way to create a limited reality. But there is no ultimate fact about water, because everything one can think of with regards to anything is only relative to the signs and conventions we have agreed upon to refer to it.

Dreaming as a Metaphor

   Just today, I had a beautiful 'text' conversation about William Faulkner's book As I Lay Dying, which I remember reading many years ago, if not as a teenager. What I recall about that book is how it relates the burial of the family matriarch, and how all these characters go about honoring their mother. One of the book's themes is about motivation: something that seems on the outside to be so pure might be motivated by very different things such as money, escape, or some wish to be glorified in some way. Each chapter is written from a very different perspective, and there are many characters to keep track of throughout the journey.
     In Buddhist teachings there is often the notion that we are 'talking about dreams while in dreams' (Shengyen, 2014, p.97). We think that one thing is only a dream while the other is 'real', but actually even that which one considers as real is part of a larger dream. In other words, one can never break out of the cause and conditioned life unless they realize that cause and conditions are not permanent, and they are experienced very uniquely according to the karma of the perceiver. At that point, the person can recognize that they are in a dream. I wonder if perhaps Faulkner's many-pointed perspectives also serves the same function: to show that everyone is functioning in a dream. Often, a person may go through life not even fully aware of her or his motivations. If people were so clear about them, perhaps they wouldn't even venture to do anything, out of fear that the motives are not pure.
    Faulkner's narrative is 'horizontal': rather than telling a story that has an upward trajectory for a single character, he moves between characters who are on a similar yet very different journey. By treating his readers in this way, Faulkner allows the reader to look at a situation from a multitudinous perspective, while not attaching to any one view as 'the real one'. It also describes how there is no idealized image of a family, because everyone is affected by very different things that are often outside the scope of a family. I haven't come across a narrative that is any better than this one for illuminating how conditioned people are to look at the present from the perspective of their own pasts. Here again is where the dreaming metaphor becomes an interesting point of view to help people see their own viewpoints as somehow relative and open to change. Maybe this would also give a person the humor and courage not to buy into a single story line which attempts to explain everything.

Shengyen (2014), Chan and Enlightenment.  Elmhurst, New York: Dharma Drum Publishing

"Degrees" of Letting Go

 Wednesday night's group meditation always seems to remind me that there are many degrees of letting go. For instance, during today's meditation, I noticed that my tense posture is related to a desire to 'stay with' something during meditation. But the paradox of meditation is that this 'staying with' does not require some kind of rigid, inflexible posture--quite the opposite, there is a kind of subtle flexibility that is needed. An analogy might be that if a fox is chasing a mouse, it is not enough for the fox to be able to fix its eye rigidly on the mouse's body. Nor is it necessarily a good idea for the fox to be so intensely focused on the mouse that its muscles start to get tight and stiffen. Rather, the fox has to learn to somehow move with the causes and conditions; to be labile enough while not losing its ultimate goal.
    Of course, the even more challenging aspect of meditation is that the goal is not even to get the mouse. Rather, it is to know that there is ultimately no fox and no mouse. The only way to get there is to have this kind of 'let go' mind which is always 'this mind' at the same time. It I not even particularly letting go at all, because to think of it that way would be to say that there is something external to me that needs to be let go of.
    How do I get to that state of 'letting go'? I have found that asking 'how' is a kind of mental trap, and it's only when I give up the how altogether that I can experience this letting go. "How" comes from an emphasis on technical rationality: the notion that things can be attained by following a set of instructions that can be reproduced anytime or anywhere. The reason it is not so easy to apply in meditation is that the 'how' creates an object, which in turn creates the rational subject. And one starts to see very quickly that this division of subject and object creates an eternal state of striving to merge with something, be it an emotion or a desired state of mind. Even 'letting go' can get embroiled in this striving: we strive to 'let go' in order to 'achieve' some desired state of bliss or relaxation. But this again creates a very interesting dynamic of striving for something that one isn't already. So again, letting go cannot be taken to be a goal that involves striving of any kind.
     It is only when even letting go ceases to matter that an authentic letting go is possible. In other words, the letting go simply embraces both attachment and non-attachment. It doesn't try to seek non-attachment or flee attachment. It is almost like a state of pure knowing without striving: seeing these habitual tendencies to seek and reject, without adding another layer of seeking and rejection in response to the latter seeing. At the same time, this 'pure observation' is never in opposition to striving, since it embraces every state of being equally. At this stage, anything is possible, and the mind is open to every possibility, taking care never to reject or create another mind that is separate from infinite possibility. So this letting go is actually a state of complete inclusion. What one really lets go of is the process of splitting into a self-object relationship and then attaching to certain objects and rejecting others.

Holy Shy!

 Kierkegaard remarks in Works of Love that the third part of God is a 'cooling factor' in a relationship which also acts as a "soothing agent" (p.313). Essentially, he is arguing that the spiritual third party in a relationship serves to remind people that they are truly servants of the good, rather than serving exclusively each other. This helps to relieve conflicts between family members, neighbors and relatives, because it reminds them that before God, everyone is basically equal; I am not 'better' than you, and we are both learning how to grow and live together under the same sky. If people can keep in mind that nobody is superior or inferior to the other, then there is neither pride nor shame in the interaction. Moreover, there is a certain element of what Kierkegaard refers to as "holy shyness" (p.314)--the sense that a divine being is watching over the people in the interaction. When I experience holy shyness, it's almost as though I were imagining what the interaction would look like from the perspective of an ultimate good, or a divine being. If a king were to come over and visit your family, would you behave just as you normally would, or would you feel a little more conscious of how you behave with the others? Surely, people can feel a little bit modest when they can conceive that there is a divinity watching over them.
     It's interesting to reflect on how this applies to situations where a person is not necessarily believing in a higher power or God. At this point, I am not so sure whether there is any equivalent to this concept of "holy shyness" in any other philosophy or religion I have encountered so far. There are, however, times when I wonder what a Buddhist master would say if she or he would to see me in a stressful situation. When I imagine someone with a lot of wisdom seeing me, I suddenly do feel modest, and a lot of things I might normally do and think seem frivolous in that moment. Another example is after a period of meditation. I have noticed that after meditation, things that bother me start to feel embarrassingly slight, as though the air had cleared and the monster is actually a cute little mouse. Then I do wonder: what was that all about? Why did I have such distressing thoughts about something so insignificant? I do wonder if perhaps meditation can bring a person to a point of view of wisdom. That is, I am no longer taken by my ego drives or desires, but start to see things with a very wide and spacious lens. There are many times when even short periods of quiet leave me feeling humbled.
     But what is the difference between humility and humiliation? Wouldn't too much humility seem too constricting? According to Kierkegaard, when people are not seeing themselves in comparison with others, there is no real humiliation. It's only when I start to think that someone else has 'more' of something than I (more virtue, more spirituality, etc.) that I start to go through these cycles of humiliation and pride. In a sense, I wonder if one of the great advantages of meditation is that it can take a person beyond comparison with others, and thus deflate a lot of conflicts that arise from the effort to 'save face' before someone else. Meditation could be one way, and prayer could be another. But I would also suggest that anything done mindfully can be a way to bring oneself to a more authentic relationship with the world, which is not affected by the filter of comparison.

Kierkegaard, S ( 1962), Works of Love (trans. Hong, H. & Hong, E). New York: Harper. 

Nature's Lessons

  Today is Labour Day, and some are thinking of it as the last day of summer. But somehow the natural world is still very much alive throughout Toronto, particularly in the parks and trails. And I was thinking that no matter how much I might long for summer to last forever, life continues to go on its pace. And I was also reflecting on how the natural world can teach a person about resilience in the face of change.
   If I were to lament on how much I have to get up and travel to work on weekdays, I should probably stop to reflect on what the wildfowl are doing today: preparing themselves for a winter down south. When I stop to think of it, nature doesn't need to reflect that something is either easy or hard: it never steps out of its process of just being and doing according to the instinctively coded plans of nature. The blue heron minces its steps to catch a fish along the Humber River, but does it ever need to reflect: 'it is so hard to catch a fish.'? It certainly looks challenging from a human vantage point, but the heron simply does not give up. It continues its process until it can reach the next catch. Yet somehow when I have the thought that something is hard, I am adding a layer of thought to what isn't easy or hard in and by itself. I literally 'make' things challenging by labelling them as such, rather than seeing them as unfolding causes and conditions.
    Another thing I learn from nature is that there is not much to gain or lose. Things combine and recombine to form life, but this life is subject to death and rebirth. The cicadas, for instance, may be calling out in their thin buzzing of wings, but what happens tomorrow? Perhaps their only hope of posterity is the continuation in future offspring. In the natural world, even loss is considered a gain in some future state. I wonder if perhaps observing nature can help a person let go of a specific narrow concept of life's goal. Rather than seeing life as the glorification of an individual, one can train through natural processes to see that life is always supporting other life, both across space and time. Observing the fragility of nature can lessen a person's attachment to the self.
     What holds nature together? This is a question that is hard to fathom, and it's especially hard to have faith that nature is 'held together' when even the climate is changing so fast. But when I observe the natural world, there is always some mysterious way in which animals adapt to changes and somehow even cooperate with others. The Canada geese today were all bathing on the same spot, close to the waterfall, and it was most amusing to see them all doing the same thing, as though they were in the same family. It is one example of where living beings are always in communication with each other, and this interconnection also extends to the ways things mutually relate and behave. Is it possible that all these phenomena tell us that nothing was ever really separate in the first place?

Spiritual "Poverty" and Eternity

  I start to realize that reading Kierkegaard's book Works of Love is inspiring me to use words like 'temporal' and 'eternal', ideas which are foreign to Buddhist philosophy. And Kierkegaard's notion of the eternal still remains somewhat mysterious to me. I would like to take time to write about what I am learning from him.
   One thing I greatly respect about this book is that it describes 'eternal' as opposed to 'empty', even though the two terms equate to a kind of infinite possibility that is always existing a little bit forward into the future. When people talk about the Buddhist concept of emptiness, there is this similar notion of things always being possible and potential-- a dynamic interweaving of forces in the environment which allows new combinations to arise constantly. And the principle in emptiness would be a co-dependent arising. But why would Kierkegaard use 'eternal' to describe this? Is Kierkegaard perhaps referring to a more timeless sort of realm, similar to the realm of forms in Plato's philosophy?
   Some of this is not yet clear to me, but what I can glean from it is that the eternal is an act of turning to and believing in every possibility, since all things are possible with God. It means that there is no boundary and nothing that isn't possible since there is always grace in everything. Even something that seems like an ultimate tragedy or a disaster doesn't need to be seen as a closed situation, as though it had no more possibility beyond it. In fact, it then becomes that hope becomes an act of choice: I choose to believe that the world is not bounded by what's already happened in the past, but is always continually being 'created anew' by new sets of causes and conditions.
      Some modern thinkers tend to emphasize the "choice" aspect of this philosophy. In fact, existentialism seems to be characterized by this understanding that human life is based on choice. But is this all that Kierkegaard says--that we choose our own fates? I tend to think he is suggesting the opposite--that who we think we are is just another factor, and we can never fully see the eternal, any more than we can stare at the sun. That's because possibilities are infinite, and there is no way to know which way things will go with all the indeterminate factors in the universe. Grace would be the sudden insight that things don't need to be 'my' way or anyone's way, because there is a surrender: a final surmounting of the belief that "I" am in charge of what happens to me. But again this doesn't need to be a cause for despair. It is rather knowing that there is no permanent self to salvage, and what we do experience are moments that are constantly arising in time.
     If I think that this is somehow depressing, then I am still holding onto the self that is supposed to have a static purpose in life. In that way, I am closing the possibility of any other way of seeing the situation. It is as though I have already seen how a movie ends so I despair of wanting to see the movie again. But if I am holding to the eternal, I am aware that the same movie can be viewed an infinite number of times, with infinite perspectives. All that is really limiting me from this infinity is my own tendency to close off further meanings or possibilities--perhaps wanting to salvage an enduring sense of separate self.

Between Present and Prickly

   I have been hearing recently in the news that the coming winter will be as cold in Toronto as it has been warm during the summer. People are already starting to brace themselves for the weather, and I notice a change in activity tonight: boarding the late night bus and finding it to be empty. Has summer already 'declared bankruptcy' and closed its doors, I wonder?
    When I think about the spiritual path, I realize that there is simply no guarantee that one will ever emerge from pain. Life is simply full of pain, often unpredictable in cases, and I find that it is best not to try to reach a state where there is no pain of any kind. Such a state would be a little bit like trying to manipulate the natural world, which is what we are in fact doing but with little benefit to ourselves. In much the same way, the effort to 'overcome' pain by becoming more comfortable or being able to predict everything in advance, is bound to hit bumps. One can even see the current global climate change as the result of an effort to try to manipulate conditions of life so that they are most conducive to human convenience and comfort. Whenever there is a plus in this direction, there is always going to be a consequence which is often not anticipated.
     In fact, I believe that the essence of spiritual practice, particularly with meditation, is to learn to love the sorrow and mistakes--as much as one loves the sweet things in life. Perhaps one can even say that sweetness is a kind of practice in loving sorrow. Once a person has tasted the sweetness of kindness, they can then extend this kindness to less pleasant things. Is it any coincidence that in my walk today, there was an intersection called "Pleasant Avenue and Cactus"? I think this very street name is a kind of symbol. It represents how pleasant has to meet with pain to see how it can integrate pain into its smooth contours. Or, another way of looking at it is to say: grace needs to be challenged, because it's the nature of grace to open its doors to every kind of experience or sensation, no matter what it happens to be.

Desire to Progress in Meditation

  One of the most damaging aspects to meditation practice is this kind of desire to progress. I have noticed myself getting into this habit of being quite determined in the practice at the beginning, almost as though I had a big battling ram and I was wanting to overcome instances of distraction, fatigue or pain. It's only that the harder I push, the more exhausting it feels to practice. And there comes a point where all the dreams of progress are quite empty, predetermined. They start to look quite absurd in a sense: as though one were trying to dream about something that I expect to experience. Not only is the dream quite elusive when I do attain it, but there is no way we can fit the circumstances into that limited dream.
    Somehow, it seems that the philosopher Kierkegaard had a good way of putting these experiences. He writes about eternal possibility as being the true source of hope, and even proposes a kind of "education of the eternal", when he remarks: "In possibility the eternal is continually near enough to be at hand and yet far enough away to keep man (sic) advancing towards the eternal, on the way, in forward movement." (p.237) I think the interesting point is that meditation is precisely pointing to this eternal, yet it is hard to pinpoint just what that 'eternal' really is. The experience of the eternal has sometimes been described as an act of sheer grace. Eternity is able to advance like a like that shines on everything, only when people stop thinking that they need to use their own power to somehow create that eternity within themselves. The nearness of eternity is precisely this understanding that the very mind we use to see, feel, to know, to act, etc. is this mind, or the true mind. But the farness of eternity is that I continue to believe that I need to add a head to another head: I have to work to create an experience, or define it for myself.
       Very often, in meditation, I find myself trying to create an experience, because I believe that this is the way the true mind is supposed to feel. I assign certain experiences as positive while others are 'off the mark'. But the point of the practice is not to say 'this' experience is the best. On the contrary, it is to affirm every experience, in clear awareness. Not even to affirm: in fact, it is simply to know, in a spacious and compassionate way, that this experience is part of Buddha mind. But the problem is exactly that the tendency to want to shape experience in a certain way that feels spiritual is precisely what blocks the true knowing of this Buddha mind as being in every single experience.
       In fact,  it is a discriminating tendency to divide spiritual aspects of practice from 'non-spiritual'. The practice is in fact to trace all the phenomena back to the source from which they are supported. This means that there is simply no phenomena that could not serve as a trace to look into the mind. When I finally realize that every phenomena is just precisely the material to know the mind, I can stop pushing it away. I see that this 'stuff' that I so dislike is actually a form of the mind.
      But the interesting thing is that even in not getting or not grasping the point I just mentioned, I am using the same mind. I remember Fashi talking about the gold that can be shaped into a beautiful figure or a toilet. The gold itself does not change. So why am I worried about not 'getting' the point when this very 'not getting' is precisely the true mind? If I knew in that very instant that even 'not getting' something is the true mind, would I keep seeking something more pristine or 'less confused' then what I have now?

Kierkegaard, Soren (1962). Works of Love. New York: Harper Perennial.