Striving to Be Good in Others' Eyes

  I sometimes wonder where my fear of 'being disliked' comes from, and when it might become a chronic problem. Here, I am reminded of a documentary I watched on tv many years ago about the singer Jim Morrison, in the years shortly before he died. He was living in Paris at the time and was described as incredibly lonely and desperate to make friends toward the end of his life. As the narrator had explained it in this particular documentary, Morrison was so used to being famous as a singer that living an obscure life without the trappings of fame had become a kind of trap to him. Is it possible, I wonder, that too much 'respectability' can do a similar thing to people, to make them terribly afraid of the slightest inkling of disapproval from others?
   I think that approval and disapproval are similar to a kind of human currency. Once a person learns how to gain approval from others and avoid disapproval, they become like children stuck on a merry-go-round: each point forward impels them to keep going forward at all costs, indefinitely into the unknown. Most things that people strive for tend to be like this, and that's a problem that even 'good karma' brings about: people become addicted to a certain kind of good as a way of affirming their own existence and self-worth. At that point, the striving to become good is no longer heartfelt but can become a very sham need to impress others with one's own good(s). The problem isn't about the good itself, but rather the striving to look good in others eyes, which can create a false sense of security from harm.
   I have a feeling that this whole striving comes from an exponential sort of 'law' of doing good, which I might put something like: the more we succeed in scoring the trappings of good virtues, the harder it appears to maintain the image we build of ourselves, leading to a sense of disdain for virtue, followed by the need to look good as a way to temporarily rest from the hardships of doing good. That sounds complicated, right? I am talking about a vicious cycle that might start with an intrinsic love of the good and then end in a false illusion of having to strive for the good and maintain it in ourselves in some way.
   It's almost as though the good starts as a shining star of inspiration, but then someone comes along and tells you that you have to swallow the star in order to become immortal.  Something that belongs naturally to the sky and to everyone as a birthright is changed demonically into a kind of scarce commodity that a few people hoard up through acquisitive behavior, leaving others to suffer from a lack of it. When did the good become like this?

Two Sides of the Coin

  There seem to be two aspects of vexations: one emotional and one related to thinking. If I only focus on thinking, I ignore the emotive aspects of the situations I encounter. I find that part of the interesting thing about meditation is that it tackles the emotional aspects of vexation, which in turn allows thoughts to be seen more clearly.
  According to some kinds of therapy like Albert Ellis's REBT, thoughts are the causes of the suffering we have from emotions. For example, I might suffer a bad setback which upsets me and prevents me from attaining a goal, but then I make it worse through certain kinds of thoughts, such as "I am so terrible for not achieving this goal". Quite often, the thoughts of a self or an ego will get in the way of just processing day to day pain. But one of the problems is that we quite often don't identify the thought in the heat of the moment, when there is strong emotions. That's why it seems more practical to abide in the emotion for a while until the mind fully settles, and then examine the thoughts as they arise.
   If I am operating from the assumption that certain emotions are 'good' and others 'bad' (or unpleasant) then I often subconsciously operate to reject the emotions I dislike, rather than seeing that those emotions are just parts of the mind. By not liking the emotions, I eventually start to see them as intruders, that are separate from the mind. Alternately, if I learn to relax with those emotions and work with those energies, almost befriending them, then I can start to see the thoughts that are behind those emotions and even sound out those thoughts.
   I have a sense, actually, that thoughts are only ways of narrating mental states. There can be multiple narratives describing the mental states, not just one thought. This is what makes thought so slippery. I wonder if it's better to think of 'thinking' as a kind of art, similar to taking paints and coloring a canvas. It's not that one thought 'covers' one emotion but more that we can apply different kinds of thoughts to understanding the emotions at any given time. But only if one is really relaxed enough to abide in emotions can they start to apply the different thoughts to their moods rather than being governed by one mood ore emotional state.

An Attitude Toward Acting

Some people believe that spiritual practices encourage passivity and non-doing. There is a special term in Chan philosophy related to non-doing, where there is no abiding in particular actions. I eat, go to work, and go to school, but because I am not attached to the notion of a ‘self’ doing these things, it is really as though I am not doing anything in particular. In other words, when I know that this self is constantly changing (as well as the conditions around me), I can rest without thinking that everything I do either adds to or subtracts from the self. In this way, doing becomes a way of contributing something to the world as a whole and a way of thinking, rather than having a goal related to the self.

This sounds pretty good, but some people might still wonder, does this mean that nothing a person does really matters to him or herself, and therefore there is nothing to do at all? I don’t think this is the case. As long as I have this body and this human form, I still need to behave in response to the human world from which I am a part. An example of this is brushing teeth. Very few people think about this daily habit, and yet it is essential to our society to keep our mouths and teeth clean, as a health measure for the body and out of courtesy to others. But the point is, when one brushes her or his teeth, there isn’t really any attachment to the self. I don’t necessarily need to think that brushing teeth is going to make ‘me’ immortal or better than others.

The attitude one can take when doing things or making decisions is to be aware of the present conditions which allow those actions to emerge, and to know that those conditions are not permanent. In this way, actions can flow easily without grasping at the actions and their outcomes or attributing them to a permanent self. An example might be getting a medical degree. I might worry about whether the conditions are ripe for me to get a degree that lasts many years and costs a lot of money. But what I can understand is that based on my research and current understanding, this decision might make sense to me and be within my foreseeable means of achievement. I make a reasonable judgment based on what I know about the conditions and consequences.

But let’s say that down the road, I lack the resources to continue this pursuit. Well, if I am attached to the self, I might attribute the inability to continue to a weakness on my part, or ‘bad karma’ or any number of other self-referential judgments and regrets. On the other hand, if I am not attached, then I know that the actions come from the causes and conditions of the moment, and therefore there is no need to regret when conditions have changed or there are unforeseeable circumstances. This is because there will always be the unforeseeable: one’s brain is never capable of registering everything that could happen in the future.

Discrimination

 I was reflecting this morning on the way to the library: when does discrimination arise? Is it because of a feeling one has or is it because of something that happens later on? I am thinking of the situation of feeling an itch when meditating. I feel a sensation that is unpleasant, but I haven't yet said whether it is good or bad. Later on, I start to have thoughts: I wish it would go away, which reflects a subtle longing for something else. What if I just stayed with the irritation rather than trying to wish for something else to emerge? It seems like discrimination begins when we desire something else.
   It is a little bit like when I drew pictures as a child. Sometimes I would start with an idea about what I wanted the picture to look like, only to find later that certain parts didn't satisfy me. I want something else to be on the picture, so I try to smudge out the previous traces of my thinking and allow the new one to emerge. But the present is affected by the previous picture, and the more I try to rub out the previous one, the more striking it appears. My desire to create something new on the page overrides the previous drawing, but I can still see the previous one, and I take pains to erase it. Perhaps we are doing this all the time-- a thought emerges, then I don't like it, and I try to erase it with another thought. But the second thought is bound to contain a trace of the first.
    The alternative is not to try to 'erase' anything, but to let all the arrays of thoughts to emerge in complex co-existence. I don't pick and choose one idea over the other, but I just allow them to spread out over time and have their own duration. I might see how the thoughts are arrayed together without thinking that one is superior to the other. In this way, I am no longer creating a conflict between the thoughts or perspectives.
    In daily life, I am wondering if the attitude toward our thoughts and emotions might be something more or less like a very wide and large buffet restaurant, with different kinds of tastes and colors. One never says at a buffet, "we need to replace this kind of food with this 'best' food." Rather, we are aware that due to impermanence, people are not going to like the same food all the time. That's why the mind is open to receive all the thoughts, but it doesn't try to identify only with one or perceive one as the best one. In creating a harmonious relationships with one's thoughts, one practices for more complicated social situations where there can be many thoughts that are different and opposite each other. I discover each one and entertain it, but I don't necessarily think that one will always remain forever.

The "Road Maps" of Hell

 I am reading Surangama Sutra Part IX Chapter 6, on the Hells. I have to admit that reading this chapter can send chills down my spine. I don't think it's so much to do with some faraway realm called "Hell" as it does the psychological landscapes that the sutra elaborates. I do believe that human beings often go to a similar place of "hell" many times in their lives, similar to the kinds of Hells that Sartre describes in his play No Exit. The psychological aspect of Hell has to do with how we create traps with our minds, especially when we are complicated by thoughts and desires. And reading about Hell in the sutra creates a contrary longing for a simpler life which arises when a person is able to cut off the complexity of their thoughts through contemplative practices.
  Is it necessary to travel through these hells in order to reach a state of longing for this simpler way of being? Sometimes it can be helpful. I think of it like this: for a traveler to truly know themselves and what journey they are taking, it is often necessary to know what steps they have already taken, even if it's not always pretty or beautiful to trace all the twists and false paths that we have taken on the journey. Unless the twists and turns are somehow illuminated, the way forward will always be tainted by the wrong twists and turns that one has already taken. I am thinking in particular about the mythical equivalent of Theseus and the Minotaur, where Theseus needs to lay out a round of string in order to navigate his way out of the labyrinth after slaying the Minotaur. Without knowing the habits and patterns we have traveled before, there is no way of knowing whether we will get lost or ensnared again in the same way.
  Buddhism has a very multi-layered cosmography of different realms that beings travel, depending on their previous causes and intentions. Sometimes, a practitioner might wonder what this has to do with present moment awareness, and whether mindfulness can be practiced without being acquainted with this system. I start to feel more and more that the system is essential to true self-awareness, because without it, we would not understand how we interact with phenomena and the complex ways we can delude ourselves in the phenomenal world. Hell is not something to fear, but perhaps lacking awareness of Hell is much scarier. This realm needs to have one's respect and attention.

Impermanence Teachers

Whenever I find that my positions in life are on shaky ground, I turn to the idea of the 'impermanence teacher'; someone who is in my life to teach me about the nature of change and what I am most attached to. I think about this particularly in light of the idea that there is no job security in life anymore. Actually, I don't think there ever was as such, but one thing I can learn from it is not to rest on my laurels, and to always know that what feels secure one moment will change to something different later.
   There are two analogies I have lately adopted to understand this principle. The first is that of 'putting money in a savings account'. This has to do with the idea that keeping money just the way it is will not pay off in the future, and will only lead to a depreciation in value. While one has heard the expression "a penny saved a penny earned", in fact, today's earnings will not have the same value tomorrow. Even in the purely economic world, there is nothing whose value stays the same, and one has to keep renewing her or his vows to commit to things.
   The second analogy is more like a slogan or an expression I have learned recently, namely that not doing something is no longer an option. This seems to apply to companies in particular, as they start to face greater competition and need to keep looking for new strategies and solutions. In this case, there is no such thing as 'maintain the status quo', because what works well today is definitely not guaranteed to be just as successful tomorrow.
   Competition is not necessarily good or bad in life (it certainly depends on whether it is friendly or full of avarice and ego), but I wonder if perhaps reframing competition as 'impermanence teaching' might make it more meaningful. That is, by seeing competitors as people who teach us that change is constantly arising and one has to continue to innovate to keep up, could it be that they are teaching us a deep spiritual lesson that is rooted in the cosmos?

Unfinished

 The aspiration to take on long and arduous undertakings is a very noble one, but there are times when I feel that there could be certain joys in leaving things unfinished as well. It leads me to wonder what the true meaning of 'finished' actually is? Perhaps from a Chan perspective we can say that the moment is already complete in itself. In taking up this attitude, maybe things can be delayed and put aside until a later time when the body and mind are stronger.
   One of the things I have observed with reading especially is that I often adopt two different attitudes. One attitude is to treat reading as an exercise in finishing, regardless of where the work takes me--whether there is relevance or irrelevance, arduousness or ease of being. This reminds me of the meditation cushion, where participants are asked to sit in the same place without getting up whenever sitting is considered inconvenient. This approach suggests that reading itself is a discipline in completion, and the journey itself is what is most important, rather than the final 'point' of the book. I tend to like this approach because it asks the reader to suspend her or his judgment on the book's ultimate value, opting instead for a more intimate connection that goes beyond preference.
   There were a couple of books (among many, in fact) which I can remember I was not able to finish in spite of my best efforts. One of them was Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, while the other (still a work in progress, alas) is Bertrand Russell's History of Philosophy. It's not that I didn't like these books, but that I never found a concrete time to focus on them, considering the attention and effort that they demand. Magic Mountain is actually a book I continue to remember enjoying, up to the time that I chose to abandon it and take it up at a later time! So, does not completing these books make them less savory or worthwhile? Sometimes it's our memory and connection that counts more than our perception of how the experience should have 'closed' or finished. And I don't think that one should let the expectation of closure ruin the enjoyment of the experience of the book itself.

Inner Generosity

 Whenever a person thinks of generosity, images come to mind of having a lot of things to give, or of busying oneself in serving others. I have been reflecting recently that generosity doesn't necessarily come from continually acting all the time, or filling one's time to serve others. It seems to start with a spacious frame of mind which accepts the entire situation, in all its complex totality, as it is. It is only when I can do this that I can cultivate an authentic generosity toward the situations around me that lets me breathe and even be sincere in serving the situation appropriately.
   I have found that my own personal difficulty lies in seeing the responsibility as an action, rather than as an orientation of spacious generosity. If I rush to complete the task without checking my attitude, it will just seem like another task to do. But if I stop and practice a total acceptance of who I am in that moment and all the phenomena that fills my mind, then the task is not so onerous; rather, it becomes an expression of my being in the world. I think there is a subtle difference between the first and the second orientation. The first fixates on the task itself and then assumes that there is a self that absolutely must fulfill that task. The second orientation starts where I am now, accepts every attitude and disposition that is there, and then fans outward into the tasks that require doing. These tasks flow from the deepest parts of my awareness rather than being 'just tasks'.
    I think that this latter orientation is truly generous, in the sense that it doesn't reject any inclination, even the inclination not to do the thing that needs doing. If I just follow the obligation and not listen to those counter-voices within, then I am truly not being generous to the emotions and inclinations that are within me, and I am lead to resent the present task. But if I see that task as also a part of me that co-exists with other inclinations and actions, then it will be less daunting, and it's also less burdensome to do something when I am fully aware of the conflicts that might arise in doing it.

Appreciation, Not "Emulation"

   The line between appreciation and emulation is a thin one. I know that for myself, I have always had an admiration for people who work very quickly and efficiently to achieve their goals, and it has made me feel that I should somehow do the same or even imitate that person. It is as though the sight of another's success and abilities makes my own existence pale in comparison. I have often found that when I am in libraries, I will see others working very quickly in getting their reports or other assignments completed, and then feel that I should be working at the same pace or rate as themselves. But is it possible to appreciate the efforts of others without feeling the compulsion to emulate others? The line between appreciation and 'trying to be' or keep up with someone needs to be clearly established.
   From the perspective of holistic education, the 'whole child' is a being with unique abilities and very individual growth periods. Quite simply, no two students are alike in the way they do things, the rate at which they progress, and how they think through and perform their assignments and undertakings. I remember talking to a former student of mine who reflected that her two children have had different rates of learning new skills and language. While the older son tends to take his time when doing things, the younger daughter tends to do things relatively quickly, such as mastering the language. When the older boy saw that his younger sister was doing things more quickly than himself, his own pace became more agitated, as though he were pressured to keep up with what is quite naturally her style. Perhaps due to the fact that the boy may have forgotten what is special or beneficial about his own style or way of being, he started to frantically try to keep up with his sister's pace, and became somewhat alienated as a result.
   We tend to live in a society where these kinds of differences are measured and evaluated, which leads to the idea that all children should be evaluated in much the same ways, standards or forms. But in reality, if you ever watch group projects or discussions in a classroom, you might start to notice that the different styles of children are actually a benefit to the learning dynamic. If all the children tried to imitate each other and followed only one particular standard or way of being, a whole lot of other aspects of those children would be neglected or even disused. To site a very commonplace example, more introverted children might not be very quick to respond to discussions involving immediate evaluation or brainstorming. However, when they later sit down and reflect on the discussion, they might come to many conclusions of their own which have an equal validity to their more extroverted peers.
   This discussion is not meant to pose an either-or dichotomy between 'doing your own thing' and 'emulating your peers'. It seems that one's experiences are much more nuanced than this. It is quite true that people who possess different talents or skills than us can inspire us and even arouse our determination to bring out our best efforts. This is the value of having diverse learning styles working together; it's a bit like what happens when we see muscles that could be better used in our own body and we try to work new muscle groups instead of using our habitual responses to do things. However, there is a balance here, in the sense that change doesn't happen at the same pace that one would desire. In the meantime, one can simply experience the excellence of others as a form of appreciation rather than as an immediate pressure to absorb abilities around oneself that she or he does not possess at the moment.

Mindful Stories

 I have been contemplating for a while the idea of what story looks like when coupled with mindfulness. I am not talking about writing stories so much as I am talking about reading the stories of others. My question is how does mindfulness inform the process of reading? What new spaces might it create that might not appear when we are reading without mindful awareness? A lot of these questions would be unresolved or in need of further experiment, but it might be interesting to explore the questions beforehand.
  It may seem difficult to pair narrative and mindfulness together in many cases, because some narratives by nature are trying to dictate to readers how they should feel or respond to the text, rather than giving them the space to explore for themselves how they experience the story on the deepest level of themselves. Perhaps the crudest examples of this kind of writing is the plain old advertisement. Advertising typically arranges images and text according to an overarching 'gist'- an idea which determines what is promoted, when and for whom. I have often seen commercials which leave me feeling quite the opposite to what the advertiser intended, yet somehow feeling alienated as a result of having this 'counter reaction'. It's as though there is only one appropriate response, which ultimately ends up centering around embracing a particular product or service.
   The opposite is the story that allows readers to explore it on many different levels or subtexts. This is the kind of story that, I must admit, attracts me the most. I like having my own space and time to take whatever I need from a narrative, rather than feeling somehow compelled to embrace some presumably 'universal' aspect of a narrative or message. Sometimes, it's the unusual identifications with specific characters which gives me a new slant on myself, and there is freedom in literature to find strange connections that may not even relate to the officially agreed upon 'story'. And readers need to have the freedom to see the book not as a linear piece of information that is to be memorized, but more so as a springboard for one's personal explorations: a kind of inner-world soulful mirroring.
   Do literature classes stress this aspect of reading as a personal exploration? Sadly not, I'm afraid, because we have become accustomed or conditioned to view the story as having only one or two 'messages', and thus being constrained by those messages. Could mindfulness in this context potentially be about allowing students the open space to make their own associations and (dare I say), learning from one's creative misinterpretations of the text? This is the kind of thing I would especially like to explore.

Eclipsed

  Today was a very momentous and rare opportunity for many in Canada to see the eclipse of the sun by the moon--at least from the standpoint of protective glasses. I personally didn't want to take the risk (glasses or no glasses) and opted to stay indoors throughout the event. However, the event itself has lead me to reflect on the literary meanings behind the eclipse.
   One that comes immediately to mind is King Lear, a play which compares Edward's overthrow of Edgar to the strange eclipse of moon and son. Edward is the enfant terrible of the play who manages to manipulate pretty much everyone into doing treacherous acts for personal gain, and he is also considered a kind of bastard son, who was sadly not fated to have any social power unless by trickery of nature.  Son and 'sun' is a double pun, and the eclipse is one of many omens which suggest that deviance from nature represents an illegitimate takeover of power.
   Of course, modern psychologists might just say that Edward represents the shadow side of things, but just what does that mean? The double irony of the eclipse metaphor is that, in fact, sun is blocked by the moon, yet the moon is also revealed by the sun. It's only through the luminous rays of knowledge (awareness) that darkness can be integrated. It might seem terrible to see the eclipse, but in fact awareness is what allows the darkness to be known and worked with, rather than suppressed or denied.
   The other meaning is that, in essence, moon represents everything that is denied by sun. "Normal" society operates by means of suppression which allows for a smooth and coherent running of power or a hierarchy, but this tends to mean that things which don't follow that norm end up being labelled as deviant or unnatural. But is this really so? I sometimes wonder if perhaps Edward's lament is not in fact the cruelty of a society that tries to determine legitimacy by birthright, rather than through individual merit or efforts. For Edward to 'move up' in the world, he literally needs to trick others and trip them up, and this becomes a game to him. But it's hard to say if the deviance comes from a sadistic nature or a subtle unfairness in the way society in Shakespeare's time was operating.
   Is the 'shadow' after all only just a reflection of a social malaise--a tendency to pigeon hole people as good and bad, and then to set the 'good' against the 'bad'? Or is the shadow a real force of nature that is in all of us?

And Insects Too

 Watching Mickey Lemle's movie The Last Dalai Lama, I was moved by how the Dalai Lama remarks in two points that he has compassion for three kinds of beings: humans, animals, and insects. Philip Glass, who composed the music for this documentary film, also seems to have been moved by this statement, since it's often hardest for a human being to bestow compassion on the small and fragile creatures who are often considered pests or detrimental to human crops and food supplies.        
     How is it possible? Although His Holiness does allude to mindfulness, meditation and the process of taking and receiving, I think that it is the actual presence of the Dalai Lama that inspires people the most. It is most impressive that this movie shows people of many different political spectra (such as George Bush) expressing a sincere humility and self-awareness as they relate their encounters with the Dalai Lama. What it suggests to me is that one needn't become to mired in philosophic disputes over which religion is most conducive to compassion. In fact, as Dalai Lama suggests, all the religions are leading toward the same universal qualities of love and compassion.
  The key is how Dalai Lama treats people. For him, all people have something special, and as he explains it, it's most important to look at a person's precious humanity rather than looking only at their social role or status. I don't think that the secret to his way of being is to try to save others from suffering. As the Dalai Lama remarks toward the end of the film, loving kindness is about helping one's own being first and foremost, by cultivating a sense of peace first. It's only in having a sense of calm and peace that people can make a real difference to the lives of others. In fact, during one point when children are sharing in a gratitude circle with the Dalai Lama, he shares about how the calmness is such an important aspect of practicing loving kindness and gratitude. If I am so worried about how I can save or help others, I lose the ability to develop unconditional compassion within me. In fact, it will get lost in the anxiety and distractions of a mind that is getting caught up in conflicting agendas. In a sense, the Dalai Lama uses a simplicity of vows and hearts to cut through those competing agendas and stay in the present with everyone around him. Most important is that this simple heart of vows creates real confidence which is grounded in an awareness of all sentient beings.
    I found it interesting that, like one of his closest friends Thomas Merton, Dalai Lama has aspired to spend his final years in solitude, deepening his practice of wisdom and compassion, yet, somehow life is not taking him in this direction. In fact, for both people, being a public figure has eclipsed solitude somehow. I don't know whether to be sad about this or whether to accept that it's the reality of being an effective person whom people look up to for guidance and inspiration. Of course, balance is important here, and I can't help but wonder whether the Dalai Lama's busy schedule makes him rush through life. Of course the answer is not at all, so long as his heart is in his vow. And as long as the vow is there, time cannot steal the mind away.
 

The Secret Sharer

 Sometimes the absence of a response can be a very wonderful experience or lesson. Today during our group meditation sharing session after the sitting meditation, nobody had too much to say at the end. I felt the calmness of the people there, but at the same time there wasn't much to say after the sitting. I started to talk about gratitude and wanted to read a section from Master Sheng Yen's book shortly thereafter, but somehow I didn't feel that there was a smooth segue, and I also felt the silence of the group. I ended with transfer of merit instead and went off to my class afterward.
   There are many ways to choose to look at moments of silence. Unfortunately, it often feels as though early childhood conditioning has made people associate silence with a lack of completion or even a sense of rejection. But silence opens new doors, in the sense that it asks that people see their connections as deeper than words. There are times, for instance, when sitting with people fills me with a deep joy, which simply cannot be captured in words. Could it be that the silent aspect of  simply being together is much more precious than what we say to each other?
   I don't mean to suggest that language should be entirely replaced with silence. In fact, today's episode left me feeling ambiguous about the role of silence in the group's discussion and sharing interactions. I did feel, in fact, that I hadn't prepared enough to create a smooth conversation with the others, and this gave me pause to think about better preparing the sharing topic in the next group meditation. But at the same time, there is room to be together and experience empathic failures without this being necessarily catastrophic to the group relationship. I think this is what meditation is about: being able to weather the different emotions and responses around us without condemning some states or favoring others.
    There are always things that everyone can learn in these moments, but there should never be a sense of blame when we run out of things to say or are in a moment when the wordless is much more heartfelt and needed.

Doing Without Urgency

   It's difficult to do anything these days without feeling the pull of urgency-- a deadline coming up, social expectations, and the rising feeling that everything can be 'measured' and evaluated by a single yardstick. I have found that what it amounts to is a kind of frantic doing; doing as much as possible without even feeling grounded in the moment. As I am writing this passage, I am thinking about a teacher I know who hardly ever seems to be in a frantic state of doing or urgency, yet manages to say and do things most appropriate to that given moment. It's not that there is one single overriding answer to the moment, but it, rather, is that one's presence conveys a confidence in that moment which pervades everywhere and everything. One says what needs to be said precisely because one embodies the calm and cool sense of 'it is enough', or rather "I am enough". And this can fill a whole room with a sense of peace and acceptance.
   As I am writing this passage, I am slowed down--partly because I am tired from the week's racing activities, but also I am reflecting that often times, the most powerful things are not the products of a frantic rushing to accumulate knowledge and experiences. That power comes from the ability to be at home in this present state of doing or non-doing. It's not so much what one does as it is that grounded and full sense from which actions arise: everything else is just the physical/emotional vocabulary we use to express that sense of moment to moment presence. With this presence, there is no need to rush ahead, and nor is there any need to fall behind either. The pace that feels most appropriate is the one we can use to allow us to be present. With that presence, everything is meaningful in its own terms and I don't need to complete a cycle of activities for this to happen.

Ways of Looking at Education

  Most people tend to associate education with something related to career or advancing forward in life. After all, we spend a lot of money on education, in addition to time and efforts, so we expect some kind of profitable payoff in the form of a tangible career or life plan. But I begin to wonder, is this the true reality of education?
   During my lunch break, I had this reflection: does anybody really know or understand why some kinds of schooling lead to related jobs in that area, whereas others do not? Some might impute this to persistence, while others might think it's karma. Actually, from what I understand of my own schooling process, education is not really so much about landing the perfect job as it is shaping a person's outlook and manifesting a person's spiritual aspirations to reach outward into communities. This statement might sound a bit broad, but I see two aspects to it. The first has to do with opening a person's heart to their own unique ways of connecting to the world. This starts with the natural curiosity that people take toward certain subjects, particularly in their early years at school. The second component seems to relate to the ability to see one's connections with others. I found that tutoring English was one way in which I have been able to share my love of language and writing with other beings, and I think that being able to share one's learning is a crucial part of education.
     Education prepares a person to socialize in ways that they may not otherwise stumble upon, simply by directing us to our inclinations to help and commune in certain ways. Again, there is no end to this process, and there isn't a fixed goal to it either. Even in the event that I take a program in, say, biochemistry, and I land a position in a laboratory after my graduation, there is still a learning process in coming to know who I am in the community of the lab, in addition to bringing into it what I have uniquely learned from my studies in the subject matter areas. While I might be said to 'reach' the goal of working in a laboratory, in fact, the goal itself reaches me first. It's only when I have the opportunity to serve a laboratory that the causes and conditions are ripe for me to enter that space. When such causes and conditions happen not to exist, there is no reason for me to bemoan the state of things or believe that this job is 'who I am'.  One can actually reflect on the kinds of unique skills they are learning in the process of taking courses, thus shifting to a more present-moment orientation to their learning experiences.

Immersion in Dharma

 After the group meditation tonight, I find it hard to really know how to apply Dharma the way one applies a solution to a particular problem. I think that part of it for me, as I shared with the group, is how accustomed I am to thinking of applications from a technical-rationalist perspective, rather than from a contemplative understanding. The way to apply spiritual teachings is not the same as taking out a tool from one's toolbox and simply using that tool whenever a specific situation arises. On the contrary, as one of the participants in the group sharing related, application is more about letting go, in this context, and allowing a moment to be recognized as part of the true mind. There is not a 'right' or 'wrong' way to respond. It seems, rather, that Dharma is more like a reflection of where we are in our practice and understanding, and what we need to do is learn to see without adding anything to that seeing. To know clearly the problem itself is to reveal how it can be approached and, when we are really acting 'from the Dharma', we are just immersed in the awareness without adding any additional accessories to it.
   A lot of what I am writing here is not very clear, but I am trying to expound it for the sake of helping myself understand. The situations one faces in daily life can naturally be understood with a calm mind, if we know that it's all originating in the same mind. So long as I am returning things to the totality of mind, I am not attaching to one view 'over' the other, and I don't engage in needless conflicts. However, the problem is that as soon as I note this and try to 'correct' my behavior and thinking, I create an 'I' and believe that there is this object "I" that needs correcting. And then we try to repent of 'having this I', only to realize, who is repenting of having a self? It's quite terrible, because now there is nowhere for the mind to go! But when I let go of that struggle to 'go' anywhere, I suddenly begin to realize that I am not obligated to create a perfect version of self and mind, and there needn't be any opposition to what is unfolding from the causes and conditions. In this way, practice is a continuous process of coming to realize that there is no process, and nowhere to really go.
   It's quite difficult to conceptualize, but let's take some time to reflect on the paradoxes for a while.

"Lords" in Buddhism

Buddhists tend to emphasize how Gautama Buddha did not talk about worshipping a single "lord' or divine being, and yet many scriptures in English refer to Buddha as "Lord", and have even suggested that Dharma itself is a kind of lord over all things. This is not the same as looking up to a creator God, and I think it's important to understand the distinction between seeing a being a creator, and seeing a being as a supreme teacher or 'protector' of Dharma. Whereas the first emphasizes one's debt to the creator of all things, the second suggests that it's the wisdom of Buddha and Dharma that are of the highest importance. Even "Dharma" translates more to the principles of karma, cause/condition and the Path of cessation, rather than referring to a single, omnipotent creator.
Some suggest that this semantic distinction still might leave the door open for people to look up to the Buddha as an all-powerful being, much as we would a lord of creation. But this is more to say that we are tapping into a collectively shared wisdom that is part of our awareness as beings, not separate from a creator who is distant or hanging over the universe. This also changes perspective because it doesn't create this impasse between oneself and the creator; instead, there is a belief that we are participating in a creation that is shared and mutually unfolding. The Lord refers to the universal wisdom that allows us to see and participate wholesomly in the creative process.

The Leap of Faith

 I am thinking about that experience when you are about to cross a big bridge, and you have to brace yourself to feel your feet leaping over, and what that feels like. In physics, I suppose the terminology is 'momentum', but I sense that there is this bracing energy that one must steel within oneself to finally resolve to start something (and go through it) once and for all. If the mind and energy are scattered here and there, the energies will cancel out. But at the same time, without a clear vision and a view, it's all so easy for the result to lead to unexpected consequences.
   Sometimes all the mind is really waiting for is a clear space out, to resolve the doubts that assail it. I am not so sure how this works in Chan, but even for beginning practitioners, one must resolve one's basic doubts as to whether this practice is valid for them or not, and this requires confidence in the practice and teachers. Once the more fundamental doubts are dissolved, there is a breath of relief and I find a way to make sense of what I am doing; it fits the tenor of who I am and is no longer a foreign body to me. But without that resolution, the mind finds so many reasons not to push forward, followed by intense feelings of conflict.
   I think that being in doubt is actually a good thing because it means that there is an inner conflict that is actively being resolved, even though it may seem impossible. I have sometimes heard in Chan that this is the best time to apply the method of huatou, because "impossible" only means that the 'possible' as we know it is starting to wear thin, and there is a space where it can be redefined. Without those moments of entertaining the 'impossible', one is attached to their system of known possibles, which represents the safe and orderly world of habits. So why not see these moments of hesitation as signs of inner strength, rather than signs of defeat?

What Comes to Mind

   There is an expression in computer science which is perhaps as old as the hills, and it is "GIGO", meaning "Garbage in, Garbage Out". I think that one interesting aspect is how this metaphor informs the way we look at the mind, especially with the modern tendency to compare minds with computers. The idea is that if I surround myself with negative environmental stimuli, it won't be long before my mind becomes polluted with these things. Therefore, one has to be very vigilant regarding what comes toward one's mind and senses to ensure that it is not going to pollute the mind or even give it a virus!
   While I agree with this metaphor, I also take it that there are multiple ways to process our environments, should we choose to do so, and I don't even think that the environment has so much control as we might imagine. One simple example of this is to look at a particular food that one likes or craves. While I might enjoy the food very much and even salivate whenever I see it or smell it, someone else might react in a totally opposite way, given the exact same environmental conditions. Still others might not respond to it at all. This is to say that we can all be in the very same room and experience completely different reactions. How does brain science explain such a phenomena? I think it might resort to the role that memories might play in how we see and experience things today, but there is a lot here that is quite mysterious. Why does a person love a certain food and then one day, for no apparent reason, simply stop liking it? It is as though our hearts were powered in a way that defies logic or reason. Could what we experience be more dependent on what's inside than what one encounters on the outside?
    If I know that environment does not determine how I think or react, I have a much wider surface to work with, even to the point where I can switch channels on how I look at the same thing over time. I can change my processes of approaching the experience, without the previous preferred ways of looking at it. I sense that this can be a very good skill to have when facing the same situation and feeling averse to it--simply to know that it's possible to choose new ways of approaching the same thing, using very new mindsets.
  

Sitting in Distraction

Nowadays, it's easy for people to become distracted by so many things, because there is a market for being connected. But I wonder if, rather than trying to get rid of distractions, one can stop for a moment and know what it is like to just sit within the clutter of the mind, with all its internal imperatives and chatter. Perhaps this is somewhat similar to what happens when we sit in a room that is not entirely clean: there is a sense that one can do something about it, but instead one sits with the awareness of it instead.
   The reason I am thinking of this idea is that very often trying to get rid of distractions in meditation is actually itself a kind of distraction. It's no sooner that I think that I should be rid of wandering thoughts and scattered mind that this itself leads to, "I wish that this moment were completely free of thinking", or "I wonder if I can reach the next jhana in practice". Instead, is it possible for the mind to simply know of its own distractions and to simply be clear about the distractions? It seems that this true clarity is itself a kind of antidote to distraction because it takes away the attractiveness of distractions themselves. At that moment, I am not focused on the actual object of the distraction, but instead experience the totality of both the objects and the total awareness that envelops the object, as a single encompassing experience. What I experience is no longer a solid self that seizes the attraction and deems it desirable, but rather a series of different thoughts which arise and perish without interaction with each other. And in doing so, I experience less of the hook of objects, because I am more cognizant that the object is only one aspect of an aggregated experience.
   

Cause for Alarm

 Earlier this week, on a Monday morning, I heard a very strange sound outside, which I later discerned to be a burglar alarm or some home security system. By the time I had emerged from my apartment, the sound had subsided. I had many internal associations, however, including the sense of the natural world being disrupted by a deer hunter's call.  Somehow, the fact that my house is surrounded by a lot of forested areas seemed to make the sound of the alarm eerier and more foreboding. Yet, deeply embedded in the foreboding is also a sense of transformation and induction into mystery.
   What are alarms meant to do, after all, besides to wake people up? Alarms tend to remind me also of the chimes that we use in our meditation retreats and regular practices to signal the end of meditation practice, as well as to alert practitioners that we will be starting a new exercise in our practice. But if you listen very closely to alarms, they also point to realms that we have not faced: leaving behind the familiar in favor of something completely new and uncharted. Alongside the alarm comes a sense of both danger and excitement, as a person heeds the call and embarks on a new experience, which in turn opens their heart and mind into the unfamiliar, uncharted, and uncertain.
      I find that most alarms strike 'minor' chords: they are not the easy sounds that we hear with birds or other animals. Yet this 'off-ness' is precisely what makes an alarm into a potentially mind expanding, or mind-shattering experience. There is always this something-else, or this something-beyond, that off-chords can point to, while preserving a sense of relative order in the surroundings. It is a hint or an intimation that not everything is all completely in order, and that there is a small strip of chaos in the wallpaper that might threaten to strip away entire layers of taken-for-granted experiences and assumptions. Alarm bells are indeed a surrender into something unknowable and yet capable of a great deal of change and growth.
  

Archetypes

  Psychologist Carl Jung has described archetypes as key collective patterns and imagery which communities share, which often form the frameworks for human life stories. Examples of archetypes include creator, hero/heroine, death, resurrection, messengers, wise figures, etc. What can archetypes and mythic patterns do for people? I used to think that archetypes were fixed patterns in human life, but recently, I have begun to believe that they are configurations that represent a shared communal meaning around certain key things such as family, marriage, career and so on. They also seem to suggest that there are deep sources of meaning which can be tapped into by way of shared stories and myths.
   Archetypes are often used to ground people in meaningful narratives, but it seems that even Jung was warning against identifying with one or another. This is because archetypes have a certain power to them which is so overwhelming that any one of them can dominate over the rest of existence. Aldous Huxley wrote a somewhat humorous but largely serious essay where he had suggested a need for a pantheon of gods and goddesses to represent the many balanced but interwoven parts of human nature and character, rather than trying to reduce everything to one.
     Archetypes can also mark a certain shift in people's lives, such as having to relocate to some place new or embarking on a new role in life. But tapping into the power of archetypes is not the same as becoming or identifying with them. I sometimes wonder if perhaps the term 'dialogue' with archetypes might perhaps be a more apt term to describe what we do when we engage with archetypes: enriching experience without becoming too attached to the power of imagery and forms that we lose our identity to them. Working with archetypes seems to require some grounding in mindful and embodied practices, at least as a way of counteracting a tendency to become engulfed in their emotional power.

Literal and Metaphorical

   I find it interesting to reflect on the difference between literal and metaphorical interpretations of spiritual teachings. "Literal" often denotes a kind of supplanting of one level with another: for example, 'let go' might literally mean a spiritual supplanting of rational thinking or language. In spiritual practices, however, the idea is not to return to some state of no language or no thought: rather, it's to transcend these while containing them at the same time. A literal interpretation of spirituality often involves trying to escape, supplant or diminish other ways being, but a more metaphorical way of looking at it would be to preserve the proper place of these nested wholes in a total 'spiritual' whole. That is, the integrity of each sphere is preserved in its own right without disturbing the others. A lot of these ideas have been articulated in the writings of Ken Wilber, by the way.
   Are the places we go to 'literal' embodiments of spiritual qualities? That is, can we say that a place is sacred just by being in the location that it is in? Or are we the ones who endow these places with sacred qualities? I think in a sense, designating some spaces as sacred and 'apart' from the congestion of daily life serves the purpose of reminding us of who we truly are. There is nothing sacred or special about the place itself, beyond how we are assigning meaning and importance to it. This is because a place wouldn't have meaning unless we are willing to project our energy onto that place, such as when we designate a place as 'the first time I met so and so'. If I confuse the place with the meaning I assign to it, I can make the mistake of thinking that the place itself is endowed with magical qualities which in fact it doesn't possess, and this only sets up for further disappointment. This is why it seems important to remind ourselves that what we see as literally 'true' might only be an expression of a mental relationship, which is often expressed symbolically or as a kind of living metaphor.

All The Time in the World?

    I attended a planning meeting which went until late in the evening yesterday, for an upcoming event at the meditation center. What impressed me about this experience is the sense that combined efforts can go a long way to making the process manageable, when people are focused and have a tight deadline to accomplish. There are times when pressure to meet a deadline can create a kind of strong cohesive energy which is hard to find when things are not so pressing. Time can be a very strong agent of change, and it makes me wonder what role 'time' plays in timeless learning.
   Contemplative education circles often emphasize timeless learning as a way of seeing wholeness in what we are doing and learning. It's about immersing oneself in the moment of doing and learning, rather than itemizing and reducing action into a measurable set of tasks. But, given my recent experience with the benefits of deadlines, I wonder, does timeless learning exclude time altogether? Or are the two notions of time and timelessness compatible somehow?
    Like most things in life, this is not an either-or exclusion question, but more of a way of clarifying complementary halves in a whole. Time has a role in human existence because human life is short, precarious and full of distractions and choices. I have often read Tibetan Buddhist texts which exhort people to protect their human life, seeing it as a precious opportunity that rarely comes upon sentient life. Keeping track of what we do with time does have a role, because we just don't know where consciousness will go in the next life, and what form it will take, so there is a need to reflect on how one uses time. Do we use time to generate beneficial things, or might we be using it to satisfy short-lived cravings? Is our time spent pleasing our desires or fancies, or is it used to get a glimpse into an inconceivable mind? Practice requires an earnestness and a sense of gravity in the face of time, and using time wisely is an aspect of merit that can't be overlooked.
   It seems that time itself can become a timeless practice when the moments are honored and respected holistically. I think this means making wise choices about how to use time and then immersing in those moments timelessly with a sense of abandon. Without a sense of the timeless, we could not enter this sacred space of moments, and time itself would just be a series of disjointed tasks that have no coherence or flow. But without the sense of time, it can be easy for the 'timeless' to become a wandering, yawning void. Sometimes, we have to be appreciative of our pressing deadlines, while not making an idol out of its small achievements.

The Ultimate Hoax

 Brave New Jersey is a fictional movie which was inspired by the real life misunderstanding that people had that Martians were invading during the Orson Welles' broadcast of War of the Worlds. The story concerns a group of people living in a small town called "Lullabye", and who slowly learn about the alien invasion through their radios. I find it to be a commentary not only on how people create the news using their own imagination, but also on how aspirations are often built on the scantiest threads of evidence. Though the characters eventually come to realize that they are not in fact being invaded by Martians, the panic that ensues forces them face to face with the frailty of their relationships and faiths, as well as giving them a window to aspire to change and do 'bold' things with their lives. In the end, human nature itself seems to trump over the so-called 'truth' of the story, as the characters come to terms with their true loyalties and devotions in the midst of crisis.
   This story has made me somehow wonder; why has the search for an ultimate 'truth' been such an obsession with people these days, and what does that obsession do to people? I have heard a lot recently about 'fake news' in the news (!) and the paradox of that sentence appals me just now. How can media label other media as false or misleading, without revealing its own precarious credibility? Can there ever be an ultimate 'truth' criteria for something that is currently changing and evolving all the time? I don't mean to sound like a relativist on this one, but I am really asking whether we can ever rest in the sense of certainty and trust, when even the most reliable research can be fallible and subject to continual skepticism and reinterpretation. Facts can be 'reinvented' or re-contextualized to suit all kinds of hidden agendas, so is there any resting in one version of the truth?
    I am theorizing that whenever we cling to one understanding of the "truth" to the point where it seems unavoidable and menacing, then we are most likely creating a dogma that will cause suffering. The same goes for the opposite quest for heaven or a kind of salvific guarantee. In both cases, what people miss is how they are being in that moment with others. Somehow that element of inter-being or relating gets sacrificed to a dogmatic pursuit of the 'truth' (as symbolized by the evasive "Martians" in the movie). It also leads to a kind of ruthless, take-no-prisoners attitude toward life, and a false view that one can achieve security by eliminating a perceived enemy or threat. In many ways, Brave New Jersey touches on these themes, because it allegorically looks at the way people respond to each other in the face of a kind of incontrovertible, unavoidable crisis or threat. While it turns out that the actual 'threat' is not real, what is real is what people create with each other when they are in a state of fear and panic, as well as the choices that people make when they are not in a state of panic. In both cases, people choose who they want to be together. This human factor is easily lost in the shuffle of emergency, but it's the reality that the townspeople ultimately need to return to when all the dust settles and they can see things with cooler minds and attitudes.

Being At Home Everywhere

What does it mean to 'be at home everywhere?' Does it mean being comfortable at all times or at ease in all situations? I remember the philosopher Marcus Aurelius remarking in his Meditations that one needn't have a literal vacation if their mind is always in a resting mode in all places. In the same way, perhaps being at home everywhere is a metaphor for the acceptance of all situations, pleasant or unpleasant, without the expectation of needing to return to something simpler or 'better.'
   I think what is interesting for me is to ask the question "compared with what?" whenever I am experiencing vexations or having some doubts. If I am feeling dissatisfaction with the present state of things, chances are that I am transposing that experience onto a vision (conscious or unconscious) of how things ought to be. This kind of situation causes me to conflict with the present moment. If, for instance, I see the chocolate ice cream and see an even bigger chocolate sundae, I will constantly be comparing the first with the second and then concluding that it is less than the latter. But if I then take that same experience and compare it to something that seems less pleasant to me, then that former experience seems better. But then we can inquire into this kind of situation even further: even if I find that the second thought is more desirable than the first, does that necessarily mean that it's what I truly want? This is where the inquiry becomes more nuanced, I think.
   A person might see someone else and completely admire them, but I have observed in myself that this admiration doesn't necessarily connect with wanting to be another person. For example, I have often admired people who are popular and extroverted, simply because they seem to attract people wherever they are and never seem to tire of the company of others. However, if you asked me whether I want to be an extrovert, I wouldn't be sure what to answer, because there are so many factors behind being anything. While extroverts enjoy the energy of others, it's not always blissful to be around people. On the whole, I often begin to feel that I am who I am because this is in part what I can handle at the moment, even though I am always subject to change.
 From the perspective of contemplative practice, being at home might amount to going beyond comparisons and having an attitude of continual discovery. This is to say: whatever is in the present moment has never happened before, and it is worth discovering and being curious about it. This is quite different from comparison, which is often based on memory and tends to categorize things relative to others.

Conflict

    Reflecting on how things balance delicately amidst conflicting tensions and polarities can be a valuable social and mental skill. I have learned a lot about how this kind of gentle beholding of tensions is a valuable aspect of knowing why I have conflicts, using a model of conflicting commitments as suggested by the writings of Robert Kegan.
    Approaching conflict from the perspective of interdependence, one might begin to realize that conflict is a very delicate knot. Sometimes, just like any knot, it's best not to move to swiftly to get rid of the knot, and nor is it a good idea to leave it without trying to deal with it in some way.
  Reflective practice is not necessarily about trying to solve problems or to prove one's mental acumen in doing so. A perhaps more interesting application of reflection is to move through life without a mentality of trying to separate one's being from conflict, but to see the conflict itself as fertile soil for spiritual cultivation. This seems to require a certain attitude of gentle appreciation for conflict.
   Sometimes it may seem that there was only really one 'right answer' and one may or may not have missed the boat on it, but behind every 'right' or 'wrong', there was a delicate process that went into one's actions and decisions. To try to break through one's internal conflicts and misgivings is to sidestep some valuable lessons contained in our competing commitments. Tolerating ambiguity and being able to see that 'both sides are right, in some ways', is already a kind of valuable social skill, in the sense that it loosens attachment to the self and particular views. It can also allow for a more realistic assessment regarding how to move through conflicts and still be able to accomplish things.