A Dilettante

I sometimes feel like I am a dilettante when I attend classes. While I am able to cultivate a broad and varied interest in different subject matters, there is something in me that doesn't quite feel as professional as those around me. It is as though I am a kind of child who is playing around with different ideas to determine which ones work and which don't work so well.
   I don't think it's always a good idea to try to push oneself into a professional stance. In fact, there are times when I believe that people fluctuate between feeling confident in their studies and feeling only as though they are beginners. If I learn to relax into the notion of just experimenting and scoping a subject matter, I am more likely to feel engaged in a sincere way. This stance is not a slackness, but rather an attention that comes from giving myself permission to be at the level I am right now, while knowing that there are always many miles of terrain to go.
   The alternative way of engaging is the tendency to try to keep up with others out of an effort to 'appear' just as professional as they are. But this all too often leads to a kind of conforming for conformity's sake, without a sincere love for the subject. I am suggesting to stay in a playful and experiment stance when one is not sure how to proceed.

Life's Hypotheses

  I think that sometimes, when life seems uncertain, a person needs to think scientifically. I am not thinking of 'science' in terms of trying to establish hard facts based on numerical data, but more about the process of forming a hypothesis and testing out the hypothesis to see if experience holds up against it. I certainly begin to think of dissertations in this way.
   I have found that when I panic or worry about not having a problem solved, I will tend to shift away from the problem itself and toward a perceived inadequacy in myself, which then leads to a depressed attitude. But if, instead, I think of the present situation as full of questions that can be investigated, I am no longer thinking that it's life or death to solve it. What I do is simply observe the situation to see what exactly happens and then act accordingly. There isn't a right or wrong/win or lose situation, only the processing of testing things out to see how exactly they work.
   Another analogy I can think of to describe this process of 'testing life's hypotheses' is to think of repairing a broken or malfunctioning device such as a flashlight. If I am so focused on what I think the flashlight is supposed to be doing, I will feel a certain despair every time my attempts to fix it fail. But if on the other hand I think of every hypothesis as bringing me closer to an understanding of the flashlight itself (how it might work and what conditions make it work) then there isn't any failure when it does not work. I think it's the same with situations where one doesn't have much progress in a desired end. If I worry too much that I don't have a dissertation topic to work toward, I will neglect the fact that what I am doing in the meantime is at least giving me knowledge and experience about the process itself: how questions are formed and created, what causes creativity to become stuck, what motivates me to stay resilient, and so on. So these are actually positive gains in learning experiences.

Spiritual Humility

I have written about humility before, but I keep coming back to it, because I don't think that humility is ever something that a person can master. Quite the opposite, humility requires the ability to behold that I simply can't and do not know enough about anything. When it comes to humility toward nature, for instance, it's presumptuous to say that one can ever conquer, know, dominate or coerce the natural world. The same goes with people as well. So why do I have to keep reminding myself of humility?
   There is a more subtle kind of pride, I think, which comes from thinking that one is on some kind of spiritual path or quest in life. Sometimes, the narratives I entertain about my own journey are incredibly presumptuous, populated with imaginary gods and demons, all inhabiting the imagination. But what actual, lived experience often teaches us is that there are no special gods who are holding out special prizes for us, and there are no 'special' demons either, whose only role is to pummel people into submission when they do the wrong things. Sometimes, life itself is just a process of surviving and making practical use of what skills and abilities one has. It takes place one day at a time, and it's played out in tiny milliseconds that can seem like forever. True humility, I think, often requires accepting that there is sometimes no grand narrative whatsoever, and one must still try their best with whatever they have to contribute to society and have an open heart.
   Part of this humility is also about taking responsibility for one's own suffering, rather than waiting for grace to unfold and do so. This taking responsibility often amounts to a continual inquiry into why I suffer, and what beliefs I have that are triggering me to think I 'deserve' more than I have. If I give up this inquiry, I will end up being subject to all kinds of emotions which are based on faulty thinking. For example, if I truly believe that the universe should take care of my needs, or should reveal to me my destiny as a person, then this belief in itself becomes an overarching desire, which makes me feel entitled to the attention of others. For example, if I believe that such and such job is "my dream job" or "my destiny", then I will insist that a benevolent being 'grant' me that job, even going so far as denouncing the benevolent being for being uncaring if it doesn't magically do so. This is obviously an extreme example, but it relates to the way spiritual ideas are often used in false or distorted ways which only give rise to suffering and maladjustment in the world.
   Another such example is thinking that the universe will manifest good things if I cultivate the right thoughts and intentions. I believe that there are quite a few bestsellers out there which are promoting this idea, but the problem with it is that it can quickly become very self-focused. Instead of just doing whatever I can using my best efforts, I start to believe that I could have more if I just pray or get in with the right spiritual energies of the universe. What results is a kind of 'bargaining mentality', where the practitioner will practice spiritual activities for the purposes (or in exchange for) specific goods or results. But if a person holds this view, they will often find themselves disappointed when the world doesn't provide such things. And this also reinforces a sense of isolation, rather than an openness toward what actually happens in this present moment.

Learning from One's Projections

 I was reflecting a lot this morning on how the world is really a projection and a continuous creation of our thoughts and imagining. For example, if I go on a trip with someone else, I might think that I share the same vacation with that person. However, if you stop to think for a moment, both of them will see different things, and might even emphasize very different things. Suffering often arises when I think that the experience is shared by someone else, rather than realizing that my present experience interacts with my previous memories to create what I experience now.
   But then, do we not make a mistake in rejecting fantasies in favor of what we think to be 'something real'? I find that a lot of spiritual practitioners have this subconscious idea that when they are practicing, they are getting closer to the real world, especially in laying aside wandering thoughts. In fact, does this 'real world' exist after all, and why do we keep chasing after it when it too is a reflection? I find it quite fascinating to reflect that spiritual narratives often start with the idea of being lost in a phenomenal world of changing impressions and desires, only to emerge into the 'true' world of perfect grace or forms. Is the latter not also a creation of the mind?
   Sometimes, what we learn from the fantasies themselves tells us a lot about how we get stuck or attached. But what's interesting in this is that there is no master narrative to stand on which allows me to see things 'as they truly are', because what I am creating now is just a creation. It has no basis in external reality, save for forms which are also seen through the lenses of language, memories and impressions. The only thing I can do is to continually question what I think is absolutely real, because it's these absolutes which often lead to inner conflict and a rigid way of looking at things. If I am feeling tense or uptight about something, chances are that there is a hidden absolute in that tension: something I am convinced is permanently real. It's these kinds of hidden absolutes which lead to suffering, because they kind of get me stuck in something that seems immovable. And it doesn't allow me to more dynamically reflect on other things that could be happening to make something appear the way it is in that moment.

A "Special" Delusion

 There is a lot of criticism recently of the advertising business, particularly on how it peddles 'wants' as 'needs', which perpetuates a cycle of consumerism and over-production in many countries. But a lot of these critiques overlook the power that advertising has in facilitating a person's sense of entitlement. It's not just that we lack that special thing, but with that acute sense of lack comes the sense that we deserve to have this need met, for whatever reason. I call this the special delusion, because it refers to a sense of entitlement that often paradoxically goes hand in hand with a sense of lack. If I strongly desire something, it's not long before I develop internal reasons as to why I should have that thing, and this can lead to a vicious cycle of inner arrogance or self-aggrandizement.  It also leads to all kinds of scheming after power to attain what one wants. But this happens so quickly that the two aspects (desire and entitlement) are often experienced as one great big need.
    Going back to my previous blog entry about narcissism, it's not that narcissists are 'full of themselves' as we might be inclined to think, but actually the opposite; namely that narcissists are too empty in themselves, and keep seeing the self projected outward in shiny and attractive things. If the pain of identifying one's sense of self with attractive external things is too great, one will feel a continual sense of pressure and lack. This drives a person to a state of strong self-assertion, to the point of sometimes having to push through long lineups to get that special thing that is so desirable or symbolic of the self.
   How does one resolve the sense of entitlement? I think that before one can overcome desire, one needs to overcome the implicit belief that one must or should have whatever they want, by virtue of their wanting it. That sounds a bit absurd, but a lot of modern spiritual philosophies are parading this approach. According to some of these theories, wanting something is symptomatic of you being meant for it, and thus it is your fate to have it.. Another expression for this spiritual theory is the idea that my wanting something speaks to my soul, which has a unique destiny to fulfill through these mysterious wants. All of these kinds of attitudes can create tremendous havoc if they are not practiced with some modicum of humility and common sense. This is so because anyone who has ever lived as a human being will know that trying to get what one wants the most is a very arduous and difficult task, which does require hard efforts. Once we do get what we want, do we treat it well? Most likely, we start to take our riches and our gains for granted, looking out for something else to conquer.
  Simply saying 'this is meant for me because I want it so badly' is a rather odd view, and I have hardly found this to be true in my life. Quite the contrary, it is when I finally recognize that I am "nothing special" that I can let go of the tyranny of wants which goes hand in hand with entitlement. How about, then, we start to reverse our subconscious expectations, and say the opposite":

1) "This is not meant for me, because I want it way too much, and that means something must be off here."
2) "Wanting something doesn't entitle me to it; quite the contrary, wants often help us to realize that we are not entitled, privileged or special in the universe, and there are no pleasant shortcuts either. If it's 'too good to be true', chances are, it's not true at all!

Validating One's Felt State

 The world is so distracting, with so many new things to do, and it can be so easy to get caught up in conversations. I find personally that it can be hard to find my voice in all of this. What do I believe in and who am I, really? What do I care the most about? I have found that in reading and writing, as well as in solitude, I am able to most likely get centered and find the ground of my felt being, rather than getting caught up in the words that others say, which often becomes a sort of loop in the mind.
  Contemplative practices are so good in the sense that they can allow people the space and time to recover their own sense of voice. Sadly, it seems that there is so little time for that to happen, and when it does happen, there is often the hidden implication that it's either a 'luxury' or an 'indulgence' rather than an actual necessity. Settling the mind and removing oneself from distractions can bring a person in touch with who they really are and their deepest intentions, rather than getting caught up in the presumed intentions of others. Here, it's not important who loves us so much as who we love. And we know who we love simply because it's the felt knowing that these are the people we enjoy being with and want to care for. The same goes with the things we love to do. Nobody has to tell you to do something you love, since it's so natural to you, and you are not even looking for ways to score good points for doing it. And what's liberating about this as well is that there is no need to impose one's likes on others in order to validate these likes. For instance, my liking a particular painting does not necessitate that I go out and buy it or take it away from someone else. It's simply acknowledging that my feelings are valid in and of themselves, and they don't require a reciprocation from others to be real or to exist.
    It's hard to validate one's feelings, because we are often brought up to believe that there needs to be some fulfillment to all our wants. But what if wanting itself had its own eternity, or its own reason to be which is valid without having any fulfilment? What would it like to just feel that longing without the need to 'cap' it or fulfill it? Wouldn't it be nice to know that our love is still love, regardless of whether it is recognized by others or returned?

Embodying Peace

 In reading about conflict and conflict resolution strategies, I am lead to feel that Buddhism has a lot to offer this discussion. More than just meditation, Buddhist philosophies encompass how people can be peaceful at all moments, especially knowing that their lives and everything in it is ever passing, all the time. What does this have to do with peace? I think that the true insight into this very simple matter of time passing can foster a profound peace in itself.
  During the group meditation tonight, there were moments when I wasn't able to stay with my method, and my mind felt dull and tired from the day's activities. But when someone in the sharing session started to talk about how she wasn't sure why some of her breaths were deeper than others, I started to reflect on this notion of trying to make things 'normal', and how people continually struggle to get things 'right' in their lives, whether it's the normal breath, the normal partner, the normal job, and so on. As soon as we establish in practice what constitutes 'normal' and 'natural', we already cordon off something which we consider to be artificial. It's somewhat ironic that in the struggle to attain normalcy, we create something 'other' that is supposedly not the norm or away from it. But as I noted in the sharing tonight, whenever a person notices what is happening in them and simply chooses to be present with it without rejecting it or really indulging it either, the phenomena (whatever it is) just goes away eventually. It never has a staying power at all. And there isn't even something to be sorry about that it happened the way it did.
   The peaceful moment is not something that is generated from a return from something else, or a moving toward something. It is more like seeing every experience as a kind of frame. I don't change anything in that frame, but it's important that I know every moment what is in the frame itself. The framing represents the awareness and clarity to know what is and isn't in the picture. The transparency of the picture itself (or perhaps one should say the blank screen) represents the stillness of everything. There isn't a need to change anything in that screen, and at the same time there isn't anything substantial in the screen itself. So this meditative process is to know what's arising and to see it exactly as it is, letting go of our attempts to fit it into a preconceived ideal of what it's supposed to be.

Attitudes Toward Self

 I have recently heard a whole spate of words about the term 'narcissism', and it's being actively bandied about in political circles to suggest that it's the root of all evils. A leader who is 'narcissistic' is apparently given a series of traits which are supposed to completely determine her or his behavior, such as an inordinate greed for personal gain, at the expense of others. In demonizing and pathologizing narcissism, however, we ourselves become the victims of our own act of labeling, by imputing so much power to a particular set of personality traits. By attributing all the evils in the world to one sole personality trait, we make the same mistake of over-inflating the sense of self that was considered evil in the first place.
   It seems safe to say that the ills of the world can't really be reduced to a single set of personality traits. To do so is to ignore the conditions around a person that often ignite or suppress these same qualities. Sometimes a particular tendency can create a harmonious result in one context, but a completely disastrous one in another. Is anybody prepared to take the complexity of our social situations and passions, and reduce them to isolated brain mechanisms that are responsible for one personality? I know that a few psychologists might be trying to map the mind in this way, but not everyone takes this view. But there does seem to be something comforting in the idea that the bad things in the world come from a tendency which can be isolated and even potentially reversed, much as we would any illness.
   The best cure for narcissism is not to think of it as narcissism at all. If I stop getting drawn into the idea that there are separate selves vying for resources and attention, my mind expands, and it stops blaming or condemning particular people. I also stop generalizing. A person may behave 'selfishly' in one instance (again, a very value-loaded, derogatory term), only to be relieved of a certain burden or worry later and thus be more open to letting go of their worries and preoccupations. This probably happens all the time in the course of a lifetime. Labeling a person only stigmatizes that person, and makes it harder for them to see that there are an infinite number of routes that anyone at any given time can take. And I think the world would do a whole lot of good to start having more tolerance for the many flavors of being that are existing in the same time and space, both within and outside of us. Sometimes it is agreeable and sometimes withdrawn; sometimes happy and sometimes depressed; sometimes adventurous and sometimes cautious. Can we ever take this wonderful complexity and reduce it to some dysfunction of the mind?

The Difficulties of Starting

  Today I felt the challenges of starting. I am working on a paper which deals with the themes of dispute and conflict resolution in a key Buddhist sutta, and I started to realize how hard it can be to get started. But now that I am starting it (in an awkward way which I know is subject to change), I feel that things are starting to shape a bit. Even though I know that the work is going to need several revisions, it's the process of starting that allows me to limit possibilities and fine-tune myself rather than floating in a realm of 'what ifs' and could-be's.
   I have to wonder sometimes why 'starting' is such a source of anxiety for many people, including myself, and what it is about the 'unformed' which can be so problematic. This is a tricky one, with lots of knots. One is of course the fear that one will simply fail to start. This is like being unborn, essentially, but it happens. There are times when there are so many possible threads to work with that it can be paralyzing to figure out which thread to start with, knowing how it means that others may have to be left behind. Of course, eventually, one has to just pick the one thread that looks enticing and go along with it, but it can still be difficult when there are many permutations in mind.
   I think the the greater fear in this 'starting' business is the fear of what the creation might become, and how it might fail all those great expectations that took shape before the big start. But this is surely not respectful of creation. No matter what I do, or where I start, nothing is ever going to be what we expect it to be. Why not simply behold it for what it is and let it take a life of its own? Of course, easier said than done-and at the end of the day, one simply has to start somewhere, perhaps anywhere, and see where it will take you. Of course, if you push long enough, every single start will take you to the heart itself, which is the start of everything.

Winning and Losing Feelings

  I believe (or theorize, anyway) that there is something called 'emotional economy', and it has to do with how emotions are controlled by society to fulfill specific ends by the society itself. An example might be something like jealousy or avarice. In the case of jealousy, a society cannot function when people become so jealous that they plot against others to achieve certain goods or specific ends. On the other hand, a tiny modicum of jealousy might be just the thing that people need to want to consume more and work harder, out of fear that they may not add up to their more 'successful' peers or neighbors. Society in a sense has to foster just the right amount of jealousy: not too much that it would disrupt the harmony of communities by creating unhealthy competition or dominance, and not too little that people would be oblivious to consuming and producing. Thus, the society has a vested interest in sustaining particular narratives of what 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' emotions are. And I would venture that for the most part, we experience emotions not 'purely' as a felt energy, but through the meditation of these filtered meanings or social channels that give the emotion fuel.
   I wonder what life would be like if we simply stopped associating our emotions with these complicated story-lines. An example is the feeling of being rejected. When we are rejected by a place of employment or a friend, our inclination is sometimes to feel that we are unworthy or 'a loser', and this sense of 'being a loser' pervades the feeling of rejection. But does this 'felt sense' have to accompany every emotion of rejection? If I only experience the emotion just as it is without associating or attaching it to a felt meaning around losing/winning, then the emotion has a chance to simmer down; it isn't being stirred up by narratives of gaining and losing. But more so, I can allow the emotion to stay with me more, knowing that it has nothing really to do with the sense of who I am and what my worth is. In fact, I can even simply enjoy the unique energy of just having that emotion without the associated feeling that it should lead to something else, such as a sense of success or winning. And while I believe meditation serves this purpose of disconnecting emotion from wandering thoughts, I also think that abiding in the emotions themselves without attaching special meanings to them, may be a good practice in the everyday life.

Looking for the Perfect Book

 For a long time, I have been looking for a book that I would like to share with the meditation group, particularly at the end of the sharing, which is based on very basic meditation teachings from Master Sheng Yen. This morning, I came across an early 1993 edition of Master Sheng Yen's Zen Wisdom, and I start to realize how it seems the perfect book which serves this kind of purpose of explaining the down-to-earth essentials of meditation and Buddhism, without going too deeply into theories. While I was having dinner tonight, I even started to envision how I might subdivide each session of the Saturday meditation sharing by particularly delineated paragraphs and sections.

This process seems rather over-controlling in a sense, and the present can hardly be predicted in this way. I once heard a similar expression: "Humans plan, God laughs". Yet, somehow, I derive a certain kind of comfort in the book, as though it were a transitional object that allows me to better relate to others and provide them with something that might be useful to them. Is that going to be how others' experience the same situation? I am afraid that even this is not so knowable.

Searching for the perfect book is a good metaphor for trying to find the right way to create a social situation where everyone learns and benefits. But it's not possible, because all meetings are intertwined subjectivity which is both similar and different. It doesn't even make sense to imagine that one can find certainty just by reading a book and commenting on it, yet that illusion is very much alive in a lot of educational theories. Sometimes, I do wonder if it's better to simply be present with others, without having to provide an intermediary form. Could this not also be a meditative practice of sorts?

Dislocation

   Tonight, I was reflecting on the role of dislocation in research. By dislocation, I refer to the sense of disorientation: being in a place where one's theories are completely non-existent and there is nothing to grasp or hold onto that is tangible. It also refers to the sense of having many possibilities of topics to explore, yet not having any clear direction in terms of how to develop any of these possibilities as of yet. While this state of things is quite fertile and somewhat valuable, there is a sense that this dislocation needs to be written into existence, at least using some kind of vocabulary or language. It is only when these dislocations are written down that one can start to piece together clues on how to go forward.
   Writing is a pedagogic tool for mapping one's dislocations in life, in the sense that it carves tracks even when there are no known maps or compasses nearby. Tracks are essential in helping writers to know where they have gone so far, even if they haven't yet formed a clear sense of what they are creating or toward where they are moving. I would have to suggest that both writing and theorizing about the writing process itself are equally interesting exercises in being able to evolve or solidify the uncertainty, even to trace when the dislocations in our lives transform into locations, or clearly demarcated spaces where one has traveled.
   I have a sense that for the past two years or so, writing this blog has been the way in which I carve the cloud chamber tracks into the vacuum of uncertainty. It is a way to give voice to the meditative states where there really isn't supposed to be a voice, yet, that voice comes out quite starkly in contrast to the silence. When our voices are constantly turned on and are clashing with other voices, we hardly have the space to know that voice itself is an ongoing creation. It can go in any number of directions, and that is subject to the imagination. Isn't it marvelous, to reflect that we are writing our lives into existence?

Stories/Non-Stories

 During the group meditation session tonight, I couldn't help but stick to one of the expressions that the facilitator for our second half shared: "we complicate the present moment with our thinking". And I believe that it really does take a lot of conscious effort to reflect on the content of our thoughts and judgments, especially when they are tending toward negative appraisals of self and others. One of the things that I think often tends to happen for me is making meaning where there is very little evidence of meaning at all.
   I recall watching a funny spoof commercial for some movie or television show, where the man is romantically going on and on about one of his students, while the student just sits there and says, "okay" and "yeah". I think this is an interesting example of two extremes. In the first extreme, we have someone who is rhapsodizing over someone, but that other person has very little interest in the subject that is being taught, let alone the teacher. He seems to be over-indulging in a kind of fantasizing of meaning-making, whereas the student is going just the opposite: he is just sort of answering the world with one-word sentences, indicating a totally disengaged attitude. When I think about this sketch, I realize that it represents two sides in a spectrum, where most people seem to occupy something in between. On one side of the spectrum is an attachment to creating meaning in the form of stories, because we truly want certain things to be true, and subconsciously end of slanting the evidence in our favor to suit the narrative we want to have. On the other side of the spectrum is the refusal to make stories, as embodied in the teenager who rejects stories and tries to live completely in the present moment, in a 'cool' world.
   Which of these two scenarios is the most human? To be honest, I think that the teenager's nonchalance is the safest choice, because there is no risk of hurt feelings resulting from a failure to consolidate one's meaning with that of others. In other words, to be "cool" when it comes to meaning is to avoid the entanglement that results when we cross wires or misunderstand ourselves or each other. The other way is not so safe, but there is at least a chance that making meaning can connect oneself to others. As long as I am not getting overly enmeshed in stories to the point where they seem absolutely and always true, I can use the narratives and theories of my mind to connect with others in creative or new ways. But the trick to story-making is to know that at the end of the day they only represent possibilities, and therefore there is no use getting stuck in the story as though it were absolutely real. This middle ground incorporates the hesitation of adolescent 'coolness' with the capacity to create narratives (among other things) which marks the induction into adult life.

A Choice of Stories

 During the group meditation practice tonight, we watched a video which dealt with the theme of the Buddhist theory of karma at death. I had posed the question to the group: does the ability to hear Dharma teachings during this bardo (intermediate) state depend on one's previous merits? Part of my question was coming from a place of wondering who the 'dharma friend' is: is it really someone who exists separately from our own awareness, or is it a part of our awareness? And is it based on merit, or is it based on compassion that these benevolent beings come to us in the death stage?
   Regardless of what the case might be, I almost tend to feel that when it comes to death, one has a choice of narratives or 'stories' about the course of death. Depending on which tradition one is in, there are a whole range of spiritual practices which allow a person to 'practice' for one's death. In fact, one's whole life might just consist precisely in these miniature preparations. But it's important not to think only in terms of karma. Although karma plays a part in this journey, it's how one sees karma that has an even bigger role. If I lament my karma and think that it is a sign of being punished, I make my life into a misery just through this attitude. But if I think that every loss and setback in life is only a way to train the heart to be a little bit more open, more forgiving, more spacious and imaginative, then karma can be a kind of joy to face, almost like a challenge.

Artful Diligence at Work

One of the things I am recognizing in my work life is how chaotic it can be after our distribution deadlines. Why chaotic? I think it's because whenever the pressure of finishing a deadline is released, there suddenly emerges a lot of suppressed tasks or meetings that had been put on the back-burner, now suddenly resurfacing. And suddenly, the entire department wants to go out for the celebration lunch, or celebration breakfast, etc. It's during these times that I find the mind will often be prone to distraction and a kind of cavalier attitude can easily set in as a result: if things are just about 'going with the flow', one can then start to lose the sense of clear awareness. It's like accepting impermanence, but with a sort of nihilistic mindset. What I have found more productive in these situations is actually the opposite, namely suing diligence as an antidote to a 'drifting' attitude toward work.
  By 'diligent', I am not necessarily referring to a task-oriented mentality that is primarily geared toward accomplishing tasks. Rather, I am talking about a mindset where one chooses to put their whole efforts into whatever changes happen to be arising in the moment. If I am called to a meeting, my diligence in that meeting won't be the same as my diligence in processing items. The point is that the kind of diligence one practices and skills being used will differ from one activity to the next. Yet, nonetheless, diligence is the decision to stay with the present task and complete it to one's best ability.
   Diligence also seems to entail a non-contentious attitude. I am not being diligent with the attitude that someone else is more so than me. Rather, the diligence relates more to a personal standard I set for myself, and how I can slightly surpass that standard through different approaches. I let go of comparing my work to that of others, simply because doing so only makes me into a frantic person with something to prove to others. In fact, all that is required of me is to try to outdo myself in some small way, without belittling the efforts I have done in the past.
   When too much change happens, I have often felt this instinctive tug of the reigns inside me, as if I were asking: given the situation that stands before me now and in spite of how far it's pulled me from my work, how can I be diligent about it? This question often leads me to adjust my expectations and renew my efforts in spite of incomplete pasts and false starts.

Observing Frustrated Wishes

 When it comes to being in school for a long time, I have noticed that my inspiration will ebb and flow. At times, I am full of zest for the subject, while other times I will not have too many ideas, and instead will have this feeling of 'going nowhere'. In Chan Buddhism, there is significance in how even the meditation method itself will feel dry. How, in those moments, does a person just stay with a sense of 'dryness' or frustration? I think that the key is to understand how the desire to 'get somewhere' is what drives the pressure to think that the present is a frustrated moment.
   Behind every wish for something else, there is an inability to accept the present as it is. But if I let go of the wish for a moment and simply look at the moment for what it is, something opens up there. It's perhaps the counter idea that things are going to be okay, and it's not necessary to reach some final goal. Rather, it is simply a matter of not comparing what's in front of us to an imagined future.
   "Befriending" the feeling of 'going nowhere' is yet another approach that is worth trying. Rather than seeing that state of 'nowhere' as a negative, one can frame it as something that is positive, which embraces the present moment in its imperfection. But in order to do this, we need a practice of not giving into the evaluations of how things should be in the now moment, as well as the stories that we construct around such moments. This is the challenge, to reverse the habit tendencies to see negatives whenever one is not getting wishes fulfilled.

Mindfulness and Ethics

  There is some debate in Buddhist psychology circles whether or not 'mindfulness' as it is described in Buddhism has been co-opted to serve technical rationalism. I read an article by Steven Stanley (2013) which suggests that even the original context of mindfulness in Buddhism has been stripped of its ethical connotations. How has this been done? Stanley argues in several ways. For one, the modern concept of mindfulness tends to stress a context-free emphasis on the eternal "now" at the expense of that which is remembered and learned from the past (p.154). Second, it appears that there is no longer any sense of how mindfulness might involve conceptual-based insights into how things interconnect and harmonize. Instead, modern ideas of mindfulness might stress a kind of 'concept-free' bare attention, without fully appreciating the need for concepts to evaluate or discern the right and wrongs of situations (p.156). Finally, mindfulness has been said to be co-opted into a 'computer' metaphor now popular in cognitive science, which tends to reduce the mind to a flow-chart that can be mapped and programmed. In this latter instance, the seeming 'neutrality' of the computer model trumps any efforts at ethical communication or interaction. Perhaps the reason for this that the more we see ourselves as 'mechanisms' that are somehow determined by different factors, the less likely we might treat each other humanely.
   My own take on this issue is rather complex. While I agree that some kinds of mindfulness might de-emphasize the ethical aspects of relating to the world, I tend to feel that mindfulness practices can also naturally soften the mind and lead to a greater possibility of smooth communications between different peoples and stakeholders. I agree with a certain aspect of Stanley's argument, namely that this kind of attention requires conceptual scaffolding, and there needs to be specific areas where mindfulness is more stressed. But I am hesitant to say that there are absolutes when it comes to making ethical decisions from a Buddhist perspective. While Buddhism has precepts for ethical behavior, these precepts are not intended to be hard concepts that are used to determine a final result or action. To the contrary, precepts make situations more ethically complex, because they are not easy to apply. When we look at the precept of non-killing, for instance, we can reflect on how far or to what extent we should avoid harming others, even those who live in distant countries that have no seeming relation to ourselves. But there is no rule here which explains how to avoid harming beings. That is up to the person, and it would seem that properly observing this precept requires an open and inquiring state of mind. Could it be that what's missing in the discourses of mindfulness is the notion of ethical 'inquiry' rather than obeying ethical 'rules'?

Stanley, Steven (2013). ‘Things said or done long ago are recalled and remembered’: The ethics of mindfulness in early Buddhism, psychotherapy and clinical psychology European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling 15(2). 161-162

Just Sitting

 During the Silent Illumination meditation retreat today, GuoSheng Fashi had introduced Silent Illumination practice. One of the most interesting and enjoyable aspects of this retreat, at least for my short time joining it as a timekeeper, was the emphasis that it placed on shikantaza or "just sitting." There were times when, in the process of doing just sitting, I really understood and had a clear empathic connection with this practice. And I truly did have a felt experience of just being that truly felt authentic. As GuoSheng Fashi had mentioned, it's the knowledge that one has wandering thoughts that is the 'illumination' aspect, while not following those thoughts is the 'silent' aspect. And thanks to the emphasis on bodily relaxation and guided exercises, there were many moments when I felt connected to the practice.
   I have found that recently, I have had very few opportunities to experience meditation practice in such a relaxed way. There has been such an emphasis in the recent months in my personal readings, of 'going beyond' meditation to embrace all the aspects of Buddhist teachings, creating a frantic search to 'complete' my knowledge or understanding of the teachings. But what this ends up doing is creating a sense that spiritual practice is a matter of knowing something in a distant way, rather than embodying it. And the habit is to confuse knowing with being, as when a person becomes really interested in reading sutras, but does not realize that the knowledge hasn't been directly experienced. Instead, what one is experiencing is the conceptual excitement, or the thrill of learning a concept or being able to toy with it in some way.
    During the retreat today, I had a sense that authentic being with one's deepest, undifferentiated nature is a wonderful way to lessen anxiety about tasks to be done. Being a very task oriented person, it can be hard for me to be grounded in the actual experience of being here in this moment, and how grounding and centering that is. Instead of centering my mind in my experience of the embodied present, I extend to very short lived ideas that come and go in the mind. Because this retreat seems to have gone back to the very basics of self-care and bodily relaxation, there were moments when I could stay with the practice with a clear sense of ease and soft determination.

A Taste for Ambiguity

During the Buddhist study group meeting tonight, one of the participants had shared a very interesting view, namely that it can often be easier to 'vent' one's frustrations toward someone than it is to abide in the ambiguity of being with a person. I thought this was a very interesting and insightful point that bears some reflection. It points to the natural tendency people might have to try to slot people into convenient categories, perhaps out of a need to make quick decisions under pressure. Rather than linger on the often contradictory qualities of a person that make them 'hard to pin down', it might be best to develop a taste for the ambiguity of a person. It's in fact the case that in the majority of cases, there is never an absolute 'like' or 'dislike' of someone else, but it seems that we prefer clear-cut narratives rather than entertaining multiple possibilities about a person. I guess doing so reduces the anxiety of having to continually question or revise our understandings of a person, without the comfort of knowing that we have 'finally' known them completely or definitively.
   To take this topic a step further into the area of research: in education circles, it is currently the vogue to explore 'narrative' ethnography. I am even hearing something to the effect that humans are natural storytellers, and stories are much richer in content than many so-called 'traditional' analysis that we find in research and scholarship. The problem that I find with narrative is that it often goes the opposite route of reducing ambiguity to 'clear cut' morals and lessons, rather than staying in the ambiguity itself. Stories tend to structure things in a way that we can more or less see who we are encouraged to empathize with in a good light, whereas others might be viewed less favorably. It's sometimes necessary to 'problematize' our narratives, and that's where I think that it's important to practice being in paradox, rather than trying to escape it through a familiar pattern of acting out. In so doing, I might even learn not to feel bad about ambiguity and to not be afraid to challenge stories or 'explode' stories through a multitude of very different perspectives.

Time as a Teacher

Time doesn't seem to stop for me these days, and it's sometimes been a source of frustration. Interestingly enough, it's when I am able to divide the day into distinct 'jobs' that the day seems to go best, and I am not as overwhelmed. But I reflect on the deeper meaning of 'not feeling there is enough time', and I think it has to do with two things. One is that having a lot of tasks actually forces a person to make the best use of their valuable energies, thus causing there to be more time available, not less. The second is that it lessens the sense of self, because eventually, you have these moments where you genuinely 'don't know' who you are in all of this. And these are golden moments to realize that there is no solid, permanent, fixed self. Given these two golden opportunities, is there any reason to complain about the lack of time? Alas, not really!
   But this comes to my other point, and that is that there are workable attitudes toward time. One is to always see time as a friend, even when there doesn't seem to be enough of that friend. I am talking about how perhaps one should never feel that 'there is not enough' time to do something, because perhaps the attitude can be more of an accepting attitude toward the time that is...and to also realize that time is a mental construct. When I am in a meeting that relates to something challenging or difficult to wrap my head around, time seems to go on forever..but if I take that same sliver on a clock and observe it while in the bath or having a rest on my bed, that clock sliver seems to go by so fast. It's desire that makes time seem not enough. But what happens if we simply stop desiring more or less time, and simply go with the flow of the moments, paying attention to what needs doing and submitting to that necessity? Perhaps our relationship to time would change.

Emotion's Purposes

 Do emotions have purpose? I have been considering this subject in light of research in evolutionary psychology. I haven't been a big fan of this latter discipline, because I sometimes feel that it can make sweeping arguments about what kinds of emotions serve what purposes. However, I think it might be useful to consider whether people can choose certain emotions that they want to cultivate, and refuse to water the seeds of others. Certainly many Buddhist teachers such as Thich Nhat Hanh have used this latter analogy in many of their publications. Is it realistic to think of emotions in this way, I wonder?
   I think that there seem to be two ways of approaching emotions that are powerful or dominating: one of them is expedient and the other is more reflective. or analytic The expedient way is not to try to control emotions at all, but to use a meditative method to calm the mind, so that emotions don't have such a huge sway on a person's mentality. If a person has a strong emotion, there is simply not much value in trying to talk a person out of it, even if it's very destructive or volatile. This is because the emotion already has a strong power over a person in that moment, and so the thought of trying to make it otherwise is going to be like throwing a piece of paper into a tornado. In those cases, the only way one can get through it is through clear observation, not trying to resist the emotion and not trying to 'use' it in any way either. Once I am clear about the emotion and am resting in awareness of it, I am paradoxically not so identified with it. With clear seeing, there is no 'me' in that observation of the emotion.
   Then, when the mind is calm enough, there is the possibility to understand the emotion more reflectively. I suppose then one can start to analyze the emotion to understand what patterns it comes from, why it is so powerful, and then one can ask, does it serve a person well? If the emotion only causes one to feel further misery and destructive thoughts, is that emotions serving one's well-being and survival? I think it's then that we can start thinking in terms of watering certain kinds of plants, and not watering others. If a person skips the first step and goes to the second, they are bound to find it a bit artificial to do so. But if on the other hand they stay on the first step and not go to the second, they will certainly have a clear contemplative awareness, but might not have insights into the textures and causes of the emotions themselves.

Sidestepping Impermanence

 There are times when people try to use spiritual practices to sidestep impermanence. I am talking especially about forms of spirituality which cling to notions of gain and loss, emphasizing gain over losses. Every so often I see this on the occasional telephone post: an advertisement which reads, "learn your true destiny- money, fame, fortune advice", and so on. It's interesting to me because the lure is always about power: if you do something, you will gain more happiness, more peace, and more progress in life. It's hard to understand, in a society that prizes and advertises 'gains', that spirituality is more about losing than it is about gaining. In fact, if there was some kind of advertisement which read, "learn how to lose your attachments", people might start to panic and not even step near spiritual practice. This is because our society has conditioned people to put all their identity and effort around the sense of a substantial 'self' that gains or progresses over time.
   I have no doubt that powers like this can and do exist in the world. Even in Buddhist texts, disciples of the Buddha are said to manifest supernatural powers, which can work to a person's advantage in some form or another. But actually, this kind of spiritual practice can be quite harmful, because there is an illusion that a person gains a permanent sense of power over themselves and the world. It's as though tomorrow, I won the lottery and didn't have to work again for the rest of my life. I would believe at that moment that I have a special power because I compare what I have now to what I struggled to have in the past. But is this current state permanent? It's not really so.
   Consider that many who have a significant gain eventually adapt to the new kind of happiness relatively quickly, and then it's no longer a source of joy for me. If I retire and consider how relaxed I feel compared to when I was working, eventually I will realize that I no longer experience that comparative ease. Something else has replaced it, such as a new hobby, or a trip, or another responsibility, or even boredom. The brief feeling of happiness or control was only so great because I compared it with another moment that felt more like a struggle. It seems good at the time, but it wears thin later, because the previous memory is already faded away.
   Another example that I can think of is the illusory sense of power that comes from hope and fantasy. Sometimes it seems that something good is about to happen, only later one realizes that this hope was only a projection of one's desired state of things. In fact, that might have been an observation of a minor condition blown out of proportion or over-interpreted. This then becomes a source of suffering. The reason I categorize it as like supernatural power is that hope can give a person false impressions of greatness or infinite power and control, as much as any kind of mental powers might. But at the end of the day, hope is also impermanent, and so one needs to learn to navigate these feelings without getting drawn into them excessively.

Buddhist views of Insanity

I am quite intrigued to learn in one of the old Buddhist suttas, Samagama Sutta, how the monastics would exonerate certain offenses if it is deemed that the monk had been temporarily insane while the action had been done.  Here is one interesting passage:

"Despite the denial, the former presses the latter further: ‘Surely the venerable one must know quite well if he remembers having committed such and such a grave offence, one involving defeat or bordering on defeat?’ He says: ‘I had gone mad, friend, I was out of my mind, and when I was mad I said and did many things improper for a recluse. I do not remember, I was mad when I did that.’ In his case removal of litigation on account of past insanity should be pronounced. Such is the removal of litigation on account of past insanity. And so there comes to be the settlement of some litigations here by removal of litigation on account of past"

I find this view of madness or 'insanity' fascinating because it would perhaps strike modern readers as a kind of suspicious plea, similar to what we do when we say "I was temporarily insane when I did that". But on the other hand, it's interesting that in the context of this sutta, the state of mind is not as important as the monk's recognition of his past states, and his awareness that he did things "improper for a recluse". And notice how the monks don't necessarily hold this insanity against the monk, or pursue further measures. 

In modern-day courts, pleas of insanity are often followed by complicated inquests, to see just how responsible the person is. It's as though measuring a person's sanity or insanity is a measure of their level of culpability or guilt. But in the above passage, the case is simply passed through and the litigation is settled. It's interesting and I wonder if perhaps it's because 'insanity' in Buddha's time didn't connote what it does today. So far as a monk is able to own up to his temporary states of unrest, he has this freedom to settle matters with the fellow monks. But nowadays, if we were to do the same thing, there would still be the question in our minds of whether the person was 'truly' insane at the time the crime was committed, and if they were perhaps intentionally trying to do destructive things. It points to a modern preoccupation with authenticity as a measure of a person's moral worth.

I wonder if perhaps it's because in Buddha's sangha there is a shared sense of a common vision which unifies the monastics, and leads them to a shared sense of trust. I also feel that when people are united in a single spiritual practice, there is a tendency not to dwell so much on who did what, because everything comes down to how we process the events in our lives, not what 'he or she did to me'. Modern law tends to focus on the latter, establishing who originates suffering. But if one reads Buddhist scriptures, one recognizes that only the mind causes its own suffering through its attitudes and mental formations. Litigation, then, is less about assigning blame than it is ensuring that the whole sangha communicate and align itself to the shared practices that they value and trust.

References:

Bhikku Nanamoli’s translation of the Samaama Sutta collected in Nanamoli & Bodhi. 1995. The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: a translation of the Majjima Nikaya . 

The Comforts of Silence

 After the group meditation practice today, I shared about the following weekend's practice of Silent Illumination, and lead a short transfer of merit prayer. I decided not to read from one of Shifu's books, even though it had been my original plan (alas, time simply did not permit). But I felt a certain relief in giving myself permission not to say too much. It is as though the silence was a relief to me, and it allowed me to focus more on the sitting meditation than on trying hard to find something useful to share at the end of the practice.
   There is a certain comfort that can be found when people agree to silence, and are not driven to talking all the time. I have had friendships where talking is a kind of expected norm, and silence feels uncomfortable. But in other situations, particularly when I know the person well, silence communicates something quite deep and shared. Now, I wonder, how does it happen that silence becomes 'comfortable'? Is it only an excuse to say that people ran out of things to say to each other? I think that it's a bit deeper than that. Likely, it comes from a kind of confidence that my connection with people does not depend on always saying something to impress or keep it going, as it were. That confidence comes from a shared understanding that might even come from a shared struggle to communicate. But eventually, a shared silence might indicate that there is no longer such a conflict, but there is a synthesis of two different perspectives into one, or perhaps there is a reflection that the two sides are equally valued even though they are different.
   I think that if people didn't devalue silence so much, there wouldn't be so many miserable social situations! I mean--think of all the negative connotations that come from 'silence', such as the terms 'dead silence', 'awkward silence', or 'the silent treatment'. All of these expressions suggest that silence is somehow unnatural or unwanted. But if silence were valued more, people wouldn't feel so pressured to participate verbally, and the things people would say would come from a more grounded state of being that is not invested in trying to be socially accepted.

Wheels in Motion, Wheels at Rest

 There are times when I have to say that I wait for Friday evenings, if not because they give me more time to rest from a hectic work week. I wonder, is this 'looking forward' to a day of rest perhaps a sign of not being present? Shouldn't I be completely content in the moment, regardless of whether I am busy or am resting, or what day of week it is?
  I think that in a sense the mind doesn't need to move when there is so much going on. In fact, the 'so much going on' is just a kind of trick that the mind plays: seeing everything that needs to be done as one big agglomeration, rather than seeing the individuals moments. It reminds me of the time when a sandwich shop I often go to would advertise on its napkins the average total number of tomatoes a person eats per year, and of course, that number is quite astronomical. But is the number truly meaningful? It isn't to most people, because we are describing a kind of grand total that cannot be directly experienced anyway.
   On Thursday evenings, just before I lead the guided meditation downtown, I often feel quite tired from the work day, and I have from time to time asked myself, "how do I prepare for this moment, standing in front of everyone and guiding this exercise?" At one time, I felt compelled to create an atmosphere before entering the room, almost like 'putting on an air' of peacefulness. These days, I fall asleep on the subway, and by the time I have eaten and set up the cushions for the Thursday meditation, I have forgotten what or how to prepare! In that moment, I am simply that moment, and there isn't anything else I can do to prepare. And lately, I have been okay with this, because I consider myself to be participating in the process of settling the mind as much as the others in the group.
     I have sometimes felt that having a lot of things to do can be a curse to the sense of self, especially the one that needs to be prepared for everything, including all its grand entrances and exits, as well as the dire need to be in control as much as possible. But from the perspective of present moment, busy is good, because it takes away the pretention of always being prepared. As much as we do need to prepare, there is always a margin for just being, and responding to the uncertainty of this moment. When I let go of 'always having to be prepared', what is left is a kind of reasonable attitude: I will prepare enough to show up, but there is no need for me to put on any special airs, or pretend that there is a self that is completely in control of everything that unfolds.

Self Responsibility in Practice

Richard Gombrich has expressed the idea that Buddhism is a kind of "religious individualism" (1988, p.72). What he means by this is that in Buddhism, it's entirely up to the practitioner to decide how and to what extent she or he will practice to liberate themselves or come to realization of the key teachings of Dharma. Nobody else is going to do this for oneself, and what's more is that the emphasis becomes on self-examination. Could we say that in this regard, Buddhism preaches a kind of 'ultimate responsibility', in the sense that one is left up to one's own devices to move ahead or fall behind in practice?
   I believe that from a Theravada perspective, this would seem quite correct, but in another way, I challenge this idea by asking the question, 'who' is taking ultimate responsibility or thinks in terms of responsibility/non-responsibility? This question goes to the core of asking what we can say is permanent and enduring about Buddhist teachings. While 'self-examination' may be just a convenient expression, it makes me wonder, is there ever a single coherent self that moves through these teachings in distinct stages? Is 'ultimate responsibility' even something that can be experienced by someone, or is it only an abstract framing that is used to structure a person's thinking about life and practice?
    I tend to think that too much emphasis on 'self-responsibility' in practice ends up missing the way in which all thoughts about the self are only temporary and illusory in the first place. If I don't see that, I will always be projecting onto the world some picture of myself which I take to be real and enduring. While it's important to choose areas of life that can be enriching to one's practice, I don't think that it's necessary that people punish themselves with strict or tense notions of what they should and shouldn't do. This kind of tension only reinforces the illusion of a self, which then leads to a struggle between self and non-self.

Gombrich, Richard (1988). Theravada Buddhism: A social history from ancient Benares to modern Colombo. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

The Floating Bowl

There's a scene in the 1993 film Little Buddha, where Siddhartha (played by Keanu Reeves) is a starving ascetic who accepts a bowl of rice from the young girl. He then tries to explain to fellow ascetics that the Middle Way is between the extremes of self-mortification and indulgence, using the empty bowl floating down the stream to illustrate the principle of continuity and transmigration. What does it mean? The floating bowl is an interesting metaphor for the changing nature of identity. When I am finished the bowl of rice, my bowl is ready to receive other kinds of food. Thus by analogy, things change constantly, and the middle way is for one's mind to be at peace throughout these kinds of changes, without clinging to one's version of reality.
   It's interesting to look at this from a contemporary perspective. There is often an enormous gulf between what one plans to happen and what actually happens, and it's precisely this 'gulf' that allows a person to lessen their sense of self. It's only when I experience the uncertainty that comes after even the best laid plans that I can understand the provisional nature of all reality. What I think is going to happen is only an approximate model, and it never fully captures the present unfolding.
     To go back to the previous example of Siddhartha: his plan was initially to starve himself in order to reach a heightened transcendent state, as well as lessen his attachment to the body. But what ended up happening was the opposite; in not taking care of his bodily needs, Siddhartha could barely even muster the energy or concentration to realize anything. This in itself is a lesson in the deeply ingrained interdependence of all beings, as well as conditioned nature. Were I to simply follow my self-created path, then the success of that path only solidifies my sense of being a separate soul. But when those plans wear thin or fall apart, this is a perfect venue for transformation because it illustrates the kind of impermanence in which humans live.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9Ul46Dj3Hg

A Deep Sense of Calm

 On the subway home tonight, I experienced the calm of other subway commuters, in ways that surprised me. Part of it may have to do with the late time of day and the absence of rush hour traffic. There is a kind of sense of relief: end of the day, without the anxiety of the 9 to 5 shift. I felt my whole body more rested when I was able to pick up on the collective energies of others, even the commuter beside me who seemed to be in a kind of deep sleep.
   If you ever find yourself feeling anxious or tense, it's probably best not to just look at your own body, but to look at the bodies of those around you. Chances are that if you're tense, others might be the same. If there is one person in the room who is extremely (and genuinely) calm, then the whole room feels the same effects of that calm. I have even in myself experienced a gravitation toward this calmness, even though it's quite hard to truly find it let alone experience it.
    Even in meditation circles, calm can be hard to come by precisely because a lot of people subconsciously seek calming states, and this ends up making people feel tense. When I start to try to make my body more relaxed, I end up creating a contrast between two states (calm and tense) and become more tense in comparing the two and wanting the calm over the tense. This is why it's sometimes more effective to look to the calm that comes when a person has really let go of all their devices or 'tools to feel better' and are only really with themselves, in their own skin.
   So how is this calm actually 'achieved'? I think that it comes from a genuine appreciation of one's place in this moment.  When I look upon this body being grounded right here, I naturally feel the calm of someone who has abundance. If I think "I am not calm but I should be calm", I operate from an opposite view, that of someone with a deficit who needs more in order to be a whole person. But the other way is simply to see my being here the way a child might see the toys in front of them or the playground of imaginary beings. This 'being here' is already a kind of miracle-for who else can fill this space but your own awareness, right here in this moment? Can you see how wonderfully irreplaceable that is? When one has that calm, there is nothing more to gain, and there is no anxiety about losing either, because there is too much here to worry about losing.

Vimilakirti Sutta, Gender and Formlessness: A Reflection

There is a particular scene in the Vimilakirti Sutta which is quite interesting, which I'd like to share. In this sutta, Sariptura encounters a goddess in the layperson Vimilakirti's room where he is staying. The goddess showers these flowers over both disciples and bodhisattvas. While the flowers tend to stay off the latter, they stick to the former. Sariputra wants to know why, and the goddess answers that the flowers cling to the Buddha's disciples (presumably arhats?) precisely because they are afraid of the phenomena of the flowers as real. On the other hand, the bodhisattvas have gotten past the notion that flowers are either 'real' or 'not real', so they are no longer afraid of the flowers. Thus, the flowers don't cling to them. I believe that these 'flowers' that the sutta talks about might be analogous to thoughts.
  Why are the disciples described in the Sutta so afraid of flowers? I believe that it's because the early teachings of the Buddha must have emphasized divorcing oneself from the sensory world in order to avoid its apparent temptations. "Be islands unto yourselves" is what the Buddha exhorts the early monastics to do, and part of this also includes not associating with laypeople or being attracted to the appearances of others, or even of the natural world. In many spiritual traditions and even philosophies around the world, we often hear this kind of refrain to avoid the indulgences of the senses and seek 'higher' realms which are often either very refined in form, or have no forms at all.
   What the goddess is exhorting Sariputra to do is not to cling to this preliminary teaching to avoid the sensory things, but to perceive that even sensory objects are empty in nature. Bodhisattavas, so Vimilakirti mentions to Manjushri in this text, are to view sentient beings as one would view a mirage or some other mirror-like appearances: that is, freely and spontaneously interacting but not taking things or beings as having these separate, enduring realities. Once a bodhisattva has reached that stage of realization, there is no longer a separation of 'form' and 'formless', and thus there is no need to even fear forms anymore, let alone 'discipline' oneself to avoid them altogether. It would be like meditating in front of a mirror and trying to prevent the mirror from reflecting anything. There is simply no need and not even any possibility to do this.
   This is where the freakier part of the sutta comes into play. When Sariputra asks the goddess if she will ever transform into a male, the goddess asks why it's necessary to do so. She compares male and female to forms in a dream, or 'indeterminate forms', and goes on to suggest that there is no need to switch something in a dream since it is already indeterminate. Why change a dream into another dream? Then she evokes the Buddha's notion that there is no ultimate male or female dharmas. She then turns Sariputra briefly into a female form to demonstrate this principle: if Sariputra appears as female, does this make him in essence female? Sariputra, in briefly being transformed into a female form, is lead to wonder what gender really is, and whether he has been fooled after all that gender is something that is fixed into a person's nature or identity. He gets a very direct teaching, in that moment, on how erroneous the discriminating mind can be in separating natures into different (and fairly impermanent) categories.
   This sutta seems to presage a lot of postmodern theories about gender and performativity, including the ideas of Judith Butler. Butler strongly maintains that gender is more 'performed' than inherited, and thus doesn't have a substantive essence beyond a series of actions and behaviors that are inscribed in a person's habitus. It can be very liberating indeed to recognize in oneself both supposedly 'male' and 'female' elements, as well as to realize that a lot of what we consider as 'gender' are projections of these qualities which everyone can perform or enact in themselves. Even more so, being able to transform into another gender (as Sariputra did) or to imagine such a transformation, is an interesting exercise in shaking off entrenched notions of what constitutes one's 'core essence'. I believe that it's also a way of mitigating the confusion and frustration that come from thinking that one is born as one thing but is then strongly attracted toward something that is 'other' than this self-proclaimed identity.

Cloud Turbulence

I was reading an article today by Ran Kuttner, called "Cultivating Dialogue: From Fragmentation to Relationality in Conflict Interaction". I started to reflect on the following: the idea that conflict usually seems to involve two people bargaining separately for things they want. However, according to the view of relationality, people's identity does not come as a separate element but is continually shifting back and forth in a relational space with others. Therefore, conflict is not about two separate things clashing together, but about lack of resonance in the moment, a kind of 'cloud turbulence' that doesn't originate in one being alone. The physicist David Bohm refers to it as 'co-creation'. When people believe that their thinking only comes from their own head-space (or the muscle between their ears), they might start to mistakenly distinguish certain kinds of thinking as 'myself' and other thoughts as belonging to someone else.
   I wonder what it would be like if people believed that conflict never starts or ends with 'separate beings' at all, but is just like a plane going through a turbulent cloud. Really. I mean, it would make a difference, insofar as people wouldn't concern themselves so much with 'who started what' or 'what belongs to whom'. Rather, they might together start to look at the turbulence and see how they can fly through it together. They might not even see the turbulence as all that bad to begin with, especially if they are of the view that clouds are a natural part of the scenery and therefore do not need to be liquidated (literally) or rendered more innocuous. Would this model of negotiation not be more interesting and fun than the traditional model of 'bargaining between separate selves'?
   It seems that the best way to cultivate this relational space, as Kuttner suggests, is through reflection and mindfulness meditation. In meditation, people can realize that nothing belongs to one thing or the other unless the world is divided in this way. In fact, things are parts of a whole already and it's actually when we don't separate things that conflict is less catastrophic.

Kuttner, Ran. (2012). Cultivating Dialogue: From Fragmentation to Relationality in Conflict Interaction. Negotiation Journal, July 2012.