Tonight, during the group meditation practice, I continued to explore the notion of seeing everyday experiences as open inquiry. And I did this by incorporating the experience of back pain into my huatou practice. An interesting thing happened for a short time in the first sitting. I started to directly contemplate the pain and wonder 'whose pain' is it? When I sincerely wondered about it, the pain did not seem to be pain anymore at all, but an ever-changing, unfolding process and experience. I gradually felt a shift in my felt experience of pain, away from a biological model and toward a more inquiry based, existential way of viewing pain.
What would be the difference between ''biological" and "existential" views of pain? Here, I am likely influenced by E. F Schumacher again, who warned against a modern tendency inherited from the 19th century to try to reduce higher level activities to a 'lower' rung of motivation. Freud was said to have 'reduced' human emotion to sexual and aggressive instincts (an oversimplification of Freud), while other philosophers reduce mental activities to chemical processes and the like. When I first started to meditate, I would sometimes deal with pain in precisely this way by imagining the emotion as a series of electrical impulses. I even went so far as to visualize a neuron on those longer retreats when I had felt some dull pains here and there. The effect of visualizing is to reduce pain to something somewhat more innocuous than a sharp or invading sensation. After all, who could be angry with a bundle of cells and electrical impulses? This kind of reductionism can sometimes take the edge away from painful experiences. I refer to these approaches as 'biological' views of pain, where sensations are somehow seen as indicative of physiological or even chemical processes rather than as unique mental events in their own right.
And I believe that the effect of a lot of biological knowledge (such as even Darwin's notion of survival of the fittest) is to create a kind of distance around one's personal experiences, or perhaps a 'wider' perspective. It is as though in panning out of one's own suffering, one is able to have a less desperate stance toward one's own 'personal' or inner suffering. I believe that there are even stories in Buddhism which suggest that this kind of knowing is a glimpse into emptiness. I am thinking of the story of the woman who comes to the Buddha asking him to revive her dead child, only to later find that everyone in her village has suffered the loss of a relative or loved one. Such a panning out can help a person deal with suffering, because it suggests that pain isn't a personal affair, and it is shared across a whole species.
The other approach to pain is to see it as an existential event, which I will refer to as a question. Yes, pain can be a question! Why? It's a question because at the moment that pain arises, there is something unclear and unsettled about it, similar to an unresolved question or problem. I simply cannot put a neat framework around the pain, any more than I can resolve a relationship issue using neat logic. Schumacher, again, distinguishes between convergent thinking and divergent thinking, as a way to get people to think about the differences between kinds of problems. While convergent thinking uses analysis and deductive logic to arrive at a limited answer, divergent thinking requires a process of reconciling opposites and coming to compromises. While convergent thinking seems to correspond to 'biological' views of pain (reducing pain to a common denominator such as neurons, genes, environmental factors, etc.) divergent thinking seems to approach a more existential way of relating to things as deeply personal, often conflicted and messy to the very end.
Seeing pain as an existential 'question' is quite interesting for a variety of reasons. First, it lifts the pressure away from trying to use a theory or technique to explain away the pain. I have found in my own meditation practice that putting a theory in front of an experience can temporarily numb emotions, but it tends not to allow a person to be really in the pain itself or to work through it. By beholding pain as a tension of opposites (the urge to flee vs. the urge to sit, relief vs. abiding in discomfort, etc.) one begins to see pain more as a continuum than as a pat and fixed experience that is always the same. This leads to my second point, which is that seeing pain as part of an existential question of being puts the pain on a level of something that is respected and beheld. I found that when this happens, the pain no longer revolts or consumes a person's awareness. It's certainly aware, but it's not so aware that it is 'in one's face'. It even combines pain with the questioning nature of mind, thus elevating pain's function to part of an overall quest for understanding and insight into one's existence.
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Stay with the Question
Lately, I have been feeling that my meditation practice goes right into huatou (generating a question) method. I am not deliberately trying to relax the body from top to bottom, and nor am I even focusing on the body. Tonight, it worked quite well for me, because I was able to sit for an hour without really worrying about the pains in my body. Every so often, I would simply adjust my spine whenever I felt some sensation of compression or tightness, as my spine does tend to tighten a bit over a longer sitting. And I found that I was able to let go of trying to find the 'sweet spot' of comfort in the body. A space opened up in mind where I was able to just see the confusion of the mind as it is. Even striving for an answer to the question seemed non-existent. Only the question, "who is reciting the Buddha's name?" lingered.
I have noticed in myself a tendency not to be able to stay with questions in daily life. I am somehow used to the idea of trying to grasp and answers or desirable states of being to comfort myself when I am confused or don't have a full answer to a challenge I am facing. But what I notice is that the ultimate relaxation is not to answer a question at all, but simply to raise it again and again. By raising a question without trying to answer it, I give myself the mental space to appreciate the real existential confusions that are part of my being. I am not trying to delegate the question to some mundane process, like 'how to make friends' or 'how not to be lonely'. These are just false questions, because they already presuppose that I fully understand the existential questions I wrestle with as a person. Instead of trying to funnel the questions into these mundane sort of conditions or 'problem categories', one can choose the opposite approach of funnelling outward, or driving these smaller questions into a more ultimate question such as "who am I"? Where is the mind? How do I know anything? What is thinking? Who is sitting? etc.
In his book Work as a Spiritual Practice, Lewis Richmond advocates a kind of question generating method where a person tries to suspend her or his tendencies to answer a question using preconceived ideas of what the real question is. He suggests a staged process of working with questions, which I will list below (and which is further described on pages 48 and 49 of Richmond's book):
1) Raise the question- at this stage, the person begins to focus on their emotions and wonders what kind of questions are being signalled by the emotion itself. If I am feeling worried or unsettled, what question might be underneath that state of worry or discomfort? This stage involves framing or possibly seeking a question that may need answering
2) Repeat the question- at this point, the person repeats the question softly to her or himself, without trying to jump in and answer it. I consider this stage to be quite similar to the huatou method as taught by Chan and Zen masters, in the sense that it is appreciating the existence of a question rather than trying to find an answer. According to Chan and Zen, all 'answers' are really just coming from the discriminating mind which separates itself into subject and object. Repeating the question stalls and subverts this process by not being satisfied with a simple answer which isn't really an answer at all.
3) Follow the question- this process involves continually returning to the question at all times of life, in a relaxed manner. Again, the process parallels the huatou method, in the sense that returning to the question incubates a doubt sensation. Richmond recommends embodying the question by somehow tying the question to a specific action like walking or doing some work. Where Richmond's approach departs from huatou method is that he allows the practitioner to change her or his question as needed, and considers the question to be constantly morphing into new forms as one works with the question subconsciously. With huatou practice, on the other hand, one is continually staying on the same question.
4) Settle the question- if one has been persistent enough up to this point, they will have either found an answer to the question or settled the desire to question. Richmond suggests that the question is resolved not through intellectual answers but through fully involving one's being in the question itself. Being fully with one's concerns can also sometimes unearth a deeper or more substantial question than what had been first posed.
I think that there is another advantage to 'staying' with a question that Richmond perhaps doesn't discuss too much in his book. I think that sometimes trying to create an answer too prematurely can only create more vexations. For instance, if I become confident that I know how to answer a question and keep reminding myself of the answer, it is a bit like trying to fit the breadth of a question into a tiny thimble. If questions were so easy to answer that they would only require one or two simple sentences (like 1 + 1 = 2), there would never have been a sense of worry to begin with. So I have found it important to take the feeling of worry seriously, as indicating a series of interlocking unsolved riddles. When I stop grasping a hold of one 'cause' and saying 'this is the reason, and only this', I find that I feel less anxious. It is as though I am appreciating the gravity of my questioning mind, rather than trying to silence questioning through easy, pat answers or 'root causes'.
The other advantage to Richmond's method is that it allows for greater frustration tolerance, particularly when questions appear to be insoluble at the moment. Only when I can stay with a challenging dilemma can I experience its complexity and also be able to know that the confusion is bearable. I can stand to be nothing and take no stand for a while, as I sort out the different threads of my life situation.
Richmond, Lewis (1999), Work as a Spiritual Practice. New York: Broadway Books
I have noticed in myself a tendency not to be able to stay with questions in daily life. I am somehow used to the idea of trying to grasp and answers or desirable states of being to comfort myself when I am confused or don't have a full answer to a challenge I am facing. But what I notice is that the ultimate relaxation is not to answer a question at all, but simply to raise it again and again. By raising a question without trying to answer it, I give myself the mental space to appreciate the real existential confusions that are part of my being. I am not trying to delegate the question to some mundane process, like 'how to make friends' or 'how not to be lonely'. These are just false questions, because they already presuppose that I fully understand the existential questions I wrestle with as a person. Instead of trying to funnel the questions into these mundane sort of conditions or 'problem categories', one can choose the opposite approach of funnelling outward, or driving these smaller questions into a more ultimate question such as "who am I"? Where is the mind? How do I know anything? What is thinking? Who is sitting? etc.
In his book Work as a Spiritual Practice, Lewis Richmond advocates a kind of question generating method where a person tries to suspend her or his tendencies to answer a question using preconceived ideas of what the real question is. He suggests a staged process of working with questions, which I will list below (and which is further described on pages 48 and 49 of Richmond's book):
1) Raise the question- at this stage, the person begins to focus on their emotions and wonders what kind of questions are being signalled by the emotion itself. If I am feeling worried or unsettled, what question might be underneath that state of worry or discomfort? This stage involves framing or possibly seeking a question that may need answering
2) Repeat the question- at this point, the person repeats the question softly to her or himself, without trying to jump in and answer it. I consider this stage to be quite similar to the huatou method as taught by Chan and Zen masters, in the sense that it is appreciating the existence of a question rather than trying to find an answer. According to Chan and Zen, all 'answers' are really just coming from the discriminating mind which separates itself into subject and object. Repeating the question stalls and subverts this process by not being satisfied with a simple answer which isn't really an answer at all.
3) Follow the question- this process involves continually returning to the question at all times of life, in a relaxed manner. Again, the process parallels the huatou method, in the sense that returning to the question incubates a doubt sensation. Richmond recommends embodying the question by somehow tying the question to a specific action like walking or doing some work. Where Richmond's approach departs from huatou method is that he allows the practitioner to change her or his question as needed, and considers the question to be constantly morphing into new forms as one works with the question subconsciously. With huatou practice, on the other hand, one is continually staying on the same question.
4) Settle the question- if one has been persistent enough up to this point, they will have either found an answer to the question or settled the desire to question. Richmond suggests that the question is resolved not through intellectual answers but through fully involving one's being in the question itself. Being fully with one's concerns can also sometimes unearth a deeper or more substantial question than what had been first posed.
I think that there is another advantage to 'staying' with a question that Richmond perhaps doesn't discuss too much in his book. I think that sometimes trying to create an answer too prematurely can only create more vexations. For instance, if I become confident that I know how to answer a question and keep reminding myself of the answer, it is a bit like trying to fit the breadth of a question into a tiny thimble. If questions were so easy to answer that they would only require one or two simple sentences (like 1 + 1 = 2), there would never have been a sense of worry to begin with. So I have found it important to take the feeling of worry seriously, as indicating a series of interlocking unsolved riddles. When I stop grasping a hold of one 'cause' and saying 'this is the reason, and only this', I find that I feel less anxious. It is as though I am appreciating the gravity of my questioning mind, rather than trying to silence questioning through easy, pat answers or 'root causes'.
The other advantage to Richmond's method is that it allows for greater frustration tolerance, particularly when questions appear to be insoluble at the moment. Only when I can stay with a challenging dilemma can I experience its complexity and also be able to know that the confusion is bearable. I can stand to be nothing and take no stand for a while, as I sort out the different threads of my life situation.
Richmond, Lewis (1999), Work as a Spiritual Practice. New York: Broadway Books
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
A Buddhist View of Work
I came cross one of my favorite books, E.F Schumacher's Small is Beautiful, on my bookshelf. It's a worn and tattered copy, like many of the books that end up stashed in my knapsack for a few weeks (or years). Schumacher, while perhaps not himself a Buddhist, tries to re-envision the meaning of work and economics from a Buddhist perspective. Emphasizing the Buddhist path of Right Livelihood, Schumacher suggests that the key emphasis in the Buddhist framework is to see work as an opportunity to cultivate character, rather than as simply a means to a product. Much of what Schumacher writes is quite golden and to the point:
The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give a man a chance to utilize and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centeredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. (p.58)
Many consequences seem to follow from this notion of a "Buddhist" economics, which are worth exploring. For one, the nature of work and its purpose start to change. If work is designed to overcome human egocentricity and enhance human existence, it is important that the role be designed for human flourishing. If I try to oversimplify a process so that people can do it quickly and without thought for the product, I somehow violate the human element of the work and its potential to develop character. As well, there is a shift away from working for the sake of quantity and a more mindful approach to the work itself.
I think another consequence might be this: as a person's satisfaction with work grows, she or he might even be more inclined to spend time working than in consuming. But by "work", I don't mean the way we think of work as a kind of drudgery or punishment. Rather, I am envisioning the creative work that often happens when people are developing products or ideas in small groups or individually. If I find satisfaction in a particular kind of work or study which means something and yields insights, I am less inclined to base my value on what I buy, or try to fill an emptiness with food or drink.
I do wonder if making work satisfying might seem to be an actual threat to the consumer economy. If work is so great that a person would want to spend more time there than taking a trip or going to the mall, this might actually cause the economy to suffer. Sure, maybe! But I agree with Schumacher that the more one redesigns work to include people's skills and talents, the more work there will end up being. Perhaps this will come about as people are engaged in small projects for smaller companies, where they have the creative freedom to serve as consultants and build contacts. In these situations, people are not hired by multinational corporations but are doing meaningful things on a local level, while developing their skills and talents in cooperation with start up companies. And there is enough productivity to ensure that new services are created in lieu of gadgets or short-lived products. With less attachment to material goods, people in such an economy might start to appreciate the less tangible benefits of human services, such as art.
Schumacher, E. F (1973), Small is Beautiful: Economics as If People Matter,
The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give a man a chance to utilize and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centeredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. (p.58)
Many consequences seem to follow from this notion of a "Buddhist" economics, which are worth exploring. For one, the nature of work and its purpose start to change. If work is designed to overcome human egocentricity and enhance human existence, it is important that the role be designed for human flourishing. If I try to oversimplify a process so that people can do it quickly and without thought for the product, I somehow violate the human element of the work and its potential to develop character. As well, there is a shift away from working for the sake of quantity and a more mindful approach to the work itself.
I think another consequence might be this: as a person's satisfaction with work grows, she or he might even be more inclined to spend time working than in consuming. But by "work", I don't mean the way we think of work as a kind of drudgery or punishment. Rather, I am envisioning the creative work that often happens when people are developing products or ideas in small groups or individually. If I find satisfaction in a particular kind of work or study which means something and yields insights, I am less inclined to base my value on what I buy, or try to fill an emptiness with food or drink.
I do wonder if making work satisfying might seem to be an actual threat to the consumer economy. If work is so great that a person would want to spend more time there than taking a trip or going to the mall, this might actually cause the economy to suffer. Sure, maybe! But I agree with Schumacher that the more one redesigns work to include people's skills and talents, the more work there will end up being. Perhaps this will come about as people are engaged in small projects for smaller companies, where they have the creative freedom to serve as consultants and build contacts. In these situations, people are not hired by multinational corporations but are doing meaningful things on a local level, while developing their skills and talents in cooperation with start up companies. And there is enough productivity to ensure that new services are created in lieu of gadgets or short-lived products. With less attachment to material goods, people in such an economy might start to appreciate the less tangible benefits of human services, such as art.
Schumacher, E. F (1973), Small is Beautiful: Economics as If People Matter,
Monday, April 11, 2016
Language Learning as Spiritual Practice?
I was thinking for quite some time about the connection between language learning (particularly Mandarin, in my case) and spirituality. Is there a connection between spirituality and the process of learning a language? I believe that there are parallel elements which I would like to describe in terms of sense of discovery, humility, and seeing language as a layered, conditioned process. Many of these processes could parallel those which are found in traditional sitting meditation practices.
Learning a new language (particularly as an adult) can yield interesting discoveries about one's mental processes. When I was a child, I had picked up language without really reflecting too much on how I learned it. However, as an adult, I have to admit that language is much more challenging for me to learn. I am starting to observe the process in which I start to recognize patterns in the language as well as the correspondence of sound, symbol and meaning. I do notice how the process of learning itself is conditioned, and it has given me a sense of wonder. Even though we talk about learning something as a process of 'absorbing' or ''soaking in" images and symbols, I find it hard to really understand what is happening when I pick up a new language, and start to realize how little a person can know about it. There is simply no way to fully grasp intellectually, and I am prone to regard language as more of a process of dedicating to one thing, even if there is no guarantee when it will yield a result. When I turn toward the process of language and examine how I at times shut out, surrender to it, become open to it, then zone out again--I can see how the way I learn language is a reflection of how the mind moves and often makes comparisons between one state of being and another. I start to observe also how my mind balks at unfamiliar sounds, only to find tricky ways to try to link them to other sounds with which I am familiar. In this sense, language is a holistic, often psychological process of making and sometimes not making meaning.
Learning a new language is also a practice of humility, as I take in the fact that I am a beginner all over again. With a new language, it is hard to express what I know in the few words I have learned so far, and this can make it difficult to see the process as meaningful. I might sometimes stop to wonder, why am I learning this new language if it will take me so many years even to express a very simple statement? But by going back to a beginner's mode, I can appreciate the process for what it is and also accept the fact that I am able to return to a beginning mode and still thrive there. Perhaps it takes a lot of humility to realize that I need others to help me in learning the new language as well.
Finally, learning a new language seems to suggest language as highly conditioned and contextual. Language learners quickly start to realize that there are many words to express the same thing, and this can create a frustrating sense of insufficient context. But by being sensitive to the nuances of a new language, one is picking up the conditioned and dependent arising of conceptual knowledge. This is also humbling because I start to realize that there are no substantial solid objects in language, only symbolic pointers that never quite materialize into something fixed or singular.
Learning a new language (particularly as an adult) can yield interesting discoveries about one's mental processes. When I was a child, I had picked up language without really reflecting too much on how I learned it. However, as an adult, I have to admit that language is much more challenging for me to learn. I am starting to observe the process in which I start to recognize patterns in the language as well as the correspondence of sound, symbol and meaning. I do notice how the process of learning itself is conditioned, and it has given me a sense of wonder. Even though we talk about learning something as a process of 'absorbing' or ''soaking in" images and symbols, I find it hard to really understand what is happening when I pick up a new language, and start to realize how little a person can know about it. There is simply no way to fully grasp intellectually, and I am prone to regard language as more of a process of dedicating to one thing, even if there is no guarantee when it will yield a result. When I turn toward the process of language and examine how I at times shut out, surrender to it, become open to it, then zone out again--I can see how the way I learn language is a reflection of how the mind moves and often makes comparisons between one state of being and another. I start to observe also how my mind balks at unfamiliar sounds, only to find tricky ways to try to link them to other sounds with which I am familiar. In this sense, language is a holistic, often psychological process of making and sometimes not making meaning.
Learning a new language is also a practice of humility, as I take in the fact that I am a beginner all over again. With a new language, it is hard to express what I know in the few words I have learned so far, and this can make it difficult to see the process as meaningful. I might sometimes stop to wonder, why am I learning this new language if it will take me so many years even to express a very simple statement? But by going back to a beginner's mode, I can appreciate the process for what it is and also accept the fact that I am able to return to a beginning mode and still thrive there. Perhaps it takes a lot of humility to realize that I need others to help me in learning the new language as well.
Finally, learning a new language seems to suggest language as highly conditioned and contextual. Language learners quickly start to realize that there are many words to express the same thing, and this can create a frustrating sense of insufficient context. But by being sensitive to the nuances of a new language, one is picking up the conditioned and dependent arising of conceptual knowledge. This is also humbling because I start to realize that there are no substantial solid objects in language, only symbolic pointers that never quite materialize into something fixed or singular.
Sunday, April 10, 2016
A Room Without Chairs
In the morning, I stop off at the local gas station to grab a coffee. As I am taking my coffee and breakfast out of the store, I notice that there is a new Pepsi flavor called "Pepsi Ginger". I decide to buy it to try the flavor. But then just as I leave the gas station, I reflect: possibly a similar flavor could be achieved by combining any cola with ginger ale. Could it be such an original idea after all, and why didn't anyone arrive at it before?
I head into the meditation hall, which now happens to be downstairs instead of upstairs. I take down the tables that function as meeting spaces and later stack the chairs. I clear a space for the meditation mats and cushions, thinking there will be perhaps a maximum of 6 practitioners attending. It never occurs to me that a participant might need a chair, but one of the participants does. And at the end of the session, I help to put chairs into rows. The other volunteer mentioned that only one table is needed this time for the food, and participants in the chanting and meditation centers can just use chairs to sit and eat their lunches. Here is the same room, with three different functions: a place to meet, a place to eat, and a place to meditate. And all one needs to do is reconfigure the arrangements to accommodate each. What is a room, if not a space where things are rearranged for different purposes? For a moment, I reflect: a room only looks a certain way and functions that way because people agreed to set it up to do certain things. But if the people agree or think differently, they arrangement suddenly changes to become something else. A dining room becomes a study or a meditation hall, depending on the function. Can we say the room is only one thing, and one thing alone?
I suppose the analogy can be extended to the ginger-flavored pepsi. On the outset, it appears to be something 'brand new', but what are the ingredients? It's that ages old pepsi formula with sprigs of natural ginger flavor. And what is in the pepsi? Water, sugar, flavors, carbonation. The constituents are the same ones found in nature, only rearranged to taste a certain way. When I market it with a special brown (presumably ginger-colored) label, I am confronted with something new. New, yet, in a sense, many of the flavors have been tried and tasted before.
If I am not careful, I will be fooled into thinking that these things around me have fixed essences. If someone were to tell me that I cannot move the tables because the room is for meeting only, there is a restriction to what the room is thought to do. If I confuse the ginger pepsi for a magic elixir, I forget that it's made up of ingredients you can find pretty much anywhere else. The same goes with thoughts and emotions. While one emotion may seem wonderful, it is often compounded of other conditions. I had better not think that the emotion is so powerful as to stand on its own. The same thing with rooms; if I fill the space with chairs, I can make a new function in the room. But I had better not then conclude that the room is only meant for chairs. By limiting myself with labels or emotional reactions, I think: a room with chairs can only be a room with chairs.
I head into the meditation hall, which now happens to be downstairs instead of upstairs. I take down the tables that function as meeting spaces and later stack the chairs. I clear a space for the meditation mats and cushions, thinking there will be perhaps a maximum of 6 practitioners attending. It never occurs to me that a participant might need a chair, but one of the participants does. And at the end of the session, I help to put chairs into rows. The other volunteer mentioned that only one table is needed this time for the food, and participants in the chanting and meditation centers can just use chairs to sit and eat their lunches. Here is the same room, with three different functions: a place to meet, a place to eat, and a place to meditate. And all one needs to do is reconfigure the arrangements to accommodate each. What is a room, if not a space where things are rearranged for different purposes? For a moment, I reflect: a room only looks a certain way and functions that way because people agreed to set it up to do certain things. But if the people agree or think differently, they arrangement suddenly changes to become something else. A dining room becomes a study or a meditation hall, depending on the function. Can we say the room is only one thing, and one thing alone?
I suppose the analogy can be extended to the ginger-flavored pepsi. On the outset, it appears to be something 'brand new', but what are the ingredients? It's that ages old pepsi formula with sprigs of natural ginger flavor. And what is in the pepsi? Water, sugar, flavors, carbonation. The constituents are the same ones found in nature, only rearranged to taste a certain way. When I market it with a special brown (presumably ginger-colored) label, I am confronted with something new. New, yet, in a sense, many of the flavors have been tried and tasted before.
If I am not careful, I will be fooled into thinking that these things around me have fixed essences. If someone were to tell me that I cannot move the tables because the room is for meeting only, there is a restriction to what the room is thought to do. If I confuse the ginger pepsi for a magic elixir, I forget that it's made up of ingredients you can find pretty much anywhere else. The same goes with thoughts and emotions. While one emotion may seem wonderful, it is often compounded of other conditions. I had better not think that the emotion is so powerful as to stand on its own. The same thing with rooms; if I fill the space with chairs, I can make a new function in the room. But I had better not then conclude that the room is only meant for chairs. By limiting myself with labels or emotional reactions, I think: a room with chairs can only be a room with chairs.
Saturday, April 9, 2016
The Realm of Missing Items
Tonight, as I was coming back to my writing practice, I suddenly realized that I am missing the MP3 player I use to listen to soothing sounds of rain. And I wondered what could possibly have happened to it? My thoughts conjure up different scenarios: accidentally put in the laundry, dropped down the toilet, hidden in a sock drawer, stashed under the bed. I try to think of all the crafty ways I might have concealed the thing to myself, or the unconscious motives for doing so. Unfortunately, it had been hooked up to my very small ear buds, which makes it all the harder to find. And it seems to be a spur for me to go on a hunt and reorganize all the things in my apartment.
What is it about missing things that spurs the spiritual quest? I remember an old parable I had read years ago in a Buddhist text about how a person loses his keys and starts to look under the light, even though it's likely that the keys were lost somewhere else. When asked why he is looking there and not somewhere else, the man replies, "the light is better here". I am not too sure what the meaning of this story is, but I think it refers to 'losing something' (and finding it) as more than the object itself. Losing a simple thing can trigger a whole lot of doubts that relate to who we are. How often has a person lost something and repeatedly gone to the same places over again to 'double check' if it's there or not? The longer I lose something without finding it, the more my mind searches for places that contain a smidgeon of certainty, almost like the 'better light' of the man searching for his keys. But in the end, the quest only devolves into a kind of hankering after the familiar, the comforting, or the habits that make people feel safe and secure. If I cannot find the missing object that makes me whole, at least I can engage in a healing or comforting ritual that features things and actions familiar to me.
It also explains why, in times of loss, I often crave after things that are routine and habitual. There is a mind tendency there, almost a kind of search to reassure myself through a process of doing, even if the process itself is actually quite useless. One time, thinking I had lost a library book, I went back to the library to look for the shelf where I had originally found that book, thinking perhaps it had been returned after all (or perhaps not properly scanned before going back to the shelf). Of course, the action was completely futile, and I ended up finding the book at home (mis-shelved, again!) but the point is that 'doing something' made me feel better. It somehow assured me that I had covered all the bases and even empowered me in some ways, even though the result was the same in the end.
Of course, the 'object lesson' (pardon the pun) of all of this is quite pragmatic: I need to be more aware and organized when it comes to the things I own and borrow. But moments of loss, forgetting, missing something, are also trainings in dealing with the more significant losses of life, such as health, family, friends or even employment. These mini-losses can help a person to observe and understand what a person does, but it can also show how losses don't necessarily end our lives--they only change life, make it perhaps bumpier or less predictable than usual. And these mini-losses are also training in realizing that a lot of things are beyond one's control, but some things are. If I keep my life simple and don't have so much mental clutter, I may be able to be more effective in handling the things I own. On the other hand, if I am fussing over speculative areas of 'what if' or "I wish I could go back and salvage this", that becomes something to agitate the mind. Sometimes losses can help people to simplify themselves a bit, become less burdened and more careful of their things. Certainly it can be an encouragement to improve. And on the other hand, it's important not to get so attached to things that one is always blaming her or himself or even hankering after the lost things.
What is it about missing things that spurs the spiritual quest? I remember an old parable I had read years ago in a Buddhist text about how a person loses his keys and starts to look under the light, even though it's likely that the keys were lost somewhere else. When asked why he is looking there and not somewhere else, the man replies, "the light is better here". I am not too sure what the meaning of this story is, but I think it refers to 'losing something' (and finding it) as more than the object itself. Losing a simple thing can trigger a whole lot of doubts that relate to who we are. How often has a person lost something and repeatedly gone to the same places over again to 'double check' if it's there or not? The longer I lose something without finding it, the more my mind searches for places that contain a smidgeon of certainty, almost like the 'better light' of the man searching for his keys. But in the end, the quest only devolves into a kind of hankering after the familiar, the comforting, or the habits that make people feel safe and secure. If I cannot find the missing object that makes me whole, at least I can engage in a healing or comforting ritual that features things and actions familiar to me.
It also explains why, in times of loss, I often crave after things that are routine and habitual. There is a mind tendency there, almost a kind of search to reassure myself through a process of doing, even if the process itself is actually quite useless. One time, thinking I had lost a library book, I went back to the library to look for the shelf where I had originally found that book, thinking perhaps it had been returned after all (or perhaps not properly scanned before going back to the shelf). Of course, the action was completely futile, and I ended up finding the book at home (mis-shelved, again!) but the point is that 'doing something' made me feel better. It somehow assured me that I had covered all the bases and even empowered me in some ways, even though the result was the same in the end.
Of course, the 'object lesson' (pardon the pun) of all of this is quite pragmatic: I need to be more aware and organized when it comes to the things I own and borrow. But moments of loss, forgetting, missing something, are also trainings in dealing with the more significant losses of life, such as health, family, friends or even employment. These mini-losses can help a person to observe and understand what a person does, but it can also show how losses don't necessarily end our lives--they only change life, make it perhaps bumpier or less predictable than usual. And these mini-losses are also training in realizing that a lot of things are beyond one's control, but some things are. If I keep my life simple and don't have so much mental clutter, I may be able to be more effective in handling the things I own. On the other hand, if I am fussing over speculative areas of 'what if' or "I wish I could go back and salvage this", that becomes something to agitate the mind. Sometimes losses can help people to simplify themselves a bit, become less burdened and more careful of their things. Certainly it can be an encouragement to improve. And on the other hand, it's important not to get so attached to things that one is always blaming her or himself or even hankering after the lost things.
Friday, April 8, 2016
Beauty of Precepts
During the Dharma Talk tonight, Fashi had described the importance of repentance and being true to one's practice, as well as keeping the precepts as a cornerstone to Buddhist life. And for a little while, I felt a kind of beauty in the precepts, even though in the past I associate precepts with restrictions or 'rules' of life. I even wonder what this 'beauty' or attraction to keeping precepts could mean, and how it differs from other models of moral thinking that I have encountered in the past. And it segues into my other question of how Western practitioners can become as attracted to precepts as they currently have become to meditation and mindfulness.
I think the beauty of the precepts lies in the way of life they point to. To live with a mind of cherishing others before oneself, for instance, is the essence of "do not kill", the first of the five Buddhist precepts. But how is this life a good life, and would there not be a lot of painful sacrifice resulting from it? Not necessarily, because in a sense to cherish others is to let go of the burden of the self, which is such a huge source of anxiety for people. A practitioner gave the example the other day of how she normally doesn't think about what clothes she wears or how she styles her hair, but was told by her children to try to look more presentable for their sake, so that others don't perceive her as poor. Rather than withdrawing into an identity of 'one who doesn't care what clothes she wears', the practitioner decided to start dressing in a different way for the sake of her kids. This person does not attach to "this is my way" and "this is my kids' way", but is able to see that they are just appearances, and they can be manipulated without identifying with them.
The precepts about not stealing, lying and committing sexual misconduct are similar, in that they arise from a sense of relating to the world and others in a way that respects their conditions and does not compromise or exploit the world for personal gain or pleasure. This would be a very green world, and a beautiful one, because it is not tainted by human desire or too much entanglement with our ideas, likes and dislikes. When one limits one's scope to what can be gained honestly and with the least harm or exploitation toward others, the clearer the mind can be, and is not taking anymore than what they can use to benefit others. Even a marriage can be thought of as fulfilling precepts to protect someone else's interests, and not to use a person or deceive them in a way that is harmful or dishonest.
Finally, the precept against taking intoxicants relates to simplicity of what we ingest. By not engaging in mind-altering drugs, the mind remains as alert as possible and not dependent on stimulants to create a certain experience. When I engage in life in this way, one's material dependencies are not so complicated, and one can live more straightforward.
I am simplifying a quite complex topic, but I do so with the aim of trying to see how to present precepts in an attractive way that is deeply introspective. All too often, people think of precepts as dogmatic rules, and they quickly become boring or even perceived as obvious. But precepts also point to deeper aspects of life. When they are viewed from this phenomenological perspective, precepts give people glimpses of human boundaries and even the emptiness of beliefs. They suggest a way of being that doesn't entangle a person in self-deception, creating difficult karma, and enmeshment with others. I think there are viable ways to present precepts that move away from the idea that they are simply 'do's and don'ts'.
I think the beauty of the precepts lies in the way of life they point to. To live with a mind of cherishing others before oneself, for instance, is the essence of "do not kill", the first of the five Buddhist precepts. But how is this life a good life, and would there not be a lot of painful sacrifice resulting from it? Not necessarily, because in a sense to cherish others is to let go of the burden of the self, which is such a huge source of anxiety for people. A practitioner gave the example the other day of how she normally doesn't think about what clothes she wears or how she styles her hair, but was told by her children to try to look more presentable for their sake, so that others don't perceive her as poor. Rather than withdrawing into an identity of 'one who doesn't care what clothes she wears', the practitioner decided to start dressing in a different way for the sake of her kids. This person does not attach to "this is my way" and "this is my kids' way", but is able to see that they are just appearances, and they can be manipulated without identifying with them.
The precepts about not stealing, lying and committing sexual misconduct are similar, in that they arise from a sense of relating to the world and others in a way that respects their conditions and does not compromise or exploit the world for personal gain or pleasure. This would be a very green world, and a beautiful one, because it is not tainted by human desire or too much entanglement with our ideas, likes and dislikes. When one limits one's scope to what can be gained honestly and with the least harm or exploitation toward others, the clearer the mind can be, and is not taking anymore than what they can use to benefit others. Even a marriage can be thought of as fulfilling precepts to protect someone else's interests, and not to use a person or deceive them in a way that is harmful or dishonest.
Finally, the precept against taking intoxicants relates to simplicity of what we ingest. By not engaging in mind-altering drugs, the mind remains as alert as possible and not dependent on stimulants to create a certain experience. When I engage in life in this way, one's material dependencies are not so complicated, and one can live more straightforward.
I am simplifying a quite complex topic, but I do so with the aim of trying to see how to present precepts in an attractive way that is deeply introspective. All too often, people think of precepts as dogmatic rules, and they quickly become boring or even perceived as obvious. But precepts also point to deeper aspects of life. When they are viewed from this phenomenological perspective, precepts give people glimpses of human boundaries and even the emptiness of beliefs. They suggest a way of being that doesn't entangle a person in self-deception, creating difficult karma, and enmeshment with others. I think there are viable ways to present precepts that move away from the idea that they are simply 'do's and don'ts'.
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