Listening to Chan teacher Gilbert Gutierrez's Dharma talk tonight, I felt a strange sense of coming home. In a way, this style of teaching he develops is so much related to why I wanted to practice meditation in the first place. But I can't quite pin down that state of mind. It's wonderful, but then how do I express it? Well, that's a challenge that Gilbert faces all the time in his coming to different cities to teach.
Gilbert talked about how, in the Theravadin Buddhist tradition, there are these four "pillars" called the Noble Truths, and they are considered "realities" in Theravadin's view. This idea of 'reality' is quite interesting, because in a sense it subtly sets up something in the mind. For me, I experience reality as a kind of 'impassable' mountain: something that is so solid, so concrete, and so 'there' that it cannot be surmounted. And this hardness also seems to characterize the teachings of the Four Noble Truths. It's almost as though a person is told "this is the way things are, and we have a cure for it, and all you have to do is stop craving this and take this noble path out."
The Four Noble Truths might be analyzed as a kind of prescription, in much the same way a doctor diagnosis an illness and then prescribes a cure. There is something so solid about this. But as Gilbert mentions, in the Heart Sutra, Avalokiteshvara is telling Sariputra that there is no wisdom and no ignorance! Gilbert referred to Heart Sutra as a "manifesto" of sorts, for two reasons. Firstly, by having Avalokiteshvara (the Bodhisattva of compassion) deliver a discourse on wisdom to Sariputra, it is shown that compassion is the highest form of wisdom. Second is that this sutra declares wisdom to be just an 'unreal' or non-existent as ignorance. But why or how is that? I believe it is that as soon as a person tries to crystallize a notion of wisdom, it is not actually wisdom at all. In fact, all polarities are just creations of the mind: divisions which discriminate between 'two' things when there are really no 'two things'. Everything operates within the same matrix of dependent origination (pratekya-sammapadda), to the point where even wisdom is conditioned. And for ignorance: if ignorance is only based on cause and conditions of the moment, is it truly self-existent? Why treat it as something that is enduring or substantial? It would be like calling myself a name and then forgetting that it's I who gave myself that name, not anybody else.
Another interesting point is that of 'wholesome'. Gilbert suggested that 'wholesome' in Buddhist teachings does not refer to some 'good' or 'bad' thought: rather, it refers more to a specific relationship that we engage in with thoughts themselves. I thought this was an interesting point, because often we blame a thought by referring to it as wholesome or unwholesome. In fact, there is no good or bad thought, but only the way we relate to those thoughts causes positive or negative consequences for ourselves and others. It again goes back to this notion that the practice is not about trying to 'arrange' things in mind to look nice ...rather, it is being clear about what's there and not allowing those things in mind to dominate one's energies. Gilbert suggested that once a person learns to clearly illuminate thoughts and not be drawn by them, they can choose which thoughts are necessary and which are not important to the moment. And this is where the practice of clear mind is of such importance.
Friday, October 7, 2016
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Making Assumptions
After our Thursday meditation tonight, I started to reflect a bit on the meaning of repentance, and how it can really be incorporated into a person's life. I still haven't quite understood it, but I think it has something to do with never assume, and never stick to the previous thought. Perhaps these two points are interconnected, but maybe I can elaborate a bit.
"Never assume" is actually an extremely difficult practice. Any time I even make an utterance, there is an assumed audience. It may not be a clear audience, but nonetheless there is an assumed person to whom you are communicating. And that is already a risky assumption. One can never know whether the audience will get your message, how it will be received, or how deeply it will be understood. And as long as I am stuck to my assumptions, reality will likely hit me like a bag of bricks; we all should know somehow that reality never quite meets assumptions. The reason for this is that assumptions can easily lead to a stubborn refusal to entertain other possibilities that are undreamt of in the assumption. Another reason is that underneath assumptions there are often invisible polarities. If I believe that Idea A is the best idea, and don't bother to step out to see other ideas, then Idea B and C get overshadowed. In addition, it's often the case that fruitful collaboration across ideas might get lost in the shuffle.
"Never sick to the previous thought" sort of ties in with "never assume", because it relates to how I get caught up in an idea I like the most, to the point where I settle into it. That can be quite dangerous, because when I truly get comfortable in a particular groove, an accompanying self arises. It's really starting with this vague tendency to grasp at the comfortable place I create: this place of "I like this, I want more of this, I feel most comfortable with this." A grasping self emerges from this, and that is a painful thing to hold onto. That's why it's best to entertain all the thoughts with equanimity. Even if some thoughts can't be implemented at a given time (perhaps 99% of all thoughts cannot), we sometimes can say "hold that thought" to mean that perhaps the thought can be entertained at a later time or made practical then. Another way to say this is to be open to all views, cultivating a mind that considers all thoughts to be possibilities that can be picked up or put down anytime when the situation calls for it.
How does all this relate to repentance? I think repentance is really about cultivating an open mind that allows me to understand that I am not my thoughts and I am not who I think I am. By clinging to a notion of how I think I should be, I close myself to other possibilities, not realizing that this self I create is just a comfortable habit.
"Never assume" is actually an extremely difficult practice. Any time I even make an utterance, there is an assumed audience. It may not be a clear audience, but nonetheless there is an assumed person to whom you are communicating. And that is already a risky assumption. One can never know whether the audience will get your message, how it will be received, or how deeply it will be understood. And as long as I am stuck to my assumptions, reality will likely hit me like a bag of bricks; we all should know somehow that reality never quite meets assumptions. The reason for this is that assumptions can easily lead to a stubborn refusal to entertain other possibilities that are undreamt of in the assumption. Another reason is that underneath assumptions there are often invisible polarities. If I believe that Idea A is the best idea, and don't bother to step out to see other ideas, then Idea B and C get overshadowed. In addition, it's often the case that fruitful collaboration across ideas might get lost in the shuffle.
"Never sick to the previous thought" sort of ties in with "never assume", because it relates to how I get caught up in an idea I like the most, to the point where I settle into it. That can be quite dangerous, because when I truly get comfortable in a particular groove, an accompanying self arises. It's really starting with this vague tendency to grasp at the comfortable place I create: this place of "I like this, I want more of this, I feel most comfortable with this." A grasping self emerges from this, and that is a painful thing to hold onto. That's why it's best to entertain all the thoughts with equanimity. Even if some thoughts can't be implemented at a given time (perhaps 99% of all thoughts cannot), we sometimes can say "hold that thought" to mean that perhaps the thought can be entertained at a later time or made practical then. Another way to say this is to be open to all views, cultivating a mind that considers all thoughts to be possibilities that can be picked up or put down anytime when the situation calls for it.
How does all this relate to repentance? I think repentance is really about cultivating an open mind that allows me to understand that I am not my thoughts and I am not who I think I am. By clinging to a notion of how I think I should be, I close myself to other possibilities, not realizing that this self I create is just a comfortable habit.
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
The Relief of the Unintended
The interesting thing about Santideva is how relieving it is
to read, in “The Perfection of Patience” that there are no ‘intentional’
conditions to reckon with. For instance, Santideva remarks, on Line 26:
An assemblage of conditions does not have the intention, “I
shall produce,” nor does that which is produced have the intention, ‘I shall be
produced’ (p.64, italics mine)
The point is that we normally regard conditions as something
that arise as one thing. Has this ever happened to you before, where a whole bunch of things seem to go wrong in the morning, after which you conclude, "The whole world is out to get me?" or "I am having a bad day?" It is as though one's mind were programmed to take all those micro-moments and rack them up to a kind of quality such as having a "bad" or a "good" day. Rather than seeing these conditions as relatively coincidental, one tends to think of them as coming from a single agent, who is likely either 'rewarding' or 'punishing' us on purpose, depending on previous experiences or causes.
In this passage, on the other hand, Santideva seems to be suggesting the opposite, which is that conditions are never intentional in and of themselves. Conditions themselves are in fact subject to their own unique conditioning, ad infinitum. It even comes to the point where Santideva is questioning the origination of a "Primal" being or substance. He remarks, on Line 27:
That which is regarded as the Primal Substance and that which is construed as the Self do not originate, thinking, "I shall come into being. (ibid, italics mine)
Even when we speak of "I" or a creator, that too is subject to previous conditioning. The person I think of as this complete, whole I is really derived from the traces of previous experiences and arising. The further implication of this is that Self has no 'power' to come to be just through desire itself. Santideva remarks, "Since I has not arisen, how could It wish to come into existence? Since it engages with objects, it cannot strive to cease either." (ibid, Line 28, italics mine)
This is interesting because one ceases to be under the illusion of magically thinking one can endure because one wishes to. How often have you had this experience where you feel strongly passionate about doing something, only to find out hours later that the feeling has faded? Perhaps Santideva would explain such a phenomenon by suggesting that the self I think I was at that time had no power to keep willing itself across many moments. Even though there may be a strong feeling, is there really a "self" that transports that feeling over many times and keeps it alive? Many people suggest that this is possible through will power or a kind of intention. But it's rare to find that one can keep an intended way of action unless the conditions are remaining ripe for that person to continue. To imagine an autonomous self with a uniform set of intentions is to ignore that all intentions are conditioned by many factors in a given moment.
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Pain is Unintentional
In Lines 23-25 of "The Perfection of Patience" (p.64), Santideva is remarking about the unintended nature of pain, particularly when he remarks:
23. Just as sharp pain arises although one does not desire it, so anger forcibly arises although one does not desire it.
Why is Santideva pointing to what seems to be very obvious? Most people don't desire to bring about their own pain, so why would Santideva want to make this point? The next line elaborates on this point when Santideva continues:
24. A person does not intentionally become angry, thinking, 'I shall get angry', nor does anger originate, thinking, 'I shall arise'.
Line 24 seems to more clearly indicate where Santideva is going with this, because it describes how both people and emotions themselves don't have a core agency. I never get up in the morning and intend to have a certain mood, a certain kind of thought, or a certain plan of action. All these things are conditioned by what has happened before, as well as a myriad number of tiny factors that make the present what it is. To imagine a single being who is 'behind' these machinations amounts to a kind of superstition, according to Santideva. Nobody ever chooses to be angry, and there really isn't a self-originating anger either. To try to point to anything as a true origin is to fall away from the fact that things are deeply conditioned. Hence, Santideva's next argument:
25. All offences and vices of various kinds arise under the influence of conditions, and they do not arise independently.
The point of this discussion is to shift away from the notion that selves have definite characters, with distinct, self-originating intentions. What it hints at is that a person's outlook and behavior are often intermeshed with many environmental and mental factors in the present, in addition to past habits. Not only that, but the views are continually changing or are subject to change over time.
What all this relates to is how we can start adopting a more forgiving attitude, by seeing that people are often acting from conditions that are beyond their control or agency. There really isn't even a core self there which is 'behind' all these things arising. So one can relax a bit, and stop demanding that one perform according to a preconceived thought, much less demand it from others. After all, life is much more complex and multilayered than any single human being could ever possibly imagine. At best, one can plant good seeds by cultivating good intentions and planning as much as one can for unforeseeable situations. But this is only meant to help enhance alertness and concentration when one has to execute an action. It is never a way to guarantee that things will turn out a certain way as desired.
Santideva's chapter addresses 'patience', and I think one key point is that one is best not to mistaken condition for something that is aware and has a distinct, separate agency. It's more often than not that a person will narrate sentience and intentionality to a scene where there may be neither arising. Just as a person feels silly after getting mad at an empty boat that crashed into theirs, so it seems less important to be annoyed when we realize how conditioned people are, as well as their states of being.
23. Just as sharp pain arises although one does not desire it, so anger forcibly arises although one does not desire it.
Why is Santideva pointing to what seems to be very obvious? Most people don't desire to bring about their own pain, so why would Santideva want to make this point? The next line elaborates on this point when Santideva continues:
24. A person does not intentionally become angry, thinking, 'I shall get angry', nor does anger originate, thinking, 'I shall arise'.
Line 24 seems to more clearly indicate where Santideva is going with this, because it describes how both people and emotions themselves don't have a core agency. I never get up in the morning and intend to have a certain mood, a certain kind of thought, or a certain plan of action. All these things are conditioned by what has happened before, as well as a myriad number of tiny factors that make the present what it is. To imagine a single being who is 'behind' these machinations amounts to a kind of superstition, according to Santideva. Nobody ever chooses to be angry, and there really isn't a self-originating anger either. To try to point to anything as a true origin is to fall away from the fact that things are deeply conditioned. Hence, Santideva's next argument:
25. All offences and vices of various kinds arise under the influence of conditions, and they do not arise independently.
The point of this discussion is to shift away from the notion that selves have definite characters, with distinct, self-originating intentions. What it hints at is that a person's outlook and behavior are often intermeshed with many environmental and mental factors in the present, in addition to past habits. Not only that, but the views are continually changing or are subject to change over time.
What all this relates to is how we can start adopting a more forgiving attitude, by seeing that people are often acting from conditions that are beyond their control or agency. There really isn't even a core self there which is 'behind' all these things arising. So one can relax a bit, and stop demanding that one perform according to a preconceived thought, much less demand it from others. After all, life is much more complex and multilayered than any single human being could ever possibly imagine. At best, one can plant good seeds by cultivating good intentions and planning as much as one can for unforeseeable situations. But this is only meant to help enhance alertness and concentration when one has to execute an action. It is never a way to guarantee that things will turn out a certain way as desired.
Santideva's chapter addresses 'patience', and I think one key point is that one is best not to mistaken condition for something that is aware and has a distinct, separate agency. It's more often than not that a person will narrate sentience and intentionality to a scene where there may be neither arising. Just as a person feels silly after getting mad at an empty boat that crashed into theirs, so it seems less important to be annoyed when we realize how conditioned people are, as well as their states of being.
Monday, October 3, 2016
Being Provoked by Conditions
I am bringing up Santideva a lot in my recent blog entries, partly because this is assigned writing book for a course in mindfulness and mental health. But there is another reason for this, and that is Santideva has an excellent style that put things very pithily. His writings are the kinds of things I can reflect on a great deal, even though the individual entries are quite small. Reading each entry on a daily basis has been a kind of 'fortune cookie' experience for me, in the sense that each daily entry is a new thing for me to explore. I somehow wish that there were more books out there like this: small passages, no longer than 1-2 sentences per passage, which allow the reader to participate in the text by adding their own commentary and experiences. So far, the only similar texts I have come across with this format are Pascal's Pensees, Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, Dhammapada, and Master Sheng Yen's 108 Adages of Wisdom. Perhaps they are enough after all!
Santideva raises a very interesting theme on Line 22 of "The Perfection of Patience", and that is the theme of not taking 'unaware' things as having awareness. He remarks:
I am not angered at bile and the like even though they cause great suffering. Why be angry at sentient beings, who are also provoked to anger by conditions? (p.64)
The idea behind this small passage seems multilayered. One thing Santedeva suggests is that we hardly get angry at what we think of as inanimate. How many times has a person stubbed their toe on the bedpost and then tried to be angry with the bedpost all day? It's not so possible, is it? Yet, if a person is called a bad name by their neighbor, she or he is likely to be angry all day. What's the difference between these two situations? I think that in the first situation, we can easily see that the bedpost is a 'condition' that provokes the emotion. If I had been in a different location relative to the bedpost, it would not have harmed me. I reason, then, that a combination of different preconditions allowed the bedpost to hurt my body: proximity, relative light in the room, my own sleepy state of mind, etc.
In the second situation where a person calls me a name, it's often harder for me to understand that that too is conditioned. I think : "well that person did it to me, because they hate me!" In this sentence, there is a strong sense of someone else who has awareness telling my awareness how bad I am. There is this assumption, then, that there are two different aware beings fighting with each other. Now, if I suddenly realized that the person talking to me were a puppet or a robot, I probably wouldn't be annoyed, because I am not feeling that the other were intentionally trying to harm me. But what if even a so-called intentional action by a person was also conditioned? If we even think about the case of a cold-blooded killer, even she or he is behaving from conditions of the mind: past memories, traumatic feelings, hatreds, assumptions, and beliefs. Aren't these all conditioned as well?
I think Santideva's point is to say: if we could treat others as subject to conditions, we wouldn't have much reason to be angry with them. To use a biochemical model, all the bile in one's body creates certain conditions which affect emotions and overall outlook. If I don't attach that bile to a specific self who is deliberately trying to 'harm me' (another illusion), then I won't harbor any grudge toward another. The point is not to think that there is a single 'person' who is deliberately trying to thwart this 'person' called 'me'--but rather, to perhaps consider, what are the conditions impinging upon the situation? From a global, overarching perspective, what are the factors that make things as they are? This attitude is completely opposite to one of blame.
Santideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva (selected chapters only). Translated by V. Wallace and A. Wallace. Snow Lion, 1997. .
Santideva raises a very interesting theme on Line 22 of "The Perfection of Patience", and that is the theme of not taking 'unaware' things as having awareness. He remarks:
I am not angered at bile and the like even though they cause great suffering. Why be angry at sentient beings, who are also provoked to anger by conditions? (p.64)
The idea behind this small passage seems multilayered. One thing Santedeva suggests is that we hardly get angry at what we think of as inanimate. How many times has a person stubbed their toe on the bedpost and then tried to be angry with the bedpost all day? It's not so possible, is it? Yet, if a person is called a bad name by their neighbor, she or he is likely to be angry all day. What's the difference between these two situations? I think that in the first situation, we can easily see that the bedpost is a 'condition' that provokes the emotion. If I had been in a different location relative to the bedpost, it would not have harmed me. I reason, then, that a combination of different preconditions allowed the bedpost to hurt my body: proximity, relative light in the room, my own sleepy state of mind, etc.
In the second situation where a person calls me a name, it's often harder for me to understand that that too is conditioned. I think : "well that person did it to me, because they hate me!" In this sentence, there is a strong sense of someone else who has awareness telling my awareness how bad I am. There is this assumption, then, that there are two different aware beings fighting with each other. Now, if I suddenly realized that the person talking to me were a puppet or a robot, I probably wouldn't be annoyed, because I am not feeling that the other were intentionally trying to harm me. But what if even a so-called intentional action by a person was also conditioned? If we even think about the case of a cold-blooded killer, even she or he is behaving from conditions of the mind: past memories, traumatic feelings, hatreds, assumptions, and beliefs. Aren't these all conditioned as well?
I think Santideva's point is to say: if we could treat others as subject to conditions, we wouldn't have much reason to be angry with them. To use a biochemical model, all the bile in one's body creates certain conditions which affect emotions and overall outlook. If I don't attach that bile to a specific self who is deliberately trying to 'harm me' (another illusion), then I won't harbor any grudge toward another. The point is not to think that there is a single 'person' who is deliberately trying to thwart this 'person' called 'me'--but rather, to perhaps consider, what are the conditions impinging upon the situation? From a global, overarching perspective, what are the factors that make things as they are? This attitude is completely opposite to one of blame.
Santideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva (selected chapters only). Translated by V. Wallace and A. Wallace. Snow Lion, 1997. .
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Arrogance and Despair
What does suffering do for people? Now an interesting point is that from a Buddhist perspective, suffering is the First Noble Truth, and the word is out on whether or not it's meant to be noble or not. After all, we think of suffering as something to be 'overcome', not as something to be quietly endured. But Santideva, on the other hand, will go so far as to say that there is a benefit to suffering, and that is, it reduces what he refers to as "arrogance":
21. Suffering has another quality since arrogance diminishes because of despair, and one feels compassion for beings in the cycle of existence, fear of sin, and a yearning for the Jina. (p.64).
The interesting thing about this line is that is almost feels like a reversal of the Four Noble Truths, at least insofar as it switches the classic notion of trying to overcome suffering through the Eightfold Path. What this passage suggests, instead, is that even suffering itself can become a kind of leveler of the ego. By seeing suffering as it is, one stops attaching to the view that there is a self who is in charge. When I stop trying to think I am in 'charge' of my life (whatever that might mean), some real connection might potentially form between myself and my world. I start to experience compassion as well as "fear of sin", perhaps here referring to the fear of wrongdoing. After all, with suffering, actions have a lot of weighted consequences, and life starts to look more and more fragile and interdependent. Finally, "yearning for the Jina" perhaps refers to a kind of yearning to live a moral life, or at least a spiritual teaching.
A question I have here is that, is there a specific kind of suffering that Santideva is referring to in this passage, or is it any kind of suffering? The word "despair" perhaps gives it away, because all suffering eventually leads to a point where one no longer really feels in control of their life. Even a suffering like the desire for a cup of coffee seems innocuous, but it also reminds a person of their dependence on something external for their sense of happiness. (Think about what happens when a coffee-lover doesn't have their cup in the morning!) It's interesting how some of the worst addictions seem to lead people to a similar epiphany, where they understand that suffering of craving takes them to the very end of self. It's precisely when I realize how little "I" am in control of craving that I stop believing in my own lies about who I am and how much influence I have over my everyday life. That is also when, paradoxically, my mind can become more open to a fundamental reality of interconnection.
Santideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva (selected chapters only). Translated by V. Wallace and A. Wallace. Snow Lion, 1997. .
21. Suffering has another quality since arrogance diminishes because of despair, and one feels compassion for beings in the cycle of existence, fear of sin, and a yearning for the Jina. (p.64).
The interesting thing about this line is that is almost feels like a reversal of the Four Noble Truths, at least insofar as it switches the classic notion of trying to overcome suffering through the Eightfold Path. What this passage suggests, instead, is that even suffering itself can become a kind of leveler of the ego. By seeing suffering as it is, one stops attaching to the view that there is a self who is in charge. When I stop trying to think I am in 'charge' of my life (whatever that might mean), some real connection might potentially form between myself and my world. I start to experience compassion as well as "fear of sin", perhaps here referring to the fear of wrongdoing. After all, with suffering, actions have a lot of weighted consequences, and life starts to look more and more fragile and interdependent. Finally, "yearning for the Jina" perhaps refers to a kind of yearning to live a moral life, or at least a spiritual teaching.
A question I have here is that, is there a specific kind of suffering that Santideva is referring to in this passage, or is it any kind of suffering? The word "despair" perhaps gives it away, because all suffering eventually leads to a point where one no longer really feels in control of their life. Even a suffering like the desire for a cup of coffee seems innocuous, but it also reminds a person of their dependence on something external for their sense of happiness. (Think about what happens when a coffee-lover doesn't have their cup in the morning!) It's interesting how some of the worst addictions seem to lead people to a similar epiphany, where they understand that suffering of craving takes them to the very end of self. It's precisely when I realize how little "I" am in control of craving that I stop believing in my own lies about who I am and how much influence I have over my everyday life. That is also when, paradoxically, my mind can become more open to a fundamental reality of interconnection.
Santideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva (selected chapters only). Translated by V. Wallace and A. Wallace. Snow Lion, 1997. .
Saturday, October 1, 2016
Value of Adversity
Throughout Santideva's writings on patience, there is an emphasis on embracing struggle rather than trying to transcend it in a simplified way. In line 19 of "The Perfection of Patience", Santideva continues this theme when eh remarks, "Not even in suffering should a wise person disrupt his mental serenity, for the battle is with the mental afflictions; and in battle pain is easily obtained." (p.63) There are two points that stand out for me in this passage. The first is that Santideva characterizes the 'site' of battle as "mental afflictions", meaning that we are really only dealing with states of mind. In an earlier passage, Santideva uses the analogy of not having enough leather to cover the world, and thus using leather sandals instead (Chapter V, line 13). When I stop thinking that I need to conquer the world 'out there', and see the real enemy as the states of mind or attitudes, I no longer bite off more than I can proverbially chew. I am not trying to change the world to suit my own whims, but am rather working on adjusting unhelpful mental attitudes that might be causing me to suffer in that situation.
The second part that interests me in this line is seeing that one should expect to feel pain in battle: hence, "in battle pain is easily obtained." I believe that this attitude applies especially to meditation practice, where a person literally experiences a whole gamut of struggles in trying to adopt the middle path between different extremes. I think a mistake I commonly make is to assume that struggle reflects a failure in meditation. In fact, as Santideva emphasizes in Part V especially, the mind is something that can be quite chaotic, and it's expected that one can never control what the mind does. By harboring the expectation of struggle, a person learns not to reject it but to abide peacefully in it, knowing that pain is an unavoidable part of a worthwhile battle or struggle.
Line 20 has something similar to say to us about the relationship between pain, struggle and spiritual practice. Here, again, Santideva resorts of militaristic imagery to get his point across, when he remarks, "Those who conquer the enemy while receiving the enemies blows on the chest are the victorious heroes. The rest just kill the dead." (ibid). In other words, the most worthwhile things one can do are based on a problematic relationship with something else. Unless one is getting the enemies' blows directly while conquering them, there is not too much learning taking place: it is like, as Santideva suggests, killing people who are already dead! Santideva seems to advocate an ethics of embracing struggle in order to transform struggle, rather than being content with imaginary problems that have no substance or reality. In the midst of this theory of struggle is a faith that difficulties can help a person cultivate a clear and spacious mind, by giving the person a training space to cultivate the bigger mind.
Santideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva (selected chapters only). Translated by V. Wallace and A. Wallace. Snow Lion, 1997. .
The second part that interests me in this line is seeing that one should expect to feel pain in battle: hence, "in battle pain is easily obtained." I believe that this attitude applies especially to meditation practice, where a person literally experiences a whole gamut of struggles in trying to adopt the middle path between different extremes. I think a mistake I commonly make is to assume that struggle reflects a failure in meditation. In fact, as Santideva emphasizes in Part V especially, the mind is something that can be quite chaotic, and it's expected that one can never control what the mind does. By harboring the expectation of struggle, a person learns not to reject it but to abide peacefully in it, knowing that pain is an unavoidable part of a worthwhile battle or struggle.
Line 20 has something similar to say to us about the relationship between pain, struggle and spiritual practice. Here, again, Santideva resorts of militaristic imagery to get his point across, when he remarks, "Those who conquer the enemy while receiving the enemies blows on the chest are the victorious heroes. The rest just kill the dead." (ibid). In other words, the most worthwhile things one can do are based on a problematic relationship with something else. Unless one is getting the enemies' blows directly while conquering them, there is not too much learning taking place: it is like, as Santideva suggests, killing people who are already dead! Santideva seems to advocate an ethics of embracing struggle in order to transform struggle, rather than being content with imaginary problems that have no substance or reality. In the midst of this theory of struggle is a faith that difficulties can help a person cultivate a clear and spacious mind, by giving the person a training space to cultivate the bigger mind.
Santideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva (selected chapters only). Translated by V. Wallace and A. Wallace. Snow Lion, 1997. .
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