Cultivating Blessings

  This past month, I have been showing a lot of Master Sheng Yen's videos regarding blessings during the Wednesday group practices, specifically around cultivating blessings and sources of blessings. I would like to take some time to digest the information and share my thoughts on this topic.

   Why is it hard to feel blessed? Quite simply, it's because people look for blessings in things they haven't yet acquired or known. I am thinking about people who have gotten in the habit of paying for things using their credit cards instead of buying with the money they already have in their bank account. Buying on credit often leads to a habit of not even waiting before one is fully paid to purchase things. But I think this is somewhat analogous to someone who is not counting, much less seeing, their blessings. Sometimes I have to go through a process of subtraction--that is, trying to imagine what it would be like not to have something cherished or beloved in my life. Then through this process I can see that there are certain things I am blessed with that I can appreciate. If I am operating in an autopilot and not realizing my blessings in this moment, then my mind dwells only on future attainments, which often don't even come to fruition. In a sense, the ability to be present is crucial to the feeling of being blessed.

Bless You!

 Blessing is usually thought to be something that comes from someone else, but I just learned recently that to be blessed is more like a decision that a person can make in this moment. Having an attitude of abundance really helps. I worry that there is "not enough work" to do, when in fact, there is always something as long as my mind opens up to the challenges around me. I have cultivated the habit of not saying no to a person's request at work--and especially, not giving it to someone else to work out or figure out. And what results from this is that more people come to me with questions, because they know that I do my best to answer them and I don't turn people away. This is about not only feeling blessed with a challenge but having the mindset of wanting to bless others in the process.

Scarcity mindset is thinking there is not enough of something: time, energy, stuff to do, purpose, meaning etc. But I think the antidote is to slow down and reflect that that there is always enough, because we are enough. I have enough because I feel I am enough, and with that mindset, I feel abundance in everything. On the other hand, if I always feel a deep void or an empty spot within, nothing I will do, consume or feel is going to cover up that void. The root problem is not checking in to feel that one is enough, and one does not need anything else to feel that they are "enough". This is the mindset of feeling already blessed without a sense of needing to strive for something more.

The Meaning of "Retreat"

   The other day, I was reflecting on the work situation that I am currently going through, as I transition to a mysterious new chapter in my career. I received the hexagram from the I Ching related to retreat, called Tun. It had to do with the idea of retreating away from something difficult and painful, to take stock of what I have rather than to take action. Is retreat always a kind of defeat of sorts? I am sure that this has militaristic terms, but it also has spiritual connotations, as when we say we are "going on retreat". It entails the ability to pool one's own spiritual resources and thereby prevent them from dwindling. It furthermore suggests a storage of energy that is protected from distractions or making rash decisions at the spur of the moment.

   Sometimes, the only thing a person can do is wait--but this waiting I am referring to is not the anxious quality of waiting for something to happen, but more so a quieter sense of dropping all anticipation of easy closure. Whenever I have been stuck in very long meetings, I give myself the mental trick of believing that the meeting will go on much longer than I expected, which then gives me time to settle into the moment and drop the anticipation of a quick finish. This kind of waiting is a commitment to being present rather than a waiting for as when we wait to be at the beginning of the line.

   Retreat can also mean that I don't try to solve situations on my own. Recently, I have found a tendency within myself to press forward and come to an easy or quick resolution, perhaps because I am so used to many things being done quickly in order to get to something else. But sometimes, some part of me just tells me to wait longer until the conditions ripen. Maybe the plans I am making at work are not the way forward for me, but are just ways to stave off the anxiety of not having a plan. But this is more to reflect, do we always need to have a plan? Maybe there is a way that happens independently of one's plans.

Being OK with Everything, Like OK Buddha

  One of the most interesting parables I heard of was of a king who wants to cover the world with grass because he hates walking on the hard ground with bare feet. He is gifted with a pair of slippers. I know that either I am hopelessly mangling the story but the idea I wanted to convey is that wisdom does not try to "change the world". Instead, it learns to meaningfully accommodate and flow with the cause and conditions. And that means having to wrestle with the diversity of voices and images we are bombarded with throughout our lives, such as not feeling good enough and so on.

   When the world makes people feel inadequate, not good enough and so on, there is a tendency to try to fill an imaginary void that we have inside of us. We truly begin to believe we are inadequate, so we need to fill our emptiness. And stopping that means accepting the possibility that others won't see us the way we want to be seen. This is OK. Because the images we are experiencing are only possibilities, only phenomena, and they don't have power over us unless we endow them with such. The 'gift of slippers' or sandals (or whatever) represents the ability we have to calm our minds in the face of the darkest images we have of ourselves--to even embrace the sense of inadequacy we might have as both conventionally real and ultimately unreal. In this way, our anxieties are fleeting and impermanent.

Devotion in a Cynical World

 I recently saw a poster for a movie called "Jesus Revolution", and one of the actors in the movie stated that he is a devoted Christian, who has been saved by trust in Jesus. This took me by surprise, in the sense that it can be hard to find people, particularly the wealthy, to show a sense of devotion to a higher purpose in life. Although not a practicing Christian (at least not anymore, anyway), some part of the trailer for this movie took me back to the mid-90s, when I had joined a fundamentalist Christian church for a while. I could say with confidence at that time that Jesus was my rock as well! 

   It's become fashionable to be not just cynical but also skeptical as well. We don't want to commit ourselves to some line of thinking, let alone some belief, because we're afraid of being disillusioned or led down a wrong path. But, as the name suggests, a rock of devotion is something that is unconditional: it doesn't sway or waver, or flounder. Think about the statement, "Jesus loves you". or "Amitabha Buddha vows to save you" with the strong vow power, and you will realize the power of unconditional love and forgiveness. This means that something inside does not need to move or go anywhere. It is inherently pure, like a jewel that cannot be sullied or dirtied even when it is covered in dirt or dust.

    How can we imitate that sense of devotion? We often think of devotion in terms of weakness, or confessing we are less than something else. But this misses the point. When I am standing on a mountain, I view the mountain as my utter support and ground: I don't need to apologize for my being in that moment, knowing that the mountain allows me to see higher and supports me as I attempt to ascend to the summit.  I am both climbing the mountain and supported by the mountain, so I don't need to feel despair or a sense of rushing to try to get to the top level.

   This kind of devotion is so rare, but we have to start from somewhere--from some practice that we can repeatedly turn to so that we feel a sense of confidence within us, an inner wisdom that remains with us no matter how quickly our thoughts and emotions fluctuate. When we have this silence and stillness, we are much more free and flexible to investigate different perspectives, knowing that there is nothing in the phenomena that can shake our basic faith.

Anxiety Reflection 2

 "There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will"- Epictetus

This is an important quote in the Stoic tradition for several reasons. First, it encapsulates the idea that "will" is what we can influence--that is, what is in the immediate moment or at least what can be immediately modified. If I am worried about illnesses that are simply beyond my scope to cure, then I am letting my feelings about the body get the better of me, thereby identifying with the body rather than the mind. Secondly, when I am worried about something, I am not allowing myself to focus on the things that I can calm within me. Peacefulness is not something that depends on the circumstances of my body or on things that are simply outside my control. Peace simply comes from being in the present, and it is something that nobody can basically take away from a person.

The opposite of peace, perhaps, is a wandering and scattered mind that is full of agitations. Worrying about what I think I need is not going to do me good in the journey of life. Multiplying my thoughts to every possible anxiety isn't really going to help me very much either. What I really need to go back to is the ability to tend this present moment, in every moment, which brings me to a tranquil sense of calm and immediacy. 

Anxiety Reflection 1

 “When I see an anxious person, I ask myself, what do they want? For if a person wasn’t wanting something outside of their own control, why would they be stricken by anxiety?” —EPICTETUS, discourses 2:13:1

Anxiety seems very prevalent in the post-COVID time, and I am recently finding Epictetus quotes coming up on my facebook. Epictetus was one of my favorite Stoic writers, and I wanted to explore a bit about the meaning of the above mentioned quote. I find it quite interesting, for one, that Epictetus refers to asking himself what an anxious person wants? Meaning, the roots of anxiety is always some kind of desire, whether it's a desire for recognition, certainty or security of some kind or another. This is an important element because a lot of times, unchecked desires can give rise to a feeling that we want more than we have to survive. It's interesting how the popular media also feeds into this by weaving a discourse around deficiency. We are continually told that we are not smart enough, healthy enough, disciplined enough, loved enough, etc. and this feeds into a general concern that we will start to lose important things that we need to survive. But when one closely examines their life circumstances, they might begin to wonder: is this want a need, or is it a preference?

The second part of this quote is even more intriguing because it brings up the issue of control. It may seem counterintuitive for a person to be less anxious about something they know is not within their control. After all, aren't anxious people most afraid of not being "in control" all the time? This is a tricky element in Epictetus and Stoic thinking in general which indeed needs further unravelling. Something that is within our control is something we have choice over, and thus anxiety is most consumed over trying to calibrate one's actions to be the most in control of it. But when it comes to something that we have truly established is beyond our control, is there anything to try to control in that instance? Once we establish, in fact, that something is not within our control, then we can finally realize that it's ok to relax into it. The situation simply has to be borne in as best a way as we can, without worry regarding whether we are doing things the right way or not. After all, if something cannot be forestalled, we might as well face it with a certain degree of acceptance, knowing that anything else will only add more to the suffering itself.