Something that is Free

  I have often mistakenly characterized spiritual practice and meditation as a kind of ascending ladder which gradually refines the soul. But in fact, there are times when spiritual practice is so simple that a person misses it unless they are just sitting still. I think the habitual way is to try to objectify the mind or make the secrets of the mind into a single congealing image. The problem with this objectifying habit is that it ends up confusing the mind and putting it into a very strange and lonely state of dependence and craving.
     In Surangama Sutra, Buddha remarks to Ananda, "What is the distorted phenomenon that we call beings, Ananda? The enlightened nature of the true mind that understands is such that its understanding is perfect and complete. But, Ananda, from this understanding, another understanding may be created as another entity, and from that other entity, a deluded awareness will come into being. Thus from within the original state which has no attributes whatever, that which has definite attributes comes into being. (p.314)

What does it mean to have 'no attributes'? I am trying to understand what this means after meditation, and seems it has to do with the mind as is, when it is no longer confusing its true nature with thoughts or images. When I am able to let everything settle down through a method of resting the mind, I find that there is no single attribute that I can point to as a fixed part of mind. There is an enormous relief in this realization.
     The challenge that I face is that sooner or later, there is this 'other' understanding that comes along and tries to grasp this 'no attribute' state. It's almost as though one were not content simply to have this perfect and complete understanding and had to have another awareness to prove one's existence. There is then a concerted effort to grasp the mind through thoughts or images: to hold it in one's mind. I find it hard to grasp what happens when the mind is grasping--and here paradoxically, I see the point, and that is I am trying to 'hold onto' something to confirm that "I" statically exist. If I let go of grasping mind altogether, I might arrive at something very different from intellectual grasping.
    To go back to a non-grasping state is also a kind of grasping. Buddha remarks to Ananda, "Confusion about the original perfect understanding results in delusion, but this delusion has no essential nature of its own; it is based on nothing." (p.315) If I understand correctly, this section means that even trying to 'get rid of' delusion is committing the exact same mistake as before. Can you imagine being in a dream, then saying, "OK, this time I've got it--I am sure that this is a dream, and I have got this thought to prove that I am only dreaming!" Or this mind, or this body, or whatever. The point is that even though the person appears to have seen the impermanence of appearances, she is still holding onto this subject that sees. Trying to 'return to' something more real that the impermanent dream is still grasping at phenomena. There is nothing to return to in a sense, because there wasn't anything permanent about the dream to begin with.
     So what to do then? All throughout this discussion, I think the sutra (perhaps) gets one closer to repenting of the original mistake. If I try to use anything as a benchmark to measure spiritual practice, soon enough it becomes another form of ignorance. I am still trying to stand somewhere while the rest of the world turns around 'me'. And the delusion here is about a self that is permanent--the thing I can rely on that is 'reliably me.' Buddha keeps kicking the rug from underneath Ananda's feet until there is nothing to stand upon.
    Another way of putting this is that anytime I try to let go of one delusion, I merely substitute another one for it. If I am trying to overcome a craving for something that attracts me, I then find another object to distract me or give me a temporary illusion of control, such as a self-help manual. Though the manual might help me distract from the attachment to one object, it still reinforces the view that I am somebody who is overcoming attachment. Then I might even start to tell myself, "I am fine now--put anything attractive in front of me, and I should have the strength to overcome it." But at this point, I am only playing a game where the self is the main character and all the actors are also the self. To quote a lyric from a Steely Dan song, "It's your game, the rules are your own, win or lose." And often one can actually make a whole life out of attaching to something, then trying to struggle out of attachment through another attachment. What's missing in this view?
     This discussion so far sound very dry and abstract, but I am reflecting on all the suffering that comes out from attachment. It's not that the object itself is a source of suffering, but it's the delusion that is, and I am often filled with a sense of betrayal when I reflect on it. How often does a person keep trying to find reliable supports for its own existence, only to find themselves feeling betrayed by their craving? For instance, we often go through the world looking for something that will 'cure' attachment, only to find that the cure itself is an attachment. And it emptily stares back at us at the end of the day, like a mirror: whatever we put into it is what we got out of it, and there was nothing substantial about it. It is just something we keep filling up with our own air, or with the passion from our lungs.
   On the other hand, when I finally give up trying to salvage myself through an attachment or an expectation, what emerges are these little glimpses of compassion. I realize how much that attachment can cause so much grief, and I stop trying to fill the compulsion. And this frees space to appreciate people as they truly are including how they struggle in life with much the same things. But the only way to get there is to sit for a while. None of this can be realized by thinking alone.

Surangama Sutra: A New Translation (2009). Buddhist Text Translation Society

The Space After

  During the group meditation today, the facilitator  had  talked about this notion of meditation being not just about using a method but about the space it opens up for the mind to discover and explore. I would like to think that perhaps this is the more creative aspect of meditation: not in the sense of the mind running around trying to catch stray thoughts, but a far more relaxed and spacious creativity. The best way I could describe it is being able to see the possibilities in the ordinary everyday that we wouldn't normally find time or inclination to enjoy or appreciate.
    What gets in the way of this everyday appreciation? When the mind is preoccupied with personal gains, it cannot appreciate simply what is. In fact, such a mind is always looking for the next thing, and is caught comparing one situation to another. Even creativity can sometimes get that way. For instance, I can be writing something quite enjoyable to me, which is inspired by some funny idea, and then later find myself becoming very 'serious' about it. I might think about publishing the writing or marketing it in some way, as though these were the true and only valid aims of writing. What gets lost in this is simply doing something with a mind of emptiness and non-expectation. This is the kind of mind that children often have or demonstrate, without being particularly aware of it. Unfortunately, as many studies have shown, it seems very easy for this child's mind to become lost in rankings, accolades and competition. At this point, the work that a child is engaged with ceases to be a personal discovery and more about appealing to a standard set out by other peers or teachers.
   It's interesting how people come to meditation often with the ingrained educational conditioning of wondering what the outcome of an activity is. It's as though they look at meditation as a form of self-improvement, and want to be able to say they have passed a hurdle or two through regular meditative practice. Aside from being hard to measure, there is this question of: does everything that is worth doing always have to have this quality of a finished product to it? And can we even predict what a creative endeavor is ever going to look at or how it's going to function before it is produced? Too much emphasis on finished product can sometimes distort the creative process and lead a person away from its spontaneity.
   With meditation, there is this opportunity to make space for creativity. But creative does not refer to some faculty that is 'sharpened' like a knife. Rather, it is the ability to generate something new that comes from not being bound to something old or habitual. The biggest constriction to creativity is expected result. How can a story be told if we already know in advance what the characters are going to do, how they will end up, and so on? It seems that the power of the story lies in something that is immanent, unfolding and rarely predictable. Perhaps one can say  it is the difference between letting characters or inner voices speak out for themselves and trying to structure those voices around a predefined or pre-existing plotline.
  

What is Not Moving?

  During the meditation sharing and discussion tonight, one of the participants was sharing about her sense of learning how to let thoughts come and go without clinging to them or trying to grasp them. It was moving for me to hear that the participant was learning how to function in practice so that she is not getting carried away by thoughts. I even started to reflect on how, when I first started to meditate, I had this tendency to try to push thoughts away using the method. I soon learned what a mistake it was to try to push away thoughts like this.
      Why are thoughts so problematic anyway? I found out that when my mind is clear and in a calm state, it seems to naturally gravitate to the method, almost like a kind of centripetal force. With that kind of momentum, there is a kind of pull that takes the power away from wandering thoughts. With this kind of momentum, I am often able to look at my thoughts with detachment and wonder why they had such a great influence over me that they did. In fact, what I learn is that thoughts themselves don't have so much weight, and it's really one's state of mind that gives weight and importance to thoughts. After all, thoughts are often just a string of words and images. Unless a person is decoding the strings and images in emotionally loaded ways, those random bits don't have much of a meaning at all.
   At that point when the method creates a place of calm, it even feels like there is no need to 'stop' the mind from moving, because even moving thoughts don't really affect the mind. The movement is a bit illusory. Can you stop and think: is there any thought that 'moves' you? In fact, the mind is not moving at all! So why do we feel moved?

Creativity in Community

   Martin Buber's chapter "Education" in Between Man and Man was originally intended to address a conference which dealt with "the creative powers of a child" (p.83). The conference is an attempt to understand how educators can foster children's creativity, even when the quality of creativity comes from something indivisible and unpredictable. But as Buber later suggests, the passion to originate something or to create can be a potentially lonely enterprise if it is not met with some kind of mutual exchange or community. One of my favourite paragraphs from this chapter seems to sum it up well:

...as an originator man is solitary. He stands wholly without bonds in the echoing hall of his deeds. Nor can it help him to leave his solitariness that his achievement is received enthusiastically by the many. He does not know if it is accepted, if his sacrifice is accepted by the anonymous receiver. Only if someone grasps his hand not as a "creator" but as a fellow-creature lost in the world, to be his comrade or friend or lover beyond the arts, does he have an awareness and a share of mutuality. An education based only on the training of the instinct of origination would prepare a new human solitariness which would be the most painful of all. (p.87)

I like this quote because it seems to introduce a new element, communion or mutuality, which is not often figured into discussions on creativity. More often, I have heard creativity discussed in terms of individual achievement and inspiration. But it's interesting that I never came across any research on how the reception of a creative work affects the artist and her or his future creativity. Generally, there is a stereotype floating around that artists either work completely in isolation or work oblivious to the way others receive their work. But since most artistic work begins in the social background or milieu of the artist, it would perhaps make sense that artists would draw from others to receive their work and recognize it. It made me wonder, however, do people become artists for themselves or is there always an intended audience in a person's writings?

    I have often heard writers and musicians say something to the effect that their audience means little to them and their art. They defend this position by suggesting that looking inward rather than outward can keep the writer or musician true to her or himself. But when I look at the way I write, I find that the notion of writing for one's own sake is full of questions. One question I have is: is the self who came up with the idea to write yesterday the same as the self of today?

   I am afraid that my own personal answer to the above question is "no". When I am writing, I find that I am not tied long enough to a certain perspective on the work for a single identity of writer to appear. It is as though the process of writing itself evokes different writers within me, who unfold according to the work itself and how the vision of that work changes. To use a simple example: I might start a piece in a very frivolous mood of wanting to make myself laugh, but then later find some philosophic theme that I want to explore in the characters. I suddenly find I am losing frivolity and flipping into a different kind of writer identity as I start to discover new things in writing. Then there are points when the writing process slows down because I lose the original motivation to write, and may even need to find other motivations in order to finish the piece. But I think it shows that when one kind of writer fails to finish a task, other voices can step in to fill in the gaps or finish the overall story. I suppose that even within oneself the writer's voice works in community with others.

Buber, Martin ( 1965) Between Man and Man. New York: McMillan

Appreciate Difference, Accept The Moment

In his book Hwa Yen Buddhism: the Jewel Net of Indra (1977), Francis Cook uses the analogy of nails and rafters to describe the notion of identity in Hwa Yen Buddhism. He describes how, in order to build a house, one has to have things with distinct functions or identities: nails, for instance are what hold the rafters together, but they don't perform the same function as the rafters. On the other hand, the totality of the house is what allows the nails to have a function, and the nails even take on the function of other parts. For instance, nails are able to be in a horizontal position thanks to various foundations or rafters. So there are many things happening all at once: the nail performs an essential function unique to itself, it also draws from and gets strength from other elements of the house. And it's the totality of the house itself and its purpose for being that gives the nails in turn a purpose. And all these things are happening all at once. It is truly amazing to contemplate how things function together but also maintain unique roles within that togetherness.
   I think in some sense this analogy doesn't just apply to individuals in a society or parts  of a whole. I think in a sense it can be taken to be a metaphor for what the mind experiences during meditation. It isn't that phenomena are being rejected in favor of some higher principle, but that the phenomena are seen as functions of the present, unfolding moment. I think this is what is meant when some teachers describe the 'perfection' of the present moment in meditation. Everything that is happening is happening because it's happening.  In other words, the 'perfection' comes from the very fact that cause and conditions never fail, and are always forming just the kinds of conditions that resulted from the previous karma.
     What is the practical thing to learn from this? I think there are a lot of implications that I still need to digest. But the most important thing  is to not take anything for granted, and to see the present as the result of many contributing factors that took place in the past and continue to unfold. It is to accept the present as the result of many conditions arising, and to appreciate each condition without rejecting anything. This is interesting because we can think of it this way: this moment if perfect because everything that makes this moment is here and now, and there is nothing in this here and now that can be said to be out of place.
     Sometimes, one gets these little glimpses that things are unexpectedly perfect as they are, and there is nothing we need to reject or seek. Just today, for instance, my partner and I were walking and it started to rain. I debated as to whether to shell out money to buy an umbrella at a convenience store, only to later discover an umbrella discarded on the ground just outside a house. It was a perfectly functioning umbrella, save for the bottom which was a bit damaged. The point is: if I trust the moment, I will find that everything that is ever needed is there, in that moment. Had I not found the umbrella, some other conditions would have contributed to the moment's perfection. And all I need to do is to choose to see it as perfect. For instance, if the rain had come down and I simply had no free umbrella, I could have said, "this is terrible, I should have stayed indoors" or I could have said, "This is a great chance for the plants to grow; I also have the ability to walk to that corner store and buy the umbrella." Or I could have  said, "water is good for my skin".
     It doesn't matter what I say, because the conditions are what they are. But to see conditions as perfect amounts to a kind of total and unconditional acceptance. I am no longer imposing my rules onto the universe, but I  am seeing the universe as perfectly in line with what it should be in this moment. It doesn't mean that things couldn't change in the future, but in this present moment, this is what has arisen and what one can work with.

Cook, Francis (1977), Hwa Yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra: Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University

Pure Emotion

      I spent much of the day writing a bit of a fun play I had been inspired to write over the past week, in addition to reading in the sun. Outside, at the North York Central  Library, there was an interesting festival going on. I got lost in the music of the festival as well as reading Garma C.C. Chang's The Buddhist Teaching of Totality a second time. For a while, I had lost the perspective of self and others because there were no longer any voices 'overstanding' my experience.
     There is nothing particularly alarming about emotion, I realize, until there are "selves" attached to those emotions. What I mean by this is that too much of our interchanges have a strong distinction of self and others. We hear conversations like "I, unlike you, do this", and the idea is that one person is somehow superior to another in some way. And then the whole thing becomes a process of negotiating between what is mine and what is someone else's. This is where people start to blame others or take the blame themselves for things undone or not done up to standard. And this process only perpetuates strong sense of self. And notice that "self" here means multiple selves.
    But if one is not so hung up on the sense of self, what happens to emotional life? I find that it becomes somehow more clear. That is, emotions are no longer assigned to specific events or people. Instead, the emotion becomes something that is simply passing through and not being enmeshed in the concept of self and others. Direct experience of emotions is not so easy to achieve, however, because in daily life, there  is always a craving for a situation that is smoother and more pleasant. The result of this desire for something better is the growing sense that life is an obstacle to be overcome, or even an obstacle course. I wonder if you have ever had such an experience before, where you were rushing to get home to do something and started to perceive that the whole world were an obstacle to you reaching that goal. It's not that the world 'became' an obstacle. Rather, it is one's own desire for something in the future that makes the world into a sort of obstacle, or a heavy burden.
    I have encountered a similar kind of situation when I am in a rush to get somewhere. I notice that everything becomes an obstacle to me getting to my destination, rather than being a natural circumstance. When one is late for an appointment, every minute seems so critical, and even the stoplights seem like a punishment. But if I were not late for an appointment, would any of these things feel that way--as obstacles or punishments, or even objects of blame? This is to say that our attitude often depends on the kinds of ways we frame the circumstances.
    Chang himself offers a wonderful analogy to this relativity of things when he remarks:

To a man water is something tangible and definitely existent, but a fish living in the water may never feel its existence at all, just as men do not feel the existence of still air. The Buddhist tradition asserts that when a deva or god sees the water contained in a lake, he sees it as nectar not water; the same will become pus and blood when a hungry ghost sees it, and it becomes a poisonous liquid or fire when a denizen of hell sees it. This again testifies to the fact that water has no Selfhood. Conditioned by different common karmas, it appears as different things to different sentient beings. (p.87)

The point here is to suggest that things only seem terrible when there is an attachment to an essential thing that is behind that thing. If I am able to see that emotions aren't attached to any specific thing but are actually related to a whole set of emerging conditions, will I feel bad about that emotion? I probably won't feel so bad, because I would know that the emotion is not related to a specific object that is set against 'me' but is rather just arising from the conditions.

Chang, Garma C. C. (1977) The Buddhist Teaching of Totality: The Philosophy of Hwa Yen Buddhism. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Not Glued to Meaning

    In The Buddhist Teaching of Totality, Garma C.C. Chang remarks "Existence or non-existence is only meaningful when a definite realm is predetermined or implied. This very act of confining oneself to a particular realm in order to make something meaningful is the fundamental difference between the orientation of men and that of Hwa Yen. Men (sic) judge and view things from a definite, thus limiting, realm, but Hwa Yen views things from the standpoint of Totality--thus repudiating the very essence of 'defining' or building of any kind." (p.17) Some of this kind of discussion leads me to wonder, how does Buddhism compare with this attitude of finding meaning in specific things? One writer, Victor Frankl,talked about how those who lived in a concentration camp became resilient when they were able to story their lives or add something meaningful and hopeful to the situations. For instance, one of the concentration camp members had kept a picture of his wife with him as a reminder of the power of love in his life. Is Hwa Yen suggesting that all meaning is repudiated altogether? Why would it be insistent on, as Chang suggests, "repudiating the very essence of 'defining' or building of any kind"?
    I think the point of Hwa Yen school is not to repudiate meaning but to realize the endless, shifting multiplicity of realms of interconnected meaning., and how they don't interfere with each other. In fact, one can think of the whole of totality in this way. If  I am clinging to one particular view of things and the situation no longer allows my perspective to feel meaningful, then I am free to let go of it and experiment with other ways of seeing. In fact, it more often happens in meditation that my clinging to one particular experience causes me great suffering. Temporarily, it may seem that clinging to a good experience is a great energy boost-- and it certainly can be in some situations. But in the long run, I have never encountered a single instance in meditation practice that has been universally meaningful to me, or even serves as the 'model' for my other experiences. According to Hwa Yen school, the universe is simply too vast, intricate and infinitely complex to be able to be simplified into one equation or way of seeing. To put it in a more mundane sense: my understanding of water as a chemical compound might help me to develop a new water treatment system, but it won't help me to enjoy swimming. The two processes have to do with water, but mastering them requires completely different ways of seeing water.
     The view of 'no view' is not a nihilistic one, but it seems intended to show how mind can switch between realms and is never tied to a single perspective. It requires a bit of strength to see this, because for me, I have always wanted to be able to reduce experience to a single unified 'meaning' which I could write down or somehow memorize. Ironically, I almost feel like letting go of attachment to single meaning is perhaps the most (paradoxically) meaningful life because it allows each moment to reveal itself and alert us to life's inexhaustible mysteries.

Chang, Garma C.C.. The Buddhist Teaching of Totality. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press.