Being with the Present

  Everything we can think of becomes a chain that can shackle us. The thought doesn't relate to things that are happening outside of us. They are more like temporary arrangements that are influenced by many things. Fear happens when we cling to one possibility. Through a fear of letting go of what we like and having to face what we dislike, we create these mental objects that become a source of stress. It's only when we can truly let go of making causes and conditions into "objects" that we can really release ourselves. 

   When we encounter an unpleasant thought, we soon begin to form a wall between the thought and ourselves. That wall becomes a habitual aversion. What we don't realize is that the unpleasant thought only flashes by for a moment, after which another thought succeeds it. That is to say, none of these succeeding thoughts forms anything more than a fleeting moment that is already drifting off into the past. Once we realize this, then we are no longer in the grips of trying to pry away from the unpleasant or run toward the supposed pleasant. Each thought only becomes one moment that is unconnected with anything else.

   The person who is carrying a load of hay and frets over each tiny stick or twig of hay falling off, will never get the hay across the field. Why not? It is because he takes each stick of hay to be something tangible and solid that somehow needs to be salvaged. When carrying hay, we should so only so much care as to function in the world to bring the hay to where is needs to be. If we add more care than what's needed, then we will only end up losing confidence and faith.

    Each moment consists of many causes and conditions, but we have only two hands that we can use to carry this bale of hay. Why pretend that we can carry the whole thing without dropping a few twigs? It's the way of life that nothing is ever completely in our control, including even our own reactions to things. The way of life is to go with the motion of water. 

Eternity Now

  Every passing moment is "different" yet "the same". Think of a river. The river is not the same river today as it was yesterday, yet the mind we use to see it is the same. Or is it? "Mind" itself is only a word, so how can it be something eternal?

  Even if we use the term "eternal present", we are fixing something that is ultimately unfixable. We need to find some provisional metaphor, so we say "eternity" or "now", but is there anything that "stays the same"? What exactly is the same from one moment to the next?

   There is a boundless potency to each moment, but I lose it when I try to a) connect one thought to another, forming a chain; b) try to fixate on one thought called "present moment" , "empty space", etc. Both are things we are abiding in. They are only thoughts that have already came and went.

    To stay away from pat answers is to welcome a sense of doubt. The enemy of doubt is a kind of weird crystallizing of concepts, a kind of fixating mind. To pay attention to that fixating mind is the beginning of seeing there may be something else beyond it.

Anatomy of Cheerful

  It's interesting that "cheerful" has never been described as a virtue in any of the books I have read about spirituality and religion. We tend to think of cheerful or upbeat emotions as forms of superficiality, artifice, politeness, or just plain denial. Knowing the many ways that the world is in crisis (something I realized during our Buddhist volunteer session today), we might begin to wonder: what's there to be cheerful about? And, more importantly, how can we possibly be cheerful during such difficult times?

  I think it's important to try to find what makes us cheerful. Cheerfulness is a required quality that provides an uplifting energy when we are engaged in difficult or challenging work. But where does cheerfulness come from? I would like to take a crack at it, based on my personal experience of this quality.

   I think, firstly, that cheerfulness is a decision to be happy, no matter what the circumstances we are in or thoughts we have. How we decide to be cheerful is not by "thinking cheerful thoughts", because that is only going to make us feel tense and stressed. Rather, cheerfulness comes from developing a practice of holding thoughts lightly in mind. That is to say, never take your thoughts to be real. When we feel pressure, stressed about anything or "heavy" in our mind, we should know that we are clinging to some thought, and it's the act of clinging that gives the thought a certain tenacity in our mind. Rather than trying to come up with "happier thoughts", we should try to reflect, instead, that the pressure we feel is not so real. It's only a result of a clinging relationship to our thoughts. Master Sheng Yen used to say something like, "If you get what you want, it's OK; if not, that is also OK". Can we try having this attitude?

   A second attitude is to take thoughts to be impermanent. Thoughts are always conditioned in nature. How I see myself, the world, the people around me, is always the result of very impermanent impressions that come to the mind. If we recognize the mirror-like reflections that compose our thoughts (like shadows on a dark-lit road), then will we be so gloomy about them? If we know the scene in front of us is bound to change soon, are we going to feel heavy and miserable? Again, misery and depression arise when we are too heavily invested in thoughts that they start to develop a sticky quality to them. They become laden with judgments, comparisons, evaluations etc. , which then renders them even more sticky. If we reflect on their changing and ephemeral quality, then we will naturally feel lighter in our hearts and more cheerful overall.

   A third attitude is to take thoughts to be empty. Now what does this mean? If someone swears at you in a language that you are familiar with, you might start to think the words are insults, and then we attach them to ourselves. We think we are in the sentence a person utters when they swear at us. But is that "you" in the sentence the real "you"? In fact, all signifiers are empty in the sense that they are relative to to thinker and a wider context in which words are only meaningful relative to other words. We put sentences together based on our understanding of a language, which is mediated in turn by our education and cultured experiences. When we recognize the nature of thoughts themselves as empty in nature, then they lose all referentiality. Nothing is absolutely anything: good or bad, happy or sad. Everything only exists relatively and in a state of constant comparison.

   A fourth attitude is to take thoughts to have no thinker. That is, there is no unified self thinking or having the thoughts. We can have "miserable" thoughts but does this mean there is a miserable thinker behind those thoughts? It's only when we start to form a concrete impression of the "person" inhabiting "this body" that we conceptualize a suffering self that needs salvation, or alleviation etc. But if we free ourselves of this, we can be "happy in misery", knowing that painful thoughts have no thinker, and no particular solid body called a "self" that is suffering.

   Finally, when all is said and done, we should be like children in the world. If there is something we can do to make our lives better, we should do it, but playfully so. Don't take this dreamlike world to be so solid, so real, so unchanging, so stubborn etc. because these ideas are simply the result of a clinging mindset that wants things to be a certain way, or experiences inevitable frustrations when they don't go a certain way. Children cry when they don't get what they want, but they don't hold onto something for very long. Adults, on the other hand, tend to weave complicated dramas around things, attributing complex meanings to things that may not have an enduring single meaning after all.

   We can summarize the idea of cheerfulness using the following acronym "LIENC":

L: Let go- we can choose to have a cheerful attitude toward anything, by letting go of clinging attitudes toward thoughts

I:  Impermanence- observe how ephemeral and short lived thoughts are (and meditate on their coming and going).

E: Empty- realize that all thoughts are empty of signifiers, and only exist relative to language, culture, social mores, and the workings of the mind in putting meaning units together. Otherwise, the words themselves have no single permanent and fixed meaning.

N: No-self, or no "thinker" behind the thoughts. No matter how crummy our thoughts are, there is no enduring or fixed thinker behind them. So we can rest easy and let the thoughts come and go.

C: Child- be like a child and take a playful approach to things.

Which Step First?

 There was a funny cartoon I once saw about a centipede that overthought its steps, so it forgot how to walk. Well, walking is a very natural thing to do, but if we were to logically try to figure out "which step goes first", we might end up stepping on our own toes or tripping over ourselves! The centipede analogy is an apt one to describe what happens when we get bogged down in the details and try to reduce everything to a procedure as opposed to a kind of organic unfolding or "improvisational riff".

    In fact, real "harmony", if it is ever achieved, doesn't seem to arise from a pre-given mold or plan, but often happens somewhat similar to walking itself. The two feet need to somehow negotiate their spaces so that they aren't literally tripping over each other. Another apt analogy is that of the two parts of the jaw making sure they don't bite on the tongue. It's scary to reflect that our tongue is always just a smidgeon away from being bitten by very strong teeth. Yet, at least 99% of the time, we manage not to bite our tongue. I think this is because all the parts find ways to flow with each other, leaving an intuitive space through which the other performs its part.

   Overstepping and understepping: which is worse? Perhaps they are both inevitable parts of life. To move, to travel anywhere, always involves the tension between standing and pushing forward, which are inherently opposite. To stand is to stabilize, but we can't really stand without moving. Movement is balanced by stability, which is all the more visible when we practice slow walking. Here, we can see that in order to move one leg, the other leg needs to be in a stable position that supports the whole body.

 Sometimes when we need a plan, we can observe, what happens when we don't try to overplan? Will things come together and, if so, how? It's important to observe how things really happen rather than idealizing the process in our minds to be something that is automatic or sequential. Plans always appear in hindsight, after a lot of time of non-doing.

Still Life with Coffee

  It was a chilly evening tonight--definitely in the low 13's--and I decided to make a detour to Starbucks on the way home. I ordered a rather expensive and perhaps unnecessary drink, what is called a "Tall Pike" over in that there place, with 2 milks and 2 sweeteners. Believe it or not, I am getting to an age where sugar is tasting too sweet for me, and I am slowly transitioning to sweeteners. This coffee cost 2 dollars and 83 cents, or something along those lines. But I was happy to be able to have a hot drink to keep me warm during the walk home.

   There has always been something about that beautiful night walk home, alone with a coffee, that has somehow become a kind of spiritual practice for me. I don't normally think too much during this kind of walk. Most of my thinking, if anything, is a kind of review of my work life and what I need to do the following day, as well as a few affirmations of what went well and perhaps what could be improved. But I think that the night walk home has to do with a kind of inner checking in. It has to do with just feeling the body moving, taking a deep breath and knowing the body is solid and planted. If I were to trace it phenomenologically, it would be having a silent dialogue or encounter with the bodily being, and quietly accepting it without words. 

   In case you're wondering, no, I don't treat this as a formal meditation practice; for the most part, I am not using any particular method. I think it really comes down to the journey we make in life to accepting ourselves through a process of beholding the bodily presence and existence. This is a very natural thing that everyone can do, and it doesn't really require any kind of special technique. Perhaps we might describe it as a kind of space between the lines of thinking, words, doing, and planning. It is the kind of blackboard where all of our ruminations briefly go only to be erased again or overwritten or perhaps simply faded out over the simple process of time. It is like the cloud chamber where little particle tracks are made and fade away. 

   It's very important not to think of this experience as an attainment. It is more fundamental to our being and it often comes upon us when we are not seeking it. Sometimes when you are gardening or just sitting somewhere with an apple in the park, a butterfly or dragonfly will land on your shoulder. It seems like it's rewarding you for not trying to chase it down, plan for it or put it in a bottle for safekeeping. What I try to say is: don't try to seek anything. Just be and let go of the strivings of the mind. Then you will find the butterfly and dragonfly are always there ready to befriend you. All they were looking for is for you to lose all your assumptions, and become a kind of child of the mind again.

Slipping on Ice

 I have in general noticed the unfortunate truth that at least once a year, I will slip on ice--in spite of my best intentions. How to avoid this? An interesting conundrum is how, the more we concentrate on avoiding something, the more energy we are creating to "make it happen". It's sometimes the nature of life that our thoughts invite the very self-same situations of which we are afraid. Sometimes the best solution is to withdraw into the shell of one's being to avoid any kind of karmic retribution, but this is impossible. Even doing "nothing" will create some karmic retribution after all!

  One way that we can reflect on these situations is to think: is there anything in life that stays the same? Even in our darkest moments, we are experiencing temporary causes and conditions that are bound to change in the next moment. When I remind myself of this, my mind becomes a bit lighter. I know that my original mind is not at all bound to the conditions from the past. Another way of putting it is that we are not bound by the past, unless we continue to torture ourselves again and again with the thought of the past. And so if we practice going back to this fundamental state of being, then we can let go of the past.

   Master Sheng Yen's first adage is "wants are many, needs are few". I keep thinking to myself that if I learn to be happy doing little, thinking little, and being little--laying low, being nothing---then that being nothing will be my salvation. But in fact, life beckons us, and the world needs us for many things, and we should never refuse to be of service when the cause is a good one. Actually, when we do these things as "happy nobodies" then in fact, everything we do leaves no trace of the self. And everything becomes a kind of dance on the clouds.

  Most of our problems stem from the fact that we want to be liked and admired. I am convinced of this. I feel uneasy if I am with a group of people and they dislike me for whatever reason. Even if I didn't do anything in particular, I want to be liked. But if I didn't have such a strong desire to be liked, then there would be no real trouble. We don't actually need to be liked to survive: only be of service as best we can.

I know that the real purpose of life is to let go of this big ego self. To become nothing, just the same way as I was nothing when I first came out. Can I do it? Maybe that's the joke: there is no "I" in the end doing anything. So even the ego can have a big laugh in the end.

Keeping Compassionate Company

 "If you don't believe in God, it may help to remember this great line of Geneen Roth's: that awareness is learning to keep yourself company. And then learn to be more compassionate company, as if you were somebody you are fond of and wish to encourage." (Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird, p.29-30)

I love this line from Anne Lamott, "awareness is learning to keep yourself company". Now when I read this, I wonder, how does this relate to the Buddhist notion of awareness? Is it not dualistic to say that we keep ourselves company--as though there were a subject and an object within ourselves? Perhaps the more interesting question to pose is how awareness can be compassionate. I think it probably starts with getting to know our fears and recognizing that the person who enters every situation is always enough. Even if we don't have the words, the tact, the know how, etc. the compassionate voice within is always open to mystery, and tries to make do with whatever happens to be available, in the confidence that we have enough to navigate uncertainty and challenges.

But as I say this, I also realize that it's not as simple as it sounds. It seems that the "learning to keep yourself company" that Geneen Roth describes is not just about cultivating a pure awareness. I think it means having a loose and soft approach toward our thoughts, which welcomes all thoughts without confusedly believing they are permanent, fixed and real. Compassion is a kind of soft awareness that does not even keep score about the amount of compassion we have or exude: it's a kind of soft knowing that all states of mind are empty in nature and therefore there is nothing we need to attach or cling to. If, on the other hand, we are clinging tenaciously to our views, our body, emotions etc. then we will have a very tense and grasping perfectionism around ourselves. It's as though our thoughts are armor that is designed to protect the self and enhance the fulfillment of its desires. Rather than letting thoughts come and go, such a way of being is bound to create misery and a sense of tightness around the body.

Ultimate compassion does not discriminate; it does not say that this or that is more or less worthy of love. We don't pick and choose which emotions are better to have, any more than a gardener likes one flower better than another. A true gardener appreciates the variety of all the flowers and plants in the garden. In a similar way, when our awareness is soft and not particularly identified with one state or feeling (or another), we can appreciate all of them equally as adding a certain kind of diversity to the garden. At the same time, the tricky part is to know that we are not the sum of all these flowers in the inner garden. In this sense, compassion involves creating a beholding space that allows anything to happen, and which thus involves loosening a sense of trying to control all the elements of our experiences.

Compassion can also extend to the various thoughts and voices around us. When someone is scolding us, do we conclude that the words are belonging to that person? Or are the words only created when we hear them in our minds? When I accept that the words I am experiencing are my own thoughts, then there is no further need to react to them or reject them: they essentially become mine, since I am the one choosing to interpret them as I do. When I decide to take a softer approach to the words around me, then they too become "nobody's thoughts in particular", so I cease to create a duality of subject and object or "my thoughts" vs "your thoughts". But this requires a skilful softening of awareness that does not attempt to divide the world needlessly.

Lamott, Anne (1994). Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Anchor.