Bodhipaksa's Blog, page 19

We're into the last week of our Indiegogo project

And here, Christina says a few words about why Wildmind is important to her and why you should help set me free from admin!?

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Published on December 11, 2013 09:34

“Nothing was ever so unfamiliar and startling to me as my own thoughts.” Henry David Thoreau

Wha, wha, what!!?? When I’m talking with people about the Buddhist teaching of non-self (anatta) they often say things like, “But how can you function in daily life without a self?” I usually answer, “Well, how do you function in daily life without a self?” Because Buddhism doesn’t say that we have to lose our selves — it says that we have no selves to lose. The reason we assume we have to lose our selves is because we walk around with the delusion that we do actually have a self in the first place.

So we all go about our daily lives without selves; it’s just that most of us drag around with us a sense that we have this “thing” called a self. I say we “drag” this sense of a self around because our sense of self is a burden. Once you have the belief that you have a self, then you have to wonder what kind of self you have. Is it a likeable self or an unlikeable self? Is this self good enough or not good enough? Is it good or bad?

This last question was something that confused my children a lot when they were younger. We never said to them things like “You’re bad” or even “You’re good.” We might say that a particular action they’d taken was good or bad (although we’d be more likely to point out the consequences of their actions than to use those labels). But we’d go to visit relatives, who would ask the kids, “Have you been good?” And this really puzzled the children. They found themselves perplexed about whether they were “good” or not. And how would they know, anyway? How can the entirety of a rapidly developing human life be packaged into crude containers like the words “good” or “bad”?

There’s a huge amount to be said about the teaching of non-self, but I’d like just to focus on one thing, which is the simple observation that we don’t know what we’re going to think before we think it. If we don’t have selves, then this should be evident in some way. And actually, one of the things you find when you lose this sense of having a sense of having a self is that the evidence is everywhere. And it always has been everywhere. It’s just that you’ve been ignoring it.

And one of those pieces of evidence that is omnipresent and yet almost universally ignored is the nature of our thoughts. Thoreau’s observation, “Nothing was ever so unfamiliar and startling to me as my own thoughts,” points at this. Probably it’s rare that you’re surprised by your own thought. But one thing that’s useful is to see that our thoughts really are surprising. The mind, though, can be a bit like a blasé teenager who yawns at miracles: “Whatever.”

Here’s a way you can learn to be surprised by your own thoughts. Try, right now, asking yourself, “I wonder what my next thought is going to be.” Now notice that you don’t know! In fact you’ve no idea what you’re going to say to yourself until you hear the thought in your mind. You’ve simply received the thought, so in what sense is it your thought? You didn’t make the thought happen. It just arrived. And then what usually happens is immediately, you claim ownership of the thought.

Now the mind has become a plagiarist. It’s like two students standing by their teacher’s desk, handing in their homework. One of the students hands over an essay, and the other one says “I wrote that.” The similarity is that when you were thinking, “I wonder what my next thought will be,” and then a thought appeared, you jumped one moment from having no clue to what the thought was going to be, straight into claiming the thought as “yours” the next moment. One part of the mind creates the thought. Another part of the mind claims ownership of the thought. That’s plagiarism.

Now, try the exercise again, but knowing that you are receiving the thought rather than creating it, see if you can let yourself be surprised. Realize that thoughts just appear. You can’t stop them appearing! If you could, meditation would be a lot easier. Allowing ourselves to be surprised by our own experience only happens when we let go of claiming our experience as ours. As the Buddha put it, “This is not me; this is not mine; I am not this.” This is a practice of recognizing anatta — not self. And it’s a question of seeing what has always been there, unseen: the un-owned nature of our experience.

Once you’ve realized that you can’t even predict your own thoughts, you can enjoy more of a sense of openness. You can start to let go of your sense of “owning” your experience, and even of “owning” a self. And this can be applied not just to the experience of thoughts, but to all sense impressions, to feelings, emotions, speech, physical sensations, and physical actions. Experience arises, and yet there is no experiencer. Actions happen, and yet there is no agent.

There is no self, and there never has been.

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Published on December 10, 2013 12:09

How to stop beating yourself up

I’m leading a retreat in Florida, just south of Tampa, Feb 21–23. It’s on the theme of self-compassion and it’s called “How to Stop Beating Yourself Up.”

Self-compassion is at the heart of my teaching these days.

The retreat fees include food and accommodation, and they’re on a sliding scale.

Florida Retreat CenterFlorida Retreat Center

Most us us have the habit of being unkind to ourselves. We talk unkindly to ourselves and often we sacrifice our own well-being in order to “get things done.”

On this weekend retreat, Bodhipaksa will introduce a step-by-step guide to self-compassion, so that we can learn to be less hard on ourselves.

To allow people of varying income levels to attend, we have three suggested contributions: $250 for those with lower disposable incomes, $350 as the “standard” contribution, and $450 for those with more disposable income available. The price of the retreat includes food, which will be vegetarian/vegan.

Bookings are refundable (minus $100) up to two weeks before the retreat.

The retreat will start at 7:00 PM on Friday and end at 12:30 PM on Sunday.

Places on the retreat are very limited. We strongly suggest booking early.

You can read more, or sign up, here: http://www.wildmind.org/florida

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Published on December 10, 2013 09:03

My retreat in Florida, Feb 21–23

I'm leading a retreat in Florida, just south of Tampa, Feb 21–23. It's on the theme of self-compassion and it's called "How to Stop Beating Yourself Up." The retreat fees include food and accommodation, and they're on a sliding scale.

You can read more, or sign up, here: http://www.wildmind.org/florida?

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Published on December 10, 2013 08:41

Almost $12,000 raised so far for the Free Bodhi project!

We're looking for seed funding for employing a business manager for Wildmind so that I can spend less time on admin and more writing and teaching. And we're offering great perks! Please check out our Indiegogo project.?

The Free Bodhi Fund

Seeking seed money to employ a business manager for Wildmind so we can free Bodhipaksa up to write, create, and benefit more people by teaching meditation.

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Published on December 08, 2013 17:31

Funny!

Reshared post from +Ross Dmochowski

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Published on December 08, 2013 17:25

Government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations

ALEC, the extreme right alliance of corporations and conservative activists, is planning to penalize individuals who install solar power or, as they call them, "freeriders". We can't have people who are unbeholden to the corporations now, can we??

ALEC calls for penalties on ‘freerider’ homeowners in assault on clean energy

• Documents reveal conservative group’s anti-green agenda • Strategy to charge people who install their own solar panels • Environmentalists accuse Alec of protecting utility firms’ profits • ALEC facing funding crisis after exodus of big donors

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Published on December 07, 2013 19:24

The Free Bodhi project is now 53% funded!

We're doing great work on Wildmind at promoting the practice of meditation, and we'd really be grateful for your support.

Reshared post from +Wildmind

Our Indiegogo project has fantastic perks. Do check it out. And we're 53% funded with 12 days to go. Yay!?

The Free Bodhi Fund

Seeking seed money to employ a business manager for Wildmind so we can free Bodhipaksa up to write, create, and benefit more people by teaching meditation.

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Published on December 06, 2013 19:53

Free Bodhi Fund passes 50%

Wildmind's Indiegogo fundraiser is now at 52%, with 169 funders, and 13 days remaining in the campaign. We have excellent perks for donors, so please do check it out.?

The Free Bodhi Fund

Seeking seed money to employ a business manager for Wildmind so we can free Bodhipaksa up to write, create, and benefit more people by teaching meditation.

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Published on December 05, 2013 13:21