Andrew Furst's Blog, page 58

Herbert Hoover on Men and Fish – Quotes

Quotes -The path to right view is an arduous walk through fields of manure.

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Touch – Meditations on Gratitude

The senses are the gateway to the ultimate. Oh what a joy and a privilege to have your senses available to you. The sense of touch is grounding, the feeling of the palms touching, or making contact with another brings things to the moment with a sense of gentle urgency.

Here is a brief meditation on touch which can ground you when your feeling stressed.  It’s very simple. Read the instructions first, then give it a try:

Close your eyes very slowly, notice your lids sliding down your eyeballs and making contact with your lower lids.
Open and close your eyes slowly to experience the sensations
each time you close your eyes, allow the tension and chaos of your day flow downward and off of your body
Leave your eyes open
place both of your palms down on your thighs
let your mind and attention settle downward into your body towards your thighs.
As the mind slowly sinks, let your tension continue to flow down and out of your body
Now gently bring your hand to your heart
Feel the contact between your hand and your body
Feel the sensation move into your body to your heart.
Feel the pulse of your heart and the cadence of your breath
Let your mind synchronize with the pace of your body
Close you eyes and follow the breath for 10 seconds or 10 minutes

I am grateful for my ability to touch the world.

Meditations on Gratitude - A weekly series of people and situations I’m thankful for and a short meditation.

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Reputation? – Say What?

 

Say What?  is an ongoing series of laconic exchanges on Buddhism in the format of a comic strip. 

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Clouds Tell Us – The Proofs Have Arrived

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Well, while I’m  significantly late in delivering on some of the perks (most notably copies of the book), I am thrilled to announce that I have received proofs of the new book (re-titled Clouds Tell Us).

I’ll look over them this weekend and hope to go to publication shortly thereafter.  To all of you who contributed to this campaign, thank you.

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Why Do We Have to Suffer So Much in Life? – Modern Koans

Do we have to suffer so much in life? That is the $64,000 question. First the good news, The nature of the question is actually hopeful. It hints at an intuition that perhaps it’s not always necessary to suffer. I do think that it isn’t always necessary and that we can influence how we respond to life.

So what could possibly change suffering and do we have control over it? Well the short, but not very helpful answer is that sometimes it’s a choice.

How much control do we have over what goes on in our lives? Really, very little. But how we respond to…
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How much control do we have over what goes on in our lives? Really, very little. But how we respond to it, perhaps we have some say. We can think it out, but really the answer comes in noticing, seeing how we suffer, and taking steps to change where we can and accept the situations where we can’t.

Easier said than done. So let’s talk less about it and do.

Meditation on Suffering

Part 1

Imagine a place or time of joy in your life.
Once you’ve brought this moment into memory, allow yourself to remember all the sensations associated with that moment.
Remember the weather, the temperature, were you indoors or out. What was the lighting. What people or environmental elements were important in this memory.
Remember the smells and, if applicable, the tastes of that special moment.
What other pleasurable sensations were involved, allow your body to remember each of them thoroughly for the next 20 or thirty seconds.
After you’ve thoroughly enjoyed this memory, pick a word that best describes the experience. It could be Joy, bliss, happiness, satisfaction, or some other word.
Allow yourself to take a deep in breath and gently exhale the word on your breath. Let the full memory envelop it.

Set the power of that word and breath to the side for a few moments, we’ll use it again shortly.

A Meditation on Suffering
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Part 2

Now imagine a troubling time in your life. Don’t go for the worst, think of something typical that might bother you at work or in your relationship, but nothing traumatic.
Notice how your body and mind instantly respond to the new memory. Notice the feeling and emotions centered in your heart, in your stomach, and in your mind. Spend about 10 seconds with this memory.
Now return to your word from the first part of the meditation. Take a deep inhale and gently exhale the word, returning to the first memory and all of its sensations.

Now What?

OK. What was that like?

Let’s pull a few lessons from the meditation and look at it through the lens of suffering.

First Observation: Notice that by invoking memories we can evoke a response. This hints that there are choices we can make about how we feel including frustration, disappointment, etc.
Second Observation: When we have control over our mind we can exert control of how the body/mind responds
Third Observation: We have limited control over our environment and sensory inputs.

I think a loose conclusion is that yes, there are opportunities to reduce suffering. But there are also situations where we are powerless.

So, where does that leave you?

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Modern Koans is an ongoing series that recognizes that good questions are often more important then their answers.

The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man. ― G.K. Chesterton

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Henry Kissinger on Crisis – Quotes

Quotes -The path to right view is an arduous walk through fields of manure.

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Austin Gorge – A Two Minute Meditation

Offered without commentary.

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Minute Meditations is an ongoing series of short videos, poems, and commentary intended as a meditation.  Offered as an opportunity to step back from your cyber routine and settle into a more natural rhythm, if only for a minute.

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These videos are produced for those of us who spend an inordinately large amount of time in the cyber-world.  They are not a substitute for unplugging from your devices and taking a stroll near trees, water, or a patch of unkempt grass.  Getting out into the world - touching, smelling, hearing, and seeing nature is the best way to reconnect with our prime purpose.  

What is our prime purpose? We are feeling and sensing machines.  We are the universe looking back on itself. We are witness to the wonders and dangers of living in this corner of the cosmos.  We are the seekers looking for connection a little further beyond yesterday's borders and boundaries.

But sitting and staring at the screen robs us of the sustenance that we rely upon for wonder and sanity.  These videos are an opportunity to bring the sensations of nature to you, while you're in the cyber-world. Its an opportunity to relax your gaze, resettle your posture,  and regain some depth in your breath.  Listen and watch the video and allow your self to open up and recharge.

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Post Card Art Project – Too Big To Dance

Here’s the next installment of the Post Card Art Project.Too Big To Dance.

The artist (and let me know if there are mistakes) are shown below in the same position as their card:

The Post Card Art Series

This is the one of several posts I will be offering titled the Post Card Art Series. Its a collaborative art project done on post cards. 

Using an image divided into four sections, I created four post cards.  I printed 200, pre-stamped them, and mailed them out to patreon supporters, friends, and blog readers who expressed an interest. They applied the art, mailed the cards back.  Now I'm assembling them.

The results are fun and unique.

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Now Spring Has Clad The Grove In Green – Compass Songs

by Robert Burns

Now spring has clad the grove in green,

And strew’d the lea wi’ flowers;

The furrow’d, waving corn is seen

Rejoice in fostering showers:

While ilka thing in nature join

Their sorrows to forego,

O why thus all alone are mine

The weary steps of woe?

The trout in yonder wimpling burn

That glides, a silver dart,

And safe beneath the shady thorn

Defies the angler’s art —

My life was ance that careless stream,

That wanton trout was I;

But love, wi’ unrelenting beam,

Has scorch’d my fountains dry.

The little flow’ret’s peaceful lot,

In yonder cliff that grows,

Which, save the linnet’s flight, I wot,

Nae ruder visit knows,

Was mine; till love has o’er me past,

And blighted a’ my bloom,

And now beneath the with’ring blast

My youth and joy consume.

The waken’d lav’rock warbling springs,

And climbs the early sky,

Winnowing blythe her dewy wings

In morning’s rosy eye:

As little reckt I sorrow’s power,

Until the flowery snare

O’ witching love, in luckless hour,

Made me the thrall o’ care.

O had my fate been Greenland snows,

Or Afric’s burning zone,

Wi’ man and nature leagu’d my foes,

So Peggy ne’er I’d known!

The wretch whase doom is, “hope nae mair,”

What tongue his woes can tell!

Within whase bosom, save despair,

Nae kinder spirits dwell.

 Compass Songs is an ongoing series of works by poets that I enjoy. Poetry, as the Zen Masters have said, is like a finger pointing to the moon. It speaks the unspeakable.

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Is Enlightenment Achievable? – Dialectic Two Step

Estimated reading time: 9 minute(s)

Question: Do You Think Enlightenment or Awakening that follows meditation practice is actually achievable?

Response: Enlightenment – arghh. What a troublesome idea.  Buddhist teachers need to be careful when getting pulled into this discussion.  Making short sharp declarations like enlightenment is not a goal can be confusing.  But associating it with personal achievement can also be misleading.

Is there such a thing as awakening that follows meditation practice?
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So let’s start with that part of the question.  Is there such a thing as awakening that follows meditation practice?  There are two ideas merged into a premise here.  Awakening and practice.  Let’s start with practice.

We all know what practice is.  It is the repetition of skills until we achieve mastery.  We master tying our shoes in two stages.  First someone points out the way and then we keep doing it until we get it right.  Meditation seems to be this kind of activity.  We meditate today and we do OK.  We meditate tomorrow, we get better at it.  After 10 years we’re professionals.   But does it lead to Enlightenment?

The goal of learning to tie our shoes is independence. We also improve our fine motor and problem solving skills. We learn the value of persistence and lots of other things.  But do we achieve a new metaphysical state of being when we learn to tie our shoes?

Enlightenment. Is it something that we can achieve with practice?
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To get to some kind of answer, let’s talk about enlightenment.  Is it something that we can achieve with practice?  All of the Buddhist traditions give us a squishy answer.  In the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism there is the Lamrim, or stages of the path.  In Zen there is the elusive koan and quest for Satori.  There is a goal of Nirvana. The teachings point the way, and we must cross the river of fire and water. All of these directions seem to confirm that we must exert effort and that the fruit of our labor is awakening.

Is enlightenment achievable? There is nothing to achieve, but finding it takes much work.
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But contrast that with the ubiquitous concept of Buddha Nature, or the Pure Land’s teaching of other power.  We see a very different story.  Buddha nature is our inherent primordial nature, our pure and natural state available for us to discover by setting aside the obscurations of self.

Pure Land Buddhism tells us that we must rely on other power – Buddha Amitabha – for our salvation. The efforts of self-power will be fruitless.  Only by surrender to Amitabha, accepting the grace of our inherent Buddha Nature, will we discover enlightenment.

So which is it?  Do we practice hard to attain enlightenment, or do we surrender and accept our Buddha nature and move on?  Here’s the squishy answer – Yes.  Accessing our enlightened nature requires transcendence.  By transcendence, I don’t mean we toss out one or the other view.  Transcendence is seeing both as part of a whole. An enlightened being is capable of holding both the impermanent nature of self and the unchanging nature of wakefulness in the same view.

So here is my answer to the question:

Is enlightenment achievable? There is nothing to achieve, but finding it takes much work.

Dialectic Two-Step  is an ongoing series of my thoughts on questions that come my way.

Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two. - Octavio

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