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What a great discussion this is! So much seems to go back to aspiration. I have this huge, happy aspiration (most of the time), which is to be a bodhisattva for the world. Any action I take that comes from that feels clean and fresh and healthy. It's the times when my aspiration isn't in charge that I run into attachment.
I know folks have been busy with summer events...my own wee sitting group has shrunk as folks go off to visit relatives, go camping, & get wrapped up in those fair weather projects. And now I can really feel the impact that being the primary facilitator has on my practice! There have been Friday evenings when I really didn't want to clean up & go, but because I'm responsible for set-up & ceremony, I have to! This is what I call putting myself in the way of a fortunate accident. :0)
Because, in the midst of all the rushing about & doing that summer can become (OMG, the garden! a never-ending list of 'To-Do'), I find I still benefit from the stopping, calming, & resting that Thay taught us in Chap. 6.
Working in my garden can either be restorative or burdensome. If I mindfully sit in the midst of the beets & tomatoes, attending to what is, opening to all the smells, sounds, & sights & repeatedly letting go, turning my mind away from all the things that need to be done, my time in the garden is restorative, enlivening, joyful. Even as I stoop to pull the bindweed, cut the greens, thin the beets I do so with a very different presence than if I just go to the garden mindful of the To-Do List & start to get things done, mentally ticking off the tasks, strategizing how to get the most done in a couple of hours.
In the first case, when I mindfully engage with the life about me, I can listen to what the plants need, the insects can teach me, the air inform me. In the second, everything is separate, I impose upon it, the LIST imposes upon us. I try to fit a real life into a nice idea, & things get crunchy.
And knowing this difference is how I come to know the Four Noble Truths, what is suffering, how I create it, & how to free myself of it. So...shall we continue with our reading, look into our understanding of Chapter 7, "Touching Our Suffering"?
Dear Sparrow, thank you so much for sharing your practice in such depth. As interesting as theory is, the details of a fellow practitioner's experience is the richest and the most helpful in my experience. My knees popped when I read about your stooping to pull the bindweed!
Elaine wrote: "Dear Sparrow, thank you so much for sharing your practice in such depth. As interesting as theory is, the details of a fellow practitioner's experience is the richest and the most helpful in my ex..."Thank you. I've often benefitted from what I think of as the Dharma bucket line. We pass along the water of real life practice in the midst of the flames. Inglorious, sweaty work, but as you note, so much more effective than theory.
Warm heart to warm heart, face-to-face transmission is the Zen way. ;0)
I agree, Sparrow Knight, that we would benefit from continuing this conversation after a month-long hiatus. I, too, have found myself sucked into projects, namely the literature and writing classes I'm teaching at my new university job, with too much fix-it mind and not enough receptivity. For me, fix-it mind leads to perfectionist but rapid rushes of work that feel exhilarating but wear me down, unbeknownst to me until my body rebels as it did with my fourth bout of severe sinus headaches of the year. While I found joy in my work until illness descended, meditation and exercise got squeezed out too often. As one of my Dharma teachers once told me, cultivating attachment is like licking honey from a razor: pleasant until we lick too long and too deeply and hurt ourselves, and sometimes harder to detect than anger.
Receptivity, on the other hand, leads to more caring, patient engagement with my students and the literature that I'm teaching, and a more holistic lifestyle that includes regular spiritual practice and taking care of my body.
Speaking of receptivity, I hope to read chapter 7 of The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching soon and to read your reactions to it. Book aside, how goes your practice?
There are so many things that need fixing! the list is endless. You are so right about how we can get so caught up in all the fixing, lose our health & receptivity. And isn't it rather amusing...ok, at least I am amused...that when we slow down & become receptive to our own life, when we stop to 'listen' with & to the whole body, we receive not only our own life but the lives around us? Tomorrow is our first half-day sit, just the 4 of us. We're meeting at a friend's yurt in the country. I confess to being a little discouraged about our little group...two people have left, & there's been no new people in months...so I am fussing over tomorrow. I want it to be perfect! I want everyone to attain bliss & enlightenment! I want a pay-off. And I see all this going on with me & I crack myself up & I smile & I just have to keep saying to myself...breathe, breathe, breathe.
I am to make the opening & closing remarks tomorrow, to talk briefly about the form & practice guidelines, & then connect the practice with returning to the world. We have been considering refuge in the Three Treasures during our weekly sits, & that may come into the closing remarks. Along with gratitude for the opportunity to practice together.
Am I nervous? Can you tell? LOL
I bet, Sparrow Knight, that your group sitting went just fine, as did my teaching observation by my department chair yesterday. I didn't feel nervous about it, but I didn't sleep the night before, which indicates that habit-energy continued to pull me toward perfectionism.That restlessness came, in part, from Monday's 13-hour day. Why I felt the need to grade all 78 quizzes I had just received that evening, I don't know, but I did. On Tuesday, one of my days for class prep and grading, I felt wired-tired but still managed to meditate and run, albeit not until the mid-afternoon. The force of my habit-energy remains strong, though. This morning, though I want --- IT wants me --- to podcast for my class, I am TIRED and need to rest by meditating and running sooner rather than later. Though I slept 12 hours last night, I remain tired.
In chapter 6, Thay says, "Meditation does not have to be hard labor. Just allow your body and mind to rest like an animal in the forest. Don’t struggle. There is no need to attain anything." What comfort lies in those words! May we all have loving-kindness toward ourselves, may we be well, may we be peaceful and at ease, may we be happy.
Bows to your commitment to practice in spite of (& because of) your busy, busy life! This modern life demands a lot of us & there seems to be no surcease. Without even keeping up w/the Jones', just trying to stay current/not too-far-behind in whatever field one inhabits is a relentless job. Technology has both eased our lives & made them more complicated (software updates, compatible hardware issues :p )(I have an iPhone 4...*sigh*...the things I can't do)
This is one of the passages I shared with the others this last weekend (You're right, it went beautifully!)...
"When bodhisattvas who live a householder's life cultivate the practices of home-leavers, it is like a lotus blooming in fire. It will always be hard to tame the will for fame and rank and power and position, not to mention all the myriad starting points of vexation and turmoil associated with the burning house of worldly existence. The only way is for you yourself to realize your fundamental, real, wondrous wholeness and reach the stage of great calm and stability and rest."
from The Letters of Yuanwu
Let me tie this into Chapter 7...Touching Our Suffering. Placing the First Noble Truth in our heart/mind & looking deeply into this 'fix-it' habit energy, recognizing it as a source of suffering, we can understand how it arises, how it governs our choices, and what the results for ourselves and those around us.
For me, the sense of order that comes, or the feeling of chaos averted is a big pay-off. And then the jackpot is when others acknowledge my efforts...or at least I don't get criticized. And that understanding shows me another level...my discomfort with chaos, my fear of things spinning out of control, so it comes down to fear.
Noting the fear, I can observe other pushy habit energy & find a common thread...this suffering is being understood. Not just understood, but I realize how pervasive this suffering is, how many masks it wears.
I think this is the real value of the 12 turnings of the wheel, encouraging us to always go deeper, look further, follow threads of experience to a more global understanding of our lives.
Here is a beautiful article about Thay's sangha, how they are doing these days. I am especially touched by this passage:"Before, I was following; I was being carried. I was a student, a child of Thay. Within that sense of being carried, I could relax. Now I have shifted to the sense that I’m carrying. I’m carrying what has been transmitted to me and I’m carrying the community. It is beautiful to see what happens as I allow that transmission to manifest itself—to let itself be alive.
The complete article is here...
http://www.tricycle.com/blog/sangha-w...
Hello, everyone! Today, I drove in search of Vairo Cana Monastery in the Pocono Mountains. I was looking for a new spiritual home now that I have my car back from the mechanic and I have recovered from sinus surgery and can thus breathe through my nose again: an amazing gift, I realize after having trouble doing so for the better part of a year and losing the ability for about a week after surgery. The monastery last updated its website in 2006, and Google Maps directed me to the wrong place. It is largely off the grid but has some basic directions online. So, once I arrived in the general area, I asked about it at a couple's resort and an Evangelical church.
When I finally found the place, one door was open behind a locked glass door, doorbell removed. After I gently knocked, a small Chinese woman wearing a winter hat came to the door.
I asked her if the monastery offers Dharma talks and group sitting and walking meditation. She asked if I was a Buddhist, and I replied that I was, outlining my two years of practice in the New Kadampa Tradition in Philadelphia and my year of Zen practice in Philadelphia. The nun, Tay Yu, said she was confused since I mentioned two traditions with very different dharmas. My heart lies with Zen, I said, but I was considering returning to Kadampa since a group meets in a church down the road from my apartment and Tay Yu's monastery has temporarily suspended programming for lay practitioners.
I was disappointed, but Tay Yu helped me realize that I had gone in a "spiritual journey" as Owen Wilson's character says in the film The Darjeeling Limited. Tay Yu gave me advice and encouragement in her impromptu dharma talk on the doorstep and in the parking lot: 1. Choose the healthiest food for you at the diner since you can't order everything on the menu and life is impermanent, and 2. Build up your internal sangha," now that I can breathe through my nose again. As Jon Kabat-Zinn says, "As long as you're breathing, there's more right with you than wrong with you." As Thich Nhat Hanh says, "The sangha is composed of non-sangha elements."
This journey has renewed my commitment to Zen practice. While I can attend quarterly retreats at Red Rose Sangha in Lancaster, most weeks, my meditation shrine, dharma books, and you all will be my sangha, at least until this summer when I may make one more move before settling down with my soon-to-be fiancée. I would love to hear from you!
"May you feel loving-kindness, may you be well, may you be peaceful and at ease, may you be happy."
It sounds, Sparrow Knight, like Thay's student has worked toward building up her internal sangha.
Congratulations on your successful surgery, Jon! Nothing like losing something so essential to wake one up to how little one actually appreciated it!I had a similar experience/wake up when I spent 3 months at Tassajara w/a roaring case of plantar fasciitis. I had planned on hiking & working in the garden & instead I got to explore practicing w/disability & pain. And frustration. And gratitude for all the small things folks did to help me.
I agree with Tay Yu. I also think it's important to explore other practices & traditions, especially in the initial stages of practice. I'm a bit of a chimera Buddhist, tho'. Most of my 'education'–lectures, studies, book learning–has been in the Gelugpa tradition (NKT & FPMT), but my practice is all Soto Zen. It hasn't really been much of a problem for my Zen teachers, as American Soto Zen is pretty eclectic anyway. So I am a Soto Zen priest who reads Tsong kapa, because I can't make head nor tails of Dogen! LOL
I think it's important to commit to one style of practice, while perhaps reading & listening to other traditions to keep the walls down. Otherwise it's difficult to make progress on the path. Sometimes there is a bit of confusion that arises from the various perspectives, & that can be sorted out w/a qualified teacher. But I have found, at root, that all the Dharmas agree on the key points.
And congrats, too, on the soon-to-be fiancee! Is she/he also a practitioner?
Thanks, Sparrow Knight. She is not a Buddhist but shares the philosophy of mindfulness as a psychotherapist who uses dialectical behavioral therapy, among other methods. DBT's founders credit Thay for helping them adapt meditation to help patients accept themselves and recognize their suffering. She has gone to group sitting with me a few times. As Pope Francis says, "the Church grows by attraction," not evangelism, and I feel that the best way to encourage her to meditate is to do so more consistently myself and become a better partner to her.
Sparrow Knight and all, you might enjoy Training in Compassion by Norman Fischer, a Zen priest's translation of and commentary on the Tibetan Buddha Atisha's Lojong slogans. Fischer's approach combines the open-hearted aspect of ecumenism, such as his translation of the Hebrew Psalms and comparison of compassion (karuna) to Jewish and Christian concepts of love (like agape, the unconditional love that Christians believe God has for creation and Jesus has for the Church). My cursory look at Thay's book Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers has helped me soften and open my spiritual identity as well. For instance, as I watched Pope Francis speak to Congress about healing and reconciliation for the human family on YouTube, I felt that Buddha Nature and/or the Holy Spirit must be working through him.
My teacher & I read "Going Home" on a long road trip, traveling to support some independent zen groups in northern CA. Her brother is an evangelical missionary, so we had a real hoot imagining his reaction to Thay's writing, seeing as he's still praying for her salvation from paganism (she's been a Soto Zen teacher for over 30 years). I've already got Fischer's book, I just haven't read it yet. More books than life span here. ;-)
But to return to the book we are theoretically reading...What usefulness, if any, do folks find in the chapter on the 12 turnings of the Dharma wheel? Do you think knowing this is useful for practice, or is it just more greedy information gathering for the intellect?
I am finding the twelve turnings of the wheel helpful in my own practice, Sparrow Knight, only because I am preceding through them SLOWLY. For instance, the first step, recognition of suffering, is taking me much time in meditation: "The wounds in our heart become the object of our meditation. We show them to our doctor, and we show them to the Buddha, which means we show them to ourselves. Our suffering is us, and we need to treat it with kindness and nonviolence. We need to embrace our fear, hatred, anguish, and anger."I have suffered much lately. For reasons I won't discuss here, I ended my relationship with my partner of nearly nine years, whom I lived with for five and a half years, about one month ago. While I have been learning to live alone, a new love came into my life during the past few weeks, having arisen serendipitously through mutual friends on Facebook, and cushioned me from recognizing the suffering of living alone while attached to intimacy: starving for it, even, given the 10 months of fighting and having difficulty sharing joy with my ex as my desire and romantic love for her died.
After this new woman I had never met --- let's call her Kelly --- sent me a message consoling me the day after my breakup, we began discussing breakup music, then music in general, then life, the universe, and everything. Together, we ended up having a series of conversations the length of a non-fiction epistolary novel through Facebook Messenger and going on three fantastic dates: the best of my life, in fact, with a great deal of honesty, candor, and intentional building of intimacy. Also, over the past three weeks, I sent her three long, intense letters, and we shared the hope of building "a beautiful, lasting relationship" together based not only on our natural chemistry and mutual interests, but also our shared values.
Having been in love only three times in my thirty years, this new one was the most intense and fastest by far; I felt a synesthetic (multi-sensory) and tantric connection with Kelly, who activated five of my seven chakras and catalyzed my creative intensity in music, words, images, and touch, with almost no need for reflective thought.
Last weekend, however, Kelly disclosed that due to her obligations with family, work, and graduate school, she felt that she was not in a position to have a long-term relationship after all, with me or anyone else despite her desire, fearing that she would feel guilty for not having enough time and energy to devote to the relationship, thus leaving me unfulfilled. We remain on speaking terms, but I have taken my foot off the gas metaphorically and literally given that we live 2 hours apart. Her great compassion and strength of spirit, I suspect, is intertwined with fear of commitment and risk as well as guilt.
While the relationship seemed like a healthy one as an expert on relationships I know confirmed given the honesty and candor it was built on as well as the energy it gave me to recognize beauty in and encourage other people on my life, now that it's on hiatus, I realize now that my love for Kelly had a strand of attachment running through it: a sense of starvation for intimacy after 10 tumultuous months that contained little intimacy.
We had begun reading a book together called Leaving the Enchanted Forest: The Path from Relationship Addiction to Intimacy. While I believe that the relationship had most of the characteristics of genuine intimacy, it was missing this one, perhaps the hardest one of all: "My dedication to you is based on my true interest in your spiritual path, even if it takes you away."
How can I learn patience and non-attachment from Kelly? Given the tantric connection I felt through the chakras, her request to put the relationship on hold literally led to a wound arising in my heart: chest pain the night after our last conversation online that lasted all night.
My meditation practice, I believe, is slowly helping me sit with this suffering "with kindness and non-violence." For instance, my practice returns my vital energy to the rhythm of the belly, the core as the seat of action as it rises and falls, which gives me more strength to hold the heartache. I fear that I will lose Kelly for good. I hate the thought of dating other people. The sudden break in our intimacy has given rise to anguish, and I feel anger at what I perceive as Kelly's capitulation to fear and guilt rather than embracing the courage of love. Only through much more meditation, writing, and discussing my suffering with family and friends, my sangha both online and offline, and perhaps Kelly when enough time has passed can I proceed from recognizing my suffering to understanding that suffering more fully.
Along with the aforementioned parts of my support network, this forum is helping me move from recognition of suffering to feeling encouraged to understand it. I welcome your thoughts about my suffering, your suffering, or any of the other aspects of turning the wheel of dharma discussed in The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching.
This passage from chapter seven also applies to the suffering I discussed above: 'When we practice the first turning of the First Noble Truth, we recognize suffering as suffering. If we are in a difficult relationship, we recognize, “This is a difficult relationship.” Our practice is to be with our suffering and take good care of it. When we practice the first turning of the Second Noble Truth, we look deeply into the nature of our suffering to see what kinds of nutriments we have been feeding it. How have we lived in the last few years, in the last few months, that has contributed to our suffering? We need to recognize and identify the nutriments we ingest and observe, “When I think like this, speak like that, listen like this, or act like that, my suffering increases.” Until we begin to practice the Second Noble Truth, we tend to blame others for our unhappiness.' I have yet to understand the ignoble path I have walked down that increased my unhappiness, but Thay's words have encouraged me to understand it.
Dear Jon, you really have been through a lot of changes recently! It's not uncommon for people who are sincerely undertaking profound spiritual training to realize that the relationships (lovers & friends) they have do not support their path. That in itself is a little awakening, recognizing a kind of numbness or deadness of the heart & wishing for more. May I say congratulations on your wee awakening? :^)
This is an interesting passage: "...cushioned me from recognizing the suffering of living alone while attached to intimacy". That's quite a realization, too. I think many people don't realize how unable they are to live alone, how they use friendships, lovers, & being busy to avoid sitting w/the pain & discomfort of loneliness. Recognizing loneliness as suffering, as Mara, how can we liberate our life & the lives of others from its control?
Entering into relationships while fleeing loneliness is the future foundation for dissatisfaction. The fleeting high we experience in 'feeling connected' to another gives way to discontent & longing for the past as the sense of separation, never truly addressed, reasserts itself. Because we never took the time to become intimate w/our own suffering & learn how to sit w/it, transform it, find our own innate wholeness, we project our sense of distance onto the other person(s). And so the cycle of suffering is perpetuated.
As Zenju Earthlyn Manuel says: "We establish our sense of the self and other in relation to our emotions....The most pervasive and fundamental emotion, from which all others surface within the lived experience...is the desire to belong. The pursuit of love by way of belonging becomes our single greatest activity."
I certainly find this true of myself. Until I turned inward & truly sat down with my sense of separation, loneliness, & failure, until I learned to accept & love all I had turned away from in myself, I could not find the genuine, authentic intimacy in the world that I longed for. The path of learning how to acknowledge, sit with, & comfort the suffering one within has given me the intimacy, the sense of belonging I craved, because now I more truly belong to myself, rather than constantly throwing myself away at others to avoid the inadequate, lonely, rejected ones.
Loneliness is a wonderful Dharma gate. It offers us our own true life, our genuine wholeness. Through loneliness skillfully practiced with, we learn to be whole-heartedly alone, centered & intimate. From that basis arises true generosity, compassion, & love.
I encourage you to turn within & befriend the lonely one inside. Sit down with him & listen deeply to his story. Over and over. It takes time to transform the habit of internal rejection & separation. It is worth the time.
I am in the midst of studying the development of shamatha, mental quiescence conjoined w/mental & physical flexibility. A necessary foundation to developing this meditative concentration is lovingkindness meditation, which begins w/ourselves. Especially if one is prone to anger, ill will, blame; the practice of lovingkindness is an antidote. I think too often we skip thoroughly developing lovingkindness towards ourselves & all our unsightly, embarrassing, inadequate, & messed up bits, wanting to rush to lovingkindness for others. But I have checked the instructions carefully & found that lovingkindness to ourselves is strongly emphasized. It is a foundation practice, & if we want to raise a tall structure of bodhisattva realization we need a strong, faultless foundation.
"So he should first, as example, pervade himself with lovingkindness. Next, after that, in order to proceed easily, he can recollect such gifts, kind words, actions as inspire love and endearment, such virtue, learning, etc., as inspire respect and reverence met with in a teacher or equivalent..."
This continues to 'bathe' the heart in lovingkindness. From this I find I can naturally extend the wish for the rejected bits of myself to be happy, accepted, & at peace.
From loneliness to all-one. When one lacks for nothing, there is vast abundance.
Blessings & Joyous New Year...
SparrowKnight
From Thay's book..."Volition is the ground of all our actions. If we think that the way for us to be happy is to become president of a large corporation [or not being alone], everything we do or say will be directed toward realizing that goal. Even in our sleep, our consciousness will continue to work on it....
"Everyone wants to be happy, and there is a strong energy in us pushing us toward what we think will make us happy. But we may suffer a lot because of this....After three months or six months of mindful sitting, mindful walking, and mindful looking, a deep vision of reality arises in us, and the capacity of being there, enjoying life in the present moment, liberates us from all impulses and brings us real happiness."
Give yourself some time to know this person you have lived with your whole life. <3
Thanks for your deep listening, Sparrow Knight. It has aided my practice a great deal.
Thank you, Jon, I'm glad you found it helpful. I've been feeling a bit discouraged in my ability to convey the Buddha's teachings to others & your thanks is great encouragement.May your New Year be blessed with many realizations, for your own sake & the sake of all beings...
SparrowKnight
No Ajahn Chah: ReflectionsHere is a wonderful quote for the wonderful modern eastern master Ajahn Chah that adds to the above I feel.
"There are two kinds of suffering: the suffering that leads to more suffering and the suffering that leads to the end of suffering. If you are not willing to face the second kind of suffering, you will surely continue to experience the first."
Thank you Paul, this quote helps me a lot
I've heard some teachers frame this as attachment more than desire, which makes sense to me. We can enjoy all these good things in life as long as we let go of our requirements for what we should have and how our lives should be.
And then there's the monastic perspective, which does seem to often look negatively on what seem like healthy desires and relationships and possessions. Some of the sections of the Dhammapada seem to say we should renounce practically everything.