DHARMAJUNKIES MONDAY ZOOM 7PM (ET)
meeting: https://tinyurl.com/
tonight: OPEN DISCUSSION
Bring your thoughts, concerns,
OPEN DISCUSSION
Category: Teaching
I am a teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition with over twenty years experience. I teach classes and lecture in New York City and Baltimore Maryland at the local Shambhala Centers and elsewhere, including the Interdependence Project on the Bowery in NYC, The Shambhala Meditation Center of New York, The Three Jewels Outreach Center and most recently, Warrior bridge Aikido.
It is my life purpose to take the wisdom of my teachers Sakyong Mipham, CHogyam Trungpa and Pema Chodron and offer their wisdom for everyday people. I truly believe in the power of meditation to help anyone understand their mind, giving them a better understanding of themselves and hence, a better relationship with their world. I have taught and lectured at schools, and in businesses and have lectured at various places including The Ethical Society of New York, The New School, for Google in New York City and the Zen Center of Brooklyn.
Some of my recent lectures:
Waking up In Chaos: Navigating the Sea Change
Across a Night So wide: Working With Sadness and Depression
What A Long Strange Trip Its Been: Understanding Karma in Everyday Life
Yes And: developing Creative Responses to an Unpredicatble Universe
When Rock Hits Bone: Starting From Square Zero
Stumbling Through Gates of Change
Crying to the Sky: The Art of Prayer in a Material World
Fight, Flight, Freeze or Just Freaking Relax: Reconfiguring Conditioned Reaction
And recent workshops:
Our body of Knowledge: Transcending Physical Imprisonment
Yes, And: Developing Our Creative Voice
The Actor’s True Voice
Standing in the Shadows of love: Loving Kindness in Difficult Times
And the series “Meditation And…”
Meditation and Yoga
Meditation and the Psychology of Change
Meditation and Improvisation
Meditation and Finance
WHAT AM I DOING?
DO I EVEN KNOW IF I’M NOT HERE NOW?
As we go through life things happen that stop the mind long enough for us to be fully present. Sometimes these moments are beautiful, as in the birth of a child, or a connection with nature that stills the mind. Other times they may be painful such as the passing of a close friend, or a break up with a loved one. In these moments our defenses are stripped away long enough for us to have an authentic connection to the moment. Usually, we will go right back to over thinking, analyzing or otherwise taking selfies with the moment.
With meditation practice we are training to notice subtler and more ordinary moments that stop the mind. And perhaps more importantly, we learn to accept these authentic moments, as they are, without commentary for longer periods of time. This serves to infiltrate the wall of separation that we fabricate to keep ourselves isolated from life. You might say, we are turning the lights on to our life. If our mind is supple enough, we can see all life as alive and interactive. In time, we see ourselves as a part of everything rather than struggling to overcome anything. In popular culture, this is known as being one with everything. In Meditation traditions this is known as non-dual experience. Nondual experiences are instances of clear perception when we are directly connected to the moment as opposed to dualistic experiences when we are separated out and looking in.
The problem with cultivating nondual experience is that once we recognize it, we almost immediately begin to mentally quantify and qualify. This is akin to having a moment of connection with a love partner and then having to protect our vulnerability with a joke or a relationship plan. I like to joke that most of my love relationships were threesomes. Me, my partner and my brain. It’s ironic that our overthinking brain, rather than leading us to an understanding, actually distances us from the experience. We come by this naturally, as the conceptual layer of thinking is not there to lead us to wisdom, but to protect us from it. We will imagine a break up in a vain attempt to protect ourselves from heartbreak. Naturally, this only encourages that eventuality.
In most cases this un-investigated, compulsive thinking is like a blanket of static that surrounds us, like Charles Schultz’s Pigpen from the comic Peanuts. Pigpen was always followed by rings of dust and confusion. My first memory of becoming consciously mindful came when I read Suzuki Roshi saying that cleaning my room could be a first step towards waking up in my life. I would turn on WBAI and listen to Gary Knoll and clean my room with as calm a mind as I was able. I was undoubtedly experiencing pure moments now and then. I was one with the broom as it swept across the hardwood. I was taken by the Zen fable of the monk who while raking the monastery lawn inadvertently hit a rock. He became enlightened the moment the rock struck a tree. It seems these nondual moments of pure perception may be the gateway to a state of perpetual stabilization of our mindfulness. Unfortunately, knowing this only makes the possibility more remote as any conceptual framing only separates us from the gateway. So, we begin with sweeping the floor of our room. Just that. And returning our attention to that. Eventually, I turned off the radio, and let the music of the silence surround me. BUt what I mist remember of those mornings was the sun streaming through my glass block windows creating magic prisms on the floor. The simple act of coming back to now and clearing away the debris opened me to a greater world.
Mindfulness practice is returning to the moment again and again. Each time we return we have the opportunity to become clearer and more efficient with the process until we are simply saying now. Now. Now. This is the moment we are looking for because this is the only moment there is right now. Here. Here. Here. It’s only tedious as the mind wonders what else it might be doing. Just like the lover analyzing each stroke, we lose our connection and become desynchronized and impatient. There are remedies for this. Recognizing we are straying or itching to stray, then lovingly returning to the life giving breath. And finally, releasing ourselves from commentary and resting in openness. In this way, we are reprogramming the mind away from needing to control life toward accepting the present moment just as it is. Whether coming back to the sweeping broom, or the rock hitting the tree mindfulness training will lead to peacefulness and a willingness to just be here with our lives.
Finally, and most alarmingly, that Pigpen cloud of random discursive thinking is not only separating us from direct connection to our life, it is also subconsciously programming us. We become used to avoidance as a strategy for protection. This only makes us more frightened. Our mind instinctively knows when it’s being fooled and coddled into complacency. Avoidance only works with superficial experience. But deep inside, where our anxiety lives, we know not paying attention leaves us vulnerable and unprotected. Avoidance only serves to make us more avoidant and more frightened as we are living in the dark. Also, as the bard said, “in this sleep of death what dreams may come? Aye, there’s the rub.” What are we telling ourselves as we sleepwalk through life? Are we supporting a toxic psychology that keeps us imprisoned in doubt and confusion? Are we randomly imagining catastrophes hence hastening their eventuality? Billie Eilish had a record called “Where Do We Go When We’re Asleep?”. It’s a very good question. What are we doing when we’re not paying attention? It is said, we are always generating something. When we are awake, we are generating further wakefulness. But, when we are asleep? What are we doing?
So, cutting through the dualistic barrier is like cracking a wall so light can penetrate, even a ray at a time. Each time we come back to the present we let a little light in. Our work then is to let that be. Not to stomp all over the light. It’s as if we draw the curtain to allow the light in, and then cover the window back up so the light doesn’t get out. That doesn’t work. But what we can do is develop two steps of recognition and return and add release to that. Just notice and let go. The grand canyon is beautiful. Notice, retun, release. My heart is broken. Notice, return, release. In this way, in time, we turn the lights on and with the light on.
WIth the lights on, we have the power to decide our intention. Which is to say, we know what we are doing.
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BLOOM
WELCOMING SPRING – I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN
After some nagging resistance, spring has finally come to the Northeastern US. And with that comes a sense of renewal and joy. We feel the freedom of stepping out of our clunky winter garb. We scurry like birds building nests to clean our homes, shop online, fill the fridge with healthy options and renew our gym memberships working toward that illusive beach body. And for moments we are aligned with all that is possible and good.
But, I beg your pardon, but there is also the dread provoked by that change. Along with the roses, there is a little rain sometimes. This post is about stepping back, creating space, and accepting the entirety of our experience. “Good, bad, happy, sad” the poem goes. “all things vanish like the imprint of a bird in the sky.” The very things that excite my brain about spring also terrify me. The flower’s bloom is spectacular when we have the space to notice. Perception is a cosmic blessing in a singular moment. Yet, the flower is the result of the immense struggle as it made its way through the earth. Does the seed dream of the flower to be while it is busy fighting through the darkness? And when it does finally bloom, it opens and connects to the world around it for a brief and glorious moment. And then, before long gone. Yet, in its brief tenure, its beauty is its practical connection to the world. Bees are attracted to the flower, bears, and humans use flowers in their springtime mating rituals. We are part of a connection to life. And we are blessed by the flower in the perfect moment of our noticing. And yet, we go on to immediately worry about the next thing more important than our life, and the flower will remain and eventually wilt and die behind us. What does the flower know of its coming death? The law of Karma is not the cycle of reward and punishment that we imagine. Karma is the dynamic interplay of cause and condition within a vast and interconnected web of reality. While it is impossible to fully grasp its totality, we can nonetheless step back a bit and see things from a wider perspective. The beauty of spring also heralds the coming winter. All of life returns to darkness. Along the way, we have the opportunity to pause and see the world around us, of which, we are only a small part.
A moment of perception is divine. Its a connection to the beauty and the possibility of life. And yet, it passes and leads us back inevitably to the struggling darkness. Maybe we can pick the flowers so the moment will last? Or take pictures? Or post the pictures so everyone will share the moment with us? We can post pictures of ourselves with the flowers to prove something to ourselves and everyone else. Yet, the moment is gone before we snap the camera. All flowers will die alone. And yet, they are not alone in that. There is a saying that we are not unique, therefore we are never alone. The flowers will die and we will too. Like everything else. And this is what connects us to the grander cycle of our planet. This moment of renewal continues whether we are here to see it, sell it or keep it. We can try and document the moment, but picking the flowers only makes them die more quickly. Trungpa Rinpoche used the analogy of a flower in the forest to illustrate mindfulness and awareness as two foundational components of meditation. MIndfulness, he said, was seeing the flower. Awareness was seeing the space around the flower and deciding whether to pick the flower or not. When we recognize the flower, our mind pauses just enough to connect to a world beyond the circular discursive thinking behind which we generally hide. We are making contact. The flower is doing its job. Awareness is the space around the flower that allows us to see its beauty and our relationship to it. When we don’t have space for mindfulness we might trample over the flower in our haste. If we don’t develop awareness in our practice and our life, then we might trample all over our preption by trying to cling to the moment for our own aggrandizement. The flower will die. We will die. And, in both cases, the cycle will continue. So each time we notice the flower, we are glimpsing something larger, if we allow the space to see that.
Each moment of perception can connect us to the larger space. And when we are aware of that moment, we are invited to open to the space of life around us. We grow on our journey, one perception at a time until we turn our mind from clinging toward openness. Our reluctance to just let the flower be, or allow the moment to be, or each other be, or ourselves be, is because the moment will end. Sunlight will devolve into darkness. And we will again dissolve back to the eternal. This is so frightening to us. It’s important that we make something of ourselves. Maybe we can erect statues of ourselves and the flowers we have seen. But ensuing generations may be offended and tear the statues down. Maybe we can make statues out of sand, as the Tibetan monks do with their mandalas. They make these intricate and elaborate works of temporary art that are swept away at the end of the ceremony. In this way, the monks are pointing to something more eternal than ephemeral human statements. But, we are so frightened to let go. This causes great pain as it is not the way of our world. On our planet all things come and all things go. And to stand apart is to create friction with the movement of time and space. And so we suffer. We refuse to let go and we suffer.
Then we see a flower again. And we have an opportunity to be one with the planet. Not something more important and standing alone, but someone less important that is nonetheless part of everything.
La RESISTANCE
HEY, SOMETIMES WE JUST DON’T WANNA
Anyone engaged in the progressive paths of life, such as meditation, recovery, learning new disciplines, or developing a skill, knows the dread experience of the don’t wannas! I don’t wanna avoid pizza. I don’t wanna work out, I don’t wanna meditate. Sometimes, I don’t even wanna get out of bed. Despite a part of our higher mind believing we really should wanna – or maybe actually because of that – seeds of doubt grew into trees we couldn’t look past.
In conventional life, we assume we should push harder. And when that doesn’t work, we assign blame, usually to ourselves. I’m lazy. I’m useless. What’s wrong with me? We might take on the role of a frustrated parent yelling outside the door, “GET UP!” or a sports coach urging,. “Get past this and move it, you baby.” But if we actually were a baby, no one would speak to us that way. In fact, we might find it cute when a toddler in their terrible twos holds their breath. And while some foxhole instances require tough love or aggression to provide the motivation we lack in most cases this is an overplayed lazy option. It is not a recommended approach to guiding a child toward self-sufficiency, nor developing a meditation practice that includes our full being. You see, we so-called adults have grown beyond the children we once were, but the children have nonetheless remained. We can take the approach of ignoring our child, as many of our parents did. And as we grew, some of us learned to ignore the pleading of what the Indigo Girls referred to as our “Kid Fears”. Unfortunately, this approach met with enough success that “grin and bear it” became the order of the day and some pushed through until the seed of doubt grew into a boulder we could not lift.
While resistance is annoying to the part of us with grand plans for ourselves, it is a voice with wisdom. When a frightened child comes crying into their parents room at night, they don’t need a motivational speech. Fear and resistance need to be held by loving strength, not pushed by it. And whether we find this flattering or not, the shadow of our kid fears remain in the irrational – sometimes self defeating – behaviour we carry through our adult lives. But, looking at the world they will inherit, is there not some wisdom in the child’s resistance? The great “NO” of the toddler is a way of their learning assertion and self respect. And accepting fear is instrumental to developing fearlessness. Fearless does not mean without fear. It means having acknowledged and made friends with our fears, we can hold them and when ready move past them as our higher mind decides. We don’t have to push the child out of the room, but we can lead the child back to its bed. We can accept our fears and learn their wisdom, but the fearful child should not lead us. Despite its protestations, the child likely wants to be led. But connecting and synchronizing are essential before we can lead. And kindness is the best tool to use in deconstructing the illogic of fear and finding the truth of wisdom.
Developing a strong meditation practice is one of the cases for which kindness is an essential method. Some of us learn this in meditation and the approach begins to bleed into other aspects of our life. In my opinion, this is the most important result of a consistent and authentic meditation practice. But, as wonderful as this sounds, some days we just can’t make that long journey from bed to the cushion. Yet, pushing ourselves in the way we do everything else, sets us off on the wrong tact. We are at the mercy of ego or self-will. It is the wrong view, because we are somehow believing there is something we can get from the meditation that requires struggle. The adage “nothing good comes without struggle” is not apt in developing an authentic practice free of aggression. So, when experience resistance to our practice it makes a certain sense. We are deconstructing the fortress of ego. We feel exposed and fearful. Sometimes we may need to halt the process and allow the fear to catch up with us. And kindness and patience are the remedies. When we have the patience to meet resistance with kindness in meditation practice, we have an opportunity to see its effectiveness. As we develop faith in love as a remedy we become kinder and more patient with ourselves. As we become kinder and more patient with ourselves, we naturally become more caring of others.
And as we develop the path of meditation, we will encounter the “I-DON-WANNAS”. The path will lead us to places that are not always easy to enter. But when we are angry or embarrassed about the fear, we create an agitation within our being. Our mind splits into different facets each shouting at the other. While something inside might urge us to push harder that increases the struggle. The only thing struggle builds are the tools of ego. Reacting out of anger is not effective. But we can accept our anger, hear its complaint, and wait till it settles and clarity returns. Only a mind of serenity can lead to responses that release the struggle. The mind is more creative and effective when it operates from a calm center.
We need not feel afraid of fear. The best way of developing fearlessness is to look into the eyes of fear and hold them until things calm. Hold the fear until the struggling stops. You see in this approach, breaking out of our struggle is counter productive. We can honor and hold the mind that is fearful until it stops struggling 
and is ready to step forward. In this way, we our full mind can develop natural assertion and confidence just like a child learning to walk back to their room. Just like flowers blooming in spring. The seed has no idea of the flower it will become as it is too busy pushing up through the darkness. This is not easy, but the plant does this without struggle. It rises because it is its nature. No one needs to stand above it yelling for it to grow. Along the way, if the ground freezes, the growing stops until the stalk gathers the energy to move again. We can see progress in nature that, while not without challenge, is in synchronicity with nature. The ancient book of wisdom, referred to as the IChing, states that obstacles can be overcome by emulating water. Warrior has the patience to pause until their strength rebuilds and allows them to flow over or around the obstacle. The river never feels insecure or berates itself for this.
And just to continue with run-on metaphors, the stubbornness with which a part of us slows down the whole is, aside from being a voice crying to be heard, also may the very strength we use to travel forward our own way. In early Buddhism they used an image of the rhinoceros to depict the kind of solitary practitioner who had to travel the path in their own way, at their own pace. Aside from being solitary beings, Rhinos are highly intelligent and have excellent survival skills. They are excellent others that fiercely protect their young. No matter how cute these ungainly beings may appear you don’t want to invade their space. Space assures safety and dignity for all parties concerned. So, along with patience and kindness, the willingness to allow our “don’t wanna be’s” to just be, would be a wonderful step. I don’t think we should always give in to our doubt, but we might have a conversation with it first. “What are you afraid of?” “What do you need?” And we might remind the little rhino that we’re here and we love them.
In this way, our resistance is our path. And if all we took from our meditation journey was to be kind enough to ourselves to treat ourselves with care and respect, that would be life changing.
ECLIPSE
PARTNERING WITH THE UNIVERSE
Those in proximity to the shadowed path of the eclipse are scurrying to make Air B&B reservations, shoebox pinhole cameras and even wedding plans along the path of totality. There will be shouting, singing, and dancing as the sky darkens. It’s kind of sweet to think of so many of us celebrating together, even though anything beyond us seems accompanied with a splash of dread these days. Life and death create each other every moment. The universe birthed us and the universe will end us. Along the way, we’ll mark the passage of our moon across the sun. When he was still a cat, Yusuf Islam referenced being followed by a “moonshadow.” Moonshadow, moonshadow.
At some point this summer, as the universe decides to reveal it, there will be a less noticeable, but far more salient, event. A supernova will be visible on earth. This once in our lifetime event will mark the dramatic death of a star that exploded 3,000 years ago. However, the light will be reaching us this year. It is stunning to think that looking into the majesty of a clear night sky we are seeing a chronicle of our past. Even the contemporaneous events of today’s eclipse will have happened 8 minutes earlier. If we look closely enough into the stars between the stars we can see back to stars created at the start of time. And as we look up tonight much of what we see is no longer happening. This is all beyond most of our capacities to grasp, so today’s otherwise ordinary event will be interpreted in many ways depending on the diverse capabilities and aspirations of the interpreters. Some will see evidence of a godhead as others see a harbinger of doom. Some will believe it to be a portent for good things and many will devise stories with the opposite conclusion. Is this evidence that we are not alone? Or just a momentary shadow happening in an insignificant corner of the universe? In times before, this was a fearful and awe inspiring moment in the animal annals of our forebears. But today, in these darkening moments, we will partner with the universe. And as cool and rare and special as the eclipse is to those in our part of the world, our interpretations of the eclipse will have more to say about ourselves than anything else. If it’s a message to us, then what of those who live beyond the shadow?
The eclipse is an event born of perspective. The moon is close to us, and so appears large enough to block the sun. It appears meaningful because it is our moon. Yet, as above, so below. And doesn’t this celestial event beautifully depict an ordinary process in everyday life? Buddhists don’t generally speak of heaven or hell. They speak instead of awareness or ignorance. Buddhists talk of “obscurations” to the clarity of understanding. The obscurations that are close to us are meaningful enough to create shadows in our understanding. There is a big wide amazing world that is blocked by this one thing we can’t look past. And because that one thing is close, like the policeman in your rear view mirror, it appears larger than it actually is.
In meditation theory, the sun is used as a depiction of awareness. The sun shines on everything equally regardless of whether it is blocked by the moon, the clouds or the turning earth. Awareness is alive and awake in the universe whether or not we are conscious of it. It is the work of the meditator to uncover the veils of self-imposed obscuration that block access to awareness. We notice thoughts that are actually quite small in the scheme, and bring our attention back to the space afforded by the breath. As we do this, we are stepping back from the thought and revealing a larger context. Our blockage might appear less significant, even humorous. Over time, these obscurations become less solid and less imbued with “meaning”. They become right-sized. Sometimes they disappear altogether. Although the significant obscurations require less force, but more patience. Some will likely return. When that happens we are faced with the same task. Notice them as thinking, and return to the breath. This reconnects us to space, which is perspective. It sucks that we often have to be fooled again and again but that is the work of creating access to awareness. That sunlight will, in time, permeate our experience, but there is a lot of slogging to get there.
Many of us are inspired by the idea of space travel. To many kids of my youth, astronauts displaced the firemen and soldiers of my parents’ generation. It was exciting, and to many of us, it still is. But to the astronaut, it was hours and hours of training to get to hours and hours, and maybe years and years, of sitting through endless space. Each step we take is a small step. But, as we are humans, we will likely make a big AF deal of every step. Look at me! I’m coming back to the breath! Huzzah!
In truth, we are training to be ordinary, simple and exactly who we are. And considering our outsized view of ourselves, that is remarkable. In Shambhala Buddhism they call this authentic being. Authentic being connects us to life around us without interpretation. Things are as they are and it is the work of the meditator to see that as it is. But the things that are close appear very large. The vastness of space is threatening to existence, hence the onus on survival as a hunkering down, and closing off into the safety of the cave. In this way, we hunker down in the safety of our minds, returning again and again to the bone we’ll chew. Eventually, we need more than that bone. Humans have held to their families, beliefs, and clans for security. But we have eventually had to venture out, trading security for sustenance. In the coming century the first families could well be born off planet. From some perspective, this is beyond frightening. From another, it is inspiring and exciting. To those who accept the mission it will be a lot of work and routine. Some of us today are building entire fortresses over small flickers of thought. And some are returning to the breath on a journey to enlightenment.
But whether we are journeying through outer space, or the space of our minds, we are partnering with the universe. And, while we are likely not as special as we’d care to believe, we have the possibility of forging a sacred bond with the great unfolding of life. Awareness is our power. And though ego and self-importance provide all the obscurations we think we need, we might develop the power to be released from the “bondage of self” and see through space to the truth beyond.
To the universe, this is a blink of her eye. But for us, it’s a long process. One we travel one breath at a time. All the while followed by our moonshadow, moonshadow.
REBIRTH
REBIRTH, RESURRECTION, REINCARNATION, REIMAGINING LIFE
Easter and Passover mark traditional acknowledgements of spring and the renewal of life in North American society. Nearly every other culture has an equivalent as the passing of winter into spring is a universal human experience. In temperate climates we see blooming flowers, buzzing bees and the scurry of animals in mating rituals. Ever warming days grow longer and brighter. We can feel the earth’s rebirth from her frozen dark winter. The exhilaration and relief felt by the earliest humans still echoes in our bones. Life again resetting itself.
However, we humans sitting atop the food chain often find it hard to join in the simplicity of wellbeing. Our giant brains grant us access to so much information it’s hard not to be overwhelmed. And when we feel overwhelmed have any change triggers fear. We conjure self-doubt and any number of things cooked up to keep us from simple contentment. Contentment is the gateway to wellbeing. A friend of mine recently mentioned the horses outside his home and was amazed at their ability to just stand in silence until there was a need to move. They seemed a part of everything in their stoic sovereignty. Nature has a slower rhythm and the ability to accept itself as it is. Humans may be the only form of life that truly doesn’t like itself. We’re always needing to fix something. When we’re not scurrying around trying to compete with life, we’re scurrying around our mind trying to fix our selves. I had a friend who, when we woke up in the morning, would lay frowning in consternation. A part of her mind was like a searchlight scanning the fog for danger. Once spotted, she would turn to me in excitement and a conversation, usually painful, would ensue. Much of this behavior was instigated by her extreme intelligence. She obsessed about the dangers of life, the germs, the politics, the climate, all because she could hold those things in her mind and still get thru a working day. All of her worries were well placed. But unmediated information serves to obscure the simple beauty of life. The music of life needs silence for us to hear.
Of course, it is exactly this worry over the very real dangers that arise within and around us, that has allowed our ascendency to the top of the chain. However, along the way, we have sometimes missed the love, joy and goodness that can nurture and replenish our spirit. That love is nurturing the earth all around us. This becomes evident with the passing of winter. Rituals, such as Easter, Passover, Holi in India, Songkran in Southeast Asia, the Japanese cherry blossom festival Hanami and the various iterations of the Spring Equinox celebrate the rebirth of life. These rituals employ flowers, dance, and in many traditions, of course, eggs. Eggs are the ubiquitous symbol of birth. Humorist Bill Hicks felt hiding eggs was a random way to celebrate Easter and suggested we might just as well hide Lincoln Logs to signify the story of Jesus. But painted eggs in our culture are remnants of ancient human traditions that mark the rebirth of life.
Buddhists mark Vesak on a lunar designation in May. With customary Buddhist economy Vesak serves as the commemoration of the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha. This is an interesting principle. It is a very Buddhist idea to see death and birth as integral to a whole understanding of life. This is perhaps echoed in Christianity with the crucifixion which is commemorated just days before the rebirth. Buddhists conflate this further believing we begin dying as soon as we are born. I saw Zigar Kongtrul teach on this at Karme Choling in Vermont. He asked the students how many had accepted death at the end of their life. About half the room raised their hands. And then he asked how many of us accepted that we were dying right now, at this very moment? Most hands lowered. Buddhists feel it is important to acknowledge our dying, because with awareness we can overcome the fear of death. Fear of death is thought to underlie all other fears. Buddhists employ practices and contemplations to slowly, over time, loosen the fearful panic we have around this inevitable part of life. In this way, if we can accept death we release ourselves to more fully appreciate life. Many of us accept death as the finality of life. But death is all around us alongside life each moment. And every life leads to another. Every breath we take is one less breath we will ever take. Yet, each moment we experience is itself dying and leading to the next moment. If we look closely at our experience, such as in meditation, we will likely see that thoughts are dying and being born continually.
Very soon after this writing, a star will explode and be visible for a time in the night sky. But this has already happened. In fact, it happened 3,000 years ago. The light from the exploding star will take that long to reach us. If we look into the sky, we are seeing the past. Some of the stars we marvel over have long passed. There are powerful telescopes that are exposing our history in the sky. Some are even seeing almost to the very birth of the universe. Yet, as though there is a cosmic firewall we haven’t yet seen it’s actual inception. So, we believe in a creator, or a big bang to make sense of life. But all we can see is there is life and there is death. There was darkness and then light. Or better said, there was no light until, at some point, there was.
So what happened before that? In fact, what happened before our present thought? Buddhist believe there are seeds planted with each thought, each life and every moment in between that lead to the formation of the next thought. As we sow so shall we reap. Apples fall to the earth, dissolve and their seeds give birth to the next tree. But, apple seeds don’t grow into orange trees. So, there is a continuum of life that is continually dying and rebirthing itself. Something is carried down through each iteration. Thus the Buddhist notion of reincarnation is a much more natural process than we realize. Something continues. However, that usual process is that we are ignorant of the process, believing there are no practical causes to the conditions we experience. But the process of enlightenment is rolling away the stone, removing ignorance, and discovering the causes and conditions of our experience. We can take responsibility for this experience and sow seeds that will lead toward compassion, caring and a grander state of being. Or, we can continue to wander through time and space randomly without the lights on.
Hindus speak of Brahma, Krishna and Shiva as the creator, sustainer and destroyer. This describes the cycle of life with each element equal and interconnected. All of this is natural and simple. However, our minds can complicate anything when we make it about “ME”. I am ME and this is all there is. And with that proclamation we give birth to ego. And as we birth ego, we destroy truth. The belief in ourselves as the center of everything eclipses any awareness of the reality to which we are connected. Because of this isolation, we are alone and searching a void for completeness. And in this way, we are creating life that is dead. The path to enlightenment is one that parts the veils of ego and brings us into the light of life. In the light, we see we are part of everything around us. We can relax as we are part of this miraculous web of life and birth and living and death. This is who we are. And when we see this, it is a rebirth. We are reimagining our life in every moment. And in this way, we are sowing seeds of goodness that will help guide the future iterations of ourselves.
Each moment is a rebirth, when we become aware. Awareness is an extraordinary thing. It is a moment of divinity. And at each moment we are aware, we are blessed by the power of the present. We can choose to be reborn in love every moment. This is not a hero’s journey. It is very ordinary. Just like life itself.
DHYANA PARAMITA
RENUNCIATION WITH OPEN HANDS
OFFERING ATTACHMENT
After years of study, training and ascetic discipline, the Buddha began a 49-day yogic meditation fast. During this time, he gained mastery over his body and attained relative mental clarity. But, as he was at the point of death, he did not have the strength to fully cross over into awakenment. Perhaps knowing that his work was not about his own accomplishment, but that his quest would be to reach a state that would allow him to help others, he broke his vow and accepted a bowl of rice from a young woman. It wasn’t until he accepted this sustenance that he had the strength to attain full realization.
Upon awakening, the Buddha saw the interwoven systems of causes and conditions that ensnare beings. Caught in an endless web of confusion, we are unable to see ourselves and are therefore unable to find a way out of the confusion. So, without a path to recovery, many of us wander in the twilight of ignorance. Trying to escape pain, we attach to false remedies, sensual pleasures and ideologies that only serve to lead us into further suffering. Strangely, this acceptance of pain and suffering had given the Buddha a deep serenity. It seems that acknowledging the problems we face is a necessary first step in calming the anxieties we experience. Taken by his deep serenity, many seekers came to him, and urged him to teach. He was unsure how to proceed until he developed a plan to speak to people as they were without the artifice of religious doctrines, social structures, or philosophical framing. He chose to start at the beginning. The first step was to recognize the common problem. All beings suffer.
Beginning with this first step, Buddha developed a system of recovery from the attachments that bind us. He urged his followers to follow a step-by-step process to loosen their imprisonment. I am a sentient being and I experience pain. The buddha taught that although pain was an inescapable – even necessary – part of life, we compounded that pain into great suffering by trying to escape it, or believing we were somehow above pain. “I’m too sexy for my suffering.” And then we feel betrayed when the inevitable happens. We blamed the world, our god, or ourselves for our pain and so created a universe of blame and retribution. Ignorance of this basic condition lead us to a variety of suffering from domestic violence to global warfare.
However, the Buddha saw there was the possibility of cessation of our suffering. Pain was inevitable, but suffering was a choice. Buddha felt it important to see where we were making that choice. If we were to train the mind to accept responsibility for our suffering, we could train our body, speech, and mind toward its cessation. Buddha then laid out an 8-fold path to liberation that led his adherents to renounce attachment to the people, places and things that kept them in darkness. Renunciation was not intended as a punishment for an original sin. In Buddhist thought, we are born perfect, but psychological and societal gravity pulls us away from our natural state. In Buddhism, renunciation is means to turn our minds from the attachments that bind us to liberation. Anything to which we are attached, we are bound to. All of us are bound to things that are important to us, such as our family. But what are the things we are attached to that take too high a toll on our freedom. What are the things in our life that keep us on a path to liberation, and what are the things that are keeping us bound to ignorance? In Buddhism we call tis learning what to accept and what to reject. And to that end, the Buddha developed a system of conduct called the Vinaya. The purpose of the Vinaya was to offer followers a structure to allow them to distance themselves from the people, places, thoughts, and things that supported their suffering. In order to recognize and renounce attachments that were unhealthy, vows were recommended to refrain from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and intoxication. Over the years, as the Sangha grew, and lay persons and people whose lives offered less capacity for strict adherence came to follow the path, these rules became guidelines open to interpretation. In fact, a primary principle of Buddhism is that the means should never upstage the purpose.
The Buddha taught that our lives were in transition. So, to reduce our life down to false binaries is impractical and incorrect. The point of the Buddha’s early teaching was self-liberation. The method was to follow a path toward that end. The tools helped to free us from the addiction to our attachments so we can see clearly. But the methods are intended to support the path, hence the methods are provisional. Methods are variable. They work as long as they work. But we are instructed not to mistake the finger pointing to the moon as the moon itself.
Therefore, as the Buddha’s teachings developed, the methods changed. Zen Buddhism is different from Vajrayana Buddhism, which is different from Theravada. Buddhism in the west is its own expression. The commonality to all of these expressions is that they are rooted in the belief that we are born as we should be and our lives can be led by a path positioned toward greater awareness of ourselves and our world. Each expression of Buddhism has its own methods. It is considered a rookie mistake to be an unwavering adherent to any method. Renunciation is not abstinence. Renunciation stepping back from an attachment in order to see more clearly. Sometimes this happens all at once, and sometimes incrementally. Renunciation may require abstinence in some cases. or for some period for those who cannot work safely with the person, place, or thing. There is no shame in that. But abstinence is not the point. The point is liberation. And liberation is not another jail we place ourselves in. Liberation is the vast space beyond our imprisonment that we can grow into.
Another commonality to the schools of Buddhism is the application of the middle way free of extremes. This principle suggests that we eschew violent tendencies such as devout zealotry on one hand, or the wholesale rejection of all spirituality on the other, looking instead to the sanity of the central path. We don’t have to be the first in order to prove anything, nor the last to prove we don’t need anything. To the extremist, renunciation is al or nothing abstinence. And while that may work in some cases, it is the wrong approach in many others. Buddhism is above all practical. So, we have to define where it is our path is leading. If we are heading toward liberation then slow even steps, with great forgiveness is best. Some say progress instead of perfection. Perfectionism is a great way to build ego.
So, the Buddha broke his fast to attain the strength to gain full awareness. Likewise, many Tibetan people eat meat when their metabolisms require it. There is scant vegetation at 16,000 feet and red meat is important for the long winters. And just as Tibetan Buddhists broke from some Indian traditions, so later generations who have grown up in India or the west are breaking Tibetan traditions by going back to vegetarianism. Times change. So, methods change. What thus far has remained constant is that the path begins with acknowledgment of our suffering, its cause, and the possibility of its cessation, and continues with further refinement of our experience to great understanding of ourselves and our world. Renunciation is an important tool. It is “the foot of meditation, as is taught.” But that tool is there to guide us toward all the things we might become when we’re no longer attached to the things that bind us. In this light, the 5 precepts are considered as acknowledgements for lay persons. That when strict abstinence is impractical we pause and consider. If we decide we can safely include alcohol in our lives, we might pause before each glass and remember that this is a powerful substance that requires our attention. If our intention is t o enjoy our life, we might resolve to keep our attention throughout the evening. If, on the other hand, we are not clear of our intention, then we get what providence gives us. For people who decide that abstinence is best it is not recommended that we realize that others have the freedom to make their own choices and follow their own path, remembering that abstinence is just tool for our personal liberation, not a law for the world to follow. Abstinence is a sometimes necessary shut door. It is saying no. I give this up because it no longer has a place in my life. Renunciation is an offering, an opening to the path. We offer this as a way of saying yes to everything else.
There were two monks from a strictly adherent order walking back from the market. They came upon a woman standing before a river, who was too slight to wade across. One of the monks offered to carry her over, and did so. On the other side, she thanked them and went about her way. The monks headed in the other direction and walked for a time in silence. Finally, the monk who had abstained from helping the woman was unable to contain himself. “You broke your vow by touching that woman!” he yelled, his face turning redder than his robes. The other monk smiled and replied, “I let he go back at the river. Though it seems you are still carrying her.”
WHO’S RUNNING THIS SHIP, ANYWAY?
The great farce played upon our thinking is the uninvestigated assumption that we exist. Or more specifically, that we believe ourselves to be a permanent, independent being. Despite evidence that life is unpredictable, we act as though this was not the case. We just assume we are as we think we are. And that assumption leads to the greatest folly of all – we believe we are in control. We believe we are the bozo driving the bus, despite our GPS being disconnected.
I tend to live life from one project to the next, believing that -despite all prior experience- this time I will get it right. This diet, this financial plan, this meditation, this love. Especially this love. True Love. That’s the one that gets me. Each love I fall into becomes my center of being. I have always failed to see that my relationship to loving has all the hallmarks of classic addiction. In his masterwork, The Art of Loving, psychologist Erich Fromm defined “true love” as two people who were both ready for the same thing at the same time. He specifically nudged the reader away from the idea that we were part of something special. But, despite the slight-of-hand of hormonal urges, true love is not destiny. True love, like life itself, is a random occurrence that happened to succeed. Life is opportunistic. Einstein famously said, “God doesn’t play dice with the universe”. It seems, even a thinker as profoundly creative as Albert still searched for the occasional guarantee. If the universe doesn’t play dice it may be because dice only has 36 outcomes. The perplexing game of Go that has kept humans intrigued for 4,000 years, has less than 11,000 possible outcomes. If the universe is playing with us, It is using a much more vast and complex system than any game our brains can presently conjure. And, yet, within that ocean of possibility, we find that apple trees always breed apple trees. This interesting paradox is central to our existential being. Life is random and there are repetitive patterns throughout.
So perhaps there is a pattern to the chaos? So far in our development, humans have always bred humans. But the configuration of any human psychology is a mix of recognizable patterns and random occurrence. In general, we will cling to familiar patterns and ignore possibility. In fact, strangely, we will cling to painful patterns rather than look to an undiscovered alternative. Or even, a newer pattern that brings relief from the pain. It has been said that the mind needs 90 days to fully change a pattern. And this, all the while knowing we must change. We could be killing ourselves and yet our survival instinct, as powerful as it is, is hijacked by some nefarious conditioned need. When we are enthralled in the euphoria of addiction, crawling down the mole hole in fear, or habitually trying to milk pleasure from stones, we are blinded to the alternatives. We mistake the moment for the fantasy, as we compulsively perform the same experiment again and again. And we know what Albert said about that.
Perhaps, God is playing a shell game. Despite astronomical odds of being, once life occurs, it believes itself to be the center of all things. In our small part of the universe, once conceived, we created an uberbeing fashioned after ourselves – replete with similar attributes, gender and political affiliations. Then we knew we were at the center of the universe and that everything was going according to plan. Ironically, feeling we were the center of all things, separated us from each other and the universe altogether. You see, when we believe we are the center of the universe, our life, or our family, then everything around us is only a projection. We see what we believe, which is to say, we see nothing but ourselves. And on some basic level this is very lonely. On some basic level, below all the games we play to keep us occupied, we are naked, cold and lonely. Because of this, we cling to all the tangible things that we feel provide us surety. And as we can reach out and touch these things, we feel to be in control, and so we never look beyond ourselves. We never see that if we were the center of anything it was the “vicious wheel of quivering meat conception” as Kerouac called samsara. We believe that the next thing we grasp will be the real thing and, although we’ve reached for that very thing time and time again, next time we’ll get there.
But, it’s our choice isn’t it? I mean it’s my life, I can run in circles if I like.
Trungpa Rinpoche called this the “myth of freedom.” Spinning on the wheel of samsara can be exhilarating. It can keep us so occupied we never have to see how naked, alone or frightened we really are. But, what happens when the wheel stops? One of the most frightening things, existentially speaking, is space. But just as “Steamboat Willie” is comforting to us, they are an imaginary narrative based on quickly flickering frames. Moving pictures move so quickly we believe it’s actually happening. Movies create the illusion of life by flickering 23 still-images a second, too fast for our eyes to see the s p a c e between each frame. But that space provides a glimpse into the possibility beyond. And that space is a crack in the belief systems we establish to prove we exist. In this way, our anxiety drives us relentlessly forward. Flickering images create the illusion that we are steering the ship.
In the same way, we believe we must steer the ship, lest we fall in and drown. But we may be holding the wheel so tightly, we never see that the ocean we’re steering across is an endless sea of undefinable change.
THE BURNING CHILD
HEALING THE BROKEN PLACES
The child that is not embraced by the village will burn it down just to feel its warmth.
– African proverb
In a culture conditioned to a linear understanding of causes and conditions we assign blame to a problem, focusing our ire on the object of blame. In extreme cases, we might describe a perpetrator as inhuman, animalistic, or assign them superhuman attributes such as being “pure evil” or “monstrous.” In any case, we are protected from implicating ourselves in the problem.
When emotions run high, the fear mind takes over and latches onto simple answers. And naturally, we believe we are right. This feeling of righteousness wants retribution and dismisses the inclusion of societal and familial issues as pandering snowflakery. The Buddha spoke of Karma as the law of cause and effect. He also spoke of the interdependence of every event to all else. Despite conditioned tendencies toward black and white binaries, the Buddha saw that the causes of any event are myriad and nuanced. This would seem frustrating to the raging defensive mind latching onto rightandwrong. But a reactive mind is generally devoid of nuance or compassion. Compassion doesn’t mean kindness to those who’ve caused harm. It means understanding those who cause harm.
When we assign blame, we are forcing reality into a binary. A binary which has ourselves and our value systems as the prime arbiter. This is good and evil from the way we see it. And the angrier we become the narrower our focus. This might be a factor in why people of color are incarcerated at higher rates than whites in our predominantly white culture. When we are seeing it our way, what of those who don’t conform? But is this willed ignorance only creating time bombs? What are we missing when we push some aside? And are those shadowed voices so needing to be heard that they will grow in ire until they erupt in violence? The Buddhist teachings on compassion are unequivocal in their directives that we see beyond our parochial beliefs and begin to understand others. Are we able to step back and see those we demonize? Only recently, a court found the parents of a son accused of gun violence as culpable. Was this a groundbreaking step in widening perspective or was it just shifting the binary? Looking at the home, looking at the school, looking at the community and looking at the gun communities and legislation tied to the influence of economic pressure are all ways that violence is interconnected. So, as the Buddha taught, Karma is complicated. Then how do we manage the overwhelming preponderance of information that is karmic cause and condition?
What can we do?
Blame is not doing. Nor are platitudes. Nor are promises. How do we begin right here right now? We all have a child, either in our family or in our heart, who needs care and support. But are we listening? Or are we shunting the child aside as we are consumed by our busy lives? Are we in fact ashamed of the child? Are we embarrassed by the snowflakery of caring for an inner child? All too often in our society and our heart we are pushing the children away. Ignoring the most potent and important part of the village. In many indigenous cultures, villages cared for their children. This not only created homecare for stressed parents, but also allowed a wider perspective for the child to grow. This wider perspective also helped to moderate any neurosis the caregiver might pass on the child. A village based on community is self-healing and co-supportive. In this way the child can grow with freedom to become healthy versions of themselves, not reactive copies of a copy of their parents. In some cultures, criminals and those with mental illness were taken into counsel with the elders of the community. This is a healing circle. The view is that connection is healing and isolation, whether by social ostracism or mental evasion, encourages infirmity. The places we hide in our mind may be protective. But they are also places we fail to grow. They are the burning children of our hearts waiting to be heard, held, and understood.
A view of compassion may be that we have the capacity to be our own village. And maybe we can extend our view outward and see others as ourselves. We are all hurting and unheard. Maybe by awareness we can begin to see and heal the places within ourselves that are keeping us in darkness. And maybe we can learn to give expression to the wounded children that so desperately need our love. One way to illuminate the darkness is to burn the village. Another way is to touch the heart and allow that child to be accepted as they are before that happens. Perhaps the flames of anger can be softened into the warmth of compassion.
Compassion can be seen as the transformation of hatred into empathy. We don’t have to fear the flames. We can hold them and allow their rage to soften into warmth.
The picture is from photo sessions for the album WAR by U2.