Amazing how little we know

Amazing how much time we spend defining and defending our selves, selves we know so little about, selves we can't actually define or defend because they are not what they appear to be. So much illusion and hope and emotion we carry, and how those illusions and hopes and emotions prevent even lasting happiness and protection even on a personal level.

At the center of life

The essential life-giving vitality of land and community. The good of praying and acting in support of those protecting them. Nothing is more important.

Compensating for illusion

"The danger of [an illusion], because there's nothing there, is to overreact -- to that which isn't there. You're compensating for its absence."

~ Ben Kingsley, in an interview in the Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2013

Kindness and sorrow

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

~ from "Kindness" by Naomi Shihab Nye

The Four Immeasurables

Also known as the brahma-viharas: kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.

• Friendliness toward oneself and others, wishing well: safety, health, success, happiness, peace. 

• Empathy for pain and suffering, and wishing oneself and others be free of it.

• Appreciating the good in the world, rejoicing in happiness and success, one’s own and others’.

• Clear and balanced in pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral experience, with friends, strangers, and enemies.

The bliss and stillness of stable attention (shamatha) and the clarity of insight (vipsahyana) are compelling, and extraordinarily helpful. But without doubt caring for others and appreciating the good also lead to the deepest insight, happiness, peace, and freedom.

HERE is a traditional method for cultivating the four immeasurables. And HERE is a one-page version.

Enjoy, with gentle persistence...

Integrating the flow

Gentle, accommodating, integrating awareness, grounded in the body... just noticing what you notice. No need to edit, filter, or rearrange... just catching glimpses of how your actual experience arises as a flowing changing mix of sensations, feelings, thoughts, stories, impulses, and behaviors. Trusting awareness... trusting the flow of experience... 

"No one steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and they are not the same person." 
~ Heraclitis

Potential and power

Inwardly alert, open, calm

Outwardly upright, extended, filled with spirit

This is the foundation of [potential]

Add the hard and soft

        the [dynamic] and the relaxed

        motion and stillness

        contraction and extension

In the instant these converge there is power


~ Grand Master Wang Xiang Zhai

Psychology, politics

Meditation practice deconstructs dysfunctional psychological structures and behavioral patterns.

Activist practice deconstructs dysfunctional social and political structures and institutional patterns.

Meditation and activism at first they seem separate, even conflicting, but they are complementary -- intertwined and mutually supporting.

Rising or Entering?

We cannot transcend emotions or our humanity. We can transform our conflict with our humanity, to become more human, completely human, by entering our experience more fully. To do so takes a heart willing to engage the ceaseless transformation of things, one of which is ourselves ~ a ceaseless flow of experience arising.

Good news

What appears to be permanent is always changing.
What appears to be separate is intimately connected.
Know that ~ and what appears confined is freed,
and what arises as suffering becomes peace and joy.

Both And

The Lankavatara Sutra says:  Samsara is like an illusion or a dream ~ and karma is relentless.

Nonviolence

Principles from the Metta Center for Nonviolence (mettacenter.org):

Fight injustice, not people. Everyone deserves respect; the point is not to “win,” but to build relationships.

Nonviolence will always improve things down the line; violence—of any kind—will always make them worse.

Basic human needs are universal; at the root of every conflict a “win-win” solution is possible.

Each of us has a piece of the truth, none of us has the whole truth.

Never show disrespect to another’s person—or accept it yourself. Nobody can degrade you without your permission.

The willingness to take on suffering rather than inflict it and relentless persistence in a right cause bring out the power of nonviolence.

Nonviolence has two modes: in obstructive program we stand in the way of wrongdoing—in constructive program we lead the way in creating solutions.

Never give up on another human being. If you assume people are rational, it helps to awaken their rationality.

Cling to essentials (like your human dignity); be willing to compromise on anything else (especially if it’s just a symbol).

Do not yield to threats. Ask yourself: “What are they holding over me?” Renounce that, and you are free.

When nonviolence succeeds there are no losers; gloating over “victories” can actually undo what we have gained by nonviolent action.

Light, Space, Flow

Space opens up when we recognize that things are not permanent or solid or fixed.

Compassion remembers the suffering that comes from not recognizing.

The light of awareness and the light of compassion are the same light.

Seeing that things are empty of permanence and solidity, compassion arises.

With compassion for oneself and others, insight arises.

Gaining confidence in compassion and awareness, faith arises: all experience is flowing and flexible, an unceasing interaction between beings inherently sensitive and responsive.

Insight and Compassion

Perceptions, which never existed in themselves, are mistaken for objects; 
Awareness itself, because of ignorance, is mistaken for a self; 
Through the power of dualistic fixation I wander in the realm of existence. 
May ignorance and confusion be completely resolved. 
~ Rangjung Dorje, Aspirations for Mahamudra (trans. Ken McLeod)

When we know the actual nature of what's arising, we can make choices that lead to freedom and happiness rather than choices that lead to struggle and suffering.

We look into what’s arising and we see that it’s actually just a flow of passing sensations, feelings, stories, and actions. What appear to be “real objects” are actually just "external" sense perceptions. What appear to be “real emotions” and “true thoughts” are just "internal" experiences. 

When you can relax and settle into the unceasing flow of sensations, feelings, and stories, then try looking into what experiences. Look at a sensation or a feeling or a thought. Then look at what experiences that sensation, feeling, or thought. 

"What is aware" is actually just another experience. We habitually mistake awareness for a self, but it turns out to be a compelling combination of sensations, feelings, and stories. 

The "self" is empty of permanence and solidity. The “self” is also empty of separateness: it always arises in the context of a situation, in interaction with an “object” or another "self." 

Is this not true? Don’t just analyze or try to determine whether these are logical statements. Test again and again how your experience actually arises. Be sure, in your own direct experience. 

Our senses of self come and go, depending on the situation or role we’re in. We walk into work and become a colleague or employee. We get together with friends and become another particular self. We interact with family and another self arises -- a father or mother or son or daughter or sibling. 

We habitually mistake the passing experience(s) of "self" for something solid, some thing that needs to be defined and defended. Lots of suffering there. 

When we really see and understand the nature of suffering, how it arises from confusion and clinging and aversion, we care about what happens. In insight practice we are not trying to generate a particular sensation or feeling or thought; we are trying to see clearly (vipashyana), to know the actual nature of all experiences, so that we can free ourselves from the confusion, attachment, and aversion that create so much suffering for ourselves and others. 

Of course if we don’t notice the suffering, or we don’t care about it, we may not have the incentive to look deeply. So alongside insight practice is the equally (or more) important practice of interacting with others in the world: the practice of kindness, compassion, generosity, ethics. Insight leads to compassion. Compassion leads to insight. 

Neither insight nor compassion are complete unless the other arises. If we focus exclusively on compassion, we may take things too seriously and end up embroiled in trying to save or fix the world. If we focus exclusively on insight, we can take things too seriously and end up lost in a tangle of thoughts, or pursue special states of mind. Better to practice insight with the motivation of compassion, and practice compassion with clarity of insight.

Fool

"It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."

~ Mark Twain

Especially when they have fooled themselves.

Bugs in A Bowl

by David Budbill

Han-shan, that great and crazy, wonder-filled
Chinese poet of a thousand years ago, said:
We’re just like bugs in a bowl. All day
going around never leaving their bowl.
I say: That’s right! Every day climbing up
the steep sides, sliding back.
Over and over again. Around and around.
Up and back down.
Sit in the bottom of the bowl, head in your hands,
cry, moan, feel sorry for your self.
Or. Look around. See your fellow bugs.
Walk around.
Say, Hey, how you doin’?
Say, Nice bowl!

Things Keep Happening

Many come to Buddhism because they’re suffering. Aversion to what we don't like is natural. But when we hear that “everything is empty” we shouldn’t imagine we can somehow look at things or think about things or experience things in a way that will make what we don't like disappear.

In the Theravada tradition, it’s said that every thing is empty of permanence and separateness; and if we don’t recognize that, we suffer. That means every thing arises temporarily and interdependently, and if we work with that impermanence and interdependence, we don’t struggle.

In the Tibetan traditions of mahamudra (great seal) and dzogchen (great completion) it’s taught that while everything is empty (of permanence and independence), things do arise -- clearly, vividly, unceasingly. And that’s true, right? Internal experience and external phenomena do continue to arise vividly, whether or not we recognize that what arises is empty of permanence and independence. When we don’t recognize the nature of what arises, we struggle and suffer. When we do recognize the nature of what arises, we work within impermanence (change!) and interdependence (influence!), and we get along with a minimum of confusion and struggle.

When we recognize that everything is impermanent and interdependent, we come to appreciate the power of confusion (it makes us struggle and suffer) and of clarity (it releases us from struggle and suffering). We begin to unravel and let go of our habits of confusion and reaction, and we can give others a little more space to unravel their habits too.

Even our sense(s) of self are impermanent and dependent. We walk into the office and become an employee or a colleague. We walk into the mall and become a customer buying stuff. We walk into the house and become a spouse or parent or child. We run into a relative or old school mate and childhood patterns immediately arise. When we recognize that selves always arise in relation to others, we are freed of at least some of the confusion and clinging that lead to conflict and suffering.

So there’s no such a thing as Emptiness. There is an experience when we see that things actually lack the apparent characteristics  (permanence, independence, ultimate satisfaction) that we had projected upon them. That experience can at first be shocking, dismaying, disillusioning -- but in world of change and interdependence, there is a previously unimagined freedom and flexibility. Like all experiences, this freedom is also dependent on conditions, at least in the beginning. The experience of freedom depends on paying attention and being willing to drop the self-defining and self-defending that lead to struggle and suffering.

Recognizing that things are empty of permanence and independence is a good thing. Just don’t pretend that experience and things don’t arise and don’t matter! And don’t go looking for a thing called Emptiness. Nagarjuna said those who believe in the apparent solid, separate existence of things are stupid, like cows, but those who believe in Emptiness are even stupider. Don't get tangled up trying to find Emptiness, or trying to get rid of anything. Just keep testing your everyday experience: Is there any experience or object that is permanent? Or independent of causes and conditions? Be sure... because confusion about that is the cause of all sorts of trouble.

Things are empty of permanence and solidity; we are free.
Things are interdependent; we are not in control.
Suffering arises; we are responsible.

Three Marks Again

Things are empty of permanence and solidity; we are free.

Things are interdependent; we are not in control.

Suffering arises; we are responsible.

Perhaps by Shu Ting

Perhaps our cares
will never have readers

Perhaps the journey that was wrong from the start
will be wrong at the end

Perhaps every single lamp we have lit
will be blown out by the gale

Perhaps when we have burned out our lives to lighten the darkness
there will be no warming fire at our sides.

Perhaps where all the tears have flowed
the soil will be richer

Perhaps when we sing of the sun
the sun will sing of us

Perhaps as the weight on our shoulders grows heavier
our faith will be more lofty

Perhaps we should shout about suffering as a whole
but keep silent over personal grief.

Perhaps
Because of an irresistible call
We have no other choice.


Translated by WJF Jenner.


From Wikipedia:
Shu Ting (Chinese: 舒婷, pinyin: Shū Tíng, born 1952 Jinjiang, Fujian) is the pseudonym of Gong Peiyu (Chinese: 龔佩瑜, pinyin: Gǒng Pèiyú), a Chinese poet. During the Cultural Revolution, she was sent to the countryside, (because her father was accused of ideological nonconformity), until 1973. Back in Fujian, she had to work at a cement factory, a textile mill, and a lightbulb factory. She began to write poetry in 1969 and her work was published in several literary magazines. Her poetry began to appear in the underground literary magazine Jīntiān (Today). In the early 1980s, she achieved prominence as the leading female representative of the Misty Poets. Her first collection, Shuangwei chuan appeared in 1982, as did a joint-collection with Gu Cheng. She was asked to join the official Chinese Writers' Association, and won the National Outstanding Poetry Award in 1981 and 1983. During the "anti-spiritual pollution" movement that was launched in 1983, she, like other writers that were thought to be subversive by the state, was heavily criticised. Following this she published two collections with poetry: Hui changge de yiweihua and Shizuniao.

Sonnet by Feng Chih

We stand together on top of a towering mountain
Transforming ourselves into the immense sweep of view,
Into the unlimited plain in front of us,
And into the footpaths crisscrossing the plain.

Which road, which river is unconnected, and
Which wind, which cloud is without its response?
The waters and hills we've traversed
Have all been merged in our lives.

Our births, our growth, and our sorrows
Are the lone pine standing on a mountain,
Are the dense fog blanketing a city.

We follow the blowing wind and the flowing water
To become the crisscrossing paths on the plain,
To become the lives of the travelers on the paths.


Translated by Kai-yu Hsu.

Trivia

When my head is a turmoil of trivia
   I vow with all beings
to relax in good-humored patience
as I would with a mischievous child.

~ Robert Aitken, The Dragon Who Never Sleeps

The Gong of Time by Carl Sandberg

Time says hush.
By the gong of time you live.
Listen and you hear time saying you were silent
long before you came to life and you will
again be silent long after you leave it,
why not be a little silent now?
Hush yourself, noisy little man.

Time hushes all.
The gong of time rang for you to come out of a
hush and you were born.
The gong of time will ring for you to go back to
the same hush you came from.
Winners and losers, the weak and the strong, those
who say little and try to say it well, and
those who babble and prattle their lives away,
Time hushes all.

Giving up means remaining

Giving up attachment to the world does not mean that you set yourself apart from it. Generating a desire for others to be happy increases your humanity. As you become less attached to the world, you become more humane. As the very purpose of spiritual practice is to help others, you must remain in society.

~ Dalai Lama 

Simple insight practice

Look at any experience as it arises, whether it's an "internal" sensation, feeling, or thought, or an "external" object. Just look into it, and recognize it as a sensation, feeling, thought, or perception. 

Then look at what is aware of that experience. Just look into the awareness, recognizing it as awareness. 

Try going back and forth, from the experience to the awareness, back and forth, with curiosity, to know clearly the nature of experience and awareness. 

Give happenings time...

.
"Don't rush to finish.  You don't yet know what this event is for.  Give happenings time to find themselves."

~ from Anne Herbert’s wonderful blog Peace and Love and Noticing the Details