Nirvana Here and Now

      Nirvana, like dharma, has a number of nuances in definition depending on the various schools of Buddhist thought. Some writings suggest nirvana is a place located outside the human body. However, if one takes the position that nirvana is a state or posture within one’s mind rather rather than at some distant location in time and space, then it sheds a different light on its relation to dharma and samsara.
      The meaning of the term dharma as I am using it here should be understood as the "present moment as-it-is." That is, each moment as it presents itself to the individual sans judgment, preference, or the critical analysis manifested in the process of dualistic apprehension.
       Samsara is a term used to identify the repetitive cycles of Dukkha, or suffering, each human being experiences concerning the unique nature of human consciousness; though for some, more easily identified as an omnipresent sense of dissatisfaction. In Buddhist writings it is often connected to the notion of Karma as it relates to the cycle of subsequent lifetimes reported to haunt the unenlightened.
However, my intent here is to confine my commentary to this life, and how these terms might be understood here and now.
      It is a neuro-biological function of the human senses to dissect and filter the interconnected oneness of the universe-as-it-is, into discrete entities which can then be processed by the brain. This process creates our dualistic apprehension of all sensations and as a result, we suffer. We suffer because we are continually ill-at-ease with the changing nature of this sensate world, be it physically, emotionally, or psychologically - inside or out. Or put another way, we continuously feel estranged from a deep sense of security in the face of the an ever-changing and therefore ambiguous, tentative, and frightening universe; both in and outside our bodies.
      What I am suggesting is that if nirvana is not interpreted as a location outside the mind, but rather a posture - here and now - resulting from the extinction of the root cause of our dis-ease (dualistic thinking), we will see clearly the path to liberation in this life. If we are able to undertand it as a new way of being-in-the-world, whereby we embrace or absorb the impact of the constant flow of data upon our senses with emotional and intellectual equanimity (the distinguishing characteristic of nirvana), we will be without judgment (attraction or aversion) and our suffering will be extinguished. This equanimity requires us to see deeply into the connection between four very important truths about our existence - Impermanence, Emptiness, No-self, and Dependent-Arising - and how they are manifested in our everyday life. Or in the words of Christmas Humphreys in his book, A Western Approach to Zen, (pg.182), “ Zen does not deliver us from the conditions of manifestation; it enables us to deal with them efficiently."
      If samsara is understood as simply the cyclical pattern of human suffering, ontological in nature and a main tenet of the Buddha’s teaching, then we arrive at a point where samsara can be recognized as the dharma. However, it is important as well to recognize that this existential dis-ease is not due to the nature of a changing universe, but results instead from our perspective or posture in relation to our world. Our suffering arises when we cling to our limited, myopic view of the nature of our universe. A perspective I gratefully found echoed by Professor Tucci, the authority on Tibetan Buddhism when he suggested that we, "Avoid the harshness of unyielding certainty.” If I am not awakened to the manner in which the aforementioned truths are in fact experiential facts, I will continue on the samsaric treadmill.
      That said, we must always be aware that the suffering about which the Buddha spoke is our birthright as recipients of human consciousness, and samsara is a necessary result. Nirvana however, the extinction and release from this suffering, is with us at all times. Or if I may once again quote Christmas Humphreys: “From the first moment of enlightenment the newly awakened mind uses distinction and discrimination as before but ceases to note the difference.” (ibid, pg.157)
      Nirvana, samsara, enlightenment – all these are illusions created by our dualistic mental processes. They are illusions in the sense that there is no separate, identifiable essence inherent in them (unless one chooses to identify this essence as their referents). They are as “fingers pointing to the moon” – thoughts or ideas that represent something, and in this case, a process; a path out of the woods.

  “Posture is everything.” - Japanese Zen master, Shunryu Suzuki

You Can't Love Something You Need

      At first light this may seem a bit confusing. However after I gave it some serious thought, it really made a lot of sense depending of course, on what you mean by love. Most people want to love, or be loved by another, in order to fulfill some need of their own. Perhaps the need is quite subtle and requires more than a wee bit of introspection.
      After considerable effort to be open to my own needs in past relationships, I was able to see the accuracy of the statement. I came to realize that my experience of love was tinged with more than a little selfishness, and that this is by definition, an attachment to self. I was able to see how it precludes us from allowing our beloved the freedom not only to be who they are today, but to grow and to change over time. To be needed means the beloved is needed in a particular way; they are required to fulfill the needs of their lover. This kind of loving is based on filling needs, wants, expectations, or desires for me rather than being based on my honoring and thereby loving you.
      More often than not this kind of relating requires you to complete me by assuaging my emptiness in order to receive love from me. It really isn’t love at all, but rather a dependency on my part, which will restrict your freedom as a human being based on my needs. In this situation attachment and need are synonymous. Krishnamurti made a similar pronouncement when he cautioned his readers that "One cannot love what one is attached to."
      Stewart Emery expressed a less self-sentered perspective when he wrote, "Love is when I am concerned with your relationship with your own life, rather than with your relationship to mine." Real love might similarly be understood as a state wherein one honors the beloved as a total package: as valuable just as they are. To care for another sans my need for feeling wanted, being taken care of, or in some way lifting me beyond the limits of my own abilities. This is not to desparage the fact that these may be secondary outcomes of any relationship. If so, all the better for it. But true love is not about an attachment to having my needs met in a relationship above the needs of my beloved. Through real love I am able to value my beloved's freedom to change or to grow over time.
      How does one nurture this posture within oneself? I think it all begins with cultivating an awareness of what those needs are for me and being committed to taking responsibility for an open dialogue with myself as well as the one I love regarding my feelings in spite of any fear of vulnerability. Anything less is an evasion of my own tacit attachments, precludes equanimity, and fosters dissatisfaction through the "rebirthing" of previous sufferings.
      And in the words of Walt Whitman, ".......re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your soul, and your flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body… You shall go directly to the creation. Your trust shall master the trust of everything you touch… and shall master all attachment."

An Insight Revisited

October 29, 2006 Sunday, SDRC

      The retreat ended today. Our final assignment was to divide into pairs and tell our partner what insight we were going to take away from this retreat. I spoke about my difficulty with compassion. I shared my realization that the righteous indignation I feel and the anger I project out at different people, and the ideas or views they support, is because I feel powerless, sad, angry, or in some way suffer because of it. The anger I feel toward the treatment of hunting dogs, or even the hunting itself, causes me to suffer as a result of the feelings that arise from the thoughts I have about these issues. And in order to avoid the suffering that arises from my aversion, I get angry. The result is that I get a false sense of power. It is a power derived from an attitude of righteous indignation and will always superimpose itself over an experience of sadness or painful emotions.
      I came to recognize that as long as I continue to operate in this manner I will be unable to have real compassion for the animals, the hunters, and even myself. And that any skillful action on my part will be out of range. To have real compassion one must stand in the middle between the two feelings and be able to feel for both sides; a posture of equanimity. Otherwise I am simply aligning myself with one side or the other. And I will be forever separated from being able extend loving-kindness or skillfully administer compassionate action . Compassion needs equanimity not self righteous anger which is actually an avoidance reaction.

Earlier Thoughts On That Illusory Tree (SDRC 2006)

      I’m not sure how it happened. I was just standing there leaning against the truck and I realized that I cannot describe a tree, for instance, without “me”. What do I mean when I say without “me?” I’m referring to that entity that all of us refer to as “me.” When we say, "It‘s you and me," "Do you want to go with me?" or "That’s just me."
      In Robert Kennedy’s book, Zen Gifts to Christians, he says, "The self is the sum of its functions in the present moment.” In similar fashion, I think when we refer to me, the mind is employing the sum total of all that we have learned, and this in turn manifests in our thoughts as the notion of  "I." This aggregate of experiences referred to as I or me is comprised of all that we have learned - memory - and we access this information (or stated another way - we have an awareness of “I”) when consciousness processes our past visceral and mental experience. It is the manifestation of a reflective consciousness; it is a metaphor of sorts. I become the actor in all those recalled experiential moments.
      So I then tried to imagine how would I describe the object commonly referred to as a tree without using previously learned words or ideas, and realized that I could not. This led immediately to the realization that in nature there is no such thing as a tree. There is that which we have labeled a tree but the word, the name, does not describe anything. It simply denotes an entity we commonly agree to call, or refer to as, a "tree." A valuable asset to be sure, but not the whole story.
      It further occurred to me that this is true of all things in our world. If we were to look out into a forest without our memories, words, and teachings, what would we see? There have been any number of words meant to represent just such a thing; “Suchness”, the “One” perhaps, or “No-Thing." And it seemed clear that without “me” the world is something quite different than the one into which the I is born, lives, and ultimately passes through. Therefore it is true that we, as human beings, create the world in which we live. Our world is created in and by our mind, and it is what is referred to in Buddhist literature as the Relative world. There is also, and at the same time, the Absolute world, and it includes all that is in our Relative world and more. However, this Absolute world is void of all the separate images created within a dualistic mind.
      While all this may seem rather trivial or obvious to some, for me it opened the door into asking, "Then what is beyond the limited, dualistic perception of the world around us?" It allowed me to see what the esoteric teachings in Zen were pointing toward. That all things are connected in “Oneness” and that in this regard, even the use of the word One is superfluous. It is perhaps more reasonable to say that all things are “part of the Oneness that has no name." There is nothing apart from that complete wholeness which would require a distinguishing label, so to do so makes no sense.
      Now all this is certainly not new to any student of Zen as I said, but what interested me was that I found a new way to grasp the idea of Emptiness. It was to attempt to describe all things in the universe without using the labels we have learned and agreed upon to communicate a description of reality. In truth all the descriptions which we accept as representing reality, are nothing more than illusions. Illusions because they are accurate only in the relative world of the human senses. In the absence of the human mind there are none of the separate things we call our world. Ultimate or absolute reality is empty of all the separating boundaries that our mind creates. The universe beyond the boundaries of our dissecting mind is empty - yet missing nothing. It is empty of us.

On Karma

      The following excerpts are from What The Buddha Taught, by Walpola Rahula. All italics, parentheses, and comments in red indicate my perspectives or additions, not the thoughts of the author.
      Rahula writes, “What we call death is the total non-functioning of the physical body. Do all these forces and energies stop altogether? ‘No.’ Will, volition, desire, thirst to exist, to continue, to become more and more, is a tremendous force that moves whole lives, whole existences, that even moves the whole world….According to Buddhism, this force does not stop with the non-functioning of the body, which is death; but it continues manifesting itself in another form, producing re-existence which is called rebirth.”
      My perspective on this, as I have noted before, is that the whole idea of an after-life is for me a non-issue since all queries into this matter are mediated by a physical brain that cannot process metaphysical data, as the definition would indicate. It is capable of imagining something however, and for that we have an extraordinary mind. We are masters of creation. We create theories about all those aspects of our existence about which we feel fear or uncertainty. We try to explain and make certain our understanding of all things about which we feel uncertain and therein make us fearful. Ambiguity is not our friend.
      The drawback to any certainty which arises from these speculations is that they do not necessarily reflect a natural fact. They are based on the proper and healthy functioning and the limitations of our physical mind. And they remain but mere speculation.
      This is not to say that our ability to create solutions to the physically based problems of our material existence isn't valuable. Surely we would not have evolved as we have to this point without this gift (which, in any case, may be argued as mere hubris on our part). In this arena we are the "great lord of all things" in the words of Alexander Pope. But when it comes to speculating on the imagined aspects of what is unknowable to the functioning of the human mind, we are "yet prey to all."
      It is for this reason that I suggest that the perspective put forth here by the Venerable Rahula is easily understood as a workable understanding of the process of karma in ones search for the cessation of suffering in this life. In short, I read the term “rebirth” here to be pointing to “a rebirth" of a series of forces or energies in future lives (of others) as a result of our interactions with those others.

      Rahula goes on to say, “Now another question arises: If there is no permanent, unchanging entity or substance like Self or Soul (atman), what is it that can re-exist or be reborn after death? Before we go on to the life after death, let us consider what this life is, and how it continues now. What we call life, as we have so often repeated, is the combination of the Five Aggregates, a combination of physical and mental energies. These are constantly changing; they do not remain the same for two consecutive moments. Every moment they are born and they die, ‘When the aggregates arise, decay and die, O bhikkhu, every moment you are born, decay, and die.’ Prmj I(PTS), p.78”
      “Thus, even now during this life time, every moment we are born and die, but we continue. If we can understand that in this life we can continue without a permanent, unchanging substance like Self or Soul, why can’t we understand that those forces themselves can continue without a Self or Soul behind them after the non-functioning of the body?”
      “When this physical body is no more capable of functioning, energies do not die with it, but continue to take some other shape or form, which we call another life….Physical and mental energies which constitute the so-called being have within themselves the power to take a new form, and grow gradually and gather force to the full.”
      Remember this is speaking to the notion of Karma contained in the Buddhist cosmology and in my opinion, needn’t be swallowed whole in order to be useful in this life in the battle over the recurring visitation by our human sufferings. Karma is the continuation of the person I am in each moment, as created by my actions, in this life.

      “As there is no permanent, unchanging substance, nothing passes from one moment to the next. So quite obviously, nothing permanent or unchanging can pass or transmigrate from one life to the next. It is a series that continues unbroken, but changes every moment. The series is, really speaking, nothing but movement. It is like a flame that burns through the night; it is not the same flame or is it another. A child grows up to be a man of sixty. Certainly the man of sixty is not the same as the child of sixty years ago, nor is he another person. Similarly, a person who dies here and is reborn elsewhere is neither the same person, nor another. It is the continuity of the same series. The difference between death and birth is only a thought-moment: the last in this life conditions the first thought-moment in the so-called next life….” -or next thought, feeling, perspective, or action in the person receiving our skillful or unskillful action.“…. which in fact, is the continuity of the same series. During this life itself…one thought-moment conditions the next thought-moment…..As long as there is this thirst to be and become, the cycle of continuity (samsara) goes on. It can stop only when its driving force, this thirst, is cut off through wisdom which sees Reality, Truth, Nirvana.”
      When I understand that my attitude in this thought-moment is the foundation for my next thought-moment it should come as no surprise that my posture toward other sentient beings in any given moment will have an effect on those with whom I come in contact. If I am angry over some rumination as I walk down the street, and without realizing it I sneer at a passerby, they are sure to have a change in attitude when they experience my expression even though it had nothing to do with them. Who among us has not experienced the ill-effect of someone elses frustration or fear; and likewise for a kindness or affection received through a simple smile on the face of another. And in these instances did we not pass on in some way, the result of such an encounter? Do not others bear witness to the attitudes or demeanor with which I touch them? And in the same way do I not breed more of the same for myself in the next thought/action-moment? I have found that I can be a cause or condition for the rebirthing of whatever I bring to each thought-moment. This is the only Karma with which I need be concerned.

     

Zen and Meister Eckhert

      Meister Eckhert was a German priest and theologian thought by some to be the greatest of Christian teachers whose views were condemned as heretical by Pope John XXII. The following is taken from The Enlightened Mind edited by Stephen Mitchell pg. 108-114; Titled – Impeccable and written by Meister Eckhert (1260-1327).
      While Eckhert is a Christian theologian I want to draw attention to the similarity of what he has written here to Zen or Buddhist writings. I will take excerpts from this sermon, typed in black, and note my comments in red. Let’s begin by reading “kingdom of heaven” as “enlightenment,” Nirvana, or the kingdom of the real-Self, as you may choose. (Italics and bold type in most cases are mine.) Let's begin with this familiar Christian statement:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mathew 5:3)

      Meister Eckhert begins, “Certain people have asked me what poverty is in itself, and what a poor man is.….This is how we will answer…..a poor man is one who wants nothing and knows nothing and has nothing.”
      This sounds like Suzuki’s, Beginners Mind. Let's not forget that the "poor in spirit" in the Christian sense is blessed because that poverty of spirit allows the person to enter the kingdom of heaven. We might say that this is, at the very least a parallel if not identical with, what is pointed to when the Zen master directs his student to "become one with wanting, knowing, and having nothing," or the absence of judgment in equanimity; No-mind?

      Meister Eckhert continues, “We will now speak about these three points, and I beg you, for the love of God, to understand this truth if you can: but if you can’t understand it, don’t worry, because the truth I am going to speak about is such that only a few good people will understand it.”
      This sounds eerily similar to the idea that only an enlightened mind can truly comprehend the words (Koans, aphorisms, or even actions) of the one who speaks from an enlightened awareness. And as well, why the Buddha spoke to each man according to his ability to understand.

      “What is a poor man who wants nothing? I would answer in this way: As long as a man still has it as his (W)ill to want to do God’s will, he doesn’t have the poverty we are talking about; for this man has (a) will with which he wants to satisfy God’s will, and that is not true poverty. For if a man is to be truly poor, he must be as empty of his created will as he was when he didn’t exist.
       Is this not what is pointed to as “the true nature of mind?” As taught by Hui-Hai in the 8th Century, “Mind….is utterly serene. This is the form of our original mind…” Excerpted from The Enlightened Mind, (pg.57) by Stephen Mitchell.

      “For…as long as you have the will to do God’s will, and the desire for eternity and for God, you are not truly poor. For only he is a poor man who wants nothing and desires nothing.”
      Here, it would seem, we can see a connection between a lack of poverty in Eckhert’s terms, and grasping, and the ego or self (will) that clutches after all that is of this material world – wealth, fame, happiness, and life itself.
      And in the last sentence we can hear the master’s admonition to “let go” because the more we try to attain enlightenment the further we are from it. The more we try to achieve the poverty that will liberate us - give us enlightenment or the kingdom of heaven - the more that desire for it and the resultant reaching after it, confounds our acquisition of it.

      “Therefore let us pray to God that we may be empty of “God,” and that we may grasp the truth….(wherein) the highest angels and the fly and the soul are equal…..
      Here we are likely to find ourselves in familiar territory when, in these words we hear the echo of interconnectedness, oneness, and Thich Nhat Hanh's "inter-being."….“where I (am) pure being and wanted what I was and was what I wanted." 
      What do we hear in the statement, “I want what I am and I am what I want?” Equanimity? Balance? Emptiness? Perfection in being with what-is, as-it-is, perhaps? Eckhert seems to be suggesting that real poverty, Pure Being, or Pure Mind is being one with each moment without the discriminations that create the world of form, and are the source of our dissatisfaction or suffering to which the Buddha awakened.

      “So we say: if a man is to be poor in will, he must want and desire as little as he wanted and desired when he didn’t exist.”
      His "face before his mother and father were born" perhaps; or to desire as little as he wanted and desired before those pesky discriminations arose to which the everyday mind is heir.

      “And this is the kind of poverty the man has, who wants nothing.”
      I can hear the master telling his pupil that the only way to achieve enlightenment is to not want/grasp after it; letting go as well, of wanting not to want.

      “Next, a poor man is one who knows nothing. A man who is to have this poverty should live in such a way that he doesn’t even know that he isn’t living for himself or for the truth or for God: even more; he should be so empty of all knowing that he doesn’t know or understand that he doesn’t know or understand or feel that God lives in him: still more: he should be empty of all the understanding that live in him.”
      If we read “knowing” as thinking, intellectualization, ideation, in this piece - it sounds much like the kind of instruction given by all Buddhist teachers and is spoken to by Hui-Hai (in the same speech referenced above) when he talked about a “mind that remains in the state of non-dwelling.”

      “Therefore we say that a man should be as empty of his own knowing as he was when he didn’t exist, and he should let God (Life) act as he (it) wants, and he should be empty.” “….a man should be so free and empty that he neither knows nor understands that God is acting in him (no-self, an aspect of enlightened mind). This is how a man can possess poverty (beginners mind).
      “The masters say that God is a being and an intelligent being and understands all things. But we say: God is neither a being nor intelligent, nor does he understand this or that. Thus God is empty of all things, and thus he is all things.”
      In the words of Charlotte (Joko) Beck, “when nothing is special everything is special.”

      "Whoever is to be poor in spirit must be poor of all his own knowing, so that he knows nothing of God or of creatures or of himself. Thus it is necessary that a man desire to be unable to know and understand anything of the works of God. This is how a man can be poor of his own knowing."
      Is it any wonder that he was considered a heretic by Pope John XXII? He is suggesting that our “knowing” God is restricted to “each man’s own” knowing, and in terms of Zen is at best an illusion; a finger, born of our want, and pointing to the moon.

      “Third, a poor man is one who has nothing……one who doesn’t even want to do God’s will, but lives in such a way that he is as empty both of his own will and of God’s will as he was when he didn’t exist.”
      In this first sentence, the word want strikes me as the “desire” or “grasping after” (wanting) pointed to the second Noble Truth.

      “Next we said that a poor man is one who knows nothing even of God’s activity in him. When he is empty of all things, that is the purest poverty. But the third kind of poverty…..is the most intimate kind: this is when a man has nothing. For if he finds a man as poor as this, then God alone acts - and the man allows God to act in him, and God is his own place of activity, because God is acting in himself."
      Here we can hear that the Buddha is in each of us if we were but able to remove the hindrances.
      “It is here in this poverty that a man attains the eternal essence which he once was and which he now is and which he will forever remain.”
      It is here in this poverty of self where the Buddha in each of us can be made manifest, just as each of us has always been and will for ever be.

      “So we say that a man should be so poor that he neither is nor has in himself any place where God can act. Where a man keeps a place in himself, he keeps distinctions. Therefore I ask God to make me empty of God…."
      Here he speaks in a Christian way about what Buddhism says we must do in order to reach enlightenment and all that this entails. He is suggesting that the man who is truly poor is poor at the spiritual level and is above distinctions that separate him from his true essence….God, Buddha, Oneness – as you wish.

      “I am my own cause according to my being….and therefore I am unborn, and according to my unborn-ness I can never die. According to my unborn-ness, I have eternally existed and am now and will eternally remain…"
      And to offer again the words of Hui-Hai, “Mind …it was never born and can never die…” And for those interested in the notion of Unborn one might read Dogen and Bankei.

     “…..In my birth all things were born, and I was cause of myself and of all things; and if I had willed it, I would not exist nor would anything exist. I am the cause that God is “God;” if I didn’t exist, God would not be “God.”
      Or in the words of the Buddha “I alone am the World Honored One,” or
“He who is in the Sun and in the Fire and in the Heart of man is One. He who knows this is one with the One.” – Hindu.
Or perhaps we could look to Mencius who said “The way is one and only One." or
Dogen when he wrote “One fist is the entire universe.”
And let’s not slight Huang Po who is credited with saying, “There exists just the One Mind.”
Or Christ who, the Bible tells us, said “I and the Father are One.”
      Men of different times and perspectives seem to have experienced something which, in the words of Mr. Fields, meets his definition of Zen, i.e. “That final psychic fact that takes place when religious consciousness is heightened to extremity.”

      “When I flowed out of God (born into the material world), all things said: God exists…..by this (consciousness) I understand that I am a creature. When I break through and return where I am empty of my own will and of God’s will and of all his works and of God himself (our idea of God) then I am above all creatures and am neither God nor creature (Emptiness, Onenness)…..I am what I was and what I will remain now and forever (Pure Mind)…..Then I am what I was, and then I neither increase nor decrease, for I am an immoveable cause that moves all things.” (“I alone am the World Honored One.") Regarding this last sentence one should also reflect on the earlier words from Hui-Hai regarding Mind.

      “Whoever doesn’t understand this sermon shouldn’t trouble his heart about it. For as long as a man isn’t like this truth he will not understand this sermon…May God help us live in such a way that we experience it eternally."
      And here it seems to me to be an echo of the idea that one cannot comprehend the words of one who is enlightened unless he too has had his third eye opened or his no-thought has achieved a turning on the seat of consciousness.

      And in conclusion I offer this quote from I am That, Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.


“When you demand nothing of the world, nor of God, when you want nothing, expect nothing then the Supreme State will come to you un-invited and unexpected.”

What's It All About?

      The following is an excerpt from a journal entry back in 2006 when I was working and meditating at the Southern Dharma Retreat Center.
      One of the things I am seeing is how I have been taking the wrong approach with my meditation. The more I am around the Vipassana method and perspective, I see that the Zen stoicism around pain and not moving is counterproductive for me. I admit to being suspect and actually adverse to anything that even smelled like what might be considered “soft” in the past. Today however, it is clear that while I still value the intellectual teachings in Zen above all others, I now feel as though the actual sitting perspective in Vipassana is better for faster improvement of emotional and psychological distress (suffering) and interpersonal and communication development.
      This perspective embraces whatever comes up during meditation as OK, nothing is bad; it’s all food for our practice and we need to learn to work skillfully with what comes up. What more can we ask out of this life than to have issues to work on so we can become happier, and more compassionate and understanding human beings through this practice?
      All of life is the result of Causes and Conditions; “this is so because of that”. When we are sitting in formal meditation all that comes up for us is the result of the interactions between these two components of the process of our existence. Everything is the food for insight. If I try to try to push things out of my awareness so I can be open to some desired insight, I am sabotaging the opportunity for growth and insight into what I really am. When we are distracted from our breath, or whatever is the focus of our concentration, we need only return to our breath after a moment of noting that we were thinking, worrying, or otherwise engaged in some fantasy or narrative. This mental diversion is not a problem; it is the process which we explore in order to find the answers to our questions. Now I see this so clearly. We actually find the answers to the questions by simply being present to what is happening in the body and mind from one moment to the next…with kindness and loving attention.
      Another insight is that Vipassana, Insight Meditation, in the Theravadin school are part of the school of Gradual Enlightenment while Zen is out of the Mahayana School of Sudden Enlightenment. This is the school I found appealing at first, probably because I didn’t want to wait to get "it". However, I now see it from a different perspective. Zen sitting, where one doesn’t move and fights through the pain is in line with the Koan study where white knuckling is revered as a sign of strength of character and to be applauded. I also see where the focus is on Enlightenment itself, as a thing to be achieved. And while I think the enlightenment of the Buddha is something that occurs in an instant, the process of getting to that point of sudden awareness is a gradual one.
      On the opposite side of the coin is the Gradual School which I see now as grounded in a process of introspection where a koan is the self from moment to moment. Rather than focusing on trying to get the moment of enlightenment in a flash we are asked to come to the realization of the Buddha’s truths through progressive stages of personal growth, or insights, using the same foundations as the Mahayana perspective. Enlightenment for the Vipasanna student is a gradual unfolding through the integration of the “what is” of our lives. This is why it is said over and over that there is nothing that comes up in the course of sitting that is not grist for the mill; everything as it should be, the Universe –our universe – unfolding as it should. We just need to be present, as it unfolds for us, in a supportive, non-judgmental, caring fashion.
      So when things come up like anger, fear, guilt, (as well as the positive feelings of love, joy, and gratitude) we should remind ourselves not to personalize it. It is just the naturally occurring "arisings" from "causes and conditions." Pay attention to them and watch them recede into oblivion as easily, and as unbidden, as they arrived.
       If we find that we are grasping or holding on to some story or emotion just note it and return to the breath. If we find that the issue is physical pain - as in my case since I’ve been here - the instruction is to work with it skillfully and watch it change. Or if it persists to the point of being an obsession move slowly and mindfully. And when it diminishes enough to refocus on the breath, do so until you need to complete this cycle again.
      I now have a series of stretches that I will do during the session if the ache becomes a distraction but only after I have tried to put my mind’s eye (for lack of a better way to say it) into the pain to try to see it completely. Last night she referred to this as "unpacking the pain."
      We are able unpack the larger unit of pain into the constituent parts which we are oblivious to when we make it personal. I was reminded to speak to the experience as "a sensation" rather than calling it pain, and then to go inside it; to experience it rather than react to it with tension. We are able, with some practice (and this is the practice) to do the same thing with reactions, feelings, and thoughts. We are able to see how they arise and ultimately pass away on their own, and we can come to realize that we have the ability to learn skillful means to deal with them when they are present.
      I heard something something tonight that a previous teacher had said, but it didn’t make as much sense then. Tonight I heard basically the same thing in slightly different words and using different analogies. She began with; 

“That which is aware of fear, is not afraid.”

       I realized how, if I examine my fear or anger through a deep awareness of my experience, the entity referred to as “me” will not be afraid or angry. The “I” will be observing it and cannot be it during this process. Anger, fear – the whole range of emotions, is a part of our heritage as human beings and will never be wiped out. Fear is a normal, and in some cases a healthy thing to experience as are all the emotions. It is when we are not in touch with the habituated roots of our grasping or aversion to these experiences that we get lost in a degenerative cycle of ruminations and unskillful behaviors…..I wonder, Samsara?

Preferences and Equanimity

      In the book, The Island, Ajahn Amaro offers a teaching from the Buddhist scriptures on pg.199. It goes in part, like this;

                  “Passion, venerable sir, is a maker of measurement, hatred is

                   maker of measurement, delusion is a maker of measurement.”

      A maker of measurement may equally be understood as what is commonly referred to as a preference. If I have more than one thing from which to choose I will prefer one thing, or aspect of something, over another. We are beings biologically tethered to a process of dualism for our sensate apprehension of the world. To interpret commentaries on Buddhist thought which point to Nirvana, enlightenment, or transcendence as being achievable only through a total annihilation of preferences seems, at the very least, to be misleading. I understand the quote above to be representative of a wiser, more skillful, understanding.
      The ability to make judgments is based, in part, on our ability to make distinctions. What is being pointed to in this teaching, is not the act of measuring per se, but the passionate grasping of a delusion (which can be understood as an illusion honed into a rigid, unwavering attitude or perspective).
      The problem's not about our having preferences such as like or dislike, good or bad, skillful or unskillful; these are tools for living. And it's not the tool itself, but rather an attachment to the posture arising from the use of that tool. The real enemy is an arising of an attachment to our thoughts, emotions, or judgements, embedded in an ignorance of the Buddha’s teachings on dependent-arising, impermanence, emptiness, and no-self. These are the four truths which, when observed in our everyday lives, will allow for an equanimous measurement of the needs of any moment and will then direct actions that will be in tune with the dharma.
      In a lecture given by Amaro (Steadiness of Heart, accessible at Abhayagiri.org), he talks about a quality of stillness which comes from (arises with) not getting caught up in an attachment to, or becoming lost in, our thoughts/feelings/memories and moods. All these are still present in our lives but the mind is passive and open to awareness of their contingent nature. It is a quality of mind that is flexible not rigid; accepting not grasping. And he points out that this quality of heart arises from a choice we can learn to make: to be aware – to recognize – to accept.
      Equanimity is often erroneously thought of as an emotional deadening or shutting down, or a disconnection of the mind from circumstances. Some have assumed it to be a suppressing of feeling, a pushing away or numbing of the mind. All these are knowable qualities and can be seen as problematic in their own right, but they do not represent the state of equanimity.
      Instead, what is meant by equanimity is having a quality of openness of mind. Operating from this openness to what is going on around us, we become grounded in the present in direct relation to the quality and degree of attention we give to it. Without a reactive attachment to mental formations, we surrender to the way things are in the present. It is based on a steadiness of heart through a deep understanding that all things pleasant/unpleasant/neutral are based on impermanence, emptiness, and no-self, and that they simply arise and cease in the natural flow of life. We recognize there is no need to get caught up in the unsatisfactory arising and ceasing spin of our mental/emotional states.
      There arises a steadiness of heart by which we are freed from the imprisoning grip of greed, hatred, and delusion. These are the three fires of suffering (unsatisfactoriness) that inhabit and ignite the small mind. In this steadiness of heart and mind our posture toward all things does not waver feverishly under their control but rather, rests in the cool shade of enlightened awareness and equanimity. Nirvana – the peace that passes all understanding.