A Touch of Now - An Introduction

“I sit here desperately wanting to create something; to say something on these pages that will convey my thoughts, the beauty of this spot; to share my experience of this moment in time. My chest aches and tightens, as if to squeeze out the salty tears of longing. I look up from my shaded table cracked and weathered like the hull of an ancient ship, my back warmed in the afternoon sun, and thought is inadequate to the task.
Emerald green waves, speckled white with tips of foam, roll toward me from a forest curling like a finger out into the sea. Puffy white clouds emerge from beyond this jagged green horizon and float in lazy patterns against a pale blue sky. Leaves flutter in the warm breeze and dancing shadows dabble all around my wordless perch as seagulls, screeching nature’s plan, dive for unseen morsels and a jittery squirrel buries his face in the still moist grass.
The scene is there for everyone present. My experience lost within me and an inability to truly share the wonder may be my greatest pain.”

When exactly I wrote this is uncertain. Why, is an even greater mystery? What I am certain of however, is the truth embraced by the experience. It describes a moment in which I felt the touch of “now,” and in that touch the truth was unmistakable, simple, clear, and thoroughly unspeakable. I was present to that moment and the moment shared with me all there is to know. This Blog is about my journey, then and now, into the moment and the truth I find there.


August 15, 2010

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.
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