Temple Buddhist Center

Ego

2012-02-21T02:59:00.000-08:00

(For podcast, click here) (For the ITunes version, click here)
We are beginning our series of talk based on Awakening the Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das

Ego is one of those terms that are sometimes confusing since Western psychology and Eastern philosophy use same the word in different ways. From a Western psychology perspective, it is described as part of our personality, the ego includes the rules and standards for skillful behaviors.

Having a healthy ego usually describes thinking about oneself and others in a healthy way, like having appropriate psychological boundaries with others or having a balanced approach to life’s situations. In fact, in Joseph Goldstein’s book, Insight Meditation, he goes so far as to say that having a healthy “ego” in this respect is very helpful to the practice of Buddhism.

From an Eastern philosophy perspective, the term “Ego” is used to describe something different. Ego, in Sanskrit, Atman, is this sense of a separate, solid self, this overpowering need we have to hold on to something solid about ourselves, and the need to see ourselves as something completely separate from others.

That which we call “I” or “me” is actually just a constantly shifting set of desires, thoughts, consciousness, feelings. Imagine for a moment that this is true—this alleged thing called “You” is not a separate, solid being, but is ephemeral, ever-changing. Try for a moment, to find it, who are you? What are you? Are you the body? Are you the mind? To most of us, that feels a little scary. If I’m not a solid “me”, whoever or whatever I “think” I am, then who/what am I? What can I hang on to? How do I live in such groundlessness?

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche gives a excellent explanation of Ego in his book The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation. He says that Ego is this need to secure our own happiness. But this effort is ultimately futile, we might get a passing glimpse of happiness for ourselves, but it falls away because this world is constant changing. We keep trying to get on solid ground and the ground keeps shifting. We lose our job, we get sick, our dear ones get hurt or sick or die. So, there really is no such thing as finding solid ground. Trying to find happiness by ego gratification is like trying to satisfy a never-ending craving. It becomes a constant struggle.

Consider this possibility: the reason we feel a need to hold on to something/ someone because we cannot stay in the present moment. We are trying to be distracted by trying to satisfy these constant cravings. We can’t stay in the present moment, so we try to solidify things and people by placing them in the context of our past or our future. As we’ve discussed, when we meet someone for the first time, we usually see them through our filters of people we’ve known in the past and projections of how we might relate to this person in the future. “I want this person to like me”, “I don’t like this person”, or even “I don’t care about this person”. With this need for solid ground, we sometimes label everyone that we meet as someone to crave, or someone to push away, or someone to ignore.

The three poisons (kleshas-Sanskrit) also translated as afflictive Emotions, are Ignorance, attachment (pride and jealousy—labeling and comparsion,competition) and aversion (it starts with saying we don’t like something, then we obsess about it into hatred, resentment and anger). These are mental states that cloud the mind and manifest in unskillful actions. Kleshas include anxiety, fear, anger, jealousy, desire, depression, etc.

Our need for permanence causes us to then look outside ourselves for a feeling of self-worth, of value. We filter any event or situation or person so it appears that we are exactly as we already think we are, how ever it is that we already think about ourselves. I’m sure each of us can relate to an experience with another person where we have taken whatever this person did and reinforced what we already believed about ourselves—good or bad. It’s like a hypochondriac going to see the doctor for a checkup. The person has already convinced themselves that something is wrong and will take whatever the doctor says as reinforcement of that belief. It always reminds me of almost every Woody Allen movie The doctor says, “hmmm, I see…” and Woody Allen exclaims, “Yes! I knew you would see it too!” How often do we look for external validation of what we already believe to be true?

It is this filtering process that gets our experience so far away from the actual realities of what is happening in any given moment. It is this process of labeling and filtering that causes a sense of a separate solid self.

It’s as if we are in a room with no light and for some of us, not even aware that having light is possible. So, imagine that light is a possibility, that awakening, enlightenment is possible for everyone. If we are able to experience, even for a moment, a little bit of light, a little bit of this present moment, we can begin to see the world and ourselves more clearly. With each moment of light, of direct knowing, the world becomes far more brilliant, intense, complex, than we ever imagined possible. This is the process of dissolving the illusion of ego and waking up.

So, sometimes, we realize how the ego has fooled us, we go to battle with it. But having an aversion to the ego is only the ego playing the same game. Our mind may continue to try and use the same construct to continue its control over our lives. The first step is to make friends with this crazy illusion called ego, to embrace our egos as the way we’ve coped with the world, and then slowly let go of its misperceptions.

So how do we do this? As we meditate, we just gently focus on our breath, and when thoughts, feelings, desires arise, we simple note them and go back to focusing on our breath. Whenever we’re doing anything, like walking or doing dishes, we simply focus on the activity itself. Single tasking. This simple exercise can help us recognize our illusory thoughts and then start to dissolve them. We begin to see that our thoughts aren’t as solid or as real or as permanent as we might have believed. If we can notice a craving rising from within without acting upon it, we can start to see through the craving—that they rise and fall on their own. It is a misconception that we need to satisfy a craving, it is a misconception that ONLY by satisfying them will they go away. There is an excellent practice for this realization. In any day, we have many cravings-for food, for sex, for love, for attention—whatever it might be. We can practice being mindful of the craving—and perhaps wait a moment before acting on it. Just sit with the craving for a few minutes. Ask, “where is the craving coming from? Why is there a feeling of a need for this person the object this feeling? What would happen if I didn’t satisfy this craving?” The practice is to stay present with the cravings and see what thoughts and feelings arise.

Also with averson, we might still get angry or jealous or feel sad or want to shut down, but anger can be just anger, fear can be just fear, sadness can be just sadness AND joy can be just joy. Purely, intensely experienced with no need to take any pre-determined action.

And we can start to pay attention to what we are ignoring. What in the present moment is being left out?

Slowly, making friends with then letting go of craving, aversion and ignorance, we can begin to experience the sacredness in each moment, regardless of what is happening. We can begin to not be afraid of the luminous emptiness that is ever-present. Imagine allowing the groundlessness of each moment. And it starts with a moment here and a moment there. Just a moment of freedom. Then, allowing those moments to happen more often. Little by little.

When we begin to let go of our need to be separate and solid, ironically, that’s when the seeds of great peace and compassion begin to bloom.

Start with imagining that staying fully present is a real possibility; we can learn to see more clearly

We can make a commitment to awakening; put it on the priority list, have it on your schedule, what do you have to lose? Perhaps the pain and suffering that comes from attachment, aversion and ignorance!

Bodhisattvas and Bodhicitta

2012-02-13T15:14:00.000-08:00

(For podcast, click here) (For the ITunes version, click here)

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I thought we could talk about love. Not the lusty love that makes us a little crazy and do silly things, and not the deep love between two people who value each other above everyone else, but rather the loving-kindness that is innately within each one of us, the limitless loving-kindness that we can radiate out to every other person on the planet. In Mahayana Buddhism, this idea of sending loving-kindness to all beings is part of the practice of being a bodhisattva. A bodhisattva is translated as enlightened (bodhi) existence (sattva) or a person wishing to relieve the suffering of others and wishing to help others become enlightened.

As part of the second step on the Eightfold Path, Wise Intention, we vow to not focus solely on our own awakening, but we vow to help all others become awakened as well. One of the Bodhisattva vows is:

Sentient beings are numberless—I vow to liberate them.

Delusions are inexhaustible—I vow to transcend them.

Dharma Teachings are boundless—I vow to master them.

The Buddha’s enlightened way is unsurpassable—I vow to embody it.

(translation from Awakening the Buddha Within, by Lama Surya Das)

The idea of wishing to help the entire world awaken—that probably seems a bit daunting! On the internet, there is a clock that keeps track of approximately how many people there are in the world in any given hour. As of about 6 pm last night, there were 6,993,879,604. That is a lot of people who might be suffering. We’ve got our work cut out for us. There is a wonderful quote by Mother Theresa with some good advice:

"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you."

Bodhicitta is another word you often read or hear about in Buddhist writings. It is translated as awakened heart. It’s interesting that in the original Pali, the word, Citta, means heart-mind, in that it was thought that the heart and mind functioned together. Centuries later, recent research now shows that there are actually neural networks in the heart as well. So, we might more accurately think of Bodhicitta as awakened heart-mind. One who has bodhicitta as the primary motivation for all of his or her activities is called a bodhisattva.

Beginning students commonly ask how they can honestly vow to save all beings. It sounds like missionary arrogance. Hui-neng [the Sixth Zen Patriarch] offers a response: "You are saving them in your own mind." It is bodhichitta that you are cultivating—your own aspiration for wisdom and compassion, and your determination to practice it in the world as best you can. - Robert Aitken Roshi, "The Bodhisattva Vows"

The Buddha encouraged us to never go out and evangelize. Instead, he said if you embody the teachings, others will be naturally curious about what has caused this transformation in your life, only when they ask, then and only then, should you share with them this practice. From the very beginning, even his five friends who were ascetics with him, they had to beg him to teach them about this wonderful practice that had changed him so dramatically.

In Awakening the Buddha Within, Lama Surya Das describes bodhicitta as the purified and fully developed heart-mind. Practicing bodhicitta means cultivating all one’s innate enlightened qualities and following the path of awakening. Having an open heart-mind is teaching us how to be open and seeing the innate goodness in ourselves and all others.

Buddhism is a practice designed to relief suffering, so by its very nature, we want to relieve not only our own suffering but the suffering of others, ALL sentient beings, not just the ones we like. Whoa! "You mean I have to desire to relieve the suffering of people that annoy me or hurt me or anger me? Can’t there possible be some exceptions to this practice?" In Buddhism, there are no exceptions. We work towards relieving our own suffering and the suffering of all others, even the ones that annoy us or don’t seem to deserve it, or who have hurt us in some way. It’s easy to be loving and kind to the people we like. It is the sending loving-kindness to these difficult ones when we really earn our Buddhist stripes.

How we think about ourselves and others is critical to how we talk and act. Our thoughts are shaping and defining our actions and words. Lama Surya Das encourages us to infuse Truth and Love into everything we do. We strive to combine Wisdom and Compassion in our thoughts, our speech and our actions.

He says:

If it looks like wisdom, but is unkind rather than loving, then it is not wisdom. If it feels like love, but it’s not wise, then it is not love.

There is a tender part of our heart that doesn’t want to feel vulnerable. Maybe you’ve been hurt before and the pain was so awful, that you’ve sworn off being that open to anyone ever again. Now, I’m encouraging you to try, even just little, even if it’s just a small crack, to open up your innately good and kind heart. You may still be hurt again, but it might be easier to stay standing with an open heart with these practices of compassion and wisdom.

We can begin in the simplest of ways. Something as simple as silently wishing each and every person that you come in contact with, “may you be happy.” Then, we can look for ways to reach out in earnest and help others who are having a difficult time. Several of us go to feed the hungry at St. Paul’s the second Saturday of each month—it is always a heartfelt experience. It’s a symbol of bodhicitta in action. How can we go out in the community and be a loving presence and support to those who are suffering.

We close with the Bodhicitta dedication, wishing that whatever benefit is derived from us meditating, that the benefit be for the happiness of all beings.

May the pure, brilliant sun of bodhicitta

Dawn in each and every heart and mind

Dispelling the darkness of suffering and confusion

Unstoppably—until all are illumined and awakened.

From Awakening the Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das

Basics of Buddhism 5

2012-02-06T14:43:00.001-08:00

(For podcast, click here) (For the ITunes version, click here)

Many people have asked, “What does it mean to be a Buddhist?” To explore that question, I decided to tack on one more discussion as part of the Basics of Buddhism. When I think about this topic, it reminds me of a workshop I attended several years ago. It was some kind of personal growth session, and there were many different types of people that participated. At one point in the workshop, we split up into smaller groups of six – seven people and each person introduced themself. One of the women in my group said she was an actress. She was so beautiful and had that dramatic flare. She went on to say that she was Buddhist, and of course, I thought, “Yippee! A kindred spirit! Someone like me!” At the next break, I went up to speak with her. I told her I was Buddhist as well and asked her what Buddhist book was her favorite. Who was her favorite teacher? She became annoyed and abruptly replied, “Oh, I haven’t read anything about it, I just FEEL Buddhist…” I’m pretty sure that is NOT what being Buddhist is all about.

Today, I want to explore what “being Buddhist” means. Many of you have been coming to the Sunday morning meditations for many years, and you may have no intention of ever calling yourself Buddhist, and that is totally okay. You can get a lot from these teachings by practicing mindfulness and meditation without going any further or making commitment to these specific teachings. But some of you might come to a point where you feel like this truly is your spiritual path, and you may want to make a greater commitment. In the Buddhist tradition, the first step of a becoming a Buddhist is the process of taking the Refuge Vows and agreeing to abide by the Five Precepts--that is what we will talk about today.

In Buddha, Dharma and Sangha

We go for refuge until fully awakened.

Through the power of Generosity, Ethics, Patience, Enthusiastic Effort, Concentration, and Wisdom,

For the sake of all beings, may we realize and demonstrate our innate goodness.

The Refuge Vows are exactly the same as the Refuge Prayer that we say at the beginning of each meditation. When you say this prayer as a vow, you are committing to these teachings as your primary spiritual path, by taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. It’s NOT about converting to Buddhism—many people of other faiths still consider themselves Christian or Jewish or whatever spiritual path they are also on—but it is about making a greater commitment to follow these teachings.

We begin by taking refuge in the Buddha. We have a statue on the altar every Sunday, and many people wonder if we are worshipping the Buddha. NO! Buddha did not want to be worshipped. He taught again and again that he was an ordinary person, and that what he had done, every other person can do as well. We look at statues of the Buddha and see a role model, as inspiration for our own enlightenment. We, as ordinary people, can practice these teachings and we, too, can awaken. We take refuge in Buddha because he reminds us that awakening is possible. We do not have to wait 10,000 years to get to the point of awakening. It is possible to wake up in this lifetime, and experience the joy and peace that the Buddha experienced. We look at statues of the Buddha with a sense of encouragement that we, too, can live an awakened life.

Also, it is often described as taking refuge in our own innate Buddhist Nature, our Christ Consciousness. The Buddha taught that we are innately good, innately wise, and that we can rely upon this innate nature to make more skillful choices in life. Even if we sometimes forget about our goodness or cover up our innate wisdom with old unskillful habits, it is still there within us, just waiting to be tapped into.

We can also take refuge in the Dharma, which represents all the enlightened teachings of those that came before us and were so kind to show us the way. One of the distinctions between Buddhism and Christianity is the perspective on enlightened teachings. In Christianity, we have the Bible, identified as the word of God. In Buddhism, many have become enlightened through these teachings, and they then write words encouraging others and pointing to the way. We can take refuge in all these teachings, and explore them for the help and support that they can provide for our own enlightenment.

We can also take refuge in the Sangha, a group of like-minded individuals who are supporting each other on the spiritual path. You might have thought that you got up this morning and came here to the meditation because of a personal need--the crazy week you had or feeling stressed out. However, the fact that you showed up this morning has already blessed each and every person here. Imagine what it would be like, in this very moment, to be sitting here all alone. What a more joyful and impactful experience it is to be here with everyone being part of this shared process! Taking refuge in the Sangha is a two-way street. You are committing to support and encourage others who are trying to walk this path, and you are committing to allow others to support and encourage you as well. It is a process that has been found to work well for 2600 years.

The other commitment is the Five Precepts. There are actually two different sets of Precepts. If you were going to join a monastery, you would take the Refuge Vows, have your head shaved, and agree to abide by the following precepts:

For monks/nuns:

· Not killing

· Not stealing

· Not lying

· No sexual interactions

· Not using intoxicants

Most of us, however, are more likely to continue to be householders. We will still pay the bills, be with our family and show up for work. Therefore, there is a little bit different process for householder versus monks/nuns. For householders, you are still encouraged to snip off a bit of your hair, but it doesn’t have too much! Rituals can have value if they inspire you towards more skillful thoughts and actions.

For householders:

· Not killing

· Not stealing

· Not lying

· Not engaging in sexual misconduct

· Not using intoxicants unskillfully

These Precepts are not commandments, but rather guidelines. We are encouraged to rely on these actions, but still use our inner wisdom to search for the most skillful response. The first guideline is “do not kill”. You might wear leather shoes or might eat meat, some Buddhist traditions do. We practice honoring life as best we can in the real world because that usually relieves the most suffering.

The next Precept is "do not steal", and it’s clarified more completely as “do not take what is not freely given to you.” As well as to give to others that which you can share.

The third Precept, “do not lie”, is another good example of how these are guidelines, not commandments. The extreme situation usually given is to imagine that you lived in Nazi Germany and were hiding a Jewish family in your attic. If soldiers came to your door and inquired, lying would likely relieve more suffering than telling the truth. Once again, these guidelines can lead us in the right direction, but they do not take away our responsibility to be fully present in each moment to assess the most skillful response.

The fourth Precept is different for monks/nuns and householders. Monks and nuns are encouraged not to have any sexual activities, but there’s good news for us householders! We are asked to not engage in sexual misconduct. Most of us can think of situations when sex is used in ways that are harmful to ourselves and to others, and we can instead make choices that do no harm. These decisions are part of the path as well.

Lastly, for monks and nuns, they are encouraged to not use any intoxicants. We householders get a break on this Precept as well. We are asked to not use intoxicants unskillfully or in ways that lead to “heedlessness”. Intoxicants can cloud our judgment. It is a personal decision for you whether you have a glass of wine with your meal. Are you doing so in a way that is not causing harm to yourself or others?

That’s it. The first official step on the Buddhist path is committing to taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, and committing to following these Five Precepts. Another question you might have is, “if I make this commitment, is it for the rest of my life?” That is a question only you can answer. I can tell you for myself, I first took the Refuge Vows when I was 21 years old on retreat in Bodh Gaya, India. Everyone else was doing it. It seemed kind of fun. It did seem kind of cool to be Buddhist. But, I didn’t take them to heart. I came back to America and lived my life, and for a decade, they didn’t do anything for me, because I didn’t do anything for them. In the nineties, I began to rekindle my Buddhist reading and practice. I found this book by Lama Surya Das entitled, Awakening the Buddha Within. When I came to the passage that talked about the Refuge Vows, I was sitting at home all alone. I remember feeling so amazed at how transformational these vows then appeared. In my home, all by myself, simply reading these words that I had heard before, these words now meant something deep and powerful to me. After reflecting on this passage, I went over to my sewing kit and pulled out some light blue thread, took a small section of the end of my hair, and tied it with the thread. I said the Refuge Vows out loud three times, and committed to following the Five Precepts, and I took some scissors and cut off this small piece of my hair. I still have it placed there between Pages 56 and 57. It was in that moment when I decided to commit myself to this path. It was right time for me to make this commitment. For me, that moment was the moment I realized that this was going to be my spiritual path.

So, it doesn’t have to be a special ceremony or special setting. It doesn’t even have to be with other people. If you decide that you at that point in your life where you want to commit more deeply to this spiritual path, you can simply take the Refuge Vows and Five Precepts for yourself. Several people have shared that they would like to participate in a special ceremony, so you’ll have an opportunity to do so this Tuesday evening at 8 pm. There are handouts that go into more detail about the ceremony itself. You are NOT taking the Refuge Vows to me or with me; I’m not a Lama or Rinpoche or anything special. You would be taking the Refuge Vows with and for yourself. Only you know if you want to take Refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha and the Five Precepts. Take time to reflect on whatever decision you think is right for you. No rush, no hurry, no hassle, no pressure. But do not take them lightly, for you might as well not take them at all.

No self? No soul?

2012-01-30T14:28:00.000-08:00

(For podcast, click here) (For the ITunes version, click here)

Today is the fourth and final talk in the series on the Basics of Buddhism. We have been following the book Naked Buddha, a Practical Guide to the Buddha’s Life and Teachings, by Adrienne Howley. Today, we tackle the tough stuff.

A key teaching by the Buddha was on the three marks of existence : impermanence (anicca), suffering (dukkha) and no self (anatta). Having dealt with the first two, we come to the last, no self.

I admit that I myself still struggle with this last one.

Adrienne notes that there are probably more misunderstandings about the Buddha’s teachings on no self and no soul than anything else that he taught. He did NOT teach that we are trying to get rid of our self, but that in fact there is no self to get rid of. He taught that we are just an aggregate of elements that are ever-changing.

There’s was an article in the KC Star this week about a little boy in Minnesota who has been identified as a reincarnated Lama. In it, they quote some guy that was a religion professor in Minnesota who stated unequivocally that “all Buddhists believe in reincarnation”. All? There is evidence, in fact, that is NOT what the Buddha taught. If asked, he was agnostic about this idea. Remember, the Buddha focused on what can be experienced and what can be proven. He believed strongly that it was a waste of time to speculate. Speculating did nothing to relieve suffering, and the Buddha was focused on relieving suffering. So, for our discussion today, the Buddha would say we are wasting our time, but let’s do it anyway. Don’t we all ponder this question from time to time? How would you answer these questions: What happens after we die? Do we have a soul? What is a soul anyway?

The Buddha taught that there is no solid separate unchanging self, and he put the question this way:

“Since there is no inherently permanent self, only a constant changing physical, emotional or mental state, what is reborn?”

While I was I India, I came upon a book entitled The Buddha and His Dhamma, by an well-respected Indian statesman named Dr. B. R. Ambedkar who converted to Buddhism. In it, Dr. Ambedkar carefully describes the Buddha’s original teaching on anatta from the Pali Canon (the first writings of the Buddha’s teaching).

“Mind is different from the soul. Soul is often defined as the essence of a being, or used interchangeably with the word spirit. The soul is based on speculation. The Buddha was agnostic on this subject The soul by its very definition is unknown and unseen.

The Buddha believed that believing in a soul created superstition, and he taught only what he could prove and experience. Soul as described in most writings is vague and unprovable. The Buddha stated that discussion of the existence of the soul was as unprofitable as the discussion of the existence of God. He was agnostic on God as well.”

Part of the Buddha’s reticence in participating in these discussions was that, at the time, the evolving Brahmin caste used the idea of God and Soul to exlpain why some people were superior to others. The Brahmins had power over everyone because only Brahmins could talk directly to God. How did they know that? Because they wrote it the Vedas, which is like the Bible in Hindusim. They wrote the book that said they were superior. They rationalized that people born into poor conditions were the result of bad karma from a prior life (carried forward in their soul), and that the poor were to be of service to the Brahmins, so that they could create good karma and might get reborn in a higher caste next time. The Buddha, on the other hand, rebelled against this notion. He was about equality and relieving the suffering of all beings--much like the message of Jesus--not just the ones we like, not just the ones that “deserve” it, but relieving the suffering of ALL beings.

In Catholicism, we have seen some of the same things happen, when it is thought that only the priest had a direct line to God, and we are supposed to be good so that our souls would go to heaven. Maybe this is true—who knows for sure? However, we now know from experience that these beliefs often lead to fear and can give too much power to those in charge. In contrast, the Buddha focused on each person’s innate wisdom and goodness, our ability to think for ourselves and to make choices because we want to relieve suffering, NOT because we fear hell or other punishment.

The Buddha was agnostic about the existence of a soul and even about the existence of God, because he didn’t see that it relieved suffering in any way. Instead, he saw the human being as a collection of certain physical elements and mental elements. Wherever a certain combination of these elements is found, also is found consciousness. Does consciousness cease to exist after our body dies? We don’t know.

Some think of consciousness as awareness of being aware, of putting oneself in a moment in time, aware of the past and the possibility of a future. No other living creature does that, as far as we know. Awareness of past experience and ability to see possibilities in the future enable us to have imagination. We can imagine the possibilities beyond what we can see and experience. We can imagine a soul, and we can imagine God. Who knows for sure?

This whole idea of no self/no soul, strays into the question of what happens when we die. Is it Rebirth? Reincarnation? Transmigration?

· Rebirth: Energy remains constant but transforms into another form. The various elements of our body turn into ash, which turns into soil, which turns into food, trees, etc.

· Reincarnation: In certain Buddhist traditions, it is defined as our spirit of either the mind, the speech or the body, that returns in other being. (In Tibetan Buddhism, these three do not always reincarnate in just one being)

· Transmigration: The Hindu belief that the soul transfers after death to another being.

Who knows? I am encouraged by the Dalai Lama’s statement, that if something he believes is scientifically proven to be wrong, he will stop believing it!

So how can it be proven?

In 2004, ABC News did a story about a young boy named James Leininger who, around his second birthday, began having terrifying nightmares that went on night after night. James began screaming out recurring phrases like, "Plane on fire! Little man can't get out!" His parents were alarmed, concerned and perplexed.

In one video they did of James at age 3, he goes over a toy plane as if he's doing a preflight check. Another time, his mother bought him another toy plane (his favorite toy), and pointed out what appeared to be a bomb on its underside. She said that James corrected her and told her it was a drop tank. "I'd never heard of a drop tank," she said. "I didn't know what a drop tank was."

Over the next four years, he told more details of the plane and the plane crash that no little boy could know. He gave many details, like he talked of his sister named Ann, yet he had no sister. James also told his father the name of the boat he took off from — Natoma — and the name of someone he flew with — "Jack Larson." The parents pieced together what their son was communicating and eventually discovered that it matched exactly the details of the life of World War II fighter pilot named James Huston. They wanted to share their story to show that they were a typical suburban family who did not believe in reincarnation, they were not looking for any signs. They simply observed their young son telling specific details of a man who lived sixty years prior.

So, in the end, who knows? The Buddha taught that all conditioned phenomena is impermanent—that phenomena (energy) is constant and simply takes different forms in our ever-changing world. And yet...one of the recent discoveries in Quantum physics finds that even energy may be changed by the fact that we observe it.

Perhaps there is still a mystery to be discovered.

The Fourth Noble Truth - the Eightfold Path

2012-01-23T11:45:00.001-08:00

(For podcast, click here) (For ITunes version, click here)
We are continuing a series of talks on the Basics of Buddhism. I recommend the book Naked Buddha, a Practical Guide to the Buddha’s Life and Teachings, by Adrienne Howley. We’ve talked about compassionate awareness, honesty and curiosity and how we often inaccurately label ourselves and others.

For the third talk in this series, we’ll discuss the Fourth Noble Truth, which is the Eightfold Path. These eight practices are designed to invigorate our daily lives with compassionate awareness, honesty and curiosity. It’s translated as a path but in the original teachings it was described more like a wheel with eight spokes or an eight-limb concurrent process. It’s not designed to start at the first step and end at the last, but rather to incorporate each as the situation arises.

These steps are often described as Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. However, the word “Right” may not accurately relate the original teaching. Many translations use the word, “Right”, but that implies a rigidness, a right versus wrong. A better translation might be Clear or Wise or Complete. I like the word “Clear” because it describes how we are wiping off the windows of our vision to see more clearly ourselves and our lives. But perhaps Wise is the best description. Wise describes what is skillful and what does the most good and the least harm.

The Eightfold Path is often broken down into three sections—this is a little different than Adrienne Howley’s take on them, but I admit I prefer the description in Lama Surya Das’ book, Awakening the Buddha Within, which is the book we are going to tackle next. In it, he describes the three sections as Wisdom, Ethics and Meditation. Let’s look at these three separately.

The first two steps are part of the Wisdom training: Wise View and Wise Intention. We all have a certain view of the world. We may hang on to the view that our parents told us, or we may have come up with our own perspective through our life experiences. If I were to ask you, “How do you describe the world?” What would you say? What would your parents have said? Is it a scary place? A difficult place? A wonderful place? An unfair place? A beautiful place? We often view the world through our past experiences or from the perspective of others who have convinced us of how they see things.

When I was growing up, there was a girl down the street named Shirley Stewart. I can see her face right now. She lived catty-cornered to me, and she would follow me home from school every day and taunt me the whole way, saying that she wanted to fight me for some reason or other. Now, I was a scrawny, sickly little kid—I did not have one good punch in me, but I certainly fantasized about hitting her right in the face! I’d like to say I was a pacifist but I was just too dang scared to try and mess with her. She never hit me but threatened to do so about a thousand times. Luckily, we moved away from the neighborhood when I was 12, but I can still see Shirley’s face staring me down, making me feel stupid and weak. When I was young, I saw myself through the eyes of Shirley Stewart. When I was in college, I began to have more confidence in myself, the mental and emotional energy looking for ways to hate her. She turned out to be a very nice person, but at first I didn’t realize why I hated her so much. I wasn’t seeing her clearly. Wise view is about about being willing to have a certain fresh curiosity about ourselves and those around us.

Can we really put one label on the world or on ourselves or on others, particularly since everything and everyone are always changing? What has happened in your past that you are still hanging on to? What are the filters through which you see the world? We may have a relationship that went sour, and then all potential partners start to seem to have those same traits. We may have been mistreated when we were young, now the whole world might look like a scary place. We begin to recognize these filters and peel them away, so that we can see ourselves and others more clearly. It helps build a sense of wonder in each moment, a fresh curiosity to see more clearly.

Wise intention is how we prioritize what to do. What are your intentions in your life? What do you value? If you could describe your values in three words, what would it be? Now, think about your thoughts, words and actions this last week. How well did those match your values that you just described? The Buddhist path is designed to help us live our values, and the first step is being clear about what you care about, then translating that into practice every day.

These first two steps are cultivating a desire and intention to see ourselves and the world more clearly. The next three steps are about ethical living. With this clear perspective, we can begin to live a sacred life.

Wise speech is about being more careful before we respond. As we discussed the very first day in this series, we can ask ourselves three questions: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? That may cut out about 75% of what we’re telling ourselves and others!

Have you ever hung up your cellphone and started recapping the conversation to the person you’re with, only to double check that the cellphone is disconnected? What were you saying that you didn’t want the person on the phone to hear? It’s easy to use gossip and slander as a bonding process among friends. Wise speech is reminding us that words have power, and we can choose words to encourage and support. Encouragement and support can be a better way to bond with each other. What do you say to yourself? How do you encourage and support yourself each day?

Wise Action is acting in ways that are wise and compassionate. With greater awareness, we can create more options on how to respond to outer circumstance. Habit and past experience are not the only ways to choose how to act. Wise action comes from a place of reflection and an intention for good.

Wise Livelihood is working in a way that supports oneself and others on their spiritual journey. This step does not mean we all have to change jobs! Of course, we try to choose jobs that don’t include weapons of mass destruction, but any job has some potential for killing—even a nurse is killing bacteria in order to reduce illnesses. It is far more important to wake up to how we work. You may have an awesome job but still be acting in ways that are unskillful. Wise Livelihood reminds us to seek work that is supportive but also to do whatever work we’re doing in ways that are supportive as well.

And lastly, we have the Meditation Training of Wise Effort, Wise Mindfulness and Wise Concentration. Adrienne translates these in slight different words, but I think they convey the same meaning

Wise Effort is having a passion for enlightenment. It can feel much easier sometimes to just do what we’ve done before. Go back to the rut, go back to old habits. This Eightfold Path is about applying energy and focus to a new way of living. What thought will you have in those difficult moments to keep you doing/thinking this new habit? Wise Effort is encouraging us to reach within and find that passion for happiness and to, as the Dalai Lama proclaims, “Never give up!”

We talked a few weeks ago that we can practice mindfulness as if our hair is on fire, and the only way to put out the flames is compassionate awareness. This new way of living takes practice and energy. Dig deep within you to find the passion and fire to change. In the coming weeks, there will be moments when an old way of thinking will arise. A moment of craving to go back to the old way of living, it will at times seem so much easier than practicing these newfangled steps. At that moment, when the past coping mechanisms seem to have renewed allure, we can remember to connect with the passion to live a new life, a greater life, a more fulfilling life. Find that passion now so you’ll know where it is when the going gets tough.

Wise Mindfulness is practicing mindfulness by being fully present in each moment. Mindfulness is a commitment to staying awake to the reality in each moment, no sleepwalking through life. We can approach living with curiosity and non-preference, savoring things just as they are. Then, from this place of curiosity, the richness and fullness of the world opens up and provides us with amazing gifts of clarity. It’s important to NOT think about mindfulness as a burden to bear but as a gift that we are giving ourselves, a totally free, easily obtained, always there, medication for what ails us.

"He who maintains attentive mindfulness is like the great sage, the Buddha. Careful attention to mindfulness is an elixir and a blessing." --Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche, Tibet, nineteenth century

Wise Concentration is practicing concentration to train our mind. These changes don’t occur overnight. It takes practice and focus. To experience this amazing transformation, it helps to practice concentration daily. We practice by focusing on our breath or on a mantra or on walking or on eating, being very focused on whatever is that we are doing. Eventually, we can release the focus into just being, when just being becomes our natural state of openness and awareness.

So, this week, your assignment is simple: Look for ways to bless yourself and the people around you. Bless others with your undivided attention, listen with an open heart. Bless others with your smile-smile at people you don’t know even smile at the people you do know. Bless yourself by kind thoughts of encouragement and support. Try being with yourself or another in a non-judgmental way. You might even have someone in your life that would be willing to have a mindful lunch or dinner with, where the two of you practice these eight steps as best you can. It might make for a very different eating experience!

First podcast available!

2012-01-19T10:51:00.000-08:00

To download or stream (listen live) the Basics of Buddhism 1 talk, click below:
http://templebuddhistcenter.org/podcasts/Basics-of-Buddhism-1.mp3

Basics of Buddhism 2: Compassionate Awareness and Honesty

2012-01-16T10:10:00.000-08:00

(For podcast, click here) (For ITunes version, click here)

Today we continue a series of talks on the Basics of Buddhism. I’m highly recommending the book, Naked Buddha, a Practical Guide to the Buddha’s Life and Teachings, by Adrienne Howley.

This man who lived 2600 years ago, named Siddhartha Gautama, left home in search of a way to relieve suffering, his own and all beings. He had been studying many different spiritual methods available at that time. There were several people trying two very different methods—indulging to excess in worldly pleasures until you were repulsed by them (many of us have already tried that method), or denying yourself any worldly pleasure, a practice called Asceticism, which encouraged eating barely any food and sleeping in the forest, to find spiritual enlightenment. Siddhartha had all the finest things when he was a prince growing up, and then decided to become an ascetic for 5-6 years. He almost died from the extreme deprivation. When he gave up asceticism, he realized that there must be a middle way. This is why Buddhism is often described as the middle path.

In its essence, he found out that if you are compassionately aware and perfectly honest with yourself, you can begin to relieve suffering. The first teaching by the Buddha after his enlightenment was the Four Noble Truths:

· Life is difficult.

· Life is difficult because we seek to satisfy ourselves in ways that are inherently unsatisfying.

· The possibility of liberation from difficulties exists for everyone.

· The way to free ourselves is to practice the Eightfold path that results in enlightened living.

The first Truth is that life is difficult. The word in Pali was dukkha. In his book, Insight Meditation, The Practice of Freedom, Joseph Goldstein translates dukkha in three ways, suffering, insecurity or being unsatisfied. The Buddha realized that most of us live with some sense that things or we are just not quite right. We might even get close, achieve a goal, feel successful, then we often go right back to feeling that there is something more to be done. It seems our culture encourages doing--doing can be confused as the thing that gives us value as a person.

There is also deep suffering in life--We get old, we get sick, we die. Those that we love get old, get sick, and die. This is the reality of living, and we often suffer because of it. The First Noble Truth is about facing this reality honestly.

Many times, it might seem like detaching from our thoughts and feelings would relieve the suffering. Many of us have tried to not get involved in order to avoid being hurt. Many of us have found that this method does not work very well either. We then suffer from a feeling of isolation and loneliness. The word non-attachment is often used in Buddhist texts, and it is sometimes misunderstood that the teachings are encouraging us to deny our thoughts, our emotions, deny anything that causes us suffering. However, the truth of the teachings is the exact opposite. We are encouraged to get to know our selves in a deeply honest and compassionate way, to get to know our thoughts, our emotions, our relationships, very very well. Non-attachment is to realize that these thoughts and emotions are NOT who we truly are, but FIRST we have to SEE them in order to transform our response to them. Compassionate awareness and honesty are the key ingredients to the Buddhist path. Adrienne Howley goes so far to say that, “Buddhism can be of no real value to an individual unless one learns to be perfectly honest with oneself.”

So, I encourage you, in this moment, to finish the sentence silently, “if I were perfectly honest with myself, …” What would you say? This level of questioning doesn’t stop at the first answer that might arise. Sometimes when we’re in pain, we feel angry, but when we probe deeper, there might be fear underneath the anger. This process of perfect honesty is a method to retrace the steps of our difficulties, to get to the root cause.

So, this first Noble Truth, “Life is difficult”, is a statement of honesty. We don’t shy away from it, we don’t pretend it’s not true, and we don’t just accept it as, The Second Noble Truth points out that we make life difficult because we seek to be happy in inherently unsatisfying ways. We keep trying to rearrange the external circumstances of our lives in order to be happy, and if we do manage to get everything and everyone doing what we consider to be the “right” thing (which in and of itself would be a miracle!), then before we know it, everything and everyone changes.

This second Noble Truth reveals itself in two ways: first, we seek happiness outside of ourselves, and second, if we do find some happiness, we wish for things never to change. Understanding impermanence is also a key factor in the Buddhist teachings. Everything is changing. Some things are changing faster or slower than others, but everything and everyone is changing. The underlying energy may remain, but the things created by that energy are constantly changing. The “you” that you were in high school is the not the “you” that you are right now (some might think, “Thank goodness!”). In fact, the “you” now is not the “you” that will be in ten minutes. Yet, we wish so badly for things to remain constant so we can get a handle on things. We all want to have some control over our lives to find happiness, and everything keeps changing, seemingly thwarting our efforts.

One of the inherently unsatisfying ways we deal with our world is that we put labels on everything, so we can feel like we know it, and it’s done. We label things like doorknobs and lightbulbs and other objects—some labels are helpful. But, we also label ourselves and other people. These labels can cause us to not see what is really happening in the here and now.

I want to tell this painful story about myself. I remember a couple of years ago driving down the road, my cellphone rings and I see my sister’s number appear on my phone. My thoughts and emotions immediately kicked into gear—“oh God, I just can’t deal with my sister today—she is the most negative person I know. Should I answer it? Should I let it go to voicemail? Then, I’ll have to call her back and then I dread it until I do”….and on and on…the dialogue went back and forth in my head. I decided to answer the phone. She had an idea about something to do with our mom’s house. I listened for about five minutes, and it felt like torture. I finally shouted back at my sister that I just couldn’t handle all her negativity. At that moment, my sister broke down and cried. Now, I really felt badly. She gained her composure and told me that in the last week, she had read the book called the Secret”, and that she had been working on being more positive all week. She had actually taken two hours preparing to call me because she knew I’d be more open to her idea if she presented in a positive way. In that moment, I realized that I had not really listened to a word that my sister said in the first five minutes of the phone call. I had labeled her negative long before I picked up the phone. I was on the lookout for any sign of a negative perspective, I even saw it when it probably wasn’t even there. That is how putting labels on people can bring us suffering. Experiment with seeing everyone first in a non-judging way. The person may not dramatically change, but our experience of the relationship with them will change dramatically.

Even worse, we often label ourselves in the same way—“I’m always like this, I’ll never change. I’ll never be able to….” There may be things that we cannot do, but I guarantee that every single one of us is changing at this very moment, and exciting new options are arising in each moment, and each of us has the power within us to decide which direction to go from here. We have an amazing number of choices in this culture, and most of the time, we don’t even consider anything but the ones we’ve chosen before.

So, life is difficult because we seek to satisfy ourselves in inherently dis-satisfying ways. The Third Noble Truth is what the Buddha discovered. There is a way out of our unskillful thoughts and behaviors. He discovered that there is peace hiding in each and every moment. And we can learn to tap into that peace, regardless of our external circumstances. These teachings are that powerful. Imagine what it would be like to come from a place of peace and have control over your responses in each situation as it arises?

Adrienne Howley states that the Buddhist path begins with learning mind control. Not that we will be able to stop unskillful thoughts or unhelpful emotions from arising, but we can learn how to create a gap between stimulus and response, so we have a choice, have the time to respond differently. We can learn how to place our power in compassionate awareness and honesty instead of wasting it on unhelpful conditioned behaviors and knee-jerk responses that create more suffering for ourselves and those around us.

To redirect the power within you, you’ll need to have the desire to choose differently, you’ll need to tap into the inspiration needed to keep going when the going gets tough. It might be a word, a phrase, a picture, a vision, whatever might work for you. I encourage you to give that some thought. As an example, we are encouraged to be mindful as if our hair is on fire, and visualize that compassionate awareness is the only thing that will put out the flames.

The Fourth Noble Truth is the Eightfold Path, eight ways of living that encourages this honesty and inspiration. And we’ll talk more about that on Tuesday evening.

As we leave this room and experience the world outside, we can use the tool of mindfulness, or compassionate awareness in each moment, to decipher what is actually happening, beyond the labels and old habits. One practice that you might try is to pick any common activity that you do throughout a week, like opening a door, or starting your car, or when the phone rings. Consider choosing one activity for this week, and each time it happens, practice being fully present and compassionate aware in that moment. That small step is an excellent start to embracing the Four Noble Truths!

Lastly, Roz Stoneking offered this answer to the question “What is the difference between Christian prayer and Buddhist prayer, since there is no “God” to pray “to”. Roz describes Buddhist prayer as "a commitment to join your energy to that divine energy within each of us which unites and sustains us as we work for the good of all beings.” Well said!

Basics of Buddhism 1: Common Misperceptions about Buddhism

2012-01-08T15:13:00.000-08:00

(For Podcast, click here) (For ITunes version, click here)

Today we begin a series of talks on the Basics of Buddhism. I’m highly recommending the book, Naked Buddha, a Practical Guide to the Buddha’s Life and Teachings, by Adrienne Howley.

So why are you here? What is it about Buddhism that draws you in? Reflect for a moment on what you have learned or heard about Buddhism that seems interesting…

Perhaps you are looking for stress relief or for some peace in life, or as a replacement for Christianity or a way to make sense of the world. We each come to study and practice Buddhism for a myriad of reasons.

The Buddha was a man, Siddhartha Gautama, who lived 2600 years ago, and he practiced this way of life for one single reason. That reason was to relieve suffering in himself and in others. He discovered a way to live that creates more peace and happiness and joy and love in the world, and although it can seem surprisingly simple to describe and to read about, there is only one way to know these teachings, and that is to experience them.

The first of the year is always a great time to reflect on how our life is going. What are we doing that’s working? What are we doing that is causing us to suffer? Then we often make a list of things we want to do differently this year to create a different outcome. That is an excellent idea! Except, in a couple of weeks, or a couple of days or maybe this afternoon, some difficult situation will arise, or some old habit, some old thoughts or emotions, and suddenly that list of new objectives might get thrown out the window. This practice of Buddhism is an opportunity to have a tool that works in every moment of every day of every week of every year. If we screw up, we don’t have to wait until next year to try again. We don’t have to wait until tomorrow morning, we can start in the very next moment—that is what these teachings are about.

So each of us is always At the Brink of Truth:

Every breathing moment of our lives presents us with the possibility of awakening to wisdom OR getting mired in fear. Every action, every thought we generate gives us an opportunity to discover our true selves. We alone can choose.

–Ajahn Sumano Bhikkhu with Emily Popp, from Meeting the Monkey Halfway (Weiser)

The mind is often described like a monkey, swinging from thought to thought…

Today I wanted to dispel some of the common misperceptions about Buddhism. There are two primary practices in Buddhism, meditation and mindfulness, that are ways to bring awareness to the true reality of each moment. Mindfulness is being compassionately aware of what you’re thinking or feeling, and taking the time to look at your surroundings, and looking at things objectively as if the witness. Meditation is simple practicing mindfulness in a quiet, still way, like having using training wheels to hone the skill of awareness.

You might have heard that meditation is about getting rid of your thoughts or maybe just getting rid of the annoying or unskillful thoughts. BUT, these practices are not about getting rid of thoughts at all. It is NOT your thoughts or your emotions that are causing you suffering. It is your RESPONSE to those thoughts and emotions. If you practiced meditation and mindfulness diligently for the rest of your life, you may still have annoying and unskillful thoughts, BUT you slowly no longer give them any power. Not giving them power will relieve your suffering.

In order to not give them power, we are learning to create a gap between stimulus and response. Our thoughts and emotions are the stimulae that urge us to act in old habitual ways. We alone choose how to respond, and we need time to evaluate the options and choose the most skillful response. The gap is only found in the present moment and is the ONLY opportunity that you have to change your way of living. Applying compassionate awareness buys us time to reflect on what to do.

Often, when people first start meditating, it’s a bit of shock to realize all the thoughts and emotions we’ve been having all these years. Most importantly, don’t be hard on yourself—that’s why the compassionate part of mindfulness is so important. In Buddhism, we start with the conviction that each us is innately kind, innately compassionate, innately wise. Everyone, no one is left …. Yes even Hitler. Our innate goodness is in there, but it is sometimes covered up by our old habits, and our skewed way of seeing the world and ourselves, our past experiences that may have given us some false belief that we’re no good or that we will always fail. All these preconceived notions may or may not have anything to do with this present moment. Therefore, we practice being fully present, of SEEING more clearly what is really going on.

There are no commandments in Buddhism. There are five precepts that we are encouraged to follow which are to not kill, not lie, not steal, not use sex in a harmful way, and do not let intoxicants cloud your ability to be present. These are guidelines not commandments, because the Buddhist teachings require us to be fully aware of what’s happening in any given moment in order to make the most compassionate and wise response. Here’s an example, if you see a man stab another man in the chest with a knife, what should you do?..... What if that man doing the stabbing is a surgeon? We must be mentally present to understand the circumstances in order to respond in the way that is most likely to relieve suffering.

In her book, Naked Buddha, Adrienne is very practical about her approach to these teachings. She peels off all the cultural additions to Buddhism that sometimes have nothing to do with the original teachings. Misperceptions about Buddhism abound when just looking at how others practice the teachings. With all these Buddha statues, one might ask, am I worshiping Buddha, is Buddha a God? He was not, nor did he claim to be. He claimed only to be a man who had studied various techniques for relieving suffering, and these practices are what he found to work. In fact, Buddha didn’t say you must believe every word he said just because he said it. He said the opposite, don’t believe a word he said, you must try it out for yourself. The Buddha didn’t talk about a deity at all. He only wanted to teach about what could be practiced and experienced to relieve suffering.

In this context, it’s important to mention that Buddhism does not require you to give up whatever religion you might already be practicing. There are many Catholic priests who feel quite comfortable practicing Buddhism in addition to their Christian faith. From my perspective, I think there were many similarities between Jesus and the Buddha, and we will talk about these similarities in the coming weeks.

Do you have to be Buddhist to practice these teachings, and what does being Buddhist really mean? Being Buddhist usually means that you commit to the Refuge Vows as your primary spiritual path, and look to the Five precepts as guidelines for living. We’ll talk about that more on Tuesday evening, but this morning, I just want to emphasize that you don’t have to designate yourself as a Buddhist in order to benefit from these teachings. Knowing many of you, I know that sitting here today, some of you are Christians or Jews who are adding these teachings to your other spiritual practices, some of you are Buddhists who take this as your primary path, and some of you don’t feel the need for any label on your spirituality, some of you are even atheists. What a mixed bag we are! How delightful!

Did Buddha believe in some afterlife? Buddha was actually silent on any issue where no proof was available. He said he didn’t know what happened after we die, nor was it relevant to relieving suffering in this moment. Buddhism is not about speculation or conjecture, only about the experience we are having in our body in our brain in our world in this moment. In fact, all we have is this moment. Peace comes from giving up hope for a better past, and the future depends on what we do in this moment.

Lastly, I want to talk about karma. Karma has worked its way into our western culture, but actually has many different interpretations. In Hinduism, karma is believed to be quite linear. If you screwed up in this lifetime, you will pay next time in your rebirth. But in Buddhism, Karma is viewed more broadly, we are all interconnected and everything is arising because of many, many things that happened in the past. Past on my past misdeeds, I was encouraged by the story of Milarepa. When he was a young man, someone killed his father, and he was so enraged that he hunted down everyone having anything to do with the murder, and he in turn murdered them. While he was on the run, he took shelter with a Buddhist monk, who said that he could only stay if he studied and practiced the Dharma. Milarepa agreed and went on to become a brilliant Buddhist teacher. His teachings still ring true even though they are 1,000 years old.

It is not to say that actions do not have consequences, but in Buddhism, Karma has an element of grace. You cannot change your past. The ONLY thing you can change is what you are doing in this present moment. That is why it is so precious, that is why it’s so important to be present for it, not distracted or consumed by regretting the past or anxiously awaiting the future. This present moment is amazing because it is all we have to work with.

So, in this next week, your assignment is to simply observe your thoughts and emotions as best you can. As we become aware of your thoughts, and before you speak, ask yourself these three questions:

Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?

Inner Freedom

2012-01-02T09:50:00.000-08:00

At this wondrous beginning of 2012, I wanted to share some thoughts on freedom as it relates to Buddhism. When we were all children, most of us wanted the freedom to stay up late or watch TV and we thought that was what happiness was all about. Then, as we became teenagers, we wanted the freedom to stay out late and be with our friends, and we thought that would bring us happiness. Then, we got out of the house, away from our parents and wanted the freedom of being on our own, the freedom that money could buy, being able to buy and do the things that we thought would make us happy.

So, here we are today. At whatever point you are in your life, you are here, right now. Now, when you think about being free, what comes to mind? What is the freedom you desire? Sometimes, even though we have grown up, we may still feel enslaved to our old ways of thinking about ourselves and the world. We may still feel enslaved to any thought or emotion or sensation that arises within us.

In our culture, freedom is often thought of as an ability to chase after any desire that we have. We want the freedom to eat what we want to eat, to drink what we want to drink, the freedom to act on any whim that strikes us. But what the Buddha discovered is that acting on any whim that arises is actually no freedom at all. In fact, it becomes the worst kind of imprisonment. We are imprisoned by our desires, forced to act on them, unable to withstand the feelings of withdrawal that arise if not acted upon.

What the Buddha discovered was that NOT acting on every whim of desire was the FIRST step towards ultimate happiness. Starting with a willingness to see clearly what these whims are all about, we start to see the world at a deeper level of richness, of fullness, of true reality, of true freedom.

A great Italian novelist, Luigi Pirandello said,

“You must not count overmuch on your reality as you FEEL it today, since, like that of yesterday, it may prove an illusion for you tomorrow.”

In Buddhism, the desire for ultimate freedom is one of the tools that we can harness to find the long-lasting peace and happiness that we’ve been looking for all along. As adults, we are no longer constrained by our parents, or at least not physically. But we may feel constrained by our unskillful habits or constrained by our emotions or even our thoughts, constrained by our illusions about what life is about or constrained by what we think we are supposed to be doing. It’s easy to get lost in the shackles of illusions that keep us from being completely happy and at peace. The Buddha taught that the only obstacle to complete freedom and happiness is our own misguided way of thinking.

The very important first step to finding this deep sense of happiness, is to disengage from the constant need to become entangled with these passing thoughts and emotions.

Buddhism teaches us to focus our desire on this inner freedom of choice. Emotions or thoughts will continue to arise, and yet we always have the freedom to choose IF to react and then HOW to react.

-Matthieu Ricard, "Working with Desire" (Tricycle, Summer 2004)

“If we know how to focus on our inner freedom, we can experience all sensations within the pristine simplicity of the present moment, in a state of well-being that is free from grasping and expectation.”

When we become aware of our emotional and mental entanglements, only then, we can see them more clearly, see them for what they are—only illusive and illusory, and only then can we become free of them.

In a beautifully written book entitled Wake Up to Your Life, Ken McLeod gives an eloquent description of how bringing attention to our thoughts and emotions can free us from their hold. He gives a four-step process for dismantling these old patterns.

1. Recognize: When we have sensations or emotions or thoughts, we begin to pay attention to them, become aware that a particular thought or emotion is arising.

2. Disidentify: We start to see these sensations or emotions or thoughts as NOT who we are, but rather to see them as just ephemeral desires or aversions arising. We are NOT our thoughts. We are NOT our emotions.

3. Develop a practice: We practice not identifying with them. Each time a thought or emotion arises, we have an opportunity to form a new habit, to pay attention, to examine it and disidentify with it, so we can see it more clearly. At the start of this new year, you might be considering adding “have a regular meditation and mindfulness practice” to your New Year’s resolutions. This is a fantastic idea! I encourage you to also be prepared for all the ups and downs of life that will inevitably occur this year. Be clear in your intention for inner freedom, so that difficult situations or thoughts or emotions no longer keep you from your deepest desire.

4. Cut through with practice: The Buddhist practice as about more than sitting on a cushion quietly. It’s greatest power comes from using these tools in each moment of our daily lives. Each time a thought or emotion arises, we can apply the antidote to it, the antidote of awareness and compassionate attention. Again and again, until compassionate attention becomes the habit.

When compassionate attention becomes the habit, then we are truly free to live our lives in peace regardless of what arises.

Joseph Goldstein in "The Evolution of Happiness" (Fall 2005) describes this state as The Highest Happiness:

"It is said that after his enlightenment the Buddha was motivated to teach by seeing that all beings were seeking happiness, yet out of ignorance were doing the very things that brought them suffering. This aroused his great compassion to point the way to freedom.

The Buddha spoke of the various stages on the unfolding path of awakening. As we penetrate deeper into the process of opening, to awakening to what is, the happiness of each stage brings us progressively closer to the highest kind of happiness, the happiness of nibbana, of freedom. That is the point of being fully awake."

But, let’s not wait for some magical time when we think we can get it right every time. Let’s start now, in this moment, working at it, with each thought and emotion, a fresh opportunity to practice. With each opportunity, we open ourselves to this incredible freedom little by little. Over time, our lives do become magical, from the deep happiness that develops from the experience of inner freedom.

If I can wish for only one thing for you in this next year or at any point in your life, it would be to have a deep desire and commitment to inner freedom…that’s where real happiness is found.

Have a mindful and magical 2012!

Nothing needs to be done

2011-11-29T07:49:00.001-08:00

Nothing needs to be done.

We live in a culture where it seems like there’s a whole lot of stuff that “needs” to be done, but nothing really NEEDS to be done. Not inherently.

Yes, there are consequences for every action and every inaction, but it is liberating to realize that we are in fact CHOOSING to do everything we do. Try this simple exercise. Think of all the things you do in any given day, from something as simple as kissing a partner or family member good morning, to paying our taxes or going to work. Nothing needs to be done. We are choosing to do what we do. And when we wake up to this fact—society isn’t making us do stuff, our parents aren’t making us do stuff, nobody can make us do stuff. They may encourage, demand, solicit, request, cajole, intimidate, punish or torture, but NOTHING NEEDS TO BE DONE.

When we realize that we start with a clean slate each moment, we start to realize the importance of choosing more wisely. It doesn’t mean we wake up tomorrow and do nothing, but it could be a powerful tool for beginning to question why you do what you do. What is motivating you? Why do you feel so strongly sometimes that certain things need to be done? What do you want? … And how are your choices getting you there?

Cultural influences are an inevitable part of living in any society. We are pushed and pulled by our family and friends, by the media, and by our very minds, to want to fit in, to be part of something, to not be an outcast. But, sometimes our culture, our family our friends the media, our very minds are leading us in the wrong direction. Hypnotizing us into believing that there are certain things that we must do, but upon careful examination, this is simply not true.

This liberating process of waking up to the power of choices hit me so strongly when I was on the pilgrimage in India.

I have read many books, as many of you have, telling the story of Buddha’s life, and as I’ve talked about it, I always downplayed the whole story as “legend has it…” yeah yeah yeah. Does it really matter that Buddha lived at a certain time and was said to have had certain encounters? I kept going back to the basic teachings as the real source of Buddhism. Who cares what really happened in his life?

But what I experienced when I literally walked on the ground that allegedly Buddha and his first followers walked on, it helped me imagine what it must have been like at the very beginning, when this whole practice of mindfulness and waking up was so new to everyone. Walking in all those places where, legend has it, he walked, encouraged me to reflect upon what he and his followers must have been experiencing.

Imagine that you are this man named Siddhartha. You live in a situation where your every need is taken care of. You are completely cared for and have a cushy life. But, you find that something is missing. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. ..The external luxuries weren’t making him feel whole, satisfied, fulfilled. So, he simply left behind everything that he had known his whole life. He left his home, his family, his wife, his newborn son, and went off to find what was missing. Ever wanted to do that? Have you ever had that feeling that it is all just too much to deal with? Now, I’m certainly not advocating walking away from our responsibilities, but by imagining what was happening in the Buddha’s life, I think we can all relate to what he might have been going through.

So, he left, and left behind a mess. His dad was mad at him for leaving the family business of running the kingdom, his wife must have really been irritated leaving her with a newborn. And he left with nothing, so he is wandering around in the forest, hanging out with some new friends that he found, and they convinced him to try this new spiritual practice called asceticism. Asceticisim believes that we should give up all worldly pleasures, even most eating, to have time to solely focus on creating a spiritual experience. It is a very extreme way of life.

In the jagged hills near Rajgir, I climbed to the top of the crags, and sat in a place where Buddha may have come to reflect on this ascetic practice he followed strictly for six years. The view was breathtaking, I tried to imagine his thoughts, as hungry as he must have been—what his thoughts might have been. Haven’t we all struggled at times with a way of life that we think might bring us happiness but it still makes us suffer?

Then, he crossed a river, and through exhaustion, fell on the shore of the other side. A young girl saw him suffering and gave him milk rice. Her name was Sujata, and her act of kindness enabled Siddhartha to live. I crossed the river where it was said that he crossed. I went to the memorial honoring Sujata and her act of kindness, and I was struck how we all have opportunities to help others in their time of need, not knowing what the long term beneficial effects it might be.

With some more strength, Siddhartha went to Uruvela and sat down under a huge Bodhi tree, this beautiful knotted tree with artistic leaves that are found everywhere in the area. He committed to just sitting, just breathing, just being, until he understood what was missing in his life. And there he awakened. Awakened to the fact that there was a way of living that was joyful and happy, that could actually reduce suffering. Because of his awakening, Uruvela is now known as Bodh Gaya, where a magnificent temple has been erected, and around it, craziness. Thousands of monks and nuns and people from all over the world come to this place to see, to chant, to meditate, to prostrate, to do whatever they can to try and get that awakening that Siddhartha had in that very spot.

I myself somewhat selfishly wanted to go there for the same reason. I wanted to be there, to try to experience exactly what he must have experienced, when he gave up thinking that there were things that must be done, and through giving up, discovered this incredible way of living.

Imagine even then, how his life must have changed. Once he had this awakening, he initially felt that no one would understand, so he kept it to himself, but eventually he felt compelled to say something to try and explain. So. He went to Sarnath, and in Deer Park, he sat down with his five friends who he had been hanging with before. They got it, they rejoiced, and then they all started hanging out practicing this new way of living.

Imagine the feedback they must have gotten from other people of the time—“what? What are you doing? Are you crazy? Why aren’t you still doing what everyone else is doing?” They were probably seen as radicals, busting up the system, a threat to the old way of life. But they did it anyway.

As I walked the paths in Deer Park and sat in the spot in Sravasti where Buddha is said to have lived for 19 years, I imagined the excitement he and his followers must have felt, able to let go of the criticism and stay true to their process. They were discovering a new way of living and they were supporting each other on this new path.

This story, I discovered, was not some old legend with no meaning. This story is our story, all of our stories. This story is as contemporary as consumerism and complacency. We each have struggled at times to find a way of living that feels joyful, and right for us. And these practices of the Eightfold Path, the Five Precepts and the Four Boundless Qualities have been proven by others to work, BUT inherent in the teachings is a call to skepticism. DO NOT TAKE ANYONE’S WORD FOR IT. They only work if you try them for yourself.

I stood on Vulture’s Peak at sunset and read the Heart Sutra, the essence of the Mahayana teaching. The words seemed to penetrate me at the deepest level. When I let go of the dualistic thinking of me versus others, when I expand in to the consciousness of all things, I let go of my individual struggle, which turns out to be just a thought in my mind anyway. I can then get a glimpse of the bigger picture, I can see a greater meaning, I can feel a deep connection to all beings, who are going through the same process as I am.

And, I realized that I didn’t need to be in some special place to have this experience. This can be our Bodh Gaya. These flowers on the altar can be our Bodhi tree. We are here to support each other. Imagine the limitations that the Buddha would have felt if it had just been him alone, trying to meditate and try this new way of living. He needed the support of his sangha, his fellow seekers as much as they needed him. We are here to love and support each others, BECAUSE to some extent, we are all radicals. We are bucking the current system. We are committing to no longer worship at the feet of our current culture, to no longer trying to find happiness by rearranging our external circumstances. We are here making a difference, we are here changing western culture little by little, beginning most importantly with ourselves and what we can do internally and then locally, what we can do right now, in this very moment.

Nothing needs to be done.

You choose in this moment and in every moment what you want to do. You can choose loving-kindness. You can choose compassion, You can choose sympathetic joy, You can choose equanimity. Despite of what ANYONE, including your own mind, might tell you, YOU ARE CHOOSING, IN EACH MOMENT.

So, Buddha’s story now strikes me as every person’s story of awakening.

And in two weeks, On December 9^th, at 6 pm we’ll be in this very room, with the relics of the Buddha and other remarkable Buddhist teachers throughout the last 2500 years. I am personally asking you to join me on that night, to be here and bring your friends and family who might be willing to come, so that we can all come together to create and support an experience of loving-kindness and compassion. Imagine this room filled with 300 people solely focused on creating more loving-kindness and compassion in the world, starting here, starting now. Not waiting until we have enough money or time or resources or less criticism or whatever it is that you might think you need before beginning. Start now.

In honor of the upcoming Buddhist Relics Tour, this morning we’ll practice together the Loving-Kindness meditation. Let Buddha’s story be your motivation for going beyond any personal struggles, beyond any pre-conceived notions of who is lovable, who deserves to be loved. Go beyond to see that we all deserve to be loved, that we can cultivate the innate love and compassion that is guaranteed to be within each of us, no matter how much someone might cover it up with wrong thinking, no matter what you might have done in the past.

“Things are not as they seem,

Nor are they otherwise

So you might as well burst out laughing!”

~ Tibetan Dzogchen master Longchenpa, 1308-1369 CE

John Corbaley's dharma talk November 2011 on the upcoming Relics Tour

2011-11-28T12:50:00.001-08:00

In three weeks our center is hosting an exhibit from the Maitreya Foundation of a collection of relics of Buddhist masters and venerated teachers. These objects have enjoyed much popularity through the ages and continue to generate the interest of many people today, both the curious and the devoted. Because of this interest level, it may be helpful to learn about how these objects are viewed by Buddhist historical figures, academics and other Buddhist sources. What exactly are these objects and what are we to make of them and the practices surrounding their treatment and veneration? These views range from uncritical acceptance to frank skepticism regarding the source, characteristics and properties of these objects.

The relics, known in Pali as the Sarira, usually refer to bead shaped objects with pearl or crystalline appearance found among the cremated ashes of Buddhist spiritual masters. In the Tibetan language, they are known as Ringsel. Many believe that these objects have special properties, that they embody the spiritual knowledge, or living essence of the being who was cremated. Many think that the spiritual master deliberately leaves these objects for the benefit of those left behind. It is thought that those who come into close proximity with them can obtain blessings or special auspicious vibrations. Many have reported being overcome with inspiring positive emotions of spiritual transformation in the presence of the Sarira. People have reported healings and visions associated to interaction with these relics

The Sarira are usually kept within small glass containers inside decorative urns. The translucence or beauty of the object is supposed to correlate to the spiritual advancement of the master from whom it came. These objects are supposed to change in color or multiply in number with auspicious conditions. One test of the authenticity of the Sarira is to place them in a bowl of water. True Sarira are supposed to float on the surface of the water and congregate in groups as if magnetically attracted.

There are pragmatic explanations for the appearance of these objects. One is that these are simply the bladder or kidney stones of the cremated person. There is also evidence that bone can become crystallized when exposed to high temperatures, as during a cremation. Many of the smaller bones of the foot or hand may provide the raw material for these objects.

The Theosophical Movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the precursor for modern Western Buddhism. An American Theosophist, Paul Carus, is remembered for many things, among them his support for a young Japanese Zen Buddhist scholar, D.T. Suzuki, who was responsible for popularizing Zen in the U.S. Dr. Carus presented a terse view of the relics when an offer of them was made to him to support his work. I quote from his letter to the Sri Lankan monk in response to his offer:

According to my conception of Buddhism, the most sacred relics we have of the Buddha and his saints are the words which they left--the Sutras and all those ideas which can be verified in experience as valuable truths. Words, thoughts and ideas are not material things, they are spiritual…it is not the paper of the book, or the fibres of the manuscript…but the ideas which are conveyed by them. Thus, all the treasures which I regard as holy are spiritual, and not material. The worship of relics, be they bones, hair, teeth, or any other substance of the body of the saint, is a mistake….The soul of Buddha is not in his bones, but in his words, and I regard relic-worship as an incomplete stage of religious development in which devotees have not as yet attained to full philosophical clearness.”

This is a pretty strong, opinionated view. To me, it is redolent with the kind of condescension which we find in many writings of the time regarding a selective acceptance of Eastern religious practices among Westerners. And we still have many in the academic community who would sympathize with this view.

Peter Harvey is professor of Buddhist studies at the University of Sunderland, and one of my teachers. His views are more matter of fact, encompassing of practices in modern Buddhism which recognize a diversity of beliefs and rituals, offered relatively free of judgment. He writes:

In the Theravada tradition, The Buddha, since his death, is beyond contact with the world, and cannot respond to prayer or worship. Nevertheless, something of his power is seen to remain in this world…in the bodily relics....Having been part of the body of an enlightened being, they were considered to have been infused with something of the power-for-goodness of an enlightened mind, and to bring blessings to those who expressed devotion in their vicinity.

The religious heart of a monastery was threefold: a stupa containing relics, ideally of the Buddha or of some acknowledged saint, a Bodhi-tree, a tree like the Buddha gained

awakening under—often growing on a platform, and finally a shrine hall or image house…all monks would have participated alongside the laity in the various devotional practices which are associated with the ‘recollections’ and which are intended to arouse and cultivate religious emotions that are an aspect of ‘calm’ Samatha meditation. Essentially such devotional practices take the form of worship by means of prostrations, circumambulation, and making offerings of flowers, incense, and lamps to relics ‘dhatu’ of the Buddha (p. 67-78).

What of the experiences reported by those exposed to these objects? I have no trouble believing reports of profound experiences as a result of visiting a display of these objects. People have always experienced internal changes when exposed to external stimuli, whether this is a piece of great art, hearing a great symphony or opera, or being in the presence of a revered teacher or healer.

The interaction which goes on during these experiences is complicated to say the least. That an object like the Sarira can evoke strong emotional responses should be no surprise. From a cold clinical perspective, we know that exposure to certain stimuli or experiences can trigger the release of powerful hormonal substances within the body which can radically affect our emotions, thinking, and even have healing effects. The release of endorphins can flood the consciousness with profound senses of joy, elation and bliss. These same endorphins in the form of nitric oxide, anandamide, and serotonin are routinely produced by intense meditative states and possess strong healing properties when released within the body.

I approach the arrival of this exhibit and our hosting of it with openness and curiosity. I plan to be an active volunteer for this event, as I hope many of you will as well. I have often been intrigued by discussion about the quality of faith, or trustful confidence, surrounding Buddhist views and practices. People who have faith in the truth of the Buddhist path can find much useful in the experience of the Relics exhibit. Some may benefit more than others for any of a number of reasons. As I was thinking about this topic, I found this quote from the Dhammapada. I think it speaks to the general importance of faith to the practice of the Buddhist path, which encompasses a wide scope of individual beliefs and practices. I think its helpful to consider in the context of this coming event and all that it entails. It goes like this:

Happy is the arising of Buddhas;

Happy is the teaching of the true Dharma;

Happy is the harmony of the Sangha;

Happy is the practice of those in harmony.

The merit of worshipping those worthy of worship,

Be they Buddhas or disciples.

Who have transcended their obsessive thinking,

Passed beyond sorrow and grief.

Gone to peace,

And who have nothing to fear.

Can never be calculated by any estimation.

-- John Corbaley, M.S., M.A.

Getting Unstuck

2011-09-19T14:42:00.001-07:00

The fifth chapter of Pema’s book about Taking the Leap is entitled “Getting Unstuck”

TINKERING WITH THE THERMOSTAT

It’s helpful to understand that regardless of where you are in life, each one of us, we are all trying to be happy and trying to avoid suffering—we are genetically designed to do so. Science can now help us understand what the Buddha discovered long ago. Within each of us is a physiological, psychological and emotional thermostat that we are constantly trying to regulate. If it’s too hot or too cold, your body reacts. If you feel lonely or tired, your body and mind react, trying to find a way to relieve this suffering, that’s what your body and mind are designed to do.

However, what the Buddha discovered 2000 years ago, is that all this tinkering with our physical comfort, our psychological comfort, our emotional comfort, leaves us with the feeling of nothing ever quite being right, at least not for long. Most of us have found a myriad of methods to adjust our thermostat to get some temporary relief. Those methods may be skillful, like taking a moment to be grateful for the good in our lives, or those methods might be unskillful, like smoking or drinking or over-eating or over-shopping or enabling or all the other unskillful ways we try to be happy or try to relieve our suffering.

A SHOE FOR THE MIND

A common method of relief is to try and fix the outside world. Get a different job, find a new partner, etc., but making the world “just right” is ultimately a futile process. There is a Buddhist story about the man whose feet were hurt by walking barefoot everywhere. He got the idea that he would find enough leather to cover the entire earth, so his feet would never feel pain again. Of course, the much simpler answer is to get enough leather to just cover your own feet.

Stretching this analogy a little further, Buddhism is like making a special shoe for your mind. You train your mind so that the outside world isn’t always pushing your buttons.

What are your buttons that get “pushed”? This teaching is encouraging us to find out what is the trigger that causes us to want to mess with our internal thermostat. What is happening right before we think, say or act in some unskillful way?

SHENPA

The Tibetan term for that moment of being triggered is called shenpa. Generally the Tibetan word shenpa is translated as “attachment,” but Pema Chodron says that is a little too vague. She prefers the translation “hooked”— what it feels like when we get hooked. She uses the poison-ivy metaphor—our fundamental habit of unskillful scratching—shenpa is the itch and it’s also the urge to scratch. “The urge to smoke that cigarette, the urge to overeat, to have one more drink, to say something cruel or to tell a lie.” But shenpa can take many many forms, shenpa can cause us to overwork, can cause us to be an enabler, can cause us to want to be the hero, when being the hero isn’t the most skillful choice.

PPATIENCE

There’s a moment when you decide to respond in an old unskillful way. That is the moment when you have an opportunity to respond differently. How do we increase the possibility that we will catch that moment?

Practicing patience helps us be present for that very special moment, We work at increasing the time before responding by strengthening patience. There is a scholarly book by an 8^th century Buddhist teacher named Shantideva entitled A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life: How to Enjoy a Life of Great Meaning and Altruism. Shantideva has an entire chapter devoted to the practice of patience.

When we start to examine our unskillful habits, we begin to be more patient, the first thing that happens is being uncomfortable. If you’ve always grabbed that drink, you've always been the enabler, if you’ve always worked too much….when you try NOT to respond in habitual ways, the first thing you will experience is the pain, however subtle, in just trying to stop for that moment.

MINDFULNESS AND MEDITATION

Pema’s advice is to simply take a few deep breaths when we feel the urge to adjust the thermostat. Sometimes that can sound too simple, but try it for a few days—when you are in the midst of an argument with your partner or your child or your parent, saying nothing for a moment and just breathing can sometimes feel like torture.

Sitting in meditation is like training wheels for patience, we are training our bodies and our minds to be still, to get used to resting in the neutral position, so that taking those three deep breaths becomes a little easier in the heat of the moment.

People often describe how painful it sometimes feels to meditate—our bodies and our minds want to keep moving, keeping doing, keep adjusting the thermostat. But putting up with the minor discomfort of meditation has been found to build patience. Your body starts to get comfortable with being in the neutral position, of doing nothing, so that when you make a decision, you can do so with greater insight.

What is the best way to get started? We are encouraged by Shantideva and by Pema Chodron to practice on the little shenpas--when someone cuts in line ahead of us or when we lose our keys and feel frustrated. These small shenpas are the best training ground to catch the bigger shenpas later on.

SHENPA’S SHENPA

The last thing I want to mention is shenpa’s shenpa. When we realize that we are having that feeling of being hooked, and now we know about shenpa, and now we feel guilty/ashamed/sad/depressed that we have been shenpa’d again. Pema encourages us to see that moment when we realize we’ve been hooked as a moment of enlightenment. I encourage you to think of enlightenment NOT as something that will happen lifetimes from now, but as something that starts to happen in that simple moment of recognizing that we’re hooked.

It’s also helpful to have some humor about the whole thing. Make a funny voice in your head that points out when you’re hooked—“you got some shenpa going on!”

Patience and laughter—some of the best medicine for overcoming our unskillful habits.

Sangha practice as a way to find and live your passion

2011-07-26T09:29:00.000-07:00

As the final part of our series on Finding and Living Your Passion, I want to end on an important note, which is Sangha, the noble spiritual community, this group of like-minded seekers that support each other on the path. We talked a few weeks ago about asking for help. Today, I want to talk about how offering help is a way that you can better find and live your own passion. Karl sent me this fascinating article about the scientific research on how our need for group support and encouragement is actually written in our DNA.

Sangha is a Sanskrit and Pali word meaning community with a common goal, It is part of the Triple Gem, an important component of the Buddhist teachings. The Triple Gem is The Buddha and The Dharma and The Sangha—those tools that we can use to support our awakening and the awakening of others.

Historically, the term Sangha was specifically about the group of monks and nuns that lived and practiced together, but many Buddhist teachers today have expanded the description to include us lay people, people who are spiritual seekers, having a spiritual yearning. Together, we can support and encourage each other in growing spiritually. Anyone who is here today can be that person. AND Sangha can be more than even a spiritual community. Sangha can truly represent all those people in your life who you love and support, and who love and support you.

Buddhism in general might seem like a solitary practice, all this meditation in the silence and retreats, and there is certainly a component that is about training your mind, but we train our mind to be of service to ourselves AND others. The Buddhist practice is about how to be in the world but not of it. To be around others in a loving and kind way, but not getting caught up in the drama.

Anybody know anybody who loves drama? I’m sure each of us can bring to mind those people in our lives, maybe at times even ourselves, when creating conflict and turmoil seems to be the highest priority.

But the idea of Sangha is more than just CREATING A NO DRAMA ZONE. It’s about reaching out, encouraging others, having compassion, wise action towards others.

Lama Surya Das likens the encouragement that we give as creating our own immortality—the love and support that you give us lives on well beyond your life. As part of this teaching on Sangha, we can include the fourth step on the eightfold path, which is Right or Wise action. We start to see our action towards others are part of our practice

There are two apects of the Sangha teachings that I want to talk about. First, who do you spend your time with? And Second, how do you spend your time with them.

The first aspect is WHO do we spend our time with is a complicated question. We spent months on the Lojong teachings which focused on making every situation our practice, including those with difficult people in our lives. So, it might have seemed that we’re supposed to love everyone equally, and we are. But that doesn’t mean we have to spend all our time with them. The teaching on Sangha points out that there is great value in finding and associating with people who are on a similar path. So, how do we find the balance? Who are those people in your life that support and encourage you? How can you spend more time with them? And who are those people that drain your energy and test your patience? And how can you either spend less time with them or find a way to create a reasonable boundary?

Deciding who we want to spend our time with is one of the most important decisions we make in our lives. For myself, having been married a few times, I can attest to the fact that making a wrong decision can have lasting consequences. BUT, no matter where you are in relationships, you have this point in time, this exact moment, to decide who you want to spend time and work towards increasing your “Sangha” time.

The second aspect is HOW you spend your times with others. In Buddhism, we are encouraged to practice generosity and compassion with others. Think for a moment about HOW you spend time with those important people in your life.

There are many ways to help others, but here’s three ways that can be food for thought. We can help others succeed by:

1. Acknowledge and praise others’ strengths and accomplishments -- Catch someone doing something good; I’ve found that if I genuinely admire someone’s actions or even beautiful jewelry or a will-put-together outfit, I can say it to them, and that can be the start of a loving and kind relationship. It truly can be that simple. It doesn’t have to wait until they cure cancer. It’s those daily little things that we notice that can add up to a big difference. And a component of this practice can be to ignore the little ways that people screw up. My daughter was visiting me last week, and after she left, I went to put something in the microwave, only to find that she had nuked something with BBQ sauce that splattered the microwave. I was irritated to no end. I was going to tell her how inconsiderate this was, I was going to read her the riot act. Luckily, she was in a time zone where she hadn’t awaken yet, so by the time I called her, I had calmed down, and realized that in the big scheme of things, she’s a really good person, loving and kind, and I was probably never going to be as clean as I’d like her to be. So, I let it go, and felt so much better for doing so.

2. Create supportive environments for learning and positive experiences. How can you create an environment where those around you are having worthwhile experiences? As parents, we have many opportunities to do so. Seeing our children as beautiful manifestations of being to which we are contributing to their unfolding. Sometimes is might feel like our children or our partners our family or friends may get in the way of our meditation and mindfulness, but I encourage us all to see them as opportunities for awakening. Encouraging our family and friends on whatever path they walk.

3. Empower others through being a role model. And lastly, being a role model. How do our actions teach others? This is a powerful part of that fourth step of the eightfold path. We do the right thing not because we have to but because it’s best for us AND others. Actions speak louder than words.

Yale psychology professor Paul Bloom did some groundbreaking research, when he and his team found that infants in their first year of life demonstrate aspects of an innate sense of right and wrong, good and bad, even fair and unfair. When shown a puppet climbing a mountain, either helped or hindered by a second puppet, the babies oriented toward the helpful puppet. They were able to make an evaluative social judgment, in a sense a moral response. This is a critical teaching in the Buddhist practice – we are innate good. We might not always feel that way or act that way, but it’s in our DNA.

In Tibetan Buddhism, there’s a lovely saying, that only the snow lion can become enlightened alone. For us humans, we need others to help us awaken.

Asking for Help and Looking for Good

2011-07-10T16:46:00.001-07:00

As part of our series on Finding and Living Your Passion, this last Sunday I talked about asking for help. When we think about finding and living our passion, it might seem like a solitary process. I’m going to figure this out; I’m going to make this happen. But in the Buddhist teachings, there’s a clear understanding that we’re inseparably interconnected to all beings, and that we can and should rely on the Sangha, this group of like-minded people, to support us in finding and living our passion. Groups and like-minded friends can be very helpful--I’m sure we can all relate to how much easier it is to meditate in a group than it is when we’re at home alone by ourselves.

So, why wouldn’t we rely on others for finding and living our passion if it’s so dang helpful? The simple answer may be, “Because sometimes people don’t seem so helpful.” In fact, sometimes it might seem, “It would be a whole lot easier if everyone would just quit getting in my way!” There can be a subtle or not-so-subtle idea that the people in our lives are obstacles to our happiness.

Asking for help is a critical element in living passionately, so our struggle in asking for help is worth examining. First, I want to talk about good and evil. Second, I want to talk about God and no God.

Are some people evil?

Many religions identify that there is good and evil in the world. And this makes things nice and tidy, but it also keeps us from looking deeper, from trying to discover causes. Once something has been identified as evil, no more is there a need to explain it, only a need to fight it.

I recently read the story about Jaycee Dugard and her tormentors. This husband and wife might be deemed “evil” by some, and certainly their actions were despicable. But, labeling them as evil denies their humanity. Amid the horror of the story, the man who abused her rationalized that her abuse was saving other young girls from being abused—twisted, demented logic, but perhaps a window into his humanity. The wife of the tormentor, who could not have children of her own, made Jaycee pretend that she was the older sister, and pretending that the children were those of the wife. When Jaycee wanted some closure and went to the prison where the man’s wife was being held, the woman actually asked Jaycee if the children missed her. These acts are unconscionable and worthy of punishment, but thinking of the people involved as separate from us, as not human, does no service to providing peace in the world or in our own lives.

Sorting people into separate divisions such as good or evil and categories is very un-Buddhist. The Buddha's teaching of the Four Noble Truths tells us that suffering is rooted in the delusion of an isolated, separate self.

If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

—Alexander Solzhenitsyn

God as an external force

From Barbara O”Brien: “Some religions teach that evil is a force outside ourselves that seduces us into sin. This force is sometimes thought to be generated by Satan or various demons. The faithful are encouraged to seek strength outside themselves to fight evil, by looking to God.

The Buddha's teaching could not be more different --

"By oneself, indeed, is evil done; by oneself is one defiled. By oneself is evil left undone; by oneself, indeed, is one purified. Purity and impurity depend on oneself. No one purifies another." (Dhammapada, chapter 12, verse 165)

Buddhism teaches us that evil is something we create, not something we are or some outside force that infects us.

In Buddhism there are evil actions, which we should seek to block, preventing harm from coming to anyone; but there is no absolute, unchangeable force of evil in the world. By contrast, Buddhism focuses on the three unwholesome roots of evil, also known as the three poisons: craving, aversion, and ignorance. In place of the struggle between good and evil, Buddhism emphasizes ignorance and enlightenment. The basic problem is one of self-knowledge: do we really understand what motivates us?”

This second point is the difference between believing or trusting in an external God and believing and trusting in ourselves. In the book, When Things Fall apart, Pema Chodron describes this desire to look outside ourselves as wishing for a babysitter, someone who is taking care of us, watching over us, punishing us when we do wrong, keeping us in line. The simple word God is loaded with personal meanings and extrapolations, but to generalize, it is often understood as this external force that is acting like a babysitter to us.

There's proof that having confidence in one's own abilities to successfully respond to any situation provides greater happiness, and that is certainly part of the Buddhist teachings. However, there is additional value in feeling the greater connection with all beings, including Bodhisattvas who are specifically described as having the purpose to help other beings become enlightened. There are many Mahayana and Vajrayana visualizations about the infinite deities that exist in timeless time and are here to "help" us. So whether there is a God or no God in Buddhism starts to look a lot murkier than many would describe.

We each can look out our own definition and experience of the word God, to see if it seems more like a babysitter or like a principle of good. And we can try out seeing "me" as greater than this individual body. We can draw a broader line about who "I" am, in recognition of the inseparability of all beings. We can see it as if we are all one being, using the analogy that if a hand might become sick, is still supported by the rest of the body. There are many Buddhist teachings about the happiness that comes from acting for the greater good.

As the next step in your journey towards living passionately in each moment, try catching someone doing something good—something kind, considerate, supportive, loving. Look for the good. It’s amazing how much more you find when that is what you are seeking.

Vajrasattva (Forgiveness and Purification) Practice

2011-07-09T17:35:00.001-07:00

Vajrasattva – Name given a Bodhisattva (enlightened being) who expanded upon Mahayana Buddhism to include everything in meditation (Vajrayana) as well as the discovery of several rituals, visualizations, and yogas to assist in the achievement of forgiveness and fresh starts, which can lead to enlightenment.

Vajrasattva Purification (from Ven. Thubten Chodron’s Pearl of Wisdom, Book II)

1. Begin by visualize Vajrasattva above and in front of you

2. Begin by reciting the refuge vows three times:

In Buddha, Dharma and Sangha

We go for refuge until fully awakened

Through the power of Generosity, Ethics, Patience, Enthusiastic Effort, Concentration and Wisdom

For the sake of all beings, may we realize and demonstrate our innate goodness.

3. The Power of Regret – reflect, with deep regret, the specific negativities that you have created, and ask for Vajrasattva’s help in guiding you from this misery.

4. The Power of Remedial Action – a process to purify all past experiences. While reciting the 100 syllable mantra 21 times or the shorten version “om vajrasattva hum” 108 times, visualize the flow of “light and nectar” from Vajrasattva down through the crown of your head and fill every cell of your body and mind with infinite bliss.

5. Purification of Body – Your disturbing attitudes and negativities take the form of black ink. Flushed out by the light and nectar, they leave your body through the lower openings, like filthy liquid flowing down a drainpipe. Feel completely empty of these problems; they no longer exist.

6. Purification of Speech - …take the form of liquid tar. ..flow out the upper openings of your body…

7. Purification of the Mind - …take the form of darkness in your heart…the darkness completely disappears…

8. Simultaneous Purification – Do the three above visualizations simultaneously. Feel completely free of these obscurations.

9. The Power of the Promise – To create a fresh start, make the following promise to Vajrasattva, “I vow that I will do no negative action from now on.” Vajrasattva is extremely pleased and says, “My spiritual child of the essence, all your negativities, obscurations and degenerated vows have been completely purified.”

With delight Vajrasattva melts into light and dissolves into you. Your body, speech and mind become inseparably one with Vajrasattva’s holy body, speech and mind.

10. Dedication – “Due to this merit, may I soon attain the enlightened state of Vajrasattva, that I may be able to liberate all beings from their suffering. May the precious Buddha Nature arise and grow. May it have no decline, but increase forever more.”

Find and Live Your Passion

2011-06-20T08:10:00.001-07:00

Last week, we talked about the importance of clearly knowing what we value, what our intention in life is, and matching those value/intentions to where we spend our time, based on the Right Intention step on the Eightfold Path.

This last Sunday, I talked about "getting into the full flow of living". If we are to be passionate about living, we have to take the risk of being in the flow, which includes all the messiness of life. Oftentimes, we spend endless energy regretting or hanging on to something in the past or fearing something in the future. When we decide to make friends with our past (Jack Kornfield calls it the moment we give up trying to create a better past) and when we make friends with our fear, when we are finally honest with ourselves about the truth, we free up enormous amounts of energy that can be focused on being more present and passionate in each moment. In each mindful moment, we will find our passion for living.

Now, think forward to this next week. What one or two small things could you change that will help you make friends with the past and the fears and start to get into the flow? Here's some ideas I threw out:

Find some time each day to do just one thing at a time. Washing dishes, doing laundry, taking a bath--without the cell phone, TV or all the other intrusions that sometime complicate our lives.
Periodically, be aware of breathing. Instead of worrying whether we're meditating enough, we can start with finding a couple of times each day to be aware of breathing. Focus on your next three breaths and nothing else. It takes less than two minutes and can be life changing as we slowly do it more and more each day.
Be slow to respond. Whatever the trigger might be--an angry co-worker, a crying child, some person cutting you off in traffic--take 60 seconds to decide how to respond in a new way, how to respond in a way that blesses you and the other person.

One person decided that they were going to look for an opportunity to sincerely compliment another person every day. It can be that simple.

That's if for this week! Next week, we'll be talking about finding the power to change.

Find and Live Your Passion

2011-05-28T06:17:00.001-07:00

What is your unique gift to the world? What could you do that would bring you and others the greatest joy? How can you live your passion?

Buddhism is sometimes misunderstood as being anti-passion. "If we're passionate about something, aren't we clinging to it, and isn't clinging 'bad'?" I offer the distinction that clinging is the false passion for short-term, sensual experiences. True passion is the intersection between what we do best and enjoy the most and what creates the greatest good.

Buddhism is all about finding your true passion. We learn to be mindful and meditate by being passionate about waking up. Being mindful enables us to explore our unique abilities, our gift to the world, and then find new ways to use our gifts for the greatest good.

Join me at 9 am on Sunday, June 12th, as we explore together this process of finding and living our true passion. Over the next several Sundays, we will explore the following topics:

- Intention versus Goal
- Being in the Flow
- Finding the Power to Change
- Creating Timeless Time
- Curiosity as a Lifelong Journey

When not to be patient

2011-05-16T14:58:00.000-07:00

I’m continuing the series of talks about the Lojong or Mind Training teachings. This group of 59 pithy slogans is a great place to start your practice or to deepen your practice, wherever you are at. In fact, a good reference book is Pema Chodron’s entitled, Start Where You Are. These teachings are about opening our heart, getting comfortable with the power we have to transform the way we relate to ourselves and others.

This week, we’ll talk about a slogan in the Seventh Point, about more specific guidelines to follow.

Seven: The Guidelines for Mind Training

42. Whichever of the two occurs, be patient.

In this slogan, what are the two? It’s talking about the happy or the sad, wonderful/awful, joyful/wretched. However, it’s really about the infinite spectrum of human experience. Whether you’re having an experience of great joy, or an experience of great sadness, or whether you having an experience anywhere in the between, this slogan is encouraging us to be patient. The message? Be patient!

Haven’t we heard our whole lives? Just be patient!

I would offer a completely different perspective on this slogan. Don’t be patient!

What are you waiting for? What are you waiting for before you make being mindful the most important thing in your life? How many times have we thought, “I don’t have time to be mindful today!” The scientific proof is that these Buddhist practices make every moment a good moment. It’s not about being Buddhist, it’s about being mindful. It’s about being aware. And it’s been scientifically proven that being mindful makes everything else in life more fulfilling. Start there! Start here! Right now. Let’s not wait until the end of this meditation, let’s not wait until the end of this talk. Now. Let’s each of us make mindfulness the priority in our lives right now, and now and now and now. Let go of your pre-conceived notions about what’s happening and just focus on being in each moment.

What are you waiting for? Think about those things in life that you’re think are going to make you happy. “I’ll be happy when I get a new job,” or “I’ll be happy when I finish school,” or “I’ll be happy when I get into a relationship,” or “I’ll be happy when I get out of a relationship.” What is your personal thing that you’re waiting for? What are you telling yourself that you’re waiting for and then you’ll be happy?

Now stop and decided to be happy in this very moment. We can cultivate a sense of happiness in each and every moment. When we do the loving-kindness meditation at the end of the meditation, there’s the part where we say, “May I be happy, May I be peaceful” Note that it doesn’t have any caveats or future time frame. It’s not may I be happy when this certain thing happen, It’s "may I be happy". Now. Period. This has been scientifically proven to increase a person's perceived level of happiness. Train your brain to rest in a state of happiness.

To clarify, this isn’t about giving up all goals in our lives. We can still plan to go to school or change jobs or whatever it is that we think we need or want to do, but don’t miss what’s happening in this moment right now because that’s where all the information is that we need to live.

We have to learn to love the process or we’re never going to be happy.

I was thinking the other day about checking something off my bucket list, you know, those things that you want to do before you die. And I had this mental image of checking it off the list. I was feeling anxious about the details of making it happen and had this thought about how good it will feel to check it off, and in that moment I woke up, and I laughed at myself. What good is a completed check list when I’m dead????? Will they put the completed list in my coffin and proclaim me a success? Who cares? Doing something on your bucket list is about enjoying the process. I lost sight of that for a moment. It’s crazy.

We don’t’ have to wait for life to happen. It’s happening. This it. Right now.

As most of you know, Unity Temple and the Temple Buddhist Center are all about supporting and encouraging each person to live a joyfully passionate life, doing what we love, and often I talk with people who aren’t sure what their passion is. They know what it’s not! That is usually easier to figure out. But sometimes it’s difficult to see where we want to go. I would advocate that being mindful in each moment is the VERY BEST WAY to discover your passion. When you’re fully aware in a moment where your heart is singing, when you feel like you’re in love with living, in that moment, you’ll find your passion. Passion isn’t something that we can contemplate intellectually or assess or analyze. We’ve got to live it to know it.

Another important aspect of passion is that we don’t have know the endgame. Passion isn’t about having a specific goal. It’s about experiencing joy in as many moments as possible. Just follow your passion wherever it leads you. You don’t have to know the whole journey, you just have to see the next step. And passions can morph and change over time. Nobody says you have to pick a passion and stick with it. When we are fully present in the moment, we’ll know what to do. It is as simple as that.

Okay, now that I’ve completed denigrated patience, I will cut patience some slack. The one piece of patience we might need is when we don’t get it quite right. Knowing the truth, that we should make mindfulness a priority, that being present is about living, doesn’t’mean we’re always going to be right here, right now. We CAN be patient when we’re not consistent. And just keep trying….dont’ give up. It’s so worth it.

In her book, Pema Chodron has a specifically Buddhist definition of patience, which is:

Patience means allowing things to unfold at their own speed rather than jumping in with our habitual response to either pleasure or pain.

We can have gentleness/patience with ourselves when we don’t get it right. And we can have patience with each other when others aren’t getting it quite right.

So instead of the slogan, "whichever of the two occurs, be patient", I offer something a little different to remind us of this teaching, “this too shall pass”. This can be our purpose! I use it when things are awful, and I need to just hang in a little longer. AND I also use it when things are wonderful, to make sure that I fully appreciate those most joyful moments in life.

Helen Keller was apparently a bit of a Buddhist herself. She said:

“Many people have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

So I offer today, that the most worthy of purposes, is to be fully present. This too shall pass…

Living with Grief, a dharma talk by John Corbaley

2011-05-02T14:47:00.000-07:00

Here's the excellent dharma talk that John Corbaley gave this last Sunday on dealing with living with grief. Thanks John!

A couple of weeks ago, The Hospice Foundation of America sponsored an annual conference titled “Living with Grief.” The program considered issues of spirituality and end-of-life care, discussing the differences and relationship between spirituality and religion with special attention to spirituality during illness, death and grieving process. Unity Temple hosted this event here in the Charles Fillmore Chapel. About a hundred people, mostly hospice staff, social workers, and hospital chaplains attended the afternoon seminar.

The meeting was split between a two hour national panel of experts that was broadcast via DVD onto a large screen at the back here, and a local panel for discussion and fielding questions from the audience. This local panel was comprised of pastors, ministers, chaplains, rabbis--and me. I’m not exactly sure why I was asked to be a part of the local panel--I suppose because my training allowed me to provide some useful information on matters pertaining to Buddhist practices.

Anyway, the national panel of participants represented some really amazing talent and wisdom on end-of-life issues--professors of gerontology and social work from major academic institutions. They discussed things like spiritual assessment, empowerment and life review.

All the participants to this conference were given a copy of the book Living with Grief: Spirituality and End-of-Life Care. This is an excellent book covering end-of-life issues from the perspective of many different religions. One chapter dealt with Buddhist views on end-of-life care. It was written by Betty Kramer, one of the national panelists who spoke that day. She is a professor of social work from the University of Wisconsin. She is also a long time practitioner of the Buddhist path. She did an excellent job of presenting her views in a clear and understandable way.

Explaining end-of-life issues from a Buddhist perspective was not a particularly easy task. She cited research which shows that there are at least 31 different forms of Buddhism practiced in the United States today, each with distinct features and cultural practices. She offered this advice to those caring for the dying person:

“Listen deeply to ascertain the individual’s wishes and preferences...If they have a guru or lama, it will be especially important to consult with these spiritual authorities for their instruction regarding the most appropriate care....For those who belong to a spiritual community, they could also offer valuable expertise in providing care, support, and reciting special prayers and mantras (p. 213).”

She concludes by saying:

“Buddhists practice for death over the course of their life, seeking to cultivate virtuous states of mind and abandon harmful states of mind so they may be better prepared to hold a virtuous state of mind at the time of death. Buddhists do this by deliberately cultivating awareness of the certainty of death, the preciousness of life, and the uncertainty of the timing of death to support their commitments to make spiritual progress (p. 216)”

One of the critical issues at this conference was counter-transference. This is a ten-dollar word which means how the “stuff” of the caregiver gets in the way of doing the work of the person going through the dying process. The national panel moderator, Frank Sesno, confronted two of the panelists during the discussion, Betty Kramer, and Martha Rutland, and said, “OK, Betty you’re the Buddhist patient, and Martha, you’re the Christian pastor, how do you counsel Betty?” The upshot, after some discomfort on both sides, was basically that the pastor’s job was to listen, to identify needs, if any, and meet those needs once they were identified.

At the live panel, the issue of counter-transference really never came up. There was an over-arching sense of courtesy that didn’t allow anything uncomfortable to occur. I think if we had gotten to know each other more beforehand, we might have had the space to allow more productive controversy to come up and make the discussion more practical.

What was very interesting to me in this book was the chapter on dealing with atheists. Marilyn Smith-Stoner wrote an amazing chapter on the raw edge of hospice work in this country today. The raw edge is this: In a society which is predominantly Christian the current demographics can produce the potential of unwanted preaching about God and salvation.

She feels that even though there is a chaplain on the palliative care team in organizations caring for those at the end-of-life, the social worker should be the primary team member addressing the spiritual needs if it is an atheist going through this process. The chaplain will be able to offer support to religious family members of the dying person, but the social worker is better prepared to, “help patients identify the meaning in their own lives, affirm or repair their connection to family members, and assist with life completion tasks (p. 226).”

Marilyn commented that these tasks often take the form of interventions reaffirming life accomplishments, offering and giving forgiveness, life review, rejoicing in good deeds, and connection with the natural world to provide experience with pets, plants, and the outdoors that can all possess meaning for someone with an atheist world view.

She provides this benediction for a funeral service from a funeral guidebook for atheists:

“We now come to the final moment of the physical existence of X, with respect, honor, affection, regard and love. His passion and intelligence we commit to our memories. His humanity and caring we commit to our hearts. His body we commit to be burned and returned to the cycles of nature he understood so well. “Earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes (p. 228).”

This view cleanly and clearly presents a perspective which honors the individual, provides a recognition of the worth of that person, and the esteem in which his memory is held by the attendees. I think it would honor any person without favoring a particular religious viewpoint.

Something I said during the panel discussion regarding Buddhism was that in the United States today, 75% of Buddhists are converts. This often means that in a similar way to atheists, family members may not be the best resources for providing information about end-of-life practices. The most informed people may be friends who share the spiritual path rather than family members who may be supportive, but have little actual information on these matters.

This is something for us all to think about. Who would we want contacted in this situation, and what exactly would our wishes be? What observances, rituals, or practices would we want to occur if we were incapacitated and unable to tell anyone? Who would we want present, and what would we want them to do?

I would like to end now with a favorite quote of mine. It is from a translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. I think it would bring me peace when that time comes. I have placed a copy of it alongside my Durable Power of Attorney papers, living will, and the obituary I wrote for myself as an exercise some years ago. It goes like this:

My friend,

Now is the moment of death.

The time has come for you to start out.

You are going home.

Oh, nobly Born,

Now is the moment.

Before you is mind, open and wide as space,

Simple, without center or circumference.

Now is the moment of death.

Your mind in this moment is total transparency;

No color, no substance, emptiness.

Sparkling, pure and vibrant,

A mass of light

Not stopped by any obstacle.

It has neither beginning nor end.

Go toward the light.

Merge with it.

Merge with the light.

Death has happened.

It happens to everyone.

Merge with the clear white light.

Don’t long for what’s finished.

You can’t stay here anymore.

Death has happened.

It happens to everyone.

In this crucial moment,

Don’t be afraid.

Whatever appears,

Recognize as the form of your own thoughts.

Please don’t be afraid of your own radiance.

You no longer have a physical body.

Death has happened.

So nothing can hurt you.

You can’t die again.

Don’t be afraid.

Merge with the light. Merge. Merge.

You’ve wandered so long

In this muddy swamp.

If you continue to see

What is transparent

What shimmers, as solid

You will wander further yet.

Your mind itself is only an idea.

It has never been anything more.

You hear only echoes,

You see only dreams.

Cities are mirages.

The mountains are like the moon reflected in water,

Waves of your own mind.

This mind, shimmering, transparent,

Without beginning,

Without obstacle,

Is like water poured into water,

Water poured into water.

References:

Doka, Kenneth J. and Tucci, Amy S, eds. Spirituality and End-of-life Care, Hospice Foundation of America, Washington, DC. 2011.

Van Itallie, Jean-Claude. The Tibetan Book of the Dead for Reading Aloud. North Atlantic Books, Berkley, California, 1998.

n John Corbaley, M.S., M.A.

Body, Speech and Mind in Perfect Oneness

2011-04-24T18:46:00.001-07:00

I’m continuing the series of talks about the Lojong or Mind Training teachings. This group of 59 pithy slogans is a great place to start your practice or to deepen your practice, wherever you are at. In fact, a good reference book is Pema Chodron’s entitled, Start Where You Are. These teachings are about opening our heart, getting comfortable with the power we have to transform the way we relate to ourselves and others.

This week, we’ll talk about the slogans in the Sixth Point, about how we relate to others.

Point Seven: The Guidelines for Mind Training

47. Keep the three inseparable.

What are these three? Body Speech and Mind

Thich Nhat Hanh translation of Buddhist poem:

With body speech and mind in perfect oneness
I send my heart along with the sound of the bell
May the hearers awaken from forgetfulness
And transcend the path of anxiety and sorrow

This slogan is reminding us that we can use our body, speech and mind as tools for awakening, for transformation. No special equipment needed. We all have a body, we all speak and we all have a mind. It might seem too simple, but how often are we not in sync with ourselves? We read a lot of spiritual books, but we think or speak with anger, resentment, fear or judgment. Or maybe we speak well but we continue to treat our bodies with disrespect. How can we leverage the integrated power of these three tools to relieve the suffering in our lives and the lives of others?

Since it’s Easter today, I thought I’d take this opportunity to tie in the Unity perspective as well. One of the five basic principles of Unity’s take on Christianity is the Law of Mind Action. There’s an easy phrase to remember the concept, which is “Thoughts held in mind produce after their own kind.” So what does that mean?

Some would say that we are what we think, but more importantly, this principle reminds us what we think determines what we experience. If your thoughts are constantly on doom and gloom, you will see doom and gloom all around you. This isn’t about being Pollyana and having no awareness of the realities of the moment, but rather it’s about seeing what’s happening and looking for the good, giving others and yourself the benefit of the doubt. There’s a cute little story about when you see a pile of poop, you can imagine that there must be a pony in there somewhere.

The most fundamental Buddhist practice is mindfulness and meditation. It is the foundation of the entire teachings. Why? I would offer that it’s so important because the law of mind action. If we are to harness this principle, we must start by being aware of what we are currently thinking. Reflect back on the meditation that we just had. What were the top three thoughts that kept coming back up for you? Was it situation you’re dealing with, a person you were thinking about? Thoughts arise, and we need to be aware of what is arising, in order to train our minds to be more skillful. We start by recognizing our thoughts, loosening their grip, then replacing the random thoughts with consciously directed thoughts on loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity/wisdom. Our minds are our most powerful instruments.

Everything began as a thought. Everything in this room started out as someone imagining what it might be. In fact, everyone in this room started out as a thought. Isn’t that true? Wow! That’s how powerful thoughts are. So, in Buddhism and in Unity, we are learning to train our thoughts to create more positive outcomes.

Next is speech. The thoughts alone aren’t enough to make something happen. We have to speak them as well. Skillful speech is one of the steps on the eightfold path. How can speaking relieve suffering in our lives? Pick a memorable conversation you had with someone in this last week. As you reflect on that conversation, how would you categorize your speech? What impact did it make? When we stop to reflect, we all know how powerful words are, and what an great opportunity they provide to relieve suffering. I was finally watching the movie, the King’s Speech last night, and it brought home the power of words. Think of the power of Hitler’s words…and the power of Mother Theresa’s words.

I also want to take time to reflect on the written word. Anybody ever sent an email to one person commenting about another person? And then, oops, somehow the person you were writing about sees the email or it gets forwarded to them? I was wondering if, in addition to spell check, we could have a Buddhist tool for emails, called skillful speech check, that would read over our emails, and ask us questions about whether we were writing to relieve suffering or increase suffering?

Lastly, we put into action our thoughts and speech through our deeds. Ask yourself the question. How in sync are you with your intentions and your actions? We might want to just read a bunch of Buddhist books and spout a bunch of Buddhist phrases, then go home and overeat and smoke and overdrink and underexercise. We could and sometimes we do, but if we wake up to the way this spiritual path actually works, we will realize that the greatest way to reduce the suffering in our own lives and the lives of others is to take care of our bodies, along with our speech and our thoughts.

This principle of mind action is more universal than just a Buddhist or Unity or Christian thought. In Judaism, particularly in Kabbalah, the law of attraction is a key teaching, that our words and our deeds, have the power to draw us closer to, or farther away, from God. The power in this teaching is the recognition of the power in ourselves to change our experience of the world.

"You want a better, more just world? Well then, start building it. Who is stopping you? Build it inside yourself and around you. Build it with those who want it. Build it small, and it will grow."

-- Lanza del Vasto, Italian follower of Mahatma Gandhi

Spiritual Courage and fearlessness

2011-04-17T19:11:00.000-07:00

I’m continuing the series of talks about the Lojong or Mind Training teachings. This group of 59 pithy slogans is a great place to start your practice or to deepen your practice, wherever you are at. In fact, a good reference book is Pema Chodron’s entitled, Start Where You Are. A reminder that these teachings are about opening our heart, getting comfortable with the power we have to transform the way we relate to ourselves and others.

This week, we’ll talk about a slogan in the Seventh Point, about how we relate to others.

44. Learn the Three difficult points

Last week, we talked about hindrances, and this week difficulties!? Hang in there with me! There’s some joy coming at the end of this talk.

Jamgon Kontrul is one of the commentators on these original teachings by Atisha, and he said,

"At first, it is difficult to recognize disturbing emotions. Second, it is difficult to overcome them. Third, it is difficult to keep up the practice. Therefore, you should train in these three points. First, recognize disturbing emotions for what they are as soon as they arise. Then, stop them by taking corrective measures. Finally, be decisive in your attitude that we will continue to get beyond these disturbing emotions, until they lose all power and fade away."

It’s about recognizing that we are stepping on our own feet, and figuring out a way to stop it. We often get irritated at what others do to us, but my belief is that there’s plenty to work on what we do to ourselves.

So what are these disturbing emotions? What emotions do you experience that get you all wrapped around the axle, get your panties in a wad, push your buttons, make you go off the deep end, set you off. It's amazing how many slang terms there are for getting hooked by disturbing emotions. This is an opportunity to recognize that we are all in the same boat. We may feel like we’re the only person that has this level of resentment or anger, or depression or sadness, or whatever the disturbing emotion might be.

I want to suggest that all disturbing emotions have one foundation, and that is fear. We are afraid of something, afraid of something hurting us, afraid of something changing, afraid of something NOT changing, afraid of the unknown.

Let’s put this to the test. Bring to mind some of your disturbing emotions. What wakes you up in the middle of the night? What hangs you up? What makes you uncomfortable? What causes you to act unskillfully? It might help to think back in the last few weeks, and remember a specific time that you felt disturbing emotions. …………. Now ask yourself, what is the basis of this emotion? What is the cause of this reaction?

This teaching is about how to create more joy in our lives. An underlying sense of fear in our lives can make everything a whole lot less joyful. Fear can hang over us, subtly define us, like, in that anti-depression pill commercial, where a dark cloud follows the person around in every activity of their day, sucking the joy out of the moment. This slogan is encouraging us to look at that dark cloud, encouraging us that when we face, go through and beyond our difficult emotions, life becomes more joyful.

I come from a family of worriers. So, I have a tendency to worry about a multitude of things. I’m hoping some of you can relate. There was always a tacit belief that worrying is doing something productive. I often felt that if I couldn’t do anything else, I could at least worry! Okay maybe pray a little as well, but in my family, worry was often seen as a viable response to a fearful situation.

A friend of mine was helping his son start a commercial building business, and the son was at the point where he had his own company and his own crew and his own deals. One day, the son found out that his demolition crew had started to demolish the wrong building, and at first it was unclear how to fix the problem or how much money it would cost. He found this out at around 5 pm on a Thursday and wouldn’t have additional answers that he would need until the next day. He called his father and they brainstormed some possible solutions, but clearly did not have enough information to make any decisions at that time. At 8 pm, his dad told his son that for the next 12 hours, that he would worry for his son, that his son could get a good night’s sleep, let go of any worry about the situation, and in the morning at 8 am, the son could call him, and the dad would return the responsibility for worrying back over to him. It might sound silly, but what good did the worry really do? And, when we have a difficult situation, isn’t it often the case that we need to set the problem down for awhile, then come back to it to find a better answer?

So, you might wonder--aren’t some fears helpful? Let’s see. I think it’s important to separate out the emotion of fear from being prudent and having proper planning. We can know not to run into the street without looking, without fearing cars. We can manage our money properly, without constantly fearing financial ruin.

So, this is not just about dealing with so-called irrational fears, though many of us have those as well. This is about dealing with all fears, including the ones about things that actually might happen. We may be afraid of getting sick, yep—that most likely will happen. And our loved ones very likely will get sick as well. We might lose all our money—now I hope that wouldn’t happen, and we should all be good money managers, but what if it did happened? We may be afraid of dying—yep, I can pretty much guarantee that everyone is this room is going to die some day.

So, how can we confront and overcome these difficult emotions? I would suggest that it’s about finding that innate wisdom within ourselves, and allowing that to create courage.

Courage is defined as the ability to confront fear, pain, risk/danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. Physical courage is courage in the face of physical pain, hardship, death or threat of death, while spiritual courage is the ability to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, the ability to overcome shame, scandal, or discouragement. That is spiritual courage.

As we practice together, we are building our spiritual courage, just like building up a muscle in our body. We start to run towards the fear instead of away from it. In the Buddhist teachings, it is taught that everyone has within them Buddha Nature, innate wisdom, innate strength and courage. No one is left out. Not one. No matter how fearful you might feel at this moment or some moment in the future, you still have within you Buddha Nature, Christ Consciousness, to face those fears, those disturbing emotions, and get beyond them. Everyone has courage within them, waiting to be tapped.

Jennifer Baltz writes a spiritual blog entitled Creative Spirit, and in it she wrote, "I believe that spiritual courage is the art of remembering. Remembering that we are never truly alone…we are all in the same boat. that we are part of All That Is. Even when we forget and close our ears and eyes to that connection, we are still part of the Whole. And this awareness can give wings to our spiritual courage, intuition and ideas, because it allows each of us to be unique and special, and still be part of the Whole.”

So, it is difficult to recognize disturbing emotions, and it is difficult to overcome them and to keep up the practice. Therefore, you should train in these three points. First, recognize disturbing emotions for what they are as soon as they arise. Second, stop them by taking corrective measures by applying our innate courage to see the fear and make friends with it. Third, we can make it a priority in our life to get beyond the fear, until it loses all power and fades away. Through this simple process, we will all find a whole lot more joy than we ever thought possible.

One Intention and Two Activities

2011-04-17T18:52:00.000-07:00

I’m continuing the series of talks about the Lojong or Mind Training teachings. This group of 59 pithy slogans is a great place to start your practice or to deepen your practice, wherever you are at. In fact, a good reference book is Pema Chodron’s entitled, Start Where You Are. A reminder that these teachings are about opening our heart, getting comfortable with the power we have to transform the way we relate to ourselves and others. This week, we’ll talk about a couple of the slogans in the Seventh Point which focuses on mind training guidelines.

39. All Activities Should Be Done With One Intention

Pema Chodron’s teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, said it well. "The one intention is to have a sense of gentleness toward others and a willingness to be helpful to others - always. That seems to be the essence of the Bodhisattva vow. In whatever you do - sitting, walking, eating, drinking, even sleeping - you should always take the attitude of being of benefit to all beings."

Buddhism has been around for 2500 years, and millions of people have practiced these teachings, and found them to work, and have become deeply happy from using them. Also, these teachings have now been scientifically studied through MRI and Brain scans, and we can confirm that the practices have positive impact on our ability to be deeply happy. So, if all this is true, why doesn’t everyone just practice these teachings? Why don’t we all have as our only intention, a sense of gentleness toward others and a willingness to be helpful to others - always.

What are earth is stopping us from doing all activities with this one intention? What’s stopping me? What’s stopping you?

This slogan provides a great opportunity to discuss the five hindrances, because, as all those millions of people who have practiced these teachings can validate, most of them were just like you and me, and most of them had the same obstacles and issues that we have trying to do this practice. For example, the Pali Canon is the earliest surviving original teachings of the Buddha to be written down and preserved, and the five hindrances are discussed frequently. SO, these hindrances have been obstacles for over 2500 years!

(From Wikipedia)

*Sensual desire (kāmacchanda): Craving for pleasure to the senses.

*Aversion (byāpāda, vyāpāda): Pushing things and people away

*Laziness or boredom (thīna-middha): We do things Half-heartedly action with little or no concentration.

*Restlessness-worry (uddhacca-kukkucca): An inability to calm the mind.

*Doubt (vicikicchā): When we question for no other reason than to avoid change.

Desire: Not all bad. We desire to be enlightened, We desire to help others, we desire to be a good person. But isn’t much of our desire is just to please our senses. Buddhists aren’t against pleasure, but often we aren’t even present when we’re seeking pleasure we think we so desperately need. After the fourth hour sitting in front of the TV, are you still getting that same zing of pleasure you got when you first sat down. After the fourth drink, or fourth cigarette or tenth cookie or whatever your particular vice might be. Is it really bringing you all that much pleasure or is it standing in the way of being fully present?

And Aversion: Not all bad. We push away unskilled behavior. We push away things and people that hurt us. But when we look closely, we might find a lot of aversion in our life that is more about trying to get to this completely comfortable external world, so we don’t have to deal with some unpleasantness in life. We avoid tough conversations that we know we need to have. We avoid seeing our actions and the results that they cause. What are you avoiding that needs to be looked at?

Lama Surya Das says that we need to pay attention to our intention. When we truly pay attention to our intention, we can be more aware of what our true intention is.

Third and fourth are opposites: Restlessness (worry) and boredom: Often when I sit down to meditate, I’m so restless that it feels uncomfortable to sit still, my mind is racing, I’m physically uncomfortable, I start to worry about all sorts of stuff. Our minds have been trained to be constantly entertained, and when we take away that entertainment, the mind continues to try and busy itself. Or the opposite happens, I sit down to meditate, and immediately feel like I want to take a nap. Now, I might be actually tired and need more sleep, but often it feels like just boredom. My mind has been trained that if it’s not busy doing something, it just wants to go to sleep. Recognizing these two games that our mind play with us to avoid be fully present, recognizing them helps us overcome them.

These teachings help us recognize when our minds our goading us to shut down or to be distracted. If my intention is to wake up, because I know that is where deep happiness lies, I use my attention to be aware when my mind is getting me off-track.

We can make a game of seeing these hindrances arise. "Oh, here comes restlessness again." "Here comes aversion." Recognize the games that your mind plays with you being questions. "What's really going on with me? Examine the obstacles, and even being willing to sit with not knowing and see what comes up.

The last hindrance, and often the most challenging, is doubt. The Buddha taught that we are not supposed to take these teachings at face value. We are not supposed to blindly believe them. We’re supposed to have a healthy dose of skepticism. But doubt can also be a way that we avoid changing.

When we question things just to keep from changing, then doubt itself becomes an obstacle, a hindrance to happiness.

When you are having doubt, I can’t tell you whether it’s healthy skepticism or change avoidance. ONLY YOU KNOW which kind of doubt it is, and you will only know if you’re willing to examine your doubt more closely.

So, how do we overcome these five hindrances of Desire, Aversion, Restlessness, Laziness and Doubt?

The 41^st slogan gives some good advice, about examining them

41. Two Activities: One at the Beginning, One at the End

Pema Chodron encourages us to begin each morning, saying, “May I see what I do. When things happen, may I act with an awakened heart and may that be a way of life for me.”

Then during the day, If good things are happening to you, you wish that all beings would have this happiness. If bad things are happening, we recognize that all beings suffer in this same way. We seek to broaden our perspective.

And at the end of the night, you reflect on your day. How did I do? Here is an important caveat: Not in some punishing way, like I was bad, but we must examine our life, in order to change. What could I do differently tomorrow?

In all the commentaries on these two slogans, there is wonderful advice to use whatever is happening in your life as fuel for waking up.

Watch for and examine desire, aversion, restlessness, boredom and doubt….and pay attention to your intention

“May I see what I do. When things happen, may I act with an awakened heart, and may that be a way of life for me.”

Abandon any hope of fruition

2011-04-03T17:56:00.001-07:00

As we continue discussing the Lojong (mind training) teachings by Atisha, we come to Slogan #28: Abandon any hope of fruition

What? Give up Hope?

This is actually a fundamental Buddhist teaching. I gave a similar talk back in January of 2009, and I remember it was the month when President Obama was inaugurated. Most of you may know that he had written a book called, the Audacity of Hope. I felt a little un-American promoting such a strange concept of giving up hope!

But let’s talk about what hope implies. Hope by its very definition includes that there is some reason that we want things to be different. That there is something that is not good enough in this present moment, that we are not good enough in this present moment. If you’re hoping for anything, you’re wishing things were different than how they actually are.

Pema Chodron calls this one of the most powerful teachings of the Buddhist tradition, and she says that as long as you are wishing for things to change, they never will. As long as you're wanting yourself to get better, you won't. As long as you have an orientation toward the future, you can never just relax into what you already have or already are. The very definition of hope is future focused.

We are all trying to make our pain go away, but with hope we are trying to make it go away by not accepting what is truly happening in this moment right now. Buddhism teaches that everything we need is available to us in this moment, ALL we have to do is to continually practice being fully present. In this moment, you might be feeling sad or happy, depressed or aggravated, or irritated or sleepy. In this moment, ask yourself the question, “What am I feeling and thinking in this exact moment?” We have to be in touch with what is really going on to have a place to start. Not to wallow in any misery, but to acknowledge it as fact. To start where we are.

I also found it interesting that Pema said that she realized that she was holding onto hope for herself as well. She admitted that she had been unconsciously thinking for decades that she was going to come to a place in the future when she was really enlightened, that there was something going to happen sometime in the future. After decades of practice, she realized that the enlightenment had been happening all along the way, inch by inch, step by step, in each moment, and she let go of hoping for some big bang in the future. Letting go of hope for the future enabled her to cherish the gifts in each moment.

In Buddhism, we are learning to full accept this present moment, with all the messiness that may imply. Not in some esoteric, conceptual way, but right now, right here, as you read this, in this moment, accepting yourself just the way you are. That’s the first and most important step to finding happiness in life. It doesn’t mean that you will never change, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t things you can do differently, but you can begin each moment by living from the truth.

I have a dear friend who is a recovering alcoholic. Ten years ago, he had pretty much destroyed his entire life with drinking—job gone, family gone, friends that remained were just drinking buddies. He hit bottom and began going to AA meetings. Around him swirled money issues, bankruptcies, pain, anxiety, fear, the realization of the havoc he had wreaked on his own life and the lives of others. It wasn’t enough to hope that the future was going to get better, he was in an intense pain in the here and now. He told me that one way he got through it was to find some moments of peace, by letting go of the past and forgetting about the future, JUST for the hour that he spent in the AA meetings. He told himself that in that hour, he could set aside all his troubles, and just be there, and recognize in that hour, there was no pain except the pain in his mind. He was able to find enough peace to carry on, to make the changes needed, by just being fully present. That was ten years ago. It worked.

There’s a new I-Phone app called, “Last night didn’t happen” and it erases all twitters, facebook updates and pictures from the last 12 hours. Of course, we know we can’t erase what actually happened, and this is not encouragement to act irresponsible, but the past is done. Jack Kornfield says that wisdom is giving up hope for a better past.

There was a t-shirt that a comedian was wearing on Comedy Central. It said, “You are here”. You are here. That is it. You are not in the past, You are not in the future. You are here. Reading this, in this moment. We need to remind ourselves of that on a regular basis.

So, now that I’ve destroyed everyone’s hopes, let’s see what we can replace that with.

Inspiration: The exact definition is Divine guidance or influence exerted directly on the mind and soul of humankind. Inspiration is incorporated in the the first two steps of the eightfold path: Right View and Right Intention. We can begin each moment with a passion for practicing presence. The very word, Inspiration is also the word for breathing in. As we breathe in, we can be reminded, of the innate wisdom within us. We can be inspired in each moment to make skillful decisions. Each present moment, we are creating the future. Not by passively hoping, but by actively being inspired to greatness. Even if greatness is just about not responding in the old ways.

This week, allow yourself to be inspired with each breath. Try letting go of hope. Just be present with each inbreath and outbreath. Abandon any hope of fruition. There will never be a special moment in the future when you will be fully enlightened. You are being enlightened little by little in every moment of every day, and giving up hope actually helps.

Joy

2011-02-23T07:20:00.000-08:00

I’m continuing the series of talks about the Lojong or Mind Training teachings. This group of 59 pithy slogans is a great place to start or deepen your practice, whatever your level. wherever you are at. In fact, a good reference book is Pema Chodron’s entitled, Start Where You Are. These teachings are about getting comfortable with the power we have to transform the way we relate to ourselves and others, regardless of our external circumstances.

This week, we’ll talk about the slogan:

21. Always maintain a joyful mind

Someone asked me recently if Buddhism was just Atheism with a happy face. Superficially, this slogan may seem to say that. “Let’s just pretend that we’re always happy”. But, we all know that doesn’t work over the long haul. The basis of this slogan is the First Noble Truth—life includes suffering. However, what this slogan emphasizes is that there is a way to respond to suffering without adding more suffering.

First, we can encourage our minds to look for the broader perspective. When we are mired in the details of the stories we’ve created about our lives, we can get very unjoyful. “Sally did this to me, and I’m mad at her—how can I feel joy?” “I’m sick/I’ve had an accident, I lost my job”—these stories start to feel like WHO we are. Our language even intensifies it: “I am sick” “I am unemployed”… We are covered in the aggregate of our experiences. Eckhart Tolle calls this cover the pain body—those stories, emotions, feelings, sensations that we so tightly identify with. Our experiences and our stories appear to BE us. Is that all we are? Is that all life is? Just a bundle of emotions, feelings, sensations, thoughts? In Buddhism, we are encouraged to look beyond these aggregates, these superficial things that we hold on to and identify with. Emotions change, thoughts come and go, and we can change the stories about our lives. We made them up in the first place.

How can we find the joy in life? I was reflecting the other day on the common phrase TGIF-Thank goodness it’s Friday! What about Monday? Or Wednesday? How about finding some joy in those days as well? I’ve taken to signing my emails with “Happy Monday!” or “Happy Thursday!” reminding myself to find the joy in each day. Don’t wait until Friday to find the joy in your life.

Here’s a quick exercise you can to try. Close your eyes and bring to mind all the things that have brought you joy in your life. Right now, fully experience that sense of joy. Bring awareness to the every sensation of joy in your body. Now take a deep breath, and recreate that feeling of joy. Realize that the feeling of joy is within us, NOT in the external situation. When we are struggling with the circumstances in our life, we can stop and access this deep sense of joy that is a part of who we truly are.

This slogan is not asking us to just slap on a smile when we’re not feeling it. It is encouraging us to explore something other than the constantly changing experiences of our minds and our bodies. Look more deeply and you’ll realize you can have joy whenever you want. Get acquainted with the experience of joy. What is holding you back from finding joy in your life?

When we tease apart what is actually happening, we can discover the deepest sense of living. People who are dying often find this sense of peace, this strong appreciation for living. What does it feel like to be alive beyond the pain? In Buddhism, we are reminded we are all dying; we just don’t know when. By awakening to this truth, we can awaken to an appreciation for living in each moment. We can cultivate a sense of joy.

The second component of this slogan is encouragement to lighten up, to aspire to finding more humor in life. We are so hard on ourselves. We are carrying around this heavy burden of past experiences. We are judging ourselves and others. The phrase, “Lighten Up!” can be a great visual for taking this heavy burden of past experiences, stuffing them into a big balloon, then allowing them to be carried away with the wind. Give yourself a break every day from carrying these “burdens”. You’ll find that you’re able to more effectively deal with what is happening in each moment.

Pema Chodron says that “sooner or later you will be in a situation where you can’t change the outer circumstances at all, and it comes down to how you relate to things.” Wake up to the power you have to see things, people and yourself differently.

Don’t wait for joy. Look for the joy. Share the joy, expand the joy. When we suffer, we recognize that we are suffering. Then we choose to look beyond and lighten up. “When adversity is no longer experienced as adversity, this is a sign of success in spiritual practice.” B. Alan Wallace, Buddhism with an Attitude

Finding all things in life useful for waking up

2011-02-12T15:12:00.000-08:00

We are discussing a group of teachings called Lojong (Mind Training) that include seven key points along with 59 pithy slogans reminding us how to awaken to the happiness of living. There are many books with great translations of these teachings, but one of my favorites is Pema Chodron's Start Where You Are. This week, I'll talk about the fourth point which states, "Showing the Utilization of Practice in One's Whole Life" which includes Slogan #17: "Practice the five strengths, the condensed heart instructions."

What are the five strengths? They are five attitudes and actions that have practical application every day, in every situation, to finding the truth in each moment. The five strengths enable us to open our hearts to others and to ourselves.

Here's a rundown:

Strong determination/Commitment: We commit to staying present, to looking for the humanness in others (and in ourselves), looking for the interconnection between us all. We commit to see pain and suffering in life as fuel for transformation. When we were young, most of us had experiences that caused us some pain--emotional, psychological, physical. Remember the first time you had your heart broken? Past experiences may have implied that the best way to deal with suffering is to deny it, run away from it, fear it. These teachings are encouraging us to see pain in a completely differently way. We are committing to seeing pain as a tool for transformation, not as a burden to bear or something to be afraid of. Going towards the pain, looking more deeply at the pain--it may seem counter-intuitive, but it's been proven to work effectively to diminish the impact of pain on our happiness.
Familiarization: We practice being present so that being present becomes a habit, instead of the old habits of avoidance, distraction, or all the other ways we try to escape discomfort. Meditation and mindfulness are spiritual exercises--we're building muscle memory so that our natural inclination is to find the "pleasantness of presentness".
Seed of virtue: The Buddhist philosophy sees each being as innately good, as having Buddha nature. Buddha emphasized that everyone can do exactly what he did. We can achieve deep happiness because we are innately good. It is this seed of virtue, even if you don't believe it, even if you've never experienced it, it's still there. You don't have to go get it, it's already within you. Remind yourself that you are innately good. Look for the good. Practice as if.
Reproach: My favorite! You already have conversations with yourself anyway, so why not make them positive, helpful ones?!? This tip encourages us to come up with some word or phrase that reminds us to quit stewing on unskillful thoughts. Tell yourself to STOP! It might not work immediately, but over time, you can train your mind by silently saying STOP! or "Mind, I've tried it your way and it didn't work." "Be gone!" or whatever word or phrase works for you. It might seem silly, but that's okay too. Sometime a silly word or phrase can snap us out of fear, pain or sadness. I always giggle a little when, as I'm going over and over some fear or concern, I silently tell myself, "Don't get weird!" This little phrase is enough to wake me up and begin looking for the good in myself and in the situation!
Aspiration: Say you want it. Say, "I want to wake up. I'm willing to try something new to be happy." You might not yet feel like you deserve it, or that it's not possible, then begin by having compassion for yourself, right where you are. Then, aspire to try something new anyway.

We often have a tendency to live our lives with our thermostats set too tightly. We are trying to get so completely comfortable in life that we are never quite happy. It's either too hot or too cold or too new or too old. It's never quite right. These lojong teachings are encouraging us to see our discomfort, our dissatisfaction as an opportunity wake up. We can stare directly into the heart of our discomfort, to look through it, and find the deep peace that comes from no longer running away, no longer spending the majority of our time wishing things were different. We can find the peace that resides within us, that is always there to rely upon, regardless of our external circumstance.

Drive All Blames Into One

2011-01-24T18:57:00.000-08:00

I’m continuing the series of talks about the Lojong or Mind Training teachings. This group of 59 pithy slogans is a great place to start a mindfulness practice or to deepen your current practice, wherever you are at. In fact, a good reference book is Pema Chodron’s entitled, Start Where You Are. This week, we’ll talk about two of the slogans in the Third Point:

POINT THREE: Transform Bad Circumstances into the Way of Enlightenment.

11. When the world is filled with evil, transform all mishaps into the path of enlightenment.

12. Drive all blames into one.

Evil? Is there evil in the world? Many people think there is, but in these teachings, we are encouraged to look more deeply into this need to label certain things and certain people as “evil”. No doubt, there are horrendous things that happen in the world, many caused by human beings. Are some people evil and others not? Do we all have evil inside of us, and some of us just cover it up better than others? What is evil?

B. Alan Wallace, one of the preeminent Buddhist translators of our time, sees this word differently. Instead of “evil”, he describes it as “the fact that the world is enslaved in vices”. We are enslaved to our addiction to unskillful thoughts and actions. It is not that our essence is evil or that there is evil lurking somewhere in our minds or our bodies. Each of us, we have the potential for both skillful and unskillful thoughts and actions, but that does not make us any less of a human being, according to Buddhist philosophy.

So, why do we feel this need to label people or things “evil”? It seems that if something or someone is labeled as evil, then any actions that we take against them must be okay, right? It’s “us versus them”! We create that sense of separation between ourselves and others, and that makes retaliation, resentment, revenge seem okay.

In the Buddhist teachings, there is the analogy of the two arrows. The first arrow represents the event or circumstance or emotion or thought that causes the initial suffering. We all can bring to mind things or people that have hurt us. Someone said hurtful words or did hurtful things to us. We or our loved ones have gotten sick, been in accidents, or been harmed in some way. These are all examples of the first arrow. These are all a part of life that will never go away.

The second arrow is our reaction to the initial suffering. There is no denying that hurtful things will happen. However, our reaction to the suffering, the second arrow, is always within our control. Here’s one of the best examples from my perspective:

(facts from Wikipedia) On October 2, 2006, a man named Charles Roberts parked his truck in front of an Amish schoolhouse and entered the school, shortly after the children had returned from recess. Roberts was holding a 9mm handgun. He ordered the girls to line up against the chalkboard and allowed a pregnant woman, three parents with infants, and all remaining boys to exit the building. Someone outside the building had heard the ruckus and called 911. The first trooper arrived and, while waiting for reinforcements, attempted to communicate with Roberts. Quickly, a large crowd—including police officers, emergency medical technicians, and residents of the Amish village—had assembled as he continued to threaten violence against the children. The police attempted to negotiate with Roberts. Within 45 minutes of entering the school, Roberts began shooting the victims and eventually shot ten girls (aged 6–13), killing five.

The troopers immediately approached. As the first trooper in line reached a window, the shooting immediately stopped. Roberts had committed suicide. Inside the school, the coroner reported, "there was not one desk, not one chair, in the whole schoolroom that was not splattered with either blood or glass. There were bullet holes everywhere, everywhere."

How did the Amish respond to this horrific first arrow?

On the day of the shooting, a grandfather of one of the murdered Amish girls was heard warning some young relatives not to hate the killer, saying, "We must not think evil of this man." Another Amish father noted, "He had a mother and a wife and a soul, and now he's standing before a just God."

A Roberts family spokesman said an Amish neighbor comforted the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them. Amish community members visited and comforted Roberts' widow, parents, and parents-in-law. One Amish man held Roberts' sobbing father in his arms, reportedly for as long as an hour, to comfort him. The Amish have also set up a charitable fund for the family of the shooter. About 30 members of the Amish community attended Roberts' funeral, and Marie Roberts, the widow of the killer, was one of the few outsiders invited to the funeral of one of the victims.

Marie Roberts wrote an open letter to her Amish neighbors thanking them for their forgiveness, grace, and mercy. She wrote, "Your love for our family has helped to provide the healing we so desperately need. Gifts you've given have touched our hearts in a way no words can describe. Your compassion has reached beyond our family, beyond our community, and is changing our world, and for this we sincerely thank you."

Some commentators criticized the swift and complete forgiveness with which the Amish responded, arguing that forgiveness is inappropriate when no remorse has been expressed, and that such an attitude runs the risk of denying the existence of evil. Thankfully, others were supportive. Donald Kraybill and two other scholars of Amish life noted that "letting go of grudges" is a deeply rooted value in Amish culture. They explained that the Amish willingness to forgo vengeance does not undo the tragedy or pardon the wrong, but rather constitutes a first step toward a future that is more hopeful.

So here we are, each of us, with our own struggles and suffering. Does this mean that if someone beats us, we should hug them and say “give me more”? Does this mean regardless of the first arrow, we do nothing? No. By seeing the truth in the moment, we are able to more skillfully respond to the first arrow, in whatever way is the most helpful to all concerned. The example of the Amish is clear. They took action to try and stop the suffering in the initial encounter. When that failed, then they took action to stop the secondary suffering that occurred. BE AWARE OF SECOND ARROWS.

When bad things happen to us, how many arrows do we shoot into the situation? Who are we blaming for our suffering? What value does blaming serve? In the slogan, “drive all blames into one”, the one is not about blaming ourselves instead of others. Instead, when we feel a strong need to blame, it’s a signal for us to look deeper. What are we holding on to? Where are we stuck? The “one” that is referred to is recognizing that all blame is centered in a belief of separation, a “them versus us” mentality. We can try to understand the causes of suffering, but blaming ourselves or others is not helpful.

Here is the power of this slogan. When we feel a need to blame someone, even ourselves, we can use that emotion or thought as a wake up call. First, “What does blame feel like?” Then, “Why am I wanting to blame myself or someone else?” Lastly, “What is the best response in this situation?”

Thus, the third point of the Lojong teachings is reminding us that we can use adversity as fuel for our awakening. Bad circumstances can help us see where we are still stuck. If our priority in life is always to seek pleasure, avoid pain and ignore everything else, then we will continue to cause ourselves more suffering. BUT, if our priority in life is simply to fully awaken, to see clearly, then adversity becomes just another opportunity to practice. The wonderful paradox is that happiness, peace, joy and wisdom, are by-products of waking up.

The importance of mindfulness practice

Each time we practice being present in the moment, we hone our skills to see the truth. With presence, first we recognize that the second arrow just causes more suffering, and we become willing to remove it. With more practice, we are able to catch the second arrow before it is flung. The first arrows will inevitably come, BUT we always have an opportunity whether to inflict a second, a third, a fourth. Be mindful of your arrows. Drive all blames into one.

Outline of Lojong teachings

2011-01-03T04:56:00.000-08:00

How to use our struggles to transform the mind

ONE: The preliminaries, which are the basis for dharma (Truth principles) practice

1. First, train in the preliminaries: Shamatha-Vipassana meditation plus the four reminders: A. recognize the preciousness of human life, B. Wake up from the illusion that everything is permanent, C. Be aware that everything we do has consequences, D . Realize that obsessing about getting what we want and avoiding what we don’t want does not result in happiness.

TWO: The main practice, which is training in bodhicitta (awakened/open heart/mind).

Absolute Bodhicitta:

2. Regard all dharmas as dreams.

3. Examine the nature of unborn awareness.

4. Self-liberate even the antidote.

5. Rest in the nature of alaya, the essence (all the potential in the universe, our true home).

6. In postmeditation, be a child of illusion.

Relative Bodhicitta:

7. Sending and taking should be practiced alternately. These two should ride the breath.

8. Three objects, three poisons, three roots of virtue.

9. In all activities, train with slogans.

10. Begin the sequence of sending and taking with yourself. (practice of Tonglen)

THREE: Transformation of Bad Circumstances into the Way of Enlightenment

11. When the world is filled with evil, transform all mishaps into the path of enlightenment.

12. Drive all blames into one.

13. Be grateful to everyone.

14. Seeing confusion as the four kayas (modes of being) is unsurpassable shunyata (emptiness) protection.

15. Four practices are the best of methods.

16. Whatever you meet unexpectedly, join with meditation.

FOUR: Showing the Utilization of Practice in One's Whole Life

17. Practice the five strengths, the condensed heart instructions.

18. The mahayana instruction for ejection of consciousness at death is the five strengths: how you conduct yourself is important.

FIVE: Evaluation of Mind Training

19. All dharma agrees at one point.

20. Of the two witnesses, hold the principal one.

21. Always maintain only a joyful mind.

22. If you can practice even when distracted, you are well trained.

SIX: Disciplines of Mind Training

23. Always abide by the three basic principles.

24. Change your attitude, but remain natural.

25. Don't talk about injured limbs.

26. Don't ponder others.

27. Work with the greatest defilements first.

28. Abandon any hope of fruition.

29. Abandon poisonous food.

30. Don't be so predictable.

31. Don't malign others.

32. Don't wait in ambush.

33. Don't bring things to a painful point.

34. Don't transfer the ox's load to the cow.

35. Don't try to be the fastest.

36. Don't act with a twist.

37. Don't make gods into demons.

38. Don't seek others' pain as the limbs of your own happiness.

SEVEN: Guidelines of Mind Training

39. All activities should be done with one intention.

40. Correct all wrongs with one intention.

41. Two activities: one at the beginning, one at the end.

42. Whichever of the two occurs, be patient.

43. Observe these two, even at the risk of your life.

44. Train in the three difficulties.

45. Take on the three principal causes.

46. Pay heed that the three never wane.

47. Keep the three inseparable.

48. Train without bias in all areas. It is crucial always to do this pervasively and wholeheartedly.

49. Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment.

50. Don't be swayed by external circumstances.

51. This time, practice the main points.

52. Don't misinterpret.

53. Don't vacillate.

54. Train wholeheartedly.

55. Liberate yourself by examining and analyzing.

56. Don't wallow in self-pity.

57. Don't be jealous.

58. Don't be frivolous.

59. Don't expect applause.

Lojong (Mind Training) teachings

2011-01-03T04:52:00.000-08:00

The Lojong teachings encourage us to transform our struggles in life to the fuel for awakening. Therefore, this group of teachings is very pithy, practical and a great place to start. If you’d like to follow along, there are many books to choose from, but Pema Chodron’s is one of my favorites. And it’s title, Start Where you Are, seems like the perfect New Year’s book!

When we think about starting fresh, how do we do that? These teachings by describing the two basic types of meditation: Shamatha and Vipassana. Shamatha is the type of meditation we start with on Sunday mornings, which is translated as calm abiding. We are just resting in awareness of things left just as they are, aware when we become distracted and bringing the mind back to the point of awareness. It prepares the mind for Vipassana.

Vipassana is often translated as seeing things as they are, no added stuff. But more deeply, it’s translated as insight meditation, seeing clearly into the nature of all things. Not just calmly resting in awareness but taking awareness to a deeper, broader, more profound level. As if we could see down to the levels of electrons and protons and neutrons, but even more minute, beyond even the tiniest "pieces" of being, and at the same time, more expansively, seeing all things at once in the very broadest sense. The practice of Vipassana is cultivating insight into the truest meaning of all things.

The other set of “preliminaries” that is an important starting place are the Four Mind Changers, or the Four Reflections--four thoughts that motivate the mind toward practicing and studying these Truth Principles.

The first reflection encourages us to contemplate the preciousness of our human birth. A well-known Buddhist meditation is the simple phrase: Since death is certain and the time of death uncertain, what should I do? Living can, at times, be taken for granted. Imagine all the activities and events that had to take place or not take place for you to be here reading this, in this very moment. Human beings are somewhat fragile, and being born ain’t easy. We each have had our own challenges, the issues in our lives that we grappled with. We all navigated through all the dangers and pitfalls of our lives to arrive at this moment right now. So, to experience the manifestation of spirit is quite miraculous. We don’t know what tomorrow may bring. We don’t know for sure what will happen later today. But by contemplating this fact, we can pour ourselves wholeheartedly into this moment. This is another paradox in Buddhism. To live life fully, we must recognize how easy it is to not live. This first reflection is telling us to not take so much for granted, to wake up with gratitude to this experience of life in all its complexity.

The second mind-changer or reflection is challenging us to wake up from this dreamlike state of pretending that anything is permanent. As most of us experience, western culture is often about accumulating things, accumulating experiences and even accumulating people in our lives. Checking off the list of things and activities and people we need to have in our lives in order to be happy, and wanting ourselves, and those things and those people to not only be a certain way, but to also stay whatever way it is that we like them to be. We tried to control our lives so things can stay fun and cushy. But no matter how much we try, we cannot make things stay the same. Nor should we try. The things we like fade away as do the things we don't like--both the things we like and dislike can awaken us. A child once told Thich Nhat Hanh how grateful she was that things change. Otherwise, she would never grow up! So, we are asked to loosen up a bit, not try to force everything and everyone to be just the way we think we want it or them...accepting things just as they are, not out of complacency but as the best place to start living. With this mind changer, we are practicing accepting the ever-changing-ness of life. It doesn’t mean that Buddhists don’t do anything productive. It means we first see with fresh eyes what is happening right now. Instead of acting out of habit, we can imagine that we don’t know and must look again. And from this place of just seeing, just being, we find all new ways of being and doing.

We can try seeing things and actions and people with fresh eyes, adding compassion and wisdom to each situation instead of a checklist for improvement. This is critically important to the way we view our own bodies our own lives. Many of us are constantly trying to get things just right. Get a new haircut, find the perfect dress. Instead, this reflection is encouraging us to waking up each morning and first focus on full awareness, instead of first on the to-do list. This idea seems like the polar opposite of what we have been taught to do, but it’s been proven to work a heck of a lot better than the method of looking for external happiness. Our lives are like sand mandalas--everything we have will eventually wash away. We may wish for certain things in our lives to change more quickly or other situations to not change at all. But the question is: How do we look at each situation with curiosity and nonjudgment? Our lives will continue to change and morph and become something entirely different, whether we want them to or not. The amount of joy in the journey is determined by whether we loosely ride the waves of uncertainty, or we grasp at everything with tight white knuckles.

The third reflection is that everything we do has consequences. In Hinduism, the belief is that karma is unrelenting; if this then that. But Buddha turned the idea of karma on its side. His teachings are that yes, there is the law of cause and effect, but it is far more complex than we can imagine. It is far more helpful to focus on what we do right now in this moment, than to worry about what we did ten years ago. This moment is the only place where we can change our lives. How can we be more kind and generous and grateful and wise right now? There is this element of grace that exists in Buddhism. The idea is that we can wake up at any moment and begin increasing the compassion and wisdom in our lives.

The four reflection is about how labeling things as good, bad or irrelevant is causing us suffering, If we don’t try something new, we will continue to get the same suffering in our lives. We focus on what we’re afraid of, what we don’t want. Instead, this reflection is encouraging us to see what is and work with it. Sometimes suffering may seem too harsh a word, but even that vague sense of dissatisfaction is robbing you of the joy just waiting to be discovered in each moment. Don’t live your life waiting for things to be different. Happiness is about what is within us, not what is happening to us. Aldous Huxley said that the measure of man is not what happens to him, but what he does with what happens to him.

So, this last reflection on curiosity and nonjudgment is to fully experience not knowing. What if it was okay to not know, but just to keep asking the question with an open heart? What if the answers that we are seeking are there in the silence of each moment? Not knowing allows us to find new answers. We can reflect on the idea of “I don’t know”.

So, the four reflections are:

· The preciousness of our human birth

· The contemplation of impermanence

· The law of motivation/intention (cause) and results (effect)

· The fact that craving, aversion and ignoring causes suffering and will never bring us complete happiness

These four reflection are powerful tools to support us in transforming our sense of living, to infuse deep happiness into life regardless of our external circumstances.

The purpose of this teaching is to see with fresh eyes, to hear with fresh ears, to taste, to smell, to feel the warmth of the breeze on our skin, as if for the first time. This week, imagine that you are experiencing some activity for the very first time. Imagine that you truly don’t know. And see how that changes the experience.

Getting Our Ducks in a Row

2010-12-20T11:38:00.000-08:00

The first step on the Eightfold Path is Right View, Seeing things as they truly are, not through the filters of our past experiences. This first step is critical to the practice of all the other steps. It’s taught first because it’s an excellent place to start the journey. We begin by waking up to the fact that we are causing our own suffering. I think of it in the same vein as the first step of the 12-step program, when people admit that they are powerless over some old conditioned unskillful behavior.

This last week, someone said to me that they were waiting to do something until they got their ducks in a row. I’m so glad that they said it because I could really relate. No matter how many things are going right in my life, I’m often focused on the one or two things that aren’t going so well. Preparing for the holidays, my dear family has swerved into a familiar pattern of dysfunction and I along with them, and I have found myself frustrated trying to get them all in a row to no avail. I’m hoping that some of you can relate to this way that we see the world and our families and ourselves as a project, something to be changed and improved upon in some way.

Obviously dealing with our families is a lifelong journey, so we have plenty of opportunity to practice seeing things differently, seeing things with fresh eyes. I have started to see how my clinging to things being a certain way often ensures that I’m never completely happy. I’m subtly trying to get those ducks in some arbitrary row that I’ve made up. I make to do lists of all sorts, subconsiously feeling like once everything is done, then I’ll be happy. For me, the first step of the Eightfold Path, Right View, reminds me to honestly examine why I want things to be different in the first place.

In his teachings, the Buddha was trying to point out that getting the ducks in a row is not the purpose of life. If we do happen to get the ducks in a row, it will probably be fleeting because, before we know it, those pesky ducks will be running amok again OR we will desire new ducks or all the other ways that our thoughts and emotions can be scattered. So, before we start chasing after the ducks again, we could try a new approach. We can try using mindful awareness to examine more closely what is actually happening, seeing more clearly our thoughts, our motivation and our actions from a fresh perspective.

“If only…”

Lama Surya Das encourages us to identify those subtle and not-so-subtle ways that we hide from the truth, by identifying what we’re wishing for. “If only….” How would you finish that sentence?

If someone were to ask you about your childhood, what would you tell them? What is your story about that? Now how does that color the way you see the world right now? Don’t we all have this story that we’ve used to rationalize our behavior? How we all cling to our story about our past experiences…

Most of us, we continually consciously or unconsciously defend the stories that we repetitively tell ourselves…in Buddhism there is a Sanskrit word called, “Samsara” that is literally translated as “perpetual wandering”. It is the symbol of this cyclic conditioned existence that we find ourselves in. We often keep doing the same things, telling ourselves the same stories about it, and having the same frustrating outcome. So, Right View helps us get off the hamster wheel.

A Zen proverb says if you cling to nothing, you can handle anything. So, we can take this opportunity right now to be more honest with ourselves, to imagine being more Teflon that Flypaper.

Some exercises to practice Right View:

1. I don’t know. Even if you think you know, it’s extremely valuable to rest in the place of not knowing. Imagine yourself being in your situation for the very first time. What would it feel like to let go of our previously held beliefs about ourselves, others and start from a place of not knowing?

“We’ve enclosed ourselves in a relatively small space by thinking life is only one certain way. It binds us in, and we’re not aware that we’re living in a tiny, cluttered room. BUT With the practice of mindful awareness and quiet reflection, it’s as if the walls of the room are torn down, and you realize there’s a sky out there.” Larry Rosenberg, The Art of Doing Nothing (Spring 1998)

2. Self-inquiry. What am I holding on to?

What are you clinging to? What are you not being honest with yourself about? In this moment, finish this sentence, “If I were being completely honest, I would tell myself….” What would each of us say? How can we commit to dropping the old stories, dropping the old way of explaining things or people or past events or even ourselves.

If you are in an accident and you break your arm, ignoring it, not looking at it, will not fix it. It’s only when you face the reality of the wound, only then you can begin to take appropriate action to heal.

3. Let go of any sense of struggle

Who or what are we fighting with or against anway? How can we try to surrendering to the moment, the deep truth in the moment? Imagine, even for a moment, that life isn’t about struggling against something or someone. That life can be about being in the flowing of living. Letting go of this sense of struggle can be incredibly powerful.

4. Cultivate compassion

Sylvia Boorstein says that the practice of seeing clearly is what finally moves us toward kindness. Seeing, again and again, the infinite variety of traps we create for seducing the mind into a struggle, seeing the endless rounds of meaningless suffering over lusts and aversions (which, although seemingly urgent, are not where true happiness lies), we begin to feel compassion for ourselves. And then, quite naturally, when we feel compassion for ourselves, we feel compassion for everyone else. We can know as we have never known before that we are stuck, all of us, with bodies and minds and instincts and impulses, “all in a tug-of-war with our basic compassionate nature that yearns to relax into love. Then we surrender. We love. We laugh. We appreciate.”

With this first step of Right View, we commit seeing ourselves and others with insight and compassion. When we feel a sense of struggle, we can remind ourselves to take refuge in mindful awareness, from this sense of having a fresh, new experience. When we get lost, we need only pause, relax, open to what is here, what is now and re-arrive in the natural presence of just being. We can give up the struggle, embraced the ducks wherever they are, and allow ourselves to be at peace

This week, as many of us go through spending time with old friends and family, imagine that you are experiencing them for the very first time. Imagine that you truly don’t know. That we can ask ourselves honestly what we’re holding on to, and perhaps just a little we can let go of any struggle, and be at peace with and have compassion for whatever situation arises.

From Ananda Baltrunas, "A Prison of Desire" is a man that was in prison for 20 years and now is a Pureland Buddhist priest

"When I look for freedom today I find it not in fantasy or in dreams, but in simple awareness. What kind of freedom is it that exists in doing nothing? It is the freedom not to knee-jerk react. It is the freedom to merely observe. I don’t have to judge the trauma that arises in my mind. I don’t have to get involved with the hundred narratives that might try to occupy my mind during any given day. In not clinging to thoughts and ideas, wants and desires, hatreds and resentments, the prison of my most negative thoughts and emotions have faded into a haze that still arises but no longer dominates my life. I have found freedom: it is the freedom of nonattachment, the freedom to not cling and to not resist. It is the freedom to allow myself to surrender to each moment and be at peace."

John Corbaley Dharma Talk December 2010 Getting Sick

2010-12-13T11:04:00.000-08:00

From John Corbaley (Thanks, John!)

A couple of weeks ago, I had a bout of illness. Nothing extremely serious; just some seasonal flu bug that had been making the rounds at work. It’s an occupational hazard when your workplace is 90% female abounding with young children. There seems to be quite a bit of this going around. I read in the paper the other day about a school in Overland Park that shut down last week because of this ailment. I also heard from someone about a retirement center in Johnson County that went on “lock down” because of it.

I have to start out by saying that I have been extremely lucky in avoiding the majority of these maladies over the years. It had been so long that I had been sick before that I really couldn’t even remember the last time I had been off work for illness, probably 10 or 12 years at least. And oh yes, I had had a flu shot over a month ago-a requirement for healthcare workers.

This bout, however, really hit me hard. I went to work on Monday, had an OK day; fixed dinner and had a nice evening. Then about midnight it hit. Visits to the bath facilities every half hour or so for the rest of the nite. I will spare you the gastro intestinal details which I am sure you can fill in for yourself. Suffice it to say, by the end of the second day of just lying there in the bed, unable to do pretty much anything, you just want someone to shoot you to make the pain and discomfort stop.

So thirsty, but the smallest sip of water makes you violently nauseated. And it just seems to go on and on. You really can’t take any medication, because you can’t keep it down. That sick. I thought of the Hungry ghosts in Buddhist cosmology, beings who populate one of the hell worlds, with stomachs the size of mountains and mouths the size of a needle’s eye, constantly yearning for something impossible to possess.

As this bout of illness strung out to the third, fourth, and fifth days, as you start to feel better by tiny increments, I began to develop a bit of perspective about what was happening to me. First off, I began to develop a bit of a realization about what it might be like for people with major health challenges from diseases that don’t go away, that they don’t ‘get better’ from, that are with them every day for the rest of their lives. An illness like the one I had gives you a flash-in-the-pan glimpse of how fundamentally that would change your perceptions, your outlook, and your life.

For one thing, it brings you into the moment like few experiences can. We are usually to numb to the processes of our bodies, when you’re in pain, you feel every moment. I really did come to view this as a gift; mostly because I knew that this was temporary, I knew that this eventually would stop, so I started to view it as a kind of gift, a gift of awareness of momentary phenomena.

This experience also gave me a fresh perspective on my relationship with food. For quite a few days, I had absolutely no appetite. For the first few days, of course, I couldn’t even think about food without feeling nauseated. Even after that, I still had that small momentary distance that kept hunger at arms length, and allowed me that ability to examine my perceptions of being hungry without being automatically sucked into the daily habit of being automatically hungry three times a day, as mealtime approached--That feeling, the three times a day one, wasn’t so much a sense of actual need for food, but more just a conditioned response to the time of day and anticipation of the habitual mealtime.

I still remember quite vividly that first time, in the middle of the night of the third or fourth day, when I took that first sip of water that I could keep down. I was vividly reminded of the mindful eating practices I had experienced on retreat. If you have never had the opportunity to try mindful eating, I highly recommend it. It really is quite easy to do, just bring your awareness in a careful, slow way, to the process of eating as you break it down step by step. I’ve been trying to do it in the days since.

Of course, your monkey mind works constantly against you, trying to pull your awareness this way and that, trying to get you out of the moment. It made me very aware of how unconsciously we do most things really, eating while we’re watching TV, driving, web surfing, whatever. What ever happened to just eating? We’ve become so programmed to just tasting and swallowing, tasting and swallowing. So easy to overwhelm our sensations of satiety, the feeling of enough, that overeating becomes the norm.

As I lay there in my sick bed those first days, I was reminded of the role of the early Buddhist monks as healers. For my dissertation, I had studied the voluminous sections of the Vinaya devoted solely to healing the sick, treating wounds and various medical conditions with a generous collections of herbs, ointments, and preparations. What a boon these simple monks would have been, traveling to new lands as mendicants, arriving at communities with this kind of knowledge among those who had never experienced it before.

How much they would have been welcomed and valued for these simple gifts of kindness and healing to relieve pain and discomfort. The Buddha was both wise and clever in carefully outlining these methods, recipes, and instructions for his bhikkhus, knowing how valuable they would be as the spread the dharma around the world.

The Buddha has always been viewed as a healer in the psychological sense, healing the illness of ignorance with the wisdom of the noble truths and eight fold path. But this role as healer has traditionally always been augmented in very practical ways with the knowledge of healing very physical ailments as well. The Bhaisaj Guru, the medicine Buddha, holds his urn of healing herbs and unguents, offering the gift of both bodily and mind bound deliverance from suffering.

This concept is best expressed in the words of an eighth century Indian monk Santideva, who described the quintessential healing role in his towering work, the Bodhicaryavatara, the Way of the Bodhisattva. I’ll close with a brief quote from it.

“May I allay the suffering of every living being,

I am medicine for the sick.

May I be both the doctor and their nurse,

until the sickness does not recur.

May I avert the pain of hunger and thirst with showers of food and drink.

May I become both drink and food in the intermediate eons of famine.

May I be an inexhaustible treasure for impoverished beings.

May I wait upon them with various forms of offering.

Abandonment of all is Enlightenment

And enlightenment is my heart’s goal...

I am the protector of the unprotected

and a caravan leader for travelers.

I have become the boat, the causeway, and the bridge

for those who long to reach the further shore.

May I be a light for those in need of light.

May I be a bed for those in need of rest.

May I be a servant for those in need of service, for all embodied beings.

For embodied beings may I be a wish-fulfilling jewel,

the pot of plenty, the spell that always works,

the potent healing herb,

the magical tree that grants every wish,

and the milk-cow that supplies all wants.

Just as earth and other elements

are profitable in many ways to immeasurable beings dwelling throughout space,

So may I be sustenance of many kinds for the realm of beings throughout space,

until all have attained release.”

--- John Corbaley, M.S., M.A.

What about reincarnation?

2010-12-09T09:06:00.000-08:00

Is there such a thing as reincarnation? Do you have to believe in it to be a Buddhist?

Many Buddhist texts refer to it, but some Buddhist teachers don't believe that it is necessary to believe in reincarnation to follow the Buddhist path. Buddha himself is quoted, when directly asked about reincarnation, as saying that it’s irrelevant to enlightenment. In some Buddhist traditions, it's used as a description for how long it might take to become enlightened (some say lifetimes...) But other traditions believe that a person can wake up and be enlightened in an instant. A little confusing, yes?

Within the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, reincarnation is neither mentioned nor implied. We suffer because we seek happiness in inherently dissatisfying ways. We are often trying to change the external world to fit our selfish desires, which we think will make us happy. We want things and other people to be a certain way, and we discover that we can't control them, no matter what we do (at least not for long), and this makes us frustrated, resentful, angry, hurt, etc. We can only control our focus and our actions (the Eightfold Path).

Desire is the not the enemy. Skillful Desire can bring us deep happiness--when we desire to be loving, kind and compassionate AND make that a priority in daily life. Then, we naturally start to act in loving and kind ways. Mindfulness and meditation practices help loosen our old selfish habits. With practice, everyone can experience this deep happiness. It becomes liberating to rise above the daily drama in life and see each moment, ourselves, each person from a more compassionate perspective. We begin to see that we’re all in the same boat--we all have struggles, we all act unskillfully at times, we all get sick, we are all going to die.

Are there any facts? Clearly, we can’t definitively PROVE reincarnation until after we die, so who knows? In the meantime, there are some interesting occurrences worth discussing:

Pam Reynolds: Pam Reynolds was a woman who had brain surgery, was declared dead on the operating table, came back to life, and told a very interesting story about floating above her body. She was able describe things about the room that would have been impossible for her to know from her position on the operation table. The surgeons and nurses confirmed her description. There are many other examples of this kind. Here’s some interesting details about Pam: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pam_Reynolds_(singer)

A boy named James: Here is a link to an ABC news report about a young boy who claimed he was a World War II pilot that got shot down and was able to describe intimate details of the dead man’s life that were unlikely to be easily known, particularly by a five-year old: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EWwzFwUOxA

For myself, I think it is possible, but I don’t linger on the issue. I try to have a positive attitude and be kind and loving in each moment. I assume that if I do that, it will all work out, regardless of whether there is a heaven, a hell, reincarnation or even nothing. With the Buddhist practices, I feel like I’m living the happiest life possible, after having tried many different methods along the way. There is incredible joy and peace that comes from understanding and the Four Noble Truths and following the Eightfold Path.

The Power of Intention

2010-12-01T15:36:00.000-08:00

The second step on the Eightfold Path, is Right Intention. The power of intention is discussed in the Dhammapada, a collection of sayings by the Buddha,

The thought manifests as the word;

The word manifests as the deed;

The deed develops into habit,

And habit hardens into character;

So watch the thought and its ways with care,

And let it spring from love

Born out of concern for all beings…

As the shadow follows the body,

As we think, so we become.

So what is this thingl called intention? Of course, we’ve all heard the saying that the Road to Hell is paved with good intentions, implying that our intentions are irrelevant and that our actions are the most important demonstration of our lives. Actions are important, but this common saying doesn’t take into consideration where actions come from in the first place. Imagine that you are standing over a person with a knife in your hand. Your intention is to harm them, you stab the knife into their heart and begin slicing into them, and they die. Now, imagine the very same action, but you are a surgeon and your intention is to heal them. Something goes wrong during the surgery, and they die anyway. The outcome is exactly the same, but the motivation for your action was extremely important to understanding the situation.

Jack Kornfield says that intentions are the seeds you plant in your heart that grow to become how you live your life. The stories you are telling yourself about your life are the foundation of how you experience life and how you react to any situation that you find yourself in. If you wake up in the morning, and something goes wrong, and you decide that it’s going to be a crappy day—then you’ve set your intention to find the crappiness in life. And we usually find what we’re looking for. Buddha recognized the power of intention. In the New Testament of the Bible, Paul said that we shall reap what we sow. And sowing actually begins with our thoughts and intentions.

In this moment, right now, ask yourself “What is my primary intention in life?” “Why do I get up in the morning?” When you think about getting older and reflecting back on your life, what do you want to see? In Buddhism, we are encouraged to start with a clear intention, not settling for just sleepwalking through life reacting in old conditioned ways.

“Breathing in, breathing out, feeling resentful, feeling happy, being able to drop it, not being able to drop it, eating our food, brushing our teeth, walking, sitting—whatever we’re doing could be done with one intention. That intention is that we want to wake up, we want to ripen our love and compassion, and we want to ripen our ability to let go, we want to realize our connection with all beings. Everything in our lives has the potential to wake us up or to put us to sleep. Allowing it to awaken us is up to us.”

-Pema Chodron, from Comfortable With Uncertainty (Shambhala Publications)

When we’re feeling stressed or depressed or anxious or happy or cheerful or silly or whatever state of mind might arise, in that moment we can recognize these states of mind, and we can ask ourselves: “What is my intention?” “What do I want out of life, and what do I want to put into life?” We can wake ourselves up. We can use the rising of any emotion or thought to better understand ourselves and to recognize the power of clarifying our intention. An emotion or thought is NOT who we are! We always have a choice about how to respond to anything and anyone in our life. Bring to mind a time in your life when you felt stuck in a bad situation, when you had that feeling of having no choices, feeling that there was no way to escape some particularly difficult situation. When you think about those times, even when things might seem at their worst, we still have the ability to set our intention towards waking up, to being curious about the situation, not judging ourselves for whatever we’ve done in the past, giving ourselves the gift of forgiveness and clear seeing. Waking up enables us to see the world with fresh eyes, to see new options that we might have missed before.

Naturally, there will be times when we have to admit we’ve fallen back asleep, that we didn’t act with good intentions, or even times when our intentions were kind and compassionate, but the outcome was still less than desired. Even in those situations, we have a fresh opportunity to set our intention to waking up and getting back on track.

Sometimes it might seem like too much effort. Our limited minds might tell us that it’s just easier to keep doing things the way we’ve been doing them. Living a life without any specific intention can at times seem very alluring. Let’s just smoke that cigarette or have that drink. Let’s watch TV until our brains turn to mush. Who cares? In those moments, when mindfulness seems like too much trouble, that is the most important moment for practice. That is the moment to remind ourselves of the deep, long-lasting happiness that can be found in waking up and staying awake. We can remind ourselves how wonderful life can be.

“Action isn't a burden to be hoisted up and lugged around on our shoulders. It is something we are. The work we have to do can be seen as a kind of coming alive. More than some moral imperative, it's an awakening to our true nature, a releasing of our gifts. This flow-through of energy and ideas is at every moment directed by our choice. That's our role in it. We're like a lens that can focus, or a gate that can direct this flow-through by schooling our intention. In each moment our intention gives this energy direction.”

–Joanna Macy, from “Schooling Our Intention,” Tricycle, Winter 1993

So, First, in each moment, we can set our intention. And Second, in each moment, we can remind ourselves of why it’s worth making the effort. And third, we can identify the choices that we are making in our lives. It can often seem like there is just one answer, the old conditioned response, to whatever is happening in our lives. But that simply is not true. We live in arguably the free-est country on the planet—and yet we can fool ourselves into thinking that we don’t have choices. The Buddhist teachings encourage us to use our intention as a litmus test against which choices can be evaluated. Then, we can choose consciously. We can decide what we want our life to be about, and can then choose our thoughts and actions based on that intention.

Last year, a friend of mine was facing some very difficult challenges in her life. I asked her if it was okay for me to share some of her story—she said yes. She had always been a good saver and smart financial planner, but then she found herself in financial crisis: she and her husband were both out of work, having a mortgage that they were struggling to pay, savings having been depleted, no end seemed to be in sight. As she and I talked about the dire circumstances, I was struggling to find a way to help relieve her pain. But my friend had found her own inspiration. She said that she was ready to explore all the options, even ones that had once seemed inconceivable to accept. She said that she knew bankruptcy and foreclosure were options, that she could live in her dad's basement and start her own business. She talked enthusiastically about the joy of moving in with her dad and starting fresh. She had taken the blinders off of what was possible and found there to be possibilities that, not only could she consider, but that she could even see as positive.

Our intentions color the stories we tell ourselves. In the face of the worst financial situation of her life, she knew she had choices, and that it was up to her to decide what to do, that life was not happening to her. She was creating the life she was living, and no matter how dire things seemed, she could set her intention on making new choices, set her intention on seeing the world as a place of possibilities and those new choices could include joy and happiness. That is the power of intention.

So each of us gets to choose, not once in a lifetime or once a year, but we are choosing in each and every moment, how we are going to live our life. We are choosing whether we live with clear intention or whether we allow ourselves to get dragged down in the mire of old habits and old ways of seeing the world and old ways of seeing ourselves. It is a choice. And no matter how many times we might think that we fail, we always, every one of us, have a new moment to start fresh.

There’s a wonderful William Blake quote that says, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it actually is—infinite.

So, we can be encouraged that the work of waking up is an opportunity to see the world come alive. We can wake up to this truth, we can recognize our unique gifts and manifest those gifts in our everyday actions. We can recognize the flow-through of energy from intention to action. We can recognize that every moment is a moment to start fresh. In each moment, we can set our intention to living our true purpose.