The Mind Gets Focused
When Tranquility (passaddhi) and Happiness (sukha) are present, the mind will naturally become calm, collected, steady, stable and profoundly still. This is Samadhi (concentration) and it’s the next chain in the link of Transcendent Dependent Arising.
(image from: Q-cards)
Happiness Happens
Happiness (sukha) is the next link in the chain of Transcendent Dependent Arising. This is not the temporary kind of happiness that comes from getting what we want (or getting away from what we don’t want.) It’s the easeful, contented, liberating kind of happiness that follows naturally from the states of Joy (pamojja), Rapture (piti) and Tranquility (passaddhi) that are the result of practicing with Confidence/Faith (saddha).
(image from: A Whole World, by Couprie and Louchard)
When Things Calm Down
The experience of Rapture (piti) can mature into Tranquillity (passaddhi), which is the next link on the chain of Transcendent Dependent Arising. The mind that has turned from Suffering to Faith and found Joy in the release that comes through practice, delights in that Joy until it develops into Rapture. After which, it can rest and relax into the calm and peaceful state of Tranquility.
(image from: Tarot of the Witches)
And Then Rapture!
As Joy increases….it leads to Rapture (piti), which is the next link in the chain of Transcendent Dependent Arising. This is an energetic mental state that can arise when the joy of practice becomes more focused and concentrated. It has a physical aspect as well, which can include goosebumps and tingling, waves or showers of pleasure, a flood of well-being and other distinctive and very, very pleasurable sensations!!!
(image from: Napo Tarot)
This Leads to Joy
Joy (pamojja) is the next link in the chain of Transcendent Dependent Arising. It follows from Faith (saddha) because once we have acted on our initial, intuitive sense (faith) that this is the path that could lead to the end of Suffering (dukkha)…and found that, if fact, it really DOES bring release….then of course we are joyous!
So we practice with more confidence (faith).
Which leads to an even greater release of suffering.
Which leads to still more faith.
And lots more joy!!!
(image from: A Whole World, by Couprie and Louchard)
There is a Way Out
The second link in the chain of Transcendent Dependent Arising — after Suffering (dukkha) — is Saddha. This is often translated as “faith,” but not the blind, check-your-brain-at-the-door kind of faith that seems to be required in certain religious traditions. Saddha is not belief. It’s confidence. Trust. A sense that there is something that can be relied on….and that one can, in fact, find this something.
Saddha (faith) follows Dukkha (suffering) because the pain and distress of suffering is often what drives people to search for this something.
And in the searching, to actually find it.
(image from: Tarot of the Witches)
It Starts With Suffering
One of my favorite topics at the final DPP retreat was the Twelve Links of Transcendent Dependent Arising. Basically, these links diverge from the rounds of samsara as described in the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination, which start with Ignorance and lead repeatedly to Suffering. But this chain of arising leads AWAY from that endless cycle of suffering….and goes all the way to Liberation!
The path to liberation starts with suffering (dukkha). Which is good news…because that’s what we’ve got! Things are not the way we want them to be; we don’t get what we want; we have to deal with all kinds of stuff we don’t want; etc. etc. etc.
So we start with suffering. But then we move AWAY from it. By gaining confidence and trust….faith….in what we can see for ourselves through the practices of meditation.
More on that tomorrow.
And then on to the next link, then to the next, one each day until we get to the last — which is total freedom.
Here’s the whole list:
Suffering (dukkha)
Faith (saddha)
Joy (pamojja)
Rapture (piti)
Tranquility (passaddhi)
Happiness (sukha)
Concentration (samadhi)
Knowledge and Vision of Things As They Are (yathabhutananadassana)
Disenchantment (nibbida)
Dispassion (viraga)
Emancipation (vimutti)
Knowledge of Destruction of the Taints (asavakkhaye nana)
(image: Phantasmagoric Theater Tarot)
More Pix
After almost 3 weeks of retreat, I’m still at a bit of a loss for words….so I’ll just post some more pictures.
Here’s me getting up before dawn to meditate.
Here’s the room where I had been sleeping so soundly.
Here’s the path to the meditation hall.
Here’s where the path led.
Here’s the whole DPP “class” on the final day of the program.
Here’s me again…the happy graduate.
Postcards
I’m back from the final DDP Retreat and Jack Kornfield’s Annual Spring Retreat, both at Joshua Tree Retreat Center. I have lots to tell…but it’ll have to wait till I get my email taken care of! So I’ll just post a couple of sneak peeks. More to come.
On Retreat Until May 13
I’m leaving tomorrow morning for the final DPP retreat in Yucca Valley, then staying on to attend Jack Kornfield’s annual Spring Retreat, so I won’t be posting again after until I get back on May 13.
At the first DPP retreat in 2011 (which was also held in Yucca Valley) Phillip Moffitt asked each of us to go out into the desert and find a stone — one that appealed to us for some reason or other — and to bring it back into the meditation hall. We did a little ceremony with them then, which involved placing them, one by one, on a larger stone that was passed around the room, and each of us calling to mind our deepest intention for the 2-year program we’d just to embarked upon.
(I’m not really sure why I chose the stone I did…but I think it was because it had a lot of colors in it — which made it seem complex and worthy of investigation — but mostly, I think, because it sparkled in the sunlight.)
Now the program is ending. And we’ve been asked to bring these same stones back, to be used as part of our closing ceremony. I don’t know what the ceremony will be like. But this stone has been sitting on my home alter all this time, along with a lot of other stones and various things I’ve collected on other retreats and significant occasions.
I wonder if the ceremony will include bringing the stones back home, or if we’ll leave them out there in the dessert.
Either way, the intention I made that first night will stay with me.