Blessings to All
Because the retreat I just came back from was led by monastics, we did quite a bit of bowing and chanting and other ritualized ways of showing respect and gratitude. I loved it. Especially when we chanted the Verses of Sharing and Aspiration, in which we offered blessings to absolutely everyone…..to those who are friendly, indifferent, or hostile, to gods and evil forces, and even to death itself!
Through the goodness that arises from my practice,
May my spiritual teachers and guides of great virtue,
My mother, my father, and my relatives,
The Sun and the Moon, and all virtuous leaders of the world,
May the highest gods and evil forces,
Celestial beings, guardian spirits of the Earth, and the Lord of Death,
May those who are friendly, indifferent, or hostile,
May all beings receive the blessings of my life.
May they soon attain the threefold bliss and realize the Deathless.
Through the goodness that arises from my practice,
And through this act of sharing,
May all desires and attachments quick cease
And all harmful states of mind.
Until I realize Nibanna,
In every kind of birth, may I have an upright mind,
With mindfulness and wisdom, austerity and vigor.
May the sources of delusion not take hold nor weaken my resolve.
The Buddha is my excellent refuge,
Unsurpassed is the protection of the Dhamma,
The solitary Buddha is my noble Lord,
The Sangha is my supreme support.
Through the supreme power of all these,
May darkness and delusion be dispelled.
Take your Mind for a Walk
I got back last night from a wonderful retreat led by Ajahn Sucitto at IMS (Insight Meditation Society) in Barre, Mass. It was beautiful, and inspiring, and I will have much to say about it the days to come, but for now, I’ll just post this illustration by Maira Kalman, titled Outdoor Walking Meditation, which we did a lot of on this retreat. (click on the image to enlarge)
(image from Mindful magazine, August 2013)
Check Back on April 22
I’m leaving this weekend for an 8-day retreat with Ajahn Sucitto at IMS (Insight Meditation Society) in Barre, Mass., so I won’t be posting until Tuesday, April 22.
But if you don’t want to wait that long, you could check Sucitto’s Dharma Seed page, because he posts all of his talks…morning instructions, evening dharma talks, Q&A sessions — everything. There’s usually only a day or two delay on postings, so the talks should start appearing as soon as April 14 or 15. You could even follow along with me by taking your own at-home retreat! For Ajahn Sucitto’s talks, just click here.
(photo: me, Leahe, Sara and Rebecca at U Tejaniya’s monastery in Burma)
Always Present
More poetry today, in honor of April (National Poetry Month) and T.S. Eliot, who gave us: “April is the cruelest month…” and to whom something most certainly happened in that Burnt Norton rose garden, although what exactly is unclear — some kind of enlightenment experience, maybe….but certainly it was something, to have resulted in this, his masterpiece work. It opens like this:
Four Quartets, Burnt Norton I
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,
Round the corner. Through the first gate,
Into our first world, shall we follow
The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.
There they were, dignified, invisible,
Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves,
In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,
And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eye beam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
***
(image by Laura Craig McNellis, from Outsider Art)
Jack is Back
Jack Kornfield and his partner, Trudy Goodman, led a group to Burma and India this past February, going to many of the same places I did and many others as well…including a private visit with Aung San Suu Kyi. He’s back now and gave a talk at Spirit Rock last Monday night called The Power of Pilgrimage, in which he reflects on the trip but also on the time he has spent with his mother, who is 91 and in hospice care, “just on the edge of leaving,” as he says, “with her eyes on the other world.”
It’s a lovely talk. Sweet. Inspirational. Funny. And very personal. I highly recommend it. (You can listen to it by clicking here.)
Encore
Last night a small meditation group met at my house, in honor which I feel obliged to offer this poem. I’ve posted it before, under similar circumstances, but it bears repeating:
Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House
by Billy Collins
The neighbors’ dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.
The neighbor’s dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and I put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,
and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.
When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton
while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.
This is What It Means to Meditate
Today I offer for your pleasure, another quote from one of Ajahn Sucitto‘s talks, this one titled Refuge and Presence, which I’ve been listening to in preparation for sitting a retreat he will lead at IMS (Insight Meditation Society) starting next Sunday. The quote comes about 9 minutes before the end of the talk, which you can listen to by clicking here.
To meditate means to stay with something and drink it in. To stay with something and take it in. Take in the deep meanings, take in the feeling, take in the experience.
Enjoy.
Meditation means to enjoy.
To stay with something and experience the enjoyment of it. The fullness of it.
This is what it means to meditate.
(photo from The Daily Soup Cookbook, by Carla Ruben and Peter Siegel with Robin Vitetta-Miller)
Happiness Floats
My brother and nephew are visiting from out of town, and I am happy about that. My house didn’t get hit by a tornado last night, and I am happy about that, too. This kind of happiness is based on happy circumstances. Which is lovely…but precarious. There’s another kind of happiness that is not based on happy things happening. It’s an inner, unconditioned happiness, that’s always available (but often obscured), which meditation can help reveal.
Here’s a hint of it:
So Much Happiness
by Naomi Shihab Nye
It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
A wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
Something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.
But happiness floats.
It doesn’t need you to hold it down.
It doesn’t need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
And disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
And now live over a quarry of noise and dust
Cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
It too could wake up filled with possibilities
Of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
And love even the floor which needs to be swept,
The soiled linens and scratched records….
Since there is no place large enough
To contain so much happiness,
You shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
Into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
For the moon, but continues to hold it, and to share it,
And in that way, be known.
***
(image by: Tanabata, by Kayama Matazo; ink, color, gold and silver on silk; St. Louis Art Museum;
click on image to see detail)
It Is Natural
I’ve been getting ready for my upcoming retreat with Ajahn Sucitto by listening to some of the dharma talks he gave at his last retreat. The talk I listened to last night was especially wonderful. The title is The Natural Stream to Liberation and he starts by reading this selection from the Numerical Discourses. (The talk is an hour long, but it would almost be enough just to listen to him read this sutta, which is on the first 7 minutes of the tape. To listen, click here.)
For a virtuous person, one whose behavior is virtuous,
no volition need be exerted:
“Let non-regret arise in me.”
It is natural that non-regret
arises in a virtuous person, one whose behavior is virtuous.
For one without regret,
no volition need be exerted:
“Let joy arise in me.”
It is natural that joy arises in one without regret.
For one who is joyful,
no volition need be exerted:
“Let rapture arise in me.”
It is natural that rapture arises in one who is joyful.
For one with a rapturous mind,
no volition need be exerted:
“Let my body be tranquil.”
It is natural that the body of one with a rapturous mind is tranquil.
For one tranquil in body,
no volition need be exerted:
“Let me feel pleasure.”
It is natural that one tranquil in body feels pleasure.
For one feeling pleasure,
no volition need be exerted:
“Let my mind be concentrated.”
It is natural that the mind of one feeling pleasure is concentrated.
For one who is concentrated
no volition need be exerted:
“Let me know and see things as they really are.”
It is natural that one who is concentrated knows and see things as they really are.
For one who knows and sees things as they really are,
no volition need be exerted:
“Let me be disenchanted and dispassionate.”
It is natural that one who knows and sees things as they really are is disenchanted and dispassionate.
For one who is disenchanted and dispassionate,
no volition need be exerted:
“Let me realize the knowledge and vision of liberation.”
It is natural that one who is disenchanted and dispassionate realized the knowledge and vision of liberation.
Thus Bhikkhus, the knowledge and vision of liberation is the purpose and benefit of disenchantment and dispassion.
Disenchantment and dispassion are the purpose and benefit of the knowledge and vision of things as they really are.
The knowledge and vision of things as they really are is the purpose and benefit of concentration.
Concentration is the purpose and benefit of pleasure.
Pleasure is the purpose and benefit of tranquility.
Tranquility is the purpose and benefit of rapture.
Rapture is the purpose and benefit of joy.
Joy is the purpose and benefit of non-regret.
And non-regret is the purpose and benefit of virtuous behavior.
Thus, Bhikkhus, one stage flows into the next stage,
one stage fills up the next stage,
for going from the near shore
to the far shore.
(Anguttara Nykaya, The Book of the Nines.)
#59: Don’t Expect a Standing Ovation
(Joseph Goldstein’s variation on one of the Tonglen Mind Training slogans.)