May All Beings in All Directions…
It’s my turn to bring something to read for the Sunday Morning Sangha this coming weekend, so I’ve been rummaging through my stuff and came across this passage in one of my all-time favorite dharma books, Mindfulness in Plain English, by Bhante Gunaratana:
“Without loving friendliness, our practice of mindfulness will never successfully break through our craving and rigid sense of self. Mindfulness, in turn, is a necessary basis for developing loving friendliness. The two are always developed together…..
“At the beginning of a meditation session, say the following sentences to yourself:
“May my mind be filled with the thoughts of loving friendliness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity. May I be generous. May I be gentle. May I be relaxed. May I be happy and peaceful. May I be healthy. My my heart become soft. May my words be pleasing to others. May my actions be kind….
“Develop this feeling. Be full of kindness toward yourself. Accept yourself just as you are. Make peace with your shortcomings. Embrace even your weaknesses. Be gentle and forgiving with yourself as you are at this very moment…..
“Let the power of loving friendliness saturate your entire body and mind. Relax in its warmth and radiance. Expand this feeling to your loved ones, to people you don’t know or feel neutral about–and even to your adversaries…
“May all beings in all directions, all around the universe, have good hearts. Let them be happy, let them have good fortune, let them be kind, let them have good and caring friends. May all beings everywhere be filled with the feeling of loving friendliness–abundant, exalted and measureless. May they be free from enmity, free from affliction and anxiety. May they live happily.”
***
(image by Fulvio Roiter, from Carnaval de Venise)
What It Feels Like
In guiding us through the 4th foundation of Mindfulness (often translated — somewhat opaquely — as “investigation of mind objects”) Ven. Analayo quoted a set of similes the Buddha used to illustrate how it feels when each of the classic “hindrances” is not present. These hindrances are: Craving, Anger, Sloth/Torpor (sluggishness), Restlessness/Worry (agitation), and Doubt. What they hinder is: Peace.
Not craving is like getting out of debt.
Not being angry is like recovering from an illness.
Not feeling sluggishness is like getting out of jail.
Not feeling agitated is like being freed from slavery.
Not being in doubt is like arriving safely after a dangerous journey.
I love these similes because instead of suggesting that craving, anger, etc. are somehow failings on my part that need to be eradicated…..they’re just unpleasant, painful, limiting states of mind that it would be a joy to be free of!
The instruction, then, is not to try to force myself not to crave something, or get angry, etc., but just to notice whenever I’m NOT craving or angry or sluggish, etc.….and then to enjoy the feeling of being FREE!!!
How liberating.
Let the Mind Rest on the Body
I’m back from the deeply transformative 10-day retreat led by Ven. Analayo (shown in photo), followed by the Community Dharma Leader workshop, and I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed with so much to write about.
So, for today, I’ll just leave you with the opening phrase, which Ven. Analayo used every morning and every afternoon (always the same, word for word), as he led us on a guided meditation/contemplation through the series of 7 practices outlined in the Satipatthana Sutta that are common to the both Pali and Chinese versions of the text. (The practices are: Anatomical Parts, Elements, Cemetery Contemplation, Feeling Tone, Contemplation of Mind, Hindrances, Enlightenment Factors.)
At every sit, this opening phrase would wash over me like a wave of calm, so now I start every meditation by saying it to myself:
“We are aware of the body in the sitting posture, and we let the mind rest on the body just as the body rests on the cushion.”
Ahhhhh.
***
To listen to a sample of the guided meditation (40 minutes), beginning with this opening phrase, click here.
As an Experiment…
The Dharma Book KM Group I’m a part of is working its way (slowly and mindfully) through Joseph Goldstein’s Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening. We met last night and got to talking about a practice Joseph suggests in the section on Mindfulness of Mind:
“As an experiment, pay attention to the next time you experience a strong wanting in the mind. Stay as mindful as possible of how it manifests in the mind and body. And then notice as the wanting disappears, either in a moment or gradually over time. Instead of rushing back to the breath or some other object of meditation, pay attention to the mind free of wanting, experiencing the coolness and peace of that state.”
Since we’re more likely to pay attention to the times when our minds are NOT free of wanting, the group decided that we will try Joseph’s suggestion — at least occasionally — over the next couple of weeks. It sure would be nice, we all agreed, to be more aware when we actually ARE experiencing a little coolness and peace.
Try it with us!
Let the Concert Begin
Today’s post comes from an early book of collected essays (published in 1974) titled: What is Meditation, edited by John White. Of course mediation has been taught for more than 2600 years, so when I say “early,” I mean early for us Westerners.
Here’s a sample from The Art of Meditation, written by one of these “early” practitioners, Alan Watts.
“We are…out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world as it actually is. We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions, and ideas. Meditation is therefore the art of suspending verbal and symbolic thinking for a time, somewhat as a courteous audience will stop talking when a concert is about to begin.
“Simply sit down, close your eyes, and listen to all sounds that may be going on–without trying to name or identify them. Listen as you would listen to music. If you find that verbal thinking will not drop away, don’t attempt to stop it by force of willpower. Just keep your tongue relaxed, floating easily in the lower jaw, and listen to your thoughts as if they were birds chattering outside–mere noise in the skull–and they will eventually subside of themselves, as a turbulent and muddy pool will become calm and clear if left alone.”
***
(Thanks, Thomas, for sharing that gem.)
Every Moment
I just listened to a sweet little 2-minute dharma talk given by Sylvia Boorstein at the month-long retreat going on right now at Spirit Rock. (click here)
It’s definitely worth taking the time to listen, but if you haven’t got the 2 minutes, here’s the key teaching:
“Every moment of mindfulness erases a moment of conditioning.”
May All Beings Be At Ease
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near or far away,
Those born and to-be-born —
May all beings be at ease.
— from the Metta Sutta, the Buddha’s words on Loving Kindness
***
In case you can’t tell, this is a photo of the cats I adopted upon returning from my retreat in South Africa. That’s Stella on the right. She is giving Izzy a kiss on the head. (click on the image to enlarge)
2015
As Surely as the Night is Full of Stars
One of my teachers asked me why I meditate.
I said I do it because I want to know for myself the luminous/timeless/transcendent nature of reality that T.S. Eliot, Thomas Merton, and William Blake….not to mention Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, and Phillip Moffitt…have all been talking about.
And I do it because I understand that meditation is one of the best ways to open oneself to this experience.
And because I have trust that this kind of opening is possible–for me. As Jack writes in After the Ecstasy, the Laundry:
“As surely as we inhabit the mystery of birth and death, as surely as the night is full of stars, as surely as we know the necessity of love, we contain the possibility of awakening.”
Phillip’s Top Ten
I received an email from Phillip Moffitt over the weekend that included a list of Ten Values Associated with Well-Being, which he has used to help top level managers identify their core values and become more effective in their leadership roles.
I’m simplifying the text here–except for number 5, which I am quoting in full because somehow that one really jumped out at me. (Especially the part about driving in traffic!)
You can read Phillip’s full text on his DharmaWisdom website. (click here)
Ten Values for Well-Being
1. Be truthful.
2. Be genuine and authentic.
3. Be kind.
4. Be especially compassionate to those having difficulty.
5. Act and make choices in terms of relatedness. Know that you are part of something larger. For example, when you are driving in heavy traffic, know that you are part of the traffic and not separate from it. Or, in the workplace, maintain an awareness that you are dependent on others and others are dependent on you. Having a sense of your connection to others breaks the aloneness that’s part of our existential quandary as human beings.
6. Honor your own creativity.
7. Primarily spend time on areas you care about.
8. Continue to learn and grow.
9. Be present.
10. Take responsibility for your body.
Going Back to Looking Again
As some of you know from previous posts (here, here, here, here, and here), I’ve had an on-again-off-again practice of going to the Art Museum and looking at a piece of art — 13 times — each time writing in my journal, beginning with the phrase: Now I see….
For some reason, I never finished all 13 viewings of Guanyin (although I thought I had at the time), so now I’ve been going back and looking again. Here’s what I wrote on the 9th viewing:
Now I see the space around her, empty but not empty (as they say). Empty of the wood and paint that “she” — the statue — is made of, but FULL of the shadows and light, the ever-so-slightly shifting of my perception and also, of course, full of space. Full of the potential for something else to be there. Full of the negative space created by the presence of the material form.
It’s as if this space is holding her there. Softly. Cushioning, even. And the neutral putty-grey color of the base on which she sits, and the walls around her, reflecting onto the colors of her form–not separate from her. Not of the form, but affecting it. Contrasting against it. And also supporting it, embracing it. Allowing for its presence.
The spotlights, too, a part of her form. Because how differently she would appear if any one of them — or all of them! — were turned off. The shadows that articulated her form would fall away. The colors would darken, fade, grow less distinguishable. Or she would disappear altogether in the darkness The form would still be there, but “I” would have no experience of it.
So the light is definitely a part of the form, the experience of the form. And the fact that I am looking at it, too, is a part of it. Because I no longer “see her” when my eyes are focused on the page where I am writing, but I “see her” in my mind. Or, rather, I experience the memory of seeing her. And then I turn away from the page, turn back to the form, and she appears once again in my actual — externally generated — experience. Or, rather, externally dependent experience.
But my experience is also internally dependent, because I recognize her. I remember having seen her before and I experience the accumulated experiences of having seen her before. Or at least a residue of those experiences.
I look to her face and I see the darker-than-the-rest place between her slightly-openend eyelids. I see what I see, but maybe I see this instead of that — because I remember having seen those shades below her eyelids before, when I’ve stood closer and looked more directly into them.
So this is what I see “now.” But only because of what I have seen “before.” Dependent on the light and the form, on my eyes, my glasses even, and depending on the intention I have made to look at her, dependent on my attention, on memory, and on the intention and the skill and the attention of the artist — of his/her tools, training, available time — even on the light that was present while he/she worked… All of this — and so much more — is present in this moment of seeing!