Imagine
One of the reasons I decided to go to the retreat in South Africa next month is that in addition to two weeks of regular vipassana (insight meditation) practice, we’ll also be doing two weeks of chanting/bowing/visualization practices, which are from the Mahayana schools of Buddhism.
The focus of these practices will be directed to the archetype of Infinite Compassion, personified by Kuan Yin (also spelled Guanyin). I’m interested in this practice, at least partly, because of the gorgeous Guanyin statue we have at the St. Louis Art Museum. (I find it mesmerizing.)
I don’t know a lot about these practices, but I’m learning. Here’s something of what Kittisaro and Thanissara have to say about it in their online Dharmagiri course:
“Calling the name Kuan Shr Yin Bodhisattva invokes and embodies her energetic expression. While doing the recitation, focus your mind on the qualities of compassion and the attributes of Kuan Yin, and imagine yourself as a conduit for these qualities as they flow out into the world. As we become more proficient in holding the mantra along with the visualization of Kuan Yin’s wonderful qualities, little by little we unite with the vast mysterious and universal body of compassion, enabling us to heal, transform and understand the many states of suffering, while in service to the whole.”
Attributes of Kuan Yin
Wise Compassion
Swift Protection
Creative Wisdom
Impeccable Virtue
All Victorious
Sublime Intelligence
Worthy of Honor
Invincible Courage
Destroyer of Negativity
True Refuge
Joy and Laughter
Distribution of Wealth
Auspicious Beauty
Irresistible Truth
Ferocious Compassion
Serene Peace
Destroyer of Attachment
Bliss and Joy
Transformer of Poison
Remover of Sorrow
Radiant Health
Complete Enlightenment
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Wow. Imagine what it would like to be a conduit for just one of these!
Let It Be A Mystery
I listened to an excellent talk the other night by Winnie Nazarko given during the 3-month retreat that’s finishing up right now at IMS. The talk is called Second Guessing the Universe, and in it she discusses the problem of delusion — basically, that we don’t know when we’re deluded because, well, that’s the nature of delusion: we think we know, but we don’t.
As this relates to our “progress” in the practice, this means that we can’t know “how far along” we are on the path — what kinds of insights/experiences we should be having — because it’s impossible to know the twists and turns of the path until we’ve actually walked it through to the end.
We can know that we are on the path. And we can look back and see, over the long run, that we are experiencing (and causing) much less suffering than in the past. But as to how “close” we are to the “end” (to some kind of “breakthrough” or “enlightenment”)….we can’t know that because at this point we don’t — we can’t — really understand the unfolding of the path.
We can know the direction we’re heading — toward less suffering. But we can’t really know exactly where we “are” in terms of “progress,” because the fruit of the path is not something that can be described in words or concepts. It can be pointed to, but ultimately it’s beyond explanation…it’s something that has to be experienced.
Like the taste of a mango. You can hear/read/think about it all you want, but until you actually take a bite — you can’t know the taste.
So: Let the path be a mystery. Keep practicing. Keep noticing whether or not — over the long run — there is less suffering in our lives. Stay attentive. Respond, as necessary. Relax. And let the path unfold in its own way.
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image: Scherzo di Follia (Game of Madness), by Pierre-Louis Pierson
Patience & Persistence
The latest issue of Spirit Rock News featured an article by Phillip Moffitt, in which he talks about the relationship between patience and persistence and emphasized their importance “for developing a sustainable meditation practice and for making change in your life.”
Phillip says: Patience is the ability to abide with things the way they are. It allows you to tolerate failure, disappointment, defeat, unpleasantness, and confusion–without giving up–both on the meditation cushion and in life. Persistence is the capacity of energetic resolve–the determination to hold steady to your intentions. Persistence brings into play the essential energy for directing your attention to what needs to be done right now…
Sometimes we can be impatient with the world: however, I don’t recommend starting with the world as the focus of your patience practice. It is far better to begin with fostering patience toward yourself. When you are patient with yourself, you naturally become patient with others and it spreads to those around you…
Persistence gives patience a purpose. If there isn’t a goal with a set of values to which you are applying yourself, what can seem like patience is really dilly-dallying. You’re not really about anything. You’re doing a little of this, a little of that, and you can think, “I’m a patient person. I’m easy-going. I’m doing fine in this area of patience.” But if there is not a commitment to something, if there is no alignment of persistence, then is that really being patient? Or are you simply tuned-out?
Through persistence you will eventually develop insight. But, if you’re not patient with yourself, you will not be able to be persistent. You don’t have to do anything extra. Just be patient and persistent in staying present, and the insights will come.
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Read the full article on Phillip’s website by clicking here.
Another Way to Celebrate
In case you’re looking for a different way to start the New Year (if romping through the surf in your birthday suit isn’t an option), Sylvia Boorstein will be hosting a New Year’s Day Celebration and Intention Setting Event at Spirit Rock, which will be available by live video stream.
This special retreat day will be an opportunity to practice, to set intentions, and to connect with deepening wisdom. A portion of the day will be in silence, reviewing and practicing techniques to strengthen concentration and clarify mindfulness. Get out your journal to record the intentions you set!
This event will be held on Thursday, January 1, 2015, starting at 12:00 noon (St. Louis time) and run till 6:00 pm. Cost is $60. (Much cheaper than a trip to the beach!) For more information and to register, click here.
Hatred Never Ends Through Hatred
I feel so much sadness…and despair…over the Michael Brown case, and all the causes and conditions that led to it and that seem to be leading to more of the same.
So I offer these lines from the Dhammapada, which the monk Maha Gosananda chanted — and led his people to chant — as they walked back through the killing fields of Cambodia to reclaim their land at the end of the Vietnam War:
Hatred never ends through hatred. By non-hatred alone does it end. This is an ancient truth.
It Takes Work
I apologize for not posting last Friday, but I was too exhausted from the mental “housekeeping” I’ve been doing — nothing traumatic, just working through a mind-storm of emotions around a situation in which I was (finally) able to set some firm, clear boundaries. (Not a practice I’ve done very well in the past.)
I think the worst is over. But I’m still in the process of calming down.
So I’ll just leave you with this lovely little “mantra” from Sylvia Boorstein, which I’ve found to be very helpful, and which I was reminded of at the Sunday Sangha sitting yesterday morning. (Thanks, Sheryl!)
May I meet this moment fully,
May I meet it as a friend.
It Must Be!
Last night I attended a wonderful, Chamber Music performance-with-discussion in which our very own, world-class Arianna Quartet played one of the final pieces of music that Beethoven wrote, Opus 135. It was the second of these events I’ve attended and they were both great. (And inexpensive!) They’re part of the First Mondays concert series at UMSL Grand Center. The next one is in March. I will definitely be there…maybe I’ll see you!
Anyway, I went with a dharma buddy, Thomas, and on the drive home we got to talking about how so much of the evening’s discussion — about Beethoven’s amazing music, his painful struggles with poor health, his impending death, and especially the notations he made in this score: “Must it be?” (at a very dark, somber passage) and then “It must be!” (at a very bright and life-affirming passage) — how all of this is reminiscent of the Buddha’s teachings about suffering and the end of suffering, which is that release comes as a result of accepting, without aversion, that which can not be other than it is.
And then Thomas remembered a commentary on these late quartets, which quoted Nietzsche: “Whoever has built a new Heaven has found the strength of it only is his own Hell.”
Which seems like a beautiful, even transcendent, but not exactly “happy” way of saying the same thing. Just like Beethoven’s last quartet.
***
(image: The Wings by Victor Wang, oil on canvas, 2012)
Walking and Breathing
The latest issue of Mindful magazine just arrived, which is a treat for many reason, not the least of which is the drawing by Maira Kalman always featured on the last page under the heading: Mindspace.
Here’s this month’s installment. (click on the image to enlarge) It reads:
A Bout of Anguish —
This year has been laced with difficulties. In the world. At home.
Old grievances have erupted, ricocheting between family members. Bad fortune has beset loved ones. Upheaval. Uncertainty. The persistent feeling that nothing will ever work out.
Nothing? Well, none of the things that matter.
So I wandered away. To the forest. To walk. The days were quiet. The walks slow.
Stopping to look at wildflowers, rocks or Old Man’s Beard, the moss that hung from the trees. And the trees themselves. Some over 1,000 years old. They were just there. You know, just there and not thinking.
One walks past them and breathes through some sadness, fortified to go back to whatever it is that lurks or awaits, bad and good.
Meditation as Relationship
I really like what Akincano Marc Weber says about meditation — that it is about establishing a relationship with your mind.
“…It is meeting your mind, engaging your mind, inquiring into the dimensions of your mind, finding out what your mind needs….
“It’s what you do in relationship. You don’t just go in, shake hands, and let rip with your project or with your plan. You establish a relationship. You say Hello, How are you, Where have you come from, Have you slept well, Where are you staying…. You establish a relationship…..
“Your mind has a life of its own. I think you will agree with me on this after some meditation. What is happening in your mind will need your skillful response, your attuned response. You can’t just go in there and give orders.
“You can’t just go in there and follow along, either. We’re not doting on all our whims and fancies. But as meditators, we do want to know what the mind has as this life of its own. We do want to know its images. We do want to know its desires. We do want to know what makes it calm, what makes it anxious, what makes it scattered, or collected. You do want to know all these things. And to find this out requires a skill. And that skill is a relational one.
“It has something to do with curiosity. And it has something to do with kindness. It has something to do with patience. And a tolerance for your mind to be different from what you expect it to be, from what you think it should be. A tolerance for what is baffling, surprising, bewildering to you…..
“You will need the skill to meet what is presently arisen. Take what you find from where it is and turn it into a wholesome direction, cultivate from there, refine from there. Some things will need to be strengthened. Some things will need to overcome. That is a relational skill.”
(For a link to the entire talk, click here.)
Memento Mori
Yesterday I walked out of my house and was just about to step off the curb onto the street, when I realized that right where my foot was about to land, there was a squirrel, clearly dead, but intact, lying “peacefully” on its side, among the fallen leaves. I managed to check myself in time to avoid stepping on it (while at the same time crying out, involuntarily, in a weird-sounding, almost cartoon-ishly high-pitched voice, something like: “EEEEEK!!!”)
But then I just stood there. I thought for a minute about trying to bury it….out of a sense of propriety, to a certain extent…but also because it had fallen right where I normally park my car and I didn’t want to run over it and make a bloody mess. But I didn’t have a shovel and I didn’t know where I would be able to dig a hole even if I had one, and I couldn’t really imagine myself asking one of my neighbors to do it for me, so I just stood there.
And I looked at it. I saw that there were a few flies buzzing around, some crawling on the nose and the eye, and then I remembered the practice we did as part of the Dedicated Practitioner Program at Spirit Rock, where we contemplated a Corpse in Decay. The instructions (from the Satipatthana sutta) were to look at a corpse in various stages of decay (we used photographs), and at each stage, to consider own bodies, and to remember:
“This body too is of the same nature; it will be like that; it is not exempt from that fate.”
So I thought about that again, while I looked at the squirrel. It was sobering. But not especially upsetting or disturbing.
Because it’s just the truth.