Another Escape
The Monday night KM Book Group meets tonight and the passage I underlined for discussion is this quote from the Buddha:
“Being contacted by painful feeling one seeks delight in sensual pleasure. For what reason? Because the uninstructed worldling [meaning: regular a person who hasn’t learned the Buddha’s teachings] does not know of any escape from painful feeling other than sensual pleasure…”
Right. But, of course, it doesn’t work.
It feels good for a moment. But it’s not really satisfying because the pleasure doesn’t last. And it does nothing to address the underlying problem. What’s worse, it just adds it’s own painful consequences.
So what other “escape” is there? Painful feelings (both physical and psychological) are always popping up!
Here’s what the Buddha says: “When feeling a pleasant feeling, one knows, ‘I feel a pleasant feeling.’ When feeling an unpleasant feeling, one knows, ‘I feel an unpleasant feeling.’…”
What that means in practice is to stay with the feeling…recognizing that it’s unpleasant, but not getting carried away with it. For example: I feel really lonely.
The practice is to notice the feeling before it goes all the way into: I’m so alone. Everywhere I look, I see people together. I’ve got nobody. Nobody loves me. I’ll never have sex again. I’m too old. I’m too fat. I’m so depressed. I feel like shit…..
Instead of that, notice the “I feel lonely” voice right when it starts up. Then notice: This feels unpleasant. Then pay attention to whatever comes up next. Probably something like: I don’t like this. Notice how that feels. Is it pleasant or unpleasant? Probably unpleasant. Then just keep noticing what comes up and whether it’s pleasant or unpleasant (or neither).
Pretty soon you’ll notice that when you don’t keep adding fuel to the fire, the feeling dies down. It comes and goes. It’s not permanent. You’re not doomed. You may even have enough peace of mind at that point to see that something can be done to address the situation. Or not. And even that, you can come to be at peace with.
Thirteen Ways of Looking
I’ve started, again, to do a different sort of contemplative practice, one that I’ve done a couple of time during the last two years.
Here’s the practice: I go to the Art Museum, choose a piece of art (or rather, let a piece of art choose me), then I look at it….closely, carefully, contemplatively…then I write a couple of pages in my journal — whatever comes to mind — beginning with the phrase: “Now I see…”
And then I go back, a week or so later, and I do it again. And then again. And again. And again. Until I’ve done it thirteen times. (Thirteen being chosen with a nod to the enigmatic poem by Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.)
It’s amazing how differently I can see the “same” piece of art from one week to the next. Or maybe what’s so amazing is that I can still feel like it’s the same “me” that is seeing the same “it” again and again. When clearly neither of us are the same!
I’ve posted some of my previous experience with this practice here. And here, here, and here. Each of those posts were in response to looking at the well-known Guanyin statue we are SO fortunate to have right here in the St. Louis Art Museum.
But for this round of practice, I’ve chosen a subject that’s a bit more…hmm, what should I say….secular. It’s Max Beckman’s Carnival Mask, Green, Violet, and Pink, painted in 1950 (the year I was born).
I won’t post what I wrote in my journal just yet. Instead, I leave you with the first stanza of the afore-mentioned Wallace Stevens poem:
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
Taking Refuge
Today I offer for your reflection, one of the exercises from the on-line Dharmagiri Course that my study buddy, Carolyn, and I have found to be quite “enlightening.”
Several times a day, ask yourself: “Where am I placing my trust?”
The traditional practice for Buddhists is to trust (“take refuge”) in: (1) the Buddha, (2) the Dhamma, and (3) the Sangha. What this means is that we trust (1) our natural ability to wake up from the confusion that keeps us trapped in feelings of discomfort, dis-ease, and dissatisfaction, (2) the teachings that show us the way to wake up, and (3) all those who have actually woken up!
Which is great.
But a good hard look at what we actually do…when we’re feeling lonely, or anxious, or upset, or whatever…can help us see that (maybe, just maybe) we are actually putting our trust in a lot of other things.
Ice cream, for example.
Or vodka. Or the internet. Or keeping really, really, really busy.
We ask the question, not as a way to make us feel bad about what we’re going. But to make us conscious of what we’re doing.
Which is another way of saying….to wake up!
When Conditions Change….
My sister is having out-patient knee surgery today and needs my help….which means that conditions are such that I only have time for a brief post. So, I leave you with this:
All conditioned things are impermanent,
Their nature is to arise and pass away.
To live in harmony with this truth
Brings true happiness.
“Judging is a Sense Desire”
Our KM group had a great discussion last night about “sense restraint,” which according to Joseph Goldstein’s Mindfulness book, is important “so that the mind doesn’t wander mindlessly in the alluring realm of sense object.”
He goes on to say, “Restraint is not something that is highly valued in our culture. We often see renunciation as a burdensome activity, something we think might be good for us, but which we really don’t like. Another way of understanding its value, though, would be to see renunciation as the practice of non-addiction. In this way of understanding, we can more easily experienced its true flavor of freedom.”
After reading that paragraph, we talked for a while about our own experiences of “sense restraint” with things like chocolate, or cigarettes, or even Diet Coke!
And then Thomas was reminded of a statement that Phillip Moffitt once made, which has stuck with him..and with me. Phillip said: “Judging is a sense desire.” (Because, in Buddhist understanding, the mind is a sense organ, just like the eye or the ear or the nose.)
Now that puts a very interesting light on what we’re doing when we judge other people. We’re indulging in sense desire. Just like going for that extra brownie. There is a momentary pleasure. (We feel superior. Or safe. Or smart. Or right. Or whatever.) But then there’s the downside. (We cut ourselves off from others. Or we get tight and lose our ability to see the big picture, to notice and appreciate the good qualities. Or we turn sour and angry. Or bitter. Or resentful. Etc.)
But just like with our other sense desires, we can learn to feel the urge to indulge, but then stop, maybe just saying “not now,” and with practice, we can be free from their compulsive power!
We Are Not Our Hair
Our Dharma Book Group meets tonight and we are starting to discuss Chapter 10 of Joseph Goldstein’s new book, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening. This is the chapter that includes some of the less-common meditations on the body, including the practice of contemplating its anatomical parts.
“In this body there are head-hairs, body-hairs, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, bone-marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, diaphragm, spleen, lungs, bowels, mesentery, contents of the stomach, feces, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, grease, spittle, snot, oil of the joints, and urine.”
Yuck. Right?
But really, it’s just the truth. This body, which I think of so strongly as ME, is really NOT me.
Which is good news.
I am NOT my hair, or bones, bowels, blood, or any of the other “stuff” that make up this body. Which, of course, I know. I am clearly more than my body. I know that.
But I still kind of think of this body as MINE.
That’s not really true either, because I can’t control “my” body — I can’t tell it to grow or not grow, to age or not age, to be sick or not be sick. I can have some effect on the way it grows or ages, etc, but really, not that much. It does what it does in accordance with the laws of nature. Clearly not in accordance with my desires or wishes.
Which is not exactly good news.
But it’s the truth. This is the way things are.
And it’s always better to be dealing with what IS, than to be thinking — and acting — as if thing were other than they actually are.
Just Beginning or Beginning Again
I had a friend ask me yesterday to recommend a good, basic talk on meditation and I couldn’t come up with just one, but I did find a separate page on Dharma Seed, under the title Introduction to Meditation, with four introductory talks by four terrific teachers. How cool!
And then I thought it would be a good idea to have these talks “at the ready” — not only for the next time someone is interested in beginning meditation, but also for all those times when the practice seems to get kind of “stale” or I get confused or (even more likely) I find myself thinking that I already know it all. (A major red flag!)
Here are the talks:
(1) Introduction to Meditation Practice, by Steve Armstrong
(2) What Changes Us in Spiritual Life, by Jack Kornfield
“The long and winding road and how the unexpected offers profound teachings.”
(3) Thoughts on Practice and Why We Do It, by Pascal Auclair
(4) Introduction to Meditation, by Thanissara
“A cultivated mind: a cause for happiness. Samadhi: a gathered mind. Entry into the first foundation of mindfulness.”
“There Is A Body”
The first part of the annual 3-month retreat has started at IMS (Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA) and I have to admit I’m feeling a bit wistful. This time last year I was there and I remember the excitement, the curiosity, the sense of embarking on an important inner journey. So last night I started listening to this year’s talks, which are now beginning to appear on Dharma Seed. (Click here.)
If you don’t have time to listen to them all (smile), you might consider just listening to the Opening Morning Instructions given by Joseph Goldstein. The instructions are similar to the ones he gave last year — offering an Open Awareness technique, using this line from the refrain in the Satipatthana Sutta:
Mindfulness that “there is a body” is established in him to the extent necessary for bare knowledge and continuous mindfulness.
Don’t be put off by the length of the “tape,” which runs just under 43 minutes. Joseph’s instructions are given during the first 10 minutes. The rest of the tape is silence. (Click here.)
How to Breathe
I’ve been interested in learning qigong ever since reading Ajahn Sucitto’s blog post from March of this year, titled Standing Like a Tree, Breathing Like a Buddha, and then attending his retreat in April, where he guided us in deep, full, Whole Body Breathing and led us in extended Standing Meditation practice every morning at the end of the first sit.
But the qigong class I found while I was staying in Chapel Hill didn’t place particular emphasis on breathing — or on standing — so I sort of forgot that that was really the fundamental instruction/practice I had been looking for.
But then I came back to St. Louis and started looking around, and what do you know — there’s a Qigong Breathing (and Standing) class right here! It’s at a place called Bamboo Studio, 3227 Magnolia, near Tower Grove Park.
So I went last night and it was just like what we practiced with Ajahn Sucitto….except that in addition to the Standing practice and Full Belly Breathing (which, in this case, we did on the floor), we also did some breath-and-movement exercises while sitting in a chair.
It was very interesting. Relaxing, but not at all passive. And quite satisfying.
I’ll be back for more!
2014
Always Stillness, Always Movement
Today’s post is prompted by an interesting email conversation I had the other day with one of my Dharma buddies (thanks, Lori) about the practice of turning one’s attention to the open, spacious, stillness of mind. If you are at all interested in this practice, listen to the last 5 minutes of this talk given by Phillip Moffitt at the recent Concentration Retreat.
“There is always stillness,” Phillip says, “and there is always movement.”
T.S. Eliot says it like this:
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from not towards; at the still point, there the dance
is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement
from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still
point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
— from Burnt Norton, I, Four Quartets