Just Right
I’ll probably finalized my flight plans today for the January trip to Burma (Myanmar), in honor of which I post this sample teaching from Sayadaw U Tejaniya, who leads the Shwe Oo Min meditation center where I will be staying in Yangon.
“Keep your mind as calm and as relaxed as possible, not too tense or not too lax. Don’t be anxious about your practice. The mind needs to be able to adjust accordingly, walking the middle road between too much and too little effort, neither overzealous nor disinterested. The wise mind makes adjustments as needed during meditation.
“Sometimes, even with all this fine-tuning, there might still be craving. You may also find that you are feeling drowsy even with faith and confidence in the mind. The mind may still be weak or there may be a great deal of wanting and expectations in the mind. Be calm and relaxed.
“What can you know? It’s very simple. You can only know as much as the momentum that you have will allow. There is no need to put too much energy or to focus in on something. Take the view that everything happening in the mind and body is happening according to nature. This is all dhamma nature at work.”
“Keep it simple! It’s good if there is knowing; it’s not good if there is no knowing. There is a Burmese saying: ‘Ignorance is worse than being deprived.’ But far worse than being ignorant is not wanting to know!“
(image from: Maddonni Tarot)
Think About It
Continuing from Friday’s post on Training in Compassion by poet and Zen priest Norman Fischer:
Another way to Train in the Preliminaries is to deeply and systematically contemplate a set of four traditional reflections. Fischer writes, “If you really take these seriously, if you really think about them long enough and hard enough to see how true they really are, it will change your outlook on life, and you will have found the motivation to begin again.” The reflections are:
The rarity and preciousness of human life.
“Your living body is a fortunate, rare, and precious gift, and your human mind–consciousness risen to the point where there can be identity and value and thought and beauty and autonomous choice–is dear beyond compare.”
The inevitability of death.
“Most of us believe we don’t have to worry about this…because death comes in old ago, and since we are not now so old, it’s not a problem for us. But death doesn’t come only in old age, it comes at any age, and nobody knows when. And even if it were to come in old age, old age comes much more quickly than you thought it would: you were young, you blinked your eyes, thirty or forty years flew by, and now you are no longer young….This is a serious problem, and it’s a problem now, not later.”
The awesome and indelible power of our actions.
“In Buddhism this is called karma, which is not mystical or fatalistic. Karma simply means that each of our actions produces a result. And this means every action, both large and small. All of our thoughts, words, and deeds have consequences, and we may never know the measure of these consequences though they are extensive and powerful. In other words, every moment of our lives…..we have been affecting the world in some subtle yet real way; every moment, we have been participating in creating the world that now exists for ourselves and others.”
The inescapability of suffering.
“Although we don’t like to think about ti, it seems that sorrow and suffering are inevitable in any human life, even a happy one. There’s the suffering of loss, of disappointment, of disrespect; the suffering of physical pain, illness, old age; the suffering of broken relationships, of wanting something badly and not being able to have it, or not wanting something and being stuck with it….These things are part of life. No one can avoid suffering.”
The point of contemplating these four reflections is that they will cause us to “appreciate the seriousness of our human condition and to recognize that we have to live as seriously as we possibly can in response to the gift and the problem that is our life.”
(image from: Phantasmagoric Theater Tarot)
Start Now
I’ve discovered a terrific new book by poet and Zen priest, Norman Fischer. It’s called Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong. Basically, he’s taken the 59 “slogans” used for reflection in the Tibetan Lojong practice and given them a contemporary, cross-traditional rendering that I find quite refreshing.
The first slogan is: Train in the Preliminaries. He describes three ways to understand and practice with this slogan, including the fundamental direction to:
Start a meditation practice, a daily practice if possible, and trust that sitting regularly with attention on your breathing and the feeling in your body will provide the spiritual inspiration and force necessary to set a new process in motion in your life.
He also gives very clear instructions for basic meditation practice, including this lovely summation:
Meditation is, fundamentally, sitting with the basic feeling of being alive. What is the basic feeling of being alive? Being conscious, embodied, and breathing. That is actually what it feels like to be alive. Every moment of your life, and all of your feelings, thoughts, and accomplishments, depend on this, but most of us hardly ever notice it. In meditation our task is just to be present with this and nothing else. Simply sitting aware of the feeling of being alive.
…Essentially, it is nothing more than sitting with an honest awareness of the process of your life. While such awareness may seem exactly like the self-consciousness we usually feel in daily living, meditation practice will show us that it is in fact subtly but crucially different in that is is nonjudgmental and all-inclusive awareness.
This nonjudgmental and all-inclusive awareness, promoted and developed by meditation practice but more than meditation practice, will help us eventually understand and put into practice the wisdom and flexibility to deal with the events of our lives, and with others.
(image from: A Whole World, by Couprie and Louchard)
Aware of Awareness
If you’re interested in trying the Dharma Seed Virtual Retreat I wrote about in yesterday’s post, it would be a good idea to listen to Guy Armstrong’s Meditation Instructions, which he gave on the morning after the first talk.
The first talk is available: here. The meditation instructions are: here. The full list of all the retreat talks is: here.
Guy’s instructions run 55 minutes. During the first 15 minutes, he gives very clear…and quite beautiful….guidance for using Awareness itself as an object of meditation. He talks about experiencing Awareness as an open field, as well as knowing it in relation to a chosen object, such as sounds, body sensations or the breath.
The next 30 minutes are silent. (So you can meditate!)
The last 10 minutes are Question & Answer.
Check it out.
(image from: Feng Shui Tarot)
Flower, Incense, Candle
During the Vesak Day celebration at MABA last month, we were each given a bundle to carry as we walked around the grounds in a silent procession. The bundles each contained a couple of flowers, a few sticks of incense, and a fresh beeswax candle…all tied in a little “bouquet.” It seemed at the time that there must be some significance to that particular set of items, but beyond wondering about it for minute or two, I didn’t give it much thought.
But then yesterday I ran across this blog post by Ajahn Sucitto, where he mentions that Vesak (or Wesak) Day “will normally center on a circumambulation of a shrine carrying flowers, incense and candles: these represent morality (sila), meditation (samadhi) and wisdom (panna), the tree limbs of the Buddhist Path.”
So now I know.
Flowers stand for the beautiful qualities of virtue (morality): Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood.
Incense stands for the calming and collecting factors of meditation: Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.
And the Candle stands for the illuminating power of wisdom: Right Understanding and Right Intention.
It’s The Eightfold Path!
Right there in one sweet little bundle.
Every New and Full Moon
This weekend I listened to a talk given by Ajahn Sucitto in which he mentioned Uposatha Observance Days…which are the New and Full Moons of each month. He was mostly talking about how the monastic community gets together to reconcile differences during this time (there’s a formal recitation of the rules of conduct), but he also mentioned sitting up all night and other ways of turning more intensively toward meditation and reflection.
It sounded beautiful.
So I looked it up on Access to Insight:
“Uposatha days are times of renewed dedication to Dhamma practice, observed by lay followers and monastics through out the world of Theravada Buddhism…
“Lay people observe the Eight Precepts on Uposatha days, as a support for meditation practice and as a way to re-energize commitment to the Dhamma. Whenever possible, lay people use these days as an opportunity to visit the local monastery, in order to make special offerings to the Sangha, to listen to Dhamma, and to practice meditation with Dhamma companions late into the night.
“For those not closely affiliated with a local monastery, it can simply be an opportunity to step up one’s efforts in mediation, while drawing on the invisible support of millions of other practicing Buddhist around the world.”
OK, well I’m not quite ready to give up eating dinner (which is what is required if you observe Eight Precepts), but I do what to find a way to be a part of this world-wide sangha. Sitting up all night to meditate isn’t really an option at this point either. But maybe sitting longer…say for two hours….might just be possible.
The next Uposatha day is the Full Moon on Sunday, June 23rd.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
(image from: a stack of cards I have with no box, no name, no one to credit)
Read All About It
One of the many interesting things Bhikkhu Bodhi said at his talk on Tuesday night, was that he practices Metta meditation in a slightly different form than the one traditionally taught. Instead of directing his attention to various categories of people….self, friend, neutral person, difficult person, all beings…and then cultivating a sense of friendliness and goodwill toward each of them in turn, he said that he just reads the news and then lets his heart open to the specific instances of suffering that are happening — right here and now — all over the world.
Even more than that. Let your heart be broken, he said, without reacting in violence or sinking into despair, and it will have a transformative effect on the way to respond to the world.
Give Me Five
Last night Bhikkhu Bodhi gave a beautifully clear, lively and inspiring talk at the Thai Temple in St. Louis. It was recorded, so I hope to be able to post a link to it in the near future. In the mean time, here’s a list of Five Spiritual Faculties (also called Strengths or Powers), which was the basis of his talk.
Faith (saddha), also known as Trust or Confidence, which is the uplifting quality that inspires practice, dispels doubt, and balances Wisdom.
Energy (viriya), also known as Effort or Persistence, which is the vital force that enlivens our practice, dispels laziness, and balances Concentration.
Mindfulness (sati), also known as Bearing in Mind, which reminds and reconnects us with our intentions, dispels heedlessness, and balances all the other factors.
Concentration (samadhi), also known as Collectedness, which is the calming quality that bring peace, dispels distraction, and balances Energy.
Wisdom (panna), also known as Discernment, which is the result of seeing clearly into the nature of all things, dispels ignorance, and balances Faith.
How Am I Doing?
Last night our KM group began discussing Chapter 17 of Dancing with Life, by Phillip Moffitt. We talked about what we’re trying to “accomplish” in our practice, what we thought it might be like to experience “cessation of suffering,” and how to tell if we’re making any “progress” toward that end. Here’s what Phillip has to say (from page 196 of the hardback edition):
“….do not measure your progress by the number or amplitude of dramatic moments [in meditation] you have had, but rather periodically ask yourself:
Is my practice stronger?
Do I suffer less?
Do I cause less suffering?
Do I have a clearer, calmer perspective in my daily life?
“What matters is that you make your life your practice. Making your practice the core of your life is cessation in the sense that you cease pursuing the illusionary and cease trying to find well-being and meaning in what can never yield freedom.
“For the most part you will not know where you are on the path to cessation, only that you are indeed on the path….
“The hints you will encounter in your practice fall into three categories:
Those moments when you know you are suffering less because of your practice
Those moments when you feel the wholeness or sweetness that comes with choosing to dance with life in this manner
Those moments when you know your mind is free.”
(image from: Housewives Tarot)
2013
Walk to Feed the Hungry
“The gift of food is the gift of life.” — the Buddha
Bhikkhu Bodhi, highly respected scholar, teacher and Founder/Chairperson of Buddhist Global Relief will lead a Walk to Feed the Hungry around the perimeter of the Gateway Arch this coming Sunday, June 9, beginning at 1:00 pm.
Please join us!
Buddhist Global Relief’s mission statement:
Our mission is to combat chronic hunger and malnutrition. Bearing in mind the Buddha’s statement that “hunger is the worst kind of illness,” we sponsor projects that promote hunger relief for poor communities around the world. We pursue our mission by:
* Providing direct food aid to people afflicted by hunger and malnutrition
* Helping develop better long-term method of sustainable food production and management appropriate to the cultures and traditions of the beneficiaries
* Promoting the eduction of girls and women, so essential in the struggle against poverty and malnutrition
* Giving women an opportunity to start right livelihood projects to support their families
We also seek to raise awareness of global hunger and advocate for an international food system that exemplifies social justice and conduces to ecological sustainability.
(image from: A whole World, by Couprie and Louchard)