Is This Not Love
What’s Not Here (excerpt)
Rumi, translation by Coleman Banks:
I start out on this road,
call it love or emptiness.
I only know what’s not here.
Resentment seeds, backscratching greed,
worrying about outcome, fear of people.
When a bird gets free,
it does not go back for remnants
left on the bottom of the cage.
***
“Emptiness” is one of the most important concepts in Buddhism. But this “emptiness” does not mean “nothingness” or some great “void”. It means the fundamental nature of our heart/mind when greed, hatred, resentment, worry, fear, confusion, etc are not present.
It is our fundament nature to be “empty” of these. When we experience this emptiness, we are free. Is this not love?
Guy Armstrong says it much better than I can. Listen to his talk, Emptiness: A Practical Introduction for Meditators.
Do We Dare?
I enjoyed the flexible schedule of being on retreat at the Forest Refuge (no bells being rung every 45 minutes) and the intimacy of being at a smaller center (only 30 rooms instead of the usual 100) and a lot of other things too that were very special about that place — but I have to admit, I really missed the nightly dharma talks. (There was one on Tuesday night and another on Friday night, but that was it.)
So, now that I’m back, I’ve hunkered down almost every night listening to dharma talks. Which is kind of like being on a retreat in itself! Especially since I also listen to guided meditations with instructions, like these, at the very end of Phillip Moffitt’s talk from 2013, The Metta of Awareness and the Awareness of Metta:
“Let go. Let go. Let go.
“Let go in terms of experiencing the emptiness. But also let go in terms of opening to the possibility of metta — this love — that in all of our smallness and all of our anxieties and all of our feeling as though we don’t have enough — that we’ve not had enough of ‘our turn’ or ‘oh, we have it so hard’ or ‘we’re at an age when it’s all falling away from us now’… In the midst of all of that, let go of those mind states, as best we are able, such that we can open to the innate sense of wellbeing that the brahma viharas represent…
“We see it as empty, and that is wisdom. And we also see it as love — that we are sufficient the way we are. That we’re not separate. We’re part of some huge unfolding. That it’s all got a kind of perfection. Even though we are actively trying to make it better — and SHOULD be actively trying to make it better. Yet it’s got a kind of perfection in the very knowing of it… The very unfolding of our life as it is, is perfect, when known from that love-space.
“Do we dare? Do we dare let go? Just into the emptiness? To let go into this kind of vulnerability of caring, as though we ARE sufficient. As though we ARE enough. As though we have something to give, and are also worthy of receiving. Just as we are.
“Do we dare? Do we dare? Do we dare to let go in this way?
“…And now dropping our attention into the body, to the belly area, into the Intuitive Body. What would the Intuitive Body have us know? What wants to be heard from that Intuition?
“…Shifting attention to the Heart Space. What needs attending in the heart? What do you know-that-you-know in the Heart Space? What needs to be allowed, received, or let go of, in the Heart Space?
“…Shifting attention to the Head Center, where all our comments are made, all our views and opinions chatter away. But respecting the Head Center. What has the Head Center noticed that it would have you listen to ?
“…And then letting go of all this knowing.
“Just be. Just for a few seconds.
“Trust yourself to let go of everything and just be.
“No doing. No knowing.
“Just be.”
The Year Of …..
As many of you know, I will be on retreat for five weeks at the Forest Refuge in Barre, MA, from Dec 27 through Jan 31 — which means I’ll be spending New Year’s Day on retreat — so as part of my pre-retreat preparations I listened to a New Year’s talk by Phillip Moffitt titled: “Making This the Year of….”
It’s a terrific talk. (There are a lot of terrific talks, but for whatever reason, this one really REALLY speaks to me.)
In this talk, Phillip shares his practice of picking “an overarching theme of development or discovery in some aspect of life”…. something that he intends to pay attention to and then throughout the year, thinking of it as “The Year of ….” whatever that theme is.
He says he prepares for this by reflecting on these questions:
What have I learned this past year?
What’s finished? (What can I completely let go of?)
What’s left undone? (What’s not done that I would like to have done?)
What’s calling me?
He says that for him, this year (he gave the talk in 2015) will be The Year of Returning and Reflecting. (I listened to a similar talk he gave in early 2017, in which he says that year will be The Year of Paying Attention to My Health.)
He offers suggestions for others in considering what kind of Year this could be. For example:
The Year of Staying Present
The Year of Shifting Views (trying on the views of others, seeing things from their view point, even if just for a moment)
The Year of Discipline
The Year of Renunciation
The Year of Forgiveness (including forgiving one’s inability to forgive)
The Year of Letting Go
The Year of Opening the Heart (setting the intention that in as many ways as one can, looking for opportunities to open one’s heart)
The Year of Joy
The Year of Laughter
The Year of Kindness to Yourself (not self-indulgence, but self-kindness!)
etc.
Not with an idea of how the year will turn out to be. But with an intention to pay attention to a particular aspect of one’s life, and then being available to whatever presents itself — being available for wisdom to come by taking the time (in the silence) for something to be known (rather than “working” on something or “figuring something out”).
***
I’m really taking what he says to heart. I’m sitting with the questions he reflects on, and I’m thinking that for me, next year might be: The Year of Listening.
Another Kind of Meditation Instruction
One more quote from Jack Kornfield’s great talk on The Bodhisattva’s Path of Joy, which I posted about yesterday. He offers what he calls “another kind of meditation instruction that I think you’d do well to take to heart”:
I like nothin’ more in the world than sittin’ on my ass doing nothin’. And it’s not my fault I have this attitude, because I happen to have an amazingly comfortable ass. It may not look like much, but if you could sit on this baby for two minutes, you’d realize that gettin’ up off this ass would be a crime against nature. — Lori Chapman
***
There will be no posts next week since I’ll be getting ready for the weekend non-residential retreat Spring Washam will lead at the Forest Park Visitor Center, Nov 10-12. We’re officially sold out, but I think there’ll be a seat or two available for the Friday night talk (6:00pm to 7:45pm) — $5 at the door. If you’re interested, just come on by. For more information, email me here.
Just Be
I listened to another wonderful new talk last night by Jack Kornfield, this one titled The Bodhisattva Path of Joy, in which he quotes Guillaume Apollinaire:
Now and then it’s good to pause in your pursuit of happiness and just be happy.
Still. And Moving.
As part of getting myself ready for the long retreat I’ll be taking at the end of December (which I posted about here), I’ve been re-listening to talks that were particularly meaningful to me during previous long retreats, especially the talk Phillip Moffitt gave at the end of the March 2016 retreat titled, Awareness: The Still/Flowing Water.
He begins with a teaching from Ajahn Chah, which uses the metaphor of water that is both still and flowing to point to the seemingly paradoxical nature of awareness (not the momentary nature of awareness of a particular object, but the awareness that’s “behind” the awareness of an object — the “knowing that you know” quality of mind that Phillip often talks about.)
He then quotes Ajahn Amaro on the same subject: “The aim of practice is subjectless, objectless awareness. The heart rests in the awareness — the quality of open, spacious knowing. There is the recognition of the mind’s own intrinsic nature: it is empty, lucid, awake, and bright.”
This is quite a profound teaching, which I won’t attempt to paraphrase here. Instead, let me strongly encourage you to listen deeply to this talk.
Consider these questions, which Phillip raises near the end of the talk: “How do we live with the ultimate insult to the ego: that we’re all going to die. That everyone we love will die, and that we too will die. How do we live with that? Where is there a refuge? Where is there a rest for the ego?”
The answer, of course, is what Phillip has been pointing to all along, and which he continues to point to through poetry:
First from Rilke:
I am the rest between two notes,
Which struck together sound discordant
Because death’s note would claim a higher key.
But in the dark pause, trembling,
The notes meet harmonious.
And the song continues,
Sweet.
Then from T.S. Eliot:
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor 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.
I can only say, there we have been; but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from the inner
And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
Erhebung without motion, concentration
Without elimination…”
***
(erhebung is a German word that means “an ennobling elevation”)
There is Joy There
I listend to another beautiful talk last night, this one by Guy Armstrong. The title is Transcendent Dependent Origination and in it Guy tells a great story about when he was a monk in Burma having a very difficult time. He says that finally, in desperation, he turned to a photo of the Dalai Lama, and asked him for help. Immediately he heard these words (in his head) spoken in the Dalai Lama’s voice:
“Stay cheerful, optimistic and confident. A positive attitude is the best support.”
Then nothing more. Guy felt he had received a transmission from His Holiness, so he really tried to take the message to heart.
“Unfortunately there were times when I couldn’t remember what cheerful felt like,” Guy says, “but when I could, and I could bring that into my mind, it really lifted my spirits and inspired me to go back and practice again.
“This is the role of joy in the practice. When we have a channel to it, a reliable access to it, it becomes a tremendous ally for us when times are difficult.” As an example, Guy talks about the joy of being surrounded by the beauty of nature. “I encourage you to take advantage of that,” he says, “and really open to the beauty. This is not foreign to the path. This is not to antithetical to the path.”
He then quotes Ajahn Sumedho: “Sometimes in Therevada Buddhism one gets the impression that you shouldn’t enjoy beauty. If you see a beautiful flower, you should contemplate its decay. Or if you see a beautiful woman, you should contemplate her as a rotting corpse. That’s a good reflection on anicca (everything is impermanent), dukkha (everything is imperfect), and anatta (everything is impersonal), but it can leave the impression that beauty is only to be reflected on in terms of these three characteristics, rather than in terms of the experience of beauty. This is the joy of mudita: being able to appreciate the joy of beauty in the things around us.”
Guy continues, “So be open to beauty. Let that joy come in and lift us up. It’s intrinsic in the nature of things. When you tune into the way things are, there is joy there.
“I often tune into the way light strikes things. Whether indoors or outdoors, there’s a brightness, there’s a brilliance, there’s a radiance in light that reminds me of that joy and that beauty.”
***
I LOVE that. I’m going to try it!
Not Me. Not Mine. Not Who I Am.
I listened to another great talk last night by Guy Armstrong. It’s on the teaching of “Not Self,” which as Guy says, “is one of the central teachings of the Buddha and one of the most liberating…but also one of the most difficult to understand.”
He does a beautiful job of explaining this teaching in very accessible language. For example, Guy tells the story of the Buddha instructing his followers by asking: “Is what is impermanent, suffering, and subject to change fit to be regarded thus: This is mine. This I am. This is myself?”
Which Guy paraphrases as the Buddha asking: Do you want to pin your happiness and your identity on what is impermanent, unsatisfying and subject to change? And then he says: Why would we do that?!
I love the conversational way Guy approaches these teachings. But the part of the talk I like best is when he says:
“This formulation of the Buddha’s… This is mine. This I am. This is myself ….is a very helpful way to notice our experience because we can turn it around as he did himself.
“The Buddha asked, What is the right way to understand it?
“Then he said: All forms should be seen as it really is with proper wisdom thus: This is not mine. This I am not. This is not myself.”
To which Guy adds: “This is a practice pointer. This is not just intellectual speculation.
“When you get caught up as taking some aspect of experience as yourself or as belonging to you, try saying: Not me. Not mine. Not who I am.
“See if you can tune into that with proper wisdom thus: Not me. Not mine. Not who I am.
“Just try it. Just drop those three little phrases in when you feel like you’ve identified with something. And see.
***
(Click here to listen)
I Know What to Do!
In a delightful little collection of essays on Compulsive Helping, Ajahn Amaro writes:
“Our thinking mind loves to diagnose. I confess to having a thinking mind that loves to figure things out… Certainly the intellect does have its place; it is truly useful to be able to figure out how things work, but we can be over-prone to that.
“We can unwittingly take refuge in having an explanation. The mind can reach forward: ‘I know what’s going on! I understand this. I read a book about it I did a course on this. I know what’s happening here!‘
“We immediately go to the memory, the idea, the concept and in so doing we miss what is before us, what we are in the middle of, what we are a part of. Because we have absorbed our attention in the diagnosis, we miss the actuality.
“I’m not saying that we should never push, make an effort or diagnose. It is not that we should stifle the intellect or suppress our recognition of patterns, rather it’s a question of holding these things in perspective…
“When we’re faced with suffering, particularly other people’s suffering, we can feel: ‘I’ve got to do something!’ Everything is telling us: ‘Don’t just sit there, do something!’… But that urge to help and to do can often be coming from our own insecurity or our own need to be a helpful person. Our need to help may form part of our identity….
“When there is a need to do something, there may indeed be things that we can do, but that very urge, that agitated tension which wants to jump in and fix something, may be the very element that gets in the way….
“I’m not trying to encourage a quality of dissociation… This teaching is not a cold distancing or an attempt to alienate ourselves from feeling the suffering of others. I don’t advocate adopting some kind of false objectivity; I’m not trying to encourage that.
“What I am hopping is that through our spiritual practice we can find that place which is fully empathetic with the suffering of others and the difficulties that we experience, while not suffering on account of them.”
***
This is why Phillip Moffitt alway asks his students to take what he calls “secondary vows of renunciation,” which are: No Judging, No Comparing, No Fixing!
No Room for Self-conscious Thought
I listened last night to another excellent talk from the Concentration Retreat at Spirit Rock, this one by Eugene Cash titled Mindfulness of Breath: Energy, Effort, Discovery. At the very end of the talk, Eugene reads this beautiful passage by pianist Mildred Portney Chase, which really captures the feeling of being profoundly connected to what one give oneself to — which is what happens in meditation when the body, heart and mind become unified.
Mildred writes,
“Just being at the piano, egoless, is to reach the place where the only thing that exists is the sound and the moving toward the sound. The music on the page that was outside of you is now within you and moves through you and you are a channel for the music and playing from the center of your being.
“Everything that you have consciously learned — all of your knowledge — emanates from within you. There is a sense of oneness in which the heart of the musician and the heart of the composer meet, in which there is no room for self-conscious thought.
“You are one with yourself and the act and you feel as if playing has already happened and you are effortlessly releasing it. The music is in your hands, in the air, in the room — the music is everywhere and the whole universe is contained in the experience of playing.”
***
Or in the experience of breathing!