meditation

On the snow globe…
by

On the snow globe…

The perfect teaching of the Buddha is not accomplished through mere study.

Dharma without meditation is like dying of thirst while being helplessly carried away by a great river.

Flower Arrayed Tree Sutra

i. What does this mean to me?

I have a confession to make. When I first started studying the Dharma, the teachings were a joy to listen to. In my mid-forties, it felt like I’d waited all my life to hear the Dharma. Then came the teachings on meditation, then the practice of meditation. I didn’t like meditation even one little bit.

The very idea of sitting on a chair or cushion, closing my eyes and then essentially doing nothing for around twenty five minutes didn’t sit well with me. But nevertheless, I dutifully practiced at home. That lasted for about two or three weeks, and then suddenly, one day I was sitting there thinking I’d rather be literally anywhere else, when something shifted.

I wish I could explain it better than that. There was no fanfare, no glare of white light, just a very subtle settling as though I were a square peg that had finally found a resting place in a square space. I saw how meditation wasn’t just part of the Dharma, it was inextricably bound to the Dharma. After all, there are eighty-four thousand gates to the Dharma. Meditation is just one of them.

These days, nigh on fifteen years later, I see that Dharma teachings are inextricably bound to one’s practice. You can’t study the Dharma and not meditate, because that would be like, “…dying of thirst while being helplessly carried away by a great river”. Why? Because meditation is nothing more than stopping and taking time to settle the agitation of the mind.

The more often we do that, on or off the cushion, the better we’ll come to know the mind, and the less the mind will be able to run us down any path of thought it chases. Once we step through this gate to the Dharma, we are well on the way to drinking from the constant river that carries us and give it a direction of our choice.

ii. How would I explain this to someone else?

My teacher had a snow globe with maybe a Buddha inside. At the beginning of each meditation, he would give it a good shake then put it down and say, ‘this is what we’re doing, settling the mind.’ Now that I’ve studied the Dharma, taken a few years hiatus, and come back, I understand why “The perfect teaching of the Buddha is not accomplished through mere study.”

Reading the Dharma and hearing it is very good. But the meditation component is so important that it’s not just a component, it is interwoven into the Dharma. I would venture to say that meditation settles the mind so that we can better absorb the Dharma and make it our own. Meditation is a balm to the agitated mind. The more we do it, the clearer we see our way to helping those caught up in the illusions of samsara.

iii. How do I bring this into my life?
Meditation is easier than going to sleep. When we want to go to sleep, we are trying desperately to unplug from the world. We all know how hard that can be. Meditation is just the opposite – we work on connecting to who we truly are – our Buddha Nature. Doing this means cultivating concentration, or to say it another way, we work to minimize distractions.

When you meditate, even after just a few weeks, there’s this calm space that arises in the mind. Actually, it’s always there, we’re usually too distracted to notice it. Remember that in Buddhism, we’re not meditating to become great meditators, or get an Olympic medal. We meditate to make our minds more fit for us to be of benefit to others. I bring this into my life by having a formal ‘sit on the cushion’ meditation four or five times a week. I cultivate that calm space in the mind.

In particular, when I’m at work, which can be off the scale stressful, I make myself stop whatever I’m doing. Even though my mind is shouting, ‘YOU DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!’, I still stop and close my eyes and breathe a few slow breaths. In those few moments I remember there is a calm space in the mind. I focus on knowing and understanding that I can operate from a place of peace, not agitation.

When I open my eyes I feel ready to be calm. I do this about five or six times a day. The agitation in my mind is like a fever. I work to eliminate or at least ameliorate the causes and conditions for even more agitation to arise. Every time I do this, I feel like I’m putting that snow globe to rest, instead of shaking it up even more.

Reading the Dharma and studying is of great benefit. Of even greater benefit is living the Dharma through meditation. More meditation means a less agitated mind. A less agitated mind means we can be of more and more benefit to others.

Don’t we all want to put the snow globe down and let the particles settle out of that beautiful clear water? The clear water of our mind?

On false designations…
by

On false designations…

Contemplate all phenomena as devoid of inherent nature.

The same is true of their arising and cessation.

False  designations are merely used to describe them.

All phenomena do not come into being; all phenomena do not cease to exist.

If we understand in this way, all the Buddhas appear before us.

Avatamsaka Sutra

i. What does this mean to me?

Last time we looked at this scripture, we talked about phenomena being devoid of inherent nature. In these two lines, the scripture asks us to consider that phenomena has no “arising” and no “cessation”. We merely use “false designations” to describe phenomena that arise in the mind as internal mental representations.

Although we perceive phenomena as ‘real’, the truth is that all phenomena are internal mental representations. We understand this by using our reason and experience. We know we can’t physically fit actual objects into our head, but yet we ‘recognize’ objects and people by their designated names.

When does an internal mental representation arise? When do they cease? They actually don’t truly arise or cease. They ‘arise’ when we turn our attention to them. And they cease when we turn our attention away. This being the case, can we say that a phenomenon has an “arising” or a “cessation”? It’s almost like a dream. Can we say when a dream arises or when it ends? No. The dream arises in the mind, and dissipates once we wake up, or in other words, when we withdraw our attention.

ii. How would I explain this to someone else?

When we break down or ‘analyze’ any phenomenon in our experience, we’ll soon see that we end up with atoms and molecules made up mostly of space. What does this mean? ‘Seeing’ is a trick of the mind. Our experience seems very real to us because for uncounted lifetimes we have relied upon and accepted what our senses report without question.

So when the scriptures say that phenomena has no “arising” and no “cessation”, it’s describing our experience of reality through our internal mental representations. To keep confusion to a minimum, we name what we believe we see, or as the scripture puts it, we give them “false designations” to “describe them”.

Does this mean that we dream reality into being? No. It means that, just like a magic show there’s a trick and simultaneously there is an underlying reality. Buddhism understands that there is an ultimate reality, but with our limited bodies and senses, we’re only able to perceive the ‘trick’, not the underlying reality.

iii. How do I bring this into my life?

In the end, when I contemplate this scripture, it means that we do not have to be swayed by so-called reality. Once we understand that, relative reality is exactly that – relative. We don’t have to be dominated by reality. In my day-to-day life reality can sometimes feel overwhelming. When this happens, I take a mental step back and breathe. After doing this, reality kind of fades and seems more tenuous, less solid. It seems, in other words, like exactly what it is: an internal mental representation.

Looked at this way, there’s no question that our experience is internal to us, not external. When the mind is trained, this understanding can lead to a kind of peace. When the mind is at peace, we can plainly see that we don’t have to go with the emotions that reality evokes. Having realized this, we can experience the world in a kind of neutral gear. We can let phenomena come and go with the clarity that our experience is an internal mental representation, and we are free to step back, breathe, and question the experience. This eventually leads to a less agitated and more peaceful mind. Don’t we all want a little more peace in our days?

On Distraction…
by

On Distraction…

Now when the bardo of this life is dawning upon me,

I will abandon laziness for which life has no time,

enter, undistracted, the path of listening and hearing,

reflection and contemplation, and meditation,

making perceptions and mind the path,

and realize the “three kayas”: the enlightened mind.

Now that l have once attained a human body,

there is no time on the path for the mind to wander.

Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava

i. What does this mean to me?

    We spend our whole day doing stuff. We urgently rush from one task to the next. When we get done with all that stuff, we turn to distraction to end our days. Whether it’s Netflix or video games or games on our phone, we are always distracting ourselves with so-called entertainment. Then we go to bed, wake up and start over doing stuff, rushing around and indulging in distraction.

    What are we distracting ourselves from? The suffering of living in samsara with the sure knowledge of disease, aging and death. In America, we’ve made an industry out of entertainment. We think nothing of it. For most of us, distraction is how we live our lives.

    There’s nothing wrong with entertainment in and of itself. But here’s the thing. We have very little time here. What we call ‘life’ is merely the gap or the bardo between birth and death. In our day-to-day lives, many of us bury this knowledge. The writer specifically tells us that having realized life is merely a bardo between birth and death, he will “…enter, undistracted the path of listening and hearing, reflection and contemplation and meditation…”. That’s a pretty long list but notice the writer says first, “undistracted”. Is it true that we have no time to waste on distractions? Well, nobody I know is getting younger with each passing day.

    To me, these lines are both an instruction and a warning. I don’t think we should all drop our lives and go live on top of a mountain and meditate and contemplate. Distraction is inevitable in samsara. But we have the capacity to limit distraction and turn our minds “undistracted” to meditating, and contemplating, and hearing, and listening to the Dharma. What we choose to do with our time and our mind is vitally important.

    ii. How would I explain this to someone else?

      I attended a two day retreat this past weekend. It was on Zoom. It was an inspiring experience. There were one to two hour gaps between each segment of the retreat and then of course overnight. At the beginning of the retreat we took a vow of Noble Silence. Among other things, that meant we would limit the distractions that entered our minds.

      Honestly, I had planned for some quality knitting and Netflix time in between segments. But no. Now there was Noble Silence. As it turned out, I got just as much from the in-between segments as I did from the retreat itself. The first in-between segment was two hours. No problem, I thought. And it wasn’t. Until it was time to do it. I had to actually sit a few moments and consider carefully what I was going to do to observe Noble Silence. I couldn’t watch YouTube – my go to distraction. No peeking in on Facebook at my knitting group. No catching a documentary on Netflix or Breaking Bad or Bridgerton. And definitely no listening to my favorite Murderbot series on Audible. It was daunting.

      It took me a good five minutes to decide to knit quietly and reflect “undistracted” on what we were learning in the retreat. It was eye opening. I had no idea there was so much distraction in my life.

      To explain this to someone else, I would ask them to observe a day of Noble Silence. I would ask that they go without their usual distractions for just one day. When we decrease our distractions, at first the mind is very noisy. Once you settle into an activity, the mind settles down. Thoughts come and go.

      After doing this exercise, it’s impossible not to notice your level of distraction. Although this was written long before Netflix or YouTube, or Audible, or video games, I’m sure there was still plenty to distract the mind. Even when we identify the distractions that cloud our mind, it’s not easy to enter “…undistracted, the path of listening and hearing, reflection and contemplation and meditation…”. The desire to distract the mind is very nearly addicting. But with practice and perseverance, we can learn to have, as my teacher the Venerable Tashi Nyima likes to say, more Dharma and less drama.

      iii. How do I bring this into my life?

        Just two days after the retreat ended, there were bad storms. I had no power or cable for just about two days. I felt as though the retreat had been in preparation for those two days. On Tuesday in particular, it was pretty much enforced Noble Silence. The only distraction I had was a Kindle, but I could only do that for a couple of hours at a time. There was no way to recharge it.

        While it’s true that I could have read some Pema Chodron, I chose instead to read Stephen King. Because of course I did. I want, I told myself, to be entertained and distracted from the awful discomfort of the heat. The Shining worked perfectly.

        I was a bit disappointed with myself because of course I felt that after the retreat, plus one whole day of practice, I should have been ready to engage in a day long meditation in unaccustomed heat and discomfort. The big difference between before and after the retreat is that now when I engage in distraction, I do it with awareness.

        It’s unrealistic that I would spend all my time studying the Dharma. For one thing, I have to go to work. I bring this into my life with new practices like stopping to take ten deep breaths ten times a day. And I use existing practices like meditation and contemplation. When I take the time in my day, whether it’s first thing in the morning or at random moments of the day, to study or practice the Dharma , my mind feels very aligned. It feels like I’m in harmony with something that I’ve forgotten but now I’m remembering.

        As my teacher, the Venerable Tashi Nyima reminds us all the time, every moment is new. I think the writer here reminds us of this by calling it a path. He says I will “…enter, undistracted the path of listening and hearing…”. A path is a progression. No two steps are exactly the same. We are always arriving in the next brand new moment, much like stepping stones in a river.         

        Considering this, do we want to spend all our spare moments in distraction? Or do we want to spend our moments entering into a path of listening, hearing, meditating and contemplating the Dharma? Honestly it’s a question of balance for me. I would much rather spend more moments with the Dharma than not, as the Dharma is forever enduring.