The Way Things Are

One of the main pursuits of Buddhism is to bridge the gap between the way things appear and the way things are. That approach does not come just from a curiosity to investigate phenomena. It arises from the understanding that an incorrect perception of reality inevitably leads to suffering.

- Matthieu Ricard, "Why Meditate?"

Received as Daily Dharma from Tricycle.com on the 4th of May 2011

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It's always good to be reminded of what the purpose of practice is and isn't. And to keep things simple.

“This has nothing to do with me!”

When practising on retreat, isolate yourself. First, drop everything from the past and everything related to the future. Create an island of time that separates you from before and after these seven [retreat] days. Refrain from reading, writing, talking, and making phone calls. So far as the outside world is concerned, you did not exist before and you will not exist afterwards. You are living on a virgin island with no knowledge of anything outside. Unless you think like this, you will be dragging along a huge tail, carrying a lot of baggage, and it will be very painful. You will have come not to meditate but to indulge in false thinking. If any outside thoughts occur, tell yourself: “I was born on this virgin island. These outside thoughts have nothing to do with me.”

Second, isolate yourself from others. Within this island of time, create an island of space, which only you inhabit. There is only one person on your [meditation] cushion – you. Give your body to the cushion and your mind to the [meditation] method. If people walk by you or sit beside you, this has nothing to do with you. If someone behaves strangely, if someone runs in and does cartwheels, or if your back itches, you still respond the same way: “This has nothing to do with me!”

There is a saying, “Fundamentally there is nothing in the world to be concerned about, but people make trouble for themselves.” If the outside world does not influence your mind, nothing can disturb you. Third, isolate yourself from your previous thought and from your succeeding thought. Good or bad, do not be concerned with them. Just take the present thought and tie it to the meditation method – that is what’s most important [during the retreat]. The past is gone, the present is dying, and the future is not yet. Regrets, dissatisfactions, worries, expectations – these are all delusions; do not waste a second on them.

- Master Sheng Yen, Attaining the Way: A Guide to the Practice of Chan Buddhism

Received via The Daily Enlightenment's weekly Buddhist email newsletter 11 Nov 2010.

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As always, Master Sheng Yen offers simple down-to-earth advice for deepening our practice whether we are on retreat or not. We love to get involved in things inside our mind, outside our mind (is anything?) in our life and in the lives of those around us. But really, does it have anything to do with us?

What is True Freedom?

When I look for freedom today I find it not in fantasy or in dreams, but in my sitting practice. What kind of freedom is it that exists in doing nothing? It is the freedom not to interfere or react. It is the freedom to merely observe. I don’t have to judge the trauma that arises in mind. I don’t have to get involved with the hundred narratives that might try to occupy my mind during the day. In not clinging to thoughts and ideas, wants and desires, hatreds and resentments, the bondages of my most negative thoughts and emotions have faded into a haze that still arises but no longer dominates my life. I have found freedom: it is the freedom of nonattachment, the freedom to not cling and to not resist. It is the freedom to allow myself to be with myself.

- Ananda Baltrunas, "A Prison of Desire"

Received as Daily Dharma from Tricycle.com on the 19th of December 2010

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There seems to be vast plethora of people and websites around these days promising freedom in some form or another. These usually amount to e-books, on-line course, coaching and the like to help you leave your current job and become "free" by emulating the person or website offering the advice. Some of it could well be very valid and useful advice and guidance, getting out of an unpleasant job might well be a first step to gaining some clarity in life, writing about and sharing your skills with other in a helpful way is usually a good thing. Travelling to experience difference places and cultures is also usually a good thing.

However, as Ananda Baltrunas sets out very clearly, true freedom comes from not having to interfere or react to whatever arises in life. Leaving a job, becoming self-employed, earning a passive income on-line, travelling to different places - all of these still have in place the one key limitation of your freedom: you!

Find the freedom to be yourself without clinging or resisting though and it won't matter if you are employed, self-employed, unemployed, at home or abroad, you won't be a problem for yourself! That way, you can truly focus your energy on doing the work that you know matters most, whatever that might be.

Children are exemplars of the art of being

not teaching children to meditate
November 30th, 2010

How do you teach children to meditate?
I’m asked about this all the time. Please know that I speak only from my own perspective as a mother and a practitioner. Everyone has his or her own view. Here is mine.

Children don’t need to learn to meditate. Parents do. Children are immensely helped in all ways by living with one or more parents who practice meditation. One powerful way is that our children see us do it, regularly, like brushing our teeth and putting dirty clothes in the hamper.

This might sound like heresy coming from a Buddhist priest. After all, there are many well-meaning parents and programs that aim to teach children meditation. Young children are very curious and adaptable, and with clever instruction, they can be taught nearly anything. But my point is that children already practice single-minded attention and non-distracted awareness. You may not see it in their stillness, but in their activity: games, art, or outdoor exploration. (Engaging with your children in any of these activities is a form of group meditation.) We all have this capacity for single-minded focus within us. As adults, we practice to return to this state – the state where we can get lost, devotedly, in what we are doing, carefree and undisturbed.

My teacher sums it up quite clearly every time he reminds our sangha: “We don’t practice to cultivate our Buddha Nature. Our Buddha Nature is functioning perfectly. We practice because we are neurotic!” Not many children are yet neurotic, plagued by delusive thoughts, fears and feelings of alienation. This is what I mean when I wrote in Chapter 24 of Momma Zen: “Children are exemplars of the art of being.” The aim of all Buddhist practice is to return to our natural state of wide-eyed wonder and unselfconsciousness that we can observe in our children many times a day.

But I can’t get my child to pay attention to me.

A lot of conflicts arise because children persist in doing what we don’t want them to do. It seems like it’s hard to redirect or distract them. Isn’t it funny that the fact that our children are undistractedly doing what we don’t want them to do absolutely drives us crazy?! They don’t yet have problems concentrating! We more often have trouble loving and accepting them as they are, trusting that they are changing and growing all the time, and usually doing what they need to. If you are afraid, by the way, that your children are exposed to too much electronic media, then you need to take care of that directly, by limiting their access. I completely support that kind of clear-eyed discipline. Making that change can be very difficult, but it is indisputably wise.

As for attention, I have seen with my own eyes that the best way to receive attention is to cultivate my own, and give it.

How do we teach compassion?

The virtues of compassion and forgiveness aren’t instilled by discussion or imposition, but rather, they are revealed as our innate wisdom by our practice. When we ourselves have our own regular at-home practice we might realize that our children are already naturally compassionate and forgiving. They care about the world, and they don’t hold grudges. They care about small things – insects, rocks, animals – and they care about big things – the oceans, the Earth and the universe. Usually, they care far more than we do! Compassion and wisdom are the natural characteristics of our own nature, the nature we as adults reveal to ourselves through our own sitting practice. When we reveal them to ourselves, our actions reinforce them in our children, and they learn from us by seeing how we live.

But I want to give my child life skills that my parents didn’t give me.

None of this means there isn’t a way to help our growing children deal with their fears and anxieties. There is. But we deal with it as it appears. We cannot inoculate our children from life’s hardships. We can only give them our nonjudgmental company through the bumps. If you have specific questions about the methods I’ve used, please ask and I’ll write about them. Suffice it to say, helping anyone focus on his or her own breathing in a quiet room is just about the only thing I teach.

What about teaching mindfulness in schools and to treat ADHD?

Recent research documents the extraordinary therapeutic benefits of meditation, or so-called “mindfulness” practice in treating ADHD and other behavioral issues in our families and schools, but I leave that to the doctors and therapists to expound. If you have to deal with those realities, and many families these days do, you will be best advised by the experts, counselors and social scientists. I’m confident that the benefits of meditation in any setting or situation, wherever the need and urgency arises, are profound. What I’d like you to do first is prove it to yourself, over and over.

Shouldn’t I be giving my child a spiritual upbringing?

About the spiritual training of young, my view is a bit of the same. How you behave in your home is their spiritual upbringing. I think we have to be careful with all forms of ideological indoctrination, and that is what spiritual training is in children: the imposition of a set of abstract beliefs and ideals. Children will take these from of us, but I don’t think dogma serves anyone for long. After all, I was a very good Sunday School student, the star of my confirmation class, and yet I had my own spiritual crisis to resolve later in life. We all do.

I always remind myself that I’m not trying to raise a Buddhist child. I’m trying to raise a Buddhist mother, and it’s taking all my time! Not only my family, but also everyone everywhere will be served by my devoted discipline in my own training. Not because I’m self-important, but in recognition of the one true reality: no self. We are all interdependent, which means we are all one.

Do you ever worry that you’re not giving your child what she needs in the future?

Of course, all the time. When my daughter has her time of spiritual doubt and searching, I hope she remembers the warmhearted attention, quietude and acceptance of home. I can’t know for sure when that time might come, but that’s the best gift I can give her: a way home. As for when I will teach her to meditate, the answer is when she asks. The best way for you to share your practice with your children is the very way you share it with the world – by your steadfast, unconditional love and acceptance, and your selfless response to needs that arise. Simply put: by paying attention.

Not teaching your child to meditate may be your most effective meditation.

You might find these further tips and reminders helpful:

The Monastery of Mom & Dad
8 Ways to Raise a Mindful Child
10 Tips for a Mindful Home
15 Ways to Practice Compassion on the Way Home for Dinner

Reproduced in full from cherrio road by Karen Maezen Miller

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I have read and re-read this post from Karen Maezen Miller's blog several times, and I am struck each time by the wisdom it offers. I have taken the liberty of reproducing it in full here as an acknowledgement of my gratitude and to share it further. I highly recommend Karen Maezen Miller's blog and books for her sharp wisdom and soft gentleness.

A Sense of Wonder #Reverb10

December 4: Wonder.
How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?
(Author: Jeffrey Davis)

I got up early. Which for me is 5:30am. Everyday, including weekends. It's not an easy habit to form but once I got into the swing of it, it did become easier.

Regardless of the day's commitments or weather, I got up at 5:30am and went outside to exercise briefly. On clear mornings I would gaze at the stars and the moon when she made an appearance! On other mornings and in other weather I would still breathe in the experience of being alive and outdoors in the early morning.

After exercising I would go indoors for my morning practice.

In 2011, I intend to continue getting up early. I see it as a lifelong habit really.

OK, I'll admit, sometimes when I'm really tired or get ill, I don't get up at 5:30am. Sometimes it's 6:30am and sometimes much, much later. But my intention is to get up at 5:30am every morning and I'd say around 90% of the time I do.

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I'm participating in Reverb10 and reflecting on my Dharma practice (i.e. life!) in 2010 as explained briefly in a previous post. Feel free to join in on your blog and/or add your comments on my reflections.

Feeling Alive #Reverb10

December 3: Moment.
Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).
(Author: Ali Edwards)

OK, I'll admit upfront my "getting it right" tendency means I find it quite hard to find one moment during which I felt the most alive. So setting that aside, there were many moments when I felt a great sense of aliveness. One that has occurred several times and I always treasure, is the moment after an evening meditation session together with my wife.

The intimate warmth of our upstairs room, soft carpet underfoot, soft candlelight flickering, the waft of Sandalwood incense, her luminous dark eyes meeting mine after we have bowed to each other. And then embracing, warm, close, her hair tickling my nose, our heartbeats mingling.

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I'm participating in Reverb10 and reflecting on my Dharma practice (i.e. life!) in 2010 as explained briefly in a previous post. Feel free to join in on your blog and/or add your comments on my reflections.

Eliminate comfortableness #Reverb10

December 2: Writing.
What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?
(Author: Leo Babauta)

So... to reinterpret this, what do I do each day that doesn't contribute to my Dharma practice that I can eliminate?

Good question and even though I am loath to admit it and even publish it in writing, I think my answer is: comfortableness.

Almost everyday I let myself relax my mind in a lazy and comfortable way when I am meditating. I enjoy being comfortable while meditating, sitting still, being quiet, the body and mind held gently... and slipping over from holding gently to sitting comfortably. Staying in familiar territory, not going beyond the known into the unknown, not venturing into the zone of beginners mind, of fresh and alert awareness.

People often think meditation is a kind of relaxation and indeed some forms of meditation might well be, but Chan ('Chinese Zen') Meditation is actually a rigorous discipline, a strength training for the mind, for awareness, for letting go. It can produce a great deal of relaxation in life, in the sense that many situations can be experienced with a whole lot less tension or stress, but it's not relaxing in the sense of being lazy, sloppy and not-bothered about making an effort.

Chan meditation is about being alert and focussed in a gentle, mindful and precise way, not holding anything too tightly, but not leaving the method either. It is not about slipping away into some other warm comfortable, floating, detached kind of space. And if I'm honest with myself, I often do allow myself to be lazy and comfortable in meditation, enjoying the familiarity of it.

So from tomorrow, more focus on the meditation method, more rigour, brighter awareness and less comfort.

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I'm participating in Reverb10 and reflecting on my Dharma practice (i.e. life!) in 2010 as explained briefly in a previous post. Feel free to join in on your blog and/or add your comments on my reflections.

One Word: Fulfilment #Reverb10

December 1 One Word.
Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?
(Author: Gwen Bell)

2010 in one word: Fulfilment

My Dharma practice has been very much in the background throughout 2010. I didn't attend any retreats, I hardly ever went to any meditation groups, I didn't carry out any specific practice based poetry exercises (such as my Poetry Mala the previous year), I continued my daily practice attentively and diligently but without ever making anything particularly special out of it. In this sense it has simply provided the underlying framework for my daily life and also for the key events of the year. And from this perspective I feel a deep sense of fulfilment.

Not fulfilment in these sense that anything is finished and closed. But fulfilment in that no particular aspect of my life feels like it has a gap or key element missing. There were plenty of ups and downs over the year. Plenty of joy and sorrow. And yet it doesn't feel like there is anything missing.


Imagining 2011 in one word: Leadership

I would like to take my Dharma practice a step up in the next year and explore how to be a leader in some way. It might be through further writing on here or my poetry blog, or it might be through starting a local sitting (meditation) group as my wife and I have pondered on a number of times. It might just be a clearer sense of leadership in my own life through the Dharma. It might be something totally different. it feels like the next step in a way though, a step out from my current comfort zone perhaps.

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I'm participating in Reverb10 and reflecting on my Dharma practice (i.e. life!) in 2010 as explained briefly in a previous post. Feel free to join in on your blog and/or add your comments on my reflections.

Don’t get swept away by emotions

If you are a good horseback rider, your mind can wander but you don’t fall off your horse. In the same way, whatever circumstances you encounter, if you are well trained in meditation, you don’t get swept away by emotions. Instead, they perk you up and your awareness increases.

- Pema Chodron, "Bite-Sized Buddhism"

Received as Daily Dharma from Tricycle.com on the 10th of November 2010

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My experience of this kind of increase in awareness is when I manage stay in the present, in any situation. At work, at home, on the train, in conversation, when a particular emotion arises and I am aware of it while staying in the present, there is a heightened feeling of being alive and in a kind of flow. Not being swept away. Riding the flow. Not following a particular emotion off into one story or another. And as Pema Chodron indicates, this applies across the board, not just to emotions. Emotions are strong distractions from the present for some people and in some circumstance, but for other people and at other times, phone calls, gossip, questions, the weather etc can be strong distractions.

I can easily be pulled away from the present when I am at work and it seems that phone calls and emails are piling up an endless list of tasks to do. I can easily fret and worry and turn away from the tasks at hand for a comforting distraction. And yet, when I stay present, the flow of emails and phone calls and requests for attention from colleagues can perk me up and I can dance with liveliness through all the tasks that need doing. I can ride on the flow of the present moment with just what is in front of me.

Dharma Reflections #Reverb10

You may have noticed the #reverb10 badge over on the right? I heard about Reverb 10 from @GwenBell via a retweet of @RowdyKittens and I thought I would participate by using the prompts to reflect on my Dharma practice (i.e. life!) in 2010.

Perhaps you'd like to join in yourself?

There's no such thing as power-meditation #openpractice

Just as the title says, there is no such thing as power-meditation. It takes time, practice and diligence. And it takes patience to build up to sitting for longer periods.

Previously when I meditated using a stool, I was comfortable sitting for an unbroken period of 30 minutes regularly and repeatedly, 40 minutes comfortably and fairly often, and even a full hour on occasions. When I shifted to sitting cross-legged I had to start over by sitting for an unbroken period of only 5 minutes! I would then sit for 40 minutes using the stool as the 5 minutes cross-legged was as much about getting used to the posture and accepting the new sensations as it was about meditation. Part of the ongoing adjustment process that is important for any long term practice. As I gradually got used to the posture and my flexibility increased, I built up to sitting for an unbroken period of 10 minutes, then 15 minutes and then 20 minutes. However, as the title implies, sitting for 5, 10 or 15 minutes isn't getting into meditation very much. Yes it can calm the mind a little and yes it can increase focus and attention, all of which are good and beneficial, and don't get me wrong, they are brilliant starting points for a practice, but these barely skim the surface of meditation. In my experience, 20 minutes is really just starting to touch on meditation. It allows enough time for the mind and the body to settle and for the method to start to take hold.

So I was very pleased when I decided to try sitting cross-legged for 30 minutes on Thursday and found that I could do it quite comfortably! So from Thursday I have changed from sitting 2 periods of 20 minutes to sitting a single period of 30 minutes. And today (Sunday) I sat for 2 periods of 30 minutes. During the second period a thought did come to mind that it could easily turn into a test of endurance rather than meditation. You know the kind I'm sure, where you silently bargain with yourself: "Just count 10 more breathes, it must almost be time! Focus, can't be long now...!" It didn't though and I was deeply grateful for the extended & deepened morning practice.

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May sentient beings depart from suffering
May the vows of the donors be fulfilled.

Delivering Sentient Beings #openpractice

I've decided to share my practice activities on this blog in a "Open Practice" kind of way. See C4Chaos for more explanation on this idea as I've taken it directly from him as per his invitation! I was also somewhat stirred up by the passionate call of Everett Bogue in his blog post "Why We're Here" - what he expresses about his Yoga practice is how I feel about my Chan practice. I'm not sure what it will lead to or how regularly I will post like this but I want to explore. Do feel free to join in! Actually I'm a bit nervous about it as practice is rather a personal and intimate activity in my experience.

Taking the first of the month as a cue for no particular reason I altered my practice from Monday to include prostrations.

My current daily practice:

1. 5:30am wake up
Get out of bed and get dressed. (Seriously this is vital!)

2. 8 Form Moving Meditation
I do a pared down version of the exercises outdoors, in the manner that I learnt them on retreats run by the Western Chan Fellowship (I'm a fellow). Most WCF retreats involve early morning exercises outdoors and standing or sitting exercises indoors between some sitting meditation periods. Interestingly some of these exercises / meditations have been around a long time, for instance the Chan Master Tsung Tsai in George Crane's "Bones of the Master" did some of the same exercises when training as a young monk in Inner Mongolia.

3. Altar set up
I light 2 candles and 1 stick of Sandalwood incense that burns for around 30 minutes, then I make a small water offering. Finally I blow out the candles again rather than leave them burning the whole time because I find them too smoky and too oxygen hungry!

4. Prostrations
I do 108 Chinese style full prostrations (not Tibetan style where they lie right down with arms out-stretched) in a continuous flow and count using my mala. I have the mala wrapped around my wrist 3 times (to stop it swinging around) and count the beads through my thumb each prostration. I also recite A-Mi-Tuo-Fo 阿弥陀佛 in my mind while prostrating to maintain focus and I place my attention closely on the exact movements of my body and posture the whole time. It's a pretty intense workout for the body and mind!

5. Sitting Meditation
First I do 15 minutes sitting meditation (left leg on right leg) and then changed position and do another 15 minutes sitting meditation (right leg on left leg). I simply place my attention on the breath and hold it gently there. In the last two days I have found myself caught up in thoughts, concerns and plans about work quite often and have had to consciously bring my attention back to the method each time.

6. Recitation
Finally I recite the Four Great Vows, the Three Refuges and then a Transfer of Merit, all taken from the WCF liturgy.

So that is a basic run-down of what I do for my daily practice. Of course the doing is only part of the equation.

A Cold Bowl of Samsara

A man would know the end he goes to, but he cannot know it if he does not turn, and return to his beginning, and hold that beginning in his being. If he would not be a stick whirled and whelmed in the stream, he must be the stream itself, all of it, from its spring to its sinking in the sea.

Le Guin, Ursula K., A Wizard of Earthsea in The Earthsea Quartet, Puffin, London, 1993. p120.

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I am currently enjoying re-reading the Earthsea Quartet by Ursula K. Le Guin, this time aloud to my 9 year old son. I am struck again by all the gems of wisdom subtly woven into the wonderful story-telling.

This particular quote reads as a description of samsara and how to live in it. The different demands and pressures of family life, work commitments, social interactions and more are all forces that "whirl and whelm" me in different ways. I get tossed about through different emotional states, mental states, and physical states. This is a reason to practice - to be the stream. To give up resisting and surrender to life, to be at ease.

And meditation is the key to practice here. Daily sitting over time provides a sense of stability and I feel that I can at least ride the stream, if not actually be the stream.

The challenge though, as alluded to in the last post, is that meditation is just like sticking your face directly into a cold bowl of samsara! All the different forces that I think and feel so sure come from the world around me, somehow follow me onto the cushion and delight in dancing around and around in my mind! So, back to the method, again and again. It's hard work. It's hard work in daily life to turn away from all the distractions thrown at me and it's hard work in meditation to turn away from... the very same distractions!

Please note though, I'm not complaining. Meditation is a powerful skill and all skills require hard work, sustained effort and practice over time.

The Practice of Poetry and Meditation

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People often confuse meditation with prayer, devotion, or vision. They are not the same. Meditation as a practice does not address itself to a deity or present itself as an opportunity for revelation. This is not to say that people who are meditating do not occasionally think they have received a revelation or experienced visions. They do. But to those for whom meditation is their central practice, a vision or a revelation is seen as just another phenomenon of consciousness and as such is not to be taken as exceptional. The meditator would simply experience the ground of consciousness, and in doing so avoid excluding or excessively elevating any thought or feeling. To do this one must release all sense of the "I" as experiencer, even the "I" that might think it is privileged to communicate with the divine. It is in sensitive areas such as these that a teacher can be a great help. This is mostly a description of the Buddhist meditation tradition, which has hewed consistently to a nontheistic practice over the centuries.

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SPENDING TIME with your own mind is humbling and broadening. One finds that there's no one in charge, and is reminded that no thought lasts for long. The marks of the Buddhist teachings are impermanence, no-self, the inevitability of suffering, interconnectedness, emptiness, the vastness of mind, and the provision of a Way to realization. An accomplished poem, like an exemplary life, is a brief presentation, a uniqueness in the oneness, a complete expression, and a kind gift exchange in the mind-energy webs. In the No play Basho (Banana Plant) it is said that "all poetry and art are offerings to the Buddha." These various Buddhist ideas in play with the ancient Chinese sense of poetry are part of the weave that produced an elegant plainness, which we name the Zen aesthetic.

Tu Fu said, "The ideas of a poet should be noble and simple." In Ch'an circles it has been said "Unformed people delight in the gaudy and in novelty. Cooked people delight in the ordinary." This plainness, this ordinary actuality, is what Buddhists call thusness, or tathata. There is nothing special about actuality because it is all right here. There's no need to call attention to it, to bring it up vividly and display it. Therefore the ultimate subject matter of a "mystical" Buddhist poetry is profoundly ordinary. This elusive ordinary actuality that is so touching and refreshing, all rolled together in imagination and language, is the work of all the arts. (The really fine poems are maybe the invisible ones, that show no special insight, no remarkable beauty. But no one has ever really written a great poem that had perfectly no insight, instructive unfolding, syntactic deliciousness—it is only a distant ideal.)

So there will never be some one sort of identifiable "meditation poetry." In spite of the elegant and somewhat decadent Plain Zen ideal, gaudiness and novelty and enthusiastic vulgarity are also fully real. Bulging eyeballs, big lolling tongues, stomping feet, cackles and howls— all are there in the tradition of practice. And there will never be—one devoutly hopes—one final and exclusive style of Buddhism. I keep looking for poems that see the moment, that play freely with what's given,

Teasing the demonic
Wrestling the wrathful
Laughing with the lustful
Seducing the shy
Wiping dirty noses and sewing torn shirts
Sending philosophers home to their wives in time for dinner
Dousing bureaucrats in rivers
Taking mothers mountain climbing
Eating the ordinary

appreciating that so much can be done on this precious planet of samsara.

- Extract from Just One Breath: The Practice of Poetry and Meditation by Gary Snyder on Tricycle.com. Adapted from the Introduction to Beneath a Single Moon: Legacies of Buddhism in Contemporary American Poetry. Edited by Kent Johnson and Craig Paulenich. (Shambhala Publications)

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It is well worth reading the full article to appreciate the wisdom and eloquence offered by Gary Snyder.

Looking for Meaning

As long as we insist that meditation must be meaningful, we fail to understand it. We meditate with the idea that we’re going to get something from it - that it will lower our blood pressure, calm us down, or enhance our concentration. And, we believe, if we meditate long enough, and in just the right was, it might even bring us to enlightenment.

All of this is delusion.

- Steve Hagen, from “Looking For Meaning,” Tricycle, Fall 2003

Received as Daily Dharma from Tricycle.com on the 12th of November 2009

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Mañjuśrī's sword wielded by Steve Hagen! This is something I frequently remind myself of - stop trying to get something, stop trying to add meaning: just meditate. Or just eat. Or just do the dishes. Etcetera.

Positive Qualities of a Childlike Mind

Question: What are some of the positive qualities of a childlike mind?

Tenzin Palmo: An example of a childlike quality is when children are in the midst of intense grief and then someone gives them a lollipop. The tears disappear and they giggle and smile. They have completely forgotten that a few minutes ago they had been grief-stricken. A childlike quality of the mind really means a mind which is fresh, which sees things as if for the first time.

Once someone did a test on meditators'...brainwaves. They tested someone who was doing a formal Hindu style meditation and a Zen master. This was to find out what the difference was, because they both said they were meditating, but each was doing a very different kind of meditation. They also tested a non-meditator. Every three minutes, they made a sudden loud noise. It was regular. The first person they tested was the one who didn't know how to meditate. The first time this person heard the loud noise, he became very agitated. The second time he was less agitated. The third time there was some vague agitation, and then the fourth time he more or less ignored it. The person doing the Hindu meditation didn't react to the noise at all. He didn't hear it. When the person doing the Zen meditation heard the noise, the mind went outwards, noted the noise and then went back in. The next time, the mind noted the noise and went back in. His reaction was unchanged. Each time, the mind noted the noise and went back in.

That tells us a lot about the quality of mind we are talking about. This is a mind which responds to something with attention and then returns to its own natural state. It doesn't elaborate on it, doesn't get caught up in it, doesn't get excited about it. It just notes that this is what is happening. Every time it happens, it notes it. It doesn't get blasé. It doesn't become conditioned. In this way, it is like a child's mind. When something interesting happens, it will note it and then let it go and move onto the next thing. This is what is meant by a childlike mind. It sees everything as if for the first time. It doesn't have this whole backlog of preconditioned ideas about things. You see a glass and you see it as it is, rather than seeing all the other glasses you have seen in your life, together with your ideas and theories about glasses and whether you like glasses in this or that shape, or the kind of glass you drank out of yesterday. We are talking about a mind which sees the thing freshly in the moment. That's the quality we are aiming for. We lose this as we become adults. We are trying to reproduce this fresh mind, which sees things without all this conditioning. But we do not want a mind which is swept away by its emotions.

- from Reflections on a Mountain Lake: Teachings on Practical Buddhism by Venerable Tenzin Palmo, published by Snow Lion Publications

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Pilgrimage to the Cave in the Snow. In October 2010 Ven. Tenzin Palmo will accompany a pilgrimage tour, including the Indian Himalayan region of Lahaul and Spiti, Dharamsala, Tashi Jong, and Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery, and other monasteries and temples. They expect to meet with various high Lamas during the tour. Limited space is available. Read more at www.tenzinpalmo.com or email them at pilgrimage@gatsal.org

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I came across this quote on Integral Options Cafe a blog by William Harryman after he shared it on twitter. I thought it was brilliant for two reasons - firstly as a follow-on to my previous post Simple Pleasures: Not So Simple which also relates to ideas we have of Childlike qualities, and secondly because it elucidates so elegantly the distinction between Zen meditation and some other forms. The later being something than can at times be rather difficult!

The urge to do something

"ONE DAY when Pooh Bear had nothing else to do, he thought he would do something, so he went round to Piglet's house to see what Piglet was doing."

- in which A House Is Built at Pooh Corner for Eeyore, from The Pooh Story Book by A. A. Milne

Reading A. A. Milne aloud is wonderful and I heartily recommend it for the enjoyment and for the abundance of insights available.

Recently it was this opening line that particularly struck me as I often have a strong urge to do something when I am sitting in meditation: write to-do lists for work; plan out the day; plan the rest of my life; scratch my ear; move my legs - anything, so long as it involves doing something! Just sitting isn't enough.

And again in another example, when someone is talking to me I have a strong urge to do something: solve their problem (as perceived by me); cheer them up; tell them my version - anything, so long as it involves doing something! Just listening isn't enough.

This is a reason why regular Dharma practice is so powerful: it undoes these habitual urges.

Actually just sitting is enough; just listening is enough; this present moment is enough. I am enough, no need to do something (anything) to make it so. And you too.

Ten Diseases of Meditation Practice

1. Entertaining thoughts of "is" or "is not."

2. Thinking Zhaozhou said "no" because in reality there is just nothing.

3. Resorting to principles or theories.

4. Trying to resolve the hwadu (koan) as an object of intellectual inquiry.

5. When the master raises his eyebrows or blinks his eyes taking such things as indicators regarding the meaning of dharma.

6. Regarding the skilful use of words as a means to express the truth.

7. Regarding a state of vacuity and ease for realization of truth.

8. Taking the place where you become aware of sense objects to be the mind.

9. Relying upon words quoted from the teachings.

10. Remaining in a deluded state waiting for enlightenment to happen.

Edited from: Larkin, Geri. First You Shave Your Head. Berkeley, Celestial Arts, 2001, pp. 67.

What we talk about when we talk about meditation.

If you do decide to start meditating, there's no need to tell other people about it, or talk about why you are doing it or what it's doing for you. In fact, there is no better way to waste your nascent energy and enthusiasm for practice and thwart your efforts so they will be unable to gather momentum. Best to meditate without advertising it.

Every time you get a strong impulse to talk about meditation and how wonderful it is, or how hard it is, or what it's doing for you these days, or what it's not, or you want to convince someone else how wonderful it would be for them, just look at it as more thinking and go meditate some more. The impulse will pass and everybody will be better off - especially you.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are

From Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

Received as Daily Dharma from Tricycle.com on the 16th of January 2009