Category: Time, Space, & Knowledge Page 2 of 6

Clear as the Sky

On July 19, 2016

In Body, Death, Enquiry, Mindfulness, Poetry, Radiant Citta, Time, Space, & Knowledge

“Fully knowing the arising and fading of the five sentient processes,
one finds happiness and joy. For those who are discerning, this is the deathless.”
– The Dhammapda, verse 374. Translated by Christopher J. Ash

The usual understanding of death and rebirth misses the point, so grossly. Rebirth theory is related to the experience of a constructed ‘self’ (atta) and, hence, to intentions (karma). Both of these are concepts for which we can find experience-near meanings. If we can be mindful and directly experience how karma moves, then we can understand the issues of death and rebirth at a more everyday, realistic level.

I wrote about the ‘pause’ as a part of the mindfulness attitude; the slowing down of experience, so that we can sense more of what is actually going on in and around us. The more we appreciate the present, then the more it responds by revealing its intricacy.

One afternoon, I was sitting on the veranda of my home, in a reverie of appreciation for the textures of the forest – mostly of the eucalypts and the ti-tree. And, there was a currawong sitting on a branch, close by. I wasn’t exactly watching the bird. I gazed, I suppose; which is a mode of vision that includes much more, by not naming.

This pause in the default human mode of ‘mind’ led to including in my ‘gaze’ (or awareness) my sensations, my thoughts, and the felt presence of my whole situation. Including all of these in what I was aware of, at that moment, without losing my relationship to the currawong, gave rise to holistic sense of space – a kind of space that is throughout the field of experience, not just outside the skin.

It’s a fact that by including the observer in the observing, one loosens the hold and even dissolves the sense of separation to all things. So, the concepts of ‘self’ and ‘world,’ in that state, were distinctions not needed at that moment. The still, silent quality of knowing didn’t support the kind of space where I would create any ‘thing’ (a ‘me’) to be separate, or to be separate from.

“The mind is always thinking of things in the past and of what it is going to do in the future. It rarely settles in the moment. If it did, it would become quiet. When you settle into the moment, you realize that there is not much happening—a few things here and there. The primary awareness is of the immediacy of the moment. This is because presence—being in the now—is characterized by beingness, simply being here now. In contrast, our familiar self is based on doing, going, making things happen.” The Unfolding Now, p. 160

The bird and I were together in every particle of being. To reflect on language, here: if I was to say ‘currawong,’ in that situation, I would be to point (with this linguistic gesture) to this living, dynamic relationship; a relationship which far exceeds, in its implicit intricacy, what the word ‘currawong’ can say. The public or dictionary meaning of that word is nothing. It’s certainly laughable in that moment to think that ‘currawong’ means a ‘something’ – an isolated, permanent, independent object in space-time. Poetry says it best:

Snow in withered field, nothing to touch.
Sparrow’s head clear as sky
– From the poem ‘Sparrow in Withered Field.’ In Triumph of the Sparrow: Zen Poems of Shinkichi Takahashi. (Translated by Lucien Stryk).

Granted, this is not a perception readily accessible to some people, because we are mostly unfamiliar with experiential space and the ungraspability of the ground reality. But, familiarity grows with the practice of mindfulness. Then, it is possible to name a ‘groundless ground’; which the Nikāya Buddha indicates by referring to the ‘un-’ nature: unborn, undying, unailing; and ‘unmanifest consciousness,’ for instance. The odd thing is that moments like this occur all day, but we don’t notice them, until mindfulness reveals them. My spiritual grandfather Buddhadasa called them ‘little nirvanas.’

In default, trance mode of consciousness, if we notice such an empty moment – empty of ‘thing’-ing and constructing – we are afraid of its silence, its formlessness, and the unnameable quality of everything. Why do we fear? Primarily because our constructed ‘me’ has dropped away. There’s now no locatable someone behind the eyes doing the knowing. Yet, right there is the end of birth and death; and, ironically, right here is freedom and independence as individuals.

Until we train ourselves to pause, slow down, and stay for such moments of ‘empty contact’ –through the contemplative disciplines – then, we don’t appreciate the luminous wonder of the world and other people. We are in a pure land with radiant beings, and don’t see it.

the night’s downpour;
in this alley,
this half-eaten peach.

– Christopher Ash.

The Revolutionary Pause

By admin

On July 14, 2016

In Enquiry, General, Mindfulness, Positivity, Radiant Citta, Time, Space, & Knowledge

The title of this piece comes from a talk by Mary Hendricks-Gendlin. I give a link to a transcription of that talk, at the end of this post. You might want, too, to re-read yesterday’s post, about the Mindfulness Attitude, as I have rewritten it.

_____________

The mindfulness attitude to life values openness, and the heart of openness is a pause in our habitual patterns. This kind of stopping allows a big mind to show up, which has room for the extraordinarily full present. We have this freedom available.

One of the most vital skills we can develop is the ability to pause the momentum of discursive mind and experience our world—both inner and outer—directly through our senses.

– David Rome, Your Body Knows the Answer: Using Your Felt Sense to Solve Problems, Effect Change, and Liberate Creativity

“It’s okay to pause. I can slow my pace. It’s okay to pause this headlong rush onto the next thing. I can contact my breathing, no matter what the world says. It’s okay not to know what is next.”

It’s okay at any time of the day. When we do pause, new perspectives are possible. This is particularly important in everyday life, because we can become despondent at the state of the world, our nation, our community, our family – and fall into harmful compensatory patterns in reaction. Drinking more, or just ‘zoning out’ in front of screens.

Terrible things are always happening in the world. Some ‘religious’ fanatic kills people in the name of his ‘God.’ Yet another young black teen’s life is taken by a crazed policeman in the U.S. Some insane dictator, protected by a military power, executes one of his generals on a whim. Species extinctions accelerate alarmingly.

We get depressed at what’s going on in the world, feel helpless and powerless. Perhaps, we fear for the children about us – not only for their lives now, but for the fact that they will inherit this violent human society. Stress builds up in us.

And, then, there are our own big questions, the resolution of which would clarify whether our lives have any meaning at all. We turn away, again and again.

However, with ‘the pause,’ we stop turning away. We have an opportunity to say hello to our actual condition – our fear, helplessness and powerless, and begin to transform them.

We are not condemned to feel only debilitation. Positive responses are possible, which can be empowering. We can act to contribute to a better world.

“Self-possession is the heartwood of understanding. When a person is hasty and careless, his discernment and learning don’t flourish.” – The Nikāya Buddha, Kimsila Sutta

For this we need to find space in our minds, space for the much-needed clarity. Even if it’s only space to trust that there will certainly be a next step. With this contactful way to be – being in touch with ourselves – we can know that our actions aren’t just more of the same for the world, no re-actions.

When the traffic is bumper to bumper I vow with all beings
to move when the world starts moving and rest when it pauses again.

– Robert Aitken Roshi. The Dragon Who Never Sleeps: Verses for Zen Buddhist Practice

With the mindfulness attitude (a part of which is remembering our spiritual practice) we turn toward our feelings – even the very difficult ones – with openness, with curiosity, and with compassion. This not only makes us a more helpful human being – able to contribute constructively to the world culture – but puts us in touch with more of who we are.

________________

Focusing as a Force for Peace: the Revolutionary Pause – Mary Hendricks-Gendlin, Ph.D

Framing the Escape from Dukkha

By admin

On June 25, 2016

In Body, Death, Enquiry, Positivity, Time, Space, & Knowledge

Conscious human experience includes sickness, old age, and death; and, obviously, none of them are particularly pleasant. However, there they are. These touch everyone, in some way.So, it is claimed by many Western Buddhist writers that the ‘First Noble Truth’ is: old age, sickness, and death are dukkha. The most common translation of ‘dukkha’ is ‘suffering’ The Buddhist path is about ending dukkha.

Again, and again, I’ve scratched my head, wrinkled my brow, and bent down to understand this. Are they really saying that the mere fact of the event which we call death, this event is unsatisfactory, in itself? Are these writers and speakers, then, saying ‘life sucks,’ for no other reason than nature is like that? (I have actually heard that, from some Buddhists.)

Does it mean, then, that ‘escape from dukkha’ – which the Nikāya Buddha definitely recommends – means that we, being nature ourselves, need to escape from nature? Again, some people do believe this. I kid you not. To them, the Buddhist path means: ‘no more human birth’. This is their answer to what they see as cruel nature. What is happening, here? They can’t mean that human life is a mistake, a disease?

As you can hear, I’m not impressed with this approach; and I don’t think that such an approach could give rise to twenty-five hundred years of cultural transmission, as has been the case. For me, how could the evolution of life-forms be something we must escape, rather than carry forward in a healthy way? That human life is afflicted with some myopic habits which thwart its carrying forward healthily – that I can get; but the view that ‘being born is an error’ has more, I imagine, to do with the cultural, political, and social circumstances of the people who hold that view. It’s not about the big life we have here.

So, this project is asking: What is the Nikāya Buddha’s approach to death, given that we avoid thinking about death, and yet we all must die? What does he mean by the ‘deathless.’ He says that seeking the experience of a ‘deathless element’ is a saner response to the fact of death, than seeking solace in changeable things, things subject to arising and ceasing. So, what does ‘deathless’ mean to him?

“Suppose that, being myself subject to birth, having understood the danger in what is subject to birth, I seek the unborn supreme security from bondage, Nibbāna. Suppose that, being myself subject to ageing, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement, having understood the danger in what is subject to ageing, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement, I seek the unageing, unailing, deathless, sorrowless, and undefiled supreme security from bondage, Nibbāna.”
– The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, translated by Bhikkhu Nānamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi.

However, if I’m genuine about dialoguing with the texts, I have to account for a crucial text oft-quoted by these writers.; particularly this one from the Samyutta Nikāya, which on first blush seems to support the notion that the Nikāya Buddha has an anti-nature view and that Nibbāna, is a cure for nature. A common translation of this text goes like this:

“Now this, practitioners, is the ennobling truth of dukkha: birth is dukkha, ageing is dukkha, illness is dukkha, death is dukkha; being yoked with what is displeasing is dukkha; separation from what is pleasing is dukkha; not to get what one wants is dukkha; in brief, the five sentient processes subject to clinging are dukkha.”

– From the Samyutta Nikāya. Translated by Christopher J. Ash.

On the surface it does looks like he’s saying, ‘Nature is dukkha.’ This being so, escaping life would naturally be the outcome of ‘the ending of dukkha.’ However, it seems to me that this is a literalistic interpretation. And, a life-negating one at that. My approach does not assume that unpleasant experiences such as illness and death demonstrate some ultimate flaw in life processes; nor that they demonstrate, as is sometimes said, that life is tragic. These seem to me unprovable readouts. In this project, I will have to propose an experience-near, verifiable alternative understanding.

How will we investigate the matter of dukkha and the ending of dukkha? Of course, we can listen to the wise, and think logically; but, crucially, we must include and cultivate the grounding which our bodies provide, to know for ourselves the best way to approach this matter.

In a sense, I’m suggesting that we ground ourselves in nature; ask nature how it sees the matter of dukkha and the ending of dukkha. Such grounding carries our knowing forward in fresh and creative, and life-enhancing ways. Such knowing stays in relation to sickness, old age, and death. It doesn’t dissociate. This is wisdom.

Do you have a view on this? How would you ground your agreement or disagreement with my approach?

Experiment: Just Sit, No Guidelines, No Rules

By admin

On May 26, 2016

In Death, Meditation, Mindfulness, Practices, Time, Space, & Knowledge

And let us repeat that the direct perception of this perfect existential vegetative joy should not entail any fear of death but, on the contrary, should definitely neutralise this; indeed the fear of death presupposes the imaginative mental evocation of death; but the direct perception of existential reality in three dimensions, in the present moment, would cast into the void all the imaginative phantoms concerning a past or a future without present reality. – Hubert Benoit, in The Supreme Doctrine: Psychological Studies in Zen Thought

‘Just sitting’ meditation is exactly this direct perception of existential reality in three dimensions. But not many people can do a long sit, this way, straight off.

Does it ever occur to you that it is very odd that we find doing nothing difficult? That we don’t like to find the mind silent, and still. When I assign a seeker the experiment of just sitting quietly doing nothing; or, the experiment of investigating whether their self-images can really get the whole person, the aliveness that is the person sitting on the meditation cushion, it can be scary for the person.

One person said to me, “A part of me thinks that makes perfect sense, and another part of me says, ‘Let’s not go there!’” And, she demonstrated the feel of that by holding her hands in a stop motion, not letting in the suggestion. It was good that she could see it was a ‘part,’ and not the whole of her.

I was listening to the Nathalie Goldberg & Dosho Port CD Zen Howl. On it Natalie suggests that we usually allow our thoughts to dominate our minds, and she says this is because we have of a fear of being here.

She describes her discovery, as she developed in her zazen, that to just sit was frightening. Her heart raced, when her mind quietened down, she says, because being here was too real. That’s one way it happens, the fear of just being here is too real, for a mind used to being cushioned from reality by thought-production.

I am suggesting that we have become used to a ‘reality’ which is mediated by our egocentricity, and to just sit is to open to the big life process, and the ‘more’ which we can’t own, can’t control, can’t predict, and so on. If we can just sit, and not interfere with our experience, we find that we are not something apart from the big, wild, life process. Existence is the big thing that holds you – what Karl Jaspers called Existenz, the source of authenticity – but it’s also what you are.

Considering it from the point of view of giving up our egocentric view of life, another way of experiencing this is that the fear happens because being truly here feels like dying – dying to the familiar kind of self, oneself organised by one’s self-images. At such times it feels like our usual self is going to disappear.

However, when approached skilfully, the practice of ‘just sitting’ (which all Buddhist schools teach) can be the deepest form of self-realisation, because the meditator sees directly that existence is the main thing, not living – and that existence is beneficent. There’s a poem from the Zenrin-kushu, a Zen text:

Sitting quietly, doing nothing.
Spring comes, and the grass grows of itself.

This doesn’t sound possible, to a non-meditator. “How can that be,” he says? “Just sitting and letting life happen, without any preferences? The mind doing nothing?”

It’s so ironic, that the very things that make meditation attractive – a silent, still, spacious mind – are the things that look like death to the untrained mind. I asked a non-meditator, once, what did he think would happen if conscious thought stopped. “We’d die,” he said without hesitation.

However, that was his imagination masquerading as certainty. Silent meditation of the ‘just sit’ variety is a good training for living without the fear of death. We give ourselves a daily practice of ‘simply existing.’ It needn’t be long, if you’re a beginner to could just set a timer for three minutes, and while aware of leg, arms and breathing, just sit without any rules about ‘how to meditate’ or ‘how to be mindful for three minutes.’ There’s nothing you have to change, remove, or add to yourself in that time.

The way I got into this, decades ago, was to feel into ‘just being.’ I knew that this much (at some level, or at least provisionally) was true: I ‘am.’ So, I figured that if I just let the ‘I am’ be here, and feel it without elaborating it into ‘I am this,’ or ‘I am that,’ then I could safely forget about that great bugbear, Survival. There’s a book based on Ken Wilber’s work, called The Simple Feeling of Being. That title says the whole thing, I think. But you have to sit with fear, before it stops being a pest. We can give up fear of fear.

One has to meet the resistance of the imagined self. It resists the imagined not-self. The not-self comes in many forms. We’ve mentioned some. I’ve said that it comes in the evocation of a future moment in which “You will die, if you just don’t get this mind thinking!” It feels like that silence, that stillness, is another not-self which will engulf you. Appreciation of just sitting can be an antidote. One is not appreciating the present, when fear is present. But, you can discover that the fear is just another present experience, and appreciate its now-ness energy.

Three minutes can be interminable, of course. Conceiving time itself creates fear. The fear of death can only occur in that over-arching conceptual framework called serial-time! Does that make sense to you? Any time you are fearing, just ask yourself: “Am I telling a story involving a future?” This is so, even if the future feels like a immediately pending moment; or, if it feels like a general future. However, sitting quietly, relaxing, breathing, aware of your two sit-bones, welcoming fear, this enables the insight that all this commotion is contrived by the imagination; and, like all things, it passes.

Furthermore, you can enter Being-time, which can’t be measured out in units laid out in a line. What peace and joy! Didn’t Jesus say to Nicodemus that man must die in order to be reborn?

Ending the War

By admin

On February 26, 2016

In Death, Enquiry, Memoir, Mindfulness, Practices, Time, Space, & Knowledge

If I imagine (as my present practice asks me to) that I will die in a few days’ time, I think I can say farewell without great remorse. No human being has no regrets, I suspect, if they are honest with themselves. “Non, je ne regrette rien,” is a defiant cry, not an intimate one, I suspect. Nevertheless, have I finished my war with myself?

Lately, I’ve been thinking frequently about the effect on my development of choosing, during the Vietnam War, to oppose that war. I registered as a conscientious objector. I am glad I made that commitment. And, today, the My Lai massacre is on my mind. I don’t think it’s just because Donald Trump is doing well in the polls.

In a couple of weeks, it’s the forty-eighth anniversary of that unspeakable crime against humanity – the My Lai massacre. To the U.S.’s unending shame, only one of the twenty-odd murderers was convicted, and he, William Calley, spend a paltry few years confined to a military base for his crime. “Bad boy. Shame that you got caught.”

No, there are some things I regret, but aligning with the cause of non-violence is not one of them. The Buddhadharma has symbolised that for me. Some years ago, I quit a certain spiritual path, because I felt that it’s demands were becoming too cult-like, and that it threatened my allegiance to Buddhism. Yet, it’s fair to ask what would make me so dedicated to the Buddhadharma?

One clear answer has emerged, because I have understood in my own mind the root of the human violence. Seeing that is inestimable. And, I know of no major spiritual path whose commitment to non-violence is so pointedly clear. The founder’s words are unequivocal.

They can be distorted and abused, of course, by any culture. We’ve seen that historically, in the approach of the samurai – the bushido approach to Buddhism. A distortion. And, presently we’re seeing it in Burma, where corrupt (or fake) Buddhist monks are inciting Burmese villagers to persecute the Rohinga.

Humans have such a propensity to harm other groups of humans. I was thinking today, about the Milgrim famous obedience experiments, which showed that under certain conditions the ordinary Jo or Joe, like you or me, will cause harm to others if ordered by an authority.

Reading about the My Lai massacre today, I came across an angry U.S. officer’s statement, a year after the atrocity: “[Calley] is a good man. He was obeying orders.” (Which it has been established that he wasn’t; and that he went way beyond orders. Was he ordered to murder women and children, even babies? Decent people know a hate crime when they see it.)

Of course, for those of us who cultivate non-violence, we hear in this U.S. officer’s statement, a defence what would please Adolph Eichmann unconditionally. Eichmann was, in his own eyes, a good citizen who was following orders. (Or, at least, that’s how he portrayed himself.)

It was, when I joined the opposition to the Vietnam War, my conviction that a culture of non-violence was necessary; and to that end, I took up a way of life. What I didn’t know then… (Well, I was nineteen. I became a Buddhist in the same month that Time magazine ran the story of My Lai, starting the exposé.)

What I didn’t know was that I would have to become intimate with my own violence, to find in myself the seeds of war. I hadn’t heard Thich Nhat Hanh, at that point. He had been in the West for just three years, then; having been exiled by both sides of the war in Vietnam. A peace-maker is hated by both antagonists. However, this is his message: that the seeds of war are in our own minds.

We must stop the war in in ourselves, if the human world is to know peace. I began the journey, not knowing that I wouldn’t be the same idealistic young man at the end of the process. . Mindfulness, Focusing, meditation, and a culture of enquiry brings transformation. I don’t regret becoming someone I couldn’t have imagined I’d be.

Before I die, though, let me tell another story. Milgrim’s experiments didn’t only show that 60% of the average college kids, in his experiments, would obey orders to cause others unreasonable pain. (The experiment demonstrated that the subjects would be willing to give a shock of 450 volts to a person.) That’s only the frightening and well-known result.

He showed something else. If others around you are willing to oppose injustice, it strengthens you to listen to your conscience. This is the power of a practice community, a sangha. As the American Psychological Association says it:

“In one of Milgram’s conditions the naïve subject was one of a 3-person teaching team. The other two were actually confederates who-one after another-refused to continue shocking the victim. Their defiance had a liberating influence on the subjects, so that only 10% of them ended up giving the maximum shock.”

If this experiment could be re-done (which, nowadays, it can’t), I would predict that if another group of experimental subjects were trained in mindfulness and in Focusing, a comparable figure (10%) would be realised. These practical disciplines support moral development. They don’t cause it; but they support it, with thousands of volts worth of energy.

Three men that day, in 1968 in My Lai, tried to stop the carnage – literal carnage. The corrupt President Richard Nixon and his vile administration tried to skewer these men, to protect the so-called reputation of the US. Army; but they eventually were acknowledged as the heroes of the day. They were the crew of a helicopter – the Hiller OH-23 Raven crew, led by a brave man Hugh Thompson. We have this in us, too. It needs protecting and nurturing, like a green plant. These men are remembered, too, every year on March 16.

I wonder: Has any journalist thought to ask Donald Trump for his candid opinion of his fellow Republican, Richard Nixon?

Empty and Marvellous

By admin

On February 25, 2016

In Body, Enquiry, Focusing, Meditation, Mindfulness, Positivity, Practices, Radiant Citta, Time, Space, & Knowledge

I am sitting on a seat, looking out over the Grose valley (pictured). After arriving, I send metta in all directions. Then, I invite immeasurable space.

If you’re not accustomed to that experience, to get a feel for it, try this exercise, from David Rome’s Your Body Knows the Answer:

Exercise 18.1 Enlarging Space
Go outdoors to a garden, park, or natural area. Find a quiet spot that affords a view of plants, trees, earth, rocks, and so forth, as well as a view toward the distant skyline (whether natural or constructed). If possible, sit down directly on the earth, or on a convenient stone or log. Settle your body and feel its weight sink down into the support of the earth. After a while, say softly to yourself, “Grounded on the earth.”
Concentrating awareness in your sense of sight, focus on a plant, stone, or other natural object no more than five feet away from you. Look at it as if you have never seen anything like it before. Perceive it freshly, vividly, appreciating its unique qualities of shape, color, texture, movement. Take in its presence, here and now. Let go of discursive thoughts that arise. Then refocus your gaze on something a bit farther off, perhaps 15 to 30 feet away. Again, see it as if for the very first time. Let its unique features become vividly present for you. If possible, do the same with a natural object in the middle distance, 50 to 150 feet from you. Then pick a spot on the horizon or skyline and gaze at it, letting go of any thoughts that arise, staying with the visual details and feeling the simple presence of whatever your eyes are resting on. Finally, let your gaze go out to the sky itself. Perhaps there are clouds or mist, perhaps just endless blue. Sense the sky’s depth and vastness. Without changing the focus of your gaze, become aware of your entire field of vision, everything visible out to the periphery of what you can see. Now bring in the other sense perceptions — sounds of birds or leaves or water, smells of earth or grass or flowers, the touch of the wind on your skin, the rough earth against your body. Sense the unified totality of everything you are aware of just now. Say softly, “Aware of all of it.”
Sustain this open awareness for as long as you can, dropping any discursive thinking and resisting the temptation to redirect your gaze to an object on the periphery. Imagine you have just arrived from Mars and nothing you see is familiar. Everything is abstract color, form, and texture, but extraordinarily vivid. You are also aware of being aware. Bringing a hand to your heart, feel your own presence. Gradually extend your sense of being present in your body to include the whole of space. You are present in the wide world, part of it, here and now. Say softly, “Present in this world.”
Let the outer and inner spaces coexist in your awareness. You may even have glimpses of nondual awareness, an experience in which the felt difference between outside and inside, self and other, dissolves.

Where are the Tourists?
To others who pass by, it might be obvious that I am gazing into the distance. “Aware I’m breathing in; aware I’m breathing out.” A little boy goes by with his family, and stares curiously at me. I smile to him, aware of my breath, and then go back to my gaze. I gaze longer. I come to the part where I am including my own presence in the measureless display. Aware of breathing; aware of joy.

Now a tourist, with her mobile phone camera, comes and – despite there being room enough for a bus, either direction left or right – she find this spot the best spot to stop. I am presented with a choiceless view of her back. Then, I notice a choice – a can get caught by giving 100% of my attention to my “Oh, surely not. Surely she can see she’s standing in my way”; or, I can still include the spaciousness. I certainly wouldn’t want to lose that.

Now, two more people come and join her. One of them glances nervously in my direction, and he tries to move a little bit to my left, but the others don’t move. Two backs, I’m aware of. The space is still present, which gives me some curiosity about what makes the slightly angry ‘Oh, no!’ element in my consciousness so insistent about taking up centre stage with ‘those people,’ so that the subject-object drama upstages the spaciousness, forcing it to recede into the shadows, almost.

I take up a question Peter Fenner asks: “Where are they, these people?” That insistent voice is mildly irritated with that. “Obviously, they’re right there!” he says. “Okay. And, where’s that?” I look more intimately at the three backs.

The more conscious one has re-joined them. From what he says to them, I gather he is a local. He’s showing his friends the sights. They love it. She’s trying to get a camera angle on the Bridal Veil Falls. (Just for your information, her best view is about twenty yards along to my left.)

“Where is this ‘right there’?” Well… the first thing that I notice is that saying ‘those people’ (or ‘there’) doesn’t point to anything but my exaggerated attitude. If I were to give this sub-personality a name, I’d call him ‘Atta-dude.” The ‘where’ question obviously can’t be answered by referring to an attitude, especially in the form of Atta-dude. Dropping that particular shaping of citta, I look again.

The second very clear thing, then, is that ‘where’ can’t be answered except by reference to my own citta (heart-mind); that is, in terms of my perceptions and conceptions.

Where is my perception? Solely over there? No. Solely in here? No. Intertwined, as Merleau-Ponty would have it? Closer, but not the whole story.

So, by now it’s obvious that “I’m here,” creates “They’re there.” I remember the teaching of the Nikaya Buddha. “However you think something makes it otherwise.”

I don’t seem to get my mind, with even the purist or kindest perceptions, out of the way, to find the reality of the tourists. Even if I could do that, in some measure, would I see them in the way that that raven there sees them; or, as each sees their self; or how?

I see them from a particular human heart. So, how am I going to find ‘them’ as such? And, where is this heart which sees?

Space is returning to centre-stage, and bringing contentment with it. Having seen Atta-dude’ exit, the next thing which I look for (and the tourists are getting ready to go) is the knowing itself. Where is that? The wholeness of the situation doesn’t have boundaries like ‘here’ against ‘there,’ or ‘me’ against ‘them’; but, it also doesn’t have a locatable mind. The mind that knows is not findable like a ‘over there’ kind of thing. [Here, I want to remind you that in the Latin origin of the word ‘object’ gives us: ‘thrown’ (-ject), with ‘against, in the way of, as in obstacle and opposite.’ (ob-). Thrown in the way.]

I’m not saying that the word ‘mind’ now can’t be used; it’s just that its frame of reference has shifted dramatically from when Atta-dude was centre stage. Now, a focaling knowledge is not, as he has it, sharply focused like a ray from here to there. Now it is implicitly felt as all-pervading. Implicit, yet felt as present, here in this body on this seat. This must be what David means, I think, by ‘nondual.’

It’s so open, peaceful, and it doesn’t need anything; and, now I am gazing into space. How could I not? Space is everywhere. The valley, breeze, the bird-calls; and the tourists feet are crunching on the gravel as they walk toward a more comprehensive view. In the heat of Australian summer, all this is vastness gazing into vastness . They are happily chatting, just like that.

these crunching stones,
dry and gravel-voiced,
light the shimmering sky.

Practice When Sick or Dying

By admin

On February 7, 2016

In Body, Death, Enquiry, Meditation, Memoir, Positivity, Practices, Time, Space, & Knowledge

There are several suttas in the Nikāyas where the recommended practice for one who is ill is to rest in, trust, or make contact with the awakened qualities of the mind. Nothing much more than that (which is sure a big ask). For example, when, on separate occasions, Mahā Kassapa, Mahā Moggalāna, Mahā Cunda, were each gravely ill from disease, the Nikāya Buddha visited them. (All reported in the Samyutta Nikāya.) On finding that, for each, their pains were not subsiding, but indeed increasing, he reminded them of the qualities of awakening (bojjhanga).

He recommended these qualities because they support perfect understanding and the perfect peace of nibbāna – even while ill, even while dying. His advice to these senior disciples was that they use the opportunity well. From the healing point of view, it makes perfect sense, of course, that we will be better able to tolerate our illness, and we will have a better chance of recovery, if we are positive. (Traditionally they are given as seven, but of course there are more than these seven.)

All the qualities of awakening are positive. They support intimacy with our condition, whatever it is. In the cases of illness and dying these qualities (of being awake to one’s situation) support not turning away from suffering, and not turning one’s illness or death into an occasion for egoism (“Woe is me!” “This shouldn’t be happening!”) They support peace and enquiry, calm and healthy attitude. And, they reveal a dimension of life called ‘unailing,’ and ‘undying.’ These qualities are mindfulness, grounded enquiry, perseverance, joy, calm, contemplative presence, and equanimity.

(I’m smiling. I am remembering my discovery in my twenties that mindfulness and peace could be fully present in vomiting!)

All three of the disciples – despite their physical pain – are said to have affirmed the teaching, saying: “Most assuredly, Blessed One, Well-Gone One, these are qualities of awakening!” When you see these qualities in extreme situations is indeed inspiring. May all beings everywhere find their way to the realization of these qualities in themselves, finding grace in sickness and death.

On the Opportunity of Uncertainty

By admin

On February 3, 2016

In Death, Enquiry, Focusing, Meditation, Mindfulness, Positivity, Practices, Time, Space, & Knowledge

“In the space of light there is the pattern of the body’s fragility, which embraces old age, illness, and birth.”

The greatest difficulty about having cancer for most people is that the process from the beginning is full of ‘not knowing.’ There are the unknowns thrown up by the diagnosis process; and dependent on this, there are unknowns about treatment. Decisions start out in the dark. Finally, when the tests point to surgery, and the surgeon physically accesses the cancer and removes it, even then you have a wait while the final biopsies happen. More not knowing. The most confronting of the unknowns, of course, can be ‘Is this going to end my life?’ And, “Will I be able to stand the treatment?” “What functionality will I lose?”

However, I’ve found that my mindfulness practice has made the not-knowing much easier. Over the years of embracing not knowing as present-moment experience, including not knowing who I am, then I have found peace with the dynamism of situations. The more that I can stay in touch with the fact that, regardless of the specific situation, I really don’t know anything – that I ultimately don’t know anything at all – then the more I can be at peace with the relative ‘not-knowings’ of daily life; including those which present in the cancer journey.

Not know anything? I mean that when I ‘know’ through my senses and intellect, my world is already ‘categorised.’ But, if I acknowledge the limits of that knowledge and don’t stake a personality on the already-known, while not rejecting the known, then I discern a over-arching presence which the ordinary forms of knowing can’t limit.

There’s no explaining this, for the very reason that the unfolding edge of this present moment can’t be encompassed by the old categories. Saying that they have no-where to attach themselves, no where to land, is another way of saying that this presence I am speaking about is always more than our concepts (our categories, our ‘kinds.’) It exceeds them. If I grasp after ideas, to escape uncertainty, I miss the openness of Being.

Can you see how ‘not knowing’ is an opportunity to live in the light of the present flow? That I can’t even try to say what this not knowing is, this is a completely brilliant thing. Why? Because it leaves me with only the experience and study of its ‘how’; not its ‘what.’ How it works is my living. Its what is only my thinking, a mere part of living. (This is why the eightfold path of living in Buddhism is actually the path of awakening; not the path to awakening.)

This not knowing – powerful enough to surmount fear in the cancer journey – works as the most dependable knowing of all. It seems to be a kind of knowing, but it doesn’t know in any way rational; it’s not a reasoning faculty. It has no signs that can define or limit, or measure it. This is all you are left with, when you don’t resist – when you become totally intimate with illness, old age, and death; because, intimate with the fragility implicit in living, I am not separate from living. I am Life.

Anattalakkhana Sutta

By admin

On January 19, 2016

In Enquiry, Time, Space, & Knowledge

In the Anattalakkhana Sutta, the Nikāya Buddha makes two points about conceiving of ‘self’: firstly, nothing impermanent can be ‘self’; and a ‘self’ would have control over one’s life processes. These were obviously important ideas at the time – self is permanent, and self is omnipotent.

∞

This sutta is called ‘the second sermon.’ I think the traditional story told about the Nikāya Buddha’s first teaching occasions are fanciful. I don’t know where this account arose, but it is obviously concocted by later times. Devotees bend over backwards to make logical sense of the two suttas known, in the West, as the first two ‘sermons.’ They were probably divided out in the first place for reasons of memorisation in the oral tradition.

The two ‘first’ suttas involve the group of mendicants called the group of five. The Nikāya Buddha catches up with them at the Deer Park, at Benares, and there he helps them realise the luminous ground of their minds. I don’t think that it’s two separate ‘sermons,’ at all. I see as to aspects of one long interaction.

The traditional interpretation of events is that, a week or so after the awakening, the historical Buddha went in search of his former companions. When he found them, he launched into a speech about the middle way and the four noble truths; and, at the end of it, Kondañña awakened to impermanence. Then we taught the other four mendicants – Vappa, Bhaddiya, Mahanama, and Assaji – until they, too, arrived at an understanding of impermanence. That’s the story of the ‘first sermon.’ I’ve spoken before about how this story reduces a profound event to a rather ordinary one.

To explain the ‘second sermon’ the tradition has made up a story that: because they only realised impermanence in the first sermon, they needed to learn the deeper stuff, next. And, so, in between the two (supposed) discourses, the Nikāya Buddha, apparently, devised a theory of human experience called ‘the five khandhas.’ (You can read in the beginners’ books – that a human being is made up of – or ”constituted of” – five ‘aggregates’: material form, feeling-tones, perceptions, mental formations or intentional factors, and consciousness. My problem with this is that no human being is made up of constituents. We are individual organisms – organic wholes. However, let’s leave that for another time.)

It’s said that he created this ‘aggregates’ theory, so that he could deliver the second sermon. In the second sermon, he then proceeded to teach them about the ‘second characteristic’: non-self. Isn’t that neat? Now, he’s not only made up a fully-articulated theory about the middle way and the noble truths, but he’s produced the ‘three characteristics of existence’ – impermanence, non-self, and dukkha.

How unlikely is it, that seven days after his awakening, the historical Buddha has such a neat set of concepts ready, providing the wherewithal for teaching his friends? It’s not.

If I were to write this one as a fiction, it would involve his devising, on the fly, experiments whereby his friends can experientially ‘get’ what he’s talking about. It would take place over several days, and would not be the ‘first and second sermons’ (for these neatly-partitioned events would only be created by later compilers). No, it would be the first ever Buddhist interaction, and the two ‘teachings’ would emerge from that interaction.

Probably as they explored over the days, and as they gained increased clarity, and as each mendicant successively ‘got it,’ then the words followed on the experiences, and/or came during the experiences.

And, what would also go on, here – from what I have observed in people who have realised these things – after they got the big emptiness realisation (‘what is arising is ceasing’), they deepened into it through an enquiry into the implications of their initial awakening. That’s my story, anyhow. It’s never a ‘once-got, all questions resolved’ kind of thing. Awakening may have its dramatic moments, for sure; but it’s also an ever-deepening process.

This scenario is much, much more likely, for a group of human beings, than the Theravada tradition’s neat story – a story which has been shaped to make the Nikāya Buddha look like a super, super-hero teacher, and for the teachings to look like something neatly packaged, and ready-made for the five.

Not a very important point, I admit. It’s just I like to think of the people in the Nikāyas as people.

∞

By admin

On January 17, 2016

In Enquiry, Meditation, Mindfulness, Positivity, Radiant Citta, Time, Space, & Knowledge

In conversation with my family, today, I was saying that one reason for writing this blog has been to test my understanding, and to learn where I am not clear about the Dharma, even after all these years. Anyhow, to articulate my understanding of a particularly thorny issue – one which many people have confusion over – that is, the teaching of non-self, I decided to write an essay about it. However, it grew and grew, until it wasn’t practical to publish it here.

It has been said, “The Buddha makes the claim, which may draw some support from modern psychology, that the self does not exist.” Is this so? To answer this, I have explored the issues raised in these verses, from the Kālakarāma Sutta:

“Whatever is seen, heard, sensed, or clung to,
is valued as ‘truth’ by other folk.
Amid those who are stuck in their views,
I hold nothing as true or false, being ‘such.’

“This snag I beheld, long before,
whereupon humankind is hooked, is impaled:
‘I know, I see, `tis truly so.’
No such clinging for tathāgatas.”
– At Kālaka’s Park (AN.IV.24)

Over the last few days I wrote 5300 w0rds 0n the topic, and I’m satisfied, in the end, that my approach is useful. If you’d like to read it, here is a pdf: Claiming Non-Self. If you read it, I hope you enjoy it, as well as I hope it benefits your understanding,