Insight and Mindfulness

no fixing needed

2012-01-25T15:53:00.000-06:00

The Buddha said to investigate this body and the other foundations of mindfulness. There is nothing to solve or undo; we just need to know according to the truth.
Ajahn Cha

By "truth" Ajahn Cha is not referring to some philosophical principle, but the truth of the immediate moment - the experience we access when we are not trapped by our perceptions, our thoughts, our preconceived notions.

We can train to be aware of what is true by personally investigating the four foundations of mindfulness, outlined in the Satipatthana Sutta.

Sutta Summary:
www.consciousdynamics.com/course03/satipatthanaportal.html

who do you trust?

2012-01-02T16:40:00.001-06:00

"...The Buddha did not teach to fix things but to see according to the truth. If you want to change things, that is not Dharma, that is not truth; it is just the habit of someone who wants to create and manipulate...For those who hear and practice there has not been any requirement to adjust or modify things, only to know and to surrender." Ajahn Chah

The purpose of a transformational practice is to let go. Release leads to relaxation. It leads to good health, to happiness, to contentment. To success in many arenas. But if these good intentions become goals that we grasp, we are no longer relaxing. We are no longer practicing wisely. The relaxation of meditation or mindfulness is much more than the release of contractions and stress. It is relaxation of grasping, the freedom from trying to make things different than they are.

This does not mean we don't change what needs to be changed or that we can't integrate mindfuless, meditation, or mind training into professional arenas; but we can't introduce them as one of hundreds of strategies for achieving our goals, attaining what we desire. Instead, we learn to let go of the struggle and strife and open to dancing with things as they are, contributing from wisdom and insight, kindness and compassion. The bottom line results are powerful, but they come from deep integrity and intelligence that are within our natural human capacities.

I can think of several human beings I know who are in touch with this human capacity. I see them as the adults in our world. The people I trust. People who mean what they say and live their lives on the line every day, simply to do what is right. Most are not famous - or in any way dramatic. But they are the rich fabric that supports civilization.

Who do you think of? Who do you trust? Lets choose these beings as models for living our own lives in accordance with our simple greatest potential.

balance

2011-11-16T22:51:00.000-06:00

adapted from teachings of the Buddha M 138

If your consciousness is not distracted and scattered externally
nor stuck internally,
and if by not clinging you do not become agitated,
then for you there is no origination of suffering....

Reading this passage by itself may be useful, but its real value comes when you actually bring it into your daily life

You might first ask yourself:
Can I notice times when I am distracted and scattered externally? When the world pulls me into its spinning?
When I let needs of others throw me off balance?

In a day or two move to the following exploration.
Do I get stuck internally? Am I so focused on keeping balance, in protecting my space, that I do not even notice others? That I don't notice small pleasures? Like the falling rain and sound of thunder? A flower blooming beside me?

Then come back to exploring balance of the two
Both in practice and in life - can I rest in a secure base of my own and open to others? Do I hear others, but also listen to my self? Do I listen to the voices of both body and mind? Internally and externally?

Also consider bringing this exploration into very subtle investigations of experience in your meditation practice.
Where does your attention go when you close your eyes? What happens to your attention after you spend some time stabilizing the mind? Is the rate of changing attention different? Do different objects draw your attention?

yoga sutra 2:35-39

2011-11-01T07:17:00.000-05:00

35. Being firmly grounded in nonviolence creates atmosphere in which others can let go of their hostility.
36. For those grounded in truthfulness, every action and it's consequences are imbued with truth.
37. For those with no inclination to steal, the truly precious is at hand.
38. The chaste acquire vitality.
39. Freedom from wanting unlocks the real purpose of existence.

Amaravati (deathless)

2011-10-29T18:31:00.000-05:00

recognizing truth

2011-10-18T13:38:00.004-05:00

Just as an acorn holds the potential to become an oak tree, we already possess the capacity to awaken..[the].purpose of all experience is to show us this. In a sense, perfect wisdom is woven into the very fabric of our ignorance and confusion. Pure awareness underlies all thought and perception right now...and one needs only recognize it fully in order to be free from suffering.

Chris Hartranft in his commentary on The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali. Yoga here refers, not to hatha yoga, but royal yoga.

removing the thorn

2011-09-06T18:33:00.000-05:00

Fear is born from arming oneself.
Just see how many people fight!
I'll tell you about the dreadful fear
That caused me to shake all over.

Seeing creatures flopping around,
Like fishes in shallow water,
So hostile to one another!
--Seeing this, I became afraid.

Seeing people locked in conflict,
I became completely distraught.
But then I discerned here a thorn
--Hard to see--lodged deep in the heart.

It's only when pierced by this thorn
That one runs in all directions.
So if that thorn is taken out--
One does not run, and settles down.

This verse from the Attadanda Sutta (Sn 935-9) was published in an article by Andy Olendzki in the Fall 2006 issue of Tricyle. It was probably also translated by Andy.

He writes further:

Human society is formed by the collective action of its individuals; it thus reflects the qualities of heart and mind of each person. Peace in people's hearts creates peace in the world; turmoil in people'e hearts creates turmoil in the world.

falling off the wheel

2011-08-30T07:40:00.000-05:00

I've spent the past week playing with investigation of the elements of interdependent origination (dependent co-arising, dependent origination)- following them forward and backward, through arising and cessation, but keeping in mind that the processes are not linear, that elements arise together. I am being especially intrigued with ignorance as a condition for formations and with formations as a condition for consciousness.

I understand formations and consciousness to be always occurring, always flowing - that is, as long as we are alive, apparently alive. And that both of these, formations and consciousness (ordinary consciousness), are results (and cause) of interaction of this body/mind and its surroundings. Because everything we know or experience is a result of these interactions, it is all subjective, none of it is objectively true, but rather a kind of ignorance through limitations of perception (or misperception).

These mind/body interactions are necessary for us to live in the world. And they generally operate predictably within the world; but the world itself, the world we know, is built on these interactions and therefore not objectively true or real. We live and function in an illusion. If we recognize the illusory nature of things we are not trapped by experience.

...knowing and seeing in this way,
would you run back to the past thus:
'Were we in the past?
Were we not in the past?
What were we in the past?
How were we in the past?
Having been what, what did we become in the past?'

...knowing and seeing in this way,
would you run forward to the future thus;
'Shall we be in the future?
Shall we not be in the future?
What shall we be in the future?
How shall we be in the future?
Having been what, what shall we be in the future?

...knowing and seeing in this way,
would you now be inwardly perplexed about this present thus:
'Am I?
Am I not?
What am I?
How am I?
Where has this being come from?
Where will it go?

M 38:23

We are also not indifferent. The world we live in does include sorrow and joy. However, we can be free of the limitations in our perceptions and the resulting grasping of objects and views and choose to participate in more wholesome unfolding within this constructed world.

To see the source of this investigation and the other elements of the wheel read the Mahatanhasankhaya Sutta - The Greater Discourse on the Destruction of Craving M 38 or see related Practice Board entries at
http://citta101.com/practice/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=205&p=446#p446

potential of a concentrated mind

2011-08-14T14:03:00.000-05:00

A concentrated mind, according to early buddhist teachings, can become

purified
bright
unblemished
rid of imperfection
malleable
wieldy
steady
attained to imperturbability

In the West we are not used to knowing the mind like this. We know, intellectually and scientifically, that the brain is plastic. Plastic, or plasticity, is a contemporary word that signifies the possibility of the descriptors of mind above.

A mind that is malleable, wieldy, pliable, and steady is capable of real transformation. If you become serious about your personal meditation practice, if you give the mind time and opportunity to develop concentration, you can realize this potential.

You might keep in mind that, "this flexibility of mind is not impossible to attain, it is another thing to maintain." (quoting myself in Practice Board entry)

A course or two, even sitting every day, does not yield an ongoing transformational process. A course and a regular sitting are a good start. But a significant evolution of mind involves a steady and committed practice, a process that is usually gradual and organic, but includes dedicated time for fostering a concentrated mind. With support the mind discovers these truths.

Periodic teacher input will save you from invisible roadblocks and circuitous side tracks.

The teachings I offer are all intended to help as many people as possible realize this potential. The most immediate and accessible opportunity is a non-residential retreat for both new and experienced meditators in Houston August 19 and 20 http://www.citta101.com/retreats.htm

the breathing body remembers

2011-08-01T12:09:00.000-05:00

The self begins as an extension of the breathing flesh of the world, and the things around us, in turn, originate as reverberations echoing the pains and pleasures of our body.

...the inwardly felt sentience of the child is a correlate of the outwardly felt wakefulness of the sky and the steadfast support of the ground, and the willfulness of the caressing wind;
it is a concomitant of the animate surroundings.

Only much later, as the child is drawn deeply into the whirling vortex of verbal language...is the contemporary child liable to learn that...human persons alone are the carriers of consciousness in this world.

Such a lesson amounts to a denial of much of the child's felt experience, and commonly precipitates a rupture between her speaking self and the rest of her sensitive and sentient body. Yet the pain of this rupture is quickly forgotten by the speaking self...

But the breathing body, this ferociously attentive animal, still remembers.

Please see the original text. This is abbreviated for a brief taste. I am quoting David Abrams from his new book Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology. He uses language to bring us outside or beneath language.

I am savoring this text, reading it a little at a time and carrying the felt sense into my daily life, city life. You are welcome to work through this text with me (very slowly). At this time I am posting brief excerpts and reflections on Abram's Becoming Animal on the Citta 101 Practice Board.

creating our world

2011-07-29T11:15:00.001-05:00

The end of the world can never
Be reached by walking. However,
Without having reached the world's end
There is no release from suffering.

I declare that it is in this fathom-long carcass,
with its perceptions and thoughts, that there is the world,
the origin of the world, the cessation of the world,
and the path leading to the cessation of the world.

The poem above translated from Pali by Andy Olendzki (A 4:45)

How We Create and Heal Our World

Though we do not create the world,
we are conditioned in the way we perceive or understand the world,
therefore the world exists according to our perceptions.
Freedom can come from working with this mind/body,
its perceptions, thoughts, and views.

Our perceptions color our thoughts/concepts and our views:

perceptions

thoughts

views

The way we perceive, think or conceptualize, and the view we hold are the way we create our world. This is good news. It is much easier to bring the mind processes in line with what is true, than trying to restructure what life unfolds.

This does not mean the pain goes away, but our relationship to it is transformed. We no longer suffer. Nor does it mean we never act when action is required. We do get clearer on what actions are really helpful and which actions do not add pain and suffering for others or ourselves.

right intention

2011-07-08T09:58:00.000-05:00

The Buddha discovered [a] twofold division of thought in the period prior to his Enlightenment... While he was striving for deliverance, meditating in the forest, he found that his thoughts could be distributed into two different classes.

In one he put thoughts of desire, ill will, and harmfulness, in the other thoughts of renunciation, good will, and harmlessness.

Whenever he noticed thoughts of the first kind arise in him, he understood that those thoughts lead to harm for oneself and others, obstruct wisdom, and lead away from Nibbana. Reflecting in this way he expelled such thoughts from his mind and brought them to an end.

But whenever thoughts of the second kind arose, he understood those thoughts to be beneficial, conducive to the growth of wisdom, aids to the attainment of Nibbana. Thus he strengthened those thoughts and brought them to completion.
Bhikkhu Bodhi on right intention

If you consider this awhile and begin to work with it, there may first be frustration if you are putting much effort into expelling and strengthening thoughts. Please avoid this trap. Seeing clearly, seeing the two kinds of thought occuring is transformative in itself. In time the mind will naturally turn toward what is wholesome. This wholesome turning cannot happen if we are blind to what is occuring in the mind (The buddhist meaning of ignorance here is more like foggy or uninformed).

dharma gold

2011-06-13T16:05:00.001-05:00

Andy Olendzki lecture notes

I am just back from Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and a series on Wisdom teachings, part of the Integrated Study and Practice Program. Some students in the course named this black board image dharma gold when the rainbow appeared under Andy's notes. I have been capturing some of his lecture notes on camera. This one is not as 'active' as my favorites, but the image is central to understanding buddhist psychology and skillful practice - a still representation of dynamic reality.

This is the beginning of our Wisdom sessions.

invisible harmony

2011-05-19T10:59:00.000-05:00

...invisible harmony [is] more powerful than the visible.

Heraclitus, 5th century B.C.
translation, Panikkar,
p.7 Rhythm of Being

If we live at the tip if the unfolding moment, we are in touch with everything, with the whole world, with what is real, what is true. In this moment, in the midst of our immediate experience, whatever that experience is, we can ride free of the limitations of personal and communal constructions and of the sorrow of having never come into contact with life at all.

living as gem-like flame

2011-05-08T06:14:00.000-05:00

The service of philosophy, of speculative culture towards the human spirit, is to rouse, to startle it to a life of constant and eager observation.

Every moment some form grows perfect in land or face; some tone on the hills or the sea is choicer than the rest; some mood or passion or insight or intellectual excitement is irresistibly real and attractive to us--for that moment only. Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself...

How should we pass most swiftly from point to point and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy?

To burn always with [this] hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy is success in life.

Walter Pater (1919)
Thanks to Joseph Prabhu in The Rhythm of Being

more integrated brain

2011-04-20T17:39:00.000-05:00

There is increasing evidence about the need and benefit of movement for a healthy brain - and specific information about how and why this is so.

A little does a lot. Every movement counts. There are immediate gains for our health, quality of life, as well as brain function.

We can no longer be serious about the development of mind and brain without incorporating movement - or at least developing a better understanding of human anatomy and physiology.

Get started with more information. The following quotation is from the website of John Ratey, MD.

Spark Your Brain!!!

Adding exercise to your lifestyle sparks your brain function to improve learning on three levels:

First, it optimizes your mind-set to improve alertness, attention, mood, and motivation;

Second, it prepares and encourages nerve cells to bind to one another, which is the cellular basis for logging in new information; and

Third, it spurs the development of new nerve cells from stem cells in the hippocampus.

John Ratey

increased rational decision-making

2011-04-18T14:12:00.000-05:00

Research report released today (done by Ulrich Kirk and others)

Summary: when assessing unfairness, meditators activate a different network of brain areas compared with controls enabling them to uncouple negative emotional reactions from their behavior.

These findings highlight the clinically and socially important possibility that sustained training in mindfulness meditation may impact distinct domains of human decision-making.

Frontiers: Original Research -Interoception drives increased rational decision-making in meditators playing the Ultimatum Game.

for an integrated brain

2011-04-09T12:34:00.000-05:00

Six-part plan for facilitating the brains capacity for development and deepening integration.

The six parts of the plan are a list from Dan Siegel, MD. I've added comments and practice suggestions.

1. Aerobic exercise

Consider not just exercising but paying close attention to the body as it moves. Can you notice movement without identifying the particular body part or muscles working?

Are you exerting energy in a balanced way? Are you overworking the body? Or under working? Are you alert and relaxed even as you increase exertion?

Or going further, can you notice stillness of mind within which the movement flows?

Consider also the quality of mind and the state of body after? Was your exercise mindful?

2. Sleep: adequate and restful

Just as it is good for our children to have a bedtime routine and a wind down time, so, too, for us. Are you giving yourself a balanced day, including work and relaxation?

Your system needs balance. Optimal performance requires you give yourself some rest and relaxation, even if you think you don't have time - especially if you don't have time!

3. Nutrition and Omega 3s

Seigel emphasized Omega 3s, but also mentioned overall good nutrition. Consider thinking of food and medicine. For an highly intuitive and supportive move into healthful eating see http://www.eatrightamerica.com/home. This link came to me through the Whole Foods mailing list.

4. Relationships

The Buddha suggests that if you want to be a kind person hang out with kind people. If you want to avoid being angry, limit your exposure to angry people. Whatever qualities you want to foster can be facilitated by increased exposure to them in others and to awareness of those qualities in your own continuum of experience. Like wise with what we want to diminish.

From what we now know about brain chemistry, the way we treat others actually influences their brain chemistry and cell function. From what we understand from Buddhist science of mind is that our treatment of others influences our mind and body as well. The kind of treatment we extend to others or receive from others creates health or proclivity for disease. Humiliation and shame are not just unpleasant and psychologically damaging, but harmful to the functioning of the organism on a metabolic level.

5. Novelty

Be open to variety. Try something new everyday. Simply changing your routine is a simple way to do this. Sitting in a different chair, taking a different route to work. Choose to be open and willing to explore. Take a creating course.

6. Mindful Attention (focus and mindful awareness)

Awareness is the most important step, not only to health, but to freedom. Without awareness we operate unconsciously out of past conditioning. Events come together in every moment, causes and conditions both from within our personal historical experience and within the context of the moment, from immediate events in our environment. With awareness we can learn to focus skillfully. This skillful focus is something we develop in a mature meditation practice, once we have learned the basics of practice - relaxed and alert attention to breath and body and a muscle for returning again and again to this simple focus.

Practice suggestions

Do a benchmark check. Where are you with the six step supports for brain/mind health? With this awareness you will naturally begin to take advantage of knowledge of these prescriptions and of our understanding of plastic capacity of the brain.

Please be aware that you don't need to make a project of any of these. Your natural inclination to health combined with this information will modify some choices you make. Through awareness and knowledge you have added another skillful element to the causes and conditions creating the next moment.

This writing evolved from our discussion of Siegel's suggestions and their relationship to practice that came out of our cyber sitting April 7, 2011.

thinking emergently

2011-03-29T13:09:00.000-05:00

Awareness of causes and conditions, the limiting nature of our constructions, and keeping our perspectives loose (letting things unfold) are alluded to in the passage below. David Brooks speaks about skillful thinking in dealing with some difficult contemporary issues.

"Public life would be vastly improved if people relied more on the concept of emergence...

We often try to understand problems by taking apart and studying their constituent parts. But emergent problems can’t be understood this way. Emergent systems are ones in which many different elements interact. The pattern of interaction then produces a new element that is greater than the sum of the parts, which then exercises a top-down influence on the constituent elements.

Culture is an emergent system. A group of people establishes a pattern of interaction. And once that culture exists, it influences how the individuals in it behave. An economy is an emergent system. So is political polarization, rising health care costs and a bad marriage.

Emergent systems are bottom-up and top-down simultaneously. They have to be studied differently, as wholes and as nested networks of relationships. We still try to address problems like poverty and Islamic extremism by trying to tease out individual causes. We might make more headway if we thought emergently."

What he is saying is very valuable. May he be heard!

I'd like to add only one thought - that we see all experience as emergent.

David Brooks in NY Times article, Tools for Thinking 2011/03/29
Link to original New York Times article

internal freedom

2011-03-05T15:29:00.000-06:00

"Mindfulness practice offers the restraint necessary to overcome the tug of desire upon the senses. As we notice the mind wandering off to explore a gratifying train of thought, or as we notice the body's urging to nudge ourselves into a more comfortable position, we gently abandon the impulse and return attention to the primary object of awareness. We do this again and again, until the mind becomes content with being fully present [with] what is manifesting here and now in the field of experience, rather than rushing off for some other form of stimulation. As the mind settles down it becomes considerably more powerful, and thus more empowered."

Please notice, "we gently abandon the impulse." Thoughts and sense desires will arise. But we don't try to get rid of them. We notice what is happening. In doing so there is clear seeing of what is arising, of what is present here and now.

"In this mode [mindfulness] the mind is said to be unlimited, and is capable of experiencing freedom through wisdom. Its freedom comes not from the license to broadly explore a shallow terrain, defined by its likes and dislikes, but rather from the ability to shake off the contraints of desire altogether and plunge deeply into investigating the field of experience as it is. It turns out that what one sees, hears, smells, tastes, touches, or thinks, is not as important as how one does this."

The quotations above are taken from an article by Andy Olendzki published in Tricycle (Summer 2007). The article is a commentary on The Parable of the Six Creatures S 35:247

samadhi practice

2011-02-17T07:55:00.000-06:00

from Dining Room at the BCBS (2011/02)

The next four months I'll be exploring and sharing the practice of samadhi. As well as reading the blog and tweets, you are invited to participate by joining one of the online groups for deepening practice and attending our retreats.

Our practice themes will include, in order:

What is Meditation?
Mindfulness of Body
Mindfulness of Feeling
Mindfulness of Mind
Mindfulness of Mental Objects
Jhana
Brahma Viharas
Right Effort
Working with Mental States

These themes follow the structure of the Integrated Study and Practice Program offered by the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. They will enrich work we have already done and encourage deeper investigation.

highest blessings

2011-02-13T19:47:00.000-06:00

If you find any one of these blessings in your life dwell with it awhile. What will arise is gratitude in the heart. Just choose one - or one at a time. Some may not apply to you, may not even seem like blessings. In this case just skip over. Recognizing any in your life is an acceptance of that blessing. Paying attention to blessings naturally facilitates their further arising, their increase and their deepening.

These are the Highest Blessings

For all those who are concerned for happiness
and ever long for peace,
what are the Highest Blessings?

avoiding those of foolish ways
associating with the wise
and honoring those worthy of honor

These are the Highest Blessings

living in places with of suitable kinds
with the fruits of past good deeds
and guided by the rightful way

These are the Highest Blessings

accomplished in learning and craftsman skills
with discipline, highly trained
and speech that is true and pleasant to hear

These are the Highest Blessings

providing for mother and father's support
and cherishing family
and ways of work that harm no being

These are the Highest Blessings

giving with dharma [Truth, Integrity] in heart
offering help to relatives and kin
and acting in ways that leave no blame

These are the Highest Blessings

steadfast in restraint and shunning evil ways
avoiding intoxicants that dull the mind
and heedfulness in all things that arise

These are the Highest Blessings

respectfulness and humble ways
contentment and gratitude
and hearing the dharma [truth, wisdom] frequently taught

These are the Highest Blessings

patience and willingness to accept one's faults
seeing venerated seekers of the truth
and sharing often the words of dharma

These are the Highest Blessings

the holy life lived with ardent effort
seeing for oneself the noble truths
and the realization of nibbana [freedom]

These are the Highest Blessings

although involved in worldly ways
unshaken the mind remains
and beyond all sorrows spotless, secure

These are the Highest Blessings

they who live by following this path
know victory wherever they go
everyplace for them is safe

These are the Highest Blessings

Mangala Sutta - to hear the monks of Abhayagiri Monastery chant the Highest Blessings follow this link http://www.abhayagiri.org/medium/highest_blessings_2009/

destiny remains our choice

2011-02-12T21:00:00.000-06:00

"Our destiny remains our choice."
Barack Obama State of the Union 20110125

I had a message from a friend, Solange, suggesting we consider a day a month without electronic devices. We did this a few times when our son was growing up. These were very beautiful days. They deepened and enriched our relationships.

Pulling the plugs (in various ways) are opportunities to stop and see what is happening right now. We can't all get away for retreats, but we can bring some retreating into our lives. Every time we do so we see something new. We see the beauty in small things. We see things that have been bothering us that we couldn't even notice because we were so busy. With some unplugged days, we can reorient our lives before stepping again into the flow. Stepping in with greater awareness and with broader vision, less deluded by the appearance of things.

new year inspiration

2011-01-20T19:05:00.000-06:00

Ask not what your [country] can do for you,
but what you can do for your [country]!
JFK, Jan 20, 1961

I was in junior high when JFK made this powerful speech. My father was particularly moved by this line. He was one of that "new generation." Dad quoted this line about service five years later when he decided to leave his work as a high school principal in peaceful rural Iowa to join the Teacher Corps.

In June of 1966, when I headed for college, he went to a summer training in Indiana. In the fall he and the rest of my family, mom and three younger siblings, packed up and moved to Indiana.

This took him to work in South Chicago and Gary in the late 60's and early 70's, years that cities were burning with civil unrest. He was the only administrator in his teacher corps training program. He became a peace maker in vicinity high schools - moving in when there was trouble, listening and responding to resolve the issues.

This particular job was not for everyone to do. It was his to do. It was the right choice for him. A choice he recognized and enthusiastically said yes to.

Now, 50 years after JFK's challenge, let us begin the new year with his challenge. The challenge may not be a government program. It is likely to be something right in front of you that needs to be done for the good of society and other human beings. Something you are drawn to do, even inspired to do.

We have gifts to offer. Let us share them. Quoting or at least paraphrasing Joanna Macy, "We are the people we are looking for."

What is for me to do? What is for you to do? Just because a task is noble does not mean it is mine or yours. We only need to be faithful to our own sense of integrity. We don't do something noble. A great noble gesture is more likely to be grandiose, and not really helpful at all.

Instead we do simply what needs to be done. What needs to be done now. What needs to be done by us. That is true nobility, true integrity. And individual integrity is just what our world needs.

May it be so.

holiday and new year greeting

2010-12-23T15:17:00.001-06:00

Freedom and happiness are available in any moment whatever our circumstances. It often may not feel like this is possible, but it is the season's message, a message that is articulated in both Buddhist and Christian traditions.

The story of the birth of Jesus is a story in which God, understood as ultimate power, chooses surrender and vulnerability, being born into the world as a precious and powerless baby. We celebrate the season by accepting our own vulnerability, our need for others, our desire for peace and harmony. We surrender to things as they are.

Are we ready now, as human beings, capable of living this truth? Can we each in our own lives choose to face each moment as it unfolds, however it unfolds? Can we choose non-violence, kindness, and good will toward all living beings? And to our planet?

In a recent article in the Inquiring Mind Jack Kornfield paraphrased some Buddhist descriptions of freedom and enlightenment. Perhaps we can take one or more of these to make our holiday practice and New Year intention live up to the season's message.

Ajahn Cha
If you let go a little, you'll be a little happy. If you let go a lot you'll be a lot happy. If you let go completely, you'll be completely happy.

Ajahn Cha
Just let go, and become the awareness, be the one who knows.

Mahasi Sayadaw
To find emptiness, note every single moment until what you think to be the world dissolves, and you will come to know freedom.

Dipa Ma
Love no matter what.

Thich Nhat Hanh
Rest in mindfulness, this moment, the eternal present.

Ajahn Jumnien
Be happy for no cause.

Suzuki Roshi
Just be exactly where you are. Instead of waiting for the bus, realize you are on the bus.

What are your own words of wisdom? Let us share them both verbally and through our living them!

Wishing us all peaceful and happy holy days now and through the new year,

Mary

right effort of letting go

2010-11-22T09:45:00.000-06:00

right effort in the face of adversity

What is right effort when you realize there is nothing you can do to effect skillful behavior or wholesome change in the mind?

What is right effort when a persistent thought keeps arising, robbing you of peace of mind?

What is right effort when unwholesome will not die?

letting go

Consider surrendering any efforts to be free, accepting things as they are, stopping and simply recognizing the characteristics of existence:

Nothing is permanent, nothing can be clung to.
There is nothing that is ultimately satisfying or fulfilling.
We are not as substantial as we take ourselves to be – no me, my, or mine.

Revisit an investigation of form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness, recognizing their insubstantial and continuously fluctuating nature. Is there clinging to anything? Is there clinging internally or externally? Clinging to personal states or to relationships?

Remember that whatever is arising is due to causes and conditions, causes and conditions of which you are a part. You influence positively the next moment and future moments by stopping the struggle, by letting things be as they are.

dukkha

2010-11-01T23:11:00.000-05:00

[The word dukkha] is often translated as suffering, but it means something deeper than pain and misery. It refers to a basic misunderstanding running through our lives, the lives of all but the enlightened. Sometimes this unsatisfactoriness erupts in to the open as sorrow, grief, disappointment, or despair; but usually it hovers at the edge of our awareness as a vague unlocalized sense that things are never quite perfect, never fully adequate to our expectations of what they should be. -Bhikkhu Bodi

An unsatisfactoriness? A vague unlocalized sense that things are never perfect? Can you relate to this?

It is really a blessing if you can be aware of these subtle nuances of the heart. Unless you are awake, unless you are attentive to experience, you may miss these subtleties. Or assume them to be dis-ease, depression, something that is not a natural part of life. Have you been awake enough to notice this hovering at the edge of awareness?

Are you willing to experience what is difficult, what is challenging? If so you can come to a new kind of happiness, a happiness that includes the whole of life, the good and the bad, the sweet, the sour, and the sorrow. A happiness that rises among and above the vicissitudes and cruises in its own space of peace - despite circumstances - in wisdom and integrity.

inevitable suffering

2010-10-16T10:27:00.000-05:00

A fundamental challenge of contemplative spiritual practices: "Are you willing to look directly in the face of suffering?"

This suffering refers especially sickness, aging, and death. These are the inevitable sufferings of life. Everything living is subject to illness, aging, and death. To really look at these, to really see their inevitability, is to face our own mortality, the reality of the temporary status of this life, of any life. This is the suffering we cannot avoid.

The Buddha's teaching of the ending of suffering does not mean a termination of the life cycle, the end of the flowing processes. However, it does begin with seeing the nature of this constant change and altering our relationship to change. The end of suffering comes with not clinging to anything. With this awareness we value life more deeply. We can come to appreciate the changing nature of things and flow with rather than fight them.

Embrace the truth of things by being willing to look directly at sickness, old age, and death. Instead of turning away from illness, when we see an animal or human suffering from illness consider, "This body, too, will sometime be sick."

When we see elderly and aging beings, "This body, too, is growing old. It will only grow older, not younger. I am as young as I am ever going to be in this life. Let me live this life fully. Let me grow into old age with grace and wisdom, appreciating the beauty and strength of maturity."

Let us not turn away from death wherever we see it. The dying process of friends and loved ones, the people killed in war or other acts of violence, from starvation, from poor living conditions. Animals killed by automobiles, for sport, and as part of the food chain. "This body, too, will someday loose its life force. I do not know when or how, so I will live every day, every moment fully now. With integrity, with good will, with the intention to be kind to all other beings, to not contribute to the suffering of any living being, including my self. To take only what I need."

This willingness to see what is true is not depressing or negative. It is a coming to terms with what is true, a choice not to hide from what is true. In this openness what unfolds is joy and contentment with things as they are right now. A gratitude for each breath. And also a matured integrity of being. Though we can't end the life cycle, the inevitable sufferings (nor would we want to - ending death would also end life), we can consciously choose to help create a world that is kind, a world free from violence, by not choosing it our selves, even in very small ways. This includes not punishing ourselves for not being perfectly kind. for making foolish mistakes. Our conditioning takes time to unwind. Seeing what is true is really all that is needed. With seeing clearly what is true, natural kindness and integrity gradually arise.

profoundly intuitive

2010-09-30T20:26:00.000-05:00

"...the nature of reality is not a matter of mere intellectual analysis...but depends upon deep absorption, so that awareness moves from the merely superficial to the profoundly intuitive."

Mu Soeng in The Heart of the Universe

cultivating lovingkindness

2010-08-23T23:47:00.000-05:00

Since a single mind moment cannot contain both a wholesome (kusala) and an unwholesome (akusala) emotional tone, learning to develop the quality of loving kindness moment after moment in a sustained manner has the effect of purifying the mind as it locks out competing unwholesome states.
Andy Olendzki, Pali Scholar

“If one frequently thinks and ponders upon thoughts of loving kindness, one has abandoned thoughts of ill-will to cultivate thoughts of loving kindness, and then one’s mind inclines to thoughts of loving kindness.” - Andy paraphrasing from the Dvedhavitakka Sutta (M 19)

Thus the mind stream or stream of consciousness is purified by both the presence of a wholesome state and the absence of an unwholesome state.
Andy

nibbana, nirvana

2010-08-02T10:48:00.000-05:00

The goal of Buddhist practice, cessation, is not annihilation, but an extinction of the suffering of wanting things to be different than they are. When we come into balance of internal and external circumstances we are free to live and love without grasping. We are not indifferent, but responsible, acting with skill and wisdom.

Indeed the sage who's fully quenched
Rests at ease in every way;
No sense desires adhere to him[her]
Whose fires have cooled, deprived of fuel.
All attachments have been severed,
The heart's been lead away from pain;
Tranquil [s/he] rests with utmost ease,
The mind has found its way to peace.

Andy Olendzki's translation of Cullavagga 6:4.4

ancient wisdom

2010-07-12T07:53:00.004-05:00

It is a universal belief that that words have a creative power; they symbolize the manifest world. Music, on the other hand, brings us into harmony with the non-manifest, and to understand music is to be at the secret source of Li [right behavior or right action]' *

*Quoting Rees and Rees in Celtic Heritage (1961) who quote P.D. Hardy in The Holy Wells of Ireland (1836) quoting the Book of Rites. A Wiki search on the Book of Rites yielded a 1962 translation of the Book of Rites. The idea expressed above, about language and music, can only be intuited from this translation. The website which includes this translation fo the Book of Rites is a rich resource for Celtic history

what cannot be lost

2010-05-23T11:08:00.000-05:00

Once you've recognized Ultimate Reality within and around you, the knowledge does not go away. You may have other doubts, but this doubt disappears. A certain confidence and trust arise - and never leave.

Mother Theresa of Calcutta also said something like this. Her words: "Once you've got God within you, that's for life. There is no doubt. You can have other doubts, eh? But that particular one will never come again."

According to one book about Mother Teresa, she had many doubts, but not an ultimate doubt. As I've read about this aspect of her life, I feel that the authors may do her and Truth a little disservice. She didn't seem to emphasize this doubt, but lived in faith of that which she knew to be true.

And I'd like to go a step further with this. Once we realize what is ultimately true...(we could use the word God here, as Mother Teresa would, but I prefer some less abused, more open-ended words like Buddhist translations of Nibbana. Naming only a few: Ultimate Reality, the Deathless, Truth, emptiness, suchness...)

Once we realize what is ultimately true, darkness is no longer a bad word, not a parallel of wrong, bad, or evil. It is open space. We may stumble upon and embrace a darkness that is pure faith and includes, even requires, release of reliance on self, or who or what we identify with as self.

If we are lucky this stumbling upon may be more like being grasped by deep hunger or even as a sense of being deeply loved. We may cling to the love as if it were a solid thing, ours to own, rather than opening to the great unknown, realizing love is a living flowing tide that only lives and grows as it flows.

Is it Not Time

Is it not time
to free ourselves from the beloved
even as we trembling, endure the loving?
As the arrow endures the bowstring's tension
so that, released, it travels farther.
For there is nowhere to remain.

Rilke

References to Mother Teresa from Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light - The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta

ulimate reality in bloom

2010-05-19T22:31:00.000-05:00

“Just as... the great ocean is vast, boundless, fills not up for all of the streams [that flow into it]. Precisely so Nibbana [Ultimate Reality] is vast, boundless, fills not up for all of the living beings [that pass thereunto].

But again further, – the great ocean is all in blossom, as it were, with the flowers of its waves, – mighty, various, unnumbered. Precisely so Nibbana [Ultimate Reality] is all in blossom, as it were, with the Flowers of Purity, Knowledge, and Deliverance, – mighty, various, unnumbered.

Nagasena to Milinda (King Menander, a Greek king who ruled in northwest India from 163-150 BCE)

I love this passage. Can you consider all things that arise in this life as a kind of flowering? Everything is the result of causes and conditions. We can choose to participate in creating what is wholesome and beautiful. This is the nature of Ultimate Reality, to continually bloom.

ancestral healing

2010-05-05T09:54:00.000-05:00

...they are in us, those long departed ones, they are in our inclinations, our moral burdens, our pulsing blood, and in gestures that arise from the depths of time. Rilke

Remembering the gifts, the character strengths of our ancestors, these can live on in us. They can develop, blossom, deepen. These strengths can infuse our lives and current culture with their wisdom, their truth. They can further our conscious evolution.

Of course, the primitive gestures of our ancestors also arise when circumstances call them forth. Our job is to be mindful enough to see what is arising in our continuum of experience and to bring to bear what is most wholesome in our inclinations.

It is so important to realize that these arisings are a result of causes and conditions, many beyond are conscious awareness or personal experience. But our conscious awareness and intentional responses do contribute to what is cultivated and what is dissolved or released and therefor to the good or ill of ourselves and all other beings.

Hypothesis:
Recognizing time as a construct, and therefore not substantially true; if time is then flexible, this wholesome awareness, response, and influence is something that might also positively influence anything "arising from the depths of time," including not only currently arising phenomena but those beings and events that we experience as long time passed.

beginning meditation

2010-05-03T00:10:00.000-05:00

Beginning Meditation Course (online) and for donations only! Insight and Mindfulness Meditation - Vipassana

This is a course posted on line in 2004, a very rough beginning for the current computer based course, Going Beyond - First Steps. Though its structure has changed a little from the 2004 original, it remains very much as the original course.

Make a payment only after you have done the course. (It is delivered by autoresponder, which your spam checkers may not like. So check junk mail and watch for each of the 10 emails)

loving what is strong

2010-04-30T10:23:00.000-05:00

And what might we regard as strong? The rhinoceros comes to mind, or the ox, or the predators of land, sky and sea (lions, raptors, and sharks, for example). Strong might also mean tenacious, such as the weeds you seek in vain to eliminate from the garden, or the persistent pests inhabiting the dark corners of your kitchen or basement. Or strength could refer to political and economic power, such as that wielded by the generals of the hunta, the lords of the financial industry, or the jailers of the innocent.

Can we experience loving kindness, even toward these? ... Even the strongest creature will inevitably grow old, infirm and will face death. Power will inevitably slip from the grasp of even the most triumphant. Again, it is not that such people “deserve” our loving kindness, as much as we deserve to be without hatred for anyone at all...

Andy Olendzki - from his on line Metta Sutta Study

Perhaps we could also recognize, love, and appreciate what is powerful and does not cause harm. Strength can be a virtue, depending on its character. Is the character wholesome or unwholesome? Does its manifestation cultivate kindness toward others and toward myself?

I saw a couple fighting over a baby in a park one day. Without thinking, or I probably wouldn't have acted in this way, I went up to them and said, "Someone has to let go of the baby."

Was the young woman strong who kept the baby? Or the young man who let go?

loving what is weak

2010-04-27T13:45:00.001-05:00

It is not so difficult to feel loving kindness for the weak, is it? There is something in us, no doubt inherited from our mammalian ancestors, that moves us to care for what is weak, to value what is fleeting, and to protect what is vulnerable. The cherry blossom in Japanese tradition is so beloved because it is so fragile and fleeting; beauty and sadness are bound together in a single moment’s poignant aesthetic appreciation. As an active exercise of visualization, look around you and see if you can call to mind, with a compassionate attitude, all those quiet, hidden things that are less robust than you are.

Andy Olendzki - from his excellent (and free) on line Metta Sutta Study

Join us on the Practice Board to work further with his commentary in small steps at a time, like this one. Consider his suggestion to look around or see if you "can call to mind, with a compassionate attitude, all those quiet, hidden things that are less robust than you are."

We might also look inside ourselves, see what is weak and love that, too.

ulitmate reality

2010-04-23T10:43:00.000-05:00

Ultimate Reality or Nibbana - from a famous debate between a monk, Nagasena, and King Milinda (Menander) sometime between 160-153 BCE

    “Reverend Nagasena, you are continually talking about Nibbana. Now is it possible to make clear the form or figure or age or dimensions of this Nibbana, either by an illustration or by a reason or by a cause or by a method?”

    “Nibbana, great king, is unlike anything else; it is impossible.”

    “This, Reverend Nagasena, I cannot admit, – that if Nibbana really exists, it should be impossible to make known its form or figure or age or dimensions, either by an illustration or by a reason or by a cause or by a method. Tell me why.”

    “Let be, great king; I will tell you why.”

    “Is there, great king, such a thing as the great ocean?”

    “Yes, Reverend Sir, there is such a thing as the great ocean.”

    “If, great king, some man were to ask you: ‘Great king, how much water is there in the great ocean? And how many living creatures dwell in the great ocean?’ If, great king, some man were to ask you this question, how would you answer him?”

    “If, Reverend Sir, some man were to ask me: ‘Great king, how much water is there in the great ocean? And how many living creatures dwell in the great ocean?’ I, Reverend Sir, should say this to him: ‘The question you ask, Master man, is a question you have no right to ask; that is no question for anybody to ask; that question must be set aside. The hair-splitters have never gone into the subject of the great ocean. It is impossible to measure the water in the great ocean, or to count the living beings that make their abode there.’ That is the reply I should give him, Reverend Sir.”

    “But, great king, if the great ocean really exists, why should you give him such a reply as that? Surely you ought to measure and count, and then tell him: “There is so much water in the great ocean, and there are so many living beings dwelling in the great ocean!”

    “It’s impossible, Reverend Sir. That question isn’t a fair one.”

    “Great king, just as, although the great ocean exists, it is impossible to measure the water or to count the living beings that make their abode there, precisely so, great king, although Nibbana really exists, it is impossible to make clear the form or figure or age or dimensions of Nibbana, either by an illustration or by a reason or by a cause or by a method. Great king, a person possessed of magical power, possessed of mastery over mind, could estimate the quantity of water in the great ocean and the number of living beings dwelling there; but that person possessed of magical power, possessed of mastery over mind, would never be able to make clear the form or figure or age or dimensions of Nibbana, either by an illustration or by a reason or by a cause or by a method.”

This is the first part of a famous dialogue between the monk Nagasena and Menander, a Greek king who reigned between 160-153 BCE. A fuller version (Milndapanha 315-323 -abridged, E.W. Burlingame trans.) is posted on the Member Practice Board. http://citta101.com/practice/index.php

let's wake up in business

2010-04-16T14:14:00.000-05:00

PAUL SOLMAN: ....people need enough dollars to survive... But, after that, humans want autonomy, a sense of purpose, mastery.

DANIEL PINK: We do things because they're interesting. We do things because we like them. We do things because we get better at them, because they contribute to the world, even if they don't have a payoff in getting a reward or satisfying some -- some biological drive.

This is not a plea for a kinder, gentler approach to business. This is a plea for saying, let's wake up. Let's get past our outdated assumptions, and let's actually run businesses in concert with what the science shows about human performance.
excerpt from Paul Solman on PBS news in business

We do need a certain amount of income to be comfortable and at ease in life, but beyond that money is not the primary motivation of human beings. It is also not a motivator that is kind to people.

Business organizations may be motivated by money; that is to say, the organizational structure cannot replicate human motivations. This may be one reason that a business should not be legally treated as a person.

only the strong survive

2010-04-12T09:23:00.000-05:00

Some creatures are moving because they are agitated, unsatisfied, or driven by craving, and this in the Buddhist context invokes the sense of frailty or weakness. Similarly when one is firmly grounded, tranquil and at rest, this expresses a condition of greater strength and stability.
Andy Olendzki commenting on the metta sutta

How different our take on "only the strong survive" when we look at strength and weakness from this context. It is strength of character and mind that survive. The truth is our shelter, not dominating power born from fear, agitation, or craving. Brute strength may get some temporary results, but nothing lasting.

Craving and fear are normal, human qualities of mind, but when acted upon mindlessly indicate frailty or weakness, an inability of the mind to be with itself and respond skillfully. Strength of mind gives us the power to be with things as they are, to respond skillfully and appropriately given current circumstances and long term effects.

honesty

2010-04-10T00:41:00.000-05:00

Gautama Buddha was famous for his honesty. He valued highly speaking the truth, and, reputedly, never lied - more precisely, he never misrepresented the truth. This is a powerful capacity, perhaps synonymous with being awake, being fully realized, enlightened. Yet it is a clear and simple goal. It seems attainable. Doesn’t it?

Of course, seeing what is true is not so easy. Ignorance is our primary poison because it is so insidious. However, as we remove obscurations, as we develop our capacity to walk the path, we see more clearly, we deepen clarity and wisdom.

In our culture, perhaps the most pervasive blindness is that caused by being entranced by all our wealth and its benefits. It is easy to be comfortable, to be removed from the realities of life, from what is really true, from what is painful and uncomfortable, but also what is immediately precious – any moment of being really alive. Instead of seeing the beauty of being alive, we escape into all kinds of mindless pleasures, mind blurring use of mind-altering substances is only the most obvious. There are many other things.

Not to discount the chemical addictions (drugs and alcohol). Discontinuing mind altering substances is the most direct and immediate thing we can do to open to what is true - clearing the mind to be in direct contact with our experience and feelings. We can quit participating in our cultural addictions like redundant news that isn't really news, enticements to buy, buying to make up for what we are being taught to think of as missing.

It is shocking but helpful to be reminded by life of what is insubstantial - that is to say, everything.

Loss of a family and dear friends to death
Loss of life, health, and youth
Losing what seems so evidently right
Losing perspectives about who we think we are
Getting what we want and realizing it doesn't hold our interest
Betrayal

We will be betrayed by people we trust. Seldom due to ill intent. In fact, we also will unintentionally hurt other people.

We will suffer loss of loved ones. And, ideally, recognize the potential in ourselves. My body, too, will be like this. This body, too, will die. The heart will stop beating. The breath no longer flow. This body, too, will get ill and age. The skin will wrinkle, discolor and lose its plasticity. Eventually, the whole body will disintegrate, returning to dust, to basic elements. There will be loss of dreams and desires and just rewards.

What we can all do is choose to be honest – radically honest. We can let ourselves see what it true. Of course, we don't drown in what is painful, but we can see things as they are. We choose to be interested in any experience.

A friend died of a sudden aggressive cancer that went to the brain. She lost one capacity after another in quite short order, including motor skills and capacity to speak. One of the last intelligible words to go was "interesting." She repeatedly referred to the disintegrating process as interesting.

Can we be interested enough in things as they are to be in touch with what is true? Can we look unflinchingly at current reality and have a certain sense of ease or integrity, of strength in just knowing we know, knowing we can see the truth and stand up to this moment and the next, at ease in just being.

the virtue of loving kindness

2010-03-23T08:34:00.001-05:00

One who actively develops loving kindness,
Mindfully and without limit,
Sees their attachments wane;
Their bonds become worn thin.

If one shows kindness with a clear mind—
Even once!–for living creatures,
By that one becomes wholesome.
Having mercy in his or her heart for all creatures,
A noble person brings forth abundant goodness.

Those who conquer the earth, teeming with beings,
—Kings and priests who scurry around sacrificing—
They surely do not partake in even a sixteenth part
Of the heart well developed in loving kindness
—Shining like the moon among all the crowd of stars.

One who neither kills nor makes others kill,
Neither steals nor makes others steal
Is one who has love for all living beings,
And no hatred for anyone at all.

Itivuttaka 21-22 = III.7 = 27
translation, Andy Olendzki

standing in our own way

2010-03-10T10:06:00.001-06:00

In Our Own Way

Ever turned toward what we create, we see in it
only reflections of the Open, darkened by us.
Except when an animal silently looks at us through and through.
This is our fate: to stand
in our own way. Forever
in the way.

Rilke
From the Eighth Duino Elegy (see link below for source)

This poem sounds fatalistic, but I think only because we so often do stand in our own way. Yet getting out of the way in any individual moment is a very real possibility. We just need to be awake. Being awake in one moment reinforces the possibility of increased wakeful and attentive moments in the future.

A Year with Rilke: Daily Readings from the Best of Rainer Maria Rilke, translated and edited by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows. NewYork: HarperCollins. 2009.

rewards of listening to Dhamma

2010-02-28T07:45:00.003-06:00

There are these five rewards in listening to the Dhamma. Which five?

One hears what one has not heard before.
One clarifies what one has heard before.
One gets rid of doubt.
One's views are made straight.
One's mind grows serene.

These are the five rewards in listening to the Dhamma.

AN 5:202

These are simple yet powerful reasons for listening to Dharma talks, on line or in person. Notice that only one of these reasons is really about hearing something new. Perhaps we may hear something new or have something clarified. Either way we grow in confidence, integrity and serenity.

guardians of the world

2010-02-24T13:14:00.003-06:00

...self-respect and respect for others, are called guardians because they are always operative in all wholesome states, while their opposites, lack of self-respect...and lack of respect for others...are present in every single unwholesome state. Andy Olendzki

This passage is from Andy's soon to be released book: Unlimiting Mind: The Radically Experiential Psychology of Buddhism. Wisdom Publications, 2010.

In this passage, Andy, a Pali scholar, is discussing the depth in meaning of mindfulness as understood from the Abhidhamma perspective. From application of this reading I have found a great practice tool: In any moment asking, Am I being mindful? Really mindful? Is their self-respect? Is there respect for others?

What I find is that if self-respect and respect for others are not present in those moments, the qualities seem to arise from the act of asking the question, thus creating more wholesome mind moments.

From BCBS Bhavana Program 2010/02/20-2010/02/27. The Bhavana Program offers a wonderful retreat experience - combining a nice balance of study, interaction, and formal practice. I think of it as a silent retreat first - with a few hours for study and interaction to deepen and enrich the practice experience.

seek what is deathless

2010-02-19T09:01:00.006-06:00

Before my enlightenment, while I was still only an unenlightened bodhisatta, being myself subject to birth, aging, ailment, death, sorrow and defilement, I sought after what was also subject to these things. Then I thought: 'Why, being myself subject to birth, aging, ailment, death, sorrow and defilement, do I seek after what is also subject to these things? Suppose, being myself subject to these things, seeing danger in them, I sought after the unborn, unaging, deathless, sorrowless, undefiled supreme release from bondage, Nibbana?
M 26.13

There is nothing wrong with enjoying the pleasures of this life. Sense experiences are only a problem if we become attached to them. Attachment to ease and comfort make it difficult to make hard choices - both for us as individuals and for us a society.

If we stay in touch with reality and the genuine possibilities that occur through recognizing the truth of insecurity, we might be able to see how our comforts have become handicaps, keeping us from being fully alive, vital, happy, and engaged - fully responsible for ourselves, each other, and the planet.

Moderation, careful attention, and integrity are a few of the qualities that I am recognizing today as timeless values. Let's discover others and let them be our defining characteristics.

doing too much

2010-02-18T08:56:00.004-06:00

Doing one thing at a time seems to be a vanishing art, and in fact many of the situations people put themselves in do not even allow for such a unified state of mind. The busyness and confusion that so often accompanies multi-tasking takes a toll, however, and it not usually a rewarding, or even healthy, way to use the mind. Consciousness is a precious resource, and if it is spread too thinly by trying to manage multiple factors at once, its coherence diminishes.

Andy Olendzki
online sutta study

You can participate in this work with Andy by visiting the website of the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies or join me as I work with his study on the Practice Board http://citta101.com/practice/.

way of negation

2010-02-14T09:38:00.005-06:00

"...once we let go of what we're not, the nature of what is Real becomes apparent... And as that Reality is beyond description, it is not appropriate, and least misleading, to let it remain undescribed. This is the essence of the 'way of negation'..."

p. 27 THE ISLAND, a compilation and commentary on wisdom texts (regarding Nibbana) in the early Buddhist teachings (Pali Canon)by Ajhan Amaro and Ajahn Pasanno

Share a study and exploration of these texts on our Practice Board at http://citta101.com/practice

peace of heart

2010-02-13T00:52:00.001-06:00

peace of heart, emotions from Andy Olendzki (3/3)

What does a moment of emotional peace feel like after a period of turmoil? If you’ve just had a big fight with a friend or partner who has stormed out of the room (or perhaps you have stormed out), what does it feel like to have the strife and discord come to a sudden halt? Or perhaps you’ve just watched a movie, or read a book, or had a discussion with someone, that took you on an emotional roller coaster; or maybe you have been sitting with an ailing or dying friend, or come through to the other side of a bout of anxiety, fear, or despair. In any case it is a matter of feeling the contrast between the prior moments of agitation and the current moment of calm. What does it feel like to have something that had been raging with such intensity come to a stop, replaced with an experience of relative peace?

* RIGHT NOW! What emotional states are reverberating in the heart?

peace of mind

2010-01-26T11:16:00.001-06:00

practicing peace of mind from Andy Olendzki

What does it feel like to rest the mind after a period of busy activity, of multi-tasking, or of having to shove the mind through a series of words or numbers or stories in order to accomplish some task? If you have just finished some complex project, or something involving a lot of reading or listening or speaking, see what if feels like to relax the mind and let it wander free and easy. Perhaps this involves gazing off out the window, or into the landscape, or at the empty sky; perhaps it is closing the eyes and thinking about nothing whatsoever for a few moments; or maybe you can grab half an hour or an hour to sit in meditation and watch the spinning of the mind gradually spiral down and down into deeper levels of calm and relaxation.

* RIGHT NOW! What mental qualities are presenting themselves to inquiring attention?

peace of body

2010-01-24T11:47:00.004-06:00

After our retreat this weekend, I'd like to share some of Andy Olendzki's practice suggestions around the experience of peace.

Andy: "peace is a word that can mean many things in many different contexts, and this is what we can explore in direct experience"

"In each of these cases we are trying to connect directly to the experience of peace, to come to recognize it, to investigate it, and gradually also to cultivate it. By experience we mean not the idea of peace, or thinking about peace, or merely noticing the absence of various forms of turmoil—rather we are pointing to a way of actively exploring the texture of the mind and body in this present moment as it manifests peace."

He proceeds to offer several suggestions. The following is the first on peace in the body, physical peace.

"What does it feel like to sit quietly for some time after a period of heightened physical activity? As you sit quietly after a vigorous workout, a hard day’s work, or some other form of bustling activity, see if you can explore the texture of the peacefulness that descends on the body. Feel the muscles relax; feel the breathing slow down; feel the calm as it settles upon the systems of the mind and body as a tangible state, an experience in itself. Peacefulness is not just the absence of agitation or activity, but is itself a positive quality or state that can be accessed, investigated, and understood viscerally."

"* RIGHT NOW! What sensations are arising and passing away in the body?"

being kind to yourself

2009-12-20T00:40:00.007-06:00

"Because of all the ways your brain changes its structure, your experience matters beyond its momentary, subjective impact. It makes enduring changes in the physical tissues of your brain which affect your well-being, functioning, and relationships. Based on science, this is a fundamental reason for being kind to yourself, cultivating wholesome experiences, and taking them in."

Rick Hanson in Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom pp. 72-73

garden of eden

2009-12-10T15:57:00.005-06:00

In the heart of every man and every woman a kind of Garden of Eden endures, where there is no war, no death, where wild animals and deer live together in peace.

Irene Nemirovsky, speaking for the 1941 characters in her novel Suite Francaise.

Reading words of this novel is a poignant experience. The author reflects on human experience as France is being occupied by Germany in WWII. She is writing as events unfold, before the outcomes are known.

We know outcomes, even the outcome for the author. She completes two books of an intended five from within this dramatic time in world history, but in July of 1942 she is arrested, separated from her husband and two small daughters, deported to Auschwitz, moved a couple times, and dead by August 17, 1942.

transforming consciousness

2009-12-06T23:13:00.004-06:00

We have the joy and great adventure of learning how to bring the meditative skills of the monasteries and forest monks into our daily lives. We can become our own monasteries, taking refuge in our innate capacity for awakening.

Ten immediate suggestions here for making your life a monastery:

• Consider increasing your daily meditation practice – extending the length of your sitting meditation practice or adding an additional sitting, even a very short one in the middle of the day (an attentive coffee break).

• Choose to make an entire day or half day a time to experiment in intentional practice in all activities, also incorporating traditional practices. Remove distractions for the time period, like electronics.

• Incorporate contemplative reading, sutta or scripture study in your formal practice times or as recreation. Give yourself this little pleasant break from daily routines.

• It is useful periodically to keep a daily log of how you spend your time. You will find you have more time than you think and that the observation alone modifies your behavior. (see below a series of Practice Books to support this process)

• You could tally the number of breaths or pauses in your daily life, even just in one hour. How often do you intentionally turn to your breath? Pause? Or pause, relax, and open?

• Take a few minutes each day, for even just seconds or minutes, to consider what your specific intentions are for clarity of mind, for fostering wholesome qualities, for diminishing what furthers suffering.

• Choose some additional time to be with other beings who manifest the qualities you intend to foster – or who are interested in fostering the same.

• Focus on self-care, as if you are on retreat. Get plenty of sleep. Go to bed early. Get up early. Keep things simple. Eat what is nourishing. Spend extra time on grooming, caring for yourself tenderly.

• Play. Have you heard the ads encouraging children to go outside and play an hour a day? Can you do that for yourself? Move your body. Do a body practice like yoga or dance. Canoe, ski, or just walk. Any movement that is pleasurable for you.

• When struggle or self judgment arises remember that nothing is as substantial as it seems. Do not identify with what is arising as substantially you or substantially true. Everything is in process (bubbles, froth and foam).

NEW PRACTICE BOOKS

Nutshell Publications has just published a six book series of Practice Books to support this process. http://www.nutpub.com/practice.html.

Work with these on your own, in private sessions, as companion practices to reading Being Prayer, or as a review and deepening of instruction offered in a beginning meditation course. Share work with one or more of the books with friends.

real mindfulness

2009-11-30T14:36:00.006-06:00

Once sati is established, every moment is pregnant with the potential for awakening.

Analayo in Satipatthana : The Direct Path to Realization, p 252

The real challenge, the place requiring skillful effort, is in establishing sati, establishing sati in formal practice so it can bear fruit in every experience of life.

timelessness

2009-10-22T07:08:00.004-05:00

"...thought, as one knows it, generally is in time; it is based on notion of time; thought itself is time; thought itself creates time; when there is no time there is no thought."

Ramesh Grover - reflections on Bohm and Krishnamurti The Ending of Time in Kalachakra Meditations

When you are dwelling in the past or the future - remembering, planning, regretting, fearing - you are not alive in this moment. You are missing this moment, lost in time. Time is a construct. The past does not exist substantially in the present, nor has the future come to be.

Can you choose to be alive right now? Can you choose to be fully open to this moment? To this breath? To sounds and sensations right here, right now?

Mary

lost in emptiness

2009-09-10T11:34:00.003-05:00

Many questions come up about non-duality. This passage addresses one problem with embracing the experience or an idea about it too quickly. Non-duality includes a need to be deeply aware of clarity, spaciousness, and stillness but to also know clearly and immediately how to pay attention and navigate skillfully in the world.

The danger is that we hear too much too soon. We think we have understood shunyata, err on the side of the absolute in a nihilistic fashion, and are obscured by concepts. Nagarjuna said, "it is sad to see those who mistakenly believe in material, concrete reality, but far more pitiful are those who believe in emptiness." Those who believe in things can be helped through various kinds of practice, but those who have fallen into the abyss of emptiness find it almost impossible to re-emerge, since there seem to be no handholds, no steps, no gradual progression, and nothing to do.

Nyoshul Khenpo

elements

2009-07-17T22:03:00.003-05:00

"All along the vast extent of samsara's journey, we have become ingrained in misconceptions about things all around us, believing mere forms to be facts of life. The truth is that all things, big or small, in the ultimate sense, are a mere heap of elements, a mass of elements, a collection of elements, a lump of elements, and nothing more. The definitive insight is the first light of the Buddha's Teaching, knowledge in comprehending the Dhamma...

Earth has the property of hardness or softness. This property is the earth element, in the ultimate sense.

Water has the property of cohesion or liquidity. This property is the water element, in the ultimate sense.

Fire has the property of heat or cold. This property is the heat element, in the ultimate sense.

Wind has the property of support or motion. This property is the wind element, in the ultimate sense.

The meaning of these four great elements should be digested and learned by heart."

from The Manual of Light by Alan-Kyan
translated by Ledi Sayadaw

Insight, Mindfulness, and God

2009-06-04T09:21:00.002-05:00

…the blazing fire, by means of that flame which burns ardently with a gentle breath, offers to the human a white flower, which hangs in that flame as dew hangs on the grass. It’s scent comes to the human’s nostrils, but he does not taste it with his mouth or touch it with his hands. And thus he turns away and falls into the thickest darkness, out of which he cannot pull himself. And that darkness grows and expands more and more in the atmosphere.

Hildegard of Bingen Book Two: The Redeemer and Redemption, Vision One, The Redeemer (from her Scivias as translated by Mother Columba Hart, OSB, and Jane Bishop. Creation and Christ: The Wisdom of Hildegard of Bingen. New York: Paulist Press, 1996: pp 49-50)

In this passage, I particularly love the phrase ‘that flame which burns ardently with a gentle breath.’ That combined with a delicate white flower offered hanging on the flame bring together some apparently impossible images. I see it as an invitation to come into direct contact with the source, with wisdom, with God, if the word God does not limit your openness to further unfolding of God’s self to you.

I understand here an invitation to tasting and living the experience of God, to not getting lost in discussion, philosophizing about God, assuming that with our minds alone we can know God, but instead to fully live the experience. We can easily get lost and out of touch with what is real through the creations of our minds, getting further and further removed from what is true. Reason has its place, but it is a human tendency to get lost in the concepts, removing our selves from our own immediate experience, our open invitation to meet this flower and gentle breath of the flame in any and every waking moment.

Buddhist practices support this understanding and practice of the Christian message. For the Buddhist practice does not speculate about God. It just says, live your life with integrity. Explore and trust your direct experience. Combined with a Christian perspective, if you live your life with integrity, tasting and experientially exploring the fullness of all your ways of knowing, you will meet God face-to-face. You will live God.

love is a river

2009-04-05T15:42:00.002-05:00

a road might end at a single house
but it's not love's road

love is a river
drink from it

from a friend, Mary B, quoting Rumi

insight refrain

2009-03-09T14:19:00.003-05:00

INSIGHT REFRAIN OF THE SATIPATTHANA SUTTA

This passage is offered repeatedly in the Satiptthana Sutta with slight variation to apply to each segment of the sutta.

"In this way, in regard to the body s/he abides contemplating the body internally, or s/he abides contemplating the body externally, or s/he abides contemplating the body both internally and externally.

S/He abides contemplating the nature of arising in the body, or s/he abides contemplating the nature of passing away in the body, or s/he abides contemplating the nature of both arising and passing away in the body.

Mindfulness that 'there is a body' is established in him/her to the extent necessary for bare knowledge and continuous mindfulness.

And s/he abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world. "That is how in regard to the body s/he abides contemplating the body."

Listen to the passage at http://www.citta101.org/audio/insightrefrain.mp3

A contemplative practice to use with this passage http://www.nutpub.com/insightrefrain.html

four noble truths

2009-02-05T07:40:00.002-06:00

Now this, monks, is the noble truth of suffering: Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair are suffering; association with the unbeloved is suffering, separation from the loved is suffering, not getting what is wanted is suffering. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are suffering.

And this, monks, is the noble truth of the origination of suffering: the craving that makes for further becoming — accompanied by passion and delight, relishing now here and now there — that is, craving for sensual pleasure, craving for becoming, craving for non-becoming.

And this, monks, is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering: the remainderless fading and cessation, renunciation, relinquishment, release, and letting go of that very craving.

And this, monks, is the noble truth of the way of practice leading to the cessation of suffering: precisely this Noble Eightfold Path — right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.

emptiness

2008-11-20T18:50:00.003-06:00

The Buddha spoke of emptiness as an open space where the idea of being an isolated and permanent self is no longer able to ensnare one. This emptiness is “the abode of a great person,” where one can encounter and respond to the world in a selfless but caring perspective.

A bleak nihilistic void in which meaning and value have been lost is the exact opposite of what the Buddha meant by “emptiness.” For him, an understanding of emptiness transformed a compulsive cycle of fears and cravings into a path of wisdom and care that enhanced inner freedom and empathetic responsiveness. Rather than an absence of meaning and value, emptiness is an absence of what limits and confines one’s capacity to realize what a human life can potentially become.

Stephen Batchelor
Living with the Devil: A Meditation on Good and Evil p. 7

downward mobility

2008-10-06T09:42:00.005-05:00

Twenty years ago we were discussing downward mobility as an option for taking responsibilty for our cultural over consumption. We were also aware that if we did not make the choice, sooner or later simpler lifestyles would be imposed on us.

Today the freedom of simplicity may not be a free choice anymore, but a necessity. However, there is no reason it cannot be a happy choice. In fact, the big surprise may be how happy we are when we can say yes to downward mobility!

From my summer reading: Susan Bonne, Living Small in the Big Woods. The Ely Summer Times: 2008, pp.13-14.

In Not so Big House, Sarah Susanka notes that "we long for a sense of shelter and comfort...but tend to use words like 'spacious' and 'expansive' to describe what we think we want." What most of us actually want is a place that feels 'spacious' and 'expansive;' or to put it another way, to feel less cramped by our over-busy lives and too many obligations, possessions, chores, lists.

Paradoxically, living small makes that possible. Less square footage equals less stuff. What isn't owned doesn't have to be maintained, cleaned, or stored, which frees up time and other resources for more fulfilling pursuits, from gardening to travel to playing with the kids.

Less space means a lower (or no) mortagage, lower taxes, and lower utility bills. A smaller footprint also has less impact on the environment, destroys less wildlife, and requires less energy to heat and cool.

wisdom of non-attachment

2008-08-11T10:01:00.008-05:00

For what purpose, friends, is the spiritual life lived under the ascetic Gotama [the Buddha]?
It is, friends, for the fading away of lust [clinging] that the holy life is lived...
Excerpt from SN 45:41-1

I added clinging to the passage above because when we read lust we usually think of lust of a sexual nature. But lust or clinging (attachment or grasping) refers here to a more general wanting, any effort to escape the flow of our experience of the present moment.

The result of effort away from what is true in the moment, whether we do it through grasping, avoiding, or ignoring, is a cause of suffering. Lust is the root of hostilities and violence. Choosing openness to the moment is the most important thing we can do to end suffering in our lives and open to happiness.

Dealing immediatly with these automatic responses is not the same as actions we might want to take. Skillful actions can only arise out of awareness and acceptance of our experience as it is. This is what is true in the moment. It is then skillful to take action when circumstances require it. This is Wisdom.

inexaustable love

2008-07-13T17:02:00.004-05:00

How many people live a boring and sterile life in this world,
loveless, looking for love to fill them but never finding it.

Or suffering the bitterness of disappointed love.
Or the anquish of impossible, lost, or forbidden love,
and not finding fulfillment.

Or the sadness of love returned that does not satisfy.

These people could be overwhelmed with love
and their limitless capacity for love, tenderness, and self-surrender
could be filled, if they would only turn inwards
to the inexaustable love that lives and breathes within them.

Ernesto Cardenal

insubstantiality

2008-06-28T12:59:00.003-05:00

The body's like a ball of foam,
And feeling is like a bubble;
Perception is like a mirage,
Formations like pithless trees,
And consciousness is like a trick;
-So says the kinsman of the sun.

However one reflects on them,
And carefully investigates:
They are empty and deserted
To one who sees them properly.
...
No essence is discovered here.

S 22:95

Read a comment on this passage in the newsletter - www.citta101.org/newsletter.htm

interpersonal practice

2008-06-18T12:16:00.002-05:00

The mind emerges from the activity of the brain, whose structure and function are directy shaped by interpersonal practice.

Daniel Siegel, The Developing Mind, p.1

This critical value of interpersonal practice is the reason we make interaction part of our meditation practice.

mindful vs mindless

2008-06-01T21:43:00.013-05:00

A May 27 article in the New York Times describes the enthusiastic application of mindfulness meditation in therapeutic settings and concludes that the real issue in research with meditation, mindfulness [and therefore the validity of research results], “is whether the science will keep pace and help people distinguish the mindful variety [of meditation practice] from the mindless.”

“Mindfulness meditation is easy to describe.” However, grasping its depth, its profundity, and integrating the practice into all life experience (not to mention into therapies), is a gradual process that requires careful attention, committed and long time practice.

Note: This article will be of interest to mental health professionals. Free registration is required to view the entire article at this New York Times address.

another reason to practice

2008-03-13T23:35:00.014-05:00

"stepping to right of our left hemisphere"

the awesome experience of a stroke through perceptions and language of neuroanatomist, Jill Bolte Taylor

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

saying yes to life

2008-03-07T08:28:00.006-06:00

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of humankind as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.

Helen Keller

a new earth with e tolle

2008-03-02T18:01:00.005-06:00

Oprah's webclass with Eckhart Tolle on his book A New Earth begins Monday evening. It is a teaching consistent with Vipassana (Insight and Mindfulness) and with Being Prayer-Transforming Consciousness.

I understand that you need to sign up tonight if you wish to participate. Sessions are available live on Monday nights at 8 pm but also later as downloads.

This is a link to the course or go to Oprah's website to find it yourself

love is a constant

2008-02-11T00:23:00.002-06:00

We are mirrors of God, created to reflect [God]. Even when the water is not calm, it reflects the sky.

Ernesto Cardenal
Love: A Glimpse of Eternity

This is a new translation of a book that was my early spiritual practice. For two years it was my only practice - a lifeline. It is poetic prose and sings of the fullness of the universe and love as the most fundamental truth.

last night

2008-01-19T19:53:00.000-06:00

At night my lost memory of you returned
and I was like the empty field where springtime,
without being noticed, is bringing flowers;

I was like the desert over which
the breeze moves gently, with great care;

I was like the dying patient
who, for no reason, smiles.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Last Night
translation by Agha Shahid Ali

nothing's lost

2008-01-10T20:31:00.001-06:00

nothing's lost. Or else: all is translation
And every bit of us is lost in it
(Or found

James Merrill
Lost in Translation lines 208-10
as quoted by Agha Shahid Ali in The Rebel's Silhouette

why experience pain?

2008-01-07T20:37:00.000-06:00

I declare, monks [dhammafarers], that actions (kamma) willed, performed and accumulated, will not become extinct as long as their results have not been experienced, be it in this life, in the next life or in future lives. And as long as these results of actions willed, performed and accumulated, have not been experienced, there will be no end to suffering.
-words of Gautama Buddha

Parallel saying in contemporary Christian tradition:
I heard a priest once say the fires of hell and the pain of purgatory weren't literal fire, but the burning pain of regret around unhealed or unresolved harmful actions.

bloom vividly

2007-12-31T22:50:00.001-06:00

If you want ot survive a dry place, if you want to go shamelessly green in the middle of nowhere, you must emulate alfalfa. If you want to bloom vividly, you must learn to put down a taproot that plunges to phenomenal depths in search of sustenance.

Debra Marquart in The Horizontal World: Growing Up In the Middle of Nowhere: A Memoir

enchantment

2007-12-29T20:23:00.000-06:00

There were lots of reasons, I guessed, to raise a white flag and surrender interest in the material world. Aside from the well-trod pleasures of the quotidian--holidays at the beach, dance parties--you could still feel a greater need for something else entirely. You could feel a hunger and emptiness. You could be tormented by unanswered questions. Modern life leaves many people feeling insignificant and a bit lost. If you were living a spiritual life--and believed you were helping to end suffering--that could make you feel quite potent. And while secular life has a tendency to lose its shimmer--how many dance parties, or holidays at the beach?--spiritual life is infused with supernatural events. From a spiritual perspective, the world can always seem new and wondrous, the way it felt to us as children.

Martha Sherrill in The Buddha from Brooklyn: A Tale of Spiritual Seduction

going home

2007-12-26T10:13:00.000-06:00

Perhaps its true that, as Thomas Wolfe wrote: "You can't go home again." Mostly because, as in Wolfe's case, after you write about the place you're from, people are waiting at the city gates with pitchforks and burning torches the next time you try to visit.

But another reason you can't go home again is that the shape you made upon leaving does not match your shape upon return...

Debra Marquart in The Horizontal World: Growing Up In the Middle of Nowhere: A Memoir

stagnation

2007-12-23T19:59:00.000-06:00

Clutter accumulates when energy stagnates, and likewise, energy stagnates when clutter accumulates.

Karen Kingston in Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui (p 11)

Karen attributes stuck energy to two causes in addition to clutter: physical grime and predecessor energy.

Western science clearly recognizes clutter and dirt as contributors to dysfunction. In healing facilities (hospitals, recovery centers, and mental health institutions) the first treatment is providing a clean and uncluttered environment. It is a small step to accepting that dirt and disorder could cause our vitality to be depleted.

Predecessor energy may be more difficult cause for the western mind to consider, but we can at least suspend our disbelief and consider the possibility.

active solitude - merton

2007-12-20T11:58:00.000-06:00

Comments from Howard Griffin on Thomas Merton's view of solitude:

Actually, solitude for him was a realization, even kind of a creation as well as a liberation of active forces within him. As a mere condition solitude could be passive, inert, and basically unreal: a kind of coma. To avoid this condition he had to work actively at solitude.

Thus, the need for discipline, for techniques of integration that keep body and soul together, harmonizing their powers to bring them into one deep resonance oriented to the root of being.

sutta - enough

2007-12-19T01:03:00.000-06:00

For a long time, monks [practitioners, anyone],
you have experienced suffering, anguish, and disaster,
and swelled the cemetery.

It is enough to become disenchanted with all formations
enough to become dispassionate toward them,
enough to be liberated by them.

SN 15.1; II 178

Read a similar sutta on line - SN 15.3: Assu Sutta
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn15/sn15.003.than.html

Link to online dharma resources in on the website at www.citta101.org/practicepages.htm

the mist

2007-12-18T17:30:00.001-06:00

As the mist leaves no scar
On the dark green hill
So my body leaves no scar
On you, nor ever will

When wind and hawk encounter
What remains to keep?
So you and I encounter
Then turn then fall asleep

As many nights endure
Without a moon or star
So will we endure
When one is gone and far

Anjani
Blue Alert

clearing clutter (mind and body)

2007-12-17T10:09:00.000-06:00

Things not dealt with in your home reflect issues not dealt with in your life, and they are a constant drain on your energy. There are the niggly repairs, such as fixing the broken drawer, mending the broken appliance, repairing the tap that keeps dripping, and the bigger jobs, such as redecorating the house, servicing the central heating, or taming the jungle that has become your garden. The larger the scale, the more these things impinge on your ability to get on with your life.

Buttons that need sewing on, phone calls you need to make, relationships you need to move on from, and many different forms of loose ends in your life will hinder your progress if you do not deal with them. Your subconscious mind will suppress these things nicely for you if you ask it to, but it takes a lot of energy to do so. You will be amazed at how your vitality levels soar if you complete all your unfinished business.

Karen Kingston in Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui

rest in silence

2007-12-16T18:23:00.000-06:00

What binds me has been slain,
...what surrounds me has been destroyed,
...my desire has been brought to an end,
...ignorance has died.

I ...was set loose ...(from) the chain of forgetfulness which exists in time. From this hour on... I will receive rest i[n] silence.

Borrowed from Magdelene Community

A Reading from the Gospel of Mary (trans. Karen King)

nothing is as substantial as it seems

2007-12-12T10:20:00.000-06:00

A primary theme in Being Prayer-Transforming Consciousness is that nothing is as substantial as it seems. We fuel a dynamic spiritual unfolding when we reach a realization of the insubstantiality of what we believe to be true, when we see that both our doubts and certainties need to be challenged.

Understanding insubstantialtiy does not mean that things do not exist at all. Instead it invites us to a looser perception, an awareness that we are each conditioned by our life experiences. This conditioning contributes to our uniqueness but also limits our view and colors all of our perceptions. We can learn to widen our perceptions and open to what is most real, to vitality, energy, enthusiasm, and joy.

news from the greater sangha

2007-12-10T00:38:00.000-06:00

I am just back from a training program at Spirit Rock. We worked intensely for five days, exploring possibilities for unfoldment of the dharma in the West.

These interactive sessions were led by several Spirit Rock Teachers (James Barez, Eugene Cash, Jack Kornfield, Thanissara) but also two representatives each from Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions.

One of the lead teachers referred to the week as a contemporary "mini-council." Buddhist Councils are rare but critical turning points in the unfolding thread of the dharma.

noticing the quality of attention

2007-11-30T07:32:00.000-06:00

The ability to pay attention selectively, ignoring distractions, develops throughout childhood at least until adolescence. So does the ability to shift attention quickly and efficiently.
-Sharon Begley quoting Helen Nelville in Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain. (p160).

Begley goes on to say that as we age our ability to suppress unattended inputs increases. Brain signals associated with what we do not pay attention to decreases with age. (p160)

This growing ability (or tendency) to suppress information could help us keep focus on a particular object or particular kinds of objects and thus maintain calm and stillness or other wholesome qualities of mind - or it could keep us trapped in delusion. It might be easier to miss valuable information.

There are good reasons for being tightly or broadly focused depending on circumstances. It seems wise to maintain flexibility of attention so we can interact skillfully. Awareness of the quality of attention and the degree of attention needed in any given situation is an important skill.

attention as a gate

2007-11-28T22:54:00.000-06:00

...attention works like a gate, to open and let more neural information in. People think attention is some kind of psychological construct, but you can touch it. It has an anatomy, a physiology, and a chemsitry.
Helen Nelville to the Dalai Lama as quoted by Sharon Begley in Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain (p.160)

Buddhism had long taught that mental training, in which focused attention is key, can alter the mind. Sharon Begley (p.159)

The pattern of activity or neurons in sensory areas can be altered by patterns of attention...Experience coupled with attention leads to physical changes in the structure and future functioning of the nervous system...moment by moment we choose and sculpt how our everchanging minds will work...
Sharon Begly quoting Mike Merzencih (p.159)

interdependence

2007-11-26T22:53:00.000-06:00

It is axiomatic, based on the world view of Buddhism, that since people and indeed all creatures share in each other's existence, there is no true benefit for one group alone that is won at the cost of another.

Thomas Cleary, Entry into the Inconceivable, p.3

prophecy

2007-11-24T22:01:00.000-06:00

The earth will belong equally to all, undivided by walls or fences. It will then bear more abundant fruits spontaneously. Lives will be in common and wealth will have no division. For there will be no poor man there, no rich, and no tyrant, no slave. Further, no one will be either great or small anymore. No kings, no leaders. All will be on a par together.

This passage (according to Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan in The First Christmas) is from one of the Jewish Sibyline Oracles, fictional prophecies borrowed by Judaism and early Christianity from Rome.

thanksgiving

2007-11-23T17:14:00.001-06:00

Our son came Wednesday night and stayed all day Thanksgiving. As we sat over our now traditionally non-traditional meal, my eyes fell on family pictures on the wall behind our warm happy gathering. I noticed especially my parents and considered the fact that they were once a vital part of all my holidays - once living, now gone.

After our son left, we sat quite full of both joy and sorrow at another sweet coming together and going apart that is characteristic of all holidays. With the sweetness also came the awareness of loss - of all precious losses, yet also awareness of how lucky and blessed we are to have these times at all.

We didn't want to read, to watch a movie, or eat. The poignancy of the moment was as rich as any that life can bring. We didn't want to miss or trivialize it. So we sat and talked awhile, staying in touch with our feelings and physical sensations. We had a meditation time and waited to hear our precious son was safely home -and fully aware that sooner or later we too will be part of the once living, now gone.