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These are various Buddhist-themed and/or "spiritual"-themed entries that I have written to my blog

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July 10, 2010
Back Support (Or Not) While Meditating


[An Indian friend recently emailed me for meditation posture advice. She asked: ]

"I have been running into an insanely simple but complicated problem and wanted to know if you could offer any advice:

I have been introduced, essentially, to two courses of conduct when it comes to a meditator’s posture:

>Teacher X says that when one meditates, one should have a firm back support so that when relaxation comes, it doesn’t make you fall over.

>Teacher Y , on the other hand, seems to specifically advise sitting AWAY from the wall, without any back support.

When I started out initially, I was going with Teacher X's way, and it seemed to be working out pretty well; I could actually enter some level of concentration then, but if I try and sit without a back support, then I find that I’m too busy trying to maintain my posture to even think about, let alone watch, my breath. I also tend to sway/slant/fall backwards, and then I feel unstable.

It isn't completely trouble free even with the back support, but it’s certainly a lot better than going backless (ahem). Can you suggest any solution?"


[The essence of my reply to her was: ]


Yes, I have a simple unequivocal answer for you for this issue : try as much as possible to sit *without* physical back support.

Sitting upright on one's own is the advice that I have heard from scores of teachers, as well as had it practiced in pretty much every monastery I have been to (except for people with injuries or disabilities).


The aim with meditation sitting, as I understand it, is to find a posture that balances uprightness and openness. One ideally does this by finding a posture that one can hold oneself up with balance, alignment, and gravity, rather than muscular contraction. I think that a huge amount of meditation, more than most people realize, is finding a posture where the body's energy/chi/prana can flow freely. Finding such a posture often takes time and experimentation. But sitting with a relaxed open body, without depending on a wall or chair, cultivates an analogous mind state of being emotionally open without being emotionally dependent. And that of course is a mind state that is psychologically healthy for all people.

Also, just practically speaking - I find that sitting still for an hour without moving while leaning against a wall, actually ends up being considerably more painful than sitting still for an hour without moving while being upright in open space, with spine upright, torso flesh and arms hanging relaxed off of it, and head balanced at the top.

Sitting without back support can be physically difficult at first, especially while trying to sit as upright and to lift up the crown of one's head (the "seventh chakra") as much as possible. This is often because we all have muscles in the back that have grown contracted, numb, atrophied, hyperextended, etc from un-use. I find that it is common for new meditators to have back muscles fatigue, spasm, clench, etc when they first sit fully upright without back support. But, if a meditator keeps sitting in an upright sitting posture, without reverting to depending on a wall or chair, eventually the muscles of the back stretch, open, strengthen, and generally rejuvenate, and an upright self-supporting posture becomes more comfortable and easy.

Some people find value in standing upright while meditating. I have found that indeed standing can be a powerful and clarifying bodily posture for inner exploration, especially if a person has grown comfortable with it, or needs to do so for medical reasons. From what I've seen and heard, however, a majority of people find sitting on the ground (cross legged or otherwise), with knees lower than hips so as to angle the pelvis slightly downwards and allow the lumbar (and the rest of the) spine to extend fully out of the pelvis, to be the most comfortable way to meditate, and to find a relaxing sense of balance, for extended periods of time.


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July 7, 2010
Quotes By Guy Sengstock

Guy Sengstock is a long-time friend of mine as well as a psychospiritual growth teacher. I find magical power to his work helping people to open and deepen. Here are some quotes by him:

Wonderment is totally natural when we are being ourselves. When we directly contact the truth of our reality, it is impossible to not be in complete dazzlement, awe, and wonderment. Think about it. Right now, computers, words, chairs, bodies, floors, ceilings, trees, sky, earth, solar systems, universes! All spontaneously arising! Where is it all coming from? Where is it going? Why is it even happening at all? Out of the infinite possibility that nothing is, there's this! How come? Why this and not something else? Hell, why "something" at all? If your not in wonderment, it's simply feedback that your not in touch with reality. Your not being yourself. You are lost in the narrative of your, life like a child transfixed in front of the TV watching cartoons. So let's all wake the fuck up (speaking mostly to myself)!!!
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As I think about it, it seems like there are two aspects to being nourished. One is about content: to create and be close to people, places, things, events, and situations that are nourishing to me. The other is about the context of permeability. If I'm not permeable, it doesn't matter how nourishing something is, for I will not be able take in its nutrients. In my experience, permeability is the tricky one, for it has to do with how I make contact. And how I habitually make contact usually mirrors how much love or fear I grew up in. If I grew up in an atmosphere of fear, criticism, threat, neglect, etc., then often times our relationship to the world (how we do and do not make contact) will reflect this atmosphere. I may avoid contact by dominating, submitting, or withdrawing from others. And conversely, if I grew up in an environment that held me in love and acceptance, I may likely be more open to my experience of the world through making genuine contact. I imagine that we all a have a mixture of both.
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We’ve all had the rare occasion of feeling deeply “gotten” by another person. Those moments where “my” reality is seen, understood, and shared. The person says just the right thing in the right tone and in the perfect way that lets me know that I am no longer alone in the unique position I find myself in. My experience is valid, makes perfect sense, and I get that I’m sane. My shoulders drop, my heart opens, and the light comes on, “Yes! That’s it”, as my very being exhales in existential relief. I find myself somehow *more* myself through you. My reality seems less fixed as I am freed from the prison of my own point of view. I look up at you in effortless affinity, feeling deeply appreciated, understood, and accepted. I now know in my body that you get exactly where I am at, so I can begin to trust you to take me where I want to go. I am open to you.
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Agency is the place where genuine strength and vulnerability come together in a single gesture. You could say agency is a "proactive vulnerability". When I'm truly BE-ing myself with the world, I stand on nothing but my own self-existing-legitimacy and self-permission. I feel what I feel, think what I think and experience what I experience AS I look reality straight in the eye without flinching or guard. I am truly open, with conviction that rests on nothing, and is never "against" anything. I truly speak. I discover, through my speaking, what I have to say. I truly listen - I am an active openness to you. I am moved by your genuine "other-ness" (even if I don't agree), in a way that has us both more ourselves. I truly act, without hesitation. The paradox is when I fully give myself permission to be, experience, speak, and act, I implicitly invite you to do the same. I have no enemies. Strength has no reason, only realization. Vulnerability is invulnerable. Communion is born.
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It seems to me that IS/the facts/objective-reality has three facets to its nature: it is open (like space), it is radiant (like light), and it is cognizant (like mind). In other words, IS is-es by floating, by glowing/showing, and by knowing. When I get present to presence itself, and then interpret/imagine/frame my experience in a way that is consistent with openness, light, and knowing (in the deepest sense), then I am true to my nature, and thus fulfilled and happy.


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June 21, 2010
Buddhist Practices For Dealing With Addictions

[A friend told me she was suffering from a difficult compulsive behavior that was bringing her daily suffering, and I sent her some input on Buddhist ideas about working with that. I expanded what I wrote to her and am posting it here]


In Buddhism, it is taught that, ultimately, liberation comes though insight. It's difficult for me to explain what "insight" means in this context, but I suppose in simple terms you could call it, seeing existence as it truly is. The traditional teaching, though, is that deep insight usually requires a concentrated focused mind, and that developing concentration usually requires a foundation of ethical behavior.

A key way that "ethics" is defined in Buddhism is to not engage in addictive behaviors. One of my Zen teachers once said, "The kindest thing you can do to bring benefit all beings is to give up your addictions."

Lately, when people I meet traveling have been asking me for Buddhist meditation instruction, I have been telling them that the best first step they can take on the Buddhist path, before they ever sit cross legged, is to identify their biggest active addiction, and ... give it up. I suggest to them that they give some thought as to pleasure in their life that they can admit, if they are honest, has negative consequences for them and others.

In Buddhism, there are two classic ways to deal with compulsive and addictive destructive behaviors.

The first is to simply not do them, by force of will. This method correlates with the "ethics" (shila) and "concentration" (samadhi) stages of the Buddhist path.

This action is often combined with setting an intention for abstinence - making a vow - in relationship to a community or a mentor. In the old days, that would be a Buddhist sangha or teacher, but in the modern USA, I suppose a twelve-step community and/or sponsor, a men's circle, a therapist, etc. are what work for many people.

Another important part of this method is to intentionally focus awareness on other things besides the temptation. In formal meditation practice, this might look like developing a deep rich awareness of the inhalation and exhalation of respiration, as a means to release addictive thoughts of anger, sexuality, etc. And in daily life, the technique of focusing your attention elsewhere might look like getting help in moving out of an addiction or compulsion by taking action on career goals, doing daily yoga, taking classes, making an effort to eat more healthily, etc.

A final key part of the "Just Don't Do It" strategy is to learn to enjoy what one of my teachers calls "preview pleasure." The idea here is, just as you can enjoy the two minute preview to a movie without ever having any intention to see the full two-hour feature, so you can also sit there and enjoy the feeling in your body and taste in your mouth *imagining* how good the cookies in the other room would taste, without ever getting out of your chair and acting on the temptation. (this, of course, requires being mindful enough to be aware that you are craving, which is a mindfulness that takes intention and cultivation.)

Here is a relevant quote by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, from his excellent book "Mindfulness In Plain English" : " 'Discipline' is a difficult word for most of us. It conjures up images of somebody standing over you with a stick, telling you that you are wrong. But self-discipline is different. It is the skill of seeing through the hollow shouting of your own impulses and piercing their secret. They have no power over you. It is all a show, a deception. Your urges scream and bluster at you; they cajole; they coax; they threaten; but they really carry no stick at all. You give in out of habit. You give in because you never really bother to look beyond the threat. It is all empty back there. There is only one way to learn this lesson, though. These words will not do it. Look within, and watch the stuff coming up – restlessness, anxiety, impatience, pain, addiction, compulsion – just watch it come up, and do not get involved. Much to your surprise, it will simply go away. It rises, it passes away. As simple as that. There is another word for self-discipline. It is patience."

So: besides simple abstinence, the other technique for dealing with addictions and compulsions, besides simply not doing them, correlates with the "insight" (vipassana) stages of the Buddhist path. The method here is, when in a situation of temptation or addictive acting-out, just let it play out, but to try to be as aware as possible. We can be aware of what are the emotions we are experiencing , what and where are the feelings in our bodies, what thoughts are going through our minds - how strong each of these factors are, what shape they have, how they are changing as the seconds roll by, noticing the moment energies appear and the moment they disappear ... we watch the experience unfold, as closely as possible, with a spacious, allowing, gentle, and open mind. A Gestalt psychotherapy teacher I once studied with called this, "Being upright while falling down."

Sometimes this open awareness stops the addictive craving and/or the addictive episode, but sometimes it doesn't - we make no demands on the experience. But, even if the compulsive behavior doesn't stop, if done well, being aware in an open, precise, and allowing way will lessen the addiction's seductive power in the future.

I've seen this second methodology abused by people as an excuse to keep doing an addiction (OK, one of those people is, umm, me). But it is also super-cosmic dope-ass rocket-ship-direct-to-Infinity when done right.

********

There's an old story: two monks went in for interviews with their Rector. The first monk had his interview first, and he asked the teacher, "Father, is it OK if I smoke while I pray?"

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!! What nonsense!!", thundered the Rector in reply.

Dejected, the first monk slumped out. A few minutes later, though, the second monk came out of his interview, smiling, and announced that he had gotten the permission that the first monk had been denied. "What did you say to him!?!?", asked the unhappy monk. "Oh, I just asked,' Father, is if OK if I pray when I smoke?' "

So - if you smoke (overeat, over-porn, can't stop boozin, self-mutilate, etc) - I suggest, pray, be mindful, be sensitively aware of the changing flow of energy, while you do.


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June 2, 2010
Recommendations For Yoga Intensives In India

A few folks have asked me to let them know if I find anything about long long-term yoga training opportunities while in India. I haven't done as much of that as I fantasized I would, but I do think that I have however learned good stuff about what the yoga opportunities are here, by taking some retreats, taking classes, talking to people, staying at ashrams, reading things online.

So, I have developed a short list of people I would do teacher trainings/extended retreats with, if I were to come back to India for such a purpose. Although I have not yet personally studied with most of these folks, they who I would, were I scheduling a yoga-only journey to India, personally give my time and money to (in descending order of desirability):

* Swati and Rajiv Chanchani, in Mussoorie/ Dehradun, Uttarakhand -- www.yog-ganga.com, http://yoga-magazine.net/Rishikesh.htm

* Vigyana Mandira (known as Venkatesh), in Mysore, Karnatika -- http://atmavikasayoga.com/, http://yogaholidays.net/mysore/MysoreTeachers.htm

* Sharat Arora in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, and Arambol, Goa -- http://hiyogacentre.com/

* Umma, Swiss woman, at Omkarananda Ganga ashram, in Rishikesh, Uttarakhand

* Vishvketu in Rishikesh, Uttarakhand -- http://anandprakashashram.com/

* Bramacharya Rudra Dev in Rishikesh, Uttarakhand -- http://yogaholidays.net/magazine/Rishikesh.htm

I am posting this trusting it will be helpful or interesting to folks - I wish that I had had a concentrated list of recommendations like this in my hands a year ago.

If you've never been to India and want to do an extended intensive training here, please be sure to schedule it as far in advance as possible. Also - India spiritual retreat-land seems to by and large shut down from late April, when it gets hot, until the monsoons end in September - so I recommend scheduling yoga travel between late September and mid April.


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June 1, 2010
Resources For Beginner Meditators

A number of people have been asking me for recommendations for Buddhist meditation resources for beginners. Here is what I have been suggesting:


(1) I believe that breath meditation is the best place for people to start a regular meditation practice. I posted some breath meditation instructions online for people to check out.


(2) Here is an excellent article that provides a simple clear but comprehensive overview to the various Buddhist meditative traditions was written and posted by my teacher Shinzen Young.


(3) One of the two books I most recommend on the topic of Buddhist meditation is called "Mindfulness In Plain English". I love this book, I find it to be clear simple and powerful description of the basics of mindfulness meditation, easy to read yet covers the important areas.

The author, Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, as an act of dana parami (the practice of generosity) has allowed his book to be posted online at various sites for free. You can, of course, also order a paper copy.


(4) The other book I most recommend is "Zen Mind Beginner's Mind", by the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. ZMBM is mystical and otherworldly yet day-to-day ordinary, it is philosophical and technical yet beautifully poetic and literary, it is challenging and demands your best yet is gentle and patient, it is traditional yet modern, it is serious and sincere yet light-hearted and easy, it is simple yet deep, it is Japanese yet Western.


(5) You can find free MP3 audio lectures online by two of my favorite Buddhist teachers, Gil Fronsdal and Thanissaro Bikkhu.



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April 13, 2010
Doing Spiritual Practice In Asia

I came to travel here in Asia for a bunch of reasons. I realize now that many of these reasons were not even conscious to me before I got here. But, as many of my friends know, the biggest motivation for this journey I am on is and has always been to experience "spiritual practice" (mostly Buddhism, but yoga/Hinduism too) here in the old countries. I mean, it stands to reason that, if you want the authentic, deep, true experience, you head to the point of origin, amirite?

Gil Fronsdal - one of my main Buddhist teachers, who has decades experience on the Buddhist path, many years experience in monasteries in Asia, and a PhD in Buddhist studies - once said something interesting about this subject. He said, back in the fifties and sixties, when the first Westerners were coming to Asia to practice Buddhism/Hinduism (Gary Snyder, Richard Alpert/Ram Dass, Franklin Jones/Adi Da, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Robert Aitkin, Richard Baker, etc), the situation was different. Not only could you *not* find authentic, deep, profound Buddhist/Hindu teachers and experiences in the West, but the societies of Asia were also more traditional, more rooted in those spiritual traditions, the lineages had more vitality. Now, however, you *can* find the genuine blow-your-mind's-ass deal in the West, and, as Asian societies have modernized and Westernized, there has been, perhaps predictably, a correlated decline of genuine spiritual centers and teachers. So, Gil said, the depth that a Westerner used to have to come to Asia to find, now, you can usually now experience without leaving your home country.

I heard something similar from a friend of mine who has for years been a successful world-traveling hatha yoga teacher, and who recently came to Rishakesh (India's "yoga capital") for a month of training. He told me that, although he liked and respected many of the teachers whose classes he visited in India, more of the teachers seemed to be more semi-charlatans just playing on Western traveler's ignorance of what true yoga teaching should be like. When I asked him if their was a teacher training program he recommended in Rishakesh, and he wrote back something like, "Ehh, for teacher trainings, honestly, stick to the West - we've got programs like that set up in a more organized fashion."

Having been in Asia for five months now, I have to say, I am inclined to agree with these sentiments. Yes, Asians are grounded in thousands of years of history with Buddhism/Hinduism/Sufism/Taoism/etc, and yes they live in a culture that is saturated with the symbols and stories of these traditions. It's always charming to me when some barely educated taxi driver or someone brings up a Hindu story that he's known since childhood and that I found so illuminating when I heard it in my thirties. And I have encountered much deep and true spirituality since I have gotten here.

But, it also seems to me, Westerner convert teachers and communities often approach practice with an enthusiasm, freshness, sincerity, and urgency that can sometimes be lacking in the old country populations. I was at one Thai monastery, and the grouchy old abbot said that he preferred giving lectures to Westerners over Thais. That, he said, is because Westerners listen carefully to his teachings and then seem to try to actually apply them towards making genuine life changes. In contrast, he said, the Thais mostly sit there attentively and piously listening to the master, as their culture tells them to, as they have since childhood - but then they act like they never heard a word, the instant they leave the temple gate and go back to their daily, drama-filled lives.

Perhaps I have yet to meet some super-dazzling spiritual teacher who is the real deal, and who I could have only met here in Asia - some Hindu sadhu, Tibetan lama, or Japanese Zen Roshi with the infinite light of infinite infinity shining from their infinite eyes. But, I have to say, the most "enlightened" (by the classical Buddhist/Hindu definitions of the term) people that I have met so far all teach in the US, and deepest temples and meditation halls have all been in the US.

Bottom line : after five or six decades of doing it ourselves, there really is deep wisdom of Asian religious practice to be found in the West - maybe, possibly, "as" deep as in the old countries.

On a related topic - I think that there are different levels at which I (we) as visitors can approach spiritual practice here in Asia. There is, of course, just wanting to have a feel for the place - like I have done at many places in Asia - see it, feel it, be nourished by it, have a sense of the spirit of the place, but not necessarily sit down and do any intensive all-day meditation practice or puja or anything. Then there is arriving at an Asian temple and engaging in actual practice - but engaging just deeply enough to get a mind-opening sense of how it is done here, how it is different from practice in the West (i.e. "In Thailand, the monks actually do *walking* meditation for about half of their meditation time - and, when doing sitting meditation, they don't really sit on cushions the way we do"), how it is the same, and letting that new perspective inform one's practice back home.

And then there is, of course, the deepest level of engagement - seeking actual transformation, being willing to engage to the point of arriving at that sometimes frightening or disorienting mind-melting "self"-melting edge.

To be honest, I am wary of hitting that final level here in Asia. I consider actual growth-edge disorienting experiences ones that I would rather have back home with teachers and spiritual communities that I am familiar with and have chosen as my own, rather than here in Asia, at places where the people may be good people but where they are unknown to me, and where the language, customs, food, cultural assumptions, etc are also all unfamiliar. I mean, who wants to be cosmically freaking out about one's place in infinity, only to have the teacher completely fail to console you with his enigmatic comment that "tomorrow Sun rise twice in West", before heading to the dining hall for a bowl of pig's brain soup (or whatever).

Which is not to say that I have not chosen to engage in genuine, challenging transformational experiences while here. I have now done four five-to-fifteen-day genuine meditate-all-day intensives, with all the transformative challenges inherent in that - I was "up against it" for real. And, I am happy to say, it all worked out, I was glad for the experience. And I have some more experiences (for both meditation and yoga) planned that I imagine will be similarly intense. We'll see how it goes ...



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October 7, 2009
Interviews With One Of My Favorite Buddhist Teachers

Interview 1
Interview 2

These are two excellent interviews I read recently with Shinzen Young.

Shinzen is one of my two top Buddhist teachers (along with Gil Fronsdal). It was Shinzen's vision of the Buddha Way that first got me interested in Buddhism twenty one years ago, and his teachings are, to this day, for me the most compelling and resonant vision of the Dharma out of all that I have encountered. Much of what I teach in my meditation class comes directly from Shinzen's teachings.

I consider him a genius and an inspiration, and I love his heart. I have joked with him that I am not a Buddhist, I am a Shinzen Young-ist. He's a former physics professor and non-dually philosophical, he has practiced deeply in all there major Buddhist lineages, and, most of all, he is also the most precise technique-oriented Buddhist teachers I know. I am excited to, in a couple weeks, go do my sixth seven-day sitting retreat with him.

If you are interested in learning more about his Dharma teaching, you can check out his youtube instructional videos at:

Video page 1
Video page 2

He has some written articles online also.


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September 2, 2009
Ken Wilber on Erotic Energy

From Ken Wilber's book "One Taste":

Love for a specific person is radiant when it arises in Emptiness. It is still love, it is still intensely personal, it is still specific; but it is a wave that arises from the ocean of infinity. It is as if a great sea of love brings forth a wave, and that wave carries the force and thrill of the entire sea in its every breaking crest. The sensation is like watching an early morning sunset in the desert: a vast open clear blue spaciousness, within which there arises, on the horizon, an intense red-yellow fire. You are the infinite sky of Love, in which a particular fire-ball of personal love arises. One thing is certain: infinite love and personal love are not mutually exclusive - the latter is just an individual wave of an infinite ocean.

When I lie awake, next to her, early in the morning, doing meditation, nothing really changes in the contemplation except this: there is a whole-body bliss, paradoxically faint but intense, that edges my awareness. It is sexual energy reconnected to its source in the subtle regions of the bodymind. I will often touch her lightly as I meditate; it completes an energy circuit, and she can feel it, too.

But that is what men and women (as well as "butch/femme" pairings within genders) can do for each other, and that is the core claim of Tantra as well: in a concrete, visceral way, the union of masculine and feminine is the union of Eros and Agape, Ascending and Descending, Emptiness and Form, Wisdom and Compassion. Not theoretically but concretely, in the actual distribution of prana or energy currents in the body itself. And this is why, in the very highest Tantric teachings (anuttaratantrayoga), the mere visualization of sexual congress with the divine consort is not enough for final enlightenment. Rather, for ultimate enlightenment, one must take an actual partner - real sex - in order to complete the circuits conducive to recognizing the already-enlightened mind.


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December 21, 2008
The Dream

I was driving past the gas stations and shopping malls, all the signs and the neon, on my way back to civilization after three months in the simple stillness of a monastery. I turned to the zen priest driving me, and said, "It all seems like a dream." He shot back, "What makes you think that it isn't"?


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August 22, 2008
Meditation Retreat Poem

In August 2005, I sat a ten day vipassana meditation intensive at the Tibetan Buddhist center Vajrapani, in the hills of Santa Cruz (with my gf at the time Nicole, and Sarah Wescott turned out to be there too). At the end of all that sitting, the group's last night together, we gathered by the stupa for an acknowledgment ceremony, that also turned into something of a talent show. For what I recall, we were encouraged to recite impromtu poetry about our experience on the retreat. Today, I came across the poem I came up with that night, and wanted to share it here. For people who have been on sitting retreats, the experience might sound familiar. :)


What is protecting that tender tender heart, down there somewhere?
Vast turning wheels of thinking, criticizing, and doing;
sliding off the oily slippery right now and splash-landing my ass
on dense cloudbanks of thoughts and awkward confusions.

A few hours later, as the light through the window fades,
all sense phenomena as subtle vibrations emanating
out of the divine void and blinking back into it,
kneading and massaging me down to my soul.

Thank Dharmakaya I had one good sitting!
But what's that I tell folks?
Oh yeah, you never can tell, the good meditation is the one that you did.

Lost and found,
hell and heaven,
back and forth,
it will never end until Poof!
suddenly it all does.


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August 13, 2008
Seeing Through Subjectivity

Deepak Chopra is far from my favorite spiritual teacher, but I do seem to like plenty of what he has to say. In specific, recently I have been working/holding in mind the following little aphorism by him:


"You are your own reality. You create it; you carry it with you; and you project it onto everything and everyone that you encounter. Everything you think you see on the outside is really a projection of your own mind."


I love that little saying - it feels so liberating. I mean, that's so much of the spiritual path, in a nutshell, right there. It helps me to feel free when I would otherwise feel tight, to realize that it is just my mind making meaning out of a situation.

And, as long as I'm gonna "pull a Chopra", there is another quote that I love that is similar by another heavily-marketed pop-spiritualist, Byron Katie :


"Everything you think you see on the outside is really a projection of your own mind. Everyone is a mirror of yourself, your own thinking coming back to you."


And then, there is our friend Arthur Schopenhauer, who said, "Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world."


Those three quotes remind me of the fourth century "three worlds" or "three natures" teachings (trisvabhava) of master Vasubandhu, the ancient Indian founder of the Yogachara school of Mahayana Buddhism. The three worlds teaching is another thing that I have been thinking about an ass ton lately.

The teaching is, there are three worlds :

* The world of Source/Divinity/Transcendence/Emptiness/The Void/Ultimate Reality (the "Dharmata"). This is the realm of purification and perfection, it is what we seek, and it the only "place" we find peace. It is present and not present, it exists and doesn't exist, it is everything and nothing. Unfortunately, like Kant insisted, the Transcendent is completely beyond the human psyche's ability to directly perceive.

* Then there is the objective world of things "out there" - cars, clouds, oceans, bugs, computers, trees, mountains, galaxies, hamburgers, paper clips, other people, etc. This "world" is also, unfortunately, contrary to our beliefs, beyond the human psyche's ability to directly perceive.

* Finally, we have the world of our own subjective phenomenological perception (also known as "the conceptually-constructed nature", or the "Parikalpita"). Ah - finally, something we can directly perceive. We can know how the world appears to us!

If we examine it carefully, this third world turns out to just be the projected desires and habits of our consciousness; tt is what our karma - out biology and conditioning - have us see. It is a product of our "preference, bias, anticipation, and attachment." The idea, again, is, however, that our subjectivity is the only experience that we can actually directly perceive.

Vasubansu agreed with Buddhist doctrine that much of our subjective experience of life consisted of erroneously imagining a fixed static sense of self. Again, though, this sense of self, part of our subjective perception, is one of the few things that we can actually be aware of. The more aware of it we are, the more transparent, fluid, and open it becomes.

Vasubandhu taught, the more we realize that the third (the subjective) world is not the second world (of "things"), and peel the third off of the second, then we will more and more realize that our subjective experience is unreal (asat) and an illusion (bramti). When this happens, then we get closer to actual direct, immediate cognition (jñāna), and we develop the "Great Mirror Cognition" that more accurately reflects everything before it, and the first world (Spiritual Source) will, more and more, shine out of all things. And that is, in the end, what we all mostly deeply want.

I love that! I've been running that over in my mind a lot lately.


The eminent Japanese Zen Master Eihei Dogen Zenji also said something kinda similar, in his famous writing "The Genjo Koan." He said something to the effect of, when you don't pay attention, you think that you see everything exactly as it is, in all directions. But when you actually start to pay attention, you realize that you are seeing only a tiny fraction of reality, and that the world is filled with infinitely recursive levels of brilliant detail - it just goes on and on, more and more deep, more and more rich, the more you look. A translation of his actual words in The Genjo Koan:


When dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you think it is already sufficient. When dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing. For example, when you sail out in a boat to the midst of an ocean where no land is in sight, and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular, and does not look any other way. But the ocean is neither round nor square; its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It only looks circular as far as you can see at that time. All things are like this. Though there are many features in the dusty world and the world beyond conditions, you see and understand only what your eye of practice can reach. In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety; whole worlds are there. It is so not only around you, but also directly beneath your feet, or in a drop of water.


And, of course, good ol' Sid (Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, that is) said it first, 2,500 years ago : "All that we are is the result of all that we have thought. It is founded on thought. It is based on thought."

On a related topic, an acquaintance recently posted as their facebook status the Shakespeare quote that says, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." And a friend posted and asked, well, what about the Holicaust, wasn't that objectively evil or bad, beyond a human value judgement.

I wrote her and replied by saying that I think that the idea is, is it "evil" if a shark kills and eats a tuna fish, or a volcano or earthquake kills people? It may make our human heart sad and grieved to be present to such events, but, in their essence, we can see that they are just nature acting as it does. To label it good or bad happens in us, not in the events themselves. The next level of such practice is to extent such clarity to events that, to our eyes, look more like deliberate evil, murder by one human of another and the like. And human atrocities certainly often *seems* qualitatively different than a shark/volcano to me as well ... but, in my moments of greatest stillness, I find that agree with the eighties new wave song ("No New Tale To Tell" by Love and Rockets) that said, "You can't go against nature, because when you do, go against nature, it's part of nature too." It doesn't mean condoning or being passive about murder, theft, etc., we can still act to put a stop to them, as able. But, it does mean seeing through our mind's filters, so as to open our hearts and psyches to the world *as it is* more.



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June 20, 2008
At The Heart Of Things

At the party last weekend, I was talking to a friend who was, as I understood it, bummed that someone who had been his best friend for years isn't speaking to him much any more these days. I said to my friend that I felt confident that his friend still loves him deeply, just doesn't know how to show it.

I recollected for him a quote that I love from Werner Erhard, the founder of e.s.t./Landmark Education/The Forum personal growth courses, since I knew that my friend had done a lot of Landmark courses. The quote is, "What I'm about to tell you is very real, I'm telling you the truth, I'm telling you what's really so for those people: their inability to respond, their bound-upedness, is the highest expression of love which they can muster. About this I know the answer: they have a capacity for love, like yours or like mine, which is absolute. The only thing bound up in their life is the expression of that capacity. So what you're getting is a bound expression of an absolute love for you."

This ideal is brilliant. After listening to this for the first time many years ago, I realized that, of all the people I have met in my life, as big as my heart has stretched to love them, I will forever and always continue to love them that big. That is true, however, on the deepest levels of my heart - the deep deep place where my heart merges into purity of my soul, hovering just above the deepest point in my individual self, that place where my individual soul merges into the infinity of the cosmic soul.

On a more superficial level, though, I have a life to live, I have places to go and things to do. I may not *feel* love for any particular person who I've known - I may or may not even like them, or want them in my life. But I know that that is the "bound expression" of my love that Werner Erhart talks about, and that, on the deepest level, it is impossible for my heart to truly close once it has opened (the "absolute love" that he mentions).

Another thing I love about this thing that Werner says is seeing that anyone who has loved me in the past, on the deepest level, underneath their personality, their defenses, their preoccupations, and the rest of the worldly bullshite, still loves me as much as they ever did. If there is static in the present day, then I may never see or feel or hear about this love, we may "work it out" or we may never do so, but it's in there somewhere, at the heart of things, where Truth lives. Seeing this creates a sense of peace in me.


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April 2, 2008
Truth

This morning as I bicycled down Mission Street, across the big intersection with Van Ness, the following words from my Buddhist teacher Gil Fronsdal came to me through my iPod headphones. I felt a simple pleasant feeling of clarity and peace open up in my chest and belly as I listened to them, and I hope that you feel some of the same in reading them:


So what is it to be a "true person"? One of the simplest definitions of what is "Truth" (and perhaps pointing to the "truth that will set you free") is that we are being truthful when we do what we say and we say what we do. We can tell the truth at least to ourselves, and maybe even to others too. Living in truth, there is a harmony between our words and our actions. Buddhists would go one step further, and say that truth is expressed when there is a harmony between our "beingness", what we really are, with what we say and what we do - in a sense, when they are the same.

I associate truth with peace; for me, there's an association of being truthful and being peaceful. Being truthful helps overcome the conflicts that we carry in our minds, in our psyche. Being truthful means living without internal conflicts - not having to hide, be apologetic, be embarrassed, be defensive, or be aggressive in a weird way. Instead, we are simply able to rest in the truth, to speak the truth, and know that the truth in itself is adequate and enough.


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December 28, 2007
The Brahma Viharas

One core teaching of classic Buddhism is "the Brahma Viharas" (the "divine abodes", aka "the four illimitables"). The B.V.s is one of the many lists of virtues that one is to cultivate in the classic Buddhist path. It is a list of virtues that are specifically for cultivation in the heart however.

The first on the list is a well known Buddhist virtue : metta (Maitri in Sanskrit), i.e. loving kindness, which I understand as a warm hearted feeling of wishing others well being at all times. The far enemy (i.e. polar opposite) of metta is said to be hate, and its near enemy (i.e. what it can be mistaken for but is essentially not) is said to be simple garden-variety preference-laced affection.

The second attribute is karuna, compassion, which I understand as a warm hearted feeling of wishing others well being specifically when they are not doing so well. The far enemy of karuna is contempt, and its near enemy is pity.

The third Brahma Vihara is mudita, "sympathetic joy", which I understand as a warm hearted feeling of wishing others well being when they are doing great. The far enemy of mudita is jealousy, and its near enemy is joy at other's unhealthy success (i.e. Enron stock rises ... again!).

The final brahma vihara, the one I understand balances out the other three and stops them from being too gushy, is Upekka, equanimity, an evenness of emotionality whatever happens. The far enemy of upekka is resentment, and its near enemy is indifference.
The four residence halls at the Spirit Rock meditation center in Marin are named Metta, Karuna, Mudita, and Upekka.

Some people may be surprised by "the Upekka prayer" - it probably doesn't match many people's conception of what Buddhism is all about (which is more like lovingkindness and compassion). You could say that the Upekka prayer is a verse for Buddhists to chant when they get too codependent, too wrapped up in another person's guff, and when their Metta, Karuna, and Mudita gets all gooey and attached. The verse is as follows:

You are the owner/heir to your own karma. Your outcome depends on your actions and not my wishes. No matter how I might wish things to be otherwise, things are as they are. Although I wish only the best for you, I also know that your happiness and unhappiness depends upon your actions, not my wishes for you. Whether I understand it or not, things are unfolding for you according to a lawful nature.



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April 9, 2007
Tangles

In the Buddhist scripture "The Flower Adornment Sutra", one verse says

All my ancient twisted karma
From beginningless greed, hatred, and delusion
Born of body, speech, and mind,
I now fully avow.

This li'l verse is something that is chanted regularly in Mahayana Buddhist temples. I would translate the li'l verse as :

There are tangles inside my mind, body, and soul, tangles like in a ball of yarn.

These tangles come from beginningless dawn of time. They came to me through my childhood upbringing, through society, through my ancestors, maybe through my past lives, through the process of evolution, through all of it. But, really, who can say how far back it all goes? Who can say where it all comes from?

The tangles can be called attachment towards and aversion away from the things of this world, and, even more fundamentally, they are our deluded alienation from our the effortless eminations of our spiritual source.

I know that I carry these tangles in my body, in the words that I speak, and in the thoughts in my mind.

I now vow to commit myself to taking full responsibility for untangling my tangles.


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April 5, 2007
Peace as Balance

Recently, on an email list that I am on, there was a discussion about peace and about dark ritual. Some people liked what I wrote, so I am posting my thoughts here :

I do not think of "peace" as a whispy pastel-colored gently-undulating open space, emptied of all potential violent force. I think of it instead as a harmonious balanced relationship between all the potentially dangerous powers within ourselves or without. It is a balance that we at best find and lose, and then find, and then lose, and then find again.

It is my guess that this world will never do without primitive violent forces, the thick bloody elements of matter that are far from evolved spirit : volcanoes erupting and earthquakes smashing, animal predators ripping the flesh off the bone of their prey, microbes attempting to eat us, human violence, and the various darknesses within our minds and souls. The best that we can aim for is bringing awareness and allowingness to the heavy thick darkness of life and of ourselves, and thereby transform it into light, and finding some sort of balance for the time being. It's like a relationship between two people : peace comes from constantly coming back to the now, realigning and communicating about the new truth of the moment, renegotiating the balance between the push and pull of two potentially dangerous powers - it is NOT trying to get rid of that dark power, which is ultimately impossible. And sometimes the path and practice towards finding that balance and that "peace" involves ceremony, ritual, literature, and art that embodies and embraces the darkness - as a tool of our evolution, as a tool of alchemically transforming the violence within us into spirit.


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March 19, 2007
What Is A Saint?

A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a person setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is a caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shapes of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such people, such balancing monsters of love.
-- Leonard Cohen


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November 9, 2006
"A Disciple of Buddha Does Not Kill But Rather Cultivates and Encourages Life."

A friend recently asked my opinion about the morality of killing ants in her kitchen. This is what I wrote her in reply:

I have learned over time to trust the Buddhist ethical precepts as a foundation for spiritual evolution. I trust the tradition when it says that killing creates bad karma, and that bad karma interferes with happiness, clarity, and the potential transcendence. I also find it instructive that all mature religions/world religions advise against unprovoked killing. I think that, the more conscious we are, the more realize the beauty and preciousness of all life.

When I was in college I was confronted by the example of Jain monks. They'e the ones who wear masks, so that they won't accidentally inhale and kill little buggies, and who use a broom to sweep in front of themselves as they walk, for a similar bug-preserving reason. I was like, wow, that's hardcore. Is that the example I need to eventually live up to?

But I have also thought about how in the Bagavad Gita Krishna tells Arjuna of the moral rightness of killing his kinsmen in battle, because life and death are all part of the same divine dance, and Arjuna's path as a warrior who kills is his dharma - his role to play in the whole unfolding drama. The current Dalai Lama said that if someone is trying to kill you, and you have a gun in your hand, it is perfectly moral to kill them first. And on the simplest level, other living creatures die so that we can eat each day, and our bodies kill, what, millions if not billions of bacteria and viruses each second. There is a way, I think, in which just existing in time and space is a zero sum game - to maintain our own lives we must and do end countless other lives.

Some of how that practically plays out for me -

Do you know that during the Meiji Restoration in the late 1860s, as the daimyos attempted to Westernize Japan, they enacted a massive (and successful) program to get the nation to eat beef. That's because the Japanese were so influenced by Buddhist teachings that they were almost totally vegetarian-eating. As someone following the Buddha way, I also was a vegetarian for years. Like many Tibetan Lamas, I am not now. I started eating meat again ten years ago at a time when I was lifting, and wanted more protein in my diet. Since I started eating it again, I do not, however, throw meat away if I buy it or it is served to me. If an animal died for my sins, I feel that it is my place to honor it by successfully ingesting it.

Many years ago, I squashed a wasp during an especially deep and emotional therapy group ceremony/session/rebirthing/sumpin-or-other, while I was in a deep and raw state. That act ate at me for days. I have wondered since then if I would feel bugs death as much if my psyche was that open all the time.

These days, I will squash silverfish in the bathroom, moths if they are anywhere near my sweaters, mosquitoes on my arm, spiders if they look menacing. Before I kill them, however, I say a little prayer, though, where I wish them liberation in their rebirth, or wherever they are going. And sometimes I will capture a spider or a bee that's inside and carry it outside.

I don't want ants in my house. But I think that I would feel bad if I killed them with a spray, or with massive stomping - that feels wrong. What I do is buy those poisons that they carry back to their queen and that make her infertile. So, after a few days or weeks, no more ants, but none of em got killed either.


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September 6, 2006
Burning Man And A Zen Monastery : Compare And Contrast

In the past ten years, I have had dreams where I know that I am at the Burning Man festival, or at a winter retreat at the Tassajara Zen monastery. The thing of it is, in these dreams, the location is often not in the actual location of Burning Man or Tassajara; that is to say, the location is not literally a city of tents and art structures in middle of the Black Rock desert of Nevada, or a Japanese-style meditation center nestled in a wilderness valley in the Ventana Wilderness of Monterrey County. The physical spaces in these dreams have instead been, for example, a huge concrete institutional government building, a snowy Scandinavian ski chalet, or the swampy marshlands from the Lord Of The Rings movies. It is as if, in my subconscious, both Tassajara and Burning Man are not just actual places, but they are internal states of being, liberation, and permission - they are psychic-spaces, mind states as well as external places, and I can "be there" on the inside when not actually "being there" in geographical space.

Thinking about the similarities of these dream states got me thinking about the various other similarities and differences of going to the Tassajara monastery to meditate, and going to Burning Man. Among the similarities:

* Both take a lot of time, effort, planning, money, shopping, and general intentionality to get yourself to.
* Both are held out in nature, remote and far away from strip malls, newspapers, and the government. We're off the grid. Both have a vibe opposed to commercialism, capitalism, and Republicanism. There are rules for protecting the environment.
* People are generally on their best behavior at both. You can mostly leave your tent/cabin door unlocked. If you forgot to bring something, someone very well may help you out and give you one.
* Both have their more hard-core committed lifer types, and their more checking-it-out one-time-ers
* People wear funny outfits.
* People take on new names, to symbolize their break with normal life (names like Thunder Child, Desert Tiger, Ryoshin, and Tenshin).
* People usually sleep less than eight hours a night, but somehow it is fine - the openness of the experience gives you extra energy, you're not tired like you would be in normal life on five-and-a-half hours sleep a night.
* My feet and nostrils get dried out. My clothes get dirtier than usual. I eat less. I have to remind myself to drink enough water.
* Both of em are roller coaster rides - intensely blissful one moment, then an hour later dropped down into the depths of the pit, and then all blissful and clear again five minutes later.
* Neither are self supporting - both require food, fuel, and supplies brought in from the outside.
* In both places, people grow and expand, and have deep, meaningful, opening, liberating, life-changing experiences. We have actual new experiences and think actual new thoughts. Things sometimes feel sparkly and new. We get under the hood and tinker with our mind's engineering, and emerge with a reward of a deepened sense of possibility, vitality, love, openness, and insight.
* I am unusually in the moment at both places. In my normal life, if someone asks me how the past week has been, I usually have an immediate answer for them. But, at BM or in the monastery, I do not have such a meta-narrative about how the last week has been. I mean, I could say, "it's been superamazing" and it would be true, but more what I find is there is for me to say is a recollection of a number of intense experiences, each one a new now, with no simple story to tie them all together.
* The first time I visited each of em (95 for BM, 99 for the monastery), I did not really choose much about my experience, it was more like holding on for dear life as the deep and transformative psychological space of the place took me over, overwhelmed me, and took me on its ride; whether I was ready for it or not, both places blew me more open, larger, deeper, and more alive in ways I hadn't even known were possible. Having attended BM twelve times now and Tassajara now for five ninety-day retreats, though, neither brings the same easy rush - the experiences by themselves don't do it for me as much anymore. For both of em, now, getting the most out of it is more of a case of me being intentional and generating my own experience : deciding what my context is for being there ("why am I choosing to come here again?", "what do I want to get out of being here?", "who am I going to be while here?"), and what practices am I going to take on so as to create the experience I want for myself (for example, daily meditation at BM, daily yoga and being committed to be on time for things at the monastery).

There are some complete differences between the two places, though :

* Burning Man is all about hanging out, and doing whatever moves you or brings you pleasure. Everywhere you travel, there is a kaleidoscope of music, drugs, booze, bright colors, and The Sexy. At Tassajara, on the other hand, it is all about giving up our egofull selves by following the the monastic schedule and monastic rules as exactly as we can. And most people go the full ninety days of a retreat without any drugs, alcohol, sexy, music, or even many bright colors.
* At BM, you have many radically new experiences every day. At Tassajara, many of the days are as much like the last one as is humanly possible.
* At Tassajara, there is an endless list of rules enforced by religious authorities looking over your shoulder with everything that you do. Burning Man has a little less of that going on.
* A retreat in Tassajara is a lot about how much discomfort and pain you can open up to and be with - how much space you can create for the experience of discomfort to happen, without your system overloading. BM is a lot about how much pleasure you can open up to and be with - how much space you can create for the experience of pleasure to happen, without your system overloading (and, also, how much pleasure you feel like you deserve).
* Many, or most, people I meet at Burning Man are friendly, smiling, joking, and open to playing with humor, silliness, and social quickness right off the bat (even if the joy is somewhat superficial). It always seems easy to find someone to have a real talk about what is going on, even if you just met them. Many people at the monastery, however, are sensitive and introspective, and it might take months to get to know them before they are comfortable with joking around and silliness, or with having an honest, real, and authentic conversation about inner life.
* At Tassajara, you get to take a wonderful long resort-quality hot-tub soak and shower every day. At BM, not so much.
* At BM, I smoke cigarettes every night. At Tassajara, I breathe clean wilderness air deeply and naturally. At BM, I eat potato chips all day. At Tassajara, I eat brown rice and salad. At BM, I drink vodka all day. At Tassajara, I drink mountain spring water and different varieties of herbal tea. At BM, pretty much every night, I climb into my sleeping bag for the night at around quarter of four. At Tassajara, pretty much every morning, I climb out of my sleeping bag for the day at quarter to four. At BM, I sprawl out slump-ily in camping chairs and hammocks. At Tassajara, I sit up perfectly straight on a meditation cushion.
* A practice retreat at Tassajara is usually thirty five to ninety people. Burning Man is five hundred to a thousand times bigger.
* The biggest transgression anyone does at Tassajara is usually something like someone sneaking a snack of some unauthorized extra dried fruit from the storeroom. Some bad eggs however violate the community-trust vibe of Burning Man big time - passing out drunk on a dance floor, stealing a bike, and, occasionally, something (feloniously) much worse. Similarly - every year, someone dies or gets seriously injured at BM doing something reckless or intentionally self-destructive; I've never heard of that occuring at Tassajara.
* At the monastery, everything that can be recycled or composted is, and trash output is minimized. Burning Man ends with everything a big mess, with immense mountains of recyclables and decomposing food as part of the ocean of plastic trash bags.
* As they leave Tassajara, I often feel clean and focused, calm and centered, ready to take on the challenges of my life, but a little cold and formally distant from my fellow human. As we leave Burning Man, I often feel happy, connected, heart-opened, and full, but cracked out, wasted, and lazy about the challenges of my life. And I feel relieved when I finally get the fuck out after ninety days at Tassajara, and can go back to my normal life of sleeping, restaurants, and flirting. I feel mournful when it's time to leave Black Rock City and go back to paperwork and obligations.
* Some people do the Tassajara lifestyle for months and years on end, going deeper and deeper into Buddhist practice. But one week of full-on Burning Man is probably about all anyone can take.


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June 6, 2006
Center of All Centers

Center of all centers, core of all cores,
almond self-enclosed and growing sweet--
all this universe, to the furthest stars
and beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,

a billion stars go spinning through the night
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.

- Rilke


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