Beyond the Fireworks

There are those who would like to highlight what I sometimes refer to as carnival-ride Buddhism. Practicing Buddhism in order to have some “mystical experience” or Enlightenment. In other words, for the thrills or special knowledge that such an experience might bring.

This is why I emphasize the eightfold path, where right enlightenment is just one of the particulars. For me this path is not a path to enlightenment. It is putting into practice the truth of the way into one’s daily life. It is realizing enlightenment in one’s daily life, to whatever degree or recognition one has of “it”, that allows the deep meaningfulness of life to shine forth, while aware of the emptiness of all that is.

The Burden of Evidence

The first time one is at the “doorstep” of the unknowable, the concerns that some experience of death, madness, etc. are not uncommon. Yes, you can’t fall out of the universe, but then, where is there a universe to fall out of?

Nevertheless, “right enlightenment” is only one item on the eightfold path.

So, how does one plan to incorporate an experience of truth into the way that one’s life is lived? And, into one’s understanding of life and of us, your fellow participants on this journey? First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is a mountain. What kind of mountain do you see, and what have you “brought back” from your experience?

Casting Lots

Being in love with someone is really just another form of practice.

Yes you will probably experience purity, lust, caring, friendship. But also hatred, doubt, despair, and envy. Often, several of these feelings will happen at the same time.

Entering the cauldron of life, one comes face to face with that which one longs for, and that which one fears. And this is at the heart of practice: to recognize ourselves in these, and to realize the truth of one’s self lies “beyond” these precious moments to which we are privy.

The taste of the fullness of life is bittersweet. And yet in its revelation we become evermore that which we are. And in that moment of reflection, the wisdom of that which is onto all things, gives meaning and life to the presence to which we are graced. Respect your blessings of love, as you would your practice.

The Forth Quarter

Frankly, I think that the practice of Buddhism does have an American exponent. And this may spill over into the Western hemisphere in general, but I wouldn’t know as I’ve only lived in the USA.

I would say that the practice of American Buddhism, or Buddhism in America, has caused me to reevaluate American culture, standards, and expectations in a very deep manner.

What I am trying to get at here is that we here as Americans have a commonly held culture, a way of living: TV, cars, supermarkets and malls, cell phones and instant meals: a life centered upon entertainment.

When I practice Buddhism in America, to me it is not about going to the Zendo to sit and to listen to the Dharma talk on Saturday morning. It isn’t about participating in the rituals that have been imported from another country that nestle the practice of Zen within a comfortable time honored context of practice. Those things are fine; I’m not trying to suggest that they are unnecessary.

But when Buddhism is brought to America and we practice it, then for me at least, I have had to look back at the culture that I am participating in. I look at it with compassion, with awareness, hopefully with clarity, and as a Zen Buddhist, with simplicity and reverence in mind.

Therefore, I look upon the earth with compassion as it is suffering under the burden of too many automobiles and industries polluting the planet in order to support this way of American life. And so I choose to ride a bicycle around town instead of a car. I don’t buy the latest gadget, just because its there. I try to minimize the impact of my need for clothing that industry burdens the earth with by purchasing organic or minimally processed clothing.

Along the way I have discovered recycling, composting, even just drying the clothes on the line is another way that compassion for our environment can be undertaken.

I envision a balance to life: the middle way. That throughout our lives we take from the planet in order to support our life here. By the time we reach the end of our life we will have been able to give something back. We give our bodies up to the insects and plants that grow in the soil. We have given carbon dioxide to nourish the plants through the air. We have taken from our culture its entertainments and pleasures, and given back our ideas, morals and our own creativity (even if its just in the paycheck we have earned that pays for the movie we watch).

And so, rather than just sitting around bored with nothing to do, I get going and work on something I care about – painting a picture, witting, helping others. (I don’t imagine that I will ever really balance what I’ve taken from the planet with what I have given, but I am aware of this coincidence.)

This is what Buddhism in America is about: not what we can take from America and add to Buddhism, but how I can let Buddhism reawaken my participation in America. And this is what is unique to practicing Buddhism in America.

Nourishment

The formless state does have a relationship to the wisdom. It is, in a sense, formless because it is wise.

The qualities of wisdom are not knowing, they are freedom. The free is indeterminate, so it is not known. Uncontained and without limits, its eminence is boundless, so there is not that is unknown.

Formlessness does not depend upon wisdom. Because it is empty, it has no basis. As the known is unknowable, its wisdom is formless.

Without form, wisdom is unlimited.

In the unknowable, wisdom does not become known, it is without form. The formless does not contain wisdom, it is unfathomable. Without limit, the known has no form. Formless, without knowing, the unknowable is not without the knowable.

Unlimited, the knowable is not limited in its wisdom. Without limits in its wisdom, the unknowable is unlimited in the wisdom that it knows. Without form to its wisdom, the unknowable without form, knows wisdom.

The formless is not without wisdom. Wisdom is without form.

Innocence Emerges

This is not about which precepts one may follow and which ones you might wish to ignore. This is about the way that one approaches others in one’s life and community. Do you want to approach them thinking I know what is right, and I know what is wrong, and they must follow my path or be lost, and not a Buddhist.

Or, does one approach them with the openness of learning that they are also Buddha in their own way, in their own life; and it is the truth of their Buddha that they are revealing to you. For the Buddha does not just live through the original teacher, but through the many teachers and students that have gone since.

Now the topic that is in front of us is the behavior of everyday people, not the behavior of monks and nuns. This is important to remember because the outlook in life, and the way that they are supposed to lead their lives are different.

And, since the topic is one for the general Buddhist, we have to consider what behavior is correct for them. It is given in the precepts, which they take refuge in, that one refrains from wrong behavior in regard to sense pleasure.

This precept is undertaken to help the refugee to focus upon the teachings of the Buddha in a mindful manner. No to be lost in the usual idle thoughts that so occupy those who are not caring of the mind and its contents. It is intended to help focus the mind in the correct direction for the Buddhist follower, to further their progress upon the noble eightfold path with less obstruction.

It is not meant to be proscription, but to lead a direction. This is important to understand because there is no punishment, that is why the phrase is “to refrain from” this activity. Not to make this elimination, but a consideration of the intent that we approach practice with.

If this is instead taken as a proscription, then the effect may not be to instill this as a direction of practice, but a wall that prevents one from living ones life in a realistic manner. The noble eightfold path is not about unobtainable ideals, it is about approaching other folk in a realistic manner, and living in a way that supports that direction.

As a direction that one undertakes, rather than a proscription, than one sees this as not a reason to condemn others, whose lives may be different than our own, but as a way to help us deal with our own lives more effectively. Therefore, these directions may not be suited for everyone, as there may be some who partake of sense pleasure in an automatically decent amount. Rather than getting lost in sense pleasure, or its various side issues. For those who are extremely indulgent, this refrain would be more of a direction for them to undertake.

To turn these directions on their head, and make them the master of one’s life could hardly be what the Buddha intended, because the Tathagata intended for his followers to achieve liberation, not rule followers. The prejudice that I spoke of earlier was about those who hold up a moral yardstick unto others, insisting that they live by their proclaimed rules, judging them to be the standard because they have found some wise man somewhere who, at a surface reading, seems to embrace these idealistic rules. Whereupon, a deeper reading of the meaning that is to be conveyed in the wisdom of these teachers, finds not so much rules to entrap one’s life, but instead the intentions that go into a wise life.

With this in mind then, we can view this precept as one that makes intimate relationships not an abomination, but the expression of love that humans do. The Buddha did not forbid intimate relationships, and he did not encourage any specific posture as far as I know.

If he had some special rules for monks and nuns that some would like to apply to everyone’s life then that is their interpretation. But, it is not that one could say that the Buddha declared that all should live by the rules for monks and nuns.

It is hoped that one is able to see these ideals that the Buddha leads us to consider to be of value, not in the light of keeping others under control, but in giving one’s practice a clear path to lead it to a better place. Some might wish to review the precept on refraining from speaking evil about others, should they wish to continue some other ideas to consider.

In the Midst of the Heart

There are homophobics and homophobic attitudes in almost every culture. But they are not conservative, nor liberal, nor Buddhist, they are prejudices - views that lead to suffering and away from wisdom and enlightenment.

When the Buddha way is lived, then the merits between one relationship orientation and its alternative are rendered indistinguishable. With a clear and open heart, loving another becomes not a matter of determining which gender the partner is blessed with, but a matter of honoring and keeping faith with them.

Discovering the one who blesses your heart in a deeply committed relationship is not like choosing a name out of the phone book, but one of the deepest mysteries of life. Honoring that love and joyous union, in whatever form it is given to you, is the challenge that we all must take.

Checking to make sure that some pre-made rulebook approves of that partner is not only a false and unnatural love, but also a mark of ignorance upon the holder of that love. Honoring the mate to whom you are joined with is the highest morality and the truest.

The way of love that one is blessed with is not for others to declare to be right or wrong. To do so, is not to follow the Middle Way, but to follow the way of prejudice, censure, and ridicule. If this is the Dharma that some teachers preach, then I wonder what kind of way they are following?

A Sovereign For Your Thoughts

This is really a very deep subject that you have taken this discussion into, and it touches upon the whole unique thrust that Buddhism presents us with. I am not going to labor upon the point that “your beliefs create your reality”. What is more important to me is the philosophy that you have expressed that follows that point.

That philosophy is the notion that since we create our own reality we should then choose which reality that we are going to create. In short, if you don’t like something about yourself, well then, just believe instead in the reality that you would prefer is true. After all this seems perfectly logical: want to be taller, believe you are taller; need more hair, just believe in it and it will be there. Nothing harmful in any of this.

However, when I read the fine print, I am not so enamored of this path. This is because beliefs are not like socks that you just change when you get tired of them. Beliefs are part of the you of you, the part of you that makes you human and unique. Your beliefs are more like your hands or legs than they are your socks. And it is something far more serious to change your hands than it is to change your socks. Your beliefs are a part of you and your personality, and if you change your beliefs you will be changing yourself into a different person.

I have studied the way the “change your beliefs” philosophy is supposed to work. When you change your beliefs, then you put yourself into that “new” reality where the preferred belief is the active one. Along the way, the personality makes the inner adjustments to accommodate the new beliefs: solutions to vexing problems are discovered; insights are gained where things are seen in a new light. All so that you can move away from the old beliefs and into the new preferred beliefs which form the preferred reality.

This can really be a great thing if for instance you are suffering from a serious illness that has few treatments. I’m not saying that to follow this philosophy is always a bad thing. But the implication behind this whole philosophy is that you will find happiness by changing the things that you don’t like about yourself into those that you think you will. (And yes, you could have control over every aspect of your life, I guess.)

However what I have learned from my experience of practice is a different story. My experience has “shown” me that basically there is, what we can concede to call, “awareness”. As awareness is aware of awareness, affinities come into play, making connections, harmonies.

These affinities lead to yet more affinities, connections, awarenesses. Awareness aware of these connections recognizes / identifies patterns of awarenesses in affinity. Thus identities emerge from the primal soup of awareness. As they recognize and gain more affinities, they grow in complexity. This is all spontaneous, however, and unlimited.

Philosophically, we could say that all is potential, but within this potentiality, connections of likeness form, some potential is a little more like some other potential. So spontaneous patterns emerge but never establish themselves firmly because there is always more potential affinities that the “patterns” are connected to, thus changing them into further developed patterns that they recognize.

Through this maelstrom of awarenesses, identities emerge, recognizing themselves in the patterns of affinities that awarenessses connect into. However the identity is not the pattern itself, that pattern is always changing. The identity is the awareness that recognizes itself, a recognition that has come from that pattern but now is not dependent upon it. An identity within awareness itself, and so not separated from awareness and not independent of that pattern, an ever changing identity.

These patterns of ever-changing affinities rest at the heart of the identity. Though it is not these patterns of affinities, they are inculcated into its recognition of itself. At least in my meager understanding this is how it seems to me.

And, this is my understanding; that these patterns of affinities come and go. Perhaps some of these affinities make us happy. Perhaps some of these affinities will lead to difficulty, like a sour note in the orchestration of one’s life. Because all is connected.

To the Core

When you realize the true “I”, it is no longer an I, it is thus.

Six of One, and Zero of the Other

My experience has been that the mental verbalization of thoughts actually creates a small amount of stress within the head. This stress interferes with the direct perception of reality. Like a closed fist, things have a difficult time flowing through a tense head. For instance, the stress will cause the ear passages to be less responsive to the incoming sounds, so hearing is not as acute or deep as it could naturally be. You may be unable to hear the great abiding peace of stillness that is continually present in the world around you.

This stress does not automatically stop the moment that you stop making the mental noise if you have been spending most of your time in stress. The head is too stressed up to immediately calm down. But with repeated practice of calmness, the stress grows less and less, and so when you do stop the mental noise it will tend to stay calm more easily, and you begin to perceive reality more directly.

The ongoing mental dialog is like hypnotic suggestions, mesmerizing you to believe they are true, that there is a physical being: I. You may end up paying more attention to the dialog than to the reality before your senses. It is not as though this were a superstructure laid on top of reality, but more like a noisy television playing in the same room as your reality, distracting you from paying attention to the actual place. (And of course we all want to be the star of our own show, otherwise it wouldn’t be worth watching. Oh well.)

Attitudes and beliefs are stresses held in the whole body. When these are let go of, the body is awakened to a natural grace and poise. A very peaceful continence will be yours.

I am familiar with the Joko Beck quote. She does not think that anyone can attain 100% and move onto stage six. She goes on to say that she thinks that it is an idealized state, and that the ancients did not reach stage six – it’s just our mythology that says they did.

Well, I want to say that you can go on to stage six. That after discontinuing the internal dialog enough (or whatever your practice is), that having the interference turned off will become your normal state. And after that, you will have a very difficult time starting up the interference again. The ancients did achieve the next stage and did abide there completely 100%, it is not a myth.

Inside the Circle

First, I want to say that the experience that some describe (“when everything seemed to 'light up', everything looked multi-dimensional, vivid, alive, REAL and at the same time 'dream like'”) is every bit as wonderful and blissful as it implies. It is indeed as though you are truly awake, and reality seems so real, with this transcendent kind of subtle glow, or light. You see the emptiness of the form you call your body and realize there is no self there.

The beauty, joy, and transcendence of this experience is so meaningful and great that proselytizing about it, to share it with others, to tell them how simple and easy it is, is a quite natural reaction. Believe me, the experience is not “dulling”, it is instead very aware.

Perhaps it will help to clarify matters if I share some of my own experience. My situation differs a little from some in that I went all the way. Instead of going back and forth between two modes of living, I continued to live the Way as my regular daily, full time mode of living. And, I lived this way for several months.

My experience then was that ideas, thoughts, concepts still existed. However, they no longer did arise within the form of physical presence.

The experience was that there was the reality of the world that was occurring. And the here of it was this empty spaciousness in which calm awareness took place. With this calm, being so wonderfully peaceful, right and natural, there was no longer any compelling to disturb it.

Thoughts then, no longer arose within the form one calls one’s body as they do in the “other mode” of living – through the gross manifestation of mental activity known as internal (or mental) dialog. Emotions/feelings also dwelt in this same calm manner – not arising. Beliefs and opinions were also not held onto.

However thoughts and concepts did exist. And, since at the time I was a freshman university student, I was required to write papers, read books, attend lectures and produce projects for the courses I was taking. But, instead of thoughts being experienced in the gross manifestation of the form I called my body, they were merely realized. It was as though they were taking place outside of time and space, transcendentally.

The experience was that thoughts came and went, at once, before they could take place in physical reality. So it seemed that they did not occur, one just knew what they were, like one knows how to play a note of music without thinking about it. One had the sense that thoughts were being realized even though they did not quite exist. And since clam and peace prevailed, the thoughts did not arise within one’s experience (of physical reality).

In the typical paradoxical tradition of Buddhism, they did not exist and they did (somehow) exist. (By the way, I was an honors student that term, so my academic performance did not suffer from living this way.)

Branches Upward

My suggestion would be to let experiences come and go of their own accord. While aware of your breath, you can witness the experience without trying to figure it out. It may be far more beneficial in the long run to gain your understanding of an experience through the process of just letting it happen and letting it reveal its “truth” in its own way, as it were, as your learn about it from your repeated experience of it.

Meditation can be like learning to ride a bike – you learn it by doing it. Nevertheless I think it is safe to assure you that you are not about to ride headlong into traffic.

That said, it is not that unusual for the “self” to “disappear” while practicing. At such times the body seems to be empty, you may even be aware of the emptiness of the space around your body. The mind may seem so calm that no thoughts in it arise; no emotions carry you along in their fervorance.

Living continuously as this no-self, one experiences life as though having awoken. And, that one’s previous way of living was like being asleep.

But it is better to let this unfold naturally rather than to try to force it. For it is the self learning to ride the bicycle of the eightfold path in its own good time and its own good way.

Of course, the abode of emptiness can “grow” and you may experience a little more than you expected. But here again, just let whatever you experience “come and go”. This is the wisdom of the way.

On the other hand, if it just feels like your body is disappearing into an ocean of experience or joy, then you might just be exploring the byways and avenues of consciousness. Like a child walks around the neighborhood for the first time, in wonder at all she finds. You might be going for a stroll around the “inside” of reality, just to see what’s there. There’s nothing harmful in itself in this.

But, part of the path of meditation is right concentration, and this can be done by continuing to be aware of one’s breath. Then, if your consciousness goes exploring a little, it will still realize where home is and return to the breath. Again, this is just letting the experiences come and go.