Reading

I only read one book this year that was published in 2014, so I don't feel like it's fair to give out my yearly best book award. I did read The Path to Awakening: How Buddhism's Seven Points of Mind Training Can Lead You to a Life of Enlightenment and Happiness. I did find it worth reading, and I like the seven point mind training.

My dharma practice has moved away from reading. But I am looking forward to Stephen Batchelor's book After Buddhism, which I read about on Facebook, coming out next year. I also saw a video that if Subhuti can get enough money to publish his next book, that it will be out next year, and it will be about the mental events. These are two books I am very much looking forward to reading.

Sisters of Dolma (Film Review)

Just watched Daughters of Dolma. It is a kind of profile of some young female Buddhists. The way women are treated in the society is the way the women are treated as nuns. They have to fight for equal status, they discuss sexism in their society.

What struck me about the movie was that the young woman struggled like young women, forget that they were nuns. They fight and argue, and they like to watch romance movies. Feels almost like a career decision. But it's not even a decision it seems, at times. The eldest son is supposed to be a monk and the youngest daughter is supposed to be a monk. Anandi kept asking, how does that help the society? I got the feeling that a few of the women did not really fit in to regular life, and did not want conventional lives, and so they just chose being a nun as the path of greatest freedom. I could see that.

My experience is different. I came to it middle age. I could really feel the youth of the students, the pull of the world. I'm kind of sick of the world, so it's easy for me to retreat from it. They had their whole lives ahead of them, and they wondered if they were doing the right thing.

They have a culture where this is an option. I suppose it's an option in my culture. America is supposed to be multicultural. But the fact it that it's mostly a Christian nation. So most Buddhists are in some way a non-conformist. I get the feeling that the women were trying to please others, were conforming.

The interviews with older men in power were politically correct. I want them to interview a sexist monk. In fact, if there was a defect in the movie, it felt like with the language barrier, that they were mostly speaking in slogans, saying what they thought people wanted to hear. The movie admitted as much in the end, that it was superficial.

There's a part of increasing nunneries, that is feminist revolutionary. They talked about how the modern world was impacting their traditional ways, and I felt like expanding the nunneries was one way of modernizing. But I also got the feeling that they were kind of like orphanages. I wondered if one mother was projecting her own spiritual wishes onto her daughter. She said her daughter was naughty like a boy so many times, it was kind of weird.

Sometimes I yearn for a culture in which to embed my spiritual practice, and sometimes I think I create my own world in my home, and that it doesn't matter what is outside the home so much, as long as there is stuff in the world somewhere that promotes it. I don't believe in the lay/monastic split, but I see how it functions to carry the tradition and in some ways I am very grateful. In some ways it seems cultural and superficial. The children are learning to read and write in a Buddhist context, but like any kind of education, it's a process that helps one to develop.

I certainly appreciate documentaries in that they present experience, but we also need to critically evaluate what we see. I saw a changing world of young female Buddhists. It's no easy to convey the spiritual life, less so in the movies. There was some interesting footage, and cultural information. I would have liked more geographical information. I would have liked more depth. Even so, it was an interesting movie. There's only one review of it on Netflix. It appreciates their honesty, that they don't try and sugar coat things, but I kind of felt they did. I mean a documentary does present raw experience, in a way, but if you don't think there were filters there, well, that seems naive.

There is another movie about Buddhist nuns: Blessings: Tsoknyi Nangchen Nuns of Tibet.

transition day into a home retreat

(photo by Anandi)

We got in late last night, and were pretty wiped out from the travel, so decided to make today a rolling into the retreat day, and not the rigorous and structured schedule we planned out. We're going to flow with how we feel. But we are having retreat oatmeal. Had to move the car so I didn't get a ticket.

Part of the duo home retreat is that we read to each other. When Anandi woke up I read her a Noah Levine interview from Tricycle. He started Refuge Recovery, which has a meeting in NYC. I should probably go to support my recovery, and working with people in recovery. I read his book Dharma Punx. Anandi read his second one, I could read that one. I recently got Eight Step Recovery: Using the Buddha's Teachings to Overcome Addiction. I stalled pretty quickly on that one, but I need to charge up my kindle so I can read that and The Purpose and Practice of Buddhist Meditation: A Source Book of Teachings.

I read section 5.2.4 of The Essential Sangharakshita about natural versus conventional morality, and how the mental states behind actions is a focus of Buddhist ethics. It's an excerpt from The Bodhisattva Ideal: Wisdom and Compassion in Buddhism, which is an awesome book in it's own right. I think that was the first book we were reading when I originally started mitra study in the FWBO.

Hearing the words aloud helps to connect to the tradition that was originally oral.

We sat for 20 minutes of mindfulness of breathing. I had monkey mind of course, and my legs were not used to sitting.

I love talking about meditation experience with Anandi. I had a hard time not rearranging the books on my book shelf, they're all out of order.

I'm calling this the Hansel and Gretel retreat, because we're going to see the opera on DVD and live at the Met.

We're not strict yet about not watching TV or using technology for anything other than writing and reading. I feel a strong urge to clean the house strangely. I'm like space, I abhor a vacuum. I'll read non-Dharma today. Since we're doing this retreat with both of us we can have any form we want. I want structure and scheduling tomorrow and after that. We get more done that way. But with the travel I really need a transition day. Must be kind to ourselves.

We're going to have curried chick pea salad for lunch. Last time I went backpacking and totally bonked, when we were done I remember eating chick peas from a can I left in the car. That was really yummy. First few bites anyway.

Mural in Santa Fe

Tibet House Santa Fe

Wrong intension.

Source

Right intension is a very important aspect of Buddhism.

Yesterday I woke up and did a puja. While I was doing it, my son woke up. He is old enough to read quietly, and he did. I continued my puja. I think an old me would have been annoyed at the interruption, but I went with it. I handled the situation fine. I meditated for 10 minutes, but I heard my girlfriend creeping around, so I didn't meditate longer.

I'm working to build up my meditation endurance for a home retreat I'm going to have. Going places costs money, so I'm going to try an in home retreat for 3.5 days with my girlfriend, ending in the Opera Hansel and Gretel. I've started an opera blog.

This morning I started meditating. I didn't look at the time. My sons needed to get up for church. I was cranky because I hadn't understood my circumstances. Part of being a Buddhist in my opinion is trying to make circumstances conducive to practicing and understanding your circumstances. I didn't really pay attention to my circumstances, and then I reacted negatively emotionally because the "world wasn't going my way." Not very Buddhist of me.

what is spirituality?

What is spirituality?

Source

I’ve heard so many people say they don’t like that word. I used to think spirituality was other worldly, but now I think that can be escapism, or spiritual bypassism. Still, I want to use the word. I feel like I opened up a file in my head when I found Buddhism, and filled it in with something that wasn’t there before. Maybe that’s an illusion. I’m not sure donating time to the local sangha is somehow inherently more spiritual than doing other things.

A part of spirituality is about striving for equanimity and not getting flustered and flummoxed so easily. There is a kind of emotional transcendence, not numb, still present and feeling, but somehow not fully embroiled and overwhelmed with horrified anxiety. The half-smile. I can do the facial expression, but are there corresponding thoughts? The guys that serve me food at the Sri Chimnoy restaurants have a goofy smile that feels forced. I’m very concerned about aping spirituality, pretending to be spiritually evolved. And yet, even trying is a good thing I think sometimes. It’s a balance. Authenticity is very important.

One sense in which spirituality makes sense to me, is that it’s non-materialistic, it’s not about your personal gain. But then again, people like to brag about how giving they are. There is nothing wrong with being proud about helping others. So doing things for others because that makes you feel good and proud of yourself is OK. But is there anything inherently “spiritual” about that. Is spirituality just not being egotistical? Thinking about others? Realizing our interconnectivity? I’m inclined to say that’s a piece of it, but it’s in conjunction with clarity of mind, with deep insight.

I would say there is an inner/outer journey to connect to something larger, a higher power. That includes being less egotistical and having equanimity, but it’s also true and authentic, not pretend. Does it matter what your higher power is? People will tell you absolutely, and fight wars over it, but that feels very worldly, materialistic, exploitative, and egotistical. I’m not prepared to say any spirituality is OK, cults are bad by definition, and you hear of religious practices that you don’t feel like they will stand the test of time. People could go on a journey, and not just join a group to enhance status. Secular humanism is a fine higher power, in my opinion.

Can I drive to work in a spiritual way? I don’t know. When I listened to talks all the time, I felt a little more spiritual. But now I don’t listen to those talks or read the books so much. I do feel less spiritual, but I also feel more independent, and filled with stuff. I think spirituality sometimes is about unfilling, emptying.

I still want to somehow progress. What does progress mean? You can get ordained, that makes people feel like they have achieved something. You can work for your community, build community, build a building. You can reach deeper states of meditation. You can be less ethically messy. You can be kinder. You can relate to people better. You can communicate better. You can feel a continuity of purpose, feel certain kinds of confusion less. Does the number of blog posts make me more spiritual. I think not, but I am at that moment trying to do something spiritual, so in a way it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Being spiritual depends on what you mean by it, but if you’re not clear about what it means. People say they know it when they see it.

The religions will tell you what to do if that’s what you’re looking for. I find connecting and giving to others very fulfilling. I like to read and learn. I’m curious about psychology and how people work. I like to study great people, I liked watching a documentary on Thomas Merton and reading his books and journals, I like spiritual giants. I feel like some people throw themselves at spirituality, but they’re not very spiritual. There have been times in my life when I felt very reverential towards the Buddha, the Dharma and the community. There were times when my gung ho attitude pushed people away.

The people standing on the street just waiting to talk to you about something, the evangelists are really trying hard. I feel like they’re also pushing some rigidity, so I don’t like to engage, I feel like helping them, and that feels presumptuous, so I just don’t.

What about the dark night of the soul when you don’t get any reinforcement for being spiritual? Is that the true test, or is just how people open others up to manipulation? That’s the other thing. With so much exploitation through religion, you really have to watch out for that. Nobody sees being exploited as being spiritual. Sacrifice yes, but exploited, no.

I like the phrase “open handed generosity” because it conveys giving that has no regret or qualms, but is not just indifference or aping behaviors. I remember after my first retreat, I just felt like putting money in the dana bowl. I wonder if it was exuberance that was misplaced, but I was just so grateful and I wanted to try it out.

The complications of an organization can be confusing, the human and non-spiritual motives. Giving without regrets and qualms can sometimes be a hard ideal to reach. I think there are spiritual ideals that guide people, but what are the best ones for you? That’s to be discovered, I wouldn’t say there were necessarily universal ones for each religion. I find the differences between the many kinds of Buddhists in the word pretty amazing. There is something of an extreme in some spiritual approaches, but I think balance can be very spiritual.

So balance, generosity, energy, community, relationship, equanimity. The answers I tried to just pour forth could easily be put into the 7 noble truths. How would I know if I’m aping another’s ideas? Is originality important? I don't think in this case. Authenticity is important, “start where you are,” and all that. Becoming an individual, personal development seems an important aspect of it, regardless of spiritual development.

Religious organizations will give you a format to understand your spiritual experience. The Buddha is notorious for saying, "check it out in your experience." I believe in experience, that is non-denominational. The advice to Bahiya is about putting your experience into the right place, and thinking into the thinking category. Thinking is wonderful, I often have quite a lot of joy with my thoughts. But Keats' negative capability, not hankering after facts and theories, helps one to keep open to the information instead of quickly categorizing and taming it by boxing it. A better program for assimilating experience into the whole. I believe in experience, including the thinking that tries to make sense of it, and the negative capability that allows things to flower without quickly trying to control it.

Fearless mudra

Cape Coral Florida 11/25/14

4/11/13 in Rome

No Short Cuts

She mentions sitting on the therapist's couch, sitting in the meditation hall...

Mary Oliver poem

WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Insight Timer

creating meaning out of mistakes

The phrase "god has a plan for everything," rubs me the wrong way. I don't really get what god is. My therapist said, "him" last night, and I asked him what would it mean for a god to have gender. He wasn't sure. At least he admitted that, I can still work with him. 

Object relations school of psychoanalysis take it that your relationship to god is just a relationship to your parents writ large. And that's a good thing to figure out. Was Jesus just an object relations therapist helping people to resolve their daddy issues?

But, when you eliminate a being controlling things, and just focus on conditionality, "everything happens for a reason", can be a statement about how you must create the meaning for what has happened to you. (This insight was when I liked Wild) Even when everything underneath you seems to crumble. Do you understand the artificial structures you create to soothe yourself, and what do you do when you realize they are just illusions? Can you tolerate this crisis?

I made a huge mistake and I've been working to not get subsumed under the tidal wave of negativity. I did not take up the existential meaning, the spiritual lesson, I was pulled out in the undertow of my own negativity, lost the shore.

John Wellwood talks about spiritual bypassism. My imperfect approach to the spiritual life, from my imperfect being, lead to certain kinds of mistakes. Many people have made many mistakes in their life, even the greats. Sangharakshita admits his experiments in sexuality yielded no concrete positive knowledge. 

Some people have built a community around them, so that they are accepted when they make mistakes. They are seen in their totality, such that a huge mistake doesn't eject them from a community. 

My superficial relationships revealed themselves to me. My family, my friends, ended up being true support in my rough times. I played my part by pushing people away, to be sure. But my true friends and family would not let me push them away. They had the true commitment to me. I'm not saying I deserve a true commitment from people who didn't commit to me. I'm just saying, among other silver linings, I have had to face some stark truths. I had not developed enough of a relationship to earn that loyalty, and that is just the light of the day. Donald Trump talks about the time when he owed more than he was worth, and how many people deserted him.

Someone asked if the spiritual life is escapism. I do think that I brought a kind of out-of-this-world intellectualism to my approach to Buddhism, that is kind of escapist. But I think that meditation is fundamentally not escapist, and that's why it is so challenging, that is why it is so valuable, and why I find it so hard to face my mistakes these days, after years and years of a dedicated meditation practice.

I could confess my faults, but I think the lesson I learned is that self doubt, on some level hurts one, and that shame is a self attack that does not help people to recovery. We can be presented with challenges that we're not up to. All we can try to do is respond as best we can, if we wake up a little bit. Gentle accountability that takes into account how people feel is important, if you want to stay in relationship with someone. Even with gentle accountability people can be upset by the content. 

There is a delusional aspect to America. The society encourages you to lose touch and try and salve your wounds with material. But it's not just America, everywhere humans try to get social status, what ever the terms of the society are.

The punctured narcissism, the wake up bomb from high self esteem, is a true gift, if you can look it straight in the eye. To the stick thrower, the lion doesn't chase the stick, but faces the stick thrower (Milarepa). When you taste your own blood in battle, do you fight harder (Shantideva)?

The modern world is so strange in that there is such a plurality of possible inspiration. I become obsessed with things. My first ex-wife used to not like the way I liked jazz. I liked the idea of it, but sometimes not so much the execution of it. Today I listen to what I like, now that I've scanned the landscape. It is one of many possibilities, past my obsession with the new, trying to figure out the new. And yet jazz is so rich, I will never master it. Deep things can be endlessly explored.

As a person lead around by ideas, theories, thoughts, it can be artificial, disembodied. Coming back to my body, taking deep breaths, I recenter myself, come back to myself. You have to become an individual first, before you can tear down the walls of the ego, as Sangharakshita so liked to point out. The balance between all the input, as the Buddha pointed out, is essential. As I age, I see how choices create paths beyond our comprehension. To not get subsumed in the tidal wave of circumstances is a kind of goal of Buddhism. But not by escapism or bypassism, but by swimming in the stream of what is, and not what you wish it was. To gently accept it when you realize your defensive strategies to care for your wounds. The spiral towards enlightenment will come back and back and back to the same things. Hopefully you're higher up in the spiral, but it's OK the other way too. It just is.

Gestures

Gratitude

Patience

(I love the photography of Patrick Latter. Here is the source of this one.)

A lovely book has crossed my path: How Patience Works. It's actually a short novel, and while I'm only 10 pages in so far, I can say I'm enjoying it.

I read a straight up dharma book about patience. And I wrote about it as one of the 6 perfections.

Excellent fiction, in my mind, takes in the big ideas and applies them to lives. I'll let you know how it goes.

Apparently Innocuous Decisions

Reading from The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha: A Complete Translation of the Anguttara Nikaya (Teachings of the Buddha), I read "...seing danger in the slightest faults..."

My psychology transforms that one. Not sure if I'm the only one who noticed. I can really use that one against myself in a self attack. Shame is an attack on the self that serves no purpose. I think I heard "shame spiral" in a pop movie, but it applies. Using the teachings in the right way are important. Most people don't do close readings. I hope it's not just me. I think what the phrase is pointing out is small things. In recovery talk it's Apparently Innocuous Decisions (AIDs). Little things that lead to substance use. But aren't we addicted to fossil fuels, and materialism and titillation, distraction and high fructose corn syrup and lard drizzle. 

Ancient Greek Quote

"Let there be less suffering...
give us the sense to live on what we need."

Chorus,  381,2, in Aeschylus's Agamemnon.

Swayambhunath Stupa

I watched light of the valley the 15th renovation of swayambhu which I'd recorded from PBS. It's about the Swayambhunath stupa west of Katmandu. It was beautiful to see how the local people were, the Newars were persuaded to deconsecrate things so that they could take them down and repair them. I remember seeing this site in the movie Little Buddha. It was beautiful to see the devotional reverence.

hassle and uplift scale

Read an excellent article on relapse prevention and came across the hassle and uplift scale. Fascinating. The enlightened person, I imagine has very few hassles and lots of uplift. Seeing that some situations gave me more hassle than uplift, I reflected by asking myself if it has to be that. Do I have to experience hassle.

We make the world with our minds. Why not live in paradise? Nirvana is not another place, it is here. We choose to live in samsara or nirvana. It's not easy, it's not like flipping a switch, there's the higher evolution. Those not busy being born are busy dying. Pathing is better than not pathing.

Also in the article is an interesting concept, "apparently innocuous decisions" which are really the beginning of relapse. I think there are apparently innocuous decision that lead you away from the path too. Like watching netflix, or playing video games, in my case. I take refuge in watching sports, watching TV and playing video games, the three dungs. They are the three dissipations. Not the three jewels.

Here's a quote from the relapse article:

"A person who's life is full of demands may experience a constant sense of stress, which not only can generate negative emotional states, thereby creating high-risk situations, but also enhances the person's desire for pleasure and his or her rationalization that indulgence is justified. ("I owe myself a drink"). In the absence of other non-drinking pleasurable activities, the person may view drinking as the only means of obtaining pleasure or escaping pain."

That made me think of "compensatory indulgences".

Wonderful World

What A Wonderful World

I see trees of green, 
red roses too. 
I see them bloom, 
for me and you. 
And I think to myself,
what a wonderful world. 

I see skies of blue, 
And clouds of white. 
The bright blessed day, 
The dark sacred night. 
And I think to myself, 
What a wonderful world. 

The colors of the rainbow, 
So pretty in the sky. 
Are also on the faces, 
Of people going by, 
I see friends shaking hands. 
Saying, "How do you do?" 
They're really saying, 
"I love you". 

I hear babies cry, 
I watch them grow, 
They'll learn much more, 
Than I'll ever know. 
And I think to myself, 
What a wonderful world. 

Yes, I think to myself, 
What a wonderful world. 

Oh yeah.

Sometimes I get songs stuck in my head, and then I look up the lyrics and listen to it a lot. I think I heard this son in that movie about a Vietnam DJ, with Robin Williams in it, Good Morning, Vietnam.

My years later, I was looking for something positive, and I thought of it, so I digested the lyrics and listened to a number of times.

My first thought is that the focus on color, in the context of America, makes it a song about race and racism. Seeing the rainbow in faces makes it explicit.

I love "how do you do?" being turned into "I love you." Now when people ask me that I feel like it's really sweet. Positive attribution might be a distortion, but it's a useful distortion. 

Then in the end he talks about children, and implicitly the hope of the future. They will learn things that he never knows. It's implied that through the improvements and evolution of humans, we shall learn to appreciate all the different colors, a Star Trek kind of world where race no longer something that exists.

I love the gravelly voice. Armstrong was a big cannabis smoker. I read a biography of him, because it's the first great titan of jazz. Ken Burn's documentary on jazz seemed to almost focus too much on him. And yet his is perhaps the greatest figure in jazz because he is among the first. Parker, Coltrane, Davis, Mingus, Monk don't exist without Armstrong. I haven't been to his museum in Queens. I think I need to try that museum out.

In other spiritual jazz greats, A Love Supreme, by John Coltrane is also song that oozes with spirituality. I got a stereo for my birthday and I got out my CD collection and have been listening to a lot of music, and the radio. I was listening to some Bach the other day in the car, and it was very powerful, felt spiritual. 

I wish Simon Schama would do a history of Buddhism.

I wish Simon Schama would do a history of Buddhism. I've been watching the fascinating Story of the Jews.

Religion is beset with this problem. While tolerance and the freedom of belief seems fundamental to me, I also felt in the heady days of conversion that my own spirituality was the right one, and wished everyone could see the light I was seeing. We mix personal with the social, and thus try to convert people. Why can't we just enjoy what we have? We need to see the reflection back in others, we are social beasts.

In the pluralism of modern day New York City, there are many different brands you can pledge allegiance and a tithe. You also have the freedom from religion. Most people take that route today, they have experienced the imperialism of their childhood, and declared independence. And yet they feel they are missing something. My atheist friend is always pointing out the study that atheist tend to know the most about religion.

Community is always imperfect, relationships are wounding. We project our original relations onto the templates of the past, with our habitual responses, and get snookered.

The existential crisis freedom from religion creates can be very creative, and you could say the world since the fall of religion has been a explosion of exploration of this. That has also lead to problems with substance abuse, and other addictions, as hedonism replaces spiritual ideas. The secular humanist ideals are attractive, but there is no church to reinforce the culture of it. Again, we are back at humans as social creatures.

Academics get lost in the minutia of being an expert, spiritualist preach cliched bromides, and it's hard to find someone in the middle, learned but of the world.

The difficulty is tolerating ambivalence, not knowing, Keat's negative capacity. We need stability, something to stand on, building blocks, psychologically. We need guiding principles beyond our own reactive pleasure seeking.

The Buddhist word for faith also means confidence. Developing confidence in the chosen path is not a bad thing, it's tested in the fires of your own experience.

I think all traditions are beautiful. When I learn about other traditions, I get that warm fuzzy feeling I get with my tradition, at people striving to be more. Hedonistic pleasure seeking has it's limits, and I think it's OK to seek your own pleasure at times, but there needs to be a balance.

Just likes in Buddhism there needs to be a balance between essentialism and nihilism, a fetter.  

Drinking

I quite enjoyed watching this video this morning.

On thing that strikes me about this video from 1993, 21 years ago, is that Bhante thinks about the consequences to others. Pratityasamutpada is the first thought. If someone references a red herring of other's behaviors, then he suggests people focus on themselves. He demonstrates a kind of democracy, in that they voted on whether to add a 11th precept, and it failed. He discussed the differences between the west and India, where drinking is more taboo. He talks about his own example, where he quit drinking all together even though he likes a drop of wine during a meal, because of the impact of others. I really like it that he supports the freedom of others, but shows such a kind example. Another tac he takes is that fine, you look at one example, but what about the majority example, can you see that? Finally he does say that there is to be no drinking in FWBO centers, now renamed TBC.

In all my time with the TBC, they were dry events, except parties. I do remember someone asking if I was fit to drive, after I'd had some beer. At the time I thought that was annoying question, but I think it's a fair question.

I have been reflecting a lot on drinking lately. I have brewed my own beer, and there have been times in my life when drinking did take energy and money from me. I do think I have alcoholic tendencies, and there were a lot of people in my life while I was growing up who you could say drink too much.

I remember in one of Bante's memoirs, he drove across Europe, and was astonished by how much of agriculture was given up to wine, and I think he said he stopped drinking at that point, because while he liked a little, he thought the world had devoted too many resources to drinking and he did not want to participate in that.

He also talks about contributing to the culture of bragging about drinking, and the effect that might have on other people.

One time when I wrote in the reporting journal of men who have asked for ordination, that I got tanked with my preceptor, and someone condemned me from Sri Lanka. I remember being very tired the next day for a retreat inside a prison. But in the end it went well. I think being in jail was very stressful for me, and that may have contributed to the drinking. Also some people bought us a round when we were about to leave, and they wanted to talk about Buddhism.

I guess I remember some bit in Milarepa where he drinks and thinks he gets enlightened. But if you look at that story, that is the only instance of drinking, and he's laid of lot of ground to get to the point, and maybe the drinking released some inhibitions. They talk about Ananda not being enlightened and wanting to join a counsel of remembered speech from the Buddha, but you had to be enlightened. This made his efforts more tense, but just before he fell asleep, he relaxed and achieved enlightenment.

What I think is interesting in all this is that it's a case by case example, and that you must consult with your spiritual friends. Friendship is the emphasis. They don't want to judge others. I really find the desire not to judge others as really important.

Bhante also uses the phrase "pseudo-spiritual book keeping" to refer to someone who says, "well, I don't drink so I can be a little lax with the speech precepts." Bhante says you must apply yourself to all the precepts and not look for excuses not to.

My son wants to use the computer to play Minecraft, so I'll edit this later.

Savage Pilgrims

Reading Savage Pilgrims: On the Road to Santa Fe, Shukman quotes D.H. Lawrence, "...Which I am I..."

This could be interpreted 2 ways. Is he talking about the multiplicities within oneself, or is he talking about interconnectedness? Either way it's cool. I wonder if that's what the Buddha was thinking about when he talked about rebirth. How we all have a John Malkovich inside of us.

A surly troubled youth asked me the other day, "why do you care?" He was referring to the negative choices he was making. I think now my answer is interconnectedness. I think that's what the Bible is getting at when Christ says what you do to the least of me, you do to me. I feel like that my conservative friends have lost that insight.

Lawrence goes on to talk about a prayer to Saint Catherine. Again, it's ambiguous because there are lots of Saint Catherines. The most famous one is a virgin who every time she converted someone to Christianity, they were murdered.

It's hard for me to imagine Christian persecution in Christian America. It's the Christians who are doing the persecution here. It's not hard to see when people feel like they are closer to the truth, they can, out of insecurity, turn it into intolerance.

But a Bluesman (or woman) doesn't turn suffering into revenge.

What I like about Savage Pilgrims is that Shukman takes his own spiritual journey, and he's trying to shuck off his conditioning, and get closer to the bone, and embrace his freedom. I've only read 67 pages, but it's a beautiful travel memoir so far.

the path

(source)

I haven't meditated in yonks. I asked myself why I haven't been. My answer was that I had lost the habit. How would I refind the habit? A commitment. How does one go about following through with a commitment? Thinking about it is my first thought. Why do I want to meditate? I hope to be more aware for the sake of others.

My standby meditation is mindfulness of breathing the TBC way, with 4 stages. I've done the 16 stage anapanasati on retreat, but it's just so involved. Not that I don't like a little insight even when I'm calming myself.

I take a look inside, and it's a foul rag and bone shop. And yet, to look at that a little, it dusts the shop a little, it doesn't look as bad. Perhaps one of the reason why people don't meditate and do therapy is that when they tune in, they don't particularly like what they see. For me, that's the whole point. You drag stuff out into the daylight and it loses it power. It's a painful process and I accept my resistance to it, forgive my foibles, weakness, imperfections. I'm a middle aged man with the same old problems, but then I tell myself about the spiral. The upward spiral. It's all to a point. Even if I'm knocking at the door of the spiral staircase, that is worth it.

They say spiritual traditions make sense of suffering. Nietzsche suggests you get too comfortable with suffering, but I think he misses the point. The grace to accept what is happening isn't easy to come by. We stick the second arrow in. One is enough. Pin down the demons and stair at them. They don't go away, but they lose their power.

So to confirm why I meditate, I reflect on the path. Meditation is the path. 

Walking prayer

With beauty before me, may I walk

With beauty behind me, may I walk

With beauty above me, may I walk

With beauty below me, may I walk

With beauty all around me, may I walk

Wandering on the trail of beauty, may I walk

- Navajo: Walking Meditation

quote

From page 45 of The Path To Awakening: How Buddhism's Seven Points of Mind Training Can Lead You to a Life of Enlightenment and Happiness:

"It takes enormous will-power to think positively and no effort at all to let the mind dwell in negativity."

digital intelligence

From an essay: When The Factory Turns Cold:

"The French revolutionary (and Karl Marx’ son in law) Paul Lafargue wrote “The Right to be Lazy” in 1883 that the “proletariat has allowed itself to be seduced by the dogma of work.” In his provocative tribute to the merits of laziness, Lafargue refuses to privilege work over all other pursuits (Lafargue). No, this is not a call for a population of couch potatoes; it is rather a refusal of the configuration of the work society. Kathi Weeks, a Duke University professor, explains that Lafargue’s extravagant refusal of work is not a refusal of productive activity. Lafargue speaks out against the ideology of work as highest calling. Weeks points to the autonomist Marxist critique that does not only focus on alienation and exploitation but also on the overvaluation of work itself (Hoegsberg and Fisher 151).

At first, such demand may sound outlandishly elitist. How could we possibly unlearn our extreme work habits, our overvaluation of work? Who’d pay the bills. Really, who can afford this? In her excellent book The Problem with Work, Kathi Weeks supports demands for basic income and shorter work hours.

For Weeks, the problem with work would not disappear if invisible labor would be more visible and appropriately compensated. The problem is not only about the degradation of skill, low wages/exploitation, and discrimination. It’s about “securing not only better work, but also the time and money necessary to have a life outside of work.”(Weeks 13) Do you remember the times when people still had hobbies and knew how to take a vacation?

The refusal of work is really a refusal of the way work is organized. Concretely, proposals for unconditional basic income, discussed intensely and for a long time in Europe, would make that possible."

I quoted my favorite part of the essay but it's so much more than that section. It questions our use of the internet in smart ways, and brings a kind of mindfulness in digital interactions. Wonderful essay.

Preciousness of life

From page 42 of The Path To Awakening: How Buddhism's Seven Points of Mind Training Can Lead You to a Life of Enlightenment and Happiness:

"The dharma teachings explain in detail what a precious human life is. It is by no means a mere generalization. Rather, the precious human life means precisely you. You can practice the dharma and so your life is precious: you have the freedom to pursue the dharma; you have time to attend dharma lectures, you have the intellect to understand the meaning: and you hare physically able to do the practice. It makes you realize how lucky you are."

quote

"It must be mentioned here that even today some things are kept hidden from all but the most serious practitioners. Here, wit it comes to the teachings on ultimate bodhicitta, much will remain unwritten." p. 28 The Path to Awakening.

I don't think that should keep one from addressing the seven point mind training, but it could make one wish to study them within a tradition.

I think some writings make one meditate. Some writings make one seek sangha.

Sunday thoughts

So I've begun to read The Path To Awakening: How Buddhism's Seven Points of Mind Training Can Lead You to a Life of Enlightenment and Happiness.

There is a 6 page introduction to the teachings of the Buddha. I have not heard the teaching about the various turnings of the wheels. I have heard the teaching the three lakshanas.

In the introduction by Shamar Rinpoche he says he doesn't want his teaching to be secetarian, but then the first paragraph of the explication of the root text he says this is the primary teaching in the Kadam School. I think he can have it both ways, I don't get so caught up on contradictions, I see it more as a dialectic. There is something good about understanding what your tradition really is.

With Buddhism hitting the wide world, with the invasion of Tibet in 1950, culminating in the Dali Lama fleeing in 1959, you get the teachings going into a lot of different cultures, and that process can be like sifting for the gold. With Tibetan Buddhism spreading over the world, other traditions have found the west to be more open. Zen, Theravada and other traditions have seen an opening of receptivity and curiosity in the west. The dirt of culture drops out. Actually, I don't see culture as dirt, but it is important to see what is culture and what dharma transcends culture, and what culture does to the dharma. And dirt is a positive association for me, live rich soil is so important. This whole interplay between culture and dharma is interesting and important.

One of the things in America is that secular mindfulness is about denuding Buddhism of all the various sort of religious aspects. No foreign chanting, no weird drawings, no foreign rituals.

One of my facebook friends noted a study that showed meditation did not help with stress relief as much as therapy and medication. I'm OK with that, because to make meditation into stress relief is not really the Buddha's intention. That might be one of the things that's needed to progress on the spiritual path, and that might just be trying to curb some of the negative aspects of materialism, the idea that life is all about amassing the most possessions possible. People torque themselves up to a high pitch to succeed, and then need a way of winding down, when they realize alcohol or drugs come at a price. You can turn to meditation for that, and that might help, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just not particularly Buddhism, we have to be frank about that. You can use meditation to enhance your materialistic quests for security, housing, exquisite experiences, and status. This is why the military and the business world like secular mindfulness.

Phil Jackson can be the Zen basketball coach, and make millions and millions of dollars. And I am happy for him, and I'm really glad the Knicks are looking into him running the Knicks. But I don't see him as particularly Buddhist, and all the stuff about Zen and him is really overblown. Just like the Zen of Steven Jobs. I'm happy for people to be open to outside influences, but Steven Jobs doesn't really need to be co-opted by Zen to make Zen any better. I don't want Buddhism to become a kind of Scientology where it's really about making it in Hollywood. It's not some in club that is exciting because it's an in club.

People need a lot of metta though. I could use more. My partner was saying that the other day, people just need to try and be a little nicer. She thinks that would make our world a better place. There's nothing wrong with meditation making you nicer to people. Lets just be clear what our intension is. Are we meditating to be nicer so we can make more money or are we just meditating to be nicer. Are we meditating to move towards enlightenment, not matter how far off that might be? In the acceptance verses in the ordination ceremony of the TBC, you accept ordination for the sake of enlightenment. I've heard people disavow enlightenment, it seems to far off, it's said you can't know what it is until you are that. I personally see that as a denial of what the Buddha did as being special, that you can do it, and that it's worth aiming for.

Seven Point Mind Training

The Path To Awakening: How Buddhism's Seven Points of Mind Training Can Lead You to a Life of Enlightenment and Happiness arrived in the mail today. This is by Shamar Rinpoche. The Shamar Rinpoche version is translated and edited by Lara Braitstein.

I've read Becoming a Child of the Buddhas: A Simple Clarification of the Root Verses of Seven Point Mind Training a number of times and have studied it in study groups. This is by Gomo Tulku, translated by Joan Nicell. When you google Gomo Tulku, you get the rapping lama, which I think might be another incarnation. It's hard to untangle the thicket of lineages and teachers. But the one thing to know is that the Seven Point Mind Training might not be a standardized text, and might have different version in different traditions. The whole point of it is to have pithy short verses that pack big punches, so they are changed over time, and each lineage will see various versions as the best one. And then someone translates them into English.

The Seven Point Mind Training goes back to teachings of Atisa, through Checkawa Yeshe Dorje. So the various versions will be based on these. So we're reaching back to Atisa through a number of teachers and a translators.

This one by Shamar Rinpoche, is from the Kadampa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, though the teachings reach out into the modern movements, and other traditions. If you were in that tradition, you'd probably read this version first. I read the Gomo Tulku version as recommended by the TBC. I have no idea why or how that came to be the one to read at that time.

I've listened to talks from FBA on it. I don't know what's going on with their search engine, but I can't find the specific talks.

What strikes me in my memory is that all this stuff has to be critically evaluated, and made sense of. But if you spend time on them, they can come to have great meaning. And that is why I'm excited to read this new version of the teachings. I will check back with you when I get into the book.

The shortness of life

Why do we forget about death? Forgetting is an important human function. We could be plagued by existential crisis at an early age, without the resources to combat the crisis. Forgetting trauma is only temporary, it bubbles up later when we are strong enough to address it, process it, metabolize it better. The defenses are truly wonderful things even if we rail against our limitations.

We shall die soon, but we wish to face it when it's more obvious. You can read Crap! I've Got Cancer. The author of How We Die: Reflections of Life's Final Chapter, New Edition just died. You can read his obituary.

You can read the obit section of the Times every day, and somehow it doesn't sink in. The death clock tells me I will die on February 25th 2041, but that's just an estimate based on whether I smoke and what my BMI is. Optimistically I could live to 2065. Pessimistically I could live 6 more years. All of these things are estimates. It is unknown when we die.

As you get older, you know more and more people in the obit section. Long life is also interesting. One of the comments in one of my classes wasn't that death was so bad, it was the trajectory into death that was the hard part. It was in Montaigne's essays that I read about how death is actually a release from suffering at the end, and not be feared.

I began thinking about death when I read The Denial of Death. The professor who assigned me the book is surely dead by now. I remember the book blowing my mind. I'm kind of afraid to read it again. In a way it helped me on my journey into deep psychology.

In social work school I took a class on death, dying and mourning. I read Intoxicated by My Illness and Other Writings on Life and Death, and had to write a paper on a movie. I think I wrote my paper on Antonia's Line (1995) (Import All Region). I say I think because I lent it to someone and never got it back.

One of the themes of Buddhism, is that life is impermanent. Life is short. One of the reflections used in Buddhism is to reflect on the shortness of life, to try and goose out your real priorities, and drop some of the superficial stuff.

My most frequented blog posts are entitled How Can I Die? I read an article about how you can increase your blog traffic and it actually works. I wrote a blog post that ended with the suicide hotline number. At times we feel overwhelmed with negativity, but rarely are things so hopeless that suicide is warranted just based on those feelings, so people should seek help. I believe a law against suicide is stupid, and I do feel people own their own lives, and they can rationally choose suicide, like at the very end of a well known terminal illness progression. But often in depression we feel was a in a bad place and that it will never improve. That is usually untrue.

I read a science fiction book about a future where people's consciousness is backed up and if they die, you can just download the consciousness. No wait, the book was a future that promised medicine had advanced to such a point that people just didn't die any more. And at the end, it had a bit about how you could freeze your body or freeze your head. (I think that's why Futurama has all those heads in jars. I love that show.) Reflecting on the idea of living forever, you realize that the shortness of life is what gives it such meaning, and yet the subjective experience of life can be that it goes on and on forever. I certainly feel that way sometimes.

We don't live through our children, but we do live on in people's consciousness, for a short while anyway. I still think about all the dead people in my life, and all the dead relationships. People are with us as kind of psychological ghosts. We think about people in history as well. What would the Buddha do?

I'm agnostic about the afterlife, rebirth, because while it doesn't make sense to me, I think there are strong cultural factors that make it dismissed, like science. One friend said, "it's hard to imagine all this energy goes to nothing." I don't really have a hard time seeing that.

As I say we live on in the tendrils of consequences and other's consciousness. I think while our consciousness is unique because no two circumstances are similar, I think personalities are fairly similar, and it's possible that reincarnation is just seeing lines of karma in personalities; I can imagine what it was like to be this person in those circumstances. I think when you understand conditionality in a truly deep way,  all sorts of interesting things are seen, that are not part of normal consciousness.

Reflections on death are important and good, but I also think preoccupation with death, from a depressive standpoint, is a warning sign and needs to be addressed.

the monastic code

In all the books I've read, the Vinaya is something I have not read about beyond The Ten Pillars of Buddhism (Sangharakshita Classics). (You can hear the talk on line if you don't wish to read the book at Free Buddhist Audio. When I search "ten pillars", I can't find it, but I know it's there.)

In the TBC, the order is neither monastic nor lay. I think that comes from Sangharakshita's observation that "good monks" who followed the rules could be rather uninspired, and "bad monks" who didn't exactly follow the rules could be very inspiring and do lots of good in the name of the dharma.

Literalism is also seen as a big hinderance in the spiritual life, and the rules seem all about literalism.

Finally, the idea that all 5 monks who ordain a monk are pure in their observance all the way back to the Buddha is absurd. Someone in there has to have done something unpure, and therefore the idea of purity back to the Buddha can't be true. Anyway, maybe it's more of an aspiration than an actualization, but even so, the language is not true.

Along comes a free updated version by Thanissaro Bhikkhu free on their lovely website.

There is a kind of scholasticism that feels more academic than spiritual, but I appreciate the Theravadans for their translations of the primary texts, and their commitment to the early cannon.

Supposedly the Vinaya came about because a monk named Sudinna, was asked by his family to provide an heir because they were afraid their lands would be taken away. Even though he had renounced the worldly life and become a monk, where sexual intercourse is forbidden, he chose to sleep with his wife 3 times to try and provide an heir. Perhaps he thought it was a kindness to give his family an heir.

In the legend of the Buddha he hangs around until he's given his father an heir, then he goes off on his journey. I wonder if he's expressing his feeling that he shouldn't have done that. Some people think the legend of the Buddha's life is a story, and that the Buddha was always a spiritual monk.

The Buddha tells him a list of negative places it would be better to put his penis. You can find the list for yourself. He expresses himself strongly.

Sona

I was reading Encounters with Enlightenment: Stories from the Life of the Buddha, and I read the story of Sona to my sons. He's the lute strings guy. He was too intent on the spiritual life and was pacing back and forth and it made his feet bloody. I didn't know that at the start of the story, he's famous for having hair on the soles of his feet. Anyway, the Buddha tells him when his feet are all bloody that he's thinking about going home. Having a balance in the spiritual life helps you not to quit. The Buddha remembers that Sona played the lute string and made an analogy about keeping the strings not too tight and not too loose. The point is applying the right amount of pressure in the spiritual life makes sweet music.

tantric sex magic

Just kidding. I want to write about redemption. Even so this is one of my most popular posts.

I remember back in 2010, Brit Hume suggested that Tiger Woods convert from Buddhism to Christianity because Christianity has redemption. I remember at the time a flummoxed Buddhist going on TV to respond to this charge. At the time I was unclear. I wish to muse further on this situation.

Buddhism doesn't have redemption in the sense that Jesus Christ died for our sins, in the sense that we've been kicked out of the garden because Eve gave the apple to Adam. The whole metaphysical contraption of Christianity isn't, obviously, part of Buddhism.

But were there great comeback stories in Buddhism. Of course there were. Did the Buddha think anyone could stage a great comeback? He did hesitate with allowing women into the order, and he gave them more rules, but many think that was quite revolutionary and feminist given the historical context. Of course the story of Angulimala comes to mind. He had a necklace made out of the fingers of the people he killed. When he turned to Buddhism the people stoned him and didn't give him food because they could remember him as a murderer. But that eventually died down and the Buddha taught that you don't run from your problems.

It's not Darth Vader finally acknowledging his son and saving his life type of redemption, but then again no two redemptions are alike.

Thinking about the Tiger Wood situation, obviously he's lost his wife, and by extension full time with his children. I'm sure he visits his children and whatnot, but it's never the same after a divorce. He's been linked to Linsey Vaughn, the great female skier who is injured during these olympics, so his love life has bounced back. He hasn't really won a major since the incident, and the impact on his golfing life has been quite significant. I'm sure he's lost millions and millions of dollars. I don't really know what it's like when you're super rich, what it's like to see some money drift away from you. I'm not sure how bad that really hurts. I don't know his social context, whether people treat him differently or whether he lost any friends. I suppose a real friend sticks by your side even in the bad times, so I guess he lost a lot of friendly acquaintances.

What ever your motivation for "doing good", I would say if it's a kind of redemption motivation, to make up for the bad you've done, well, there's nothing wrong with that. You might realize that it's not easy to tighten things up and "act good". Our lives are a bunch of habits and when we dig a hole, we often find that it wasn't worth it when we start digging out of it. I think that's one of the themes of My Name Is Earl. I think that's the whole point of ethics. It's not to turn you into a sheep, or to flip pleasure upside down and call it bad. The whole point of ethics is that you get hurt by not choosing the best path in life at times, and you really suffer through not being ethical. And that kind of insight is worth all the tantric sex magic in the world.

Five Hinderances

(Source)

One of the first things I learned in meditation, after the object of focus and the posture, was the five hinderances. They are sensual desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and doubt.

I think at the moment, doubt is my biggest hinderance. I doubt that I can progress enough to be meaningful. I doubt that I have to fortitude to sit and advance. I doubt that I can take the content of what comes up. I've got troubling throughs I am afraid to face. But that's just another story, and sitting helps me to see that.

One of my favorite bits is from Milarepa, where he talks about the lion. The dog chases the stick, but the lion turns and faces the stick thrower.

Sense desire is tricky. I get intoxicated with ideas sometimes, dreams and fantasies. I can also have sexual thoughts.

Ill will is the least strongest, but I can become obsessed with what I experience is wrongs others have done to me.

Sloth and torpor usually hit me on a long retreat, after I've worked through a lot of sense desire and the others.

Restlessness, worry flurry, hit me when I'm not on retreat, when I do my daily meditation. I think about my todo list, all the things that "need to get done". In a positive way, my mind somehow winnows my todo list, or rediscovers important things that have escaped my list. But worry flurry is also more than just the todo list. It plays a part in doubt. The only good thing about it is that it's sort of the opposite of sloth and torpor.

I started reading The Purpose and Practice of Buddhist Meditation: A Source Book of Teachings. Sangharakshita is my teacher, and I learned to meditate in his tradition, so I really appreciate this book. He's got such a vast mind and he's written about so much. Living with Awareness: A Guide to the Satipatthana Sutta and Living with Kindness are both meditation books, but they are more recent. I suppose in a way, learning to meditate is something you get outside of books. But as the book claims, it's a source book, a collection of Sangharakshita's writings on meditation. In fact, Buddhist Meditation: Tranquillity, Imagination and Insight is the standard book on meditation in the order. And there are other good ones that enhance the two basic practices of metta and mindfulness of breathing. I particularly liked the book on the body.

Karma

The premise of My Name Is Earl, is that Earl hears Carson Daily discuss karma, and he begins to think about the consequences of his actions. Here is the premise:

You know the kind of guy who does nothing but bad things and then wonders why his life sucks? Well, that was me. Every time something good happened to me, something bad was always waiting round the corner: karma. That's when I realized that I had to change, so I made a list of everything bad I've ever done and one by one I'm gonna make up for all my mistakes. I'm just trying to be a better person. My name is Earl.

The show is like Enlightenment. It starts out making fun of the simple spiritual notions, but it also takes us into spirituality, where inevitably not everything is simple.

The humor is low brow, and silly. It's a combination of Shameless and any half hour ensemble sitcom. I'm almost embarrassed to say I like the show because it's a little too much of an adult Spongebob Squarepants.

There is an element of AA in the show because he wants to make amends. The first lesson is that you can't undo things. It's like the surprisingly good Madona children's book: Mr. Peabody's Apples. And yet the effort to make amends is a kind of kindness, that always wins over people who are wronged. At times, people take advantage of his desire to do right, but most often people are grateful of his efforts. In the end whether things go right or wrong, causality is complicated, and things are not simple. There are unintended consequences you can't see. Our efforts often can achieve the opposite results we're aiming for.

There's an absurdist quality that is reminiscent of Futurama and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It's absurdist humor without the intelligence of Monty Python. Again it's low brow.

It also has the humor of nihilism that I don't like, but mostly it's heavy on meaning.

I'm for any exploration of conditionality. Reminds me of the wheel of life.