MLK

"But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Some articles I'm considering reading from Reddit

Awakening Fueled by Rage (Zenju Earthlyn Manuel): https://www.lionsroar.com/awakening-fueled-by-rage/

We Cry Out for Justice (Jan Willis): https://www.lionsroar.com/cry-justice/

Buddhism in the Age of #BlackLivesMatter (Pamela Ayo Yetunde): https://www.lionsroar.com/buddhism-age-blacklivesmatter/

The Radical Buddhism of Rev. angel Kyodo williams (John Demont): https://www.lionsroar.com/love-and-justice-the-radical-buddhism-of-rev-angel-kyodo-williams/

Healing the Broken Body of Sangha (Ruth King): https://www.lionsroar.com/healing-the-broken-body-of-sangha/

Cold Mountain 240

Quote from New Yorker article about a dancer from Naropa March 30 2020

The Unraveling of a Dancer By Rachel Aviv March 30 2020 New Yorker

"But Robert Sharf, a professor of Buddhist studies at the University of California, Berkeley, told me, “The depersonalization to which Buddhists aspire is not supposed to result in dysfunctional alienation. The dissolution of the ego is meant to occur within an institutional and ideological framework that helps one make sense of the experience. Nowadays, people who become depressed or depersonalized through secularized meditation practices don’t have access to the conceptual resources and social structures to help them handle what is happening to them.”"

This is a fascinating article about Butoh dance, a Japanese teacher who taught at Naropa, and a woman named Sharon Stern who eventually committed suicide. The family sued the Butoh dance teacher Katsura Kan.

"The study of suicide is still defined, to a great degree, by the sociologist Émile Durkheim, who argued, in “Suicide,” from 1897, that the most prevalent type of suicide in Western society was “anomic suicide”—a response to social upheavals that caused people to become disconnected from their community’s values and norms. Their desires and aspirations go unchecked, and they suffer from “overweening ambition,” creating a state of perpetual dissatisfaction. “Inextinguishable thirst is constantly renewed torture,” Durkheim wrote. Durkheim’s insight is perhaps not so far from the Buddha’s teaching that our striving is the cause of suffering."

You can see a brief video of them dancing here.

A fascinating intersection between Japanese Butoh and American-Israeli culture, and meditation on suicide. It's always sad when someone commits suicide. People hide the signs and usually people who are seen as suicidal don't commit suicide according to the article.

For me there is an interest in building in the supports to pursue Buddhist practice. Decontextualized and without a community, a spiritual practice can be dangerous. Combining a spiritual practice with art is also dodgy business. Of course a spiritual practice will inform art, but for me they seem like very different things. Thoughts? Please comment.

5 Skandhas: The clinging-aggregates

The clinging-aggregates:

1. "form" or "matter" (rūpa): matter, body or "material form" of a being or any existence. Buddhist texts state rupa of any person, sentient being and object to be composed of four basic elements or forces: earth (solidity), water (cohesion), fire (heat) and wind (motion).
2. "sensation" or "feeling" (vedanā): sensory experience of an object. It is either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.
3. "perception"[note 5] (saññā): sensory and mental process that registers, recognizes and labels (for instance, the shape of a tree, color green, emotion of fear).
4. "mental formations" (saṅkhāra): '"constructing activities","conditioned things", "volition", "karmic activities"; all types of mental imprints and conditioning triggered by an object. Includes any process that makes a person initiate action or act.
5. "consciousness" (viññāṇa): "discrimination" or "discernment". Awareness of an object and discrimination of its components and aspects.

(From Wikipedia)

I'm reading Maha-punnama Sutta: The Great Full-moon Night Discourse (MN 109). The root of these 5 clinging aggregates is desire.

"He assumes feeling to be the self, or the self as possessing feeling, or feeling as in the self, or the self as in feeling. He assumes perception to be the self, or the self as possessing perception, or perception as in the self, or the self as in perception. He assumes fabrications to be the self, or the self as possessing fabrications, or fabrications as in the self, or the self as in fabrications. He assumes consciousness to be the self, or the self as possessing consciousness, or consciousness as in the self, or the self as in consciousness."

"This, monk, is how self-identity view comes about."

We identify with the forms, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness. By not identifying with the 5 clinging-aggregates "self-identity view no longer comes about."

That eventually leads to:

"Seeing thus, the instructed disciple of the noble ones grows disenchanted with form, disenchanted with feeling, disenchanted with perception, disenchanted with fabrications, disenchanted with consciousness. Disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion, he is fully released. With full release, there is the knowledge, 'Fully released.' He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'"

And with this talk 60 monks became enlightened and, "were fully released from fermentations."

I asked my friend if he really thinks you can get rid of desire. My friend says you can't get rid of desire, you channel it to kusala desire, that is skillful, ethical, and that edges out sensory desire.

I asked my friend if he'd heard of Nietzsche's criticism of religion, that it just flips the stuff you like and makes it bad, and makes not so great stuff, good. He said that's not really going on with what enlightenment is about. It's about dispelling ignorance. Deep meditation can be very pleasurable was my thought. I think I'm still formulating the answer to that one.

Solitude and Loneliness: A Buddhist View by Sarvananda

Solitude and Loneliness: A Buddhist View by Sarvananda quotes a lot of other writers:

Poem by Hafiz

Don’t surrender your loneliness so quickly.
let it cut more deep.
Let it ferment and season you as few human or even divine ingredients can.

"Tenzin Palmo comments: Genuine renunciation is giving up our fond thoughts, all our delight in memories, hopes and daydreams, our mental chatter. To renounce that, and stay naked in the present, that is renunciation"

Sarvananda is quotable too:

"On a solitary retreat, you should first attempt to become acquainted with the restorative angel, the spirit who reintroduces you to a sense of harmony, calm, and connectedness. But, when you’re ready, you might ask this angel to introduce you to the destructive angel, her more daunting and challenging sister, who will ask you to address both your fear and the entrenched habit that keeps that fear in place."

I worked on that this morning. At first I thought of Amoghasiddhi. There's a really cool mantra that my friends used to chant with a chorus, and I can chant that to channel fearlessness. Then I thought of when I was a kid and I'd ride my bike to a place where I could buy comics. I used to like Spiderman and The Hulk. Hulk smash meditation fears.

Sarvananda talks about the fears of meditating alone sometimes. The worst time I had was when I continued to meditate with the 6 elements after a retreat, but not on retreat, and back in my worldly life I felt like I was falling apart. Then someone told me that is perhaps a meditation to do only in a very supportive environment like retreat, and I guess my worldly life wasn't supportive enough.

The last thing I thought of was all my male ancestors over my right shoulder, all my female ancestors over my left shoulder. That also gives me comfort.

I think that's a great thing people should do before meditating, figure out what to think about if they start to feel really uncomfortable. Of course stay with what you can to the best of your ability but also trust your judgement when you need to reinforce yourself.

"As Buddhists, we are attempting to stop defining ourselves so rigidly with regard to the objects of our awareness, attempting to break through the constricting and isolating shell of ego that we build up through such rigid identification."

I was pleased to see someone in the TBC not following Sangharakshita's lead and dismissing Thoreau.

If I could go on a solitary retreat, I would love it right now. I need to hire someone to watch my daughter. I don't have buyer's remorse for my choices to procreate. I love my 4 year old. But of course as a human, I want more than I can get. She tried to meditate with me the other day, and while she can't really sit there with her eyes closed and follow her breath, she gave it a try and for that I am really happy.

The one solitary retreat I went on for a week was really amazing, though so upset to have to go home, I decided I would never get enlightened because of the life I have chosen. I think that was a pretty dire assessment, and instead I push on with hope.

When teachings connect

Last night I was laying in bed, winding down for sleep when my daughter came into my room. I stumbled across Ayya Soma talking. I liked the tone and whatnot. But my daughter didn't want me to watch that.

I got up and read the Connected Discourses (SN5.2). I'm in the section about Mara, and then it turned to the section about nuns. I saw there was a nun Soma. Mara scoffs at a woman's ability to lead the spiritual life, calls her wisdom "two finger wisdom". Women check the rice with two fingers to see if it is done. I've never heard that insult. In the section, Soma recognizes Mara, calls him out, and triumphs over him.

I turned to the FB page and found the teaching. For some reason I felt a really good feeling about this teacher at Buddhist Insights, who co-founded the monastery and retreat center in West Orange New Jersey. I found out she was Italian. She was talking about the power of investigating experience to help deactivate reactive craving, leading to a bright mind. I just got a really good vibe from her and really connected with her short teaching. I noticed the absence of "I already know that," and other Mara talk in my head. I became a fan of Ayya Soma.

In my meditation today I was reflecting on the Buddha and I was impressed by his perseverance with following out to his goal of release. I've been really struggling to finish a book, ditto for sitting until I'm enlightened. 

I also like her co-founder Bante Suddhaso. Their banter between each other is cute, and enjoy the crumbs of spiritual friendship I can witness between the two.

I have a low grade plan to go monastic when my daughter goes to college in 14 years, and I'm turning towards this monastery if I can make a connection over the next 14 years.

More Talks:

Soma on gender in Buddhism: She was cut out of a photo. She's experienced more gender challenges as a Buddhist than in her past life.

Marasamyutta

I'm reading the Marasamyutta in the Sumyutta Nikaya, or the Connected Discourses. In a way, Mara seems like self doubt in the pursuit of the path. I have a lot of self doubt. I've been reading back looking for it in my blog, to correct it. This is perhaps one subset of fears that the reptile mind can present to the observing mind.

In a way my willingness to doubt can be an asset, no personal trait is all bad or all good, it's the application and appropriateness of it. But now I'm going to see it as possible Mara when it's it's just a lack of confidence, or when doubt feels pathological.

As a leader you need to take on a confidence because you can't endlessly deliberate. We are attracted to leaders who have confidence in their instincts. Taking on doubt could save a lot of leaders from making huge mistakes.

You can invite your demons, befriend them and stare at them, pin them. They lose power, the shadow loses power when it is brought to the light. We are responsible to do the shadow work, so that we do not hurt other people. Stephen Batchelor has a book called Living With The Devil that I quite like.

Mara is often presented as the temptation of sense pleasure, and that is easily represented as women for me. Their bodies, their love, their care. In my last post, I was discussing the terror woman face as objects of desire merely walking on the streets, outside. There's a kind of unfairness to women to have to be obsessed with safety by merely being out in public. The unfair projections, acted on, create suffering in women.

Some men can get down on themselves for these unfair projections and objectifying. I read an article in the National Geographic that when men look at women in bikinis it activates the tool use part of their brains. But the things you can't change, need to just be understood and can still be negotiated skillfully. You don't act on these kinds of urges. Know this shadow, and remember your vision, the hope for a fair society for all genders. The hatred of the oppression of women. Accept that in men that would lead to oppression of women, know it, and don't act on it.

Rules can be blunt instruments, and the rule for a Theravadin monk to not touch women doesn't apply in all cases, like helping an old aunt down stairs. The Buddha said to drop the lesser rules when he was at the end of his life, but the debate about what those rules are continues. I like the approach where you apply principles, it gives you flexibility and focuses on the goals.

I can't help but think of the gruesome Therigatha story (Subhā of Jīvaka's Mango-grove (71/73)) of the beautiful woman who tore out her eye to no longer be attractive to men, so they would stop bothering her. (The Therigatha is perhaps the first female spiritual classic, and is among my favorite memories of reading the Pali Canon. I read it on a retreat, and it really left a mark on my mind.)

Leaders can get a little power and exploit the situation like in Brad Warner's video of the top 10 Buddhist scandals. It might be a little better to choose leaders who don't want the power. Or to not need a leader to hope they can do everything for you. To trust your own truth, your own potency, your own effectualness. Don't allow a "spiritual teacher" to override you instincts. Maybe read Sex and the Spiritual Teacher by Scott Edelstein when you begin the spiritual path.

So while self doubt can be Mara, controlling the shadow is also important and overconfidence can be something one might wish to inhibit if it's going to lead to hurting others. Befriend your demons and do shadow work.

Ditto for racism, speciesism, classism, nationalism and all other ideas that put down others, or allow you to exploit others. Even my hetrosexual presumption that all men are tempted by women. We're all interconnected and when we hurt others, we hurt ourselves. 

Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoir by Rebecca Solnit

"I once encountered a Buddhist saint who had worn tokens devotees gave him; they loaded him up, tiny token by tiny token until he was dragging hundreds of pounds of clinking griefs."

She's talking about the price women pay to be preyed upon outside in society, specifically in her household as a child, with family and then in the streets of San Francisco USA. She wrote that once expert told her, "rape is about four times more likely to result in diagnosable PTSD than combat." and she, "joked later that not getting raped was the most avid hobby of my youth."

She reports that she wrote in her walking book, "It was the most devastating discovery of my life that I had no real right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness out of doors, that the world was full of strangers who seemed to hate me and wished to harm me for no reason other than my gender, that sex so readily became violence, and that hardly anyone else considered it a public issue rather than a private problem."

Later, "I realized then that making you think like a predator was one thing predators could do to you. Violence itself had penetrated me."

Also, "We die all the time to avoid being killed."

And, "Perhaps it’s that a woman exists in a perpetual state of wrongness, and the only way to triumph is to refuse the terms by which this is so."

Pretty intense stuff. I imagined her in a nunnery and not as hassled, but then I remember that French movie about the Polish nuns who were raped by soldiers coming back from war, such that they had to build a nursery in the nunnery because so many nuns were raped. I imagined a violent scifi movie where women had armor, but as usual that was only for the rich. A dystopia that took this aspect of our current society to its logical extreme. I wondered who that bodhisattva was that took tokens of suffering and then was weighed down by them. I felt guilty that I thought she was cute in her photo. I hope and aspire to make women feel safe from me. I lay next to my daughter, me reading, her watching a children's show, and hope she doesn't have too much to deal with. But I will also have to teach her the rules of safety to cope with the reality, despite it's unfairness.

Doing what is necessary even if it breaks a minor religious rule

I saw a bunch of articles about Sikhs who cut off their beard so their masks work properly.

I think it's great to have discipline and rules for a religious tradition, but it's also good to be flexible and think for yourself. I know eating kosher is important for Jewish people, but if you're really starving it doesn't apply.

Like a Theravadin monk who is forbidden to touch a woman, breaking the rule to help an elderly aunt negotiate stairs. In the end you have to use critical discernment to see if what the rule was created for, whether it applies to the situation.

I think it's courageous that Brad Warner talks about scandals in Buddhism.

Maybe changing topic? Here is Herbie Hancock talking about Miles Davis.

Hope you had a good Vesak day yesterday!

I try not to do too much screen time on Vesak Day, I want to talk about the Buddha with my friends face to face. At the moment, that means a 4 year old who doesn't want to talk about the Buddha and my partner, who has gotten more into nature worship lately (which I don't mind) (but she also meditates).

My daughter knows what she wants and pursues it vigorously and since I spend a lot of time with her I have adopted an accepting attitude. I need to be more of a leader and teacher her and structure her day more.

Anyway, I had her watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. She actually quite liked the movie. She almost wanted to watch the updated version, but then changed her mind. In a way I find the movie quite scary. The sort of spoiled children end up going away in scary ways. It is very much about the dangers of following our desires all the time and the habits that form around that, that help you not hear about reality and focus on your wants.

Maybe I can extract a Dharma lesson from everything, but I thought it was a good movie to watch on Vesak Day for children. I don't know how much my daughter understands, but she watches things many times, so she's laying the foundation for further learning.

At the moment I feel very lucky. I offered to speak English in video chats to some Sri Lankan monks who want to learn English better. I responded to a request on Reddit. And the result is that I have been helping two monks improve their English. It makes me feel so lucky and so happy to be doing this. My spiritual friends have drifted away, and it feels really good to cultivate spiritual friendship. I'm just so happy. I need to learn to be a English as a foreign language teacher. If anyone gets the opportunity to do such a thing, I would highly recommend it. Among other things, I'm learning more about Sri Lanka which I've always been very curious about. I learn more about the Dharma. And I'm helping someone with language skills, who wants to improve their English. So I have to think about what words mean and how to use language on a basic level.

I am also lucky to have a good library of the Dharma. Thank you to the translators, to the people who preserved the books, to the publishers.

I am lucky to have a partner that provides feedback on how to grow.

I am grateful to the teachers that have taught me in person. I am grateful to the traditions. I am grateful for the Buddha, who chose to go forth from the homelife and seek his answers.

I feel lucky to have found the Dharma, not being born in a country where it is not popular yet only .7% compared to 70% in Sri Lanka.

I am still trying to figure out how to celebrate Vesak day. On reddit they just say meditate, which is good. Anything that moves you closer to the Buddha is good. But it's a public celebration and many people go to temples on this day. I've only gone once to a NYC gathering and it was quite interesting. I'm looking for general Buddhist gatherings and holidays. I am looking for the follow through in myself to do these things.

I am grateful for so much room for growth within myself.

Links:
Here is a message from the Dalai Lama

Eating

(Cori's plant based Thanksgiving)

When a man is always mindful,
Knowing moderation in the food he eats,
His ailments then diminish
He ages slowly, guarding his life

(402, 13 Kosaisamyutta, Sagathavegga (part 1), Samyutta Nikaya)

The king, who these verses were spoken to, then paid someone to say that to him before every meal. I suppose he could have just memorized that and done it himself, but maybe he was looking for a job for someone so he could employ them.

There was a list to avoid when eating (M 91, p 191 The Life of the Buddha), and one struck me, eating for embellishments. In food prep, embellishments are the garnishes, but they were not saying that the person eating was a garnish. I guess it means you don't eat so you look good. I'm pretty sure most people would say not eating helped you look good, but times change, and in times of hunger being fat is a desirable trait. Here is the quote:

"The food he takes has 5 factors: it is neither for amusement nor for intoxication nor for smartening nor for embellishment but only for the endurance and continuation of this body, for the ending of discomfort, and for the assisting the holy life."

Now this is advice for a monk and not a lay follower and king.

I've always thought that enjoying a well cooked vegan meal was a safe venture, because being vegan it minimized suffering in the world. That would contradict that amusement was a factor. I've always sort of felt like you "kiss the joys as they go by", that it's OK to enjoy these things. But there is a real ascetic streak he preaches for the monks. They are not to enjoy the sense.

I think this is at a crux of my question. I have the idea that moving towards enlightenment is to make a bigger box of mindfulness so that seeking out pleasure reactively doesn't happen. Does it help you to get there because you've suffered a bit.

I've always wondered if starving yourself to death and then eating enough to sustain yourself would be a better ramping up to the spiritual path, than say a middle class American trying to be "mindful when they eat", because that could be anything. Just don't go nutso. Like when I was at a end of the year cross country banquet, in high school, that was all you can eat, we did it competitively, trying to stuff as much food as we could to beat each other. In the end nobody was keeping track of food, we were just trying to push ourselves into discomfort to take advantage of the all you can eat. I'd say in general going to an all you can eat place is pretty diabolical. There's an all you can eat meat place on Northern Boulevard in Queens and my review calling it out as sick was put aside because I had an ideological idea against it. We're not far away from having a vomitorium so you could puke and then eat some more. I guess that would be even worse.

Being mindful of how hungry you are is important, and getting all the nutrients so you are healthy isn't a bad idea. Where does that put the cleaning your plate idea I got from my grandfather who survived the depression? You eat it all because you might not get food again. It turns out meals come about pretty regularly in my experience, though there were times I was poor and pretty hungry. But was it hungry like my 4 year old daughter, who is only really hungry for her preferred foods, but not starving hungry.

I also think about the richette principle. People who go on deprivation diets usually end up gaining weight, and the diets that work emphasize not deprivation but healthy choices like eating satisfying nuts more often.

Eating is such a complicated modern phenomenon. Theravadan monks will eat meat when it is given to them because they don't want to offend the giver, and probably because they also don't want to train people not to give them meat. I think a modern Theravadan should train the people who give them food to not give them meat. There's some weird kind of culture around not training donations to avoid meat, even though we know now that vegetarianism is good for you and helps the planet, and doesn't harm animals. Vegan is even better, but one step at a time training those who donate. The view from a vegan perspective is that being vegetarian is a walk in the park. They sneak milk or eggs into so many products you really have to read every label and question waiters at restaurants very closely. There was a big uproar that fast food places have been doing vegetarian burgers but they cook them on a grill that contains meat grease.

Poor cultures revere meat, because often people don't eat meat, and when poor immigrants come to America they tend to gain weight, and have terrible diets in the land of plenty, if they don't transcend their childhood conditioning. I live in an immigrant city and the love of meat is pretty strong, though of course suburbia can also be meat loving and ranches can be meat loving in rural areas. So in the end, I think cities hold out the best promise in the evolution of vegan culture.

I used to run so that I wouldn't feel like I had to limit my eating, that's how much I hate limiting myself. I get really nervous when my friend did a Master Cleanse fast. I could never do that, though I remind myself I'm not a fixed self, the future is unknown. I couldn't do it at present. I have experimented with intermittent fasting, and that is kind of natural to our ancestral environment. Eating disorders are no joke, body dysmorphia is nothing to play with the addiction to the pleasure of throwing up is also something to be wary of. In a way, my fervent hope parenting is that I don't give my children an eating disorder, though everyone has to own their own behavior.

In the end I like Sangharakshita's approach. We apply the principle of moderation to our modern existence. Really apply it. My fear is that leaves quite a lot of wiggle room to just indulge yourself, and we lose the tradition of the Buddhist monks expectations and live a Buddhist light lifestyle. And that means I needed to be vigilant with myself--the opposite of preaching to others. The older I get the more and more I realize how important vigilance is. Really committing to something and not just transciently thinking it's a good idea.

The initial quote is right though, I've seen research that people who eat reduced calorie diets do live longer. And heart disease is the number one killer in America. I sometimes wonder if the seriousness they have taken over the quarantine for Covid-19 were transferred to things like heart disease, or even gun control, we would have a more vigorous approach--though people don't like to be told what to do. Gun wielding protesters in Michigan, and a few of my Facebook friends have gotten twitchy about being told to stay at home, for their own good. Many people have pointed out the irony of people wanting others to go back to work so they can be served food or get a haircut. They want other people to go back to work so they can get services. In a way, everyone has had unique challenges to the quarantine based on their circumstances.

You can't feast every meal, but I'd say you can enjoy a family feast on a holiday, and tomorrow is Vesak Day! Happy Vesak day everyone!

Thoreau quote

Dambulla cave, Sri Lanka

Dambulla cave, is in Sri Lanka. There are actually 5 caves, and 153 Buddha statues. It is probable that people living in the caves predates the Buddha. Valagamba of Anuradhapura is traditionally thought to have converted the caves into a temple in the first century BC. Nissanka Malla of Polonnaruwa gilded the caves and added about 70 Buddha statues in 1190. In 1938 the architecture was embellished with arched colonnades and gabled entrances.

Links: Photos

A list of Buddhist sites to see in Sri Lanka.

Mindfulness "In front"

Analayo: "Once the posture is set up, mindfulness is to be established “in front”. The injunction “in front” (parimukhaÿ) can be understood literally or figuratively Following the more literal understanding, “in front” indicates the nostril area as the most appropriate for attention to the in-and out-breaths. Alternatively, “in front” understood more figuratively suggests a firm establishment of sati, sati being mentally “in front” in the sense of meditative composure and attentiveness."

Midnight Gospel quote

quote from Midnight Gospel on spiritual practice

episode 5 Midnight Gospel by Jason Louv:

"Any spiritual practice that's, like, trying to get to something... 'I'm going to become more spiritual. I am going to become more loving. And I'm going to make some change. I'm getting points, somehow. I'm changing.' The Buddhist perspective is 'Dude, you're grinding in World of Warcraft. Why? Step the fuck away from the computer. Wake up. It's just a game. You're fucking grinding in World of Warcraft. You're trying all these spiritual practices, you're trying to add experience points to a character that doesn't fucking exist. You forgot that you're playing a game. You're dehydrated. Drink some water. You've been playing this game for 20 hours straight to the point you forgot it's a game.'"