Reporting in

8th century rock carving from Pakistan.

I heard the phrase "pattern of hindrances," and that was evocative for me. I start off restless. It's a rag and bone shop and a maelstrom. Doubt crops up when things get hard, the boredom or just misguided expectations, the idea that discipline doesn't yield results. My anger is lurking, I fancy I'm a highly spiritually evolved master, and then bing, there it is. Why would they... not conform to my expectations. I open my eyes when I'm tired, but I also open my eyes for sense stimulation. I love stimulation, I love distractions. I'm doing one now by blogging. 

Spending some time with the Green Island Sangha I'm enjoying the positivity, the kindness and the idea that coming home to oneself in meditation, home in the body, home in the mind. The world is telling me all sorts of important things if I would just listen.

Underneath the restlessness is content I'm trying to avoid. I need to get over the feeling that I'm rubbing my face in my own shit, and really truly process my mistakes, gafs, harmful actions, selfishness, limitations. 

I got really inspired by reading in Zen Baggage by Bill Porter that on the 3 month retreat at the Rinzai temple he was at, the monks meditate 90 minutes 11 times. There are 1440 minutes in a day. That amount of meditation is 990 minutes. That leaves 7.5 hours of sleep if you just meditate and sleep, which isn't going to happen. I need to step up my meditation game. 

Sat for 40 minutes today for the first time in a long time.

I asked r/Buddhism why garlic, onions and tomatoes are considered aphrodisiacs and to be avoided. At the Rinzai temple Porter visits, this is a held belief. I got a reference to Śūraṅgama Sūtra, the Heroic March sutra. Current consensus is that the text is a compilation of Indic materials with extensive editing in China, rather than a translation of a single text from Sanskrit. It is first spoken about in the 8th century in China. It has been wondered whether the sutra was apocrypha, and is categorized as esoterica. Some think it comes from Nalanda. The Śūraṅgama Sūtra is one of the seminal texts of Chán Buddhism. The Śūraṅgama Sūtra is one of the seminal texts of Chán Buddhism. I'm not sure I want to make this sutra the center of my study, but I always like looking around and seeing what's available. Perhaps to a fault. Anyway, there is a translation available. (Translation with commentary.)

The list gets longer, "Beings who seek samadhi should refrain from eating five pungent plants of this world. The first step is to get rid of contributing causes. The five pungent plants have been described already. They are onions, garlic, leeks, scallions, and shallots."

So when you have reverence for Buddhist texts, that doesn't mean you have to automatically believe the translated and written word. As already noted, this isn't a central or essential text, but it is popular in the Chan sect in China. I don't experience foods as changing my meditation, but I'm not enlightened yet. I wonder if what I eat does cause subtle changes, I think that's my takeaway. To listen to see if that information comes to me.

I've always wondered when I've seen "Buddhist friendly" food for Chinese, I always wondered what the thoughts were, where they came from.

It does feel like a cultural belief that isn't essential. Even so, a cultural belief isn't a false belief, it just means with a whole wide world, other cultures didn't come up with the same results. But the Queen of England has banned garlic in her palace! Does she just not like the smell or does she imagine it impedes spiritual progress?

I wonder if there's some placebo effect, if you do things, you think, "I'm doing all the right things." I recently wondered if disabusing someone of the idea that a certain image was the image of the Buddha was the right thing to do, if it was helpful.

I have Christian friend who doesn't like swearing. I try to not swear. Turns out I swear a little bit, every once in a while, to express emotion. Do I need to express that emotion? Speech should be kindly, helpful, timely and truthful. Extreme emotion isn't always kindly, but it could be more truthful. Striving for maximum articulation and truth, with kindness is important and not easy, not trivial.  

Start where you are is a kind of broken record for Pema Chodron, but I think maybe it's a necessary broken record. People try to act enlightened, under the principle of fake it till you make it. I mean that can work a bit with ethics and communication and other things, but in a way it only gets you so far. I think the combination of meditation, study, fellowship and devotion gets you to grow up and you don't have to fake it, some of the craziness drops away. It's not hard to lay down obsessions and addictions, it's not as hard to be kind and communicate if you've been working the spiritual program.

Yesterday was Ashura, a Muslim holiday of mourning. I think a lot about the loss of my grandparents. I used to spend my summers with them growing up, one month with one set, one month with the other set. Pretty shocking to the system, but as I get older and older, I feel the love from them. It resonates through the decades. There are other gone too. A gay uncle. Another uncle. Great aunts. Even my best friend from high school. Buddhist acquaintances that passed. 

Today is the day Walden came out. Sangharakshita didn't like the transcendentalists, but it's a big part of the intellectual history of America. I find their writings hard, but I do like reading biographies of the people. And Amos Walcott was an early vegan, survived on apple sauce and potatoes when he crossed the ocean to visit England. Mostly like to read Emily Dickinson of the people from that period, and Whitman.