tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74650062024-03-26T08:11:35.260-04:00Going For RefugeDeepening and intensify my Dharma practice influenced by all of Buddhism, with book reviews, cultural notes, photography, and anything Buddhisty.S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.comBlogger1958125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-83479610372571883432024-03-22T09:42:00.003-04:002024-03-22T09:42:16.978-04:00inyeon and wall facers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKGZEuyaZW2fS4Gxb2q6ez3PPG-IpoFTYbO2oj5tNx7VjZFvx44x24Ki0tlMCHtUIBMYUrwPHIvK48nE62mea8zrKSv4_bBDBrUnPhHOM8Qp7Pm0UcZPIIiB4nwkqo06pLSfUcNNSu_thCdWoDC3E1u03SfrY6995G7SwomFuCpJ393tFNdAD-/s500/trees2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="334" data-original-width="500" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKGZEuyaZW2fS4Gxb2q6ez3PPG-IpoFTYbO2oj5tNx7VjZFvx44x24Ki0tlMCHtUIBMYUrwPHIvK48nE62mea8zrKSv4_bBDBrUnPhHOM8Qp7Pm0UcZPIIiB4nwkqo06pLSfUcNNSu_thCdWoDC3E1u03SfrY6995G7SwomFuCpJ393tFNdAD-/w640-h428/trees2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>More and more Buddhist concepts are coming into movies and shows. After 2500 years, Buddhism, which is transferred through highly personal relationships, has finally reached the entire world. If you consider the Chinese sailors reaching North America roughly 250 years ago, Buddhism has touched North American after 1/10 of it's history. It's only recently that monks and others have began to build sanghas in North America. Now that the internet connects the world it seems like all the ideas are available to us, and that the world is quite small, but we are still divided by languages. English might turn out to be the lingua franca of earth, but it might be another language. Maybe there will be several languages that everyone speaks. Maybe it will be a patois. English is made out of several languages, that's why it's almost impossible to really spell.</p><p><i>Past Lives</i> (2023) has a romantic Korean concept of inyeon (<a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%EC%9D%B8%EC%97%B0" target="_blank">인연</a>), where people are connected over a number of lifetimes. Conditionality might include rough ideas of reincarnation where something is transfered, or it might not, maybe it's more like the memories in brains still influencing real life. Like my photos of my grandparents who have been gone for a long time, but I still think about them, and they influence my in known and unknown ways. Whatever the notions, the romantic notion is quaint, and could be traced to Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. </p><p>I'm watching <i>3 Body Problem </i>(2024) on Netflix, and they talk about wall facers. That I know of it was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Dgen" target="_blank">Dogen</a> (1200-1253) that liked to meditate facing a wall. He was a Japanese Buddhist who went to China for more teachings and had some powerful writings he left us. He wanted to put all his eggs into the meditation basket instead of the traditions of reciting sutras and mantras, he chose a less devotional path. Most westerners really emphasize meditation in Buddhism, but there is Pure Land Buddhism which focuses more on devotion and other power.</p><p>Dogen might have not invented facing the wall, it's unlikely the actual person who chose that first is credited. The Buddha taught anapanasati and brahma viharas, and those were already present in the culture probably, he just tailored them to Buddhism to lead towards the insights he discovered.</p><p>There are other shows and movies that have Buddhist influence. There is an anime movie where Jesus and Buddha go on a holiday as teenagers. And then there are straight on, Buddhist movies like Little Buddha (1993), Kundun (1997), Seven Years In Tibet (1997), The Cup (1999), Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003).</p>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-91419087431039566232024-03-15T08:34:00.005-04:002024-03-26T08:11:01.800-04:00Equanimity<p>So I devoted myself to anapanasati for 4 months, but I've brought back in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmavihara" target="_blank">Brahmaviharas</a>. I still sit with K sometimes on zoom and radiate qualities of the sublime abodes. </p><p>How to proceed? Do I radiate the quality, or do I pick specific people in a 5 stage version from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhaghosa" target="_blank">Buddhaghosa</a>? You radiate the quality in the last stage, so I guess if you do that quite well, you could just radiate when you feel confident, but I'm not confident yet, so I fall back on the 5 stages. </p><p>Metta, karuna, mudita are more straightforward. </p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upek%E1%B9%A3%C4%81" target="_blank">Upekṣā</a>, Upekshā, or Upekkhā is equanimity. </p><p>Building up metta, karuna, and mudita, equanimity also can build on anapanasati. In anapanasati you're relaxing the body, relaxing the emotions, gladdening the mind, steadying the mind, liberating the mind. How do you liberate the mind? Through insight into conditionality, disentangling, letting go of the conditions for suffering, relinquishing. Follow the breath. </p><p>When it feels too complicated, I have a simple visualization. A circle touching a line. You are the circle, and you're not remote, and your not engulfed, you're aware of suffering through your compassion. You've coped with horrified anxiety, and you're not remote or pitying. You see others but it doesn't sink your ship, their problems. You wish them well, with a friendly smile. You appreciate virtue. </p><p>For me, going to the breath is the door to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%ABti" target="_blank">piti</a>, or joy. I wish joy on everyone, in general, and in meditative states. The good qualities of your friends who meditate deeply, and just the joy of seeing a stranger find a dollar on the street. Any kind of joy, and meditative joy.</p><p>I meditate on the two bodies, my physical body and the truth body (or the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trikaya" target="_blank">3 bodies</a>). Rooted in my body, in all it's glory and injuries and aging. All the mindfulness of the body work I have done, as part of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satipatthana" target="_blank">satipatthana sutta</a>. I go for enlightenment with my body, feelings, mind and insight. </p><p>I have worked on the <a href="https://www.wildmind.org/six-elements" target="_blank">6 element meditation</a>. I have taken my body apart, also in the 32 parts meditation. I have meditated on corpses. Life is so short, fragile. We must make use of our given time. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaSNTip1OPmgK6y7PntjC4lfpi5Qn44ayRZSVpTpDb9UprxkvCfKasQvOLUrVKPkg_F7lRh1cjjjuqIz4-i2-Gq7riJjWwBWKRBuozwkCxNTMLUVVYULHMW-R-LGY8EqlDJrOi6BxRraqv4IkkfDtdsSsUPnR2C5JxJZoqAsEcMuly94zsjk2C/s600/space221-star-trails_61087_600x450.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaSNTip1OPmgK6y7PntjC4lfpi5Qn44ayRZSVpTpDb9UprxkvCfKasQvOLUrVKPkg_F7lRh1cjjjuqIz4-i2-Gq7riJjWwBWKRBuozwkCxNTMLUVVYULHMW-R-LGY8EqlDJrOi6BxRraqv4IkkfDtdsSsUPnR2C5JxJZoqAsEcMuly94zsjk2C/w640-h426/space221-star-trails_61087_600x450.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>I think about the beauty of it all. The devotional pujas, mantras and mythology that excites me, energizes me. </p><p>All the work culminates on working through the 4 stages to the 5th stage and radiating equanimity out into the world. It feels kind of abstract to say it, but the embodiment and culmination of meditation cycles means it's something. Radiating upeksha. </p><p>Radiating upeksha is all the metta, karuna, mudita, plus all the gladdening and steadying and insight, including the 6 element tearing down, and the resulting build up of a sadhana if you get that too with a guru, or without a guru, or no build up, just letting it sit there and stand, beaming out upeksha into the world, beyond the world, out into the universe and everything. </p><p>All the friendships, past and present. All your study of the Dharma. All the ethical striving, all the simplifying to create the conditions. All the devotion. All the support you have received. All the conditions that allowed for your will to evoke in yourself to radiate upeksha, beaming it in all the directions. </p><p>It is the culmination of hard work, circumstances, seeming luck and the will to enlightenment. </p><p>This thing I call myself feel the fruits of the practice.</p><p>The wisdom of equality is embodied in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratnasambhava" target="_blank">Ratnasambhava</a>.</p><p>In the insight tetrad of anapanasati, you contemplate impermanence, disentangling, cessation and relinquishment. These contemplations are supported by equanimity. </p><p>In some sense a base of equanimity is freedom from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_hindrances" target="_blank">hindrances</a>.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnLFCKk4XfMRNmha6uBgRQEMPNejk6w_l_nDLPMduHmsQULizMjHdTYRAXsIuk2QrqF5SVH0zCAepp-tW3uE7gDra08pGjOVznreuOOv4LvcOfoJxWTM0ot7ZX5lhoTPkN6nCByKFZ48QBXmwawXnG-xWydLjylneN1UmKUs3z2J6EMuWGqMOw/s1871/IMG_2733.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1871" data-original-width="1280" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnLFCKk4XfMRNmha6uBgRQEMPNejk6w_l_nDLPMduHmsQULizMjHdTYRAXsIuk2QrqF5SVH0zCAepp-tW3uE7gDra08pGjOVznreuOOv4LvcOfoJxWTM0ot7ZX5lhoTPkN6nCByKFZ48QBXmwawXnG-xWydLjylneN1UmKUs3z2J6EMuWGqMOw/w438-h640/IMG_2733.jpeg" width="438" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Last updated 3/26/24.</p><p><br /></p>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-91365133729316021602024-02-20T14:39:00.009-05:002024-03-06T11:50:27.650-05:00Cultish by Amanda Montell & Wild Wild Country<p>I'm reading <i>Cultish</i> by Amanda Montell, and <i>Dionysus: Myth and Cult </i>by Walter F. Otto, and thinking about Buddhism, and being a soccer fan. </p><p>On the one hand, I think the hype language of Buddhism is about doing the hard work of meditating a lot. I can see why there are sects that de-emphasize meditation because it is so hard and time consuming. I tend to go in the direction of Dogen, who see it as the most important part. Other traditions use meditation, but meditation is at the heart of Buddhism in my opinion. I don't scoff at Buddhists who don't meditate as I did in my early zeal, to me it's essential. There are Buddhists who don't meditate, and that is an acceptable path.</p><p>Humans don't live up to their ideals and that can lead to cynicism and nihilism. I'm working to use ideals positively and avoid misuse and negative use. </p><p>Somehow being a soccer fan is a weird cult of sorts. It's worship of others playing an athletic game, and there's all kinds of spin off into kit collecting, travel, and policing how others should talk about the team on social media. Montell writes about cancer fundraising, which uses benign cultish language. What a cult is actually hard to define, thus a focus on Cultish language. I suppose being a part of a benign cult helps one to do more. The power of a cult is too much for humans to weild. </p><p>On the other hand, I get the feeling that Otto wants to look at Dionysus worship from the inside, to really give it the best representation, the benefit of the doubt, not to look at it as superficial and just some old craziness. </p><p>Montell uses an interesting phrase. <i>Bespoke spirituality</i>, where you taylor everything for your needs like a well cut suit, regardless of the tradition. I've met a few people like that that don't mind taking from Hinduism or Christianity, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, Aztec, Paganism, science or psychology. </p><p>The Rajneesh community seems to have embraced the Dionysian cult of rapture to some extent, with the Human Potential Movement, and many other complementary therapies.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>"No man prays to a concept," is a quoted by Otto, and it makes sense. When I talk about how beautiful the mythology of Tibetan Buddhism, I get downvoted on Reddit, because they're not evoking concepts, they're evoking deities. I think the concepts are beautiful and I can pray to personifications of them. Tara is overcoming obstacles. Avalokita is compassion. Amitabha is love. I like that line of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Tath%C4%81gatas" target="_blank">jinas</a>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhho3SVdhVIqekMX8VD1zNeQoH22-objBDLT4pQryrI6P6zULlHMqy8X88rVBlWl4483ptpLhgYhj-6LUcPryrvrAp-a4CxIou9Nvp2SB4ByAvY4TBeU8NWisAnwsMxiS3GLW0TBSl8K5boQ1yEA_xmsOgVbrSGN7HqmuauafmGKXH0cKWcY3YB/s1286/IMG_2375.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1286" data-original-width="1170" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhho3SVdhVIqekMX8VD1zNeQoH22-objBDLT4pQryrI6P6zULlHMqy8X88rVBlWl4483ptpLhgYhj-6LUcPryrvrAp-a4CxIou9Nvp2SB4ByAvY4TBeU8NWisAnwsMxiS3GLW0TBSl8K5boQ1yEA_xmsOgVbrSGN7HqmuauafmGKXH0cKWcY3YB/w582-h640/IMG_2375.jpeg" width="582" /></a></div><br /><p>You can see why capitalism uses cultish behavior, language and psychology, and wants you to really believe in work, to squeeze the maximum out of the workers who just want to eat, housing and clothes. Whipping up motivation is important in life, but you own your own motivations, you don't have to become a tool of someone else, except to survive! That's why housing, food, gas need to go up, the struggle for existence has to be hard, make you really bust ass. That's why no benefits, no insurance, no safety net. Make schools subsistence level. Make public hospitals undesirable. Make public transport yucky. No rail, everyone needs a car.</p><p>Montell's repudiation of the term <i>cult</i> is to avoid judgment that assumes people don't have independence to participate in these groups. It makes me think how some on r/Buddhism use it quite quickly for sects they don't like. I have a different line and allow Triratna and NKT to exist without judgement in my mind, but I still wish to reserve the right to judge Shambhala after some of things I've read. I'm on the fence about SGI. I note how Pierce on <i>Community</i> was in a fictional Buddhist cult. "Cult" and "Brainwash" close down conversation. </p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown" target="_blank">Jonestown</a> happened in 1978 when 918 people died, and people used that to judge the Rajneesh community. The community was confused because Jonestown was a Christian community and they were a new religion, based off of Hinduism, but it was also eclectic and inclusive. They used some Buddhist language.</p><p>Charles Manson had 35 people killed, and was convicted in 1971 (<a href="https://www.biography.com/crime/charles-manson" target="_blank">source</a>). 39 people died part of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_(religious_group)" target="_blank">Heaven's Gate</a> in 1997. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Solar_Temple" target="_blank">Order of the Solar Temple</a> claimed 77 lives in Switzerland, France, and Canada in 1994, 1995 and 1997. Statistically, you have to understand that there are a lot of human social organizations and that these murderous events are very very rare.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I'm watching <i>Wild Wild Country</i>, a 6 part documentary on Bhagwan Rajneesh's time in America. I actually don't even know anything about him, besides he was later rebranded as Osho. I had a psychiatrist recommend a book on meditation by him. I've met a fellow who does the dynamic meditation. I've never read anything by him or tried anything like dynamic meditation.</p><p>I love learning about American history and historical characters. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bowerman" target="_blank">Bill Bowerman</a> supposedly negotiated the surrender of some German forces, won 4 championships in college track and field, and founded Nike. And he was a big person against the Oregon compound of the Rajneeshpuram. </p><p>I'm learning this all from the documentary and reading Wikipedia. I find this interesting from the Rajneesh wikipedia: "Price is alleged to have exited the Pune ashram with a broken arm following a period of eight hours locked in a room with participants armed with wooden weapons. Bernard Gunther, his Esalen colleague, fared better in Pune and wrote a book, <i><a href="https://www.sannyas.wiki/index.php?title=Dying_for_Enlightenment" target="_blank">Dying for Enlightenment</a></i>, featuring photographs and lyrical descriptions of the meditations and therapy groups. Violence in the therapy groups eventually ended in January 1979, when the ashram issued a press release stating that violence "had fulfilled its function within the overall context of the ashram as an evolving spiritual commune"."</p><p>Every force has a counter force. When the Sanyassins bought up all the houses in Antelope, people got a little more nervous, imagine they're going to take over the world, they were taking over their world. They tried to dissolve the city. I'm not sure what that would have gotten them, does the county take over and then those laws are more favorable to the people who lived there before the Sanyassins. There's a real culture war that includes the hotel they own in Portland being bombed. America where peaceful people are forced to militarized.</p><p>It's kind of chilling to see them using the concentration of meditation to help them aim a gun. They also alienate the residents who were there before by having loud sex all night. They took over the police force. This is like a square community nightmare, but it's also quite obnoxious in a way, seems like an over reaction and deliberately provocative. </p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_Anand_Sheela" target="_blank">Ma Anand Sheela</a> emerges as an interesting person. She defends the community vigorously in the media. I want to watch <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searching_for_Sheela" target="_blank">Searching for Sheela</a>.</i> Her work raised sales of the Rajneesh's books. They had 500,000 followers. They seem to be hugging each other all the time, and joyful. Looks like they had an awesome party in 1983. There's also a German film called <i><a href="https://vimeo.com/417009669" target="_blank">Ashram in Poona</a></i> (1979).</p><p>Every good party is followed by lawyers. The district attorney goes after them with the separation of church and state thing. The school doesn't seem particularly secular. The lawyer who was a Sanyassin is pretty persuasive that if you look at the history of America, Catholics rule Boston, Mormons rule Salt Lake, and on and on about how America was founded on religious freedom. </p><p>Then at some point they began busing in homeless people, giving them food and shelter, and just asking them to vote, so they could take over the county they lived in. Part of the motivation was compassion. I'm finding this as a fascinating study on American politics, because you've got a kind of nominal Christian rural retirement community and a hippy commune in Rajneeshpuram, and Sheela is an intelligent assertive leader who vigorously advocates for her community. It becomes a documentary about Democracy. </p><p>Then the mental health issues come to the fore, a raging man is sedated and driven away. They decide to sedate all the homeless population that moved there. They put Haldol into the beer.</p><p>Then there was a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmonella" target="_blank">salmonella</a> outbreak. They accused the Sanyassins of doing it, and the Sanyassins deny it, and in a kind of way they threaten to infect the world with love and their values.</p><p>Then Hollywood gets involved, the wife of the producer of Godfather is head of the Hollywood people embracing Rajneesh. The Hollywood people tempt Rajneesh with material goods, fancy watches, catalogues of things to want. A million dollar diamond watch is what he starts wearing. The spiritual movement has a bunch of corporations and the Hollywood crowd gets a corporation under the wing of the community. Is there are power struggle between Sheela and others. Sheela sees this as a kind of turning point in him losing spiritual momentum. He began taking <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide" target="_blank">laughing gas</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diazepam" target="_blank">valium</a>. </p><p>The accumulated government response goes federal, and begins to focus on immigration. The Sanyassin get involved, and fight them back a little. There were a bunch of marriages to allow some people to stay in America. The government went after that as fraud. They traveled all around America to try and disguise the pattern. They used that conspiracy to get Rajneesh deported. The Sanyassin developed assassination plans, to target the people targeting them. They don't say why they didn't follow through with it, or if anything thwarted them.</p><p>Sheela starts evicting people from the community. The locals who hated them have a certain glee at the problems managing the homeless crowd. This creates more negativity towards the community. They send out a box of poisoned chocolates. Government officials who visited became ill. </p><p>Lots of rumors without proof circulated. The community experiences a kind of stress they're not really used to. Sheela seems to demonstrate stress. Sheela wiretaps the Rajneesh's room. Rajneesh acquired poisons which he stored. Rajneesh asked Sheela to build a crematorium. He said he would die on the 6th of July, "Masters Day". He was going to commit suicide maybe. Jane Stork stepped forward to assassinate the doctor who would euthanize Rajneesh. She stuck the doctor with a syringe, pretended it didn't happen, someone was set to pick up the syringe she threw. She tried to murder the doctor with a syringe and felt she cross a barrier, she became disillusioned. She did not succeed in killing him. </p><p>Sheela decided to leave in 1985. Many left with her. Rajneesh was angry to find out she left. He breaks his 3.5 year silence. He said Sheela and her group tried to kill 3 people, he found the bug, called them inhuman, fascist, didn't face him and say goodbye, stole money.</p><p>Rajneesh and Sheela feud. He says he made a point of never having sex with a secretary, and he accused her of being on drugs. Jane Stork goes to Sheela, as a substitute guru. The Hollywood producer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_Prem_Hasya" target="_blank">Ma Prem Hasya</a> becomes Rajneesh's secretary. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Toelkes" target="_blank">Swami Prem Niren</a> becomes the new mayor. He would go on to write a <a href="https://www.bsrinusdocs.com/" target="_blank">legal history</a> of the movement. He says it's a Gurdjieff test for everyone. Philip Toelkes (Ma Prem Hasya) writing a book about his experiences. </p><p>Rajneesh extends the accusations. Said she stole 43 million dollars, was planning to bomb the community. That got the FBI onto the ranch investigating crimes. Law enforcement talks about public sex they witness frequently. The find tunnels and tapping equipment and dredge the pond. </p><p>The nurse who was head of the medical section seems like she might have done some shady stuff, including doing the salmonella outbreak. They tried to subvert the election by making people sick. They thought about poisoning the water.</p><p>Then Rajneesh blows everything up, says it's not a religion, he's not the guru, stop wearing the color clothes and carrying malas. He ends the religion. The movement literally commits suicide, burns his books and clothes. But he still calls them his Sanyassin and doesn't pack it up, they continue to fight for their existence.</p><p>So bizzare, Sheela poses nude for a German magazine. She has 25 of her own disciples in an island off Germany. Search warrants are issued. Nobody was willing to talk, except <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Berry_Knapp" target="_blank">David Berry Knapp</a>, or Krishna Deva as he was known in the movement. The national guard surrounds the compound, and two jets load up and take off. Rajneesh left. But he landed in Charlotte, and was arrested. Around the same time Sheela was arrested in Germany. </p><p>They fly Rajneesh in short hops all over America, in a weird time wasting drama of perp walks for 3 weeks. Sheela gets 4 years, fines and export. Jane Stork gets 10 years for attempted murder, but they don't explain why she's in Germany and comes back to ask to go visit her sick son in Australia. Rajneesh makes a deal to leave the country. </p><p>The people leaving were crushed. It was 1981-1985. I was in high school, and I don't remember seeing it on the news at the time. Antelope is back to its old name, and they replace the street names. The party for the anti-Rajneesh people's party was a bunch of smug old ladies. Nothing wrong with older women, but it's not the party I want to go to. I have sympathy for their desire to not have things change so drastically and the drama of those 4 years. I'm not on any side, I just wondered what was preventing them all from understanding each others, not escalating things.</p><p>Rajneesh goes back to India where he still has lots of followers. He rebrands of Osho, a Japanese honorarium of a teacher. When he dies it's the final party, maybe they still party. The ecstatic dancing, the permission to be free. They discuss the freedom and feelings about the ending of things.</p><p>Jane Stork could have stayed in Germany, but wanted to go visit her son who had brain cancer in Australia, but she had to go to America to resolve the case for the freedom to go to Australia. She was allowed to go to Australia, she got time served, she was free. She expresses gratitude for being allowed the mercy of going to see her son. </p><p>Sheela is still a fiery person who works with the sick elderly.</p><p>The ranch is now a Christian resort. </p><p>The Sanyassin are surprised America didn't embrace him the way they did.</p><p>The 6 part movie is pretty amazing, I was really resistant to watching it, but I felt quite a lot like, why didn't I know this happened.</p><p>The dancing and lack of asceticism is an interesting antidote to the usual spiritual community. </p><p>Now back to reading Montell and Otto.</p><p><br /></p><p>Links and references:</p><p>Rajneesh building for sale in Antelope, Oregon includes relics of Rajneeshpuram made famous in ‘Wild Wild Country’ (<a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/realestate/2021/11/rajneesh-building-for-sale-in-antelope-oregon-includes-relics-of-rajneeshpuram-made-famous-in-wild-wild-country.html" target="_blank">Oregonian</a> Nov. 29, 2021)</p><p><a href="https://www.sannyas.wiki/index.php?title=Ma_Prem_Nirvano" target="_blank">Ma Prem Nirvano</a> (Sanyas.wiki)</p><p>Rajneesh (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneesh" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>)</p><p><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_the_Spell_(Stork_book)" target="_blank">Breaking the Spell</a></i> by Jane Stork</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Afterthoughts: I had trouble focusing on the breath this morning, thinking about the documentary. </p><p>I really like Morell's not wanting to judge these spiritual movements harshly. Seems like labeling a community a cult leads to suspending people their rights. Maybe there can be more gentle checks to some wayward behavior. People get so irritated they have to do things, they over correct. That's one thing I try to do with parenting, is to not to get too bent out of shape and over react. The paternalism of government should be similar. </p><p>Montell writes about the escalation of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branch_Davidians" target="_blank">Branch Davidians</a> that led to 8 deaths.</p>“In an attempt to find a less judgy way to discuss non-mainstream spiritual communities, many scholars have used neutral-sounding labels like "new religious movements," "emergent religions," and "marginalized religions." But while these phrases work in an academic context, I find they don't quite capture the CrossFits, multi level marketing companies, college theater programs, and other hard-to-categorize points along the influence continuum. We need a more versatile way to talk about communities that are cult-like in one way or another but not necessarily connected to the supernatural. Which is why I like the word "cultish." (p. 39).<div><br /></div><div>I'm not sure if that solves the problem. I think also you can use cult in a positive sense to make it a less negative word, actually use the word without accepting the negative judgement. </div><div><br /></div><div>Montell's father grew up in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon#:~:text=Originally%20established%20as%20a%20drug,Synanon" target="_blank">Synanon</a> community. I'm learning about that.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Finished the book. What a wild ride. I think I'll recommend the book to my sons. I've found a meditation cult 4 miles away that is the new scientology of meditation, where they give increasingly more and more expensive courses to attain spiritual development. They work the internet to not have too many negative instances. Slick. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not an influencer, if I want to influence anyone it's to write a blog and express their truths. I'm more inclined to suggest people go on a spiritual journey, than prescribe or wish for followers. </div><div><br /></div><div>"The internet scammeth and the internet fact checketh away."</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-34568672006774713252024-02-18T10:57:00.010-05:002024-02-20T06:32:59.374-05:00Anālayo quotes<p>“Liberation by wisdom”, paññāvimutti, stands for the irreversible type of freedom reached by progressing through the four stages of awakening recognized in early Buddhist thought. This type of freedom is irreversible because certain fetters are abandoned for good and have no scope to manifest again. With such liberation by wisdom, the freed condition of the mind has in turn become unshakeable. Liberating the mind from defilements and fetters is the supreme and overarching goal in early Buddhist thought.</p><p>-Mindfulness of Breathing </p><p>“ Having formulated an aspiration or reverential invitation for the absorption factors to manifest with full strength, we then wait in a receptive manner for the invited factor to do so. Once all five factors are fully manifest in the mind, we could then formulate an aspiration for the first absorption to manifest, for example: paṭhamaṃ jhānaṃ upasampajja vihareyyaṃ, “may I dwell having attained the first absorption.””</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8K1DOUlDDLFGUIwKYXkUCt_3SkfhXxW1nUmPRr-0lD2C6UlUBfXuWuxtosSiomTKZvwolk2wVqnt_Owz0BoabY3TAnDHTFDUdHIosNfX9Pg9hIi8Z5pxDGP3tWAzQJWFYeSOA6jTDSlbkHdDnMnAvyDmaAzeAGb6FnWWjGSF2FV4fikAOO_vU/s1728/IMG_2620.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1728" data-original-width="1232" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8K1DOUlDDLFGUIwKYXkUCt_3SkfhXxW1nUmPRr-0lD2C6UlUBfXuWuxtosSiomTKZvwolk2wVqnt_Owz0BoabY3TAnDHTFDUdHIosNfX9Pg9hIi8Z5pxDGP3tWAzQJWFYeSOA6jTDSlbkHdDnMnAvyDmaAzeAGb6FnWWjGSF2FV4fikAOO_vU/w456-h640/IMG_2620.jpeg" width="456" /></a></div>Worshipping Bodhisattva, cave 285, Wei dynasty.<br /><br /><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mogao_Caves" target="_blank">Mogao Caves</a>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-20716846400053878602024-02-14T12:57:00.008-05:002024-03-03T08:09:46.345-05:00Stonehouse<div>From <i>The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse</i> translated and commentary by Red Pine, poems by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiwu" target="_blank">Shiwu</a> (1272–1352). He wrote 184 poems in <i>Mountain Poems</i>, written in Chinese, while he lived in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhongnan_Mountains" target="_blank">Zhongnan Mountains</a>. He was in Tiger Hill Zen lineage. Online it says <a href="https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/ZiboZhenke.html" target="_blank">Zibo Zhenke</a> is one of the teachers. In the book it says Chi-an is the teacher. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>3 <div>Grave upon grave buried beneath weeds <div>before their funerals they carried gold seals </div><div>but desire is no match for detachment </div><div>and how can ambition compete with restraint </div><div>lured by bait golden fish end up in kettles </div><div>uncaged magic wings fly high </div><div>worldly affairs don't concern a hermit </div><div>I weave my robe from homegrown hemp</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>9 </div><div>Don't think a mountain home means you're free <div>a day doesn't pass without its cares </div><div>old ladies steal my bamboo shoots </div><div>boys lead oxen into the wheat g</div><div>rubs and beetles destroy my greens </div><div>boars and squirrels devour the rice </div><div>things don't always go my way </div><div>what can I do but turn to myself</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>32 </div><div>I saw through my worldly concerns of the past</div><div>I welcome old age and enjoy being free </div><div>rope shoes a bamboo staff the last month of spring</div><div>paper curtains plum blossoms and daybreak dreams</div><div>immortality and buddhahood are merely fantasies</div><div>freedom from worry and care is my practice</div><div>last night what the pine wind roared</div><div>that was a language the deaf can't hear<br /></div><div><br /></div><br /><br /><div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBdDzIcfdLNLLDeko7kGLkFqg2etDh7tf0LoO8EOfsvpuCutvxu0t5pgOyWWy2rdmVCIB2HjnNrGZQnNAMlN-geeQJ0LcPoWq5zoEeAV2nmNMVDtQtJzigwHcy9GNPM0gWYRy5bDG1vtLekZXd2m10A_A4YJe0YWHRYnjoe28a9Tfl2_mi15ef/s1024/IMG_2597.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBdDzIcfdLNLLDeko7kGLkFqg2etDh7tf0LoO8EOfsvpuCutvxu0t5pgOyWWy2rdmVCIB2HjnNrGZQnNAMlN-geeQJ0LcPoWq5zoEeAV2nmNMVDtQtJzigwHcy9GNPM0gWYRy5bDG1vtLekZXd2m10A_A4YJe0YWHRYnjoe28a9Tfl2_mi15ef/w640-h640/IMG_2597.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Some past posts on Stonehouse that include poems plus links:</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://goingforrefuge.blogspot.com/2022/01/shiwu.html" target="_blank">Shiwu</a> (9&10)</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://goingforrefuge.blogspot.com/2022/01/stonehouse.html" target="_blank">Stonehouse</a> (51)</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhism/C%20-%20Zen/Zen%20Poetry/Mountain%20Poems/Mountain%20Poems.htm" target="_blank">External poems</a> (Unnumbered) (<a href="https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/S/ShiwuStoneho/index.html" target="_blank">another</a>)</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-47799233828236072002024-02-10T07:31:00.006-05:002024-02-14T12:58:54.766-05:00Buddhadasa<p>Buddhadasa's, a famous Thai monk lived from 1908-1993.</p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhadasa" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>: “Buddhadasa renounced civilian life in 1926. Typical of young monks during the time, he traveled to the capital, Bangkok, for doctrinal training but found the wats there dirty, crowded, and, most troubling to him, the sangha corrupt, "preoccupied with prestige, position, and comfort with little interest in the highest ideals of Buddhism. Buddhadasa rejected the traditional rebirth and karma doctrine, since he thought it to be incompatible with sunyata, and not conducive to the extinction of dukkha.”</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiEse2oULY1rXR6eIf7bnTRX7wCiWCwq3PK0xPuQSU8KHJ7r11IzVotIyTSE6MTOxQyypIwtJBCDoogE3DbMqOB5ftFkRg04qNL_fo-qdkFBYwSZD1jGmIlmEJGjuJJReXJYmxAdc5foXZOAARhFTAJeFabmk5sl-Bd37LrhUNdSXuyZFK5xH6/s600/Buddhadasa_Bhikkhu.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiEse2oULY1rXR6eIf7bnTRX7wCiWCwq3PK0xPuQSU8KHJ7r11IzVotIyTSE6MTOxQyypIwtJBCDoogE3DbMqOB5ftFkRg04qNL_fo-qdkFBYwSZD1jGmIlmEJGjuJJReXJYmxAdc5foXZOAARhFTAJeFabmk5sl-Bd37LrhUNdSXuyZFK5xH6/w400-h400/Buddhadasa_Bhikkhu.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>Buddhadasa: "Take the question of whether or not there. is rebirth. What is reborn? How is it reborn? What is its kammic inheritance? These questions are not aimed at the extinction of Dukkha. That being so they are not Buddhist teaching and they are not connected with it. They do not lie in the sphere of Buddhism. Also, the one who asks about such matters has no choice but to indiscriminately believe the answer he's given, because the one who answers is not going to be able to produce any proofs, he's just going to speak according to his memory and feeling. The listener can't see for himself and so has to blindly believe "the other's words. Little by little the matter strays from Dhamma until it's something else altogether, unconnected with the extinction of Dukkha." (<a href="https://www.dhammatalks.net/Books/Bhikkhu_Buddhadasa_Heart_Wood_from_the_Bo_Tree.htm" target="_blank">Heart Wood From The Bo Tree</a>)</p>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-23186506963378994272024-02-10T01:00:00.031-05:002024-02-10T07:30:25.359-05:00Chinese New Year<p>Or as they say in China, New Year. They actually call it the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year" target="_blank">spring festival</a>. </p><p>My daughter had activities and food in her class on Thursday but it's Saturday. But like any good holiday there's lots of activity before, during and after. It's a 15 day festival, with traditions set for each day of the festival. The 15th day is the Lantern Festival.</p><p>Saturday is the new moon, when no sun shine on the moon is visible. I couldn't even try to see the outline of the moon because it was overcast this morning where I live.</p><p>This is the year of the Dragon. Following: Snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, pig, rat, ox, tiger, rabbit. </p><p>"It evolved into the practice of cleaning one's house thoroughly in the days preceding Chinese New Year." Ancestor worship is part of the tradition, gathering the family. Fireworks can be part of it. Greeting cards can be sent. Sometimes people put poems at people's doors. Special foods can be made. </p><p>During the Cultural Revolution the celebration was banned from 1967-1980.</p><p><br /></p><p>Links:</p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/China_News/s/PnW8nr0sIy" target="_blank">Amazing</a> drone dragon among fireworks.</p>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-74462143233004083702024-02-04T15:45:00.005-05:002024-02-06T09:17:06.416-05:00Ruben Is Closing It's Physical Space October 6th. <p>My friend sent me a video of him doing immersive virtual reality with a headset over his eyes. I don't really see the appeal, personally. I saw videos of people in self driving cars playing VR with their hands off the wheel. It's a brave new world if you can afford it. </p><p>I don't know if Ruben is closing in favor of immersive virtual reality and other online stuff.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv6aAuozm9JO8kJm4mfYtEhPt7r7sVSP84jqoVKdpNNVUO0miuSNWXPdiFHyOD4KMJMCptCqWLJ-yP5hGQh16vbccoFZ2ueiiFajc6ED1ignxzLFJe6m1qrxwQsUo2AzMqcRurhB5zLytiR3x9ABz9Wu2AkKOswuF76IUwbYHXn371QSZR06kn/s1080/IMG_2562.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv6aAuozm9JO8kJm4mfYtEhPt7r7sVSP84jqoVKdpNNVUO0miuSNWXPdiFHyOD4KMJMCptCqWLJ-yP5hGQh16vbccoFZ2ueiiFajc6ED1ignxzLFJe6m1qrxwQsUo2AzMqcRurhB5zLytiR3x9ABz9Wu2AkKOswuF76IUwbYHXn371QSZR06kn/w640-h640/IMG_2562.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>articles:</p><p><a href="https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/the-rubin-museum-will-officially-close-in-october-after-20-years-in-nyc-020124" target="_blank">Time Out</a></p><p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/02/style/rubin-museum-closing-new-york/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a></p><p><a href="https://www.artforum.com/news/new-york-rubin-museum-to-shutter-pursue-decentralized-model-548938/" target="_blank">Art Forum</a> "The remaining staff’s roles will include originating and traveling new exhibitions; providing curatorial and collection resources to other cultural organizations; and developing educational resources in the field of Himalayan art."</p><p>"... the Tibetan Buddhist shrine room, is expected to be housed elsewhere in the city following the institution’s closure."</p><p><a href="https://www.buddhistdoor.net/news/rubin-museum-of-art-known-for-featuring-buddhist-art-and-culture-to-close-its-physical-space-this-year/" target="_blank">Buddhist Door</a></p><p><br /></p>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-23071492850018902252024-02-04T12:03:00.002-05:002024-02-04T12:06:56.895-05:00Ramagrama Stupa<p>I'm studying the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramagrama_stupa" target="_blank">Ramagrama Stupa</a> today. Located in Nepal it is said to contain relics of the Buddha. It is 83 km north northwest of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushinagar" target="_blank">Kusinagara</a>, where the Buddha died.</p><p>Supposedly this is the only stupa that hasn't been excavated by Ashoka. Ashoka dug up a bunch of them to spread them even further and create more, but this one the legend says was left alone. This was 300 years later, but prior to that 8 stupas were created. Three of them are presently lost, their whereabouts unknown or disputed.</p><p>In the 5th century <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faxian" target="_blank">Faxian</a> visited them the 8 stupas, and in the 7th century <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuanzang" target="_blank">Xuanzang</a> visited them (<a href="https://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/ancientnepal/pdf/ancient_nepal_142_01.pdf" target="_blank">source</a>).</p><p>The stupa has been subjected to floods and has been rebuilt. </p><p>A controversial politician/bureaucrat has developed a plan but it's unclear if he has the power to bring it about. </p><p><br /></p><p>Links:</p><p>Video on <a href="https://youtu.be/SSFJ9aNAnPg?si=ZjvPEjyZX-x41P78" target="_blank">YouTube</a>.</p><p>Video with Nepali narrator on <a href="https://youtu.be/PYNgSFRZCmI?si=0zUE-faS3Ng9nkPI" target="_blank">YouTube</a></p><p><a href="https://lumbinidevtrust.gov.np/en/ramagrama/content/163/63/9" target="_blank">Lumbini Development Trust </a></p><p>An <a href="https://www.dezeen.com/2023/12/15/stefano-boeri-architetti-ramagrama-stupa-nepal/" target="_blank">architect's vision</a> to develop.</p><p><a href="https://www.peepultree.world/livehistoryindia/story/monuments/ramagrama-stupa" target="_blank">Peepul Tree Stories</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Academic articles</p>Shrestha, SS (1999). <a href="http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/ancientnepal/pdf/ancient_nepal_142_01.pdf">"Ramagrama excavation"</a> (PDF). Ancient Nepal: Journal of the Department of Archaeology. 142: 1–12. Retrieved 30 November 2014.S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-49958224448502429652024-02-03T06:36:00.004-05:002024-02-04T06:19:58.599-05:00Buddhadasa Bhikkhu quote"Let us start with the first material necessity-food. We should eat food that is food. Do not eat food that is "bait." We should understand the crucial distinction between "food" and "bait." We eat food for the proper nourishment of life. We eat bait for the sake of deli-ciousness. Bait makes us unwise and causes us to eat foolishly, just like the bait on the hook that snags foolish fish. We must eat the kinds of food that are genuinely beneficial for the body, and we must eat in moderation. "Eating bait" means eating for the sake of deliciousness and fun. It is also usually expensive. We must stop swallowing bait and learn to eat only food that is proper and whole-some. This is especially important while staying in Dhamma centers.<br /><br />If you are eating bait, you will be constantly hungry all day and night. You will always be sneaking off to eat yet more bait. Eating bait impairs our mental abilities. The mind surrenders to the bait and is not fit for the study and practice of Dhamma. On the other hand, when you eat food, it will be at appropriate times and in moderation. There will be little waste and no danger."<br /><br />(P.41 Mindfulness with Breathing (1996))<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The first time I read this book, I read through it fast, and I found it to be a little old fashioned. But this time through I find it profound and I'm reading it slowly. He talks about the 5th <i>paccaya</i> as entertainment. I've always thought there was a part to entertainment of the Dharma as a replacement for the energy that sexuality used to used on. In a way, that's what this blog is about, exploring the culture and teachings as a wholesome pastime. </div>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-30341525707862299542024-02-01T19:10:00.003-05:002024-02-01T19:10:21.671-05:00Watching the watcher<p>Mark Edwards 2012</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjasSZo8yRqdQdJXUk7qM0fKEQI9KGJcG22I181U9Uj_WpeCKgSMS7LtHR781yr7gtYe1xqkJtCBn7Sr3_R7hSPefzeFWCT1Vqwc3L9i7l3holCBp8GCeFJoJKzWn8pa_bqFSTuntExDNl2HvbE9RJUl4d1pL3r1MmUrWpKrc6-McNHxTZCJIfU/s750/IMG_2553.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="558" data-original-width="750" height="476" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjasSZo8yRqdQdJXUk7qM0fKEQI9KGJcG22I181U9Uj_WpeCKgSMS7LtHR781yr7gtYe1xqkJtCBn7Sr3_R7hSPefzeFWCT1Vqwc3L9i7l3holCBp8GCeFJoJKzWn8pa_bqFSTuntExDNl2HvbE9RJUl4d1pL3r1MmUrWpKrc6-McNHxTZCJIfU/w640-h476/IMG_2553.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-80367012772599580412024-01-29T11:50:00.009-05:002024-02-05T17:47:51.131-05:00Evoking the classical god of religious ecstasy. <p>Come blessed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysus" target="_blank">Dionysos</a>,</p><p> bull-faced god conceived in fire,</p><p> Bassareus and Bacchos,</p><p> many-named master of all.</p><p> You delight in bloody swords,</p><p>you delight in the holy <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maenad" target="_blank">Maenads</a>,</p><p> as you howl throughout <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_(Lycia)" target="_blank">Olympos</a>,</p><p> all-roaring and frenzied Bacchos.</p><p> Armed with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thyrsus" target="_blank">thyrsos</a>, wrathful in the extreme,</p><p> you are honored</p><p> by all gods and all men</p><p>who dwell upon the earth.</p><p> Come, blessed and leaping god,</p><p> bring abundant joy to all.</p><p><br /></p><p>Excerpt From <i>The Orphic Hymns</i> Apostolos N. Athanassakis</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1yAB8uFKpC_vQZvularQI83ZPbt5-nqeobzoXe3ba9SmQQtarBYTQ3VxV3I6xCVJnHPxVEoCQHz4F1dXSkwwR_y_sWstwqtFeZ88gUc-3v7Ti1sCv-ry_aDggvpL-PdR9ADctCsN2HUGKY0XvE_OXUgPc5kxut_KfP9lmG6ZTHgVFYrbbnlD1/s3775/Bacchus_and_Silenus_BM_1899.2-15.1_n01.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2831" data-original-width="3775" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1yAB8uFKpC_vQZvularQI83ZPbt5-nqeobzoXe3ba9SmQQtarBYTQ3VxV3I6xCVJnHPxVEoCQHz4F1dXSkwwR_y_sWstwqtFeZ88gUc-3v7Ti1sCv-ry_aDggvpL-PdR9ADctCsN2HUGKY0XvE_OXUgPc5kxut_KfP9lmG6ZTHgVFYrbbnlD1/w640-h480/Bacchus_and_Silenus_BM_1899.2-15.1_n01.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">A Roman fresco depicting Bacchus, Boscoreale, c. 30 BC</div><p><br /></p><p>Maybe it's a stretch. If I've learned anything studying Dionysus, it's that he's amorphous and can serve many purposes.</p><p>"Ein begriffener Gott ist kein Gott" (A god who is understood is no god).</p><p>I no longer party, but I feel amazed during and after meditation often. I'm no pagan, but I respect the love of nature, and psychology, and I'm Jungian enough to appreciate mythology. I read slowly now, but there's a book I'm reading, here's the <a href="https://motleykamuka.blogspot.com/2024/01/introduction.html" target="_blank">beginning</a> of it.</p><p>The ecstacy makes me think about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amit%C4%81bha" target="_blank">Amitabha</a>, and the non-dual discriminating wisdom he evokes.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjhRPg8SE9FK0lhvjEGZyaqM8NEYlbwKedRbhKsSsbGIFYinzbodgrhEn_6UTEofX_OIQUA4VJSDYkbxhhB-j4NhiyQbj51ab6JBvwdBlvKxu4E3fyDdcphDPft2Z0eGmrv9awZIY7o-tVZUDc38Gf1aVvhBWycPKPXH7-4jRY-yWmKRbNC0Mz/s2048/E088CC90-E3CE-4993-873E-EE788B0757DE.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1355" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjhRPg8SE9FK0lhvjEGZyaqM8NEYlbwKedRbhKsSsbGIFYinzbodgrhEn_6UTEofX_OIQUA4VJSDYkbxhhB-j4NhiyQbj51ab6JBvwdBlvKxu4E3fyDdcphDPft2Z0eGmrv9awZIY7o-tVZUDc38Gf1aVvhBWycPKPXH7-4jRY-yWmKRbNC0Mz/w424-h640/E088CC90-E3CE-4993-873E-EE788B0757DE.jpeg" width="424" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Here's another I like from <i>The Orphic Hymns:</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>50. To Lysios Lenaios</i></p><p><i>Hear, O blessed son of Zeus and of two mothers,</i></p><p><i> </i><i>Bacchos of the vintage,</i></p><p><i>unforgettable seed,</i></p><p><i> many-named and redeeming daimōn,</i></p><p><i>holy offspring of the gods,</i></p><p><i> reveling Bacchos, born of secrecy,</i></p><p><i>plump giver of many joys,</i></p><p><i> of fruits which grow well.</i></p><p><i>Mighty and many-shaped god,</i></p><p><i> you burst forth from the earth to reach the wine press,</i></p><p><i>to become a healer for men’s pain,</i></p><p><i> O sacred blossom!</i></p><p><i>A sorrow-hating joy to mortals,</i></p><p><i> O lovely-haired …,</i></p><p><i>a redeemer and a reveler you are,</i></p><p><i> your thyrsos drives to frenzy,</i></p><p><i>you are kind-hearted to all</i></p><p><i> gods and mortals who see your light.</i></p><p><i>I call upon you now,</i></p><p><i> come, O sweet bringer of fruit.</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><br /></p><p>The <a href="https://chs.harvard.edu/primary-source/homeric-hymn-to-dionysus-sb/" target="_blank">homeric hymn</a> to Dionysus. </p>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-11893502000826055982024-01-26T06:52:00.002-05:002024-01-26T17:53:36.160-05:00Poem<p>Laughter, crying</p><p><br /></p><p>The room is illuminated by the street lights</p><p>finding the notebook</p><p>after picking my way between</p><p>toys</p><p>art supplies</p><p>children’s books.</p><p><br /></p><p>The full moon</p><p>and venus</p><p>are behind</p><p>soggy clouds</p><p><br /></p><p>She sleeps next to me</p><p>she rises her head up</p><p>like a weird sleepy pondering</p><p>(like her mother)</p><p>who wore makeup</p><p>and went to a work party</p><p>so I get her tonight</p><p>our shared custody</p><p><br /></p><p>While reading Louise Gluck</p><p>I imagine a Civil War battlefield </p><p>full of corpses</p><p>past selves, </p><p>past relationships</p><p><br /></p><p>Who am I now, alone</p><p>meditating myself towards</p><p>enlightenment</p><p><br /></p><p>Dismantling </p><p>the poor but time rich,</p><p>I squander my wealth</p><p>so much</p><p>but not on this</p><p><br /></p><p>Can poetry save </p><p>this thing I call</p><p>me?</p><p><br /></p><p>The meditation doesn't works like this:</p><p>now relax! or happiness now!</p><p>but what relaxation can I observe</p><p>following the breath</p><p>what does my happiness consist of?</p><p>There’s no steam rolling</p><p>military orders</p><p>or classroom time outs</p><p>It’s seeing with prejudice</p><p>the rill of rapture</p><p>trickling</p><p>direction my mind</p><p><br /></p><p>You watch how feelings</p><p>launch an armada of thoughts</p><p>how thoughts flavor </p><p>and perfume the mind</p><p><br /></p><p>How insight is noticed</p><p>(not frog marched)</p><p>and invades the whole body</p><p><br /></p><p>How frightened I am</p><p>by letting go </p><p>of the accompaniment </p><p>of my neurosis</p><p>how insight is like a </p><p>space walk</p><p><br /></p><p>Dogen made fun of space flowers</p><p>theories to tide one over</p><p>while not meditating</p><p><br /></p><p>How much of the mind is </p><p>wurvival mind</p><p>trying to save</p><p>the unsavable?</p><p><br /></p><p>The subtle breath</p><p>really is exquisite</p><p>ready for purpose</p><p>the deepening absorption</p><p>on the breath</p><p>rapture breaks the dam</p><p>gushing</p><p>gushing</p><p>out of control</p><p>it settles a little</p><p>The limpid waters</p><p>you notice a spring</p><p>replenishing</p><p>without causing </p><p>a ripple</p><p><br /></p><p>My whole body</p><p>what is happening?</p><p>what is happening?</p><p><br /></p><p>I can’t write</p><p>unconditioned words</p><p><br /></p><p>I direct this absorption</p><p>to disentangling</p><p>cessation</p><p>relinquishment</p><p><br /></p><p>I clap my fist and let it go.</p><div><br /></div>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-59894123168164822642024-01-25T06:11:00.010-05:002024-01-26T07:06:07.157-05:00More Dogen Shōbōgenzō quotes<p><a href="https://goingforrefuge.blogspot.com/2024/01/dogen-shobogenzo-quotes.html" target="_blank">Past post</a></p><p>Quotes from Gudo Wafu Nishijima and Chodo Cross edition (book 1 of 8) BDK English Tripiṭaka Series version of <i>Shōbōgenzō</i> (2007). Chapter 1: Bendōwa p. 13-16</p><p>Someone asks (supposedly Senika in <a href="http://www.buddhism.org/Sutras/2/Avatamsaka_Sutra.htm" target="_blank">Avatamsaka Sutra</a>), “It has been said that we should not regret our life and death, for there is a very quick way to get free of life and death. That is, to know the truth that the mental essence is eternal. In other words, this physical body, having been born, necessarily moves toward death; but this mental essence never dies at all. Once we have been able to recognize that the mental essence which is unmoved by birth and decay exists in our own body, we see this as the original essence. Therefore the body is just a temporary form; it dies here and is born there, never remaining constant. But the mind is eternal; it is unchangeable in the past, future, or present. To know this is called ‘to have become free of life and death.’ Those who know this principle stop the past cycle of life and death forever and, when this body passes, they enter the spirit world. When they present themselves in the spirit world, they gain wondrous virtues like those of the buddha-tathāgatas. Even if we know this principle now, our body is still the body that has been shaped by deluded behavior in past ages, and so we are not the same as the saints. Those who do not know this principle will forever turn in the cycle of life and death. Therefore we should just hasten to understand the principle that the mental essence is eternal. Even if we passed our whole life in idle sitting, what could we expect to gain? The doctrine I have expressed like this is truly in accord with the truth of the buddhas and the patriarchs, is it not?”</p><p>I say: The view expressed now is absolutely not the Buddha’s Dharma; it is the view of the non-Buddhist Senika. According to that non-Buddhist view, there is one spiritual intelligence existing within our body. When this intelligence meets conditions, it can discriminate between pleasant and unpleasant and discriminate between right and wrong, and it can know pain and irritation and know suffering and pleasure—all these are abilities of the spiritual intelligence. When this body dies, however, the spirit casts off the skin and is reborn on the other side; so even though it seems to die here it lives on there. Therefore we call it immortal and eternal. The view of that non-Buddhist is like this. But if we learn this view as the Buddha’s Dharma, we are even more foolish than the person who grasps a tile or a pebble thinking it to be a golden treasure; the delusion would be too shameful for comparison. National Master Echū of great Tang China strongly cautioned against such thinking. If we equate the present wrong view that “mind is eternal but forms perish” with the splendid Dharma of the buddhas, thinking that we have escaped life and death when we are promoting the original cause of life and death, are we not being stupid? That would be most pitiful. Knowing that this wrong view is just the wrong view of non-Buddhists, we should not touch it with our ears. Nevertheless, I cannot help wanting to save you from this wrong view and it is only compassionate for me now to try. So remember, in the Buddha-Dharma, because the body and mind are originally one reality, the saying that essence and form are not two has been understood equally in the Western Heavens and the Eastern Lands, and we should never dare to go against it. Further, in the lineages that discuss eternal existence, the myriad dharmas are all eternal existence: body and mind are not divided. And in the lineages that discuss extinction, all dharmas are extinction: essence and form are not divided. How could we say, on the contrary, that the body is mortal but the mind is eternal? Does that not violate right reason? Furthermore, we should realize that living-and-dying is just nirvana; Buddhists have never discussed nirvana outside of living-and-dying. Moreover, even if we wrongly imagine the understanding that “mind becomes eternal by getting free of the body” to be the same as the buddha-wisdom that is free of life and death, the mind that is conscious of this understanding still appears and disappears momentarily, and so it is not eternal at all. Then isn’t this understanding unreliable? We should taste and reflect. The principle that body and mind are one reality is being constantly spoken by the Buddha-Dharma. So how could it be, on the contrary, that while this body appears and disappears, the mind independently leaves the body and does not appear or disappear? If there is a time when body and mind are one reality, and another time when they are not one reality, then it might naturally follow that the Buddha’s preaching has been false. Further, if we think that life and death are something to get rid of, we will commit the sin of hating the Buddha-Dharma. How could we not guard against this? Remember, the lineage of the Dharma which asserts that “in the Buddha-Dharma the essential state of mind universally includes all forms,” describes the whole great world of Dharma inclusively, without dividing essence and form, and without discussing appearance and disappearance. There is no state—not even bodhi or nirvana—that is different from the essential state of mind. All dharmas, myriad phenomena and accumulated things, are totally just the one mind, without exclusion or disunion. All these various lineages of the Dharma assert that myriad things and phenomena are the even and balanced undivided mind, other than which there is nothing; and this is just how Buddhists have understood the essence of mind. That being so, how could we divide this one reality into body and mind, or into life-and-death and nirvana? We are already the Buddha’s disciples. Let us not touch with our ears those noises from the tongues of madmen who speak non-Buddhist views.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-63528821445056819112024-01-24T19:25:00.002-05:002024-01-24T19:25:13.238-05:00<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcjlwj0_WyfN5yrCQdJCbgijZgwZUK5mRJFTYlPbfzcoP2lb9lMg9Hs-lkkearl2UwymRbKgmgoORIfGcdoE0GtePb7oBt7XQcqDvBA2QPY05BspYreIQGafwbNoi1aB2WpzmQIrk3MBPI9V4RbLFrtzKVGLhRWxcEFpkZ_BN-C9CjOZ2JacjC/s952/IMG_2528.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="952" data-original-width="563" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcjlwj0_WyfN5yrCQdJCbgijZgwZUK5mRJFTYlPbfzcoP2lb9lMg9Hs-lkkearl2UwymRbKgmgoORIfGcdoE0GtePb7oBt7XQcqDvBA2QPY05BspYreIQGafwbNoi1aB2WpzmQIrk3MBPI9V4RbLFrtzKVGLhRWxcEFpkZ_BN-C9CjOZ2JacjC/w378-h640/IMG_2528.jpeg" width="378" /></a></div><br /><p></p>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-13660667506355017252024-01-21T07:49:00.007-05:002024-01-21T13:27:49.446-05:00Wikipedia on the skandhas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIWjmnGs7BBwolgnlB21rhxxSSDXVjP-EZdIeZjGIhqXb_Md0G9GyIAQ3wGuwis4W-pEJmtPPFPBd9y89dASab7YbV9cSySrFwmu6dqlq96xYZPeuPme84yBaG-oFK76lVmFL97wzj9xGd7qG8IQ8GvJNSPS_rXtHTNWdmQbhn0EKyQglQLBpd/s4032/IMG_2515.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIWjmnGs7BBwolgnlB21rhxxSSDXVjP-EZdIeZjGIhqXb_Md0G9GyIAQ3wGuwis4W-pEJmtPPFPBd9y89dASab7YbV9cSySrFwmu6dqlq96xYZPeuPme84yBaG-oFK76lVmFL97wzj9xGd7qG8IQ8GvJNSPS_rXtHTNWdmQbhn0EKyQglQLBpd/w300-h400/IMG_2515.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>The five aggregates or heaps of clinging are:</p><p>form (or material image, impression) (rupa)</p><p>sensations (or feelings, received from form) (vedana)</p><p>perceptions (samjna)</p><p>mental activity or formations or influences of a previous life (sanskara)</p><p>consciousness (vijnana).</p><p>In the Theravada tradition, suffering arises when one identifies with or clings to the aggregates. This suffering is extinguished by relinquishing attachments to aggregates. The Mahayana tradition asserts that the nature of all aggregates is intrinsically empty of independent existence.</p>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-73452928933724996032024-01-20T18:10:00.004-05:002024-01-23T16:15:41.707-05:00Dogen Shōbōgenzō quotes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE7vPI4rW64OuJEsksZFCOJHKqpgz8edzrtIy_kcmjPyv_fgdmkSNqQsG8RjK1YuDjlgTR1iZFCokxoqpnW4XSOK0aC22QgC0FyfdaTksBtUy9Pfj1XCsQMMeylbOBSOWkhDujFw_LhhLvFPXV5BvrimqsWu6RiyqwzhSQHapMeVGJE6WHbRmo/s1098/Screenshot%202024-01-20%20at%203.35.45%E2%80%AFPM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1098" data-original-width="783" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE7vPI4rW64OuJEsksZFCOJHKqpgz8edzrtIy_kcmjPyv_fgdmkSNqQsG8RjK1YuDjlgTR1iZFCokxoqpnW4XSOK0aC22QgC0FyfdaTksBtUy9Pfj1XCsQMMeylbOBSOWkhDujFw_LhhLvFPXV5BvrimqsWu6RiyqwzhSQHapMeVGJE6WHbRmo/w285-h400/Screenshot%202024-01-20%20at%203.35.45%E2%80%AFPM.png" width="285" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Dogen Zenji (1200-1253)</div><p>All quotes from Gudo Wafu Nishijima and Chodo Cross edition (book 1 of 8) BDK English Tripiṭaka Series version of <i>Shōbōgenzō</i>. Chapter 1: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bend%C5%8Dwa" target="_blank">Bendōwa</a></p>"This Dharma is abundantly present in each human being, but if we do not practice it, it does not man- ifest itself, and if we do not experience it, it cannot be realized." (p. 3)<div><br /></div><div>"After the initial meeting with a [good] counselor we never again need to burn incense, to do prostrations, to recite Buddha’s name, to practice confession, or to read sutras. Just sit and get the state that is free of body and mind." (p. 5)</div><div><br /></div><div>"The grass, trees, soil, and earth reached by this guiding influence all radiate great brightness, and their preaching of the deep and fine Dharma is without end. Grass, trees, fences, and walls become able to preach for all souls, [both] common people and saints; and conversely, all souls, [both] common people and saints, preach for grass, trees, fences, and walls." (p. 7)</div><div><br /></div><div>"Those who chant endlessly are like frogs in a spring paddy field, croaking day and night. In the end it is all useless." (p. 9)</div><div><br /></div><div>"The mind that craves gain is very deep, and so it must have been present in the ancient past." (p. 9)</div><div><br /></div><div>"Just remember, when a practitioner directly follows a master who has attained the truth and clarified the mind, and when the practitioner matches that mind and experiences and understands it, and thus receives the authentic transmission of the subtle Dharma of the Seven Buddhas, then the exact teaching appears clearly and is received and maintained. This is beyond the comprehension of Dharma teachers who study words." (p.9)</div><div><br /></div><div>"Remember, among Buddhists we do not argue about superiority and inferiority of philosophies, or choose between shallowness and profundity in the Dharma; we need only know whether the practice is genuine or artificial." (p. 9)</div><div><br /></div><div>"...we are prone to beget random intellectual ideas, and because we chase after these as if they were real things, we vainly pass by the great state of truth." (p. 10)</div><div><br /></div><div>"At the same time, because we cannot perceive it directly,60 we are prone to beget random intellectual ideas, and because we chase after these as if they were real things, we vainly pass by the great state of truth. From these intellectual ideas emerge all sorts of flowers in space: we think about the twelvefold cycle62 and the twenty-five spheres of existence; and ideas of the three vehicles and the five vehicles or of having buddha[-nature] and not having buddha[-nature] are endless." (p. 10)</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>If you google "flowers in space" you get a picture of all the flowers they have grown in space. In 1253 when Dogen died and Shobogenzo was published, I wonder how much they imagined space travel. </div><div><br /></div><div>I think about space when I read "holding to nothing whatever," when I'm reading the Heart Sutra. I could get getting anxious when there's no gravity, but you evolve past that disorienting feelings in the spiritual life.</div><div><br /></div><div>Another fun fact is that the Sobogenzo was written in Japanese, not Chinese, which most of the texts, even in Japan, were written in at the time. </div><div><br /></div><div>Dogen seems to be against chanting, reciting sutras, studying abstruse or fanciful doctrines. He's just for sitting endlessly in meditation. So far, 10 pages in.</div>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-14353018034660087022024-01-20T06:00:00.009-05:002024-01-20T08:07:05.773-05:00Buddhadasa quote<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsUtf8tbaO8vX4KlPIS0i5IM8TO7JIRM8zEWb_lDJGHyd9wvCaCRyoK98-_ir8lw23rf2SvjbAYVOuIM6jDo3dGOa3M-QSVCvJMZWmQOIivvynaQ_VYLM_6plgQ26ZSOMapod5mCiLFptZHsetALOwNB1SC4uZdIeY7f0dqEPX-RdYAdUQtqW8/s600/Buddhadasa_Bhikkhu.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsUtf8tbaO8vX4KlPIS0i5IM8TO7JIRM8zEWb_lDJGHyd9wvCaCRyoK98-_ir8lw23rf2SvjbAYVOuIM6jDo3dGOa3M-QSVCvJMZWmQOIivvynaQ_VYLM_6plgQ26ZSOMapod5mCiLFptZHsetALOwNB1SC4uZdIeY7f0dqEPX-RdYAdUQtqW8/w400-h400/Buddhadasa_Bhikkhu.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>According to Lord Buddha, the causes of everything in the world are rooted in the vedana. All activities occur because the vedana force us to desire and then to act out those desires. Even the rounds of rebirth within the cycle of samsara the cycles of birth and death, of heaven and hell-are themselves conditioned by the vedana. Everything originates in the feelings. To master the vedana is to master the origin, the source, the birthplace of all things. Thus, it is absolutely necessary to understand these feelings correctly and com-prehensively. Then we shall be able to master our feelings, and their secrets will never again deceive us into behaving foolishly.<br /><br />Once we master the highest and most sublime vedana, we can also master the lower, cruder, more petty vedana. When we learn to control the most difficult feelings, we can control the easy, simple, childish feelings as well. For this reason we should strive to achieve the highest level of vedana; namely, the feelings that are born from samadhi. If we can conquer the most pleasant vedana, we can be victorious over all vedana. Should you bother to give it a try? Should you endure any difficulties that might arise? Should you spend your precious time on this practice? Let us consider wisely.<br /><br />It may seem curious that in striving to realize the highest vedanà our aim is to control and eliminate these feelings rather than to enjoy and indulge in them. Some people might think it strange to search for the highest vedanà only to master and control them. It is important to understand this point correctly. By eliminating these pleasant feelings we obtain something even better in return. We receive another kind of vedana, a higher order of vedana one that perhaps should not even be called vedana something more like nibbana or emancipation. So it is not so unusual or strange that we wish to achieve the best vedana in order to eliminate the pleasant feelings.<div><br /></div><div>From p. 34 of <i>Mindfulness with Breathing</i> (1988/96) by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu</div>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-81648351362772376112024-01-19T13:32:00.001-05:002024-01-20T06:26:56.672-05:00Patikulamanasikara<p>Also called Asubha (not beautiful and neutral) meditation. I think it's the most mentioned meditation in the Pali Canon. </p><p>"Just as if a sack with openings at both ends were full of various kinds of grain – wheat, rice, mung beans, kidney beans, sesame seeds, husked rice – and a man with good eyesight, pouring it out, were to reflect, 'This is wheat. This is rice. These are mung beans. These are kidney beans. These are sesame seeds. This is husked rice'; in the same way, the monk reflects on this very body from the soles of the feet on up, from the crown of the head on down, surrounded by skin and full of various kinds of unclean things [as identified in the above enumeration of bodily organs and fluids]" (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patikulamanasikara" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>)</p><p>The parts of the body according to 2500 years ago (32 parts): head hairs (Pali: kesā), body hairs (lomā), nails (nakhā), teeth (dantā), skin (taco), flesh (maṃsaṃ), tendons (nahāru), bones (aṭṭhi), bone marrow (aṭṭhimiñjaṃ), kidneys (vakkaṃ), heart (hadayaṃ), liver (yakanaṃ), pleura (kilomakaṃ), spleen (pihakaṃ), lungs (papphāsaṃ), entrails (antaṃ), mesentery (antaguṇaṃ), undigested food (udariyaṃ), feces (karīsaṃ), bile (pittaṃ), phlegm (semhaṃ), pus (pubbo), blood (lohitaṃ), sweat (sedo), fat (medo), tears (assu), skin-oil (vasā), saliva (kheḷo), mucus (siṅghānikā), fluid in the joints (lasikā), urine (muttaṃ).</p><p>It's not quite a body scan, and it's not quite a 6 elements meditation. "In addition to developing sati (mindfulness) and samādhi (concentration), this form of meditation is considered conducive to overcoming desire and lust." (op cit)</p><p>It supposedly conquers lust, and I'm skeptical, and I've had a few lustful meditations, so I'm going to try it, and report back. I don't like the language of "impurity" either, misses out the wisdom of equality. Honestly I think everything my body I am grateful for. The calling it of ugly rubs me the wrong way. Maybe that's my conditioning. Maybe I could recognize my conditioning around the attractiveness of the body. </p><p>I once did a meditation at the Bodies exhibit at South Street Seaport, where Chinese prisoners donated their bodies that were rubberized and cut in all sorts of interesting ways so you could see inside. You don't really need to do the corpse meditation too many times, once might be enough, but doing it once is perhaps good. Most people don't have charnel grounds to go to, so the Bodies Exhibit was the best approximation.</p><p>It's about bringing balance.</p><p><br /></p><p>Links:</p><p>Written <a href="https://www.arrowriver.ca/dhamma/body.html" target="_blank">meditation instructions</a>.</p><p>Lead through on <a href="https://youtu.be/-XB3nludj-o?si=uuTKw4hjMjA1JXzw" target="_blank">YouTube</a> (BuddhaDhamma Foundation) by Ajahn Asoko. He meditates, then talks about the meditation before it begins at 25 to talk about the meditation, prior to that he does a little meditation. Supposedly <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajahn_Chah" target="_blank">Ajahn Chah</a> would do a walking meditation where you can put a bit down when you turn, and then when you get back put another part down, and then all these parts of the body are scattered all over the ground. All that goop is yucky. Then Ajahn Chah suggests you put it all back together. 1:05:00 begins questions. Do you have to keep the order of the list? Probably best, but of course you are free to do what you want. It's a really good suggestion to do this in walking meditation, I've been wanting to juice up and refresh my walking meditation. </p><p><a href="https://www.serenecolombo.org/asubha-protective-meditation-on-impurities-of-the-body/" target="_blank">Chant</a></p><p>8 page <a href="https://www.mahamevnawa.ca/uploads/1/0/7/1/107195823/asubha-pre-toronto.pdf" target="_blank">pamphlet</a> on Asubha meditation.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVtE7bHfJeGOSYEt6usTf3rDyZK4VsWYOXN4AO7bz9bCAcFysqq8wgeSPzsXzG3PeZfVvH_F_ASs3z14xhab7h1Iy5wsJhjzsCpHCAyh8zfraajgNxjYJMXP-c6UEsV-DSWlDFC2zMWrrK3ZqqUh8BfsOkBw4wzlDYjkFuBTbOQqM8PUiC_LvJ/s4032/IMG_2010.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVtE7bHfJeGOSYEt6usTf3rDyZK4VsWYOXN4AO7bz9bCAcFysqq8wgeSPzsXzG3PeZfVvH_F_ASs3z14xhab7h1Iy5wsJhjzsCpHCAyh8zfraajgNxjYJMXP-c6UEsV-DSWlDFC2zMWrrK3ZqqUh8BfsOkBw4wzlDYjkFuBTbOQqM8PUiC_LvJ/w480-h640/IMG_2010.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><div><br /></div>(The above is a goddess of fruitfulness and fecundity, from early Buddhist times in India at a recent <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/tree-and-serpent" target="_blank">exhibit</a> at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.)<br /><p><br /></p>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-60009323843405339042024-01-15T19:28:00.000-05:002024-01-15T19:28:13.732-05:00Not sure how to express what I'm trying to express<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW4av2o8GJEQNiC5Z1uOCamDiYLDJ37vja8NcoCCwpx0OzB8RAO4XOC2dahahDjFo1noidhRQdK91qzbOuVqIBtzvvKdKP3l9tcOGUdmtDc1n-8CUP848sarXgN8GU57K6e3E7EHk5jPzSRzpOlMbWDMuWjubRjUVhpyR1ed6jXHg5gbOLvUEt/s4032/IMG_2492.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW4av2o8GJEQNiC5Z1uOCamDiYLDJ37vja8NcoCCwpx0OzB8RAO4XOC2dahahDjFo1noidhRQdK91qzbOuVqIBtzvvKdKP3l9tcOGUdmtDc1n-8CUP848sarXgN8GU57K6e3E7EHk5jPzSRzpOlMbWDMuWjubRjUVhpyR1ed6jXHg5gbOLvUEt/w480-h640/IMG_2492.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>I'm reading Kristin Neff's <i>Self Compassion</i>, and on page 93-94 she discusses what I consider to be reduced secular Buddhism. It's about not putting the second arrow in, preventing mind made suffering. It's the creativity over reactivity. Enlightenment as overcoming trauma and conditioning.</p><p>Devotion takes you past that, and perhaps is mysticism. Seeking unconditioned happiness. The unconditioned, the transcendental is a black hole of meaning, because language is conditional. You can't talk about the unconditioned. Merging with an archetypal Buddha. Depth psychology. Wisdom inaccessible to the intellect. </p><p>Sex scandals in Buddhist sanghas are caused by nihilism and despair. Human sexuality undercuts most projects except hedonism. Containing sexuality is part of Christianity. The Buddha saw no connection to supporting the spiritual life, and banned sexuality for monks.</p><p>Narratives that really juice you up to do the hard work, to keep the discipline. Meditate 2 hours a day, vigilance with ethics, pushing yourself to study the culture, the ideas, the tradition. Pushing yourself to interact with other, develop friendships which are mercurial at best. Sangha is like politics, you have to really tolerate your ideals being violated by the reality of messy humans. Most sanghas are grandma sanghas who press eject at the smallest problems or power plays meant to build buildings. There's nothing wrong with trying to control your environment. Creating good conditions for practice, but wait, how do we get to the unconditioned? Devotion? I love devotional practices, but I don't know if they get you beyond the conditioned. </p><p>The perfection of wisdom tries to express. It’s hard not to see quibbles with doctrine minutiae that isn’t yet common knowledge. I suppose this blurb is a kind of playing with simplified and more than Buddhism. Hyperbolic versus plain Buddhism.</p>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-86578118952915240492024-01-06T07:52:00.004-05:002024-01-14T11:56:42.838-05:00equanimity<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKQfj2EffUpYZ1VJWesyzS5xZtdppwGqBAT2pzI04C_C6fzgTdrsuoDuoyLGvAmjGsdlBvT_jx0Z0P3NXCpNnlctRpAt-Do0A2jgqlB4n8tdjzpWJ-ImrNzKNNGJ4abVv1lV7IAlut4p6pDzdtfsVjgJYzdFL9PyM1msnqTynekmjmIdLJ4gBG/s500/water%20lillies.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="500" height="404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKQfj2EffUpYZ1VJWesyzS5xZtdppwGqBAT2pzI04C_C6fzgTdrsuoDuoyLGvAmjGsdlBvT_jx0Z0P3NXCpNnlctRpAt-Do0A2jgqlB4n8tdjzpWJ-ImrNzKNNGJ4abVv1lV7IAlut4p6pDzdtfsVjgJYzdFL9PyM1msnqTynekmjmIdLJ4gBG/w640-h404/water%20lillies.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>There's an article saying, "don't forget equanimity," in <a href="https://tricycle.org/article/boundless-equanimity/" target="_blank">Tricycle</a>. </p><p>Something clarified seemingly in my mind. Some people get nervous when they get concentrated and the chatter that makes them feel accompanied and not so alone, like a TV on in the background, an external world exists, so to, we find comfort in the internal world. When the internal world is relatively blank, it can be like being in the wilderness. Even in the lack of others, people can feel vulnerable. What can happen? Walking down a crowded street, you're pushing past others at times, people bump into your, you have to alter you vector, take others into account. It's annoying maybe at times, but it's also comforting in that you know others exist and you're not all alone. Some people really don't like feeling alone. I've come to enjoy feeling alone. In some periods of my life all I wanted was to be left alone, there were so many people, I had a rather rich life. There are other periods of time where nobody calls, nobody emails, nobody visits. I'm all alone. When you sit down and the chatter settles, that can be scary in a way. It's also quite a relief and can be gladdening too. This is a state you will have to become comfortable and open to in the practice.</p><p>Doing the 16 steps of anapanasati has been interesting, contemplating things I don't naturally contemplate. I don't really contemplate equanimity directly. I often think like many of the contemplations in anapanasati that equanimity gets short shift, and could stand some actual meditation time.</p><p>Sitting with K on zoom, he's abandoned the think of a person in metta, in favor of locating that quality and then just radiating it, amplifying. I suppose if you can't find it, you explore the barriers. I've been surprised to come across a rill I hadn't seen before. That style of meditation lends, in my mind, to a 4 stage Sublime Abodes meditation that doesn't give equanimity short shrift. You can do a 4 stage Sublime abodes practice, 40 minutes, 10 minutes for universal loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. </p><p>One image for equanimity is a circle that just touches a horizon. You don't want the circle away from the line, not touching the world. And you don't want to be engulfed with the world, such that you're overwhelmed. It's a fairly simple image, but a powerful one to explain equanimity. </p><p>Where you go there, if it gets sidetracked or too complicated, you can always reset with that. Just like when I get lost in metta, I think, "may you be happy, may you be well," like a sheep herder that gathers the herd. The whole point of meditation to me isn't to stop thinking or calm the mind, though that can happen in spurts, it's more to notice what the mind is doing and apply various things to funnel it towards the meditative focus. (Also tune into the body and feelings and indeed insights.) In equanimity there will be questions of what equanimity really is, how does one get it, what is false equanimity, what are acceptable methods of striving for it? So many questions. Sometimes it's about the questions and not pat answers. It's similar to the insight tetrad, indeed, it might be the insight quadrant of the sublime abodes. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLO-uhszM20nlieCfryPF7ZgAD4YrwxJhwq8alMKrMI4HJIM9EUoGWflZPVXTEV8Ld7meE7AKRgqhxa4T-mPa0_OzJj-m3n6dGxYtiz3S7tOxFtqQCWQbGCVO9RABWC093yRb5jAwvLiinQVO2LimCVWwZL5_7ejH3hvXJDkT3LCreup7D5I9e/s1200/IMG_2489.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLO-uhszM20nlieCfryPF7ZgAD4YrwxJhwq8alMKrMI4HJIM9EUoGWflZPVXTEV8Ld7meE7AKRgqhxa4T-mPa0_OzJj-m3n6dGxYtiz3S7tOxFtqQCWQbGCVO9RABWC093yRb5jAwvLiinQVO2LimCVWwZL5_7ejH3hvXJDkT3LCreup7D5I9e/w640-h640/IMG_2489.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-33878551427580277742024-01-01T13:46:00.003-05:002024-01-01T13:46:30.304-05:00Thoreau quote<p>"But it sometimes happens that I cannot
easily shake off the village. The thought
of some work will run in my head, and
I am not where my body is, - I am out
of my senses. In my walks I would fain
return to my senses. 'What business
have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods? I suspect myself, and cannot help a shudder, when I find myself so implicated even in what are called good works, - for this may sometimes happen."</p><p>-Henry David Thoreau in <a href="https://www.walden.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Walking-1.pdf" target="_blank">Walking</a></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYXQAv3nbaOCt2X0VVBy1SKux_JrzjND6kMvA-yzRdDcfcGm9secpGcgMVgnvuuTAqSmWTBBgjtz9R0XxXAz2r-Ng1r31jisG7-GXL7ZNnowgoa5ARC7e7SNz7lVsYazm-17iCBBEyS5hIC6seC8MQv_vqVULZziYpsTCm9UR7a-4DOHI_YQwA/s1100/0D6C518F-D1FF-4A77-8934-D17DEE93BFBE.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1100" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYXQAv3nbaOCt2X0VVBy1SKux_JrzjND6kMvA-yzRdDcfcGm9secpGcgMVgnvuuTAqSmWTBBgjtz9R0XxXAz2r-Ng1r31jisG7-GXL7ZNnowgoa5ARC7e7SNz7lVsYazm-17iCBBEyS5hIC6seC8MQv_vqVULZziYpsTCm9UR7a-4DOHI_YQwA/w640-h392/0D6C518F-D1FF-4A77-8934-D17DEE93BFBE.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-76514302296662660812023-12-31T07:55:00.000-05:002023-12-31T07:55:12.782-05:00The discipline <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPUyqlSRD-_mz732QyS3MLI7by3DOvgEbDj5rgxbL45F4aCZ0j5KYo15XBSECqQz6ne8FFtH7mzSwq240GTgdu3oaufAxPGlaDO8BNNvwtpYTHPyu2nwf24Q6alEIyQtwnk0J56VzxJot-sEOGUhsSce0Wr-jj4YjBpwGkTtVfQESgFWWwS6c7/s4032/IMG_2442.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPUyqlSRD-_mz732QyS3MLI7by3DOvgEbDj5rgxbL45F4aCZ0j5KYo15XBSECqQz6ne8FFtH7mzSwq240GTgdu3oaufAxPGlaDO8BNNvwtpYTHPyu2nwf24Q6alEIyQtwnk0J56VzxJot-sEOGUhsSce0Wr-jj4YjBpwGkTtVfQESgFWWwS6c7/w480-h640/IMG_2442.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div>This is the rough draft of a document about anapanasati.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Preface:</div><div><br /></div><div><span> </span>You can flow through all the stages in one sitting without simplify. You could do 32 minutes with 2 minutes on each stage, but for me that feels rushed. It’s not easy for me to do 48 minutes, but I prefer that length. I’ve yet to stretch it out to 64 minutes successfully. </div><div><span> </span>In the 32 minute version, the first 4 minutes are connecting to the length of the breath, and then two minutes connecting with the whole body. Then there are contemplations. Thirteen contemplations where you’re sensitive to things like disentanglement and relinquishing at the end. While in the background you have mindfulness of the breath, and the breath in the body. You can cycle through the impermanence of the breath, body, feelings, mental formations, mind, and apply insight to the very stages as Buddhadasa suggests.</div><div><span> </span>Contemplations are also questions: how do you work towards contemplating these things? You’re sensitive to disentanglement, but what are you really noticing? Everyone will be different. Use mindfulness to pick the right things the mind needs. Is it just the possibility of disentanglement or can you actually work to untie knots. I visualize a knot coming loose.</div><div><span> </span>Learning how to stabilize the mind can come in handy, but there are limits. This meditation is a delicate and robust structure based on past conditions and experience. The best thing spiritual life has to offer is opening up a file on how to gladden the mind, steady the mind. Live the questions.</div><div><span> </span>Create simple conditions for a Buddhist practice with few responsibilities and stress. Much of what you do off the cushion sets up your conditioned experience on the cushion. You can calm the body at the end, when I need it most, and the 4th contemplation of calming the body, can be referenced at the end too. These contemplations support each other.</div><div><span> </span>There are 4 sets of 4, the body, feelings and emotions, mind and insight. </div><div><span> </span>Rosenberg, Buddhadasa, Alayo and Kamalashila inform me, the references I’ve read, and there are more on the Wikipedia page for anapanasati, translating key words. I sit with Kamalashila on zoom. He’s got a streamlined anapanasati, collapses mental formation and mind together. Insight is really about change.</div><div><span> </span>I’m doing this for myself, not imagining I can improve on others' texts, and making it my own. Maybe I’m thick, but I haven’t heard many good talks online. This is just another entry in the cacophony online. Writing out what is going on is helpful to me. Trying to deepen my practice of anapanasati, which after 20 plus years of practice, suddenly seems like the thing to do. Really get it down, deepen the execution of 16 stages, really learn the formal technique. Also explore the contemplations off the cushion.</div><div><span> </span>I take all of Buddhism on the path, and use it to support me on the journey. I was lucky to grow up in Triratna even if I’m not ordained to speak for the order. I’m not afraid to import whatever could help me from the whole history of Buddhism in this meditation, even non-Buddhism. I know you should keep it simple, and stick to what’s there in the text, but I don’t keep things simple. Some might dislike some concepts in my contemplations. I understand the appeal of restricting ideas to the text and Theravadan concepts.</div><div><span> </span>Contemplations don’t mean that we necessarily know things. Tolerating not knowing or as Keats called it the negative capacity, to not hanker after easy solutions. Maybe the contemplations are just to ask great questions, and wonder.</div><div><span> </span>I really recommend that you write a book for yourself on anapanasati. The grueling work to create a document that is useful to me, will hopefully be useful to you. Oftentimes really good athletes don’t make good coaches, because they don’t really know the struggle. Rosenberg was a star meditator and he wrote an awesome book. Analayo has correct, precise thinking. Buddhadasa is a link to the past, he taught Rosenberg. If I’ve quoted them, they’re probably better, it’s just this document is about me trying to gather it all together under my understanding. I’m probably an epigone. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Relevant text: (Thanissaro Bhikkhu translation. This will different than Rosenburg, and I include the different translation to help one understand there are Pali words underneath the don’t exactly correspond to English words.):</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Breathing in long, he discerns, 'I am breathing in long'; or breathing out long, he discerns, 'I am breathing out long.' </div><div><br /></div><div>Or breathing in short, he discerns, 'I am breathing in short'; or breathing out short, he discerns, 'I am breathing out short.' </div><div><br /></div><div>He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to the entire body.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to the entire body.' </div><div><br /></div><div>He trains himself, 'I will breathe in calming bodily fabrication.'[3] He trains himself, 'I will breathe out calming bodily fabrication.'</div><div><br /></div><div>He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to rapture.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to rapture.' </div><div><br /></div><div>He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to pleasure.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to pleasure.' </div><div><br /></div><div>He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to mental fabrication.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to mental fabrication.' </div><div><br /></div><div>He trains himself, 'I will breathe in calming mental fabrication.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out calming mental fabrication.'</div><div><br /></div><div>He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to the mind.' </div><div><br /></div><div>He trains himself, 'I will breathe in satisfying the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out satisfying the mind.' </div><div><br /></div><div>He trains himself, 'I will breathe in steadying the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out steadying the mind.' </div><div><br /></div><div>He trains himself, 'I will breathe in releasing the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out releasing the mind.'</div><div><br /></div><div>He trains himself, 'I will breathe in focusing on inconstancy.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out focusing on inconstancy.'</div><div><br /></div><div>He trains himself, 'I will breathe in focusing on dispassion [literally, fading].' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out focusing on dispassion.' </div><div><br /></div><div>He trains himself, 'I will breathe in focusing on cessation.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out focusing on cessation.' </div><div><br /></div><div>He trains himself, 'I will breathe in focusing on relinquishment.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out focusing on relinquishment.'</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>What follows is an off the cushion contemplation of these 16 items:</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>1&2. Quality of the breath: long or short.</div><div><br /></div><div><span> </span>This one gets two stages because it's important. It's the base. You're aware of your breath even as you think about impermanence or you're gladdening the mind, or your disentangling. Maybe really connecting with the breath takes time. You follow one, and think, yea, I got it, but maybe there’s some low level you can keep in the background that supports all these contemplations and establishing that takes time. Ideally, I’m thinking about what might be good, not really my experience of the breath, and thus I’m off the breath. I pay a lot of attention to my breath and I know when I’m in greater connection with it, with my whole mind, and when I’m not. The beginning is meant to push yourself into a great connection. And this is the background you push your contemplations into. </div><div><span> </span>Short or long. Rough or smooth. What do you actually feel? I can't really tell if I feel oxygen going into my blood, but there's something, maybe it's just the bellows pushing air out, or something at the back of the neck, there's something. I tell myself it's feeling oxygen going into the blood, but that's a story. I'm trying to just read all the input without a story. A deep breath, filling up the lungs, expanding the chest, feeling the air going into my nose, down my throat, and into my lungs that expand to open to it. Opening to my experience, opening my lungs. Opening up. </div><div><span> </span>The breath settles down into, what to me feel like little puffs. It's really quite short. One interpretation of the long and short is rough and subtle. Paying attention to the subtle breath is exquisite. </div><div><span> </span>I read about monks who ask each other what breath they woke up in the morning. I woke up on the in breath today. </div><div><span> </span>I tune into my breath throughout the day. Before I take out my phone to check things, I check into my breath, my body, my feelings, my mental state, and wonder what insight I should be contemplating. </div><div>I thought deep meditation as a facial feeling until I figured out my face feels a certain way when I meditate a lot, but it goes away if I relax my face. Another false summit. There’s a million false summits, where you think, yea, I got it now, and then it’s later revealed to just be another mental formation of grandiosity. </div><div><span> </span>I heard someone say they imagined with their enlightenment to draw the flies to them, away from other meditators. And then when they left, and moved on, the presumption crashed them back to earth. You can’t control flies with your mind. I like people who can joke with humility with their struggles in puffing up too much. It’s important to remain humble on the Buddhist path, so much so that it’s not really talked about that much. When you meet people in real sangha experiences, some of the leaders I like can talk about their false summits. I read a book on personality disorders where the writer wanted people to feel more comfortable talking about the traits they struggle with, they wished it wasn’t so hush hush. I like it when people are confident enough to expose their flaws and pratfalls. That is a sign to me that someone is authentic. They can talk about their real struggles, not just put forward a good Buddhist self.</div><div>The breath is grounding, it's always there, and it's not overwhelming to pay attention to in that there’s not too much going on. .</div><div><span> </span>The last 13 steps will ask you to drop contemplations into mindfulness of the breath, expecting mindfulness of the breath to be in the background. Contemplate cessation on the in breath, contemplate cessation on the out breath. You contemplate on the out breath, you contemplate on the inbreath. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>3. Sensitive to the body.</div><div><br /></div><div><span> </span>Some people can find a comfortable position. My back hurts, my knees hurt. I slouch and then I ramrod myself, one time to the point of back spasms. I put a cushion under my knee, that works sometimes if I get it right. Mike Johnson is the position philosopher. </div><div><span> </span>I started with a bench, but the knees hurt too much and I went for a cushion. I like laying down too, I do that when I'm exhausted from a long day of meditation. Walking is all about the body, it's hard to just focus on the breath when walking. I slow down walking. It's harder to do it walking fast. </div><div><span> </span>I can send healing breaths to trouble spots. </div><div><span> </span>There were times when I would start out a practice day with mindfulness of the body, laying down, listening to a guided meditation. You can find lots of lead meditation on that. </div><div><span> </span>Analayo points out this is an important stage, where you zoom out and keep the breath in the background, and then also contemplate the body. These 13 contemplations will have the breath in the background. Contemplate cessation on the in breath, contemplate cessation on the out breath. Contemplate relinquishment on the in breath, contemplate relinquishment on the out breath. It gets rarefied at the end of this meditation, but it’s grounded in the breath and the body. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>4. Calming body.</div><div><br /></div><div><span> </span>There is a pattern. First you have to tune in and find out what’s going on before you even attempt to work with the body, feelings, mind or insight.</div><div><span> </span>Not moving vigorously the body calms down. You notice that? Is there something you can do to calm down the body? You just watch it naturally calm sitting there. Or you see what is preventing the calming, hopefully. Or you begin to approach what will prevent calming. Sometimes I focus on my knee pain and it kind of goes away. Is that calming?</div><div><span> </span>I’ve been addicted to coffee since I was 18, almost 40 years, but I can feel its influence on me. Avoiding all stimulants helps to calm the body. I worked to meditate before I drank my coffee in the morning. It’s not easy to just wake and get on the cushion, but it’s a good way to start the day, get that first meditation in.</div><div><span> </span>When I was a psychotherapist I read quitting stimulants like coffee and cigarettes really helps with anxiety. So if anxiety is your presenting problem, and you don’t want to give up your stimulants, what is that about? All addiction is magical thinking, the substance creates a story. My addiction to caffeine was that when I went to college, now I could stay awake, not fall asleep in class or when I was studying. It made me smarter with wakefulness.</div><div><span> </span>I touch into this stage in the last stages too when my knees are screaming and my poster is irritating. Calming my body in those moments makes more sense, but there’s also preventative medicine as opposed to crisis medicine, and this moment is preventative. Calm the breath, then calm the body, then calm mental processes based on feelings and conditionality, then calm the mind, then let go, calm the clinging and untangle neuroticism.</div><div><span> </span>We’re coming up on rapture, so calming the body for rough feelings is appropriate.</div><div>They did experiments where they would shoot a gun right next to a deep meditator. They registered less shock and distress than regular people. That doesn’t mean that they were not shocked by a gun going off near their head. It just means they took it better and probably calmed down quicker. </div><div><span> </span>The practice of these first 4 stages was a practice in and of itself according to 2 references in the Pali Canon (Analayo). The mindfulness of the body is often a building block for other meditation.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>5. Sensitive to rapture (piti). </div><div><br /></div><div><span> </span>Piti is a joyful saṅkhāra (formation) associated with no object.</div><div><span> </span>It says a rapture not of the flesh. It’s a calming rapture that leads to serenity. </div><div><span> </span>What is the proper role of pleasure in your life? The standard is to say kiss the joys as they go by--avoid clinging in the harsher vigilance approach. </div><div>Rapture is energetic. Energy provokes interesting questions to ask of yourself. Can you feel the level of energy in you going up and down? What is the best use of your energy?</div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For a while I thought rapture was a feeling in my face I would get, but when I relaxed my face, the feeling would go away, so yea, that’s not rapture, that’s a feeling in my facial muscles. Many false summits in meditation, beware.</span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Finally hearing rapture, like hearing metta, was a huge joy. The joy of joy is also a relief, it’s a modicum of success and progress in meditation. Mostly I’m letting go in meditation, but actual joy is wonderful. The purpose of the joy is to do the hard work later on. Do I need a well of joy to do harder things? That’s an interesting question.</span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>These 4 reflections are often said to be about feelings, so feelings are a big reflection here. Sensing the refined Buddhisty ones like rapture, happiness, metta, compassion, sympathetic joy, are part of it, listening for these subtle emotions, cultivating them. </span></div><div>This is a narrow subsection of the main emotions of sadness, happiness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust. Watching how these 6 main emotions influence your thinking and mental state will be part of the 7th stage.</div><div><span> </span>When do you tune in and see how things are going with you? Maybe before you meditate, to get that out of the way.</div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This is the first jhana. The first jhana is rapture. Maybe you’re not 100% in the jhana, but maybe you participate in a modicum of the jhana. </span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Not feeling pleasure can be fodder for questions about conditionality and clinging. What are the conditions that support meditation practice? Can you work towards those conditions?</span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Rapture is a good word for me because sometimes I can feel too excited, it needs stablizing. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>6. Sensitive to happiness (sukha).</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Sukha is set up as a contrast to preya, meaning a transient pleasure, whereas the pleasure of 'sukha' has an authentic state of happiness within a being that is lasting. Again maybe not 100%, but can you detect a wisp of it? I’ll never forget leaving my first 9 day retreat and just feeling really healthy, aware, energetic as I drove through a blizzard at breakneck speeds to get home.</span></div><div><span> </span>There’s a common misconception that Buddhism is just ascetic denial. But appreciating the sunrise or the sunset, the flow of the incense smoke, there is visual beauty that is perhaps transient, but it puts me in a good mood of appreciating beauty, and the spiritual life is beautiful, and the good mood can lead to intensification of practice and deeper meditative pleasures. These transient pleasures are cousins to the deeper pleasures. I can only extrapolate. I have had glimpses, flashes of lightning to see a world of possibilities. It’s good to tend your expectations, and I wouldn’t base my whole life on a hope, but there has to be a small taste which entices you further, to develop the faith to put in the hard work, to prioritize progress on the path.</div><div><span> </span>Later you will end up contemplating what leads to no self and grokking impermanence, and this one is where you can contemplate that dukkha, the opposite of happiness, and thus complete the three contemplations of existence. In this one, all saṅkhāras are unsatisfactory, imperfect, unstable. The five sankharas are unsatisfactory, what is satisfactory? What is unconditioned? This can lead to the contemplation of the transcendental, Dharmakaya, Buddha nature and some pretty flighty concepts, which aren't conditions, and maybe can’t be talked about, or perhaps it’s hard to talk about with skill. Perhaps it’s a little mystic, but can you actually contemplate it?</div><div><span> </span>Notice you’re leaving rapture and happiness to investigate later on, but maybe you can keep that in the background just like you keep the breath. You’ve built up positivity for a reason. I’d say there’s no shame in just doing 1-6 quite a lot of the time, or for a long time. People are in such a rush these days. Don’t forget after a particularly good 3 month retreat, that’s when the Buddha decided to do this teaching. I’m not going to blame someone who’s really struggling and traumatized, bewildered, in sticking to these first 6 stages.</div><div><span> </span>Analayo writes, “It is precisely through diminishing our attachment to the more intense joy that happiness can manifest. In other words, the progression here requires at least some lessening of craving and some degree of dispassion.” He see this stage as about contentment.</div><div><span> </span>Piti and sukha are feelings you could share with others. Metta is more than that, but I think metta partakes in the desire for others to share these positive emotions.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>7. Sensitive to conditioned mental processes. </div><div><br /></div><div><span> </span>Saṅkhāra refers to conditioned phenomena generally but specifically to all mental "dispositions". We’re beginning to think about conditionality, maybe the central idea to develop as a Buddhist.</div><div><span> </span>There are 51 mental events in Abhidharma. But you’re calming them, not parsing them, so you don’t have to go into that unless you want to after the meditation. You are tuning in and observing, so getting the vocabulary down might be useful. Or maybe you can come up with your own descriptions and then later compare them.</div><div><span> </span>I find the 51 mental events utterly fascinating in part because I’ve read Know Your Mind, and other Abhidharma books on the 51 mental events. I can’t remember a single thing about them, they weren’t intuitive to me. Fair enough when I was reading them, but I notice when I read something and it really resonates with me. </div><div><span> </span>That brings up the point about Buddhist learning. It’s not just intellectual, you feel the insight in your body and you develop it over time. If you’re like me, you can’t read your way to enlightenment. </div><div>There’s a part of me that wants to develop insight into mental events instead of calming them. There’s a part of me that thinks there’s something about cultivating certain mental states. But I honestly can’t name the 51 mental processes or even propose an alternative. </div><div><span> </span>I’m mainly thinking about relationships, todo lists, problem solving, how to communicate, procedures and rules, and pondering my mind. That is what comes up when I sit on the cushion. Just watching my mind raises a lot of questions, and produces a lot of insight. I have lines of negative thinking that I just try to untangle, observe fading away, cessation and relinquishment, but that’s later stages. Each stage seems to contain the other stages.</div><div><span> </span>Contemplating the mind helps develop objectivity towards the mind, such that thoughts don’t equal truth--something I wish other people had insight into quite often. Turns out developing yourself, you see a lot of lack of virtue in others, and it can be quite difficult. This is why there’s a turn towards the compassion of teaching, you can exemplify and teach others. Turns out teaching is quite hard. People don’t just lap up your golden insights. </div><div><span> </span>Memories are constantly insisting that I process them, and trauma constantly asks me to feel queasy about it. I have lots of cringe memories, where I was really out of tune with others and I said provocative, klanging things. And my general state is feeling alone and neglected, so it makes sense I am desperate for people’s attention sometimes. I have stories about why I shouldn’t want people’s attention, or devaluing attention narratives, which speaks to the desire. I put extra pressure on the gladdening to solve this problem, when the gladdening is about dropping this problem. Part of the gladdening is to weed out unrealistic and inappropriate projects. </div><div><span> </span>The biggest calming of the mental process is fear based in the reptile mind, the discomfort in going deeper. It’s scary this journey and the reptile fear mind has to be tended to, soothed, there has to be a huge wellspring of positivity and happiness.</div><div><span> </span>Before you can call the mental processes, you have to fully understand them in their depth and breadth so this stage is an opportunity to not try to calm yet or do anything with it, just observing. This is a standard Buddhist technique to really fully get into something that exists in your mind before you start trying to do anything about it at all.</div><div><span> </span>Conditionality is often talked about in Buddhism, but if you get to specifics that leads to the wheel of life. I’ve seen some people do wheel of life contemplations, a 12 nidanas meditation. On a basic level the incense smoke is conditioned. It blows out the window if the wind is going one way, or stay in the room another way. The smoke doesn’t decide which way to blow, it’s conditioned by larger forces. I’ve given myself headaches trying to think about the proper conditions to become enlightened, and had a period of depression when I could not control my conditions more. So be careful, but maybe you can build on positive contemplations from the previous stage.</div><div><span> </span>You have your trauma brain, your fear brain and the mating mind, but there’s also the comfort mind. People seem to always be thinking about their comfort. Seems to me it doesn’t need that much time but I was neglected, so I’m not sure what my core comforts are.</div><div><span> </span>The mating mind is also about status and jockeying for position. In fact the competition to get ordained and find a place in the hierarchy of a Buddhist organization can also be an outlet for this desire for recognition and power. You can let go of the need for status, comfort, recognition and quite a lot of shenanigans by just shining a light on it in the mindfulness of mental process stage. </div><div><span> </span>One friend calls it the imagination. That's a simplifying move I appreciate and you can collapse mental formations and mind together, I just want to keep them apart for a time to honor what the Buddha taught. They have to be different and I make them different by having one more basic mental functions and the other more thinking and higher reasoning. I feel like the Buddha must have wanted to break the mind into two parts, the way he breaks the breath into two stages, for emphasis, to really get in there.</div><div><span> </span>Feelings, mental functions and mind are a continuum of the brain functions, from quick thinking to slower thinking. The body is connected to the mental processes, the mind, relaxing all three has a symbiotic effect on relaxing and calming.</div><div><span> </span>I believe asking the question, how could a mental formation support this meditation, while maybe there’s no immediate answer, opening a file in you life, could I build a mental process that supports my meditation, the answers could come to you instantly, and in 10 years.</div><div><span> </span>The defenses are mental processes. The defenses are unconscious and semi-conscious ways the brain takes care of itself. This is why I think the sangha jewel is so important. We often don’t see ourselves clearly, and others can help us to see ourselves more clearly, and support progress on the path in crucial ways. The Buddha saw this 2,500 years ago.</div><div><span> </span>I think of mental functions as Game of Thrones type drama level thinking.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>8. Calming mental processes.</div><div><br /></div><div><span> </span>The first phrase that comes to my mind is, “big sky mind.” Calming the intensity and prevalence of mental chatter. You can think, I’m thinking right now. Where do thoughts come from? I have no idea, but meditating all day on retreat, the impetus of thoughts come up less and less. It’s actually scary at times, when you wonder at how blank you can become. In a way, my thoughts keep me company. I can feel a little lonely when I don’t have a lot of thoughts. But I also can get a read on all the input from my body, feelings and mind in a more balanced way. I’m more open to beauty when I don’t have a lot of chatter going on in my head. I can appreciate a full moon or the wind in the trees. And I can concentrate better when I’m not chasing down associations and puzzling at experience, or posing the questions relentlessly. </div><div><span> </span>When I play chess, I think I need to be all in with attention and consider the possibilities in the most strategic way. Perceiving all the threats and weakness, for me and my opponent, and considering potential traps for my opponent. I like to play quick games, 5 minute “blitz” games. They give me the right level of contemplation, so that I don’t get bored or lost in contemplation and analysis. You need to develop sort of modules of thinking for various situations and have a strong opening library to quickly play the beginning. But sometimes when I’m done meditating, I don’t play as well. There also has to be a kind of aggressive energy that I don’t have after meditating. I haven’t found the right preceding activity for chess. It’s similar for sports, batting or running or shooting a basketball, or swinging a golf club. There’s a whole industry of books about how to clear your mind and find your center in various sports situations, it must be a very important moment. </div><div><span> </span>Mental processes are more like the animal brain and feelings. I think in terms of survival instincts, fear systems, hunger and mating mind. Feelings and emotions are quick thinking, instinctual. They give rise to more complicated brain functions, but I don’t think they’re at the higher thinking yet. That will come later with the mind, which is next.</div><div><span> </span>I’m a thrill seeker, counter phobic, so the fear mind is something I’ve overridden quite a lot. I’m also more of a depressive type than an anxiety type. But I know anxiety is a real issue for many people. It’s a regular question on reddit, how to deal with anxiety. Anxiety is about fear and the antidote is feeling safe. That’s a long complicated journey. We find mates to help us with safety. We build walls and live in gated communities for safety. Some Buddhists come to America and say that fear is the dominant feeling they’re getting. The 4th stage is calming the body. Feel how focusing on the breath can calm the body. Feel how the breath can calm mental processes. The process of meditation is about reclaiming unwanted experience, and integrating it, so just by allowing fear to exist, you’re reclaiming it.</div><div><span> </span>Calming the mating mind isn’t easy. I don’t have a lot of solutions, except I try to redirect my mind, and I think of the positive precepts. The opposite of sexual misconduct is “simplicity, stillness and contentment”. Those aren’t easy projects to cultivate those feelings. But we’re in the feeling tetrad of anapanasati. Also in AA they have the acronym HALT. If you’re hungry, angry, lonely or tired, you need to take care of yourself. What is prompting my mind to reminisce about sexual experiences? Is there a pain in my knees or back? Am I bored, confused with meditation? Is there something I don’t want to think about that I should?</div><div><span> </span>Mental formation is also the level of grasping onto pleasure and pushing away pain. This is a key area to decrease the reactivity of the mind. It’s still mental processes, breaking the mind up into body feelings, mental processes and mind is just a good way of breaking it down. This is the section for contemplating thinking driven by feelings.</div><div><span> </span>Calming mental formations might also be about being less defensive. And that is achieved in relation with others. Like many elements of the path it’s impossible to just flip a switch to be less defensive, more things will get in and you’ll be defensive quite quickly. It’s not easy to work on these things, and of course psychotherapy and friendships are vital in this area. I have to say that honestly I haven’t met a person father along than me on the path who didn’t display some defensiveness. So while friendships and support are important, I question the idea of treating a guru as enlightened, you might mistake defensiveness as the path and the way to be. Many highly realized masters in modern times have quotes that display their limitations. I think it’s better to treat everyone as a friend. Teachers don’t have to be perfect.</div><div><span> </span>Calming mental processes might mean quitting social media, reading the newspaper, and watching TV, even giving up dating. What would you do with all that time? Could you actually channel that all into the path? To me sitting on the cushion suggests a lot of changes in my life that I sometimes find hard to bring about. In meditation I realize how I could structure the conditions in my control, to support my spiritual life. That I don’t choose to always do that is a question I ponder. I’m trying to understand the anti-Buddhist shadow. </div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I’m not sure anapanasati is for managing lay life, but when I’m going crazy, I work to calm my mental formations. I ask myself to calm mental formations. I think turning the Dharma into coping for modern life is a mistake, but that doesn’t remove the useful applications. And honestly if it only works on retreat or for monks, I’m not sure if I’m interested, though it could be an intermediate stage to something permanent, and that would be worth it too.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>9. Sensitive to the condition mind (citta).</div><div><br /></div><div><span> </span>Rosenberg writes about the 3 poisons of the mind, greed, hatred and delusion. Sometimes you can just think and then categorize it into greed, hatred and delusion. Most of mine is greed, then delusion. Hatred comes up when people interrupt my greed and delusions. </div><div><span> </span>“The challenge of the ninth contemplation is to experience the mind thoroughly and fully just as it is, with whatever level of clarity we have. As we do that, we begin to see that mindfulness takes the energy out of our mind states, so that they arise but no longer have so much power to push us around. We no longer act automatically at their commands.”</div><div><span> </span>Traditionally when you think of citta, the tradition goes to the skandhas (aggregates). Some monks I met on the internet who wanted to practice their English went straight to this teaching. The 5 skandhas are form (rupa), sensations/feeling (vedana), perception (samjna), conditioned mental formations and volition (sanskara) and consciousness, discernment, discrimination (vijnana). In the Theravadan traditions suffering arises when one clings to the aggregates (skandhas). Mahayana points to their emptiness (sunyata). Later tradition describes the skandhas as your personality that gives rise to dukkha (suffering). <span> <span> </span></span>Later you will contemplate impermanence, this contemplation will lead to contemplating no self.</div><div>Conditionality is here again. Can you think your way to enlightenment? Thinking can help, but what is the extra things that really gets you past the line. Meditating so much that you lose all reactivity and neuroticism? Having good friendships, and ethics, devotional activity and study can help guide you always and in this contemplation.</div><div><span> </span>Watching the mind is a kind of default meditation anyway, I think there’s not really a time when I’m not watching my mind. But it’s good to focus on the stick thrower instead of chasing the sticks. And one of my projects is to reduce my giving into the mind’s desire for stimulation, it’s as though it doesn’t know what’s good for it, it’s like a little baby that never wants to go to bed and rest. Supposedly when Stephen Batchelor went to Korea, he sat meditating asking the question, “what is this?” What is the mind? I breathe in sensitive to the mind, I breath out sensitive to the mind.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>10. Gladdening the mind.</div><div><br /></div><div><span> </span>First off, meditation gladdens my mind. Second, a strong ethical practice avoids the tide of regrets. Third, generosity really helps. Good relationships and communication help. Non-violent communication by Marshall Rosenberg. I really enjoy understanding parts of the Dharma that were in the shadow.</div><div>The gladdening is about opening up transcendental joy containers for things that please you, and not holding onto them, but allow them to happen, and they count as supporting your practice because you can’t practice really depressed. Noticing what you do with various feelings in your mental state can lead you towards asceticism because, you know, you see through how fragile you are, and you can get away with ignoring quite a lot of pain. Part of the practice is to ignore your knee and back pain towards the end of a meditation. The Buddha didn’t say head pell mell into asceticism, but surely he was aware that you could get quite a lot of pain by just not avoiding it so vigorously. The project of Buddhism is to not be so reactive around pain and pleasure, and that is included in your thinking and general mental cast, to transcend reactivity and neuroticism, with creativity and integration. </div><div><span> </span>Something that has gladdened my mind is all the work I’ve done in the Brahma Viharas. Metta, karuna, mudita, upekkha meditation work has helped to gladden my mind. The Buddha made this anapanasati teaching after 3 months of rain retreat, he added on a month to work on this meditation. I like to think all the hard work I’ve put into meditation up to this point contributes and supports the deepening of my meditation and that makes me happier. Hard work paying off. I think of my hard work trying to be in line with the ethics, coming to understand the ethics, and what that means for me in modern existence, the joy of restraint, not doing things that harm my general equanimity in my meditation and mindfulness life. </div><div><span> </span>You can certainly think about worldly joys, there’s no problem with that. What are you peak meditation experiences? I wish I’d remembered those when I spiraled off into alcoholism. AA suggests a spiritual path to replace alcoholism, and I heartily agree. When I’ve been meditating a lot, intoxicants repulse me. Why would you hamper your awareness? Why would you need to change your experience? I wish I could remember the feeling that I was the wind, the leaves and tree swaying, the air, earth, water, space, fire (energy) and consciousness, after doing hours and hours of the 6 element meditation. And it taught me that insight isn’t intellectual. It is in the body. Remembering insight moments and peak experiences can make some people depressed that they don’t always have it, they can’t call it into being easily sometimes. That’s just more fodder for conditionality as far as I’m concerned.</div><div><span> </span>Anapanasati has gladdened my mind. Of all the stages, I think the meditation has mostly gladdened my mind. The rapture, happiness, and steading of the mind is also there. And this all leads to the liberation of the body/heart/mind.</div><div><span> </span>Buddha-nature is an idea that really makes me smile. Sallie King’s book on Buddha-nature is quite complicated, but reading through it felt important to me. My understanding of the dharma coalesces into a supportive practice that supports me in meditation.</div><div><span> </span>I’ve always felt more healthy meditating, but steady could also be a description. I don’t wish to drink or be weird to get attention or make bad choices for variety. There’s something very steadying about intense meditation on the breath and these 14 contemplations.</div><div><span> </span>I don’t experience the joys of deep meditation and grooving on the dharma when you see the whole net, with gems gleaming off each other, as something dangerous to become addicted to. It’s healthy and wholesome and if you chase the dragon of a nifty mind state you got once in meditation, well there are worse things, and lots of meditation will cure you of any addiction to meditation, at least with this addictive personality.</div><div><span> </span>While I’ve only had glimpses of insight, those glimpses as short as they were held out a promise of a potential land of health and sanity, bright and clear, one different than the one I inhabit now. It’s OK to have rapture with a concentrated mind and enjoy it. It’s like really enjoying healthy homemade whole food, and seeing another person succeed and having sympathetic joy for them. It’s good and wholesome. It gives one a kind of come-what-may confidence. It’s not just a sales pitch, a false promise, fully embodied experience. There’s a new relationship to pleasure that is appropriate, adaptive, apt and not so reactive and desperate. It is steady.</div><div><span> </span>Mudita meditation can also gladden the mind, celebrating other’s joys and virtues can really add to your gladdening.</div><div><span> </span>Analayo suggests that reducing sensory input also contributes to gladdening. Maybe modern living is overstimulating and making us ungladdened.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>11. Steadying the mind (Samadhi).</div><div><br /></div><div><span> </span>How can I support these deep meditative states of absorption and concentration? </div><div>Samadhi is the last stage on the 8 fold path, the 11th stage here. It’s often described with the jhyanas. There’s a pattern here. One stage is to calm the body, the mental processes, and here steady the mind. That’s a kind of capstone to a tetrad. Think of that when you’re relinquishing in the final tetrad. Indeed, letting go is a major step in Buddhism, not superficially, but just letting go out of integration, maturity, sobriety, detangling, and tolerating questions with negative capability. It’s the ultimate grasp of conditionality to accept things as they are. In this stage we’re accepting the mind the way it really is, in all its flawed glory.</div><div><span> </span>One thing I feel more steady with is when I’m clear on going for refuge, after devotional activity like puja and mantra. Another thing that feels steading is when I’m remembering the refuge tree, I’m remembering the 5 Buddhas, the teachers of the past. The history of Buddhism can be really supportive. I don’t just read about great past teachers to get inspiration but I also gain that along the way. Are there past Buddhist teachers that really inspire you? For me the historical Buddha, Milarepa and Kukai do that. Sometimes I think about archetypal Buddhas supporting me. </div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The prostration practice that I have done where I imagine all my male relatives over one shoulder and all my female relatives over another shoulder. Sometimes I imagine my entire line of ancestors supporting me. To go forth into the monk life in the Theravadan tradition you get the permission and support from your parents. </span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There’s a certain amount of faith and patience involved in steadying the mind. That this really is worth it, that the path is worth the hardship. That confrontation is just as good as comfort in spiritual life. That the dark nights of the soul, a reference to St. John of the Cross, when the spiritual life isn’t giving back, and still you meditate, study, ethically strive, do devotional chanting and prostrations, and fellowship. It’s worth it to give and not get.</span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There’s also the luck to be actually practicing the path. In a way it’s incredibly improbable and lucky to be on the path. Recognizing luck seems important to me, it’s a privilege. There’s a lot of negative talk about privilege but when you have it in the spiritual life it doesn’t seem as bad.</span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Resilience needs support and strategies, willpower alone isn’t the answer, but the incredible determination and willpower are important. When rapture seems to rock the ship so much you think you’re going to sink, distinguishing healthy rapture from mania. Sometimes I think it would be easier to not live the spiritual life, to not be mindful. To understand the forces against the spiritual life, where you stop meditating, studying, devotion, ethics and fellowship. When relationships are so disappointing you wonder if you want the pratyeka path.</span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My descent into addiction lacked steadiness. The confidence that these states of concentration and absorption would not carry me through difficult times, I gave up. There was a childish impatience, tantrum. I sit in the park and watched my children play for hours and hours, and I’ve watched children tantrum over not getting what they obviously can’t get. Addiction was my middle aged tantrum with life shortening and life wrecking consequences. Steadying is the opposite of that.</span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I’ve often heard people say take a breath, the breath can also be a steadying thing, provide guardrails to the mind.</span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The work done on the Sublime Abodes meditation can also support steadying. The increased positivity and empathy for others, along with equanimity. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>12. Liberating the mind.</div><div><br /></div><div><span> </span>I love the ideas of liberation and freedom. Just the word really jazzes me up.</div><div>When they feel kind of hard, the contemplations, like I’m not sure I can just liberate my mind, I focus more on remembering and building work that I’ve done, and notice liberation that has already gone on. How when I meditate a lot the hot weather doesn’t bother me as much, and how other people can’t really press my buttons, or get my goat. I think of the equanimity and the fruits of past meditation that I have already felt. And in all my listening for metta, gladdening and all the other complex hearing, I’m listening for experiences of liberation. Letting go of negative reactivity, not having traumatic responses, but feeling safe and strong, ready. Don’t fool yourself, being on the path has liberated you significantly, and even though you haven’t got a halo around you head and a million followers, that doesn’t mean you’re partially liberated.</div><div><span> </span>When you see how every stage builds on every stage, you’re starting to see Indra’s net. Indra’s net is a net of gems that reflect off each other, they intensify each other. You’ve gained some insight into how emotions can drive thinking, how mental processes can drive thinking, like the need to be an alpha male or female can really create a lot of unnecessary drama, or how your mind thinks you’re an introvert so you don’t see how you’re an extrovert, and on and on and on. Discursive dissembling thinking. When you let go of trying to find or please your mate, when you let go of trying to get the past changed, when you let go of wanting things you can’t have, when you’re connected to reality, and in this stage the three marks of existence and accepting the deepest truths about conditionality, you’re starting to liberate yourself from conditionality, transcendental unconditioned happiness. Increasing the percentage. The Pali Canon says the Buddha teaches the Dharma that is good in the beginning, middle and end, and he’s always pulling on the oar of enlightenment. There comes a point, maybe it’s imaginary or requires faith to believe exists, but you finally get it to the degree it can be gotten. It doesn’t get rid of your back pain or help you relate to your difficult uncle, but it gives you some kind of inner peace that is unflappable. Maybe it’s entering the Dharmakaya. Kukai, the Japanese founder of Shingon, Vajrayana in Japan, was all about the Dharmakaya. There's freedom in that.</div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Rosenberg writes a lot about attachments. I have a psychology background and attachments are good, so right off the bat, I’m not into this way of talking. But I’ve found that sometimes when I have aversion to something, there is often something in there that I miss if I just dismiss it. For sure I’m cling to my ex who I see twice a day, when she drops off my daughter and picks her up. I still wish we were together, and it’s hard to see her every day almost and not be able to be like we used to be. So I cling to the relationship I wish we had. I’m sure it would be good to let go.</span></div><div>He also talks about the fetter, reliance on rights and rituals as ends in themselves. That’s a favorite of mine. Overly officious religious people rub me the wrong way, and being honest, sincere and authentic are really important to me.</div><div><span> </span>Just like metta meditation, you notice what doesn’t liberate your mind and you clear out the brush and weeds so that liberation can grow. In fact the Brahma Viharas or the Sublime Abodes are work well with liberating the mind. Developing positive emotions, equalizing in the last stage, appreciating others’ virtue and joy. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>13. Focus on impermanence.</div><div><br /></div><div><span> </span>These last 4 are the most refined, most abstract if you don’t connect with them right away. They build on each other, just as every stage could say to be reinforcing the others. </div><div>Conditionality is complicated, and impermanence is just one aspect of it. Conditionality means you puny actions can have impact in the world. Conditionality means you being isn’t fixed, you can get enlightened. Conditionality means bad things won’t last forever. </div><div><span> </span>Hericlutus said you can’t step into the same stream twice, it’s always changing. I haven’t been back to Madison Wisconsin, which I spent 1972-1990. It’s etched in my mind. I was a taxi driver one summer, and I went all over the city. Supposedly there have a been about 15 buildings built on campus alone since I left. The place has changed massively, but not being there it’s only etched in my memory. Examples multiply, one is I’m always surprised when I look in the mirror how old I’ve gotten. My insides feel the same. You could even turn impermanence to the ongoing meditation, the breath you’re, nope, now it’s a new one, the body, feelings, mental processes, mind, even your insight. “One day you sit and feel the joy of meditation as if you're a virtuoso; the next day it's as if you've never meditated before. You can't even find your nostrils.” (p. 118 Rosenburg)</div><div><span> </span>The good news is you can become enlightened because your unenlightened state could be impermanent. You can change.</div><div><span> </span>The happy side of impermanence is that unpleasant things end. We’d like them to end sooner, but everything ends, including things you want to end.</div><div><span> </span>There is a negative and painful side to impermanence. El Dia de los Muertos is a good day to realize how many family members have passed, and how your memory can’t be transferred to your children, that memories of people will die out. To me grief is a related topic. Probably not the best thing to focus on grief, but I do think it’s a prominent part of human experience. Wes Anderson’s film Asteroid City asks the question, how is life meaningless if we get so sad when we lose people?One day you sit and feel the joy of meditation as if you're a virtuoso; the next day it's as if you've never meditated before. You can't even find your nostrils.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>14. Focusing on fading away (Virāga).</div><div><br /></div><div><span> </span>My neuroticism and trauma responses fade away. My immaturity and lack of integration fade away. My reactivity converts into creativity and mindfulness, apt, appropriate, helpful. My focus on nonsense lessens and my going for refuge deepens. I try to shake off the mud, but some sticks still. I wipe it on a rag and the rag isn’t perfect, and now I have a dirty rag, that makes other things dirty. Unenlightenment doesn’t go away, snap, like that. It’s a gradual fading away.</div><div><span> </span>Spiritual bypass is real, and people hope that you can just meditate a lot and transcend all your problems. Perhaps work off the cushion in therapy, and through friendships to grow up.</div><div><span> </span>Virāga is a disentangle. Untying those difficult knots in your brain. What do I need to disentangle in this meditation? What do I need to disentangle off the cushion to support my meditation, to support my practice? Certainly calming the body, feelings and primitive mind, and channeling them into practice. <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>There’s almost a synergistic lockdown on the breath that this meditation just lock steps you through. It’s really quite ruthless. If you’re really doing this, you can’t help but really focus on the breath, in a revolutionary way.</div><div>Every day hordes of psychologists study how to do that for worldly things. It’s not that easy. Having children gives me a sense of people moving through development.</div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Everyone is different, but this is where I have to confront my fear of enlightenment. I’m afraid I’d be like a robot, that I would have to give up the trauma reactions and neuroticism that I’m so accustomed to, that I mistakenly feel is who I am. My Buddha-nature asserting itself is honestly very scary to me. To lose interest in samsara is to say goodbye to familiarity. You can’t get depressed or waste life, there’s no looking back because fading away is asking for you to begin the real changes. I can’t just cheat on my diet and eat something with cows milk in it. I can’t just have a wank. I know it’s because I want to, and it’s what’s right, but I’m afraid of losing my vices and small pleasures. I can still have my pleasures, but it’s not the same the day you really quit drinking. You can’t drink anymore and the party is over, the alcoholic way of life is over, and that’s a very step because it’s what you know. So to with stepping towards enlightenment is going to bring out every fiber of my sabotaging self. And those are just thoughts, in a way I am to stop identifying with the content of my mind. It’s profoundly disorienting. What about my guilt about my mistakes? I live off that. It is in this stage where I confront all these fears, and see them for what they really are. Holding me back, giving me safety I don’t need. I really feel like this stage needs a lot of courage.</span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And disappointment. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Yes, the concentration is pleasurable and I can meditate more and more to consolidate these gains, but there’s also a kind of “is that it?” aspect. There is no different ledge I’m stepping onto, I’m stepping into outer space, with nothing to hold onto, and it’s kind of boring. Boredom is my bedrock fear, it’s sustained my alcoholism. My traumatic reactions and neuroticism was just drama for entertainment. If I’m not these set of problems, then what am I? Nevermind, it’s hard to hold this insight long at first, so I can watch myself losing the insights of viraga. </span></div><div>I’m a little kid again, afraid, as I sit in the empty apartment before my parents come home from work. Except now I’m not resourceless, and I’m not that little child. This stage is where the deepest fears come up. I remember David Smith in his Record of Awakening talking about a stage of deep fears, nightmares of smashing into a wall while being driven. Rosenberg talks about his fears of Nazism, an obsession of his growing up during the Holocaust. For me it’s being alone in an apartment, bored. I could play with lego or read a book, or watch TV when they didn’t have children’s TV on all the time, there were only 4 channels in black and white.</div><div><span> </span>Coming to grips with changings is what this stage is about to me. What will I be like as I get closer to being enlightened is a threat. And now I don’t distract myself, I face what is coming up. It feels profoundly unique to me, and I’m giving that up. Everyone can act like a good Buddhist, but this is actually becoming a good Buddhist. No amount of friendship can help me with this aloneness. The breath is your best friend, and it’s a relief to focus on that. All the gladdening, steadying, pleasure and happiness are used to cope with these hard moments. You flow back to consolation instead of confrontation.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>15. Focusing on cessation (Niroda). </div><div><br /></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Niroda is part of the causation formula, that I sometimes chant:</span></div><div><br /></div><div>imasmiṃ sati idaṃ hoti</div><div>imass' uppādā idaṃ uppajjati</div><div>imasmiṃ asati idaṃ na hoti</div><div>imassa nirodhā idaṃ nirujjhati</div><div><br /></div><div>This being, that becomes;</div><div>From the arising of this, that arises.</div><div>This not being, that does not become;</div><div>From the cessation of this, that ceases.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Niroda is unbinding, cessation. How is fading away different from cessation? Cessation is the final fading away of desire and craving. I’m not sure desire goes away really, it’s probably just neurotic desires that unbind, and suffering ends. The causes of dukkha cease, the voluntary suffering I create has ended. </span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This meditation plays with many things. One is between circumstances, and your efforts. In this one I feel like circumstances are emphasized, maybe because of the formula of causation. The cessation of the path is happening because you’re setting up circumstances. You are taking responsibility for the circumstances to move towards enlightenment, you’re fulfilling your wish. If I was right that you face you fears of enlightenment in the previous stage, in this stage you consolidate and stabilize what’s left, feel comfortable in a an uncomfortable new way of being. The pattern in the stages is to observe then stabilize. After the ecstasy, the laundry. For all the high falutin talk, you still have a life, that isn’t going to change just because you’ve been working on yourself, or rather what you thought was yourself. What yourself is wasn’t quite what you thought it was, and it’s still there, but it’s just not quite what you took it to be, the world isn’t as solid as you thought, it’s in flux, it’s in process. The great chain of being is a phrase from Christianity, but Christianity can have insights that Buddhist use. </span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>You can’t talk about things beyond conditionality, but there’s not nothing there in the transcendental, or rather the nothing there isn’t insignificant. I don’t know how to talk properly in this realm, and I don’t want to be injecting any wrong mystical notions in here. It’s like the weird and indistinct plinths in the movie 2001. It’s not even as concrete as that. </span></div><div><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Cessation of what? I think it’s cessation of not attending to reality, of being led around by false refuges, and convenient stories, being reality oriented, not defensive, delusional or grandiose. It’s the ultimate maturity and integration to see things as they are. It’s the mind’s job to cope with whatever utmost wondrousness comes upon.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>16. Focusing on relinquishment.</div><div><br /></div><div><span> </span>Paṭinissaggā means giving up, forsaking; rejection, renunciation. It means going back to your natural state, which to me is Buddha-nature, which is a really complicated notion, but one that can be simplified, is just a pure Buddha-nature. I can’t say I see around the concept and how it functions successfully, except psychologically in me. It is the attainment of the path, the ultimate fruits of the path are all achieved. There’s a tradition in Zen that it’s nothing special, there’s a kind of laughter that that was it, really? You wonder if those people really got to the end of the path. Anyway, there is no end to the path, there’s just pathing. </div><div><span> </span>Letting go is a nice idea, but it’s not something you can do easily because it turns out we have projects, and our projects assume commitments, and commitments lead to clinging.</div><div>On ordination retreats in Triratna you prepare for the archetypal sadhana by tearing yourself down in a 6 element meditation. There’s a handoff after you break yourself down, it’s a kind of spiritual death to do the 6 element meditation, to merge with a mythical identity of an aspect of enlightenment that resonates with you. It’s a sacred relationship of the mentor that gives you this entry into the order. </div><div><span> </span>I was so jazzed by this meditation, off retreat, I would do it in regular life. I started to feel too dismantled, too fragile and exposed. Someone advised me to only do the 6 element meditation on retreat, not in ordinary life. The depth I craved was something you could only do in certain circumstances. That was a huge shock to me. Maybe these deep states of meditation aren’t meant for the regular world, you almost go insane trying to keep a retreat atmosphere in regular life. The cycles of retreat and re-engagement are meant for Mahayana, people who come off retreat. A retreat is a set of circumstances that support intensification of effort but the intensification of effort in regular life might not support the insights you could get on a retreat.</div><div><span> </span>I went on a Brahma Viharas retreat in 2002 for 9 days and it blew my mind. In a way I’ve been trying to get back on that retreat. I felt healthy and whole in a way I’ve never felt before. The glimpse over the wall of samsara hooked me on the path. Whatever dysfunction and mistakes that flowed from that retreat, are on me, my handling of insights and intensity. I’ve screwed up my life quite a bit, I went a bit crazy. I don’t think everyone has to go crazy, but that happened to me. I tried to hold on to that in ordinary life, when you can only get these insights away from ordinary life, or at least I can’t. I think this is why the Theravada focus on creating a monastic order that is allowed to hold these truths only under certain circumstances. That’s my experience, and everyone who goes through these 16 steps of anapanasati might come to different conclusions but this was my conclusion for me. I can only hold these deep insights under special conditions. And I try to maintain them in regular life, and that’s hard and painful. Let the depth of insight stay on retreat, and get back to the laundry. Don’t cling to retreat insights in supportive conditions, when you’re not in supportive conditions. I wanted retreat conditions in regular life. It is a fundamental mistake. Therefore the cycles of intensity and wearing off are natural and appropriate to retreat and engagement cycles. Accept the given, understand conditionality. This is my koan. How do I tend the fire of the retreat insights in regular life, without going crazy? </div><div><span> </span>Taking the teachings the right way is hard and in the rarefied air of these last 4 contemplations, keep grounded in the breath.</div><div><span> </span>Letting go of former partners is a quintessential clinging for me. I know it’s worldly, and that’s not really what relinquishment is about, but I can’t help think along these lines. It’s patriarchal to imagine you own someone. Nobody owns anyone. This stage is asking you to let go of your impossible projects, and that’s maybe a fairly worldly example, but your examples are your examples, and honestly it wouldn’t hurt to cling to past romantic relationships in my mind. Relinquish them.</div><div><span> </span>Relinquishing is the hardest maybe, letting go. People say, “let go,” like it is easy. That’s why I don’t like talk about clinging. It’s a really high order task and sacred. Letting go of lizard brain fears is hard. Letting go of the mating mind is hard. Letting go of spiritual bypassing can be hard. Growing up is associated with doing things you don’t want to do. The race between maturity and senility.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Postscript:</div><div><br /></div><div>The four foundations of mindfulness connect this meditation to the Sattipathana Sutta. There are 4 zones of focus: body, feelings, mind and insight. </div><div><br /></div><div>The seven factors of enlightenment are: mindfulness, investigation, energy, rapture and happiness, calm, concentration, and equanimity. They are called the bojjhangas. There are teachings on how to use the seven factors with the 5 hindrances: sensory desire, ill-will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, and doubt. </div><div><br /></div><div>If you’ve run out of things to contemplate, and if your meditation doesn’t feel too busy, you can weave in these supports as well, or be conscious of how they’re woven in.</div><div><br /></div><div>It might be that these contemplations are congenital and weave into the meditation well. I find that the intensification of anapanasati has supported an intensification and synergy with the Brahma Viharas or the Sublime Abodes. I have mentioned it in the above text.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Afterthought questions:</div><div><br /></div><div>Do you channel your sensuality into describing the breath? Obviously the middle way and Buddhist ethos means don’t feed sensuality energy, but does a highly sensual breath compensate for brahmacharya (sexual abstinence) or help attend to the breath? </div><div><br /></div><div>Breathing in you think viraga, disentanglement, can you think about how to drop your problems, change your problem areas? Or is it just a command, “viraga”? What is the role of thinking in the meditation? Could you stop thinking? You just don’t add energy.</div><div><br /></div><div>Does lockstepping through stages work or should you wait to really feel rapture and happiness to go on? Are there signals that tell you to proceed, you’ve steadied your mind enough? </div><div><br /></div><div>Play with it. Do it in reverse. Spend 20 minutes on every stage. Go longer and shorter. Enjoy</div></div><div><br /></div>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-55876490290394897172023-12-29T18:53:00.004-05:002023-12-30T05:30:06.152-05:00New Year's Resolution<p>New Year's resolutions are for people not already on a path. If you're on the path, you just keep on the path. There's ethics, study, fellowship, devotion and meditation. Whatever issues you're working with can be worked on by those 5 major practices of Buddhism.</p><p>This year I may be trying to let go of this thing instead of that thing, but whatever, the intensity of my friendships, psychotherapy work, recovery work, journaling, focusing, non-violent communication, whatever, will support the identification and advancement of issues, and the direct study of ancient texts, thinking, reflection, ethical reflections, really engaging in being ethical, not hurting people, not stealing anything, communicating positively, avoiding intoxicants, maybe even trying to not get intoxicated while watching soccer. </p><p>I'm always working on various things, but New Years it's time to think bigger maybe, on the yearly level. I can never think that way. Keep working the same issues on a larger scale? Be more in the moment? Grind harder on the insight tetrad when I'm doing anapanasati? Should I cling less to the joy of meditation? I don't think so, I enjoy it and move on to the focus of the meditation, the 16 stages of anapanasati, or the stages of the various Brahma Viharas. In formless meditation, I just rest in awareness, fending off the temptation to pick up what my mind throws at me. </p><p>Which reminds me of an Annie Edison quote from Community: "Your last blow-off class taught me to live in the moment, which I will always regret, and never do again."</p><p>This year I resolve to appreciate humor and word play. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-AkXdlzQ1WKNRReMxhf9IC_hcCdjPQbAYnvVR2bj2tahcJdLFWvr-jEz_3ib_QLPE0wgnbyAflun5lxhSH-l7DltIDahYhX9DniuqW5WG7I_LPbM3blc5fXEQSllD5kDIQtx-191PhYD9CrsTEt38KDo35iJjWrqMxtl54klY-_cqlCC4CDv4/s2048/37446103-C943-4C0B-B3FB-1B22E34AEF9A.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1530" data-original-width="2048" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-AkXdlzQ1WKNRReMxhf9IC_hcCdjPQbAYnvVR2bj2tahcJdLFWvr-jEz_3ib_QLPE0wgnbyAflun5lxhSH-l7DltIDahYhX9DniuqW5WG7I_LPbM3blc5fXEQSllD5kDIQtx-191PhYD9CrsTEt38KDo35iJjWrqMxtl54klY-_cqlCC4CDv4/w640-h478/37446103-C943-4C0B-B3FB-1B22E34AEF9A.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465006.post-54875256741896407652023-12-27T14:25:00.008-05:002023-12-29T07:23:24.133-05:00First image of the Buddha?<p>So there are some sources where the first Buddha representations were <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seated_Buddha_from_Gandhara" target="_blank">Gandhar</a>, but then I learned about the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauryan_art" target="_blank">Mauryan Empire</a>, which included Ashoka.</p><p>They have an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Buddhism" target="_blank">Aniconism in Buddhism</a> period, but there is some controversy with that idea. I used to think that the Buddha said to not represent him, but then I read where he just didn't want that during his lifetime. So I'm not sure if it's true that there was an aniconic period.</p><p>Some think the first Buddha statue was in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_of_Mathura" target="_blank">Mathura</a> art instead of Gandhar, seen below:</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg461cL3Inq7dVi7cN9xE8SdNIBDGxUYIf-paXIusfxvAewuRVFjpmpVCtWPZWPf4hpOWGCS85dFWaZcAFaInNXZ46xx1r1o6mYCzR3mFG-7zsyZ9_cNQr8a9zryyG2vfoG_dyl7CqzpbpgZ9Ztfb8YFgXYtrORCK5NeioJqK_eG9IXQbnDA_aZ/s4254/Inscribed_Seated_Buddha_Image_in_Abhaya_Mudra_-_Kushan_Period_-_Katra_Keshav_Dev_-_ACCN_A-1_-_Government_Museum_-_Mathura_2013-02-24_5972.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4254" data-original-width="2825" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg461cL3Inq7dVi7cN9xE8SdNIBDGxUYIf-paXIusfxvAewuRVFjpmpVCtWPZWPf4hpOWGCS85dFWaZcAFaInNXZ46xx1r1o6mYCzR3mFG-7zsyZ9_cNQr8a9zryyG2vfoG_dyl7CqzpbpgZ9Ztfb8YFgXYtrORCK5NeioJqK_eG9IXQbnDA_aZ/w426-h640/Inscribed_Seated_Buddha_Image_in_Abhaya_Mudra_-_Kushan_Period_-_Katra_Keshav_Dev_-_ACCN_A-1_-_Government_Museum_-_Mathura_2013-02-24_5972.jpeg" width="426" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Instead of this <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seated_Buddha_from_Gandhara" target="_blank">Gandhar</a> one:</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheq7Xx8CLTCnTyCq7etdgKNlKsXiYA4G7iWWrm_j0EO3ntoqMASQrHL577V191yA8Wx7gJQeCxPsOTpq3ncJJWIP6XDgl7e89fj1fpk1P66SyzFiWt2zbrdHzDZZBmlfUzbvmRDlgnBgXpuKgl8FyPShchmRNZQ5jTvrzld3ZOhILzc96tFBA7/s3888/Seated_Buddha,_British_Museum_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="2592" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheq7Xx8CLTCnTyCq7etdgKNlKsXiYA4G7iWWrm_j0EO3ntoqMASQrHL577V191yA8Wx7gJQeCxPsOTpq3ncJJWIP6XDgl7e89fj1fpk1P66SyzFiWt2zbrdHzDZZBmlfUzbvmRDlgnBgXpuKgl8FyPShchmRNZQ5jTvrzld3ZOhILzc96tFBA7/w426-h640/Seated_Buddha,_British_Museum_1.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Anyway, these are 2 early images of the Buddha.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I find early Buddhist archaeology fascinating, but I haven't read the latest book that purported to be more authentic Buddhism because of archaeology information. I can't find the link now to the book.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><a href="https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.087x.wlsh.html">SN22.87</a> “What is there to see in this vile body? He who sees Dhamma, Vakkali, sees me; he who sees me sees Dhamma. Truly seeing Dhamma, one sees me; seeing me one sees Dhamma." (Also p. 197 in <i>The Life of the Buddha</i> by Bhikkhu Nanamoli)<br /><br /><br />“ Can a shrine be made, Sir, during your life?”—“No, Ananda, not a body-shrine; that kind is made when a Buddha enters Nirvana. A shrine of memorial is improper because the connection depends on the imagination only. But the great bo-tree used by the Buddhas is fit for a shrine, be they alive or be they dead.”—“Sir, while you are away on pilgrimage the great monastery of Jetavana is unprotected, and the people have no place where they can show their reverence. Shall I plant a seed of the great bo-tree before the gateway of Jetavana?”—“By all means so do, Ananda, and that shall be as it were an abiding place for me.” <a href="https://suttacentral.net/ja479/en/rouse?lang=en&reference=none&highlight=false">Jataka 479</a><br /><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHGbk09x95jT3zh5RboDR7yWZ-2JViCCF0H7JeqfO360E0GoGh7ze2UkyX-UK8_8Ykkh2hZw4dHigqmYZs2l9hMjbuyMkQynq95YInq3auLUiuoHeeVJlO8g-8pPphxfu7rBQPAQoxymB5mSoBmkohYhdpYhXOFZE5rYr2G_azuIZgeCAgmHj9/s4000/IMG_2419.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3333" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHGbk09x95jT3zh5RboDR7yWZ-2JViCCF0H7JeqfO360E0GoGh7ze2UkyX-UK8_8Ykkh2hZw4dHigqmYZs2l9hMjbuyMkQynq95YInq3auLUiuoHeeVJlO8g-8pPphxfu7rBQPAQoxymB5mSoBmkohYhdpYhXOFZE5rYr2G_azuIZgeCAgmHj9/w534-h640/IMG_2419.jpeg" width="534" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><p></p>S. Bellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516395371482701736noreply@blogger.com0