Entering The Mind of the Buddha

The above is in my kitchen, a reminder of the aspiration.

Entering The Mind of the Buddha by Reb Anderson is a retreat in a book. In my 17 years as a Buddhist I have been on many retreat, but my recent poverty has me not going as much. There's enough teachings on line and meditation is free, so you don't need money to practice. Just be ethical, kind and meditate. Chant if you want, get together with spiritual friends. Doesn't cost a thing, but as we know money does by experiences, and those experiences can be positive. Which is a long way to go to say I appreciate a retreat in a book, and a refresher on the 6 paramitas and from a Zen perspective. We have Karen Muller to thank for putting it all together and Reb Anderson for leading the retreat and providing the talks and final draft. That's how I imagine it, I could be reading into it.

The following are ideas I liked in the book about the 6:

Dana (Generosity): These first three can be taught to children, before they are ready for meditation. I've been noticing her when she is generous, patient, does the ethical thing.

There are 3 kinds of generosity. One is the regular kind, giving your subway seat to someone who needs it, that kind of thing. The second kind is the gift of fearlessness. Like when it's dark and I take my daughter into a room to get something. She is afraid of the dark and I share my fearlessness of the dark. You can do similar things for adults. The third kind is the gift of the Dharma, the Buddha's teachings. This blog is in part sharing my journey as a gift of the Dharma. You can also give the gift of yourself. By being present in my sons lives, I give them myself, my history, my wisdom, and all the good I can share with them. The gift of the self isn't part of the traditional list, but I thought Anderson was right to include it.

Here is a Tricycle Teaching on Generosity.

Sila (virtue): I've come to appreciate how a lack of virtue can sabotage my meditation practice, see how ethical living is the foundation of the spiritual life. I've also come to see being vegan as an integral thing in doing something to improve the world, it helps me work towards the gladdening.

For some reason Anderson does the 3 pure precepts (never heard of them, so that's cool to learn some new teaching). 1. Do no evil. 2. Do good. 3. Save all beings. I usually think in terms of the 10 precepts.

Kanti (patience): Allan Lakos has a good book called Patience. Made me think a lot about patience.

Virya (energy): I always wonder how much of my energy can really be said to be going to refuge to the three jewels. I once did a mandala where I wrote what I thought was expected, but not what was really going on, and I think of that mantra by Pema Chodron, "start where you are." I also think of the guy who stands up at a meeting and says I have no ego; Someone kicks him in the shins and he doubles over in pain. There you are. Spiritual posturing doesn't get you anywhere. I like authenticity.

Like say I'm watching Gilmore Girls. I try to think about impermanence, how unsatisfactory strivings can be, and how we are our circumstances. But I can't say more than 5% of my thinking is insight related.

I have also taken refuge in William Shakespeare.

Dhyana (focus): Wikipedia.

Prajna (wisdom): This is the "wisdom that leaps beyond wisdom". It is creativity not reactivity.

Zen Books

I started reading the Barbara O'Brien book first. I've never seen her blog before but she has a blog called Mahablog. Like many Americans she's concerned about the America we find ourselves in. She became a Buddhist in 1988 going to Zen Mountain Monastery in Mount Tremper NY. I've been there, it's a pretty cool place. I hope to go on a retreat there someday. She was a student of John Daido Loori, Tokudo Jion Susan Postal and Myozan Shofu Dennis Keegan, who is part of the Shunryu Suzuki lineage.

You can't find a lot of History of Zen books, and current scholarship throws a lot of questions onto the standard volumes by Heinrich Dumoulin written in 1963 (Volume 1). Plus he was a Jesuit, not a Buddhist. At 287 pages, this is a tidy little addition to the genera hopes to be a rigorous condensed addition with an inside view, written by someone who practices Zen Buddhism. I like the introduction, and it has made me want to read more. She quotes David McMahan and our tendency to create a modern Buddhism that might not be accurate, by discarding things that don't jive with our western scientific rationalist ideology and thus confirmation bias rears its ugly head. On some level the ancient ways are truly unknowable. She starts the story a thousand years after the life of the Buddha in China.

I did not know about the Dunhuang manuscripts found in 1900 by a Daoist monk. There is ongoing work to digitize what was found there, including the British Library.

I look forward to this history and the other exploration of the 6 paramitas. I'm going to listen to a few talks by Reb Anderson in preparation.

Reb Anderson is a Senior Dharma teacher at the San Francisco Zen Center and at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in Marin County, California. You can listen to some of his talks, from 2006-2018. You can read a previous book Being Upright online.

I listened to a talk and it's ...  Zen has a style, I don't think it's straight forward.

One thing I like about Zen is that the nothing special, and just do it attitude helps you through the dark night of the soul, when the practice doesn't seem to give back.