Saturday musings

"Job and Jesus, Pascal and Montaigne, evolutionary biology and neuroscience, Roland Barthes and William Blake offer glimpses of self and world that illuminated the path opened up by the Buddha." (p. 183 Living With The Devil by Stephen Batchelor)

What I found interesting about the above quote, is that I bet 100 Buddhist would come up with different lists of people who were enlightened outside of the traditions. And I bet these 100 Buddhists would probably not agree whether there were levels of enlightenment or what touching or coming close to enlightenment meant.

Job had patience, but I don't know enough about him. Jesus had some deep insights that many people groove on. I've dipped into Blake, I should read more of him.

Makes me want to try Montaigne again, I read a few essays and put the book down, even though I got something from it that I use every day. I know very little about Pascal or Roland Barthes.

I think at this point in human history you could become a genius by reading and trying to understand other's works, and you would be 100 times smarter than someone 100 years ago, even the geniuses of the time, but you wouldn't necessarily be original. I think originality happens all the time in problem solving and relationships because every relationship is unique, and every problem is unique in some way. But if you talk about contributing something original to science, mathematics or literature, then that's a harder test.

I've had some dim reviews of my blog, and while my partner reads it, she rarely says, "that was a good post." But I do think that the internet has democratized writing, and that more voices are potentially being heard. People who didn't necessarily find a book contract, can express themselves, and I'm willing to bet there are some real hidden gems on the internet. Sometimes you hear about people who get book deals from their blogs.

I'm hoping some day that Under The Influence of Food gets a book deal. But even if it doesn't, it's awesome that it exists. I think Justin Halpern got a book deal from his twitter tweets. I laughed so much with his book.

The internet has the illusion of permanence. But Amazon can change the terms of agreement about the books it stores that you bought, and think you own, and they could take it away or charge you more to store it. Blogger and WordPress could just go out of business. I felt entitled to Google Reader, and then they just discontinued. Then the next company I used stopped too. A quick reading, and I couldn't find out who pays for the space to store the websites of WordPress. Turns out you choose where to host it. Obviously I use Blogger, and I fear one day Google will charge for hosting.

I can't remember the science fiction book I read where it talked about layers of code, about ancient code layers. I know a computer scientist who was hired to go back and look on some of the original code layer he created.

Sometimes you go to look for a photo and the file has been "corrupted". How did that happen?

The internet is impermanent. I bet when the sun expands and engulfs the earth, that we have found another planet to get to. But will someone come and download earth's internet and transport it to another planet. Will their be interplanetary internet? Bet that connection will cost. Can you imagine a wire through space, like the wires they laid down along the Atlantic ocean for telephones.

I wonder how many people alive today will be considered enlightened by succeeding generations. I still think about the scifi book Forever Peace.

Apt, useful to me, at this moment, Dharma

Subhuti, in a recent essay, writes (edited with American English spellings):

"I suspect that, too often, we tend to think of sraddha only in its affective aspect, and to have an unrealistic idea of how strong that should be. We look for a sort of exhilarating fizz of inspiration, filling our consciousness. But that is not its only or even its most characteristic mode. Faith is not always an ‘obvious’ experience. It can be present as something embedded in our assumptions and behavior, something that is too close to be seen clearly. Sometimes, in moods of critical self examination, we ask ourselves, ‘What do I really want? What am I really interested in? What really inspires me?’  It may appear to us at such moments that the answer is not the Three Jewels. And this can easily make us disheartened, especially if we have been trying to practice the Dharma for a long time. But when this happens, instead of getting despondent, we could try saying to ourselves, ‘Yet, the Dharma does seem true and profound to me. Not only that, but I am still here, still practicing after (however many) years. And if I am here, that can only be because in some sense I want to be here. There must surely be some faith in that.’  In other words, we can try to recognize the strength of the cognitive and volitional aspects of our sraddha, instead of dwelling too much on the apparent weakness of the affective aspect."

When I look at the GFR retreat pictures, the pictures of people on the ordination retreat, over the years, I see a third of the people have been ordained, a third have dropped out, and a third have disappeared and not formally dropped out (maybe).  I'm the last man standing, except a few new guys.  I've been in this process almost 9 years.

Now you can say that it's harder in North America, away from the bosom of the order.  You can say it's harder for someone with a family.  

One talk on FBA, the speaker pointed out that people who immerse themselves in the 3 C's still get ordained pretty quickly; Community, Co-ops and Centers--you live in a single sex Buddhist community, you work in a right livelihood business, and you help out at the local center.  In this way it's like being on retreat, and yet living a worldly existence.  Of course, here in NYC, I would have to start a community, a co-op and have more free time to help out at the center.

Anyway, I think I can be proud I'm "still there," as Subhuti says.  That shows some sraddha.

Remorse and Confession in the Spiritual Community

I'm reading Subhuti's essay "Remorse and Confession in the Spiritual Community", which can be found on FBA.  Not sure when it came out.  I didn't see the paper announced, but a friend hipped me to it.

Reading the following paragraph of Subhuti's, I had a few revelations:

"According to the Buddhist tradition, laziness has three forms. There is laziness as everyone understands it – ‘the laziness that takes delight in lying down and not getting up’. Then there is the laziness that consists of yielding to unskilful impulses when we should resist them. But there is also the laziness of despondency. This is the state of mind in which we tell ourselves, ‘Poor me! What can I do? Not only do I lack x, but I also lack y and z. I’m just not up to it. Ah well, there it is’. This attitude leads to (or rationalises) the giving up of all effort. The tradition unequivocally regards this as a form of laziness: an unwillingness to put forth the virya, or spiritual energy, that is needed to close the gap between ourselves and our Ideal. It is important to distinguish this attitude from the objective self-criticism that is informed by faith and which leads (as we shall see) to confession. But before moving on to discuss confession, we need to look still deeper into sraddha."

So I had this revelation that in a way the following idea snuck into my head:  ‘Poor me! What can I do? Not only do I lack x, but I also lack y and z. I’m just not up to it. Ah well, there it is’

I recognized myself in that, unfortunately.

The second revelation was that I haven't really talked enough to people and connected with others to process my experience.  I'm too much of an isolato, as Melville coined.  I want to be more connected to others.

spiritual death

Musings:

I've listened a few times to this talk.  And I watched the last Harry Potter the other day, where (spoiler alert) he has to die to be reborn.  And I think about the 6 Element practice, and my intense meditative experiences.  We have to die to be reborn.  I think about my recent revelation that you don't necessarily need a hand-off to a sadhana.  I was thinking about the fear of growing, how it's scary to be vulnerable.  I was thinking about my own security operations that take me away from unpleasant emotions--Netflix, video games, ETOH, cannabis.  Addiction is just another aspect of the flight, as my wonderful Anandi points out.  The fight to see reality as it really is, is a fight for everyone, not just people with schizophrenia. Procrastination, denial, lack of insight, lack of depth.  "looking for water from a deeper well," is the line from a song, I think Emmylou Harris did a cover of the original.  This relentless pushing to deepen and self discovery can be a bit annoying to others.  I put the petal to the metal.  Maybe as a friend suggested, I need patience, to let it unfold.  And yet, I want to die, so I can be reborn.

train your brain

In a way, it's thrilling to see that in Train Your Brain to Get Happy: The Simple Program That Primes Your Grey Cells for Joy, Optimism, and Serenity that in chapter 5 Meditation is seen as one of the key ways.

Now I'm not sure if happiness is the goal, I mean, you can get happier with more mindfulness, but you can also be more aware of other's suffering and it's hard to keep the deep shadow of that off your happiness. I do think life is more meaningful, more vivid, clear and full.

I think there's been a revolution in embracing secular mindfulness by the mental health community, from Marsha Linehan, and on and on. And that's really cool. I certainly use it in my job.

But for my money, going into the BuddhaDharma adds so much more to mindfulness. I feel the same way about Mindfulness For Dummies (Book + CD). It's a wonderful thing if you've used mindfulness. But that's getting off at the first stop of Buddhism, why not go along for the whole ride.

That's what I want personally, but of course I believe in pluralism and the individual respect that everyone is responsible for their own spiritual path.

4 sights

I can trace my conditions of meditation and learning about the BuddhaDharma back to the Buddha.

I've been thinking about the 4 sights. The Buddha may or may not have lead a sort of hedonistic lifestyle, but the legend is that his father gave him different pools for different colored lotus flowers, and different "palaces", one that had female musicians. I bet it was fun. But he saw an old person and a sick person and a dead person and a renunciant, a person who had gone forth. Now most people see these things all the time. But Siddhartha Gotama went a bit further, followed his thoughts, developed them. How can I get beyond these problems, transcend them? Can you really transcend them? I think the Buddha did. I think the Buddha saw deeply and pursued his mission. He was given the keys to the ashram twice when he surpassed the teachers of the time, and he passed. Na, there's something more.

The Buddha had some kind of follow through, he was driven in a certain kind of way. You got to admire that. You know, maybe Jesus or Mohammad are your guys, but still, you got to admire the Buddha. (I admire the other guys.)

There are lots of spiritual idols, heroes.

I think about Sangharakshita going forth. He gave up everything, and went off into India. He wanted to go to Sri Lanka but since he'd given up his passport, he couldn't. I wonder if the Triratna community would have been more Theravadan if that had happened. I'm sure he could have gotten a passport if he wanted to.

The Chutzpah of starting a new Buddhist order.

For manjuvajra to come to Boston and then to found Ayraloka. For him to call upon his friends to come and help him.

For someone to come to NYC and try to start up a Buddhist community, like Vajramati did and does. To devote yourself to the good of the Dharma. To teach so many people meditation.

Then I was open to it. My friend signed me up for the class! I'd watched my stepfather meditate twice a day for many years. I was relatively open and free to appreciate it.

opportunity cost

In every decision there is an opportunity cost. By doing one thing, you can't do another thing. And by having children, I can't do this excellent thing at the Rubin, March 5th. I wish I could sleep under some artwork there, and then have my dreams interpreted the next day by a psychoanalyst. Alas, it's my weekend with the kids, and I'm going to honor my commitment.

That got me thinking. If we are to simplify our life, so we can devote it to the spiritual life, isn't having children about the worst thing you can do? Children and having a career are about the most complicating thing you can do in your life.

And yet, I can't see my children as a hindrance, I'm not about to name my son Rahula, which some say means hindrance. In the Mahayana you're allowed to be of the world, be in the world, it's more your approach to things. Everything is an opportunity to be spiritual.

And yet, setting up circumstances to support the spiritual life is not to be underestimated. Having free time for friendship, for meditation, study, and working for the good of the Dharma is unquestionably important to the spiritual life.

Patience is important in the spiritual life. I think with children, I just have to wait to enter, time wise, more fully into the spiritual life as defined by meditation, friendships and working for the good of the Dharma. Sometimes it's good to build up tension in waiting. And anyway, it's dualism to think spiritual/unspiritual.

spiritual books

So I'm enjoying a spiritual book by a friend in my spiritual community. He's ahead on the path, but we're in the same community. He's done years of meditation, friendship and study. I come along and pick up his book, and I can glean some of the insights he has developed. He's picked up some modern research to see if the results jive with current findings and lo and behold they do, he's found many many interesting studies. He's gleaned insights from an advance meditation practice.

So my question is, is that fair, or is it spiritual bypassism. John Welwood has, to my knowledge, coined this phrase. Where you use spirituality to not change, you just quickly and quietly incorporate this new system into your personality structure.

Is it fair for a person to go up the mountain for years of spiritual work, and then when he comes down we ask him all our pressing questions. They've put in some serious work, and you skip along and say, "hey, I don't want to do that kind of work yet, but can you just give me the secret and I'll skip the work please."

On the other hand, we learn from our elders, those ahead of us, that is a good thing. We seek guidance, and perhaps we're not trying to skip any work, but we just want to find some inspiration and mould our insights and clarify our vision of where we truly want to head.

I suppose the difference between the two is the approach to the book, whether it's a fickle fad, or whether it's the tenacious patient approach of a mature spiritual aspirant who has chosen one's tradition. And even if you're a dilettante or still on your spiritual journey of exploration to see what best fits you, that's OK too.

I feel the pull to go deeper, really commit to my spiritual life, and not get so swept up into irrelevant things. I want to simplify my life, unplug from distracting technology, and be alive as possible. At times I'm tired, and want lighter fare, lack of intensity.

As much as I like Living As A River, he's riffing off a meditation practice I mostly do on retreat, and is meant to be practiced in the run up to ordination, according to the system of meditation developed by Sangharakshita. I don't have a large enough well of metta to practice it regularly. Even if I am in harmony with the ideas and conclusions of his profound book, have I put in the work to really put into place his suggestions and really loosen up my ideas of self, to dwell in mindfulness and kindness more consistently and deeply? Sangharakshita has a quote to the effect that if the average westerner put into practice 10% of what they "knew" they would be doing good. Am I putting what I believe into practice. We are always not exactly there, we're unfinished projects in process, which is fine.

There's always a balance between pushing myself along and attacking myself when I'm in a depressive mood. If I dismiss spiritual ideals, I become poor, untethered, there is nothing to disentangle, no path to head on. If I use the ideals to beat myself up, I'm just reinforcing my own pathologies and smallness. If I use my ideals to spur myself along, then I use them properly, neither holding them too tightly nor too loosely.

So as I head into the new year, I wish to recommit to meditation, spiritual friendship, study of the word of the Buddha, continued ethical reflections based on the ten precepts, simplifying life, living mindfully and kindly, with an ever increasing appreciation for the reality and conditions, meanwhile keeping an eye on the transcendental as my reference point.

Musings

In Living As A River, Bodhipaksa writes, "The Effects of loneliness on health are so powerful that isolation is as bad for you as smoking cigarettes" (p248)

This winter I've noticed two kinds of loneliness this holiday season. Family loneliness and friend loneliness. One patient has no family but has friends, so Xmas is hard, but New Years is not. Another patient has family but not the chum group he desires, so Xmas is fine but New Years is a crisis.

Ever since I went to social work school the effects of a positive social network have been trumped, and I find myself trying to sell the need for a network to my isolated patients. A friend of mine even said that in the 70's there was a book that essentially said that therapy was for these types of people, though I have the other type, manic hyper-verbal, charismatic as well. They suffer from affect regulation issues, though in a pro-social way, and are usually tolerated by others, though in a crucial way others have not yet helped them to completely manage their emotions and they suffer from self invalidation and obsessions. Alas trauma can clip the wings of the very gifted as well.

Just before the above quote, Bodhipaksa was writing about mirror neurons, which I first read about in Philip Bromberg.



I was just wondering whether people with autism don't have mirror neurons, a dot I have not connected when he speculated that they don't. I have two Aspergers type children, whom I work to draw them out into a shared reality, or more connected with others reality, when their own internal worlds are so vivid, much more vivid than the external world.

So I vote for Living AS A River as the best book of 2010. Bodhipaksa talks about so many different and interesting studies. One I keep coming back to is the idea that was literally can't imagine our non-being because the use of our imagination injects ourselves into things and to not inject ourselves into non-being leads to an inability of not grasping existing.

Now there's always a danger I'm riffing off someone, not in their intentions, but I think Bodhipaksa was making this point about our imaging our own non-existence.

There's a meditation on a corpse, and I've done a meditation set in the Bodies exhibit set up by Tricycle some years ago. I can imagine a world where I don't exist, but in my imagining, my existence is kind of implicit. Our knowledge of the world is through our senses and the stories we tell about that input. But imagine no input? That is hard. Sleep is the closest thing to that, we gratefully (mostly) close our eyes and fall into a temporary slumber of non-existence. And yet we dream, and wake up a little bit. It's no surprise death is called The Big Sleep, which is also the title of a famous Raymond Chandler novel.

I was watching the PBS documentary on the Buddha, which is quite beautiful in much of the artistic images it shows about the Buddha's life. Thinking about the 4 sights, illness, old age, death and the spiritual seeker.

As I get swept up into my worldly life, I am more and more conscious about how I am distracted from my death. Illness happens occasionally, and apparently there's a terrible virus going around NYC. I have suffered for a full week with the worst virus I've ever had. I kept wanting to say last words in case I didn't wake up, I felt a lot of self pity for what turned out not to be my sickness into death. I kept telling myself, this is preparation, practice, I can learn to do this better. If there's one thing you notice, it's when some people are sick they feel a little entitled, they grasp at what they feel they lost out in life, they become childlike in a not so flattering way. Getting sick gracefully isn't easy.

At 43 old age is becoming more and more imaginable. I had a beer at a bar, where the bartender was born while I was a Junior in college, I was twice her age. I was in a grocery store, and I said, "are young teenage women taking over the world," because all the cashiers were teenage women. I'm imagining old, though I easily forget all my visits to nursing homes. I have unvivid trace memories, but I can remember the feeling of horror and revulsion at seeing people grimly holding onto life past it's usefulness.

I'm seeing more clearly the actions to my consequences, that my youthful outlook and denial help me to overlook.

The holy life was at one time attractive to me, I yearned for escape into a monastery. I think that was escapism. Now I think I see more clearly the feet to the fire aspect of that way of living and I'm a little scared.

It was such an awesome thing that the Buddha went forth.

a fellow Buddhist

There's a woman in my book club, run by the school my son go to, and she's from Sri Lanka. So we had a conversation. She likes Buddhism because it gives an ethical foundation. She doesn't meditate, and she doesn't go to the temple, but she has a Buddhist necklace. She runs a summer camp where the monks teach and play with the children. I'm going to see if I can get my kids to go to that. I found it interesting that she find the ethics to be the most important thing about Buddhism.

I was listening to a patient the other day, and he'd cleared the decks ethically, so to speak, and he was feeling good. It reminds me that in the path of ethics, meditation and insight, we need a grounding in doing well in life, to move on further. I read once, perhaps I'm misplacing it, but "the gladdening". You just get happy because the clouds have parted to a certain degree and there's a new level of clarity.

Another patient of mine has gone on such a spiritual journey, but he's fickle, he flits from one path to the other, and has chosen paths that were more short cuts. It confirmed me with sticking to my tradition, now renamed.