reporting in

In the Ananpani Sutta, the one thing to look for in the breath is whether it's long or short. I was racking my brain for other descriptions, but I'm not sure there are many words. I feel a kind of feeling when I drink too much coffee and don't eat enough. That's not the breath, but the sutta does further into the body. The breath is perhaps an entry point into the body, which is vital. 

Donnel B. Stern about formulating experience. I know insight can be beyond words, but words can help us think too. I like meditating and focusing on the breath and not following trains of thought. I like finding the words for things to describe experience. When I worked in child welfare, words were used against the client, so it was smart to shut up. Words can be a power struggle.

I meditated naked like Milarepa. Probably not as long or as much and on a soft cushion.

There's an article in the New York Times. Going past the breaches of conduct, it got me thinking about the semi-virtuous path. He says he aims for vegan but it seems he ordered the branzino quite frequently. That got me thinking about the Buddha's middle path. 

People use the middle path very liberally, and sort of mush it with other things. He just used it in the spiritual life regarding asceticism and food. He didn't use it for sex or other things for monks. But was he suggesting a middle path of virtue. Be virtuous enough but don't go overboard like the insect lovers on reddit. I'm not saying kill all insects. But a fixation on not killing insects isn't helpful, in my unenlightened opinion. Is the middle way an application of that, or was that not used with life. Supposedly some Tibetans say you can eat meat if the animal wasn't killed for you. You joining in at a table of meat isn't bad because the animals were not killed for you. I feel like that isn't quite right, and there are Tibetan Buddhists who say you should be vegetarian. I actually think it depends on your life circumstances. If you're living a marginal existence, eating meat isn't that bad. Perhaps in Tibet there's not enough variety around, but of course monks should do more to create that variety. The monks who say people donate meat, so they have to eat it are side stepping the fact that they could train the laity to not give them meat. Moral reasoning is complex, and a monk might tell me I don't really need to get involved in what they do. Like Eric Adams the mayor of NYC, who said, don't worry about what's on my plate, worry about what is on your plate. I think that's a general good idea, but when discussing ethics there's almost an implicit desire to solve the question for everyone. Veganism is for me, but you figure it out for yourself. People worried about other people are busybodies. I like busybodies. We're interconnected, so we should all be busybodies. That is what engaged Buddhism is, the organizing on a larger level. Lets try not to hurt these people as much with this policy. Food is a fairly personal thing, it's cultural expression is widely seen as one of the best ways of getting into other cultures. 

Some people are striving for virtue, and you're not quite where they are, and who knows maybe they're off base, but sometimes I get the feeling like I'm not woke enough and I understand the far right criticism of wokeness. I'm not afraid of virtue and I aspire to it, but there's something to be said for being realistic and real. Maybe I shouldn't pretend I'm more woke than I really am. 

The dying tree outside my window causes me sorrow. I love trees, and want more. I know the trees that went down in the park from a tornado. I mourn the tree across the street that died, and didn't put up leaves this year. I like it that our society seems to be valuing trees more, I see that value expressed in the media. 

What are the ways of expressing how one feels after meditation? I've heard that it feels like your coming out of warp speed, like you've had your brain washed, and had the mind defragged. 

Best wishes.

Source

Poem:

Hello knees, 

patterns of hindrances

thinking thinking thinking

what's for breakfast?

body body body

mind mind mind

beauty

Reporting in

8th century rock carving from Pakistan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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