Padmabandhu in Spanish and translated by Manjunatha

I watched and listened to this video this morning on my practice day.  I like the diversity in the TBC!  It's 17 minutes and it's funny sometimes when the translation is botched and fumbled, the translator is gracious in his fumbling, and the speaker is funny too!  It's a personal account on why he's an order member.

8th Anniversary

I started this blog 8 years ago.

I've had a lot of ups and downs over the last 8 years, and this blog has been a sort of public notebook of my spiritual journey.  This blog has actually afforded me some wonderful experiences, reading books, going to the opera, watching movies.  I am grateful for that.  I think about how far I've come, and how much more work I have to do on my spiritual journey.

Anyway, happy anniversary blog!

In The Mail: The Misleading Mind

I got The Misleading Mind today, written by Karuna Cayton.

Karuna Cayton was trained in the Tibetan Gelugpa tradition in Nepal with Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.  He spent 12 years in Nepal.  Karuna means compassion.  Cayton is a village in England.  Not sure which names were given to him and which names he changed.  Some people get a name like Karuna, but I doubt he was named that at birth.  He's from Soquel California, near Santa Cruz.  He does counseling, coaching and business workshops.

I will let you know if I have any worthy thoughts on this book.

What follows are some links of reviews and interviews already done about this book:

Here is a review on Digital Dharma:  "The ideas covered in The Misleading Mind will not come as anything new to those who have even casually perused the Buddha’s teachings."


Here is an interview he put on his blog.


Here is an audio interview on The Secular Buddhist:  “Because we constantly and immediately superimpose our interpretation upon experience, we never really experience things as they are. We experience things as we are.” — Karun Cayton, The Misleading Mind.


Here is another interview, if you can bear the 30 second advert.

Here is written interview on Spirituality and Practice website.

sexual ethics article

Sangha night we read an article by Winton Higgins from BuddhaNet.

We had a lively discussion, not about celibacy, but which got me to thinking about what I've read about celibacy in the order.

Here's a 21 minute video by Manjuvajra where he discusses celibacy, among other things.

And there's a bit in one of the female memoirs, (Breaking Free: Glimpses of a Buddhist Life by Srimala) where she talks about dating Subhuti and his attempts at celibacy at times, which led to her attempts.  Seemed like it was his idea the way she told the story.

Thirdly I'm reading Through Buddhist Eyes: Travel Letters(a book of Bhante's travel letters to Shabda in the 80's and 90's, which is not always exciting reading, and oddly disappointing at times, though good in others), and in it Sangharakshita recommends in 1989 Liz Hodgkinson's Sex is Not Compulsory.  Bhante, "....I strongly recommend the book to those of you who have not yet read it.  Those who have read it, but who have still not given serious consideration to the question of celibacy, should, I think, read it again." (p. 89).

I would also add, that in Gautama Buddha: The Life and Times of the Awakened One. Vishvapani Blomfield, an excellent biography of the Buddha, he quotes in the Pali Cannon an incident where a monk sleeps with his ex-wife so she can have a child.  The Buddha says he would do better to stick his penis into a snakes mouth, than to procreate with his ex-wife, which seems pretty intense.

So I'm not about to go celibate, but it's interesting to see how the order deals with this in public.  Inside the order, and not public, is another matter, probably deeper and personal.  It's quite a strong quote from Bhante about the Hodgkinson book, and a strong quote from the Pali Cannon in the Vishvapani book.

sangha

I went to sangha night for the first time in ages, and it was wonderful to be around everyone.  I'd forgotten how much I like everyone.  I'd forgotten how important it is to meditate with others.  I'd forgotten how cool it is to read something together and discuss, and get to know each other better.  Yay, sangha.  I take refuge in the sangha jewel.

Thomas Jefferson with a Buddhist advisor?

What if Thomas Jefferson had a quasi-Buddhist advisor (who focuses on wellness) and his letters were recently discovered?  Suneel Dhand has written a book that explores these themes in a pleasant and clear little book.

Suneel Dhand is a doctor who has focused on wellness.  You can follow his tweets about wellness.

At times reading Thomas Jefferson: Lessons from a Secret Buddha I was a bit incredulous.  This Buddha friend participated in the Boston Tea Party?  I mean, I believe in engaged Buddhism and all, but the Buddha didn't get involved in the various kingdoms of his time beyond advising kings on how to deepen their spirituality.  He didn't take to modern political protesting.  As revolutionary as he was, he operated mostly on a personal level, he was a revolutionary of the internal world.

In many ways, this wasn't the Buddha I recognize, he was more like a modern wellness guru, and a political activist.  Like Dr. Suneel Bhand perhaps.  Perhaps I took the word "Buddha" too literally regarding the historical Buddha.  There were many politically active buddhist including Ashoka The Great.  There's no telling what the Buddha would have done in Revolutionary America.  And this is an honest act of imagination.

Dr. Bhand says the quotes are from the Buddha, but I have the feeling they were more along the lines of fake Buddha quotes.  I can't actually prove that, but I do know the "live in the now" stuff isn't so much exact Buddhism, but a vague kind of modern version.  Mindfulness in the Buddhist context is much more specific.  Not that I mind different definitions of mindfulness and wellness.  And you can create any kind of Buddha you want, there's no such thing as blasphemy in Buddhism.  "My thinking was so uptight," as the Dude says.  I think it's a kind of western thing to be such a fussbudget.  In the east syncretism is much more acceptable, I imagine.  Alas, that was my initial reaction to this fine book.  He's really trying to put forth the positive wellness aspects of certain approaches of Thomas Jefferson that are congenial to eastern ways.

When I settled in to this Buddhist inspired wellness guru (instead of quibbling about his vision of the Buddha), Thomas Jefferson and the American Revolution, I enjoyed this book on revolutionary history and the wellness of one of our great founders.  Dr Bhand is also the author of a book on wellness, and I take his comments about wellness seriously.  I think I would like Dr. Suneel Dhand if I ever met him, and I think he's tackled an awesome project of retranslating eastern spirituality into western culture by weaving into Thomas Jefferson's life a kind of eastern guru of wellness.  A very impressive book.  Thank you.

I always appreciate a book that gets me thinking and this one did.

I kept singing Shot Heard Round The World, after I read the book.

Which of course lead me to this video

which of course lead to this video

the impact of technology TED talk by Sherry Turkle

beautiful video

Landscapes: Volume Two from Dustin Farrell on Vimeo.

Bhikkhu Bodhi interview quote

"What sort of training have you had in meditation practice?


"During my early years in Sri Lanka I did very little intensive meditation. This was not my ordination teacher’s mode of practice; he integrated regular periods of meditation into his day-to-day life. When I later practiced intensive retreats on my own, I used anapana-sati [mindfulness of breathing] as my sole meditation subject. But after some time, I found my mind became dry and rigid, and I felt the need to soften and enrich it with other types of meditation. Thus, at different times and under different circumstances, I learned the practices that constitute the “four protective meditations”: recollection of the Buddha, the meditation on loving kindness, the contemplation of the repugnant nature of the body, and the recollection of death. Throughout my life as a monk I have made extensive use of these four meditation subjects. I have also done occasional extended retreats at hermitages in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. Regretfully, though, because of my poor merits and the debilitating headache condition, I have not reached any attainments worthy of a true practitioner."

(I got this from Theravada Dhamma Blog, which I was alerted to by Bodhi Tree Swaying Blog.  Here is the Wikipedia entry on Bhikkhu Bodhi.)

In my order it's always said you should alternate Mindfulness of Breathing with Metta Bhavana, and I find it interesting that only doing MOB he said, " my mind became dry and rigid, and I felt the need to soften and enrich it..."  Perhaps it is a simple point, but concentration leads to emotional positivity and then spiritual death, a la Sangharakshita's System of Meditation.  It's possible to develop concentration and not use it for the good.

I don't follow Bhikkhu Bodhi's ideas of literal merit.  It's possible it's an quirky accident that was a cultural belief of the times.  Maybe not, and maybe Bhikkhu Bodhi has a more sophisticated and deep view than I am aware of.  But it doesn't seem that way in this post.  Remember sometimes it's other's merit that causes things, or physical causes or systems that don't have to do with one's purity of heart.  I think the point of over interpreting merit is that purity of intentions is so important, and it's hard to tie up all the disparate strands in oneself, it's not a simple effort, we are never a finished project, IMHO

a simple prayer

(I'm reading Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche's Living Fully, (p 25), and it has the following prayer in it I wanted to share:)

May I act with pure motivation.
May I part from selfish ways.
May I bring Joy and happiness to others.
May I free them from pain and sorrow.
May I have a big and open heart
That encompasses the whole world.




[end]




He's from the Dzogchen tradition.  I can't find much about him that is not from his website, so don't know much more than reading the book and watching the video.




Here's a video of him:





He reports he sees himself more as a westerner than a Tibetan.  He says, "what we need here is the essence of Tibetan Buddhism."  Which implies that he can take away the cultural aspects of Tibetan Buddhism.


"The essence of the book is to be natural."


The project of building a a western buddhism continues, so fascinating to me.  What is cultural, was is the essence? What are the cultural and devotional expressions that we will develop in American, and in the TBC?

informal book review on goodreads

Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism by Stephen Batchelor
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I thought--what do I want to read? and I wanted to read this book.  It's a book that tries to update Buddhism with existentialism, among other things.


I've read it before, after I read what I think is his best seller, Buddhism Without Belief.  I wanted to see if it stood up the way I remembered it.


Batchelor is skeptic, doesn't want to just follow the herd, and is an original independent deep thinker.  I've met him in person and he's a swell guy.  I think my only criticism of him is that he hasn't built a movement, and doesn't seem to value deep friendships the way my order does.  Now, I can't actually know how deep his friendships are, but when asked who was sangha to him, he reported other celebrity Buddhists.  I find that hard to believe.


At times the jargon of Existentialism feels a bit forced, but for the most part this book is filled with gems of insight.  It touches on all the major important ideas of Buddhism, and feels congenial with my tradition, which is inclusive, but it also hits home at similar points.  While this is a short book, it is jam packed with important stuff, that makes it hard to write a general review.


This rich book will be reread by me, hopefully in the future.


Like many books, this book leads to other books.  I want to read Heiddiger's Being and Time, I think a better understanding of that book would help me to see more what this book is trying to do.  But this books stands on it's own.


I'm not tempted to read the Christian theologians he does, but I'm happy to read the nugget he finds.  I've read all his Buddhist books, and reread Buddhism Without Belief, and this one.  I think this one might be his best, though for the average reader I'd probably read his last one Confessions of an Atheist Buddhist, which is the fullest memoir to date.


View all my reviews

Rereading: Alone With Others

I've really been enjoying rereading this book by Stephen Batchelor:  Alone With Others.  I've read everything of his  on Buddhism, some of his translations, but not his books his Ancient Greek for Dummies, Medieval History for Dummies and Tibet Guide.  I've reread Buddhism Without Belief.  And now I felt this book call to me from the bookshelf, and I've been thoroughly enjoying it.  It's short too, you could absorb it over a day.

Manjuvajra Video

He taught me the prostration practice and ran the first few GFR retreats I was on, for which I'm eternally grateful.  It's cool to see him on video.

Lovely evening

Nine people came to my sunday drop in sit, amazing.  While everyone had tried meditation, this was the first class with others, for several people.  While the discussion was chaotic at times, I felt I learned something about helping others in the Dharma. It's not so easy.  Saddhu to those who lead beginning nights and sangha nights and any other dharmic gatherings.  Thank you to Cori who really made it warm and welcome to everyone.  She made it much better than it would have been if it would have just been me.

I started a new blog to provide resources for the group.

Starting a sit tonight

So the day is finally here.  Perhaps it's a small thing, but to me it is huge.  I'm going to have a drop in sit at my house.  I developed a plan, talked about it with my friends, and executed my plan with lots of support, and there's even potentially 2-4 newcomers coming.  I'm very excited, and anxious to make it the best supportive thing for meditation.

It was suggested to me that if you've only got one night reliably free, have a drop in sit.  It mixes beginners with the new.  So my concern is that I will be basic enough for the beginners, and interesting enough for those advanced.

So we'll gather, have a sit, with instructions for the beginners, process our experience, take a tea break, and then have a Dharma discussion.  I can see things spinning off in different directions.  Maybe I give a short talk.  Maybe we listen to a snippet of talk from Free Buddhist Audio (I've been downloading Dharmabytes trying to find one I feel is appropriate for the first night.)  Maybe we will have a simple meal if we're all hungry.  Who knows.  But I have anxiety about the unknown of how it will evolve.  Will there be regular attendance.  Will it fluctuate with new people and regulars?  Will it fluctuate greatly.  Lots of questions and unknowns.

I was talking to someone, and I worried that Sunday night would be a bad time.  But I was talking to someone who said that Sunday night is a good time, it's a good ending to the weekend, a good transition to the week.

I'd better go clean some to make it a welcoming environment.  Wish me luck!

And e-mail me at unionandmain@gmail.com if you'd like to join in, here is Kew Garden Hills, Queens, New York City, New York, United States of America.

Aloka on YouTube

Aloka is a major artist in the TBC revolution, who's art I recently blogged a photo of.  Someone showed me these videos, which I've enjoyed watching.


Friendship:



Not Painting:



On Death


Go ahead on click on the ones that look interesting to you, pop it out to YouTube and get out of my blog if you want more.

Also, click on this to see a video about one of his paintings,  Sangharakshita as Mythic Psychopomp or just the photo here.

Check out more on the Clear Vision Trust page on YouTube.

video games

In our dada world, of intellectual overload, video games provide refuge for the cave man, or the problem solver, or the visually leaning mind.  Video games simplify the world, and like the Futurama episode where life is like a video game, the terms are much less ambiguous.  Even though we've had existentialism for over a century, we're still just as clueless on how to make meaning--soon cookie cutter religions that dispense other's revelations grow dull as they are not authentically ours.  Video games (or drugs or sex or materialism or career or subjugation to others needs) fill the void.  And yet they can't fill the void for long if you tune into yourself, and feel more void at your void erasing attempts.  So many heroes and heroines in literature look for solutions in the wrong place, desperately, frantically.  There are so many wrong paths.

I've enjoyed Sim City, and Civilization and visual games like tetras or bejeweled.  I had a PS for a while and did a snowboarding game.  I've been disgusted by Vice City type games, where the player is a criminal who has to accomplish criminal missions.  I have a friend who was in the Marines who can play combat games all day, even though he's a successful professional in perhaps the top profession.

At the moment I'm addicted to Edgeworld and MyTown2.  It seems I like building worlds and conquering worlds.  I'm Robert Moses and Genghis Khan.  In a way, I feel puny in this vast universe.  (That makes me think of the Monty Python skit.)

Video games are another kind of thinking, that I enjoy.  It's not intellectual wool gathering.  In a way it's a do nothing activity.  Sure, it expends energy and time, and what are the results.  "I'm up to level 42."  Is that good?  And yet there's a sense of accomplishment, pride in effort. In the grey world of existential wilderness, do I move up levels, do I win the day, do I defeat my opponents?  It's this simplification, this black and whiting of life that helps ease the existential tension.

I think the good news of Buddhism is that, yes there is a void, but we can come to understand it, and through altruism and personal effort, master it in a very satisfying way.  We can develop the grace to tolerate ambivalence, ambiguity, confusion and dispair, without hankering for limited solutions.

The Galaxy Song Lyrics:

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth. 

Davidson's research and book

Reading the introduction of The Emotional Life of Your Brain: How Its Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think, Feel, and Live--and How You Can Change Them, I was instantly hooked because I learned something.

When you think about research on meditation, Davidson is the first name I think of, and not because I went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  I never met him, but I spent 16 years of my life in that lovely town.

I don't really think I need research to prove to me that meditation is good.  I guess how, is important, the details.  I am resistant to some of this stuff because I just don't need any proof.

As a therapist, I found the brain structures and emotional styles idea very interesting.  Patience is high self awareness and sensitivity to the context.  That's something I didn't know.

There's two kinds of psychological research.  Some proves common sense, I find utterly uninteresting.  But when you learn stuff, that is interesting to me.  And after reading the introduction to this book, I am fascinated.

I love reading about scientists lives, and personal narratives.  Davidson was steered away from his interest in meditation, and it was only after he'd gotten tenure, that he followed his interest in meditation.  I'm so curious about his journey.

Also the book is co-written with a science writer, Sharon Begley.

I'm really psyched to read this book for many reasons and on many levels.  Hopefully more updates to follow on this book.

Long Quote on Confession and Ethics

"For many people, a belief in divine punishment or reward is integral to their sense of the meaning of religion. For instance, on a recent journey to India, I met a Sri Lankan Muslim while I was waiting for a connection at Kuwait airport. He was a nice chap and we got talking. When he heard I was a Buddhist, he started asking me about the violent things that he had seen some Buddhist monks doing in Sri Lanka. I had to agree with him and say, ‘Yes, it’s terrible’, because I knew about them too. He went on to ask, ‘Well, what is there that guarantees morality in Buddhism?’  So I tried to explain about Buddhist ethics, but he could only comment, ‘Well, that’s not enough is it? Who is going to refrain from doing bad things, or care about doing good, if there is no punishment for evil?’  To him it seemed obvious that, if people did not believe there was an all-powerful God waiting to fry them if they stepped out of line, they would throw all moral restraint to the winds.


This attitude is found in all theistic religions. In a sense, it is found in Buddhist societies too, although it does not really fit in with the Buddhist view of things. Bhante has often commented that the gory detail in which some Buddhists speak about the torments of hell is really a means of social control, comparable to similar talk in the theistic religious traditions. It seems that most societies have considered it necessary to frighten the mass of people into morality (or at least into docility). I doubt whether such terror tactics are beneficial or even effective, but this is not the place to explore that question. The point is that this fear of a punishing power has got nothing to do with Buddhist morality as such. We should recognise that some of the difficulties that we typically face in our spiritual lives come from our inability to distinguish remorse from its near enemy, namely the fear of losing love and acceptance, or of being punished (or some poisonous brew concocted from the two)."



(from "Remorse and Confession in the Spiritual Community" By Subhuti)



In a way, there's nothing to add to that, but it's a point I struggle with others.  They want ethics to have more bite.  They want to judge people.  The idea that ethics is something you develop for yourself, that you apply to yourself, is a foreign thing.  People want to hack into others.  In a way, there is something profound about just working on yourself, and letting everyone else sort themselves out.  It's the thing you have most control over.

I want to die. How can I die?

So I was looking at my analytics, and as predicted in the Elephant Journal, my post I want to Die, how can I die, is by far my most popular blog post.

Depression is a terrible thing, and to suffer so much, the easiest way of dealing with that is to end life.  It speaks of great suffering.  I've only had one patient who tried, and he hid it from me.  Others who talk about it, they lose it when they express and problem solve their suffering with me.

I read in a book once that sometimes people don't need rehabilitation, they need habilitation.  I think as I've gone on as a psychotherapist, I've moved more towards existentialism and the creation of meaning.  What is meaningful for you?  People are in a fog.  They don't know what is important to them.

For me, on that journey, the discovery of Buddhism, the Dharma.  This blog is an elaboration of that.  Taking a spiritual journey to explore all the religions and spiritual classics is a wonderful thing.