I've been thinking that when I listen for metta in metta meditation, I can also listen for bliss in mindfulness of breathing.
Along comes a study about bliss:
"...caring for bliss enhanced the effect of high self-compassion on flourishing and compensated for the effect of low mindfulness on flourishing. Caring for bliss also buffered the effect of low mindfulness on depressive symptoms." (Source)
I'm not sure what they mean by "caring for bliss", except that you notice bliss.
Footnote 7: “Muñja grass was the ancient Indian equivalent of a white flag. A warrior expecting that he might have to surrender would take muñja grass into battle with him. If he did surrender, he would lie down with the muñja grass in his mouth. The Buddha, in asking this rhetorical question, is indicating that he is not the type of warrior who would carry muñja grass. If defeated, he would rather die than surrender.” -Noble Warrior
“when I was still just an unawakened bodhisatta, the thought occurred to me: ‘Why don’t I keep dividing my thinking into two sorts?’ So I made thinking imbued with sensuality, thinking imbued with ill will, & thinking imbued with harmfulness one sort, and thinking imbued with renunciation, thinking imbued with non-ill will, & thinking imbued with harmlessness another sort.”
In poem 173 of Red Pine's translation (2000), Fanshan doesn't raise above the sexism of China. He talks about women as though they are a burden, as though they are to be belittled and tolerated. They are compared to donkeys.
Is the story that the Buddha had a wife and child perhaps not historically accurate, and a kind of marketing idea to appeal to the masses? Is that why there is not mention of them in this passage?
MN 36
“So at a later time, when I was still young, black-haired, endowed with the blessings of youth in the first stage of life, having shaved off my hair & beard—though my parents wished otherwise and were grieving with tears on their faces—I put on the ochre robe and went forth from the home life into homelessness."
That his son and wife were not mentioned doesn't prove that they were not so, it's just a question that arises. What do we really know of a great sage from 2500 years ago. We have a lot of amazing texts that are available in translation. I'm grateful for the Pali Canon translations. They are amazing.
What if the Buddha was spiritual from the time of his adulthood? What if he didn't enter into life with a wife and child? Would that really change his insights? In a way the biography of the Buddha is fantastical and miraculous, signaling that something special is there. As you read the formulas of the teachings over and over, there seems to be something more than just those words, though putting it all together and applying the words can support a strong practice. The tradition of a sangha can also support personal progress. Personal effort can support progress. Supportive conditions can support progress. Access to the teachings and support lead to progress. Various sects emphasize certain things. Charlotte Joko Beck preached the nothing special doctrine. Pema Chodron says start where you are. There is an ocean of teachings and updates.
It's our modern times that we want to know the Buddha or Shakespeare for that matter. We want to know a person to locate the teaching in them, but there's something larger there, and like all good teachers, the teachings are larger than the people. Shakespeare's life might not be as interesting as the plays that he authored in collaboration with the troupe and other writers.
"my favorite thing i’ve learned in college is that way back in ancient china there was this poet/philosopher guy who wrote this whole pretentious poem about how enlightened he was that was like “the eight winds cannot move me” blahblahblah and he was really proud of it so he sent it to his friend who lived across the lake and then his friend sends it back and just writes “FART” (or the ancient Chinese equivalent) on it and he was SO MAD he travels across the lake to chew his friend out and when he gets there his friend says “wow. the eight winds cannot move you, but one fart sends you across the lake”"
(source)
Google says May 6th, this Friday, but "dates may vary". I think that may be when Korean International Lotus Lantern Parade is, but I can't get any information.
May 16th when it's the full moon? "Nowadays, in Sri Lanka, Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Malaysia, Vesak/Buddha Purnima is celebrated on the day of the first full moon in May in the Gregorian calendar." (Wikipedia) But "In China, Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines, Buddha's Birthday is celebrated on the eighth day of the fourth month in the Chinese lunar calendar. In Japan, Buddha's Birthday is observed on the same date but in the Gregorian calendar, i.e. 8 April."
International Vesak day is May 16th.
As someone who celebrates all the traditions (and perhaps therefore none) I'll go with international Vesak Day. Triratna says May 16th, my root sangha.
Gathering with sangha is the first suggestion.
If you're alone celebrating, the suggestion of activities is:
Cleaning home and body.
Burn incense if you have it.
Chant Sutras and do pujas.
Cook special meals. Consider a special tea to drink. No meat, consider plant based meals.
Lead a minimalist life, consider abstention from sex and internet.
Meditation. Consider Buddhananasati meditation where you invoke the Buddha.
Consider doing nice things for others. Create art, plan an activity.
Offerings to the shrine: light, flowers, and other offerings.
My one experience of gathering with the larger NYC sangha was at Shambhala many many years ago. Little Sri Lankan kids recited things. A Japanese monk did calligraphy. A Korean monk spoke. There was social mixing, where I asked a guy what color robe he had--he practiced in 2 traditions and made up his own robe.
I'm not sure what the appropriate response in the USA would be in engaged Buddhism. I read about what happened in Vietnam when the Buddhist flag was banned: In 1963, the South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, a Catholic and younger brother of Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc banned the flying of the Buddhist flag. This led to a demonstration and flag-waving in defiance of the ban. Diem's forces opened fire on the Buddhist crowd, killing nine, sparking the Buddhist crisis, a period of civil disobedience against religious discrimination.
I'm concerned about the health of democracy in the USA and the further Talibaning and Christo-fascist elements. It looks like Roe v Wade might be overturned by SCOTUS. Go look at Gerri Santoro and tell me that banning abortion is the right thing to do.
I know Buddhism doesn't pick a party or politics in a way, but in another way the journey of trying to prevent harm to others is important. Climate and environmental activism doesn't have to be political, it's acting in our own best interest. And our children's interest. Future thinking is important I think.
She Who Became The Sun by Shelly Parker-Chan is a kind of Dickensian saga set in 1345 China. The following is a quote at the end of chapter 3. The heroine has escaped starvation and landed in a monastery. She takes on the identity of her brother who died of starvation and is in the male section of the monastery.
"Denying desire only made yourself vulnerable to those who were smart enough to see what you couldn't even acknowledge to yourself." (p.61 Hardcover from the library)
There are quotes in the Pali Canon about being desireless, but I don't think it's the complete absence of desire. The Buddha continued to eat and sleep and preach after he became enlightened, so you know, something was driving him even if it was wholesome and purified and focused on the path. There is a lot of religious rhetoric and mythological speaking in the Pali Canon. I mean the Buddha came out of his mother without any fluids, and began walking and talking. I take that to point to a special being, but not literally true. How do you communicate things that are beyond words? One way is to speak mythologically. I've never been around anyone who really talked about Tusita heaven and the devas present in the early accounts, but I have an attitude towards them I have around the ancient Greek gods, the Celtic gods, the Norse gods. They are early human communications about existence.
I have a modern western worldview, and because I've come across all kinds of mythology I find them interesting and a projection of psychology. Reincarnation might be part of this, a mythological way to talk about conditionality. I mean you can imagine other ways of being, hopefully you witness other ways of being, but you can also see personality and other aspects of what makes up a human and the vectors they pursue.
What do all the miracles in the Pali Canon point to? The amazingness and awesomeness of the path. I don't think you need to hype it, and Buddhism does the least proselytizing of the major religions. Maybe that's why it's only 0.7% in the USA.
My friend asked me why it was so important to me. It's hard to really describe how a system and culture get absorbed into one's being through sangha, reading and study and meditation. My life hasn't been great since I found it, so one could even argue that my finding the Dharma, sangha and the Buddha hasn't been great for me. It has made me feel more healthy and whole, make the mistakes I need to make, the fortunate falls, so I could learn. We all hurt each other accidentally, but the hope of waking up is to minimize that, and points to a path of proving good into the world.
To me the point is to channel and consciously direct one's desires into positive outcomes. Act in your own best interest. I know I haven't always done that and I wish I would have done that more throughout my life. Self sabotage and not giving credence to my shadow has had disastrous consequences for me and the people I've hurt. My goal as a parent and as a human being is to not hurt others, but it happens. Insects are killed driving vegetables to the market, but it's still the least harmful thing you can do to be plant based.
I think a lot about how on The Good Place, they come to the conclusion that you can't be good any more, you're embedded in so many systems of torture and bad. Just look at your phone. And yet we like to think of ourselves as good, and the desire to be good is a healthy thing.
With the support of the sangha, through meditation, you connect to the bottom basement of information and information--your experience. Being connected to your experiences, you're harder to manipulate. The forces of capitalism are harder to force feed to you if you're attempting to wake up. The anti-woke people can't be conscious of their motives since they're against any introspection, insight or avoidance of hypocrisy. Human beings with all their messy complications can't be as easily fed into the capitalist grinder. Substance abuse helps to numb you down. The fear of communism is part and parcel of capitalist lovers, the way Putin's fears of NATO provoked NATO expansion. Against wokeness to the unintended and paradoxical consequences, prefer just to act righteously, boldly and confidently, like a man. The internalized systems of self oppression are hard to shake off.
Wynn Alan Bruce self immolated himself on April 22nd 2022 in front of the Supreme Court in Washington DC. It was earth day.
The place where he did it was because of recent court decisions: In West Virginia versus EPA, the court's decision on the case could limit or revoke the ability of the United States Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, and the conservative majority on the court has indicated that they may do so.
A Buddhist and a climate activist, he earned a living with a photography studio in Boulder Colorado.
The people who marginalize his message, call him mentally ill, or as Sujato writes, "It tells us only of the nihilistic despair into which he fell." (Source) have been jammed up in just the way his message is supposed jam people up. Those who don't concern themselves with the gravity of climate change will wander off to condemn his act and dishonor it.
There is a long history of self immolation in Buddhism, and a long history of people trying to downplay the messages that are sent through self immolation. The message of Wynn Bruce is simple. The government needs to stop getting in it's own way, and act more in it's own self interest.
Now right there the polarizers are going to counterclaim I'm polarizing the issue, which means we can't even have a discussion of climate change with their dada communication style.
There is obvious and accumulating evidence that humans are having an impact on climate change, and that the right, in their infinite wisdom of always opposing the liberal imagination, just denies. We can do some things to curb the worst effects. People who aren't climate scientists deny that. The amount of climate scientists who deny that is insignificantly miniscule. The ideological denial of common knowledge is what makes these times feel so gaslit. The right has resorted to psychological and informational warfare.
What will happen will happen and time will tell. Outside of political ideologies, which never seem to get it all right. That confirmation bias is a thing and people see what they want to see, we can go around in circles. One person’s modus ponens is another person’s modus tollens.
The polarization is a mental virus of the right in recent years, dastardly tactics, that history won't judge them well. We are entering an information age, we're just at the very beginning. Information is increasing and flowing more democratically, sometimes. That is not all good, people with proclivity to believe nonsense and malarkey are flipping the script and using intelligent sounding reposts for their conversation destroying nonsense. "Woke" and "virtue signaling" and other right wing buzz phrases are trying to be owned by the common sense people, but there's a real battle between what I consider to be the death instinct, and acting in our own best interest.
I wish Wynn Bruce was alive, just like I wish we had a more pro-life world in the sense that people didn't see having children as a catastrophe because it would cost money, ruin careers and educations. I wish we didn't have weapons of mass destruction. I wish there was no war. I wish children didn't die in the USA for the ease at which people can get guns and misuse them.
A utilitarian is pro-life, death is a bad result. But in the right's death cult, it's OK to be for the freedom to spread Covid instead of the freedom from Covid. To imagine guns are a right. They're flipping the script and accuse the left of being bad actors when that's all they do.
They seem to have a sparse parsimonious approach to the world, but it's filled with abstract ideas and contradictions. Let's take a hard cold look at what's going on, and act in our own best interest, and not the best interest of the conservative imagination that has panic attacks about certain things, but what is really going on.
The deSantos law to forbid gender discussion means elementary schools can't have gender names on the bathroom. Does that make sense? It's all ishkabibble. Their feeble minds only draw the conclusions they want it to. It's not reasoning, it's retroactive nonsense.
Reason is public discussion of action. A powerful dictator or autocrat doesn't want discourse, he's just gonna do what he's gonna do. Maybe he'll poop out a justification.
Use reason to create democratic public discourse, to act in our own best interest. That's all Wynn Bruce was trying to say, specifically about climate change.
The majority on the supreme court is unqualified ideologues that the right cheated to get onto the court. The court is a joke now. I'm not sure why more people aren't self immolating themselves, except the survival instinct is strong, and you might do more by being alive than a dramatic self immolation. It's a pretty blunt instrument. Wynn Bruce didn't even leave note as to why he was doing what he was doing. We can only guess from his Facebook posts that he was deeply upset about climate change, and his location tells us that he did not like the drift of the court decisions to neuter the government in climate change fighting.
The idea that self immolation is not Buddhist is kind of funny. The glorious Buddhist movie Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall...Spring! has a self immolation scene in it. The Buddhist monks who did it during the Vietnam War of American Aggression.
The amount of malarkey spouting from people is quite disturbing. It's not Buddhist? He was just mentally ill? People, use the principle of charity to assume the best line of reasoning. The supreme court just ruled that the EPA can't act to curb climate change. That's a disgusting result that needs to be overturned. Please think about it. Wynn Bruce did, and he is dramatizing our need to be just a little more aware, to act in our own best interest.
I know I'm converting this blank into my own message. I'm aware of that. Still doesn't diminish the message. And I think I'm following reason and Buddhism (and utilitarianism and ethics....).
Just like meditation isn't just Buddhist, self immolation isn't just Buddhism protest. (See below.)
"This guy was my friend. He meditated with our sangha. This act is not suicide. This is a deeply fearless act of compassion to bring attention to climate crisis. We are piecing together info but he had been planning it for at least one year. #wynnbruce I am so moved." (Twitter Profile, actual tweet)
"Bruce’s act of sitting down and setting himself on fire was reminiscent of the events of June 11, 1963, when Thich Quang Duc, a Vietnamese monk, seated cross-legged, burned himself to death at a busy Saigon intersection. He was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government led by Ngo Dinh Diem, a staunch Catholic." (Denver Post)
Also from Denver Post, quoting TTH, “To burn oneself by fire is to prove what one is saying is of the utmost importance. There is nothing more painful than burning oneself. To say something while experiencing this kind of pain is to say it with utmost courage, frankness, determination and sincerity.”
"The International Campaign for Tibet says 131 men and 28 women — monks, nuns and laypeople among them — have self-immolated since 2009 to protest against Beijing’s strict controls over the region and their religion."
What can we do? Margaret Klein Salamon suggest climate activism. She created Climate Emergency Fund. Here is another introduction.
There is also PAEAN from Thanissara.
Here is a list of climate change organizations.
Links:
Wikipedia: Self-immolation of Wynn Bruce.
NY Times Climate Activist Dies After Setting Himself on Fire at Supreme Court
The denial of Sujato of his act being Buddhist. (Discussion on Reddit)
Buddhist Journal of Ethics: Buddhism and Suicide: The Case of Channa by Damien Keown
One poor person is questioning Buddhism (Reddit)
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center
14 year old girl self immolates in India over a reported threat to withdraw a rape allegation.
Alejandro Alvarez's tribute on Twitter
The middle period, chapter 10, has rapid fire stories in The Life of the Buddha. I can't help but think of that number Love Thy Neighbor from Prom, when you get to the monk who is abandoned, because he is of no use to his fellow monks when he's sick.
There is the ancient epistemology tract in the Kalama Sutta.
"It is hard to know a man by his appearance
Nor can you judge him at a passing glance."
That's the upshot from the section where a leper becomes a stream entrant.
There is the bit where the Buddha doesn't want his teachings put into the formal religious language of the times.
There is the bit about tuning the lute strings just right.
So many teachings.
I just downloaded the version of this book by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu & Khematto Bhikkhu.
I watched all 4 Ip Man movies, and while the history of martial arts and Buddhism is mixed, what I like is that Ip Man is humble and doesn't want any special favors, doesn't want to shame anyone, and is patient. He believes in virtue and justice.
There was a discussion about Pema Chodron on Reddit.
I've completed my novella Robot Monk. I'm looking for readers for feedback.
One way to combat the wellbeing and perhaps inflated sense of self after meditation is to play a chess game. I always think I'm going to crush in a chess game and raise my rating, but I never do after meditation. It puts me in my place.
I began by reading the following books: Awakening The Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das, After the Ecstacy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfield, and Everyday Zen and Nothing Special by Charlotte Joko Beck. That gave me a Mahayana, a Theravada and a Zen perspective. Then I read the Dhammapada.
After I started meditating, I read Sangharakshita, Thich Nhat Hanh, Ayya Khema, Jack Kornfield. Later I dug into the Middle Length Discourses, Long Discourses, Connected Discourses and the Numerical Discourses. Bodhicaryāvatāra is awesome. I read the Mahayana sutras and Ten Thousand Songs of Milarepa, Perfection of Wisdom texts. Lately I've been reading the Chinese hermit monks translated by Red Pine. The Eternal Legacy by Sangharakshita is an overview of Buddhist literature. If you're into Zen, I thought The Circle of The Way by O'Brian was interesting, helped me to realize some Zen writers I hadn't picked up yet. I love all the literature of Buddhism and it's quite a project to read it all.
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