Tuesday dharma talk/a short piece about egolessness

 

 

A reminder: every Tuesday here is a “dharma talk.” This means a period of sitting meditation, with instructions, and some discussion. Topics vary. This week I plan on working with the book the “Dhammapada.”

Also, I’m writing (slowly) so here is a little sample of something new on the topic of “egolessness.”

 

…

Egolessness has two basic usages in spiritual writing. The first is a Buddhist meaning. It has to do with the contrast between confused perception, or suffering infused perception, the contrast between that and reality (reality, in this context, being a synonym for what is beyond overly simplistic conceptions, what goes beyond confusion). The logic of it being called “egolessness” is a little abstruse, but it goes something like this: an ego is a self. A self is an idea of things as solid and separate. (In this format, then, the chair has a self as much as a person does.) In reality, the things we assume to have selves (unchanging, separate from other things in a significant way) do not. The second meaning is more about serving and helping others. If the ego means something like being arrogant, or too full of yourself, then being egolessness means being free from arrogance, being willing to work with others and serve.

It’s a little too easy to say the one meaning is equal to the other. There is a connection in Buddhism between the two, but it’s not necessarily simple or obvious. I think it’s sufficient to say that ideas about becoming less arrogant, and more able to engage with and help others around us are essential to the spiritual path (how they connect to ideas of the nonconceptual is a little more involved). It is possible to have the second meaning, service, without the first, but that is not how it’s done in Buddhism.

In regards to sitting meditation practice, both meanings come into play. First, when you sit, the concepts take a different internal position. It’s common to say something like they “fall away,” which is equally unclear, and equally helpful. There’s no way to actually feel what this means until you sit, until you actually do it. A very useful technique to have is called “labeling thoughts.” As you sit, and maintain your body is a relaxed fashion, thoughts and feelings come up, sometimes fantastically complex and colorful, sometimes very simple or repetitive. You can think to yourself “thinking” as you sit, the go back to the process of meditating.

As far as the second meaning of egolessness, there a few implications: a) meditation in action b) emotions and postmeditation c) not being arrogant. Meditation in action means finding ways to practice during the midst of chaotic life. There are tons of instructions for how to do this. One is to reconnect with the breath as you work, talk, whatever. Meditation in action is related to how to be in the world, as a practitioner. Maybe it’s almost impossible to “be egoless” and help others without thought for ourselves. Still, progress can be made, and being mindful through meditation in action is both helpful, and something that formal sitting cultivates. Postmeditation just means the period following meditation. You have no choice but to work with the emotions during postmeditation. (You’d do it even if you weren’t a practitioner.) There is a connection between sitting meditation and being able to work fully and properly with the emotions during postmeditation. A first step often has to with becoming more self-aware, more sensitive to what you’re going through.

Finally, being arrogant is problematic. It also very common. It’s also possible to feel arrogant after having done some meditating, or after having understood some complex spiritual idea. This is a problem, because sooner or later, said arrogance will create a communication problem, a lack of awareness, or will hurt someone’s feelings. It can sound a little overly religious or heavy handed to say “don’t be arrogant,” but it’s actually true, and has to be dealt with. It would be very difficult to be a good meditator and be full of yourself. (And remember, being a “good meditator” does not mean quickly being able to “turn off” thoughts or find some magical place of calm and stillness. It has more to do with being willing to try, and do the technique, and to face yourself.)

 

 

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Thursday the 17th

I’m giving a talk on space tomorrow evening in Lawrence at the Public Library. It will be at seven pm, and I’ll probably offer meditation instruction as well.

A little poetry

All night long space of silence
Spontaneous this flow seen doing and not doing of the sky
Holiday this flower holiday this flow/ they ever

The next four weeks

 

Just quickly, here is an overview of the next four weeks of Tuesdays. Each week, we’ll meditate and then discuss a text called the “Dhammapada.”

Photocopies will be available.

Jan. 8- Mind training

Jan. 15- Mistakes to avoid

Jan. 22- The goal

Jan. 29- Good and bad

 

Dharma talks are Tuesdays from 4-530pm. Meditation instruction is offered. By donation.

New year

 

For this Tuesday’s dharma talk the topic will be: resolutions, resolution, and discipline. We’ll look at all the various meanings associated with those terms. What does it mean to be disciplined, or “have a discipline”? Why is it sometimes so frustrating? Does it make sense to make New Year’s resolutions? How do you resolve to do things, and what kind of guide do we use when we make these decisions?

 

“Do not consider the faults of others

or what they have or haven’t done.

Consider rather what you yourself have or haven’t done.”

– The Dhammapada

 

 

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Xmas eve

christmas 2007 (Photo credit: paparutzi)

Come chant Buddhist texts at the barn on Christmas eve.

It’s a nice way to celebrate this time, enjoy the company of others, and relax. Chant is also a good way to familiarize yourself with the teachings, practice your breathing, and rouse your energy.

It will be on Monday the 24th, from 5-6 pm. There will be no dharma talk this week, but we’ll start up again next week.

This will be by donation, pay what you can. All profits for this event will be donated to a charity in Boston.

(Note: this is not a performance. Come and chant! Don’t come just to listen.)

 

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To actually know yourself is to be the buddha

Méditation d’automne…!!! (Photo credit: Denis Collette…!!!)

 

Oh my guru,

who exemplifies view, meditation, and action,

please grant your blessings

and let me achieve absorption in the realm of the nature of mind.

 

As far as view, meditation, action, and accomplishment,

keep these three points in mind:

all manifestations, even the universe itself is contained in mind.

The nature of mind is the realm of luminosity

beyond thought, beyond form.

Those are the key points of the view.

 

Wandering thoughts are liberated in the dharmakaya.

Awareness,  luminosity is always blissful.

Meditate in the style of nonaction and ease.

These are the key points of practice.

 

The ten virtues naturally grow

within uncontrived actions.

The ten unvirtuous acts are then purified.

Luminous emptiness is never disturbed

by remedies or correct behavior.

These are the key points of action.

 

There is no nirvana to attain.

There is no samsara to renounce.

To actually know yourself is to be the buddha.

These are the key points when it comes to accomplishment.

 

Simplify these three down to one.

This emptiness is the nature of being

which only an excellent guru can illustrate clearly.

You don’t have to do a lot.

If one notices co-emergent wisdom

the goal has been reached.

This talk is a precious jewel

for all practitioners of the dharma.

 

– Jetsun Milarepa

 

Dynamic tranquility: the Buddha in contemplation. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

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Light and darkness in dialog

(from Dcrouchartist.com)

I listen to NPR a lot. I’m a conflicted liberal. I grew up in a liberal household, listening to NPR all the time. I love This American Life, All Things Considered, and Prairie Home Companion is nostalgic. These days I’m a little less liberal and hold NPR in a bit of skepticism as I listen. But I still love listening.

Today when I was making lunch there was a talk show on. The speakers were addressing the recent violence, and in the context of “darkness” and the solstice. Actually, this was a remarkably creative take on things, for this kind of talk show, which tends to be overly factual, overly dry.

At one point, a caller made a point about the solstice, which is today, being a time for quiet contemplation. According to him, and it seems reasonable, this was in many cultures, a time to go into the darkness, to settle down, and contemplate the sadness and pain in one’s life, maybe in general. He made a point of saying that this time of year was not just about hope, or about light. It was about finding the light in the darkness.

This was fascinating.

Here’s what I liked about this: the idea of solstice and winter, even, as a time of contemplation, and the idea of working with darkness (shadow maybe). I liked the emphasis on not jumping to hope, or to light. Not making things artificially positive.

What I didn’t like: the insistence on hope, and light, the assumption of what one would find as the result of contemplation. As an avid reader of Chogyam Trungpa, hope always rings false with me. There are arguments to reconcile VCTR’s hopelessness with hope, but usually when I hear people going off about “hope” it seems a little aggressive and desperate, a little flimsy. Then, the bigger problem is suggesting that one will always find light in the darkness.

You might not. I think insights will always happen, but they might not take the form of light. I also think, and this has been born out by how many Buddhist teachers present the dharma, that you can’t tell someone what kind of insight they’ll have if they reflect. You might find light, or further chaos, or you might discover all sorts of things. Until it’s actual spontaneous insight, it’s not very helpful or useful. It’s someone else’s insight. An encouragement, maybe, but maybe also a way to avoid actually doing it oneself.

Then again, the duality of light and dark. Somehow this also bugs me, as a Buddhist, the duality. Then again, there are ways to make it work.

 

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Compassion and hypocrisy and confusion

Tibetan Hayagriva mask with Padmasambhava mask in background, Modern mask of Tibet Hayagriva deity shot in the Traveler’s window Capital Hill, Seattle, Washington taken on Halloween (Photo credit: Wonderlane)

 

I’d like to write a little about compassion, which was the subject of last week’s discussion, at the barn, and the recent “school shooting” in Connecticut.

 

It was really interesting to see the response to the shooting on Facebook. I heard about it, probably the way a lot of people did, on the radio, as I was driving around. At that point, I was surprised, and some faint feeling of sadness happened too, I think. I noticed too, how the news media was going into a frenzy, and how this was off putting; of course, in this case it was impossible to separate the importance of this story from the need media companies have to portray shocking and sad stories in order to get attention. This was a terrible event. It was also a media frenzy, and the sadness of the killings seems disrespected by the frenzy itself. If only there could have been total silence, for an hour, on all media sources. Something like that seems like it would have been more appropriate.

The idea of appropriateness is really really interesting. Going home, the sadness (and at this point, I still did not feel much, except some surprise, maybe some confusion) was there, and I logged onto Facebook. I do this many times a day. I realize talking about my experience of the event and my emotions could seem very self-centered. I’m doing this in part because I think it’s significant and not entirely personal. So I went on Facebook, and most of the posts were about the killing. Some were just shocked, and some were very angry and outraged. My friends on FB tend to be very liberal, so there was a lot about gun control and “mental health care.” I’m pretty liberal myself, so I don’t completely disagree.

English: Umanori-Bato-kan-non,katori-city,Japan Hayagriva, known as Bato Kannon in Japan 日本語: 馬乗り馬頭観音。千葉県地方で見られる馬に乗った馬頭観音。香取市。 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don’t want this to be about policy issues or liberal/conservative, although that stuff is really important, and part of the picture. What struck me, and at some point, I did start to feel something, not just a faint sadness, something more, as I tried to imagine what it would be like to actually be a part of this first-hand, was the hypocrisy. That is, when you talk to people, or online, most people don’t feel as sad about this kind of death as they think they should be. We have an idea that we should be heartbroken. We don’t know what to say. A lot of times, we write things that make it seem as if we feel more than we do, or are more compassionate than we are.

I feel this way myself. I am part of that hypocrisy too. I think that’s something. If someone is interested in developing some compassion, that involves seeing where we’re numb, where we don’t feel. I think this has a lot to do with that moment of initial confusion- something terrible happened. It didn’t seem right to post pictures of a recent meal, or the kids, or something funny about a TV show. But there was confusion about what to say and what to feel. A lot of people, myself included, said things that made it seem as if our hearts were more open than they really were.

Of course, that’s a shame. It’s a shame our hearts are not more open. It’s a shame we didn’t cry enough. I have not cried. At the same time, we feel self-conscious about that numbness and that hypocrisy, and that’s a good thing. It’s worth remembering over and over. Something sad will happen again, and I think next time, it would be good if my heart was a little less frozen. Seeing that frozenness is a reminder.

These things are happening all the time. I’m also not talking about solutions to violence, or policies.

 

I imagine that if my heart opens more, I’ll experience more of this confusion and sadness, because violence and aggression happen all the time, and that means I’m shutting them out and ignoring them all the time. It’s important, though, in my experience, not to jump ahead to the result. I don’t know what compassion and love will feel like necessarily. To imagine a compassionate result and then get annoyed when my heart and mind don’t measure up is usually a mistake. The difference is between doing the usual, routine thing, and keeping an open heart when awful things take place. I don’t know what a more compassionate mind will look like exactly. I have some idea, but I don’t want to force it either.

I didn’t talk about practical solutions to violence or policy changes in the US yet. Here are a few very general thoughts.

There is probably some connection between seeing our own hypocrisy, and working with the heart, and aggression. Violence is an expression of aggression. There is also a tremendous amount of aggression in the way people talk about policy solutions. Yes, the solutions, like gun control, are very well-intended, but there is something fishy about an aggressive solution to aggression. At the same time, the solutions seem partisan. What is so crazy about finding some creative ideas? What’s so crazy about considering if the “other guys” might be right, at least about one or two ideas? Although political intentions are good much of the time, it’s easy to forget that the debate itself, and the process itself becomes violent in its own way, and this can’t be a good thing.

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You’ll find the way

 

Thikse monastery. This statue of the Maitreya Buddha is about 30 ft tall! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I pay homage to the guru, suffused with grace.

Please grant your blessings.

Please help me, a beggar, to practice.

 

Although you children, members of the current generation,

live in towns infested with negativity,

the dharmic connection remains.

Having heard the Buddha’s teaching

you sought me out-

this will keep you on the path.

By constantly accumulating merit you will get more devoted.

Blessings will enter your being

and the two kinds of realization will grow.

 

But even if you do all of this,

it’s not much help unless you reach full attainment.

I tell you this out of compassion.

Listen closely, my young friends.

When you’re alone,

do not think about the entertainment available back in twon,

or the maras will appear in your mind.

Then inward, and you’ll find the way.

 

When you meditate, apply patience, and hard work.

Contemplate the problematic nature of samsara, and the uncertainty of the time and place of death.

Avoid craving pleasurable things.

Then courage and patience will grow in you.

You’ll find the way.

 

When you request advanced teachings,

don’t long for learning, or to become a scholar.

If you do, desires and common behavior will dominate you.

You’ll throw your life in the trash.

Be humble and modest, and you’ll find your way.

 

When various meditation experiences arise

don’t be proud and excited about telling others,

or you’ll offend the dakinis and mothers.

Meditate evenly and you’ll be on your way.

 

When you’re with your guru

don’t overthink his positive and negative traits,

or you’ll find mountains of faults.

You’ll only find the way through faith and loyalty.

 

When you go to dharma gatherings with your brothers and sisters,

don’t try to be the first

or you’ll stir up anger and desire,

and cause problems for your vows.

Adjust, understand each other

and you’ll find the path.

 

When you beg for alms in town,

do not use the dharma

to deceive or manipulate others,

or you’ll force yourself down a lower path.

Be honest and genuine, and you’ll find the way.

 

Remember, especially, at all times and places:

don’t show off. Don’t be arrogant,

or your confidence will be overwhelming

and you’ll be bloated with hypocrisy.

If you abandon deception and be natural

you’ll be on track.

 

The person who has found the path

can pass on the blessed teachings to others.

Such a person not only benefits others, but himself as well.

Then, generosity is the only thought remaining in his heart.

– Jestun Milarepa

English: Three large statues of the Buddha at Dharma Flower Temple in Huzhou, Zhejiang province. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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