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Post by silver on Jul 16, 2017 0:03:44 GMT -5
This is a pretty long article, from LionsRoar written by Pema Chodron - today, er yesterday the 14th was her birthday.
Turn Your Thinking Upside Down by Pema Chödrön| July 14, 2017
We base our lives on seeking happiness and avoiding suffering, but the best thing we can do for ourselves—and for the planet—is to turn this whole way of thinking upside down. Pema Chödrön shows us Buddhism’s radical side.
On a very basic level all beings think that they should be happy. When life becomes difficult or painful, we feel that something has gone wrong. This wouldn’t be a big problem except for the fact that when we feel something’s gone wrong, we’re willing to do anything to feel OK again. Even start a fight.
According to the Buddhist teachings, difficulty is inevitable in human life. For one thing, we cannot escape the reality of death. But there are also the realities of aging, of illness, of not getting what we want, and of getting what we don’t want. These kinds of difficulties are facts of life. Even if you were the Buddha himself, if you were a fully enlightened person, you would experience death, illness, aging, and sorrow at losing what you love. All of these things would happen to you. If you got burned or cut, it would hurt.
But the Buddhist teachings also say that this is not really what causes us misery in our lives. What causes misery is always trying to get away from the facts of life, always trying to avoid pain and seek happiness—this sense of ours that there could be lasting security and happiness available to us if we could only do the right thing.
Suffering can humble us. Even the most arrogant among us can be softened by the loss of someone dear.
In this very lifetime we can do ourselves and this planet a great favor and turn this very old way of thinking upside down. As Shantideva, author of Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, points out, suffering has a great deal to teach us. If we use the opportunity when it arises, suffering will motivate us to look for answers. Many people, including myself, came to the spiritual path because of deep unhappiness. Suffering can also teach us empathy for others who are in the same boat. Furthermore, suffering can humble us. Even the most arrogant among us can be softened by the loss of someone dear.
Yet it is so basic in us to feel that things should go well for us, and that if we start to feel depressed, lonely, or inadequate, there’s been some kind of mistake or we’ve lost it. In reality, when you feel depressed, lonely, betrayed, or any unwanted feelings, this is an important moment on the spiritual path. This is where real transformation can take place.
As long as we’re caught up in always looking for certainty and happiness, rather than honoring the taste and smell and quality of exactly what is happening, as long as we’re always running away from discomfort, we’re going to be caught in a cycle of unhappiness and disappointment, and we will feel weaker and weaker. This way of seeing helps us to develop inner strength.
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Post by silver on Jul 16, 2017 0:07:22 GMT -5
continuation
And what’s especially encouraging is the view that inner strength is available to us at just the moment when we think we’ve hit the bottom, when things are at their worst. Instead of asking ourselves, “How can I find security and happiness?” we could ask ourselves, “Can I touch the center of my pain? Can I sit with suffering, both yours and mine, without trying to make it go away? Can I stay present to the ache of loss or disgrace—disappointment in all its many forms—and let it open me?” This is the trick.
There are various ways to view what happens when we feel threatened. In times of distress—of rage, of frustration, of failure—we can look at how we get hooked and how shenpa escalates. The usual translation of shenpa is “attachment,” but this doesn’t adequately express the full meaning. I think of shenpa as “getting hooked.” Another definition, used by Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, is the “charge”—the charge behind our thoughts and words and actions, the charge behind “like” and “don’t like.”
It can also be helpful to shift our focus and look at how we put up barriers. In these moments we can observe how we withdraw and become self-absorbed. We become dry, sour, afraid; we crumble, or harden out of fear that more pain is coming. In some old familiar way, we automatically erect a protective shield and our self-centeredness intensifies.
We can become intimate with just how we hide out, doze off, freeze up. And that intimacy, coming to know these barriers so well, is what begins to dismantle them.
But this is the very same moment when we could do something different. Right on the spot, through practice, we can get very familiar with the barriers that we put up around our hearts and around our whole being. We can become intimate with just how we hide out, doze off, freeze up. And that intimacy, coming to know these barriers so well, is what begins to dismantle them. Amazingly, when we give them our full attention they start to fall apart.
Ultimately all the practices I have mentioned are simply ways we can go about dissolving these barriers. Whether it’s learning to be present through sitting meditation, acknowledging shenpa, or practicing patience, these are methods for dissolving the protective walls that we automatically put up.
When we’re putting up the barriers and the sense of “me” as separate from “you” gets stronger, right there in the midst of difficulty and pain, the whole thing could turn around simply by not erecting barriers; simply by staying open to the difficulty, to the feelings that you’re going through; simply by not talking to ourselves about what’s happening. That is a revolutionary step. Becoming intimate with pain is the key to changing at the core of our being—staying open to everything we experience, letting the sharpness of difficult times pierce us to the heart, letting these times open us, humble us, and make us wiser and more brave.
Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away.
If we’re ready to try staying present with our pain, one of the greatest supports we could ever find is to cultivate the warmth and simplicity of bodhichitta. The word bodhichitta has many translations, but probably the most common one is “awakened heart.” The word refers to a longing to wake up from ignorance and delusion in order to help others do the same. Putting our personal awakening in a larger—even planetary—framework makes a significant difference. It gives us a vaster perspective on why we would do this often difficult work.
There are two kinds of bodhichitta: relative and absolute. Relative bodhichitta includes compassion and maitri. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche translated maitri as “unconditional friendliness with oneself.” This unconditional friendliness means having an unbiased relationship with all the parts of your being. So, in the context of working with pain, this means making an intimate, compassionate heart-relationship with all those parts of ourselves we generally don’t want to touch.
Some people find the teachings I offer helpful because I encourage them to be kind to themselves, but this does not mean pampering our neurosis. The kindness that I learned from my teachers, and that I wish so much to convey to other people, is kindness toward all qualities of our being. The qualities that are the toughest to be kind to are the painful parts, where we feel ashamed, as if we don’t belong, as if we’ve just blown it, when things are falling apart for us. Maitri means sticking with ourselves when we don’t have anything, when we feel like a loser. And it becomes the basis for extending the same unconditional friendliness to others.
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Post by silver on Jul 16, 2017 0:08:55 GMT -5
continuation
If there are whole parts of yourself that you are always running from, that you even feel justified in running from, then you’re going to run from anything that brings you into contact with your feelings of insecurity.
I’m here to tell you that the path to peace is right there, when you want to get away.
And have you noticed how often these parts of ourselves get touched? The closer you get to a situation or a person, the more these feelings arise. Often when you’re in a relationship it starts off great, but when it gets intimate and begins to bring out your neurosis, you just want to get out of there.
So I’m here to tell you that the path to peace is right there, when you want to get away. You can cruise through life not letting anything touch you, but if you really want to live fully, if you want to enter into life, enter into genuine relationships with other people, with animals, with the world situation, you’re definitely going to have the experience of feeling provoked, of getting hooked, of shenpa. You’re not just going to feel bliss. The message is that when those feelings emerge, this is not a failure. This is the chance to cultivate maitri, unconditional friendliness toward your perfect and imperfect self.
Relative bodhichitta also includes awakening compassion. One of the meanings of compassion is “suffering with,” being willing to suffer with other people. This means that to the degree you can work with the wholeness of your being—your prejudices, your feelings of failure, your self-pity, your depression, your rage, your addictions—the more you will connect with other people out of that wholeness. And it will be a relationship between equals. You’ll be able to feel the pain of other people as your own pain. And you’ll be able to feel your own pain and know that it’s shared by millions.
Absolute bodhichitta, also known as shunyata, is the open dimension of our being, the completely wide-open heart and mind. Without labels of “you” and “me,” “enemy” and “friend,” absolute bodhichitta is always here. Cultivating absolute bodhichitta means having a relationship with the world that is nonconceptual, that is unprejudiced, having a direct, unedited relationship with reality.
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Post by silver on Jul 16, 2017 0:10:40 GMT -5
continued/last page
That’s the value of sitting meditation practice. You train in coming back to the unadorned present moment again and again. Whatever thoughts arise in your mind, you regard them with equanimity and you learn to let them dissolve. There is no rejection of the thoughts and emotions that come up; rather, we begin to realize that thoughts and emotions are not as solid as we always take them to be.
It takes bravery to train in unconditional friendliness, it takes bravery to train in “suffering with,” it takes bravery to stay with pain when it arises and not run or erect barriers. It takes bravery to not bite the hook and get swept away. But as we do, the absolute bodhichitta realization, the experience of how open and unfettered our minds really are, begins to dawn on us. As a result of becoming more comfortable with the ups and the downs of our ordinary human life, this realization grows stronger.
We may still get betrayed, may still be hated. We may still feel confused and sad. What we won’t do is bite the hook.
We start with taking a close look at our predictable tendency to get hooked, to separate ourselves, to withdraw into ourselves and put up walls. As we become intimate with these tendencies, they gradually become more transparent, and we see that there’s actually space, there is unlimited, accommodating space. This does not mean that then you live in lasting happiness and comfort. That spaciousness includes pain.
We may still get betrayed, may still be hated. We may still feel confused and sad. What we won’t do is bite the hook. Pleasant happens. Unpleasant happens. Neutral happens. What we gradually learn is to not move away from being fully present. We need to train at this very basic level because of the widespread suffering in the world. If we aren’t training inch by inch, one moment at a time, in overcoming our fear of pain, then we’ll be very limited in how much we can help. We’ll be limited in helping ourselves, and limited in helping anybody else. So let’s start with ourselves, just as we are, here and now.
Excerpted from “Practicing Peace in Times of War,” by Pema Chödrön. © 2006 Pema Chödrön. Reprinted with permission of Shambhala Publications.
About Pema Chödrön
With her powerful teachings, bestselling books, and retreats attended by thousands, Pema Chödrön is today’s most popular American-born teacher of Buddhism. In The Wisdom of No Escape, The Places that Scare You, and other important books, she has helped us discover how difficulty and uncertainty can be opportunities for awakening. She serves as resident teacher at Gampo Abbey Monastery in Nova Scotia and is a student of Dzigar Kongtrul, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, and the late Chögyam Trungpa. For more, visit pemachodronfoundation.org.
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Post by silver on Aug 1, 2017 14:58:31 GMT -5
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Our Teachers Are Not Gods
by Rob Preece| July 20, 2017
Longtime practitioner and psychotherapist Rob Preece says even though as students we may be devoted to our teachers, we can’t afford to idealize them anymore.
In 1973, I found myself seated before a colorful brocaded throne in a meditation hall in a small Tibetan Buddhist monastery near Kathmandu, Nepal. I was among a large group of young Westerners waiting with some excitement for a Tibetan lama to enter. The atmosphere was electric with anticipation. After a few minutes there was a whisper: “Lama’s here.” We all stood up, and most people bowed respectfully as a relatively young man entered the room, made prostrations, and rose to the throne. When he began to speak, I found myself immediately enthralled by his presence and playful humor. This man was to become an essential focus of my spiritual life from that point onward. He became my guru.
Like many Westerners at the time, I was somewhat lost spiritually and very wounded emotionally. I would have given almost anything to find someone to guide me and give me a sense of meaning and direction. I believed and trusted that this Tibetan lama would do so. I also really wanted to be seen, so that I might have a sense of affirmation about my value and my nature. Part of this relationship to my guru was therefore a huge emotional investment. I became devoted in a way that was akin to falling in love and had a very idealistic view of how special he was. I recall sitting with other students, talking in a kind of romantic haze about all the qualities we felt he embodied.
When I apply a Jungian psychological view to this relationship, I can see that at its heart was a massive projection. That isn’t to say the lama was not extraordinary, but that extraordinariness was the hook for my projection. Jung saw that what we are unconscious of in ourselves, we tend to project onto someone else. In the case of someone who becomes our guru, we project an image of our “higher Self” onto a person who can act as a carrier of that unconscious quality. When this begins to happen, it is as though we become enthralled or beguiled by this projection. In the case of the projection of the Self onto a teacher, we give away something very powerful in our nature and will then often surrender our own volition in order to be guided.
More problematic in this experience was that, like many of my peers, what I had projected was not just the “inner guru”; I had also imbued him with a quality of the ideal parent I dearly needed. In doing so, I gave away other significant aspects of my power: my own volition and my own authority and discriminating wisdom.
Looking back, I can see that I had a lot of growing up to do. My desire to idealize the external teacher was actually supported by teachings I received on guru devotion, which said explicitly that we should try to see the guru as the Buddha and that he (or occasionally she) was essentially perfect. My idealism not only blinded me to my teacher’s human fallibility but was also reinforced by the teachings. I was even given the message that to see flaws in the guru, or to criticize him, would lead to dreadful suffering. In retrospect, I see how I was tied into a belief system that acted as a powerful snare using very skillful rationale.
The danger with indiscriminate idealized devotion to the teacher is that we are trusting that he or she will hold a place of complete integrity and will have no personal agendas. I feel fortunate that with most of my own teachers, this has actually been the case. But what happens when we start to discover that the teacher is human, with issues, flaws, and needs? Do we just dismiss this as our own delusion or his crazy wisdom, since he is after all Buddha?
In the forty years that I have been involved in the Buddhist world, it has become very clear that while there are some extraordinary teachers with great integrity, they are seldom if ever flawless. They may have extraordinary depths of insight, but they also make mistakes and sometimes behave badly. As a psychotherapist, I would go further and even suggest that a few of them actually have significant psychological problems. It is possible for a teacher to have deep insights but also struggle with the stability of their personal identity in the world. The exalted, almost divine status of certain teachers such as incarnate lamas, and the way they’re brought up, can cause them to become self-centered or narcissistic. Occasionally this can lead to bullying and even cruel and abusive behavior with students. It does not then serve any of us to simply ignore this behavior or to go into a kind of naive denial that says, “It is my obscuration; the teacher is perfect.”
This dynamic can lead to a kind of masochistic intoxication with a teacher’s abusive behavior, with the devotee justifying it as something that is all part of his or her path. I am sometimes shocked when I hear students describe how the critical, bullying way in which they are treated is a necessary part of the destruction of the ego. So often this reflects the narcissism of the teacher rather than some kind of enlightened skillful means.
The Dalai Lama wrote in his book The Path to Enlightenment:
The problem with the practice of seeing everything the guru does as perfect is that it very easily turns to poison for both the guru and the disciple. Therefore, whenever I teach this practice, I always advocate that the tradition of “every action seen as perfect” not be stressed. Should the guru manifest un-dharmic qualities or give teachings contradicting dharma, the instruction on seeing the spiritual master as perfect must give way to reason and dharma wisdom. I could think to myself, “They all see me as a Buddha, and therefore will accept anything I tell them.” Too much faith and imputed purity of perception can quite easily turn things rotten.
Sadly, unquestioning devotion toward teachers has indeed sometimes turned things rotten. While we can hope the majority of Eastern and Western teachers are genuine in their integrity, there are a few who do not behave skillfully, and their students are extremely vulnerable to being abused and taken advantage of. It is therefore necessary for us to wake up and not be beguiled by charismatic teachers and our own need to idealize. In our devotion to a teacher we can have a strong sense of respect, appreciation, and indeed love, but not in a way that blinds us to their human fallibility. We need to retain our sense of discernment that recognizes and faces when things are not acceptable or beneficial. If this means a level of disillusionment, then so be it. At least we will end up with a more realistic and genuine relationship. To quote the Dalai Lama again, “Too much deference actually spoils the guru.”
Possibly the most critical issue that arises in relationship to the teacher is the potential loss of appropriate boundaries. For a relationship between a teacher and student to be healthy psychologically and emotionally, ethical boundaries must be clear. I have seen in my work as a therapist and mentor that students who have encountered a teacher’s confused or loose boundaries suffer greatly. And because there is a taboo against criticizing the teacher, students may then find they have no one within their community to speak to about it. They may also find that their community does not really want to know. In the end, the very heart of the student’s spirituality has been betrayed.
Our teachers need to hold clear boundaries around their emotional and physical behavior so that it does not become harmful to students. In some case, Eastern teachers may not fully understand what this means in the West. Boundaries were often implicit in the world in which they lived, be it the monastery or Thai, Japanese, or Tibetan culture. Once they move to the West, having clear boundaries is totally dependent upon their own integrity. Sadly, this integrity is sometimes lacking, and teachers—both Eastern and Western—can become a kind of law unto themselves, creating their own culture with boundaries that are arbitrary or absent. This culture can become like a dysfunctional family; a teacher becomes an all-powerful parent whose needs and wishes are paramount.
Who then can provide the safe and trusting environment within which students can practice and grow?
Over the years, it has been a privilege to be taught by some extraordinary Tibetan lamas and to practice what they have given me. They have been the holders of one of the most profound paths to wisdom that has ever existed. They have brought this to the West in the hope that we may benefit from their knowledge and find our own experience. However, I have also come to recognize that we must begin to grow up and take more responsibility for our role in the integration of Buddhism in the West. This includes taking more responsibility in our relationship to our teachers.
We may put our trust in teachers and express our devotion, but if things go wrong, then it is for us as students to take responsibility for how we respond. If our teachers make mistakes, it is up to us to address and even challenge them when necessary. If teachers do not maintain appropriate boundaries in their relationship to students, then it is for students to hold the ethical ground when teachers do not.
Our teachers need us as much as we need them. They need us to be honest, straight, and real with them, not blinded by a haze of deferential idealism. They can then be real people with their own challenges and difficulties but also with a great deal of wisdom to offer. If we can skillfully navigate this, then the Buddhist traditions have a chance to flourish in the West with integrity. We can offer respect and even devotion to our teachers but with a real capacity for discernment and personal responsibility.
About Rob Preece
Rob Preece is a psychotherapist and meditation teacher living in England. He is the author of The Wisdom of Imperfection (Snow Lion) and Feeling Wisdom (Shambhala).
Above article from Lion's Roar
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Post by silver on Aug 1, 2017 19:10:44 GMT -5
ooooooooooooo
Don’t Wait to Be Happy!
by Jack Kornfield| August 1, 2017
A heartfelt message to us all, from Jack Kornfield. As published in the July 2017 Lion’s Roar magazine, which also includes “Be Free Now,” an all-new interview with Jack.
Dear friends, after more than forty years teaching mindfulness and compassion to thousands on the spiritual path, the most important message I can offer is this: You don’t have to wait to be free. You don’t need to postpone being happy.
All too often these beautiful spiritual practices of mindfulness and compassion become entwined with a vision of self-discipline and duty. We see them as taking us through a long road of obstacles that leads eventually to distant benefits.
Freedom is not reserved for exceptional people. No one can imprison your spirit.
Yes, there is hard work of the heart and there are demanding cycles in our lives. Yet wherever you are on your journey, there is another wonderful truth called “living the fruit” or “starting with the result.” The fruits of well-being and the experience of joy, freedom, and love are available now, whatever your circumstance!
When Nelson Mandela walked out of Robben Island prison after twenty-seven years of incarceration, he did so with such dignity, magnanimity, and forgiveness that his spirit transformed South Africa and inspired the world. Like Mandela, you can be free and dignified wherever you find yourself. However difficult your circumstances, however uncertain the times, remember, freedom is not reserved for exceptional people. No one can imprison your spirit.
When your boss calls and you feel fear or anxiety, when someone in your family is in conflict or duress, when you feel overwhelmed by the growing problems of the world, you have choices. You can be bound and constricted or you can use this difficulty to open and discover how to respond wisely in this unfolding journey.
Sometimes life gives us ease, sometimes it is challenging, and sometimes it is profoundly painful. Sometimes the whole society around you is in upheaval. Whatever your circumstances, you can take a breath, soften your gaze, and remember that courage and freedom are within, waiting to awaken and to offer to others.
Even under the direst conditions, freedom of spirit is available. Freedom of spirit is mysterious, magnificent, and simple. We are free and able to love in this life—no matter what.
Deep down we know this is true. We know it whenever we feel a part of something greater—listening to music, making love, walking in the mountains or swimming in the sea, sitting at the mystery of a dying loved one as her spirit leaves her body silently as a falling star, or witnessing the miraculous birth of a child. At times like these, a joyful openness swells through our body and our heart is surrounded by peace.
Freedom starts where we are. Sara, a single mom with two kids, found out that her eight-year-old daughter, Alicia, had leukemia. Sara was terrified, anxious, grieving the loss of her child’s health, scared that she would lose her.
For the first year, Alicia went through long rounds of chemotherapy, hospital stays, and doctors. A fearful sadness filled the house and anxiety colored Sara’s days. Then, one afternoon when they were out on a walk, Alicia said, “Mama, I don’t know how long I’m going to live, but I want them to be happy days.”
Her words were a splash of cold water on her mother’s face. Sara realized that she had to step out of the fearful melodrama to meet her daughter’s freedom of mind with her own, to return to a trusting spirit. Sara grabbed her daughter and did a little waltz, holding her tight. Her fear dissipated. And in time, Alicia healed. She is now twenty-two and just graduated from college.
But even if she hadn’t healed, what kind of days would you have had her choose? You can’t do much with your life if you’re miserable. You might as well be happy.
When I was eight years old, on an especially bitter windy winter day, my brothers and I dressed in jackets and scarves and gloves and went out to play in the snow. I was skinny as a rail and shivering with cold. My twin brother, Irv, stronger, wilder, and more robust, looked at me, contracted and fearful, and laughed. Then he began to remove layers of clothing—first the gloves, his coat, then a sweater, his shirt, undershirt, all the while laughing. He danced and paraded around half-naked in the snow, the icy wind whipping around us. We were all wide-eyed, laughing hysterically.
Finding freedom is an active process that engages your intellect, your heart, and your whole spirit.
In that moment, my brother taught me about choosing freedom, manifesting a spirit that to this day I still remember. Whether we’re in a wildly blowing snowstorm or feeling the cold wind of loss, blame, or our collective insecurity, we want to be free. We want to be released from fear and worry, not confined by judgments. We can. We can learn to trust love, express ourselves, and be happy.
As we discover trust and freedom in ourselves, we will then find our way to share them with the world. Barbara Wiedner, who founded Grandmothers for Peace, explains, “I began to question the kind of a world I am leaving for my grandchildren. So I got a sign, ‘A Grandmother for Peace,’ and stood on a street corner. Then I joined others kneeling as a human barrier at a munitions factory. I was taken to prison, strip-searched, and thrown into a cell. Something happened to me. I realized they couldn’t do anything more. I was free!” Now Barbara and her organization, Grandmothers for Peace, works in dozens of countries around the world.
This freedom is here for you as well. You can begin personally, with freedom of spirit, freedom to start over, freedom beyond fear, and freedom to be yourself, and then discover freedom to love, freedom to stand up for what matters, and freedom to be happy. Finding freedom is an active process that engages your intellect, your heart, and your whole spirit. The means and the goal are one—be yourself, dream, trust, and act.
You can choose your spirit. Freedom, love, and joy are yours, in your very life, your exact circumstance. They are your birthright.
From No Time Like the Present: Finding Freedom and Joy Right Where You Are, by Jack Kornfield, PhD. Reprinted by permission of Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
About Jack Kornfield
Jack Kornfield is a founding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock Center and one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. He is a former Buddhist monk, a clinical psychologist, and a husband and father.
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Post by silver on Aug 9, 2017 21:56:28 GMT -5
On another forum, a question was asked about what kind of (Buddhist) practice(s) do you do. One answer was in response to another's (who said he 'breathes in and out...') to which the reply was like, 'I only do half as much as so-and-so. Only breath out. The in breath takes care of itself ... Hoping to make 50% more progress.
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Post by maxdprophet on Aug 11, 2017 9:27:44 GMT -5
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Post by silver on Aug 27, 2017 13:56:20 GMT -5
Time to share - an article from LionsRoar
Answering the Call to Awaken by Spring Washam| August 25, 2017
Like the Buddha, we all get our call to wake up. It often comes when life isn’t working and we may have to go a little crazy. Here’s how Buddhist teacher Spring Washam answered her call.
My birth was not a celebrated and magical event. My parents’ relationship had always been rocky and, sadly, it completely unraveled during my mother’s pregnancy with me.
We lived in Bellflower, California, a low-income neighborhood between Long Beach and Compton, in a large concrete apartment building surrounded by chaos. Gangs were commonplace and I became used to the sounds of gunshots, sirens, and police helicopters.
Even as a small child I felt a lot of love and compassion for my parents, and I recognized early on that they were themselves survivors. My father left soon after I was born and my mother worked as much as she could for us. With state aid and food stamps, we just got by.
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Post by silver on Aug 27, 2017 13:57:45 GMT -5
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I wasn’t allowed to play outside very often, so my earliest memories are of my sister and me jumping up and down on an old green sofa in our tiny living room. I can remember thinking at an early age, “Wow, this is going to be a very difficult life.” I understood even as a child that I was going to have to bloom in very muddy waters.
About 2,600 years ago, an Indian prince named Siddhartha was born amid many favorable signs. His father, the king, was determined to protect him against the reality of suffering, and the prince grew up within the walls of the palace with every luxury one can imagine.
Around the age of twenty-nine, Siddhartha began to feel dissatisfied with his princely life and deep feelings of unhappiness began to grow. He longed to explore the world and convinced his reluctant father to let him leave the palace on an outing. This gave the gods and spirits the opportunity to arrange a series of signs that would help Siddhartha wake up and see the truth of life. These signs have become known as the four heavenly messengers, and they changed the course of his life.
The first messenger that he encountered was a very old man, covered in wrinkles, bent over, and barely able to walk down the road. His father had only allowed young and beautiful servants in the palace, so this was an unfamiliar sight. Siddhartha now realized that his youth would someday end and he too would grow old.
The second heavenly messenger the prince encountered was a very sick man. He was covered in bloody sores, lying in pain on the floor of a mud hut. Because his father had forbidden sick people from entering the palace, the prince had no experience of illness and disease. Now he realized that he and all others would eventually become sick, and his heart was filled with compassion.
The third heavenly messenger was a large funeral procession. A corpse, wrapped in cloth, was being carried to the charnel grounds to be cremated. Siddhartha stayed at the charnel grounds for hours watching the body slowly burn and disappear, and he realized that death awaits us all.
As Siddhartha continued traveling along the road, he saw the final messenger: a radiant monk dressed in very simple robes, carrying a small bag and a bowl. The sight of this peaceful monk awakened the deepest yearning Siddhartha had ever known. Following the call to awaken of these four heavenly messengers, he rode his horse to edge of a beautiful forest and, on the banks of a river, ordained himself.
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Post by silver on Aug 27, 2017 14:00:23 GMT -5
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If we really listen, we can hear that life is trying to get our attention as well and wake us up. This call to wake up happens when our lives are no longer satisfying, when we have lost interest in all the things that once made us so happy.
The call speaks to us in questions: Who am I? What is my purpose? What am I doing with my life? This internal dialogue can be frightening, even overwhelming. As we look for answers, we are forced to question the very foundation of everything that we hold on to—our relationships, religious views, politics, career choices, and even our social status.
As this process of self-discovery moves toward greater understanding, a radical shift starts to happen. Sometimes our inner questioning takes us to exotic environments or new communities. We may be drawn to things that are unfamiliar, taboo, or even dangerous. In our attempts to discover our deepest truth, we may begin dancing, singing, exploring our sexuality, or following a new spiritual path.
This process is often misunderstood in our culture. It is labeled a midlife crisis, Saturn’s Return, or even a nervous breakdown. The powerful call to awaken can be shocking and confusing to people who are accustomed to seeing us behave in our old predictable ways. It may seem that we have gone temporarily crazy—and we may feel crazy at times. This is when we must be willing to take a leap of faith—to trust our inner voice and overcome doubt. To trust what is emerging and bow to the wisdom of the ancestors.
During these times of awakening, things appear in our lives to sustain us. When we say yes to the call to wake up, the people, situations, and opportunities we need to move forward present themselves naturally and at the perfect moment. We might find refuge in a spiritual teacher or set of teachings. We may be guided to go on a vision quest or visit holy sites that hold power and meaning for us. We may have visions, dreams, or even experiences of non-ordinary states of consciousness. All of these can signal that something important is happening.
In 1997, I had a complete emotional breakdown. I didn’t realize at the time that it was part of the call to awaken.
It started with a book left accidentally on my dining room table by a family member. It was a beautiful book about the path of meditation written by a Hindu teacher. It reminded me of my life purpose and awoke my passion to live a spiritually based life.
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Post by silver on Aug 27, 2017 14:04:37 GMT -5
page 4
A few months later I moved in with my new boyfriend, even though we’d only known each other for a short time. We lived in a tiny, rundown house in the worst neighborhood in East Oakland. It was definitely “the hood,” and everyone seemed to be in a bad mood. Even our dog was grumpy all the time.
We had a pretty bad relationship and argued constantly over everything. To make matters worse, we both had telemarketing jobs aggressively talking people into buying expensive timeshares they didn’t need and often couldn’t afford. I had got myself thousands of dollars in debt and was being hounded by creditors night and day.
I became very depressed and angry about the weird direction my life had taken. I was living with a man who made me absolutely miserable and every day I went to a job that I hated. My emotions were becoming more and more erratic. I couldn’t seem to stop crying and I was overwhelmed by anxiety and a sense of desperation. I began to smoke a lot of marijuana to numb the pain, but drugs and alcohol were only a temporary solution.
Then one day it happened—everything started falling apart. I was fired from my job for calling in sick. I decided to end my tortured relationship and my car was about to be repossessed. I lay on the couch eating cookies, praying to God for help, and crying for a week straight.
Miraculously, I heard about a ten-day Buddhist meditation retreat starting in a few days. It was way out in the desert in Southern California. This was it! It was the break I’d been waiting for and it couldn’t have come at a better moment, because I was truly desperate. I had been practicing on my own for over a year, and I knew I needed to learn how to meditate properly. I was so excited by the idea of ten days of silence, healthy food, and meditation instruction that I was willing to do anything to get there. I somehow got the money together and registered.
On the day the retreat was to start, I made the nine-hour drive to Southern California, crying hysterically, chain-smoking cigarettes, and drinking diet Mountain Dew. I had all of my belongings in my car, my last twenty-five dollars in cash, and nowhere to go when the retreat was over. I didn’t care, because I somehow knew that if I could just get to the retreat, everything would make sense.
Looking back now, I see that what I went through during those ten days in the desert was a genuine awakening experience. I spent hours in sitting meditation, and my screaming, tormented mind finally became silent and peaceful. Doing walking meditation in the desert, I let go of oceans of tears with each step. For the first time, I encountered the teachings of the Buddha and immediately knew I had found my path. I met my teacher, Jack Kornfield, whose loving encouragement and steadfast belief in me have helped me transform my life. The last day of the retreat, I hiked way out into the desert and on top of a small hill, I prayed. I took a vow to follow these teachings until the very end. I had answered my call to awaken.
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Post by silver on Sept 2, 2017 21:59:54 GMT -5
couldn't find the Cartoons thread, so...
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Post by silver on Sept 3, 2017 12:48:37 GMT -5
A nice article by Jack Kornfield.....
Develop a Mind Like Sky
by Jack Kornfield
Meditation teacher Jack Kornfield explains the why and how of developing wise attention, or open awareness. (You’ll also find this piece inside the July 2017 Lion’s Roar magazine, alongside “Be Free Now,” a new interview with Jack Kornfield, and “Don’t Wait to Be Happy,” a heartfelt message from Jack to us all.)
Meditation comes alive through a growing capacity to release our habitual entanglement in the stories and plans, conflicts and worries that make up the small sense of self, and to rest in awareness. In meditation we do this simply by acknowledging the moment-to-moment changing conditions—the pleasure and pain, the praise and blame, the litany of ideas and expectations that arise. Without identifying with them, we can rest in the awareness itself, beyond conditions, and experience what my teacher Ajahn Chah called jai pongsai, our natural lightness of heart. Developing this capacity to rest in awareness nourishes samadhi (concentration), which stabilizes and clarifies the mind, and prajna (wisdom), that sees things as they are.
We can employ this awareness or wise attention from the very start. When we first sit down to meditate, the best strategy is to simply notice whatever state of our body and mind is present. To establish the foundation of mindfulness, the Buddha instructs his followers “to observe whether the body and mind are distracted or steady, angry or peaceful, excited or worried, contracted or released, bound or free.” Observing what is so, we can take a few deep breaths and relax, making space for whatever situation we find.
We sense ourself being born and dying with each breath, each experience.
From this ground of acceptance we can learn to use the transformative power of attention in a flexible and malleable way. Wise attention—mindfulness—can function like a zoom lens. Often it is most helpful to steady our practice with close-up attention. In this, we bring a careful attention and a very close focus to our breath or a sensation, or to the precise movement of feeling or thought. Over time we can eventually become so absorbed that subject and object disappear. We become the breath, we become the tingling in our foot, we become the sadness or joy. In this we sense ourself being born and dying with each breath, each experience. Entanglement in our ordinary sense of self dissolves; our troubles and fears drop away. Our entire experience of the world shows itself to be impermanent, ungraspable and selfless. Wisdom is born.
But sometimes in meditation such close focus of attention can create an unnecessary sense of tightness and struggle. So we must find a more open way to pay attention. Or perhaps when we are mindfully walking down the street we realize it is not helpful to focus only on our breath or our feet. We will miss the traffic signals, the morning light and the faces of the passersby. So we open the lens of awareness to a middle range. When we do this as we sit, instead of focusing on the breath alone, we can feel the energy of our whole body. As we walk we can feel the rhythm of our whole movement and the circumstances through which we move. From this perspective it is almost as if awareness “sits on our shoulder” and respectfully acknowledges a breath, a pain in our legs, a thought about dinner, a feeling of sadness, a shop window we pass. Here wise attention has a gracious witnessing quality, acknowledging each event—whether boredom or jealousy, plans or excitement, gain or loss, pleasure or pain—with a slight bow. Moment by moment we release the illusion of getting “somewhere” and rest in the timeless present, witnessing with easy awareness all that passes by. As we let go, our innate freedom and wisdom manifest. Nothing to have, nothing to be. Ajahn Chah called this “resting in the One Who Knows.”
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Post by silver on Sept 3, 2017 12:51:08 GMT -5
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Yet at times this middle level of attention does not serve our practice best. We may find ourself caught in the grip of some repetitive thought pattern or painful situation, or lost in great physical or emotional suffering. Perhaps there is chaos and noise around us. We sit and our heart is tight, our body and mind are neither relaxed nor gracious, and even the witnessing can seem tedious, forced, effortful.
Develop a mind that is vast like space, where experiences both pleasant and unpleasant can appear and disappear without conflict, struggle or harm. Rest in a mind like vast sky.
In this circumstance we can open the lens of attention to its widest angle and let our awareness become like space or the sky. As the Buddha instructs in the Majjhima Nikaya, “Develop a mind that is vast like space, where experiences both pleasant and unpleasant can appear and disappear without conflict, struggle or harm. Rest in a mind like vast sky.”
From this broad perspective, when we sit or walk in meditation, we open our attention like space, letting experiences arise without any boundaries, without inside or outside. Instead of the ordinary orientation where our mind is felt to be inside our head, we can let go and experience the mind’s awareness as open, boundless and vast. We allow awareness to experience consciousness that is not entangled in the particular conditions of sight, sound and feelings, but consciousness that is independent of changing conditions—the unconditioned. Ajahn Jumnien, a Thai forest elder, speaks of this form of practice as Maha Vipassana, resting in pure awareness itself, timeless and unborn. For the meditator, this is not an ideal or a distant experience. It is always immediate, ever present, liberating; it becomes the resting place of the wise heart.
Fully absorbed, graciously witnessing, or open and spacious—which of these lenses is the best way to practice awareness? Is there an optimal way to pay attention? The answer is “all of the above.” Awareness is infinitely malleable, and it is important not to fixate on any one form as best. Mistakenly, some traditions teach that losing the self and dissolving into a breath or absorbing into an experience is the optimal form of attention. Other traditions erroneously believe that resting in the widest angle, the open consciousness of space, is the highest teaching. Still others say that the middle ground—an ordinary, free and relaxed awareness of whatever arises here and now, “nothing special”—is the highest attainment. Yet in its true nature awareness cannot be limited. Consciousness itself is both large and small, particular and universal. At different times our practice will require that we embrace all these perspectives.
Every form of genuine awareness is liberating. Each moment we release entanglement and identification is selfless and free. But remember too that every practice of awareness can create a shadow when we mistakenly cling to it. A misuse of space can easily lead us to become spaced-out and unfocused. A misuse of absorption can lead to denial, the ignoring of other experiences, and a misuse of ordinary awareness can create a false sense of “self” as a witness. These shadows are subtle veils of meditative clinging. See them for what they are and let them go. And learn to work with all the lenses of awareness to serve your wise attention.
The more you experience the power of wise attention, the more your trust in the ground of awareness itself will grow. You will learn to relax and let go. In any moment of being caught, awareness will step in, a presence without judging or resisting. Close-in or vast, near or far, awareness illuminates the ungraspable nature of the universe. It returns the heart and mind to its birthright, naturally luminous and free.
To amplify and deepen an understanding of how to practice with awareness as space, the following instructions can be helpful. One of the most accessible ways to open to spacious awareness is through the ear door, listening to the sounds of the universe around us. Because the river of sound comes and goes so naturally, and is so obviously out of our control, listening brings the mind to a naturally balanced state of openness and attention. I learned this particular practice of sound as a gateway to space from my colleague Joseph Goldstein more than 25 years ago and have used it ever since. Awareness of sound in space can be an excellent way to begin practice because it initiates the sitting period with the flavor of wakeful ease and spacious letting go. Or it can be used after a period of focused attention.
Whenever you begin, sit comfortably and at ease. Let your body be at rest and your breathing be natural. Close your eyes. Take several full breaths and let each release gently. Allow yourself to be still.
Now shift awareness away from the breath. Begin to listen to the play of sounds around you. Notice those that are loud and soft, far and near. Just listen. Notice how all sounds arise and vanish, leaving no trace. Listen for a time in a relaxed, open way.
As you listen, let yourself sense or imagine that your mind is not limited to your head. Sense that your mind is expanding to be like the sky-open, clear, vast like space. There is no inside or outside. Let the awareness of your mind extend in every direction like the sky.
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