Sila. Moral Precepts. I Vow to Cherish Life, Not to Kill.


There are as many ways to approach and engage in vow practice as there are beings throughout all time and space. These approaches and practices are seeded by the individual, habitual tendencies of one’s mind stream.

They might be similar to approaching an ocean for the first time. In my youth, I would see the ocean and run full bore to crash into the incoming waves and be tumbled back onto shore.  (Actually I continued to do this until my 50’s when one encounter almost snapped my neck in two.) Some might approach with scientific curiosity; studying the direction of the waves, the quality of the land at the shore and beneath the water, seeing the flotsam etc. and wondering how all these things might affect them when they finally step in to the water. And while there, making acute observations about the effects on the body and how it all works. Some might approach the sea curious about how it will make them feel. Others might approach tentatively, first a toe then a foot and so forth before complete immersion, or as an artist, observing color and line and form and light with an aspiration of expressing it. 

Just as there is not one right way to approach an ocean ( Although some might be more dangerous to the body than others.), there is no right way or wrong way to approach the practice of vows. However one approaches and engages, it seems that is very important to let the practice work on the whole being and then to be deeply curious about the effects of the practice on one’s life experience, thoughts, feelings and the effects on the environment and all the beings that one encounters.

I vow to cherish life, not to kill.

Of the five moral precepts this seems to be the most clear cut. On the surface it appears to be an ocean that is easy to approach and then dive in. If you had the opportunity to listen to the question answer section in Norm Fischer’s talk on sila, you might be more cautious about vowing to cherish life and not to kill. A person questioned why there was yogurt and other dairy products offered at mealtime. He passionately shared that, the general treatment of dairy animals does not uphold cherishing their lives and in some cases they are slaughtered when they can no longer produce milk.

It seems to me to be very important to consider the key terms of this vow; “cherish” and “kill”. 

What does it mean for you to cherish life? What stories show up when you inquire into the experience of cherishing? Are there any rigid concepts? Any doubts? What is the body experience? What emotions are evoked? What do we bring out of our habitual tendencies to the act of cherishing?

What does it mean to kill? My first reaction to this question and one that continues to arise is avoidance. I’d rather focus on the cherish part and dance around the kill part. A clear signal that the inquiry into killing will be fruitful in clearing the path to practice this vow wholeheartedly. There are endless rabbit warrens here and one could become lost in the dark tunnels of trying to determine one’s culpability in all of the killing that goes on in this world. This can be disheartening and damaging to the practice. How might one approach this vow with sincerity and gentleness?

The first thing that the inquiry and practice do is to slow things down. They open space that allows me to really see what the experience is in the present moment and then I can breathe a bit. Instead of an inflexible, absolutist approach, I take a moment to see the causes and conditions that may have led to this killing and the resulting effects. There might be an opportunity to understand how I may have contributed to this killing; out of ignorance, or fear, or survival. Through this momentary pause, I bring consciousness to my actions and then, in the context of the vow, I make a choice from knowledge instead of avoidance, ignorance or naïveté.

For example, I am invited to dinner at a family member’s home. We have not seen each other for a while, due to an incident that caused hard feelings. It is an opportunity to start fresh. I have taken  the vow to cherish life and not to kill, which has led me to practice veganism. My relative has grilled salmon that their spouse (a salmon fisherman) caught, knowing how much I love it. And we are having homemade ice cream for dessert. 

The primary question for me is not how can I keep my vow, but what approach and action will bring the least harm in this moment? For me, I want to reconnect, be grateful for the gifts and honor the work and livelihood of the family and cherish this life that offers the opportunity to heal.

In the moment that I am contemplating this, I will take the time to wish that responsibility for any negative effects or karma that may arise for the family as a result of their actions fall on my shoulders. I would also offer gratitude to the animals that have given their lives for this meal and the opportunity that allows healing for my family and, that the offering of their lives may lead to the freedom from suffering in their future.

This seems like a lot. In reality it only takes a moment. In subsequent meditation practice, I may review and refine the wishes and the vows.

How you came to be reading this, as well as how you arrived at contemplative practice or follow a spiritual lineage is a result of a the infinite causes and conditions of your individual life stream. It is the same with your approach to and practice of vows. There is not one right way and the choices you make today may not be the choices you will make in the next. I think that the only truly common thread that each unique approach and practice of these moral precepts has, is to imbue them with harmlessness.

Perhaps this week, you will have opportunities to approach the vow to cherish life and not to kill. What practice will help you prepare for that so that you are action consciously and harmlessly?
____________________

With these words I pay homage to all buddhas, bodhisattvas, sentient beings, and the totality. May these words not confuse, bring doubt, or harm, but bring ease and warmth and an end to suffering for all being

William

____________________

Practice 

Practicing in sangha, even virtually, supports the practice of meditation differently than practicing solitarily. The members of the Sangha of the Pandemic, invite you to practice with us. No experience is required. There is no cost. Everyone is welcome. 

We practice on ZOOM: Notice weekday morning sit time is changed to 6:30 instead of 6.

  • Mondays – Calm abiding and insight meditation. 6:30 AM Pacific Time
  • Tuesdays – Body awareness. 6:30 AM Pacific Time 
  • Thursdays – Tonglen, 6:30 AM Pacific Time 
  • Sundays – Brahmavihara. 7 AM Pacific Time 

ZOOM Link:   https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789 Please Note. We will be putting the afternoon practices on hold for a bit. We look forward to seeing you in the morning sessions! 

Please feel free to reach out with questions or insights. Please also feel free to forward this post and invite others to join the sangha. You may find more reflections, poetry, art at sanghaofthepandemic.org . If you would like to comment or offer feedback and insight you may do so in the comment section on the website or by email to wrgentner@gmail.com

Sila. Five Moral Precepts. The Vows of Harmlessness

Sometimes when I read the titles to these posts, I feel a bit overwhelmed and even hopeless. 

Moral? What comes to mind is a smirking Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority. He used the concept of morals to divide all beings into right and wrong camps. I still sense echoes of fear, frustration, and loss when I reflect on how many folks turned away from each other because of this divisive approach to morals. 

Precept? I confuse it with percept.

Vow? Ouch! My thought: An eternal knot that, if undone, will cause great suffering. There were times in this life when I thought of “lie” and “vow” as synonyms. Or to take a vow would inevitably lead to breaking it which would cause suffering for all involved.

Harmlessness. Is this even possible? As Norm Fischer shared in a response to a question in his talk about sila1, we harm beings just by walking on the grass, not to mention the harm that is caused as a result of what we consume and what we do to stay alive.

So when these experiences of constriction start to seep in, and I have awareness of them, I take some time to breathe, see what is happening in the body and then remember that this is a practice. The thoughts about these concepts, and reactions that I have to them, are the effects of conscious and unconscious imprints that were probably passed down for generations in a response to fear of loss of life, position, resources or power. These constrictions are not me. These thoughts and feelings are not me. The practice is helping me see that and then, in the clarity of that understanding, I can look at these words and concepts with a fresh, open, and flexible mind. Then ask a simple question. In this time, in this life and in this moment, what would it mean to take a vow of harmlessness? And then see. Poco a poco.

My understanding of the practice of harmlessness and the commitment to this practice, is that harmlessness is the heart of buddhist teachings and most spiritual teachings. All the vows in buddhism are founded in the four noble truths and the understanding that the suffering of greed, aggression and delusion, is the cause of all suffering. The vow practice is dedicating this life and all lives to bringing about  the end to that suffering. These vows are not ways to get something or somewhere. They are not badges of honor or accomplishment. When taking a vow, there is not a knotting to a specific rigid practice. These vows are generative and responsive. They are touchstones, guidelines, prods and reminders, that are resonant in the present moment. The more that they become a part of our everyday lives, the deeper our understanding of suffering and what brings about an end to suffering. Of great importance is to remember that the vow of harmlessness is a practice. We will drop the ball, miss a cue, forget, even reject. There is no punishment or reward for failing or perfection. That would cause harm.

The Vows of Harmlessness:

  • I vow to cherish life, not to kill
  • I vow to accept gifts, not to steal.
  • I vow to respect others, not to misuse sexuality.
  • I vow to practice truthfulness, not to lie.
  • I vow to practice clarity, not to intoxicate the mind or body, of self or others.

So the invitation this week is to take a look at your experience as you read the words and concepts in the post title and especially at The Vows of Harmlessness. See what is already present in your life practices. See if there is resistance or constriction in the body, heart or mind. Where is there spaciousness or openness? What would it be like to commit to a life of harmlessness and if this is already your life practice, how is it working on you and your environment? Celebrate when and where it is effective at bringing an end to suffering and when it seems to cause constriction, inquire into the intent beneath the vow. Overall be gentle and curious. And see. 

____________________

With these words I pay homage to all buddhas, bodhisattvas, sentient beings, and the totality. May these words not confuse, bring doubt, or harm, but bring ease and warmth and an end to suffering for all being

William

____________________

Practice 

Practicing in sangha, even virtually, supports the practice of meditation differently than practicing solitarily. The members of the Sangha of the Pandemic, invite you to practice with us. No experience is required. There is no cost. Everyone is welcome. 

We practice on ZOOM:

Notice weekday morning sit time is changed to 6:30 instead of 6.

  • Mondays – Calm abiding and insight meditation. 6:30 AM Pacific Time
  • Tuesdays – Body awareness. 6:30 AM Pacific Time
  • Thursdays – Tonglen, 6:30 AM Pacific Time
  • Sundays – Brahmavihara. 7 AM Pacific Time 
  • Mondays – Calm abiding and insight meditation. 6 AM Pacific Time
  • Tuesdays – Body awareness. 6 AM Pacific Time Thursdays – Tonglen, 6 AM Pacific Time Sundays – Brahmavihara. 7 AM Pacific Time 

ZOOM Link:   https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789 Please Note. We will be putting the afternoon practices on hold for a bit. We look forward to seeing you in the morning sessions! 

Please feel free to reach out with questions or insights. Please also feel free to forward this post and invite others to join the sangha. You may find more reflections, poetry, art at sanghaofthepandemic.org . If you would like to comment or offer feedback and insight you may do so in the comment section on the website or by email to wrgentner@gmail.com

1 Norm Fischer Roshi “Sila Paramita”. Being a Good Non-Person. (The Six Perfections Part 5)” Upaya Zen Center. Copyright October 2023 URL.https://www.upaya.org/2015/11/norman-kathie-fischer-sila-paramita-six-perfections-part-5/

Sila Paramita The Discipline of Moral Virtue. Easy Going, Serene Conduct

The buddhist practice of sila is an evolution of being that was initiated in that first moment of insight or enlightenment when we realized that there was something more than getting, hanging on to, or defending against things of the world. And with the realization that the first paramita of dana, selfless giving, is just how things work when we let them. There is the experience of delight and freedom for ourselves as well as the receiver in the act of giving without expectation.And we naturally want more of that, not just because it feels good but because we know it is a true expression of goodness.

With the practice of contemplation and goodness we also may begin to notice that we have habitual  ways of being that inhibit dana and the way of kindness, compassion and love and we naturally want to stop those behaviors. The buddha delineated the behaviors that interfere with goodness and suggests to us that seeing these habitual behaviors and what causes them would help us bring an end to them.

This is the practice of sila and the moral precepts of buddhism. They are not laws imposed from upon high, but discoveries that are made when we are generous with our lives and open to relinquishing the barriers of imprints and habits that imprison us. Barriers that also keep us from allowing others to show up in their complete goodness.

The buddhist moral precepts are not laid out as commandments or rigid laws that will make us perfect or holy. They are simply natural ways of being that show up on the path of goodness. Like dana, when we approach life with the intent to practice these precepts, we can experience  more delight  with life and living beings, and consequently we become delightful to others who we share this life with. Sila is like an invisible, silent virus of goodness that has no vaccine to prevent its spread.

Depending on the buddhist lineage there are from 5 – 16 or as I read in one sutra 84,000 (which means innumerable) moral precepts. There are five that are presented that are for those of us who have not renounced livelihoods, or family. In the zen soto tradition there are an additional six that are precursors to these five. When one becomes a renunciate, then one takes on the remaining five (or three in some lineages). For our study of sila we will explore the five that all lineages have in common. I will introduce them from the perspective of the soto zen tradition from Everyday Zen ( https://everydayzen.org/ ) because the emphasis is on the practices that generate goodness and result in the disabling of ways that inhibit goodness. 

The five are:

I vow to cherish life, not to kill

I vow to accept gifts, not to steal.

I vow to respect others, not to misuse sexuality.

I vow to practice truthfulness, not to lie.

I vow to practice clarity, not to intoxicate the mind or body, of self or others.

Roshi Norm Fischer teaches that the practice of sila paramita is:

 “easy going serene conduct, beautiful conduct…actively benefiting others…joyful, expansive effort to be of service.”1

May it be so.

 ____________________

With these words I pay homage to all buddhas, bodhisattvas, sentient beings, and the totality. May these words not confuse, bring doubt, or harm, but bring ease and warmth and an end to suffering for all being

William

____________________

Practice 

Practicing in sangha, even virtually, supports the practice of meditation differently than practicing solitarily. The members of the Sangha of the Pandemic, invite you to practice with us. No experience is required. There is no cost. Everyone is welcome. 

We practice on ZOOM: 

  • Mondays – Calm abiding and insight meditation. 6 AM Pacific Time Tuesdays – Body awareness. 6 AM Pacific Time Thursdays – Tonglen, 6 AM Pacific Time Sundays – Brahmavihara. 7 AM Pacific Time 

ZOOM Link:   https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789 Please Note. We will be putting the afternoon practices on hold for a bit. We look forward to seeing you in the morning sessions! 

Please feel free to reach out with questions or insights. Please also feel free to forward this post and invite others to join the sangha. You may find more reflections, poetry, art at sanghaofthepandemic.org . If you would like to comment or offer feedback and insight you may do so in the comment section on the website or by email to wrgentner@gmail.com

 

 

1 Norm Fischer Roshi “Sila Paramita”. Being a Good Non-Person. (The Six Perfections Part 5)” Upaya Zen Center. Copyright October 2023 URL.https://www.upaya.org/2015/11/norman-kathie-fischer-sila-paramita-six-perfections-part-5/

 

Zila (Sila) Paramita. The Transcendent Perfection of the Discipline of Moral Virtue

Well. that sounds like a huge undertaking!

Before taking on this study, it may be helpful to begin by looking at each of the concepts/words separately. In previous posts ( see: Exploring the Practice of the Six Paramitas )there was the discussion of the terms “paramita”, “transcendent” and “perfection” and all of the resistances that might arise to using those terms. So, they won’t be looked at in this post. Instead the invitation is to inquire into the experiences, thoughts, emotions or bodily reactions that show up when remembering, reading or hearing “Zila”, “Discipline” and “Moral Virtue”.

Zila (Sila)

In an online Sanskrit dictionary ( https://www.learnsanskrit.cc/translate?search=sila&dir=au) Zila has numerous translations: zilA with the emphasis on the ending “A” is translated as rock, door timber, crag. With the emphasis on the “I” some of the translations are plough, virtue, tendency, piety, natural good disposition or acquired way of living or acting, moral precept, beauty, practice, custom, habit, morality, integrity. So perhaps the combination of the two pronunciations could lead to something like combining the strength and stability of rock and timber with the character of the natural good disposition and acquired way of beautiful, moral practice. In short: The Discipline of Moral Virtue. Take some time to either look through the above definitions or refer to the full list on the website and check out what experience is generated in you when you fold all of them together.

Here are some of my reflections. They are not meant to impose any ideas about these concepts but perhaps they can be useful to prime the pump for your own contemplations. There is no wrong idea or even a quest for the right idea. The invitation is to see what is here so that as we study zila paramita there will be some awareness of what is functioning in the background of our contemplations.

Discipline

This is a tough one for me and brings up a host of memories and reactions. Experiences of harsh language, punishment, judgment, self deprecation flood my consciousness and I notice barriers that have been in place for a long time. My emotional reactions are a complex of fear, aversion, defensiveness and rage. The somatic experience is dominated by contractions in several areas. The memories trigger emotions triggering contractions, re-enlivening memories and triggering more emotion. There are more subtle experiences that I am aware of that are related to the discipline that is needed to develop a skill or an approach to engaging in the world. These latter experiences feel like overrides or forceful suppressions of the former reactions. I have spoken with other folks who experience deep joy and satisfaction when contemplating discipline, so be open to whatever arises. Take some time to reflect on the word discipline and how it moves through your being. Allow whatever shows up to be there with an equanimous mind.

Moral

This one is very confusing for me. The concept has become very convoluted because of being raised in an environment that spoke about the values of morality and tried to impose those values on me and my community, but acted in direct opposition to those values. This was especially true with speech, sexuality and intoxicants. The body has nervous, electric/buzzy feeling when I contemplate the word. In spite of the contradictions, I also sense an inner gauge that might be like a moral thermometer that has kept me relatively free from outrageous actions that might have caused significant harm. Take some time to reflect on the word moral and how it moves through your being. Allow whatever shows up to be there with an equanimous mind.

Virtue

The Virgin Mother Mary is always the first thing that shows up in my experience when hearing or thinking about virtue. I experience it as a place to reside or a place to strive for. It is blue and welcoming and tastes warm, honey sweet. The most joyful memories of both of my parents are present in virtue. The best of them shines out and touches the dark places of self doubt and deprecation with tenderness. There is a whisper of anger in the memories of situations when I or others were acting out of integrity. Take some time to reflect on the word virtue and how it moves through your being. Allow whatever shows up to be there with an equanimous mind.

The Discipline of Moral Virtue

Once you have taken the time to look at each concept separately, the invitation is to allow the whole phrase to resound in your experience. And see what is here.

____________________

With these words I pay homage to all buddhas, bodhisattvas, sentient beings, and the totality. May these words not confuse, bring doubt, or harm, but bring ease and warmth and an end to suffering for all being

William

____________________

Practice 

Practicing in sangha, even virtually, supports the practice of meditation differently than practicing solitarily. The members of the Sangha of the Pandemic, invite you to practice with us. No experience is required. There is no cost. Everyone is welcome. 

We practice on ZOOM: 

  • Mondays – Calm abiding and insight meditation. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Tuesdays – Body awareness. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Thursdays – Tonglen, 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Sundays – Brahmavihara. 7 AM Pacific Time 
  • Monday and Thursday. Contemplation and meditation. 4:30 PM Pacific Time 

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789 

Please feel free to reach out with questions or insights. Please also feel free to forward this post and invite others to join the sangha. You may find more reflections, poetry, art at sanghaofthepandemic.org . If you would like to comment or offer feedback and insight you may do so in the comment section on the website or by email to wrgentner@gmail.com

Danaparamita. Fruition

Dana Sutta (From the Pali Canon) – Preached at Jetavana, regarding an offering founded by Velukantaki Nandamata to monks, with Sariputta and Moggallana at their head. 

“Her offering”, says the Buddha, “is complete in six ways – three on the part of the giver and three on that of the recipients. The giver is glad at heart before making the gift, is satisfied while giving, and rejoices after the gift. The recipients are either free from lust, hatred and delusion, or are on the way to such freedom.”1

While studying the Tale of the Tigress (click to read) one will see that the fruition of dana has many aspects.

There is suffering.

The first step on the path of dana is realizing that there is suffering. In the tigress tale we are told that it had not rained for some weeks so that even the earth was suffering from the drought. Then there is the “coughing roars”. This may seem like an obvious step and yet there is a lot of not seeing suffering in these times.

Listening

Listening goes deeper than hearing. Listening is the practice of taking time to discern clearly what is being heard. Hearing often triggers an habitual reaction similar to the disciple’s in the story who insists that they return to safety when he realizes that the coughing roar is from a tiger. The bodhisattva says: 

“Wait a moment. Listen again. Those are not simply the roars of a hungry tiger. They are the roars of a starving one. Let’s go on a bit further and see if there’s anything we might  do to help.”

Once there is an understanding of what is real, beyond what the habitual conditioned reaction tells us, there is an opportunity to respond to an opportunity for dana from open mindedness rather than reactivity.

What is wished for?

Looking down, they saw what was clearly a starving tiger; a tigress, actually, for two         small cubs were trying to nurse from her. But every time they approached, the tigress           roared miserably and drove them away. She was emaciated, just skin and bones, with all    her ribs plainly showing.

Once there is a determination that there is suffering there is the practice of seeing what is wished for. There is a subtle difference between wish and need. Unless one is omniscient, a truly accurate determination of what is needed by someone else may not be possible because it will be colored by one’s own past experience and imprints and may or may not reflect the actual need of the being that is suffering. What is needed changes from event to event even if what is happening appears to be the same. Rather than assuming what is needed, asking what is wished for by listening, seeing, and sometimes trial and error, interferes with the habitual reactivity of selfishness. Similar to when an infant is crying, the nurturing caregiver listens and looks closely, and then tries several methods to soothe until the one that is wished for in that moment is found.

What offering will bring the greatest benefit?

When she looked at her cubs, her eyes narrowed and seem to glaze over. It was clear that   her desperation she had begun to view them, her own children, as prey, as meat.“Quick,”  said the bodhisattva to his student. “Run and see if you can find some food for this.         starving animal. She may be driven to eat her own cubs if she doesn’t have food soon.           The karma arising from that will be terrible.

The dana sutta from the beginning of this post may apply here. One can know benefit in an action by the delight that is experienced by the giver and the receiver. Pure delight is a result of the experience of being interconnected with the totality which allows “The giver to be glad at heart before making the gift, satisfied while giving, and rejoicing after the gift.”

How does this delight, gladness, satisfaction and rejoicing come about in the practice of dana?  

Before

Through the regular practice of meditation and insight into the nature, causes and conditions of our habitual tendencies, there is an understanding that these things are empty of a separate, inherent identity. All of these are dependent on something that came before and have no separate identity as such. From this awareness there arises a deeper understanding that the nature of the body and the identity of self is based on these tendencies. As a result there is the opportunity to see that:

Mind is vast, totally empty, and cannot be found. This body, so much matter, is the.                 crystallization of my own past thoughts and deeds extending back into the endless past.

This understanding reveals a great ease of being, peace of mind and unconditioned joy. And as a result one may experience gladness of heart before making the gift. This is expressed by the bodhisattva when he says: “My deepest wish has ever been to save sentient beings. To fail to act when there is opportunity would only be a cause for regret.” So not only is he glad at heart for being able to have the opportunity to end suffering and fulfilling his deepest desire, he can eliminate the obscuration to delightedness of regret that may come without action.

As Linda Atwater shared in a morning sit this week. (my paraphrase) “The repeated practice of dana is like polishing the gem of the true nature that resides on our heart.” In addition to practicing meditation and insight, practicing dana yields the delight of experiencing our truest nature.

During

One also experiences deep satisfaction and ease in the act of giving. Perhaps you have experienced the satisfaction of diving off a steep cliff or diving board after several attempts thwarted by fear. Or the deep satisfaction of knowing the simple rightness of your action, where there is a complete void all expectation for recompense or acknowledgment. Experiencing this type of satisfaction when practicing dana indicates completeness or purity of the practice.

He removed his robe and hung it on a branch of the tree. Then, like a man preparing to.         simply dive into a lake, he put his hands together and leapt from the cliff.

An essential part of this satisfaction is the act of setting aside one’s identity; who one thinks they are and who other’s think they are, setting aside one’s own needs, expectations, and desires. In the bodhisattva’s case, his robes identify him. Being naked ,stripped of all adornments of identity, the self is set aside. 

After

His dana then is a cause for rejoicing. We are not told about his personal experience after the act, but there is the rejoicing of disciples and gods, by building a jeweled stupa and laying of garlands, precious incense sandalwood powder and perfumes. We are told that this bodhisattva emerged later as Shakyamuni buddha. A cause for great rejoicing!

But what about benefit for the receiver? 

In the Dana Sutta  Buddha says:

The recipients are either free from lust, hatred and delusion, or are on the way to such freedom.”

Clearly the tigress was not free from lust for the meat of her cubs. One might even say, as the bodhisattva understood, that she was experiencing delusion in not knowing the great harm that she would cause for herself as a result of devouring them. One is often confronted with opportunities to practice giving when it may be apparent that the receiver is filled with hatred for self or society, lusting for retribution or in delusion about what the causes and conditions of their suffering are. 

The qualifier “or are on their way to such freedom.” points to how the completeness of dana for the receiver might be understood.

 In the case of this story, the bodhisattva does not allow the tigress to take on the karma of killing him. He kills his own body to prevent that. The body is just meat then and the tigress is free from the karma of killing; freeing her to perhaps see a way to freedom from suffering for herself and her cubs.

 For times when there is an opportunity to offer dana to a being who seems greedy, hateful or delusional, one can remember that all of the totality of beingness is on its way to freedom from greed, hatred and delusion. In human beings the heart of even the most greedy, violent, self absorbed is the newborn child always striving to be in goodness. Then as we grow:

“…we cover our own innate purity and goodness as we encounter a challenging world. As children many of us were criticized, ignored, misunderstood, or abused, leading us to doubt that gold within us. As we grow up, we increasingly internalize the judgments and values of our society, further losing touch with our innocence, our creativity, and our tender hearts. We cover over the gold as we seek the approval of others, looking to them to measure our worth—to determine whether we are good enough, smart enough, successful enough.” Adding layer after layer to protect ourselves, we become identified with our coverings, believing ourselves to be separate, threatened, and deficient. Yet even when we cannot see the gold, the light and love of our true nature cannot be dimmed, tarnished, or erased. It calls to us daily through our longing for connection, our urge to understand reality, our delight in beauty, our natural desire to help others. Our deepest intuition is that there is something beyond our habitual story of a separate and isolated self: something vast, mysterious, and sacred….  Tara Brach2

Understanding this one comes to know, without doubt and with great delight, that no being can be left out of the practice of dana.

What about the loss of benefit for the disciples and anyone who may have had an opportunity to learn from this monk?

Dana is faith in the way things work.

This tale of the starving tigress and the selfless bodhisattva on the path to emergence as buddha has been told innumerable times. His act of dana echoes endlessly in the minds and hearts of not only those who have heard and learned from it but of those who have encountered or have relationships with those hearers. This drop of dana continues giving for as long as there are beings to hear it. 

Every act of dana is a center point for an infinite sphere of goodness that radiates beyond the moment of the act or the one who acts.

Dana is selflessness.

______________________________________________________________

With these words I pay homage to all buddhas, bodhisattvas, sentient beings, and the totality. May these words not confuse, bring doubt, or harm, but bring ease and warmth and an end to suffering for all beings.

William

______________________________________________________________

1Dana Sutta, Wisdom Library: https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/dana-sutta#:~:text=In%20Buddhism,-Theravada%20(major%20branch&text=Dana%20Sutta%20%2D%20Preached%20at%20Jetavana,on%20that%20of%20the%20recipients.

2 Tara Brach, Trusting the Gold: Uncovering Your Natural Goodness (Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2021), 2–3, 5.  via Richard Rohr Daily Meditation: The Hidden Gold. https://email.cac.org/t/d-e-vjyatl-iuyhlujjx-s/

______________________________________________________________

Practice

Practicing in sangha, even virtually, supports the practice of meditation differently than sitting solitarily. The members of the Sangha of the Pandemic, invite you to practice with us. No experience is required. There is no cost. Everyone is welcome. 

We practice on ZOOM: 

  • Mondays – Calm abiding and insight meditation. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Tuesdays – Body awareness. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Thursdays – Tonglen, 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Sundays – Brahmavihara. 7 AM Pacific Time 
  • Monday and Thursday. Contemplation and meditation. 4:30 PM Pacific Time 

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789 

Please feel free to reach out with questions or insights. Please also feel free to forward this post and invite others to join the sangha. You may find more reflections, poetry, art at sanghaofthepandemic.org . If you would like to leave comments or participate in ongoing discussions about a blog, go to the end of the individual post or click on the little green box floating on the page.

Danaparamita. Fruition. The Tigress. A Jataka Tale

Jataka Tales are stories believed to be relayed by Shakyamuni Buddha to enhance understanding of the path to enlightenment by revealing his own past lives and the thousands of incarnations that he had experienced on the path to awakening. An appropriate Jataka Tale will be part of the exploration of each of the paramitas that will be covered in the next several months. Mindfully reading and reflecting on these tales can be a fruitful practice for deepening the understanding and enacting the paramitas. Here is one approach to reading them:

  1. First read the tale through without pausing or reflecting, enjoying the tale and allowing it to unfold fluidly. 
  1. On second reading bring more mindfulness to the experiences in the body, of the emotions and any thoughts that arise. Noticing constrictions, spaciousness, judgments, aversions etc. 
  1. On the third reading. Inquire into the experiences of obscurations or obstacles to the teachings in the story. “What’s that about?” “What brings that up?” etc. 
  1. Finally reading with an inquiry about the fruition or perfection of dana and how it may relate to your life.

Enjoy!

The Story of the Tigress 1

Long, long ago, ages before the bodhisattva attained perfect enlightenment and became the Buddha of our world-age known as Shakyamuni, he was born into a family of wealthy Brahmins. He grew up learning the wisdom, rituals, and skills of his station. When he was grown he was honored. Nobles saw that he had the bearing of a king; the wise looked up to him as a sage. Warriors and merchants felt he had the wisdom of a leader. He was also a naturally gifted teacher, drawn to guiding others along a path of selfless generosity, which in time he decided was his true calling. So he left the city for the forest, where he established a hermitage for those seeking to enter the higher life.  

One day years later, now a teacher, he was walking in the forest with one of his disciples. It had not rained for some weeks. The trees were bare, the grass brittle, and the streambeds nearly dry. Suddenly they heard a series of coughing roars coming from somewhere very close nearby. The student listened and said, “Master, those are the roars of a tiger—a hungry tiger. We’d better go back. Now.” But the teacher said, “Wait a moment. Listen again. Those are not simply the roars of a hungry tiger. They are the roars of a starving one. Let’s go on a bit further and see if there’s anything we might do to help.” Reluctantly the disciple agreed.  

In a short time they came to the edge of a cliff. Looking down, they saw what was clearly a starving tiger; a tigress, actually, for two small cubs were trying to nurse from her. But every time they approached, the tigress roared miserably and drove them away. She was emaciated, just skin and bones, with all her ribs plainly showing. When she looked at her cubs, her eyes narrowed and seem to glaze over. It was clear that in her desperation she had begun to view them, her own children, as prey, as meat. “Quick,” said the bodhisattva to his student. “Run and see if you can find some food for this starving animal. She may be driven to eat her own cubs if she doesn’t have food soon. The karma arising from that will be terrible. I’ll wait here and do what I can to stop her from harming her cubs till you return.” The disciple ran off.  

The teacher watched him go, then turned back to watch the tigers below. How pitiful, he thought, watching them. Even as the bodhisattva watched, he saw the starving tigress struggle to rise up on her front legs, hindquarters still on the ground. She tried again. And again. At last she managed to rise and, growling and drooling, tottered unsteadily toward her tiny cubs. My disciple is not going to be back with food in time to stop her now, thought the bodhisattva. But I can’t just stand idly by and let this happen. Mind is vast, totally empty, and cannot be found. This body, so much matter, is the crystallization of my own past thoughts and deeds extending back into the endless past. My deepest wish has ever been to save sentient beings. To fail to act when there is opportunity would only be a cause for regret. He removed his robe and hung it on a branch of the tree. Then, like a man preparing to simply dive into a lake, he put his hands together and leapt from the cliff. Startled by the sound of something crashing through the trees and bushes behind her, the tigress crouched down in fear, then turned to look. And saw the bloodied body of a man stretched out on the rocks at the base of the cliff. Gathering her remaining strength she lunged forward and began to feed.  

When the disciple returned, apologetic and emptyhanded, he saw the teacher’s robe hanging on the tree at the cliff’s edge. He called the teacher’s name but there was no response. Fearing the worst, he went forward and looked down over the cliff’s edge. And saw the tigress feeding. With a cry, the disciple threw himself to the ground by the base of the tree and wept. At last he rose, dried his eyes, and, in awe, carried the robe as a sacred relic back to the hermitage.  

Once there, he told the tale of their teacher’s sacrifice to the other disciples. Then he led them all back to the spot. There they festooned the tree with garlands of flowers. When the tigress and her cubs departed, the disciples all descended the cliff, gathered the bodhisattva’s bones, and built a jeweled stupa in which to house them.  

The gods, stunned themselves by what they’d witnessed, descended to Earth where the bodhisattva’s body had been devoured and his blood shed and covered the ground with precious incense, fine sandalwood powder, and heavenly perfumes. Even now the bodhisattva’s selfless deed is remembered by those very gods, and by humans, too, who know the tale. It will never be forgotten, even as long ages pass in which high mountains and great civilizations rise and fall, never to be heard of again.

1Rafe Martin. Endless Path: Awakening Within the Buddhist Imagination: Jataka Tales, Zen Practice, and Daily Life, North Atlantic Books. 2010.

Image credit Khangsar.wordpress.com

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With these words I pay homage to all buddhas, bodhisattvas, sentient beings, and the totality. May these words not confuse, bring doubt, or harm, but bring ease and warmth and an end to suffering for all beings.

William

______________________________________________________________

Practice

Practicing in sangha, even virtually, supports the practice of meditation differently than sitting solitarily. The members of the Sangha of the Pandemic, invite you to practice with us. No experience is required. There is no cost. Everyone is welcome. 

We practice on ZOOM: 

  • Mondays – Calm abiding and insight meditation. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Tuesdays – Body awareness. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Thursdays – Tonglen, 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Sundays – Brahmavihara. 7 AM Pacific Time 
  • Monday and Thursday. Contemplation and meditation. 4:30 PM Pacific Time 

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789 

Please feel free to reach out with questions or insights. Please also feel free to forward this post and invite others to join the sangha. You may find more reflections, poetry, art at sanghaofthepandemic.org . If you would like to leave comments or participate in ongoing discussions about a blog, go to the end of the individual post or click on the little green box floating on the page.

Dana. Obstacles and Obscurations

What inhibits giving? When I reflect on this question, I want to believe that there is nothing that would inhibit me from giving. But that is not the case and I find that there are numerous situations where I would not give or have not given. Reflecting on these, when I sense into the body, I notice constrictions in various locations depending on the situation associated with the giving. I also notice a deeper paraphysical constriction that has sadness, fear of loss, and a sense of holding on tightly. There are also memories of giving that led to difficulties, critical analyses about a particular giving that lead to assumptions about the result of giving, and judgments of self and the beneficiary of the giving. These three different experiences might be understood to be in line with the three sufferings that are pointed to in buddhist teachings. 1 

  1. The suffering of suffering; having to do with the physical body, including sickness, aging and death. 
  1. The suffering of change; having to do with the inherent impermanence of all things. 
  1. The suffering of conditioning; having to do with what has been imprinted in our habit body/mind and what has been learned and accepted as truth.  

At the heart of these sufferings is a belief that the self and all things are substantially permanent. In suffering of suffering, I tend to believe, that the physical constriction or pain, will be permanent unless I stop it or avoid the giving that causes my constriction. In the suffering of change, I believe that if I can hang on to what I have instead of giving, then I will remain fixedly whole, or stable, or secure. In the suffering of conditioning, I believe the stories that parents, peers and teachers have taught me about what happens when I give myself or my things away. Or I have had an experience where I did not get what I thought I should have because of giving and the resultant suffering still echoes in my being. These stories and memories lead me to believe that there is a permanent and consistent “negative” result from giving in certain situations. 

When I am able to attend to my experience while practicing dana or contemplating dana, I am sometimes able to discern these obstacles and obscurations, often referred to as stinginess, miserliness or greed in buddhist teachings. When discerning them, I am able to investigate their causes and conditions. When investigating the causes and conditions, I sometimes come to the realization that the obstacles and obscurations are insubstantial, conditional, and impermanent and that they cause suffering. Initially, suffering in my own being and ultimately for anyone from whom I am withholding giving. There are two experiences that show up then. From realizing the lack of their inherent permanence of the obstacles and obscurations, I experience a lightness of being. From understanding that my withholding may cause suffering a natural compassion arises and I see an open, unobstructed path to giving. 

The path to relinquishing stinginess, miserliness and greed is to practice conscientious giving; dana. The path of conscientious giving is through the thresholds of seeing, investigating and realizing the nature of the obstacles and obscurations. The realization of the nature of these is the threshold to danaparamita.  

Giving, that is absent of self.  

With these words I pay homage to all buddhas, bodhisattvas, sentient beings, and the totality. May these words not confuse, bring doubt, or harm, but bring ease and warmth and an end to suffering for all beings.

William

______________________________________________________________

1 Middle Beyond Extremes. Maitreya’s Madhyantavibhaga with commentaries by Khenpo Shenga and Ju MIpham. Translated by The Dharmachakra Tranlation Committee. p 35. 

Photo courtesy of One Mind Dharma. https://oneminddharma.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/perfection-of-giving.jpeg 

_____________________________________________________________

Practice 

Practicing in sangha, even virtually, supports the practice of meditation differently than sitting solitarily. The members of the Sangha of the Pandemic, invite you to practice with us. No experience is required. There is no cost. Everyone is welcome. 

We practice on ZOOM: 

  • Mondays – Calm abiding and insight meditation. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Tuesdays – Body awareness. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Thursdays – Tonglen, 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Sundays – Brahmavihara. 7 AM Pacific Time 
  • Monday and Thursday. Contemplation and meditation. 4:30 PM Pacific Time 

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789 

Please feel free to reach out with questions or insights. Please also feel free to forward this post and invite others to join the sangha. You may find more reflections, poetry, art at sanghaofthepandemic.org . If you would like to leave comments or participate in ongoing discussions about a blog, go to the end of the individual post or click on the little green box floating on the page.

Danaparamita. Obscurations

Obscurations on the path of paramita practice are unique to each practitioner. There are some experiences that seem to show up for most folks. Yet even with those there is the individual experience that is relative to one’s habitual thought tendencies and history. So rather than list the common marks of obscuration, this week would be a time to inquire into your individual experience to see what obscures your practice of danaparamita. Gaining awareness of our habitual tendencies will help break the unconscious habits that impeded or veil the natural, inherent capacity of dana.

It may be helpful to begin by reviewing the previous posts about obscurations:

and:

Here are a few excerpts:

As we begin the practices, we may notice that we are strongly defending a point of view, or a sense of uncomfortableness, or there is an outright rejection of another person’s experience or one of our own that brought up suffering, or there may be a tendency to become distracted while listening or studying a specific paramita. It is as if the paramita practices are pointing out a previously unknown obstacle on the path to understanding. “Look here. Pay attention to this.” If the aspiration for truth is present, we will begin to look carefully and inquire into these experiences. “How did that get there?” “What is the cause of that?” “Is it real or is it my mind playing tricks on me?” Perhaps after we look carefully, we will see something new about it. A way through or around, or the value of it. 

Finding obstacles on a trail is similar to the obscurations that may show up as we plan to practice and also may show up on the path of the practice. They are made up of thoughts or emotions that have an unknown origin. They distract and dissuade us from the practice. We come up with what seem to be solid reasons for not continuing or not needing to practice. When we stop and take time to attend closely to these obscurations we may see that they are, like clouds, ephemeral and impermanent. And what seemed to be an unmovable obstacle begins to dissolve and lose it solidity. The image or memories of the obscurations may echo in our experience but we have an understanding of their nature as impermanent and maybe even unreal. And in the same way that the trail itself remains after a rainstorm, we notice that the paramitas, as the practice and expression of goodness, also remains after a storm of thought or emotions.

It may also be helpful to review the blogs on dana: https://gratefulroadwarrior.org/perceptions/

Or listen again to Zoketsu Norm Fischer’s teaching on dana: https://everydayzen.org/teachings/six-paramitas-1-insight-yoga-institute/

And then take up the practice of inquiring into the constrictions, obscurations or obstacles that may be presenting themselves as you practice danaparmita.

After settling onto a regular meditation practice of calm abiding, begin to let the body, heart, and mind experience the qualities of any phenomena of obscurations that may be present as you reflect on dana. Notice any sense of obscuration. Perhaps there is a reflection of it in the physical body, or memories that arise, or overall sensations, when you hold these images of phenomena in your experience. Stay with that for several minutes. See what shows up. Each time some memory or physical sensation presents itself that feels like an obstacle or obscuration to dana, sense into the quality of the experience. You may notice that there are thoughts, judgments or emotions about what you are experiencing. Check those out like you might when looking at a cloud. See what they are made of. Notice if they change or remain solid under the gaze of your attention. As you finish the practice, gently bring your awareness back to the body and or breath; reengaging with the physical senses and environment. Rest for a bit without effort or practice.

Then as you go about your daily life see what happens when you apply this practice to any experience of resistance, constriction, or suffering in the practice of danaparamita. And then as usual, just see what shows up. 

With these words I pay homage to all buddhas, bodhisattvas, sentient beings, and the totality. May these words not confuse, bring doubt, or harm, but bring ease and warmth and an end to suffering for all beings.

William

_____________________________________________________________

Practice 

Practicing in sangha, even virtually, supports the practice of meditation differently than sitting solitarily. The members of the Sangha of the Pandemic, invite you to practice with us. No experience is required. There is no cost. Everyone is welcome. 

We practice on ZOOM: 

  • Mondays – Calm abiding and insight meditation. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Tuesdays – Body awareness. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Thursdays – Tonglen, 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Sundays – Brahmavihara. 7 AM Pacific Time 
  • Monday and Thursday. Contemplation and meditation. 4:30 PM Pacific Time 

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789 

Please feel free to reach out with questions or insights. Please also feel free to forward this post and invite others to join the sangha. You may find more reflections, poetry, art at sanghaofthepandemic.org . If you would like to leave comments or participate in ongoing discussions about a blog, go to the end of the individual post or click on the little green box floating on the page.

Danaparamita. Blessed are the Poor in Mind*

The mind is constantly filled with activity; rich with it. Processing the infinite sensory inputs and directing physical responses to those inputs. Making correlations between what is sensed and memories or past experiences. Interpreting emotional feedback based on attractions and aversions while screening out information that is not essential to survival. This is accompanied by a steady stream of commentary on all of it.  

The practice of danaparamita begins with cooling all of that activity down, turning down the volume so that what is being wished for can be heard. It begins with emptying out the pockets of personal agendas, judgments, expectations for return on investment, and attachment to what is thought of as mine. Dana paramita begins with a willingness to impoverish the conceptual, dualistic mind. 

This diminishment of the usual, incessant mind activity occurs naturally when one is touched by suffering; our own or another’s. In the first instant of the experience of suffering the mind activity stops and there is an immediate innate response that is untouched by greed, hatred or delusion. The “riches” of habitual thinking, desires, and defenses are, just for an instant, wiped out.  The practice of danaparamita is the cultivation of the empty, open, unburdened mind of that first instant after being exposed to suffering. It is the cultivation of being poor in mind. 

Responding to suffering from this “impoverished” mind allows for unconditioned listening and a clear perception of what is wished for, leading to giving that is absent of a mine or yours, a separate self or other allowing for the experience of the true nature of reality as universal goodness. 

“Blessed are the poor in mind for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” 

*I have taken some liberty here with a translation of the Aramaic ruwach using one of Strong’s definition. https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/strongs/H7308



With these words I pay homage to all buddhas, bodhisattvas, sentient beings, and the totality. May these words not confuse, bring doubt, or harm, but bring ease and warmth and an end to suffering for all beings.

William


A few more links with an open mind approach to the beatitudes 



Practice 

Practicing in sangha, even virtually, supports the practice of meditation differently than sitting solitarily. The members of the Sangha of the Pandemic, invite you to practice with us. No experience is required. There is no cost. Everyone is welcome. 

We practice on ZOOM: 

  • Mondays – Calm abiding and insight meditation. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Tuesdays – Body awareness. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Thursdays – Tonglen, 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Sundays – Brahmavihara. 7 AM Pacific Time 
  • Monday and Thursday. Contemplation and meditation. 4:30 PM Pacific Time 

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789 

Please feel free to reach out with questions or insights. Please also feel free to forward this post and invite others to join the sangha. You may find more reflections, poetry, art at sanghaofthepandemic.org . If you would like to leave comments or participate in ongoing discussions about a blog, go to the end of the individual post or click on the little green box floating on the page.

Dana is an act of selflessness.  

When we experience suffering, we seek ease from suffering. Over time there is the experience that the ease is transient and there might be an inquiry as to why that is. After looking closely there is the realization that that disruption of ease is often caused by witnessing ,or being on the receiving end of, the suffering of others. Looking more closely at this type of suffering, we may understand that our actions, while promoting and maintaining our own ease, may be the cause of the suffering of others. This may lead to the realization that the suffering of others is the same as the suffering of self. There is also the realization that the ease that comes from the relief of self-suffering is transient unless it also provides the relief from suffering for others. The foundation of dana as selflessness is when there is a realization that there is no separate self that suffers, or that experiences ease.  

Practicing dana. 

  • Noticing suffering; our own or another’s.
  • Asking what the cause of suffering is, and what is wished for to relieve the suffering. There may be a tendency to skip these steps, because we think that we know what is best to bring about ease. When it comes to ourselves there may be a habitual practice of relief by self medicating or just doing what someone else tells us to do. When it comes to others, instead of asking and listening we impose our own ideas of ease on the other in ignorance of their self-awareness and wish. The practice is to ask and then…
  • Listening. Relinquishing the self to make space for the wish. Sometimes this is all that is wished for. Deep, open minded, selfless listening disarms the defensive and protective ego, of the giver and receiver, so that the nature of the suffering and the remedy that is wished for can be revealed. 
  • Self-inventory. Am I able to provide what is wished for? If not, is there some way that I can acquire or provide support for attaining it. Will fulfilling the wish cause greater suffering? There is no indication in any buddhist canon that one should inflict suffering to relieve suffering.   
  • Selfless giving. One may have experiences of ease, happiness, praise, accomplishment, and pride, resulting from fulfilling a wish and will then continue to give in order to have those experiences again. Giving to get something in return will cause suffering when one realizes that the experiences are transient. This type of giving sets up a cycle of miserliness. Giving with an expectation of specific results will also cause suffering, regret, sadness and doubt about the practice. Giving without thought of self is liberating for both giver and receiver.
  • Selfless receiving. Moving through the world with an empty begging bowl without expectation or desire to have it filled can be a very challenging dana practice. Allowing the bowl to be filled with whatever is offered is dana of equanimity. Openly practicing selfless wishing allows the true nature of dana and the thoroughly established goodness of reality to manifest. 

With the practice of dana and fulfillment of transcendent, perfect, dana paramita, there is the realization that there is no separate self that gives or receives and no dana that is done; a realization that dana is the natural way of being. Ask the sun and see. 

Sutra: The Buddha told Sariputra, “It is by means of the dharma of having nothing whatsoever which is relinquished that they prefect dana paramita. This is because benefactor, recipient, and material object cannot be found.”1 



With these words I pay homage to all buddhas, bodhisattvas, sentient beings, and the totality. May these words not confuse, bring doubt, or harm, but bring ease and warmth and an end to suffering for all beings.

William

1Nagarjuna on the Six Perfections. An Arya Bodhisattva Explains The Heart of the Bodhisattva Path. Exegesis on the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, Chapters 17 – 30. P 80. Translation by Bhikshu Dharmamitra. Kalvinka Press, Seattle, Wa. 


A boy who is said to have offered a mud pie to Shakyamuni Buddha. According to The Story of King Ashoka, a work translated into Chinese by An Fa-ch’in in the early fourth century, one day when the Buddha was begging for alms in Rājagriha, he came upon two boys, Virtue Victorious and Invincible, while they were playing. The two boys wished to present an offering to the Buddha but had nothing to give, so Virtue Victorious hastily fashioned a mud pie and placed it in the Buddha’s begging bowl, while Invincible pressed his palms together in reverence. Because of the blessings from this offering, a hundred years after the Buddha’s death, Virtue Victorious was reborn as King Ashoka and Invincible as his consort.


Practice 

Practicing in sangha, even virtually, supports the practice of meditation differently than sitting solitarily. The members of the Sangha of the Pandemic, invite you to practice with us. No experience is required. There is no cost. Everyone is welcome. 

We practice on ZOOM: 

  • Mondays – Calm abiding and insight meditation. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Tuesdays – Body awareness. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Thursdays – Tonglen, 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Sundays – Brahmavihara. 7 AM Pacific Time 
  • Monday and Thursday. Contemplation and meditation. 4:30 PM Pacific Time 

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789 

Please feel free to reach out with questions or insights. Please also feel free to forward this post and invite others to join the sangha. You may find more reflections, poetry, art at sanghaofthepandemic.org . If you would like to leave comments or participate in ongoing discussions about a blog, go to the end of the individual post or click on the little green box floating on the page.

Danaparamita, The Perfection of Giving Away, The Blessed Poor 

Dear friends, 

Over the next several months we will contemplate and cultivate insights about the individual paramitas. This will happen weekly in this blog and in the practice sessions throughout the week. This approach to the practice of the individual paramitas, (a fleet of vessels passing over to the further shore1) will follow the following process: 

  1. Contemplating what is here. Contemplating on the words or marks associated with the paramita, to bring awareness to the concepts, emotions and even bodily experiences that are already present when we hear or say the names of each paramita, will allow us to notice any preconceived ideas, or unconscious imprints that we might harbor in relation to the words or ideas of each paramita. So, first we will just notice what we think we know.  
  1. An invitation to study the sutras, verses, and commentaries associated with each paramita. i.e., what are some of the insights that the wisdom lineages offer about these practices. 
  1. What is in the way? What inhibits our understanding and practice of the paramita? What obscurations or obstacles are experienced. 
  1. A contemplation and inquiry of the fruition of the practices. How might each paramita come to life in our everyday experiences.  

Danaparamita, The Perfection of Giving Away, The Blessed Poor 

Dana is most often translated from the original Sanskrit word as generosity2. It is always the first paramita that is introduced and is included in several lists of practices throughout the buddhist canon. The first beatitude is “Blessed are the poor.” and the vow of poverty is a primary practice for christian monks and nuns and the central practice of the Franciscan tradition.  

Contemplating what is here: 

What shows up in my experience when I contemplate generosity? What memories? What images? Concepts? Constrictions? Emotions? What physical sensations are experienced? 

In the same contexts, what shows up when I think of the phrase “Blessed are the poor.”? 

What occurs when I contemplate: 

  • Perfect generosity or poverty 
  • Transcendent generosity or poverty 
  • Pure generosity or poverty 
  • Generosity or poverty that carries me to the other shore The shore of liberation from suffering for all beings. 

So, the invitation this week is to explore your ideas about and life experience of dana. Perhaps you might notice if there are any attachments or hardened ideas; where there is fluidity; where there is passion and movement. Perhaps you might notice where there is spaciousness. Just look and see what is here so you know where you are starting from. 

It would be wonderful if you would take some time to share a bit of your inquiry in the comment section on the website or in a reply to this email. If you do the latter, please let me know if it is OK for me to share with the whole sangha. 

I look forward to hearing from you and practicing with you. 

With these words I pay homage to all buddhas, bodhisattvas, sentient beings, and the totality. May these words not confuse, bring doubt, or harm, but bring ease and warmth and an end to suffering for all beings.

William

1 Hotori, Risho. (2006). The Etymological Meaning of ‘paramita’. JOURNAL OF INDIAN AND BUDDHIST STUDIES (INDOGAKU BUKKYOGAKU KENKYU). 54. 1011-1005,1340. 10.4259/ibk.54.1011. 

2 Insight Meditation Society. https://www.dharma.org/retreats/forest-refuge/dana-generosity/#:~:text=Dana%20is%20a%20Pali%20word,central%20role%20throughout%20Buddhism’s%20history. 


Practice 

Practicing in sangha, even virtually, supports the practice of meditation differently than sitting solitarily. The members of the Sangha of the Pandemic, invite you to practice with us. No experience is required. There is no cost. Everyone is welcome. 

We practice on ZOOM: 

  • Mondays – Calm abiding and insight meditation. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Tuesdays – Body awareness. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Thursdays – Tonglen, 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Sundays – Brahmavihara. 7 AM Pacific Time 
  • Monday and Thursday. Contemplation and meditation. 4:30 PM Pacific Time 

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789 

Please feel free to reach out with questions or insights. Please also feel free to forward this post and invite others to join the sangha. You may find more reflections, poetry, art at sanghaofthepandemic.org . If you would like to leave comments or participate in ongoing discussions about a blog, go to the end of the individual post or click on the little green box floating on the page.

Fruition 

Everything in experience is fruition. The fruition of billions, trillions, an infinity of causes and conditions which are also fruitions of causes and conditions without beginning. In this moment of experience, this fruition is the seed for billions, trillions, an infinity of causes and conditions leading to fruitions without end. It is like an uninterrupted avalanche of dirt, pebbles stones, boulders on an unending slope, that reveals a path that transcends the slope. This is my understanding of the karma of cyclic existence as well as the path of liberation from suffering. 

Some of us have had the experience, when we first began to practice meditation, of the thoughts, feelings and sensations being like an unending avalanche or an immense, overwhelmingly loud waterfall. It seemed impenetrable. Over time, with practice, the avalanche or the cataract of water seemed to diminish, either in their volume or in their impact on experience. These lessenings or quietings are, in a sense, the fruitions of the practice. 

I have been playing with the simile of the avalanche in an inquiry into fruition of the paramitas and the beatitudes.  

When I am caught up in the day-to-day habitual mind stream and trappings of the three poisons of greed/attachment, hatred/aversion, and delusion/ignorance, it feels like I am on a slope that has no visible top or bottom. The thoughts and experiences are like dirt, pebbles, rocks, and large boulders tumbling down the slope toward and past me. I am entranced by some and repelled or fearful of others. I am ignorant of their origin or where they come from or what they are made of. My relationship to each one is different, and I react accordingly.  

I am attracted to the shiny colorful ones, or the ones that seem to have deep meaning, and I run around the slope trying to gather them up so that I can keep them someplace and not let them cascade down the infinite slope. I even try to build storehouses with bigger boulders to hoard and protect them from the constant bombardment; trying to fix them in place. Inevitably the slope of beliefs and the concepts that built the fortress deteriorates underneath, or a massive boulder of life experience or emotion crashes into it and all my possessions and concepts go tumbling into the abyss.   

“Well!” I say to myself, “I will go out and prevent those big ones from crashing into my fortress”. This is my habit of trying to protect who I think I am; my self-identity. So I run around the slope hurling my hate and anger, pushing away and trying to destroy everything that I think is trying to destroy me and what I have. Or I try pushing the debris back up the slope or try holding it in place so it won’t crash into my fortress. 

During all of this I am so caught up in grasping and holding on to, or diverting and destroying, that I think that this is life. “This is just the way things are.” I am completely unaware of the constant suffering that I am experiencing and ignorant of the futility of my efforts not to mention that all of these doings and thinkings are the very causes and conditions that bring about this suffering. I am unaware that my suffering is the fruition of all of my thoughts and actions and these are the seeds of my suffering.

At some point, I am so exhausted by the effort, that I stop and for a moment, I have time to breathe and look around. I get a glimpse of something off to the side. A trickling brook, a stately tree, a foraging agouti, or someone sitting still and at ease. I realize for an instant that the avalanche still continues, but it is not coming at me. It seems to be going around where I am in my stillness. Then I see an especially beautiful gem tumbling down out of reach and I get up from my seat and run toward it to get it and while trying to find a safe place for it, the assault of the avalanche begins again. And so it goes, ad infinitum  

Until again, out of exhaustion or being knocked down by the avalanche, I stop and see. This time in addition to the still nature scene, the person is dancing with the wind or adorning themselves and their surroundings with garlands or beckoning me with a calm smile and eyes filled with understanding. I have a sense of rightness or okayness and an aspiration blossoms to join them in their dance. I may even sense the potential of “life without avalanche”. And I notice, or the person invites me to walk, a path that seems untouched by the falling debris of thoughts, reactions, and emotions.  

I begin to walk the path responding to the invitation. I remember my gem and I go back and put it in my pocket. “I’ll keep this one thing.” It is heavier than I remembered and as I walk, its weight causes me to stumble off the path, but I cling to it and the inevitable happens again. Then, in the cascade of suffering, there is understanding. I relinquish even this most prized possession and continue on the path. The avalanche still goes on and I am drawn to some things and fearful of others. Boulders cross the path and even block it. When I try to move them, I become embroiled again in anger and the desire to destroy it but to no avail. After repeated attempts, there is a realization of the futility of trying to force it off the path, so I sit again and wait and see. Eventually I notice that the soil is giving way and the boulder is slipping to continue down the slope on its own without my efforting.

I continue. 

While walking the path toward the calm stillness and the beckoning friend, I notice that when I direct my attention toward the focal point of the path and the aspiration, that the avalanche seems to diminish and that it increases when I let my attention be distracted toward the activity of the avalanche of thoughts and feelngs. This is even more evident when I stop where I am and rest in calm abiding. A wake of space seems to form around me and the appearance of the debris of the avalanche doesn’t approach at all. While just sitting there without moving toward or away from the goal, there is the appearance of a little sprout of green in the earth nearby, untrampled by the avalanche of habitual thinking and afflictions. Directing complete attention to this present experience there is now a stream of coolness, and garlands of flowers strewn in the boughs of a great sheltering oak, and the beckoning friend is sitting there with me, as if this was the way it always was.  

I can still hear the echoes of the avalanche and sometimes feel its rumblings in my belly but when I look there are only the shadows of dirt, pebbles, rocks and boulders. I notice that the more I attend to them the more real they become and vice versa. When looking more carefully I may see that there are other folks on the slope, dodging, attacking, collecting, and building in a flurry of suffering. My heart is shaken with compassion so I rise and wave and dance and even venture out onto their debris field, beckoning them to stop and see. 

Fruition and Seeds of Fruition on the Path 

Suffering on the field of avalanche debris of habituation of thoughts, feelings and actions, is the fruition, of ignorance of the natural state of beingness. It is also the seed of greed and hate. Trying to gather and keep the preferred debris and hating or trying to destroy or deflect the nasty stuff is the fruition of this seed and these ways of being are the seeds of continued suffering, ad infinitum. Paradoxically, this suffering is also the seed of exhaustion and helps develop the capacity to sense stillness. Stillness is the fruition of noticing suffering and the seed for the aspiration to end suffering. This aspiration is the seed for beginning the path; in this case the path of the paramitas and the beatitudes.  The first fruitions are the practice of the paramita or beatitude of generosity or poverty. These are the seeds that yield the fruit of the discipline of doing no harm. Doing no harm is the seed that yields the fruition of patience or discarding anger. Patience is the seed that yields the fruit of diligence to act, think and speak in goodness, which permeates all of the fruitions. These four fruitions and seeds, give rise to the fruition of focused attention, meditation or prayer. The calm abiding of focused attention, meditation or prayer yields the ultimate fruition that is also the ultimate seed: the wisdom and insight that the true nature of reality and all beingness is unconditioned goodness and love. 

_______________________________

With these words I pay homage to all buddhas, bodhisattvas, sentient beings, and the totality. May these words not confuse, bring doubt, or harm, but bring ease and warmth and an end to suffering for all beings.

William


Practice 

Practicing in sangha, even virtually, supports the practice of meditation differently than sitting solitarily. The members of the Sangha of the Pandemic, invite you to practice with us. No experience is required. There is no cost. Everyone is welcome. 

We practice on ZOOM: 

  • Mondays – Calm abiding and insight meditation. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Tuesdays – Body awareness. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Thursdays – Tonglen, 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Sundays – Brahmavihara. 7 AM Pacific Time 
  • Monday and Thursday. Contemplation and meditation. 4:30 PM Pacific Time 

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789 

Please feel free to reach out with questions or insights. Please also feel free to forward this post and invite others to join the sangha. You may find more reflections, poetry, art at sanghaofthepandemic.org . If you would like to leave comments or participate in ongoing discussions about a blog, go to the end of the individual post or click on the little green box floating on the page.

Fruition: The Paramitas from Buddhism and the Beatitudes from Christianity. 

(As a disclaimer to this introduction of the beatitudes as a support for the exploration and practice of the paramitas, I am not a scholar of either of these wisdom traditions. I am curious and intrigued by the similarities between the foundational teachings of the two and I am hoping that the exploration of these commonalities allows for a deeper insight into the nature of reality as goodness. 

When looking for common threads in the teachings of wisdom traditions it is not to justify one stream by seeing it mirrored in another. It is also not to compare and contrast one with the other, nor is it to lift one above the other. From the buddhist perspective, revealing the wisdom of the inherent goodness of reality is right, however it is revealed. Perhaps the christian view of this is reflected in the phrase, “The holy spirit works in mysterious ways.”  

The beatitudes are the first half of what is referred to as the Sermon on the Mount. They are followed by an explanation in parable and simile of what Jesus was teaching.  Prior to this gathering of a multitude followers, Jesus has been pointing out and clearing the obstacles and obscurations that inhibit folks from understanding the sutra of the beatitudes. He spent forty days and nights with satan , clearing away the obstacles of attachment, doubt, pride, and greed. Then he points to the obscurations of suffering, caused by the misperception of the nature of form, by enacting miracles of limitless bounty and healing with a touch or word. Luke 6, the chapter with the beatitudes, begins with Jesus working by harvesting corn, feeding the hungry from the sacred loaves in the temple, and healing a man’s withered hand, all on the sabbath which was against Jewish holy law. In trying to find an analogy to buddhist teachings here, it seems that it is pointing out how the obscurations of rigid concepts (Jewish law) become obstacles to goodness. Perhaps it is also a teaching on how to respond out of this inherent goodness, spontaneously in the present moment instead of habit or imprint.  

So, it seems that prior to the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is teaching the necessity of identifying obstacles and obscurations and discarding them or at least loosening the grasp of the habits of belief in them. This is in preparation for hearing, reflecting upon and cultivating the wisdom teachings that he is about to offer.  

Below is the complete wisdom teaching of the Sermon on the Mount from the King James version, Luke 6, 12 – 49. As you read, the invitation is to reflect on how it  points to perfection, transcendence and purity.  Notice and inquire into the constrictions of body and mind that may arise that obscure the heart of the teachings. Apply the same practice to the experience of openness and loosening that may arise. Then perhaps reflect on the six paramitas; generosity, discipline, patience, meditation and insight. And then inquire into what the fruition of the practices of the beatitudes and the paramitas might be.

And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. 

13 And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles; (14 – 18 names of disciples) 

17And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judaea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases; 

18 And they that were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed. 

19 And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all. 

20 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. 

21 Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. 

22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake. 

23 Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets. 

24 But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. 

25 Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep. 

26 Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets. 

27 But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, 

28 Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. 

29 And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also. 

30 Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. 

31 And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. 

32 For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. 

33 And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. 

34 And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. 

35 But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. 

36 Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. 

37 Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: 

38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. 

39 And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch? 

40 The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master. 

41 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 

42 Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye. 

43 For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 

44 For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. 

45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh. 

46 And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? 

47 Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: 

48 He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. 

49 But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great. 

With these words I pay homage to all buddhas, bodhisattvas, sentient beings, and the totality. May these words not confuse, bring doubt, or harm, but bring ease and warmth and an end to suffering for all beings.

William

_____________________________________________________________

Practice 

Practicing in sangha, even virtually, supports the practice of meditation differently than sitting solitarily. The members of the Sangha of the Pandemic, invite you to practice with us. No experience is required. There is no cost. Everyone is welcome. 

We practice on ZOOM: 

  • Mondays – Calm abiding and insight meditation. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Tuesdays – Body awareness. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Thursdays – Tonglen, 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Sundays – Brahmavihara. 7 AM Pacific Time 
  • Monday and Thursday. Contemplation and meditation. 4:30 PM Pacific Time 

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789 

Please feel free to reach out with questions or insights. Please also feel free to forward this post and invite others to join the sangha. You may find more reflections, poetry, art at sanghaofthepandemic.org . If you would like to leave comments or participate in ongoing discussions about a blog, go to the end of the individual post or click on the little green box floating on the page.

What’s in the Way of the Way Part 2. – The Trail Remains 

While preparing for a trail hike through old growth forests, expansive fields under wide skies, leading to incredible vistas, we encounter things that clutter our imagination about the experience we think that we are going to have. They may come in the physical form of old shoes, no water bottle, a tweaked knee, that may or may not be remedied easily. Then there may be the things that we have no control over, weather, the trail closed for maintenance, last minute needs that must be attended to immediately. During the process of attending to these situations, our aspirations for the hike may dwindle or become clouded with frustration, doubt, even fear. We may give up entirely. 

Looking carefully, there seem to be two different experiences that may be impediments to the hike and likewise the practice of the paramitas; the obstacles that impede the actual hike or practice and the obscurations of the aspirations that have led us to hike or practice and keep us on the trail or in the practice. Obstacles usually have pretty clear remedies, and they can be removed or not, before the hike or during.  New shoes or water bottle, physical therapy or knee replacement. Similarly, adjustments of the physical environment or the sense experiences can be made for obstacles to the practice of the paramitas.

Obscurations are much more subtle, and we are often unaware of them, or the causes of them. there is often a sense that nothing can be done about them. They are like clouds veiling the sun, or dust in the wind, a rainstorm on the mountain trail. But if we watch closely we notice that the clouds are changing or the wind and storm are passing. We can see the light of the sun through them and eventually they dissolve or move on. The trail still exists and we can continue the planning and taking the hike.

This is similar to the obscurations that may show up as we plan to practice and also may show up on the path of the practice. They are made up of thoughts or emotions that have an unknown origin. They distract and dissuade us from the practice. We come up with what seem to be solid reasons for not continuing or not needing to practice. When we stop and take time to attend closely to these obscurations we may see that they are, like clouds, ephemeral and impermanent. And what seemed to be an unmovable obstacle begins to dissolve and lose it solidity. The image or memories of the obscurations may echo in our experience but we have an understanding of their nature as impermanent and maybe even unreal. And in the same way that the trail itself remains after a rainstorm, we notice that the paramitas, as the practice and expression of goodness, also remains after a storm of thought or emotions.

Obstacles and obscurations will always be present in our experiences and our practice. Both are likely to occur once we set out on the trail or any other endeavor and also once we commit to the practice of the paramitas. Developing the skill to discern the difference between obstacles and obscurations will help bring ease and increase flexibility of mind when we meet them and discover the appropriate approaches to their remedies. With practice, obstacles and obscurations may eventually be realized as the thresholds, the doorways and the paths that lead to permanent awareness of the truth of the nature of reality as goodness. 

Buddhist teachings refer to that which prevents us from experiencing our true nature and the nature of reality as transcendent, perfect, pure goodness, as an obscuration. Some of the similes that are often used to describe these obscurations are clouds impeding the light of the sun or the luminescence of the moon, mud or pollution in water that prevents us from experiencing the clarity of the nature of water, dust that fills the air so that we cannot breathe freely or see clearly, gold encrusted with filth, a treasure underground.  

Take some time now, to let the body, heart, and mind experience the qualities of these phenomena of obscurations. Use one or more of the above phenomena to stimulate the experience of obscuration or veil in you, and explore or rest in that experience. Notice the sense of obscuration. Perhaps there is a reflection of it in the physical body, or memories that arise, or overall sensations, when you hold these images of phenomena in your experience. Stay with that for several minutes. See what shows up. Each time some memory or physical sensation presents itself, sense into the quality of the experience. You may notice that there are thoughts, judgments or emotions about what you are experiencing. Check those out like you might when looking at a cloud. See what they are made of. Notice if they change or remain solid under the gaze of your attention. Then as you go about your daily life see what happens when you apply this practice to any experience of resistance, constriction, or suffering. Perhaps asking is this obstacle or obscuration, or both? And then as usual, just see what shows up. 

With these words I pay homage to all buddhas, bodhisattvas, sentient beings, and the totality. May these words not confuse, bring doubt, or harm, but bring ease and warmth and an end to suffering for all beings.

_____________________________________________________________

Practice 

Practicing in sangha, even virtually, supports the practice of meditation differently than sitting solitarily. The members of the Sangha of the Pandemic, invite you to practice with us. No experience is required. There is no cost. Everyone is welcome. 

We practice on ZOOM: 

  • Mondays – Calm abiding and insight meditation. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Tuesdays – Body awareness. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Thursdays – Tonglen, 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Sundays – Brahmavihara. 7 AM Pacific Time 
  • Monday and Thursday. Contemplation and meditation. 4:30 PM Pacific Time 

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789 

Please feel free to reach out with questions or insights. Please also feel free to forward this post and invite others to join the sangha. You may find more reflections, poetry, art at sanghaofthepandemic.org . If you would like to leave comments or participate in ongoing discussions about a blog, go to the end of the individual post or click on the little green box floating on the page.

William

What’s in the Way of the Way?

Dear friends, 

The primary purpose of the practice and exploration of the paramitas is to bring about and end to suffering, not only for ourselves but for all beings. Recalling this as we read, listen to, and speak about them, as well when we act in the practice of them, is like the practice in meditation of returning to the breath or a focal point, when we notice that we have gone on a mind journey or have been distracted by our sense awarenesses or emotions. During this exploration it might be good to remember that we are exploring together and that each revelation and experience of each one of us is important to the whole community. I also encourage you to look beyond just what you read in this blog or hear in the practice sessions and to trust in your direct experience of this exploration and where it might lead you to study or explore. The best that any of us can do in our attempts to express our understanding of what we have learned or experienced is to point to what is ineffable and inexpressible using words, art, and actions. You are encouraged to do this by responding to blogs or practices by email, or participate in discussions on the individual postings.  

Over the next several months the outline of this exploration, these writings, and the practice sessions will look something like this: (Although, even these may divert from this outline in response to questions or expressions that show up in the exploration.) 

  1. What is here? As we approach each paramita, you will be invited to look at your current experience of the concept. 
  1. What has been taught or revealed by the buddhist sutras, the beatitudes, other wisdom traditions, or from our direct experience? 
  1. What, in our own experience, are the veils or obscurations to the experience and understanding of the essential nature of each paramita?  
  1. What is the fruition of the practice and exploration of the paramitas? 

Participating in this exploration in any way that is available to you is great! Participating by joining practice sessions seems to not only broaden our individual experience and understanding but will contribute to the same for the whole community. So, drop into a session whenever you can, you are always welcome. 

In the past two weeks I have been writing about the paramitas as a whole (Exploring the Practice of the Six Paramitas and Paramitas as Purities), following number one and two above. This week and next we will be looking at number three: obscurations, and four: fruition. 

What’s in the Way of the Way? 

The paramitas are an essential aspect of all parts of the practice of awakening to the causes of suffering and the true nature of reality; that the nature of reality is universally good.  

The first hearing or reading about the paramitas is like an invitation to an unexplored trail that has been said to have challenging climbs, fields of wildflowers, cool stream crossings, waterfalls and culminates in endless 360o vistas. This hearing may stimulate the aspiration to go hike the trail and then all the necessary preparations that need to be made to get to the trailhead. To begin the exploration. 

The aspiration that arises because of hearing the wisdom teachings about the paramitas or meeting others who manifest them, may lead us to begin to practice and study the teachings for ourselves; to accept the invitation and to arrive at the threshold of the path to understanding. Like arriving at the trailhead and taking that first step on to the path. This moment of hiking for me is filled with the hopes and longings to have all of the experiences that I have imagined come to fruition. Your experience of receiving and accepting this invitation to explore the paramtias may have a similar resonance 

Exploring the meaning of the paramitas and practicing them with conscious awareness brings about an authentic, direct experience of the reality of goodness, the nature of everything. The practice also begins to highlight the veils that hide or obscure our experience and understanding of this nature: the causes and contitions of suffering. In the buddhist Lotus Sutra1 and throughout the buddhist canon and commentaries these are summed up as the three poisons.  

  • 1)passion/attachment/greed  
  • 2) aggression/aversion/hate 
  • 3) ignorance or delusion.   

As we begin the practices, we may notice that we are strongly defending a point of view, or a sense of uncomfortableness, or there is an outright rejection of another person’s experience or one of our own that brought up suffering, or there may be a tendency to become distracted while listening or studying a specific paramita. It is as if the paramita practices are pointing out a previously unknown obstacle on the path to understanding. “Look here. Pay attention to this.” If the aspiration for truth is present, we will begin to look carefully and inquire into these experiences. “How did that get there?” “What is the cause of that?” “Is it real or is it my mind playing tricks on me?” Perhaps after we look carefully, we will see something new about it. A way through or around, or the value of it. 

On the trail we may stumble over a root that causes us to bring our attention to the path before us instead of dreaming about the vista at the end or the field of wildflowers. Or our thoughts start going to judgments about the relative beauty or challenges of the trail. As the trail ascends a steep switchback or traverses a steep, slippery talus, we may become doubtful about our skills and question whether the ultimate view is worth traversing that part. Or the supposed field of wildflowers is now just a dried-up field of weeds, and of course… the bugs. “This isn’t at all what I expected.” “This wasn’t in the trail guide!” Or we may see that the switchback goes on for a mile but there is a way to go straight up to the end of it by hacking a way through, tramping all of the vegetation and disturbing the slope. Or perhaps we are just thinking about the snack that we brought, or what we will do when we get back, or whether our phone is working…. And then, out of fatigue or fear or frustration or boredom we begin to notice. We may stop and sit and look more carefully at what is there in the moment. The path is pretty stable if I go with patience and caution. There are new shoots of green beneath the dry grass and the weeds are shining gold like they are on fire from the sun. First step off the path, I create a small cascade of dirt and stone that obscures the path behind me and then I slip and fall and twist an ankle. Right there in front of me is a salmon berry bush loaded with fruit. 

The paramitas are not only the aspiration, the threshold, and the way to understanding, they are each, and as a whole, the fruition of understanding. All along the way to understanding there may be experiences of seemingly boundless joy, wells of understanding, spacious skies of awareness, and bright clarity of just this as it is. A tasting of each aspect that is indescribable, beyond an expressible concept. It feels like an arrival, an achievement, a culmination. When the agitation of excitement and the sense of pride are expended, looking more closely we may notice that there is no end to this goodness and, with that experience and knowledge, there may be an experience of no beginning either. No past, or present or future, no here or there. Included in that is also the experience of past, present and future, here and there, beginning middle and end. The experience of the practice of the paramitas as the fruition of understanding.  

Brother Paul walked the Pacific Coast Trail from the southern border to central Washington. In his blogs and stories, he speaks of the experiences of arriving at the planned destination of the day’s hike as sometime being so wonderful that he forgot, for a moment, that he was exhausted and that his body was suffering. Then there was the practice of unpacking, setting up camp, preparing a meal and planning the next day’s trek. Or reaching a trail mark that let him and us know that he was halfway or had 300 miles to go, and then celebrating. Or experiencing euphoria at the culmination of the trek and turning his attention back to the practice of being in the non-trail world and his personal practice as a Franciscan monk, daily walking the streets of Seattle with generosity, discipline, patience, diligence, prayer and understanding. If you have done trail hiking where you reached a culmination point of a breathtaking vista that left you with an experience of joy or ease or completeness, you may have looked out into that vista and seen other trails leading to other peaks, (Or often for me, that actually, this was not the ultimate vista of this trail, it was that one 500 yards further on.). Either way, the endlessness of the vistas and potential vistas beyond where you were; the vastness of the endless sky above; the realization that there were seemingly infinite trail heads that were arrived at from infinite beginnings; that there were, are, and will be infinite unique experiences on these infinite trails, and then maybe an understanding that all trails, all experiences on the trail including the things that were in the way of the way, and all culminations, point to the true beauty of Nature and the true nature of all beingness as goodness. 

The invitation this week is to reflect on your experience of your concepts of the ideal paramitas. Then look to see what might be obscuring your own understanding or appreciation of the experience or of the wisdom teachings about the paramitas. To the best of your ability approach this inquiry with open-ended curiosity, free from opinions, judgments and distractions. And then simply see, what is, what was, and what is unfolding. As Gangaji often said, stop trying to see and just see. 

1THE LOTUS SUTRA (Taishō Volume 9, Number 262) Translated from the Chinese of Kumārajiva by Tsugunari Kubo and Akira Yuyama Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research 2007.  https://www.bdk.or.jp/document/dgtl-dl/dBET_T0262_LotusSutra_2007.pdf  

_____________________________________ 

Practice 

Practicing in sangha, even virtually, seems to activate the yeast activity of meditation in a different way than sitting solitarily. The members of the Sangha of the Pandemic, invite you to share the bread of the practice with us. No experience is required. There is no cost. Everyone is welcome. 

We practice on ZOOM: 

  • Mondays – Calm abiding and insight meditation. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Tuesdays – Body awareness. 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Thursdays – Tonglen, 6 AM Pacific Time 
  • Sundays – Brahmavihara. 7 AM Pacific Time 
  • Monday and Thursday. Contemplation and meditation. 4:30 PM Pacific Time 

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789 

Please feel free to reach out with questions or insights. Please also feel free to forward this post and invite others to join the sangha. You may find more reflections, poetry, art at sanghaofthepandemic.org . If you would like to leave comments or particpate in ongoing discussions about a blog, go to the end of the individual blog post. You must be a subscriber to the website to comment. 

Paramitas as Purities

Dear friends, 

Over the next several months these regular reflections and the virtual practice sessions will explore the buddhist practice of the paramitas. The exploration will be approached by encouraging direct experience of the paramitas in our individual lives. These written inquiries are not meant to be instructions on how to achieve a result. They are instead invitations to develop a relationship with the paramitas and encourage their realization through individual experience and contemplation. References will be made to buddhist sutras about the paramitas, commentaries on the sutras, and teachings from other traditions. In the latter case, we will be regularly exploring the parallel to the beatitudes from the christian teachings. 

Before diving into the individual paramitas of generosity, discipline, patience, diligence, mediation/concentration, and wisdom/insight, over the next few weeks, time will be spent preparing the ground for the exploration. The intent here is to loosen the mind from habitual perceptions of the concepts, by recognizing any attachment to ideas about the paramitas, or assumptions that we might be making about how they should be practiced or experienced. By turning the hardpacked soil of the conditioned thinking, there may be the opportunity for space to not only realize but express and celebrate the aspects of the paramitas that, according to many wisdom traditions, are the natural states of being human. Last week began by exploring, in this manner, the common translations of paramitas; “perfections”, “transcendences” and “gone to the other shore”.  

This past week, while inquiring into the meaning of paramitas, I continued to have a sense that the English words, “perfections”, “transcendences” and even “gone to the other shore”, carried some weight of striving for an objective. (Granted, this is undoubtedly a result of personal experiences, causes, and conditions that echo in my mind when I hear these words and, as a result, are calcified in my way of experiencing them.) So, I looked into the etymology in both Sanskrit1 and Paali2. If you have done this before you know what a gopher’s warren it can be. In Sanskrit it seems to be the combination of two words pAara – beyond, and  amita – boundless. In Pali, it seems to be a combination of parami – completeness or perfection and amita – immeasurable. So, for me, there is a sense of boundless immeasurability without qualification to the experience and practice of the paramitas. This leaves a void of striving, achievement or arriving at. There is a quality of ever-presence.   

The word purity shows up repeatedly in the sutras and is often used to refer to the nature of mind or reality, using synonyms like stainless or clarity. The more I study the paramitas in the context of the sutras they seem to have these qualities, as well as begininglessness and immeasurability. When I reflect on the word purity in this context and am able to quiet the persistent definitions of purity of contemporary society, it represents the essences of generosity, discipline, patience, concentration/meditation, and insight/wisdom. In the sutras and their commentaries, gold, water, and space are frequently used as similes to point to the purity of the suchness or nature of reality.  

Gold is always gold. It may be buried in dirt, covered with tarnish, molded into form, but it remains pure gold, it was always pure gold, and it will remain pure gold regardless of the conditions in which it is found. Whether it is a gnarly, bumpy mass or a finely wrought, delicate chain, the nature of gold remains the same. Water is unchangeably H2O in whatever form it appears or whatever container is holding it. And space has these qualities, as well as begininglessness and immeasurability. Space is also untouchable but experienceable. When I contemplate purity, absent of the concepts that have been applied to it in some Western traditions, there is a sense of ungraspability, absent of blemish. Such that even so called impurities express purity as their essence. Purity cannot be conjured or achieved. In a sense, it is what remains. 

When I reflect on the paramitas, it is these qualities of original stainlessness, combined with begininglessness, that give rise to their transcendence from achievement, striving, judgment, or any relativity. They are pure in the sense that, regardless of how our thoughts, feelings and actions conceal them, they remain as pure qualities of our true nature and like space, they neither diminish or grow, disappear or appear. They are inconceivable but discernible. They cannot be thought but they can be known. They cannot be done but they do. In this sense the paramitas are purities. 

Perhaps, when you have the opportunity and time, you might reflect on the paramitas as a whole or individually, letting them be immersed in your ideas of perfection, transcendence, beyond the other shore and purity.  Perhaps you become aware of a different name, word, mark, experience, or sense, that rings the bell of nonconceptual wakefulness in you. Allow yourself to taste it, enjoy it, celebrate it. Then allow yourself to be touched, tasted, and enjoyed by the paramitas as they appear in your beingness, and your daily life. The practice of being human is not meant to be rigid, constricting or definitive. These explorations are not meant arrive at commandments, expectations, or obligations. Practicing the paramitas is an opportunity to bring pliability to the conditioned and habitual thoughts, feelings and actions and ultimately, freedom from suffering for us and all beings with whom we cohabit this universe and this time.

With these words I pay homage to all buddhas, bodhisattvas, sentient beings, and the totality. May these words not confuse, bring doubt, or harm, but bring ease and warmth.  -William

1 Kosha Sanskrit Today https://kosha.sanskrit.today/ 

2 The Pali Text Societie’s Pali English DIctionary https://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/pali/  

References for study:  

The Six Paramitas Perfections of the Bodhisattva Path A Commentary by Chan Master Sheng Yen. Dharma Drum Publications 2001. https://chancenter.org/download/free-books/TheSixParamitas.pdf 

Ornament of the Great Vehicle Sutras. Maitreya’s Mahayanasutralamakara with commentaries by Koenpo Shenga and Ju Mipham. Ch. 17, Transcendences and Means of Attractions. Snow Lion, Shambhala Publications 2014. Dharmachakra Translation Committee 

Practice

Practicing in sangha, even virtually, seems to activate the yeast of meditation in a different way than sitting solitarily. The members of the Sangha of the Pandemic, invite you to share the bread of the practice with us. No experience is required. There is no cost. Everyone is welcome.

We practice on ZOOM:

  • Mondays – Calm abiding and insight meditation. 6 AM Pacific Time
  • Tuesdays – Body awareness. 6 AM Pacific Time
  • Thursdays – Tonglen, 6 AM Pacific Time
  • Sundays – Brahmavihara. 7 AM Pacific Time
  • Monday and Thursday. Contemplation and meditation. 4:30 PM PacificTime

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

Please feel free to reach out with questions or insights. Please also feel free to forward this post and invite others to join the sangha. You may find more reflections, poetry, art at sanghaofthepandemic.org

Exploring the Practice of the The Six Paramitas

Dear friends, 

It has been a while since you have received posts from me or the Sangha of the Pandemic. I hope that you will enjoy and find useful this and future postings as we move into a period of exploring the six paramitas taught in the sutras of the buddhist lineages. If you would not like to receive these emails, please feel free to unsubscribe. You can do that on our website: Sangha of the Pandemic or at the bottom of this email. The sangha continues to meet for practice and inquiry six times per week. For times and the Zoom link refer to the end of this post.

Each week or two through the end of the year you will receive postings of reflections on the paramitas. During the meditation sessions during the subsequent week, we will meditate on and inquire into the six paramitas with the intention of deepening understanding and cultivating a direct experience of the practices and their fruition. We will also provide links to digital materials at the end of each post for further study. In the near future, there will be an opportunity for comments and discussions with other members of the sangha on the bottom of each post on the website. In the meantime, feel free to respond to the email that you received about this post.

The forum for the practice sessions is a bit unique to this sangha. We open with a few minutes of silent reflection. We take a few minutes to check in. The facilitator will speak a bit about the topic shared in the post and in the context of the specific practices. We practice for 20 – 40 minutes. In the last ten minutes there is an invitation to share essential insights from the practice with the sangha. The sits usually are one hour long but sometimes we go over a bit. 

Let’s begin with a reflection on the paramitas as a whole. 

The Six Paramitas  

Perhaps before you begin to read this exploration, you take a few to settle in and relax. Maybe clear the mind of to do and to want lists and just see what’s here. May these words bring about ease in heart and mind.

The three most common translations of paramita” are “aspect of perfection”, “transcendence” and “gone to the opposite shore”.

So right off the top we might get lost in the semantics of these words, not to mention the baggage of memories and experiences that they carry. The imprints of Western materialism consistently show up as a need for constant achievement and a drive for perfection. The suffering that the drive for perfection has caused over the millennia, and is still causing, is pervasive. “Transcendence” sets the mind spinning in a similar way. With the introduction of Eastern thought to the mainstream of the West, mid twentieth century, transcendence became a goal, for many, to get out of this life. It has been loaded with spiritual superiority and a universal judgment of being human, as being something that one should get past, and that if you didn’t you were somehow less than the folks who claimed to experience transcendence. This seems like just more of the baggage of perfection. Several teachers from the Eastern traditions recognized these rigid mind and heart habits and like Traleg Rinpoche,1 began using the translation of Sanskrit paramita: “going over to the other shore”. This seems to land more easily for many with a lot less baggage than the translations from Pali (perfection or transcendence), but it still sets up a getting to somewhere other than here.

Now would be a good opportunity to pause and take a few, or several, minutes to see what arises in your own mind and heart experience when you read or hear these words: perfection, transcendence, other shore. It is important to know what hidden streams of habitual thought are going on while you are contemplating this exploration of paramita and in the coming months, the specific paramitas. Because, most assuredly, these little demons of unconscious imprints will rise up, as we deepen the practices, and rock the boat of contemplation, distracting our mind and triggering doubt; sending us right back on the track of striving for perfection and justifying our judgments of self and others. So take a few here and notice.

Zoketsu Norman Fischer, a zen monk, points to a different way to understand and entertain the practices of the paramitas. In his introduction to a series on the paramitas2 he points out that these are not states or goals to be achieved but the essence of our humanness. When we meet someone who is happy with being human, just as they are, and you can sense that that happiness has nothing to do with their material wealth, social position or intellectual achievements, they also, uncoincidentally, act in alignment with the six paramitas. In other words, when we stop striving to be some imagined idea of what a perfect human is, or when we stop trying to transcend our unique way of being human, or discard the desire to get in a boat and get somewhere over there, just anywhere but here; when all those habitual judgments of just this-ness, just here-ness, diminish and eventually fall away entirely, what remains are these essential human qualities. Qualities that are perfect just as they are, transcendent of the unconscious haranguings of our super ego, and finally, are not over there, but just right here.

This is the heart of any wisdom practice. First, to develop the skill to see what is here, what unconscious habits of mind are causing distraction, attachment, and hate, fear, clinging and judgment. Second, to see these obstacles to our inherent qualities of goodness and to know the causes and the conditions that give rise to them. Third, to notice that there are times when these conditionings are not piloting the boat and then allow ourselves to experience the joy in the freedom of that. Fourth to begin to consciously cultivate this joy of being human, the joy of being right here, right now; gradually discarding the ingrained habits of the mind and heart. This does take practice. Practice that resonates with the true heart and celebrates the open spacious mind. Whatever that practice looks like is not important. It is important, however, that you choose a practice that you can stick with and find healing, ease and joy in it.

So, over the next several months, in this way, we will explore the virtues (oh-oh another trigger word – eh?) of the six paramitas:

  • Generosity
  • Discipline
  • Patience
  • Diligence
  • Meditation
  • Wisdom

Perhaps the mind has already started spinning on these words. Good to notice. The approach to our study and practice in relation to each paramita will be:

  1. To see what is here already and to reflect on teachings about each paramita.
  2. To recollect or call up experiences of each paramita that were/are joyful and generative.
  3. To explore obstacles, that we may experience, to these qualities
  4. To bring intentionality in meditation and in our daily life to these qualities.

We look forward to hearing from you and practicing with you!

May these words and all the intentions that give rise to them bring about the end of suffering for all beings, throughout all times and in all directions.

1The Essence of Buddhism. An Introduction to Its Philosophy and Practice Traleg Kyabgon. 11/11/2014

2Six Paramitas. -Insight Yoga Institute, Zoketsu Norman Fischer, 10/14/2010

Practice

Practicing in sangha, even virtually, seems to activate the yeast of meditation in a different way than sitting solitarily. The members of the Sangha of the Pandemic, invite you to share the bread of the practice with us. No experience is required. There is no cost. Everyone is welcome.

We practice on ZOOM:

  • Mondays – Calm abiding and insight meditation. 6 AM Pacific Time
  • Tuesdays – Body awareness. 6 AM Pacific Time
  • Thursdays – Tonglen, 6 AM Pacific Time
  • Sundays – Brahmavihara. 7 AM Pacific Time
  • Monday and Thursday. Contemplation and meditation. 4:30 PM PacificTime

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

Please feel free to reach out with questions or insights. Please also feel free to forward this post and invite others to join the sangha. You may find more reflections, poetry, art at sanghaofthepandemic.org

Coming Into Prayer – Angie Alkove

High in the quiet snow covered mountains,

My heart

Ushered by a dream 

Awakened to darkness 

Startled into revelation

A year since my breast was cut away.

I will never be the same.

In the dream

A dark star awaits,

The star reflected in scans and biopsy reports, 

In long pauses and shaky voices 

Of nurses 

And doctors 

And heads of departments

In the scientific names and details 

Critical to bodily survival, 

Lost in piles of paperwork.

In the dream 

The star is no longer hidden deep within, 

But centered above me 

So that

I lost myself in what appeared to be

A twisted cross of ebony

Turning toward the darkness 

Walking though my body,

Completely alone, singled out

I found myself

Coming into prayer.

Not through the door of an imposing cathedral, 

Not on my knees at my bedside, 

But through a softening 

Given by time 

A lens to focus my breath

Prayer is not a universal language like music or beauty,

Prayer welcomes the unknown

Prayer is the call to listen

Prayer disarms the mind

Prayer creates form from loss

It is the labor of the soul turning inside out.

It is the

Seed sprouting 

Bud opening

Fish splashing

Bird singing 

Tree swaying 

Wonder 

Where the visible is given to the darkness, 

The hidden and held lost in light.

Angie Alkove -3/07/2023

Saturday Morning News

Randall Mullins, Feb 25

Expecting a light morning for news,

I turn on the tv, 

coffee in hand, 

feeling at ease, 

until a baby boy’s face appears on the screen. 

His father, 

who must have loved his son,  

“lost it,” as we say, 

shook him too hard, 

and killed him. 

He was charged with murder, 

and is now in custody.

This, brothers, 

all over the world,

from our lonely workplaces 

to fields of battle, 

is our harsh invitation 

to transformation. 

Those among us 

who also have lost it, 

or who came close 

(I am one), 

but managed to stop short of tragedy, 

recognize the hard truth.

“Love your enemies” 

must include 

loving those 

wounded parts 

of ourselves where we

have not yet learned 

to weep our way toward home.

Is it not clear 

that most of the destruction 

of Things Sacred comes 

from the wounded hearts of men?

Let us hold one another accountable, 

but let us not condemn this man 

before remembering 

that we are in this struggle together.

Is he not Everyman?

a brother?

wounded like us, 

but never beyond repair?

He deserves time apart, 

a place of penitence, 

a penitentiary, 

a space 

where the soul can come forth.

It can happen.

Someone has said that 

the young man 

who does not weep 

is a savage, 

and the old man 

who does not laugh 

is a fool.

Transforming our pain, 

healing, 

includes the sacred work 

of grieving, 

and we can never 

complete this work alone.

We too are in custody, 

but not in a prison. 

We are in custody of the Beloved,

helping us turn toward home.

We have a True Home 

at the Sacred Center of Everything.

waiting there to embrace us.

Even if it seems 

thousands of miles away, 

let us turn toward home, 

walking shoulder to shoulder, 

with brothers 

drawn to the same sweetness, 

knowing ourselves as Beloved.

– Randall Mullins (Dedicated to my Illuman brothers)

Grace in the Clearing – Chuck Fondse

Fall in Meadow - Linda Atwater

Grace is there for the asking 

Tall Weeds choke the way 

Arms thrashing through the weeds 

Trying to get to the clearing. 

The clearing appears 

Meadow, beauty, open air 

Sense the air in my lungs. 

Fresh, crisp, life giving. 

No more weeds 

No more thrashing 

No more cut arms 

Clear freedom 

Until it is not.  

Rocks in the meadow 

Just below the short grass 

Not seen.  

First trip: 

Oh damn  

I did not see it 

Second trip 

What is this shit 

Who put that there? 

Third trip.  

I sit down, 

Despondent 

Wondering. 

Will this ever get smooth  

Ever? Ever? 

Grace is there for the asking. 

Not smooth but 3-D,  

There to trip me? 

Deep crevasses, 

Big rocks, breaking down 

To little rocks in the meadow 

That make beauty real.  

May these offerings be in service to the end of suffering for all beings, throughout all times, and in all directions throughout the cosmos.

Practice

The Sangha of the Pandemic offers several opportunities for a safe, inclusive, free, virtual community contemplative practice. Everyone is welcome regardless of meditation experience or spiritual lineage.

The Zoom link is:  

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays: 6 AM PacificTime

Monday: calm abiding, Samatha, Tuesday: body awareness, Thursday: Tonglen

Sunday at 7 AM Pacific Time: Four Brahmaviharas

and

Monday and Thursday evenings at 4:30 PM Pacific Time : Practice and Inquiry       

Please feel free to forward this email and any posts from our website at:

Sangha of the Pandemic                   

New Year Dream Practices

A New Year: The Twelve Holy Nights

Offerings from Linda Atwater:

Boughs down!

Crack. Limbs laden with ice give way.

Escaping the excess falling all around me,

Shedding that which no longer serves,

no longer wanted.

What am I ready to cast off?

–::::—-::::—-::::—-::::—-::::—-::::—-:::

Bow down.

Kneeling in gratitude for what remains,

Trunk, heart, a skeleton of I AM.

Parts lost or true nature exposed?

___________________________________________

“I bow with all beings to attain liberation.” -Zen verse-

-Namaste- I bow to the Divine within

Linda

For a description of the practice click here

____________________________________________________________________________

May the joy, kindness, compassion and equanimity of your true nature and the nature of all beingness rain down in unending blessings this year and in all years past, present and future.

May this practice, these words, and all actions be in service to the end of suffering for all beings, throughout all times, and in all directions throughout the cosmos.

-William

Practice

The Sangha of the Pandemic offers several opportunities for a safe, inclusive, free, virtual community contemplative practice. Everyone is welcome regardless of meditation experience or spiritual lineage.

The Zoom link is:  

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays: 6 AM PacificTime

Monday: calm abiding, Samatha, Tuesday: body awareness, Thursday: Tonglen

Sunday at 7 AM Pacific Time: Four Brahmaviharas

and

Monday and Thursday evenings at 4:30 PM Pacific Time : Practice and Inquiry       

Please feel free to forward this email and any posts from our website at:

Sangha of the Pandemic                   

A New Year

While teaching in Waldorf schools, I was introduced to a practice for the children of starting each morning lesson with a questions: “What’s new?” In the early grades , their attention was directed to something new or different in the classroom. As the years progressed, the children began experiencing the question as more open ended and began including new experiences or new ideas that they had or were having. As we advanced to middle school, the questions was more refined to what we were studying at the time or what issues were active in the community. 

I was reminded of this practice by Chuck Fondse in a sangha share recently when he related an experience of approaching the solstice as fresh and new and then that leading to an experience of every moment and experience being fresh and new.. The daily habit of this question: “What is new?” can become a daily practice for us too. Beginning the day with this question may free the mind from habitual thinking and open the experience to what is.  

It is like the experience of a new year. New Year’s Eve has always been a time of washing away, putting down, releasing the accumulations in mind, heart and body that have bunched up from the previous year. In addition to un-clinging, there has been the habit of grasping for something new in the coming year by setting goals or planning specific changes in life. If instead one approaches the New Year with “What is new?” with pure openness, there is a possibility of freedom from expectation of something to come (grasping) or regret of something that has passed (clinging). A gesture of gentle, openhanded receptivity offers the opportunity for connection to what is, and strengthens the capacity to respond with the skill and means that are called for and not what the habitual conditioning thinks is needed. 

Rudolf Steiner introduced a meditation practice for the new year that has this openness to what is. There are many interpretations of this practice, referred to most often as The Holy Nights Meditation. It is often practiced from December 25 – January 6 in reflection of the Christian celebration of Jesus’s birth. However, throughout Steiner’s lectures and notes form other folks, he indicates that the practice can begin on the longest night of the year, the solstice, and continue through January 1st. Some references include a 13th night as well. One of the reflections that I read about the practice was that beginning on the first day of the New Year, we start to collect uncompleted intentions, or we begin to fill up a trunk of hopes and regrets. This continues throughout the year until, near the closing of the year, there’s a bottleneck or backlog of stuff that wants to be attended to. The invitation in this practice might be to methodically reflect on the year month by month and see what hopes are being clung to or what regrets are taking up space in our consciousness. Another approach is to use the practice to open our mind-heart to unknown possibilities in the coming year. There are many other approaches as well so just seeing what shows up as you engage in the practice is great!

The Practice of the Twelve Holy Nights. (My interpretation)

  • Place a journal and pen next to your bed so that you can access it easily in the night or first thing in the morning.
  • Prepare, ahead of time, your question that you will carry through the Holy Nights. For example, you might ask what will come in the month of ____? (The first night would be January, second February and so forth through the twelve months.)
  • Each night before going to sleep write at the top of the page or area the month and year that you will be working with.
  • Go to sleep having asked the question and to the best of your ability refrain from dwelling on it as you drift off. 
  • If you wake in the night with a dream, write it down with as much clarity as you can and then go back to sleep. If you don’t dream during the night, upon waking up take time to write whatever you are experiencing or contemplating upon waking.
  • Repeat this for twelve or thirteen nights. 
  • It seems that one of the most important parts of the practice is to remain in an open, non-assumptive frame of mind when you ask the question and when you record your experiences in the journal.
  • If you are  using the practice to review the year, begin with December and work back by month until last year’s solstice. If you are practicing opening to what is coming toward you in the year ahead, start with January and progress through the twelve months
  • If an experience arises during the day that draws your attention in an our of the ordinary way, record that as well. 
  • If you are not able to begin the practice on the actual solstice, no problem. Begin when it feel right for you. The important thing is to stay with it for a consecutive stretch of twelve nights.

At the end of the twelve nights, review what you have written and keep the journal someplace accessible so that you can refer to it as the year progresses. This is not a prognostication practice so don’t be concerned if what shows up is odd or extraordinary or nothing at all. Like all practices, the invitation is to experience and notice the effect of the experience.

Another possibility would be to incorporate the reflection or question into your daily practice for these twelve days. The indication for the night and dreams is that the veils between our conditioned, habit stream and our open, non conceptual nature is thinned when we sleep. So maybe a daytime contemplative practice would work better for some folks.

May the joy, kindness, compassion and equanimity of your true nature and the nature of all beingness rain down in unending blessings this year and in all years past and present.

May this practice, these words, and all actions be in service to the end of suffering for all beings throughout all times and in all directions throughout the cosmos. 

-William

A Path

From the perspective of the Mahayana teachings of buddhism, as far as my understanding goes, there are as many paths as there are beings to walk them; as many ways to walk the paths as there are atoms in all the cosmos, as many teachers as there are moments in and out of time. These paths, ways of walking, teachings and teachers are all revelations of true, untouched goodness, the primordial essence, thusness of all things.

Within the paths of the lineages of wisdom that I have been exposed to there seem to be some similar experiences in the process of revelation.  We have been exploring these in the last several weeks: 

  • faith
  • practice as concentration and insight 
  • revelation of obstacles on the path as the three poisons of passion, aggression and ignorance
  • awakening to the causes and conditions of these obstacles: karma
  • liberation.

These are by no means a complete summary of the experiences on the infinite paths nor are they the only commonalities on the paths. These are the ones that have been most prominent in my experience and understanding of the wisdom lineages that I am familiar with.

Faith: At some moment in a life or in pre-birth, everyone seems to have had an experience of complete ease, free from suffering and fear, with a non conceptual connection with all beings and an experience of unconditional goodness. When this experience passes, the imprint on the whole being remains and is like a permanent beacon that reminds us of the experience as being the true nature of all beingness. Regardless of what path one is on, it seems that there is faith in this experience, and the knowledge that arises as a result of the experience, that is guiding us or calling us to return to what we know, from that initial experience, to be the true nature of beingness.

Practice: All practices seem to have two core constituents; contemplation and insight.

Contemplation is the practice of quieting unconscious and habitual thoughts, feelings and actions. It is most often practiced as focused attention on one thing: the breath, an object, an inner picture, a guardian, a prayer, god. In this practice, what is thought of as a self separate from other and all the constructs that make it, begins to diminish and a stillness that sometimes manifests as a presence or presence remains. There is a taste of the experience of the nature of beingness in the quietude of the mind, emotions and body.

Insight is what sprouts, grows, and blossoms from that rich soil of quietude. It often a surprise and is rarely what one thinks they are looking for or needing because it arises, not out of the habitual mind, but the still, open mind of contemplation.

Obstacles on the path: The light of insight shines brightly on the path, not only illuminating the way of return, but the obstacles or unconscious, habitual and conditioned ways of being, that have diminished our inherent capacities and our nature of goodness. This light also illumines how one diminishes and hinders others on their path. When one contemplates the obstacles they seem to congeal into three types, referred to as poisons in some buddhist texts: passion, aggression and ignorance.  ( See the links for more on these. )

Karma: The revelation of the obstacles leads to the understanding of the causes and conditions of these unconscious habits of being or karma. In the contemplation of these causes and conditions one begins to see the how and why of their existence. This knowledge also reveals the insight of how they are perpetuated in, and perpetuate, an unending cycle of suffering. Upon further contemplation, one may begin to see that there is no reality in these poisons as such; that they are fabrications of early life or pre-birth imprints and resulting, conditioned habits. As a greater understanding of the mechanism that runs the engine of karma develops, mind, heart, and body, in their natural brilliance, begin to effortlessly drop the habits that have burdened us in the path to return.

Liberation: First in an instant, in moments, in periods, in days, weeks, lives, past and future, in timelessness, through the experience of a path, the suffering and obstacles on a path, and the glimpses of reality on a path, one arrives where there is no path and never was; where there is no arriving and no leaving; our omnipresent nature as goodness.

These words are dedicated to all wisdom elders and wisdom teachings and to bringing about the end of suffering for all beings throughout all times and in all directions.

May it be so.

-William

Practice

The Sangha of the Pandemic offers several opportunities for a safe, inclusive, free, virtual community contemplative practice. Everyone is welcome regardless of meditation experience or spiritual lineage.

The Zoom link is:  

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays: 6 AM PacificTime

Monday: calm abiding, Samatha, Tuesday: body awareness, Thursday: Tonglen

Sunday at 7 AM Pacific Time: Four Brahmaviharas

and

Monday and Thursday evenings at 4:30 PM Pacific Time : Practice and Inquiry       

Please feel free to forward this email and any posts from our website at:

Sangha of the Pandemic                   

Liberation

Liberations is instantaneous.

Liberation is in the moment when one sets down a burden and before picking up another.

Liberation is when the search stops.

Liberation is when the search, and what is sought are experienced as having no independent inherent essence. 

Liberation is when the mind rests in the understanding and experience of the emptiness of all things that arise as a result of a cause.

Liberation is the freedom of spontaneous, unconditional forbearance toward all beings and oneself.

Liberation is the dropping of the concept that one is not liberated. 

It has always been challenging for me to reconcile the luxury and ease of having the time and opportunity to be able to contemplate these things, and the awareness of other people, whose birth into genetic streams of generational trauma and whose lives and thoughts are consumed with just surviving, and not conducive to contemplation without a heroic amount of effort. In my life the experience of liberation is the freedom from habits of mind and conditioning that lead me to attachment or aversion. It is freedom from the mental gymnastics of doubt and judgment of self and others. What is liberation for the starving masses in war, flooded, and drought stricken lands? What is liberation for the deeply impoverished rural populations of the Western societies, who have been led into the addictions of alcohol, pain relievers, 24 hour hate media, and spiritual charlatans promising liberation? What is liberation for the urban destitute who don’t even have the respite of nature and its solace, but are born into canyons of empty, concrete and glass promises and unscalable and soul crushing mountains of the Wealthy’s law and order?

As I hold these disparate worlds in the crucible of contemplation, I notice that, by opening my experience to the images and thoughts that arise from seeing the lives of the folks who do not live in the luxury of having time and opportunities to contemplate, the incessant habit stream of conditioned thinking dissolves. I am no longer a cloud of lofty aspirations mulling the nature of reality. I experience being grounded in humanness and thisness. The non conceptual qualities of loving kindness, compassion, gratitude/joy and equanimity are unveiled as manifestations of true nature, not merely concepts. Fears of losing my place in the hierarchy of materialism and intellectualism drop away and I am left with the prayer that I will have the capacities and be presented with opportunities to bring ease to those who are suffering however, whenever and wherever that suffering occurs. 

That is all that is left.

I experience liberation.

In the teachings of the boddhisatva path to liberation, the buddhas and enlightened ones appear endlessly, without hesitation, wherever there is suffering. They rarely show up as pulpit bangers or cushion sitters or miracle workers, but dressed in the garb, the desires, the attachments, the lostness of those who are suffering, regardless of social class, spiritual lineage, or past deeds. They are relentlessly residing within the caves of the suffering, living as companions to those who are suffering, no matter how it manifests. In some of the teachings it is pointed out that those of us who live lives of material ease ultimately suffer immensely when we realize our ignorance of how we may have perpetuated suffering in the world because of our ignorance and desires to hold onto our luxury. While the sages immerse themselves into these caves of ignorance, greed and hatred they are shining lights on on the path to liberation that originates from each individual’s, unique, inherent manifestation of goodness. Like Jesus and all the wisdom teachers, these buddhas descend into hell, not to battle with the lost souls but to invite them without conditions into the heaven of their own true nature.

When I am able in a moment of presence to willingly and without expectation to offer all that I am, and am not, to bring about an end to suffering, I experience liberation. I practice and study the dharma, however it shows up, to be always ready to step into the cave and don the garb wherever and whenever the call comes. I often cannot hear or am ignorant of the call because it is drowned out by the cacophony of my own mind stream of conditioned greed and aversion. But there are moments, more and more with practice, that this willingness to show up, presents opportunities to apply the lessons of buddha, dharma and sangha, in the world. It is not like when, in my younger years, I would barrel into the barrios with my arrogance and righteousness to save those “lesser” folks from their lives. Riding in on my white horse into save the lives that I assumed were insufficient without what I had. The experience is merely waiting for the invitation to walk a path with another without any objective but to relive suffering, whatever that means to them.  

With the practice, the path, that I have the skills and experience and humility to travel, steps into me, meets me, and shows me where and how I can do this work without causing more suffering. When I slow down enough and listen without ambition or agendas, what is needed offers itself as a gift for deeper practice and understanding of the path. Liberation is the result of the acts of selfless/egoless serving and dedication to the end of suffering for all beings throughout all times and in all directions. Liberation is the result of finally being willing to be unconditionally, essentially human.

These words are dedicated to all wisdom elders and wisdom teachings and to bringing about the end of suffering for all beings throughout all times and in all directions.

May it be so.

-William

Practice

The Sangha of the Pandemic offers several opportunities for a safe, inclusive, free, virtual community contemplative practice. Everyone is welcome regardless of meditation experience or spiritual lineage.

The Zoom link is:  

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays: 6 AM PacificTime

Monday: calm abiding, Samatha, Tuesday: body awareness, Thursday: Tonglen

Sunday at 7 AM Pacific Time: Four Brahmaviharas

and

Monday and Thursday evenings at 4:30 PM Pacific Time : Practice and Inquiry       

Please feel free to forward this email and any posts from our website at:

Sangha of the Pandemic                   

Working with Karma

The first few paragraphs of this post are my attempt to wind through the mental and emotional knots of how the three poisons work to create karma. For a real life, non conceptual reflection on work ing with karma skip right down to Chuck Fondue’s story. 

Karma is the activity, experienced and observed, of the perpetual engine of cause and effect. Karma is not the cause of suffering. Suffering manifests as a result of how I relate to karma. Release from suffering is not an effect of karma. Release of suffering comes about as a result of how I relate to karma.

Karma is the beginningless activity of cause and effect. Being beginningless it is also endless. Being endless it is beginingless. Mental and emotional suffering and release from this suffering are effects and causes in the infinite expanse of karma. The effects of grasping clinging, lust, and greed of passion that come about are effects.  These effects are caused by the conceptualizing mind wanting to hold fast to, or make definitive, to know for sure, an ultimate cause of karma. Aversion, hatred and violence as expressions of aggression are the effects of the mind wanting to push away anything that reminds me of the reality that the causes and effects of karma are unknowable. These passions and aggressions are the effects of the ignorance of the true nature of Karma as being beginingless, endless and empty of true nature. 

In the cases when I experience suffering as aggression, I am relating to karma by trying to avoid, push away, destroy; i.e. act aggressively toward karmic activity that I believe threatens my well being and/or survival. It is also when who and what I think myself to be, or what I want to be, is brought into question. 

In cases when I experience the suffering of passion I am relating to karmic activity by trying to grasp and cling to, the experience of freedom from suffering. It is the suffering of the mind trying to make something permanent.

The suffering of ignorance manifests when I forget that the activity of the karma that I experience is merely a perpetual engine of cause and effect.  This engine of activity has no intrinsic nature and no form. It is a habit of a conditioned mind and therefore cannot be pushed away or clung to. Ignorance is when I believe that karma, its activity, and the resulting suffering is the absolute nature of reality; when I believe that Karma is more than merely habitual, conditioned activity in the infinite field of beingness. 

The suffering of ignorance arises when my habits of thinking and conditioned reactivity to karma draw my perception of reality away from the experiential knowledge of the true nature of being. This true nature arises to awareness when I experience a pause in the mind’s incessant activity and see reality just as it is: unconditional, universal goodness.

So how is it possible to work with something so omnipresent and and intrinsically non-existent?

From Chuck Fondse.

First things first: I am writing down my experience with mindful concern. Writing it down gives is a permanence that is not part of the experience. In fact, after I share my experience, I will tell the “rest of the story” that shows just how impermanent it was. 

November 11 to 14, 2022 

My surgery for a right knee replacement is scheduled for Monday morning, early. Arrival time is to be 6:15am at the surgery center. Today is Saturday. I have spent the past days on the beach in Oregon with my spouse. Today we spent the windy, chilly, mostly cloudy day on the beach with my children and grandchildren, with a photographer capturing the day for photos to be shared at Christmas and beyond. We are having a laughing good time. If I shared photos, you could see it. My granddaughter Alice is an angel, and Marjke is being her normal naughty self. 

Jan and I leave to pack up our room and meet the rest at a breakfast place that Alice is so excited about. The food is good, I have Buckwheat pancakes, a treat I can rarely find. Then, my body starts to cramp and off to the restroom I go. I have a history of such stomach occurrences ever since my extreme dysentery incident in the 70’s in the middle east. I have learned to live with it and for the most part control it. What happened next took me by surprise. I had extreme vertigo. Jan needed to help me to the car. I rested for the rest of the afternoon, and it seemed to go away. 

Sunday was spent at home relaxing, getting the house ready for my recuperation. Sunday evening we ordered our favorite Chinese food and I was wolfing it down as usual. And then it hit again. The whole world started to spin. I was scared. I closed my eyes, opened them and still the same. I am worried about not being able to do the surgery. After an hour, it subsides a bit and I do my pre-surgery shower and sleep in a bed with clean linens on them, following instructions of the surgery center. 

Monday morning alarm goes off at 5:15am. I get up thankful that the vertigo was gone. We were heading for the door when I almost fell. It hit again, powerfully telling me that I was not in control. I had to use my walker, intended for post surgery, to get to the car. As Jan drove me in the dark rainy morning, it did not get better. I hobbled into the center to the reception desk and was checked in. The nurse comes to get me and helps me to my room. The world is still spinning. I tell her about it. She asks me to stand before she leaves me to change into those wonderful challenging hospital robes with no back. I almost fall. She is alarmed, tells me to sit and leaves to consult with the anethesiologist. I beg her to let me be for a bit but she is not going to just let me into surgery. She leaves. I look for a spot in the floor that can stop spinning and bow my head. 

Suddenly I feel a cry come from my gut, tears flowing from my eyes and I say, from the gut I—Am— SCARRED. I AM REALLY SCARED. There is no one in the room to comfort me with “It will be ok Chuck. Don’t worry.” No I sit with my fear, tasting it, seeing it, embracing it as I had just learned to do in our Sangha. William had been helping us just sit with our discomfort we SAW in each of our own versions of the three poisons. And as I sat with it, the power of the spinning dissipated. It did not go away but I could stand and function without falling. No one was in the room yet. Then the Dr and nurses and administrator come in to “talk to me.” I was more afraid of postponing the surgery than of having it at that moment, but I was also SEEing that my body had memory that I was not aware of from the last knee surgery. That one went poorly. I was in the hospital for 3 nights and went home in extreme pain. 

As the doctor talked to me about why we should not proceed and the risks of ambulances and emergency rooms in these COVID/FLU times I forcefully asked him to be quiet and let me do their pre-op proof of walking with my walker all through the hallways, the prescribed test they gave me. I passed with flying colors. Yes, I was still not cognitively “all there” but the debilitating vertigo was gone. 

Surgery went very well. Only 1 ½ hours for a total knee replacement. Post surgery went very well and I have been walking from the first day out. Today, I can walk without a cane but use one for safety and stability. I am about 1 to 2 weeks ahead of the schedule that I was on with my last knee. 

Why do I share this? 

1. I realize that my body had a memory that I had pushed down below cognizant awareness. It was not letting it go until I heard it. 

2. I learned to embrace the fear, truly embrace it, and in so doing, the fear became manageable and my body responded. 

3. This would not have been possible had I not been practicing. Practice is what we do each morning we gather and the in between times when we “remember.” 

4. SO, thank you to the Sangh of the Pandemic. 

The rest of the story: I have had several major vertigo incidents since surgery, the last one being after our wonderful Thanksgiving meal at our house. I almost fell in the bathroom. This one has not left me 3 days later. I can function, sometimes slow the spinning down, but it is still there. I see my PCP on Friday to see if we can find out why. I grieve the impermanence of the solution that appeared to find me in the surgery center. I am scared that this might last and define my life going on. I am mad. I am trying to embrace each of those. IMPERMENANCE sucks. BUT, permanence is hell, the hell of expectations of perfection, happiness, the way it is supposed to be. 

So there you have it. Today I can write on the computer, I can read for short periods of time. I can do my exercises, I am much more pain free than the last knee, and I may even be able to play with my model trains. My greatest attachment is to my biking. That is one of my greatest fears, to lose that. This vertigo thing is a teacher that I did not ask for. NOT IN THE LEAST!!!! My oh my. What will a person do? – Chuck Fondse

_____________

These words are dedicated to all wisdom elders and wisdom teachings and to bringing about the end of suffering for all beings throughout all times and in all directions.

May it be so.

-William

Practice

The Sangha of the Pandemic offers several opportunities for a safe, inclusive, free, virtual community contemplative practice. Everyone is welcome regardless of meditation experience or spiritual lineage.

The Zoom link is:  

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays: 6 AM PacificTime

Monday: calm abiding, Samatha, Tuesday: body awareness, Thursday: Tonglen

Sunday at 7 AM Pacific Time: Four Brahmaviharas

and

Monday and Thursday evenings at 5:30 PM Pacific Time : Practice and Inquiry       

Please feel free to forward this email and any posts from our website at:

Sangha of the Pandemic                                           

Karma

“I have good parking karma.”

“They must have bad karma.”

“Your karma’s showing.”

“What goes around comes around.”

“If you do good you get good.”

 The pop karma that permeates Western culture is rooted in the reward/punishment theologies of materialistic spirituality and egocentricity. It is centered on a “me” getting or losing as a result of actions or speech, or payback for the “other” who has taken something from or given something to a “me”. There is a thread that runs through it, spun out of reward and punishment, that if the “me”cannot get, or does get, what it wants or thinks that it needs, some unseen, all knowing force will come in and impose reward or punishment in the future upon the “me” the “other”. And that the current experience is a reward or punishment for actions taken in the near or distant past.

In my earliest exposures to the concept of karma, I could only grasp it in relation to my upbringing in the Catholic church. Like the pop culture of karma, it was dependent on doing good to get a reward or if I did something bad, I would receive penance in this life or the next. There was a little taste of practicing being in the present, but it was mostly about what happened in the past and how I need to pay for my bad actions, how can I prevent those actions from happening again, so that my future will be better. Somewhere in there was the idea that doing good for others would get me to a better place in the future. i.e. it was all about me. 

I have used this understanding of karma to promote the inner-critic and the self-justifier. When I do something wrong I should be punished and until I am punished appropriately, I am a bad person. Or I did something right and I should receive a reward or acknowledgment and until I do, I experience a sense of superiority in my altruism. This all can get really convoluted triggering a torrent of shame, blame, arrogance and self righteousness.

My understanding of karma as taught in the Eastern wisdom traditions is much more straightforward and scientific. It is simply action and reaction, cause and effect; action of body, emotion, and thought and the effect of those actions. It is the unconscious engine of temporal reality. There is no moral judgment, as such, because it just is. Karma is merely cause and effect ,and then effect becoming cause for further effects… endlessly. There are some elements of accurate perception of karma in the pop culture perspective in so far as they point to this cause and effect reality, but the popular conception of karma of doing something to get something only shows up in the Eastern teachings as a simile for the mechanics of karma or an inducement to not be a mean person.

From the Eastern perspective, karma is a perpetual circular track of suffering that runs on the fuel of the three poisons; passion, aggression and ignorance. It is like an infinitely long snake feeding on its own tail. It has no independent origin, it is beginningless and endless. When inquiring carefully into the fuels and the structure of karma, it becomes apparent that it is a compound of mental concepts that have no actual substance or inherent nature. Empty concepts that arise from an infinite chain of cause and effect with no initial or terminal moment.

Seeing this and experiencing the quality of this understanding, stills the habitual mind stream for a moment. In this moment that is out of time there is an experience of what Edgar Casey called the ultimate Is-ness. I think that might be what is referred to in buddhism as thusness, and in Taoism as the eternal Tao, and perhaps it is the Rapture in Christian teachings.

In the moment-less moment, there is the experience of freedom, spaciousness, unburdenedness. The perpetual habit stream of karma and the resulting suffering is seen as void of reality. It is like the experience of waking up from an all consuming nightmare and seeing that it wasn’t real. In a sense, one steps out of the endless cycle of cause and effect, karma, and steps into the reality of true nature; though there really is no stepping off or on. It is more like a final knowing that the experience of deep ease, unconditioned love and joy, and the knowing that everything including one’s experience of self as whole, holy, goodness, is just the way things are. That the grasping, clinging, greed, hatred, aversion, fear, doubt are the shadows created by the ignorance of the way things are. These shadows are a result of trying to fix or change or undo karma; cause and effect, when in reality there is nothing really there to be undone or fixed. 

When I put my hand in fire I get burned. When I drop a stone in gravity, it falls. I cannot unburn my hand or unstop the fall. I can only not put my hand in the fire or not drop the stone in gravity. I cannot stop the immediate effect of an action. If I move in anger or hatred, either in thought or deed, I cannot undo that moment of action or thought. It will have some effect regardless of what I do, think, or say subsequently. When this realization spreads into the marrow of my being, the aspiration to stop the cycle, arises in the empty space of that realization. In the space of that awareness there is the opportunity and time to look around, find the key to the engine of karma, turn it off, and get off the track.

The goodness of karmic activity is in its capacity to point, urge and cajole us to be alert to suffering and the endless causes and effects of suffering. As awareness of how habit and conditioning contributes to suffering grows, the awareness of the nature of reality as goodness expands. It is as if karmic activity is a headlamp on a path that is shrouded in ignorance; shining the light of understanding on the obstacles of cause and conditioning, and showing a way through to the experience of reality as the intrinsic goodness of being.

In this reality there is only the substance-less, causeless, absolute goodness perpetuating and being perpetuated, reflecting and re-reflecting itself. It is in the eyes of a child discovering snow, and a guardian seeing the child discovering snow. It is in the awe of infinitely different sunsets and the blinding explosions of a lightning strike. It is in the first breath of life and the last sigh of death. It is here and now. No need to search or strive or do anything to get it. Just lay back in the arms of your own goodness and in that, allowing all beings to lay back in your embrace of goodness. 

_____________

These words are dedicated to all wisdom elders and wisdom teachings and to bringing about the end of suffering for all beings throughout all times and in all directions.

May it be so.

-William

The Three Poisons: Ignorance

From the beginning of life the body is constantly striving to survive. It does this by finding nutrients from outside of itself and transforming them into usable forms to promote and sustain itself. In this process it also learns to discern what is not usable and either avoids or rejects it. Internally it is also discerning, transforming, attacking, and expelling. The body develops habits and conditioning that simplifies the process and makes it efficient. In my utterly layperson’s understanding, the brain is the storehouse for the information gathered from these body experiences and directs this process through the nervous system. 

Somewhere along the line, this natural, efficient and necessary process bleeds over into the learned experiences of pleasure and displeasure and the consciousness of those experiences. We begin to link survival of the body with pleasure, and death of the body with displeasure. As infants, especially in the preverbal stage, we only have our physical being to communicate this pleasure and displeasure, or to grasp for comfort and push away discomfort. As a result of the memory of these experiences the developing consciousness also becomes conditioned to maximize the efficiency of getting what we sense/think/feel will sustain us and keeping away what we sense/think/feel will harm us. We learn that crying, pooping, crawling, talking etc. will all get a response or not; give us pleasure or not. As this capacity of consciousness matures and a sense of self and other begins to crystallize, the habits and conditioning of this early developmental stage, as well as the continuing developmental processes of coming to adulthood, continue to function and calcify throughout our lives. The efficiency of the processes of physical survival are imprinted in our consciousness and we are able to skip the conscious, linear process developing unconscious habits of thinking and feeling associated, correctly and incorrectly with survival.

Over time and through repetition, these unconscious habits of sensing, reacting, feeling and thinking stimulate the development of conditioned reactions of passion with its expressions of grasping, clinging, craving and greed as well as aggression with its expressions of aversion, hatred, anger and violence. The lack of awareness of the origin and function of these habits is one part of the poison of ignorance. 

A few of the most apparent expressions of this behavior out of ignorance for me are when I have an aversion to being around someone or some situation for no obvious reason, or when I am spontaneously yelling at a driver who won’t drive the way I want them to, or judging another or myself for not doing “it” right. This is unconscious aggression. Using concentration and insight in contemplation, leads to bringing to light the hidden conditioning or habit that runs the engine of the aggression. Upon deeper inquiry, I am able to see how my unconscious grasping or clinging or lust (passion) for something is the sparkplug igniting the start up of the engine engine of aggression. More aggression leads to more intense and unconscious passions, and the endless cycle of suffering. The process of shining a light of awareness on unconscious habits and conditioning allows me to be able to then make choices and offer responses out of understanding the reality in the present moment, rather than out of ignorant, conditioned habit.

For example I may discover that the behavior or speech patterns or dress of the person that I have an aversion to, are the same expressions that I have been trying to eliminate in my own behavior; expressions that have caused some kind of suffering for me or others or have been detrimental to my craving or holding on to friendship, position, acceptance etc. 

Over time with consistent, regular, contemplative practice and open ended inquiry (inquiry without expectation of results)into what is happening in these instances, the light of awareness reveals the unconscious knots of aggression and passion that cause so much suffering in our lives and the lives of others. This awareness liberates thinking, feeling and acting from the prison of ignorant reactivity, allowing true freedom of choice in the present moment. Shining a light on conditioning and unconscious, habitual thought patterns, reveals our ignorance of the reality of the causes of suffering, slows down the process and opens up space for clarity.

This open, spacious, clarity reveals the other part of ignorance; the ignorance of our intrinsic  nature. 

As the clutter of unconscious habits dissolves, the spacious freedom of present reality opens up and there is an awakening to the realization that we and all those we share the cosmos with are intrinsically good, generous, kind, compassionate, joyful and non-judgmental beings. The more that we are able to cultivate this knowledge through practice, the lighter our experience of reality is. This lightness is generative and the boundaries between self and other also begin to dissolve.  The resulting space expands to include not only personal suffering and freedom from that suffering but also opens space for the understanding of the suffering of others regardless of how it manifests; in hatred, clinging, anxiety, despair, or violence. It also clears a space for mutual joy, kindness, and ease of being. The capacity of strength that comes with this experiential knowledge slows the conditional processes down enough that there is time to respond appropriately rather than react habitually in the face of suffering or joy. 

As Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche taught: “Everything is working working.” The three poisons that cause so much suffering are also the medicines that initiate the healing of awareness of the suffering. The suffering of the three poisons cause us to seek out the end of suffering because it is the intrinsic nature of all beings, not only to be free of self suffering, but to long for for all beings throughout all times and in all directions to  be free from suffering.

May it be so.

These thoughts and practices are dedicated to all wisdom elders in all traditions, and to all beings throughout all times in all directions, with the intention that they may ignite the flame of self awareness and provide a little solace and ease.

-William
 

Practice

The Sangha of the Pandemic offers several opportunities for a safe, inclusive, free, virtual community contemplative practice. Everyone is welcome regardless of meditation experience or spiritual lineage.

The Zoom link is:  

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays: 7 AM CR Time

Monday: calm abiding, Samatha, Tuesday: body awareness, Thursday: Tonglen

Sunday at 7 AM CR Time: Four Brahmaviharas

and

Monday and Thursday evenings at 5:30 PM CR Time : Practice and Inquiry                                                   

The Three Poisons: Aggression

The three poisons of passion, aggression and ignorance are inextricably linked and interdependent and are the causes of the conditioned and habitual whirl of what is referred to, in eastern traditions, as samsara. When these habits of thinking and being are explored it becomes apparent that they are the primary causes of mental and emotional suffering. When inquiring into the nature of each one, individually, there is an awareness of how they arise from and give rise to the other two in an endless cycle. Noticing this, an understanding becomes apparent that, because they rely solely on each other for activation and sustainment, they are empty of independent, inherent substance and when one of them dissolves as a result of this understanding, the whole conditioned, habitual, cycle of suffering dissolves with it. 

Aggression

When I was first introduced to the teachings of the three poisons in Shambhala Warrior* training, it seemed obvious that aggression was a poison; unlike passion and ignorance, which I thought could be seen as either a gift or blameless (respectively) and therefore not really poisonous. I associated aggression with intentional violence, hatred, meanness, anger, rage etc. I was ignorant of the more subtle expressions of aggression that arise out of aversion. Aversion is a more insidious form of aggression and violence that I have often cloaked with spiritual, social or political, superiority. Whereas passion, as a poison, is any action, feeling or thought that tries to attract, grasp and cling, aversion is any action, feeling or thought that tries to push away or avoid. (It is understood here that there are some of these movements that are necessary in moments when our existence is threatened.)

Aversion is the surreptitious form of aggression that is seeded in the grasping of, and clinging to what is thought of as the good and the beautiful and pushing away everything else. Aversion often shows up as micro aggressions in speech and action. It is mostly unconscious until it is pointed out to us by someone who has been on the receiving end of it, or we discover it in the contemplation of suffering. For me these aversions are so deeply rooted and pervasive, that the process of uncovering them and weeding them out has been filled with shame and pain and I found myself redirecting  the aggression and aversion, that I had manifested toward the other, back on myself. And as a result perpetuating the cycle of violence.

With careful and gentle guidance from teachers, spiritual friends and the sangha of compassionate beings, as well as faith in universal goodness, I have been able to sit with this aggression in gentle observation. Like a guardian sitting with a young child who is in the heart of an emotional explosion; present, allowing, and soothing but not stopping or changing the experience. Working in this way, I began to see the conditioned nature of aversion and aggression. I began to understand that most of the aggression and aversion manifested as a result of habitual and conditioned responses that were imprinted in childhood and cultivated over time in the search for pleasure and avoidance of displeasure. With aversion it was less the outward expression of aggression that I recalled but the subtle looks, gestures and speech filled with hidden meaning. Like the times when, driving to baseball games, my mom insisting that we not go through the part of town where black folk lived to get there because “it’s dangerous”.  Or the unwillingness of adults to talk openly about sexuality while giving the impression that it was evil. 

In perceiving the conditionality of aggression, aversion and all the reactivity that manifests out of them, I began to understand that they were void of their own substance or form and only existed as a result of my unconscious habits of clinging, grasping and attachment. My anger, aversion, fear and aggression were a result of a fear of loss, or of a memory of the past, or anxiety about the future. i.e not really real in this moment.

Over time and through persistent practice of presencing, and insight into the nature of my aggressions and aversions as well as my passions, the incessant cycle of elevation and diminishment of self and others has begun to dissolve. As a result, little by little, I have been more able to respond to situations out of the experience and awareness of the present reality, instead of reacting out of an unconscious habitual thought stream. Awareness of the causes and conditions of the suffering that occurs because of these poisons an important step on the path to freedom from that suffering. This capacity also supports the skill  to be able to see through the aggression and aversion of others and into the heart of their suffering, so that we can respond out of compassion instead of passion.

This description of the process sounds a lot more complicated than it is. Begin by looking closely at the most obvious expressions of aversion or aggression and asking a simple question like “Where did that come from?” or noticing how the body changes in the midst of the expression. This slows the reaction time down enough that the connections to memory, fear or habits of thought can be observed.  In the moment that the aggressions happen it may not be possible to do this, so when there is time to reflect, in a safe environment, one can recreate the experience  in the imagination and begin the inquiry. This leads to a clearer understanding of the origins of the poisons and our suffering. The more that we understand our own suffering and how it develops, the more skill we have when we engage with others who are suffering and expressing that suffering through aggression or aversion.

Ultimately we begin to see that all passion and aggression and the resulting suffering is seeded in the ignorance of how these things work. We might also begin to notice that at the core of these passions is the deep longing for the expression and experience of our inherent goodness and the inherent goodness of all beings.

May it be so.

– William

* A system of practice and insight developed by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche to whom I dedicate all these words and this practice.

Practice

The Sangha of the Pandemic offers several opportunities for a safe, inclusive, free, virtual community contemplative practice. Everyone is welcome regardless of meditation experience or spiritual lineage.

The Zoom link is:  

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays: 6 AM PacificTime

Monday: calm abiding, Samatha, Tuesday: body awareness, Thursday: Tonglen

Sunday at 8 AM Pacific Time: Four Brahmaviharas

and

Monday and Thursday evenings at 4:30 PM Pacific Time : Practice and Inquiry                                                   

The website for the sangha is: gratefulroadwarrior.org

Please feel free to share this or any post from the Sangha

The Three Poisons: Passion,  Aggression, Ignorance

When I study the laws, practices, commandments, and aspirations of wisdom traditions, they all seem to dedicate a good deal or time to the causes and conditions of suffering and what to avoid or what to cultivate in order to prevent or bring and end to that suffering. 

In the buddhist teachings these are refined down to three primary causes and conditions for suffering; passion (attachment, grasping, clinging, greed), aggression (hatred, aversion, anger) and ignorance (bewilderment, delusion, folly). Over the next few weeks the sangha will be exploring how these three are present in our lives and how they contribute to our suffering and the suffering of others. We will also explore how , in the same way that poisons can be helpful on the path to healing, these three point to the path of freedom from suffering.

Passion

When I first heard that passion was a poison according to buddhist teaching, I was in my mid thirties, filled with a passion for acting, sexual exploration, and finding the perfect relationship. I had bottled up my passion for living free of my family history, religious oppression, and societal pressures for most of my life and I scoffed at the idea that passion was a poison. It was the fire of a fully engaged life! I thought the other two causes made sense but was resistant to looking at my understanding and experience of passion as a detriment to an awakened life. 

As I delved more deeply into the buddhist dharma, I understood that what it was pointing to was not the belly fire of loving and fully engaging in life, but the activity of searching and moving out of my centered, present experience of life, toward something other, in an attempt to get it and own it. I began to see that passion in this sense is any thought, feeling or action that prevents the experience, perception, or understanding of things as they are, and a grasping for something other than that. Or a clinging to something to prevent an experience from disappearing or changing. This passion moves my awareness out of present time and tries to draw in or attract something that exists only in my thought stream. This is something that is derived from a construct of “good” memories or ideas, and experiences that I have been conditioned to believe are better than my experience now. In the ten commandments this would be covetousness. In the buddhist teaching, it goes beyond the “inordinate desire for another’s possessions” (def. Mer. Webster) to include the craving for or attachment to any physical, emotional or mental experience that arises out of conditioned or habitual patterns. i.e I Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda had it or I Wanna, Gotta have it. 

The key words for me are “habitual” and “conditioned”. As The practice of meditation or any other form of contemplation, develops, it allows for on objective perspective on the thought stream (or what was a torrential waterfall in my case.). When inquiring, during the relative stillness of contemplation, into what drives or motivates any action, feeling or thought, there is an opportunity to see how most dissatisfaction and resulting covetousness or greed has its origin in a memory or a promise. This is a memory that gives rise to an habitual idea of happiness or pleasure that seems better than what is being experienced in the moment. Dissatisfaction might also be observed as a conditioned state of being that has been imprinted in our unconscious while seeking and achieving a promised result, or gaining approval from childhood guardians, peers or teachers. 

At the core of this inquiry I become more aware that this passion for getting and keeping something, is a striving for freedom from suffering and  a grasping for the experience and knowledge of true nature as easeful and good. I see that my passionate activity is looking for my true nature everywhere other than where it is, here and now. In other words the passionate search for peace outside of myself is a primary cause of my suffering and ultimately the suffering of those around me.

When we spend hours scrolling screens, or self medicating, or pushing our physical body to extremes, or endlessly spending resources on trying to mold ourselves into a better looking person, habitually looking for that experience of something more than this, it seems that we are just looking for that which is already present in our essential being.

In these times of polarization, paranoia, addiction, and the barrage of input that is always reminding us that what we are and what we possess is not good enough, it seems impossible to find that place of ease and goodness that we know, in the core of our being, is here already. In the quiet of contemplation and the still open space that arises, even if just for a second, there is an opportunity to know and experience reality as it is. From this place we are more able to respond to what is from the true belly fire of passion for an engaged life rather than reacting from a conditioned, habitual, thought stream. From a quiet place of self awareness we are able to know and experience that the spark of that fire is our inherent goodness. In these moments, striving for otherness diminishes and we, very naturally and without effort, stop the search and experience a respite from suffering, resting at ease in our truest nature.

May all beings throughout all times and in all directions know and experience their true goodness and an end to suffering.

I would enjoy and appreciate hearing your insights and questions. Feel free to respond to this email. –William

Practice

The Sangha of the Pandemic offers several opportunities for a safe, inclusive, free, virtual community contemplative practice. Everyone is welcome regardless of meditation experience or spiritual lineage.

The Zoom link is:  

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays: 7 AM CR Time

Monday: calm abiding, Samatha, Tuesday: body awareness, Thursday: Tonglen

Sunday at 7 AM CR Time: Four Brahmaviharas

and

Monday and Wednesday evenings at 5:30 PM CR Time : Practice and Inquiry                                                   

The website for the sangha is: gratefulroadwarrior.org

Please feel free to share this or any post from the Sangha

Suffering and the Causes

When Siddhartha Gautama left the sheltered garden of his father’s palace, he was ignorant of the day-to-day realities of life and the myriad ways of human suffering. Having seen, for the first time, the pain of the body expressed in birth, sickness, old age and death, he made a decision to leave his life of royal privilege and wander in search of answers. There are many theories about what the exact motivation that spurred Siddhartha  to leave his life of infinite privilege. I wonder if it was because of the inner turmoil that he experienced for the first time in his young life. All of his life he had experienced  and had been led to believe that life was only easeful, joyful and revolved totally around promoting his own happiness. He had been conditioned to believe that there were no obstacles to his happiness or anyone else’s. Imagine the experience of seeing the pain of a mother giving birth, the sore covered body of a leper, an aged one stumbling along in pain or the grey rotting corpse of a dead person, for the first time and all in one day! The feelings of shock, dismay, doubt perhaps even mistrust of his beloved family and community must have shattered reality for him. For me, I think it would have been deeply, wrenchingly painful. Experiencing an inner anguish and torment never experienced before, I imagine that I would have rushed back to the royal compound, run up to my rooms and begged for some distraction to take away the overwhelming feelings. I am afraid that I would have spent the rest of my days trying to suppress the memories and recreate the ignorance that allowed me to live a life of mindless ease.

I experienced a small taste of what that might have been like in the fall of 2019 when I saw the film “The Color of Fear” by Lee Mun Wah. I had a realization that I had been living life believing that I was beyond racism as a liberal, well educated man and that being gay gave me insight to the suffering of non-white folk. For the first time I heard my liberal cliches about racism as a person of color might hear them and I was literally nauseous with shame. Soon after, George Floyd was murdered.

Siddhartha left his royal privileges in search of the cause of the experiences of inner conflict and dis-ease that he was experiencing as a result of seeing suffering for the first time. In the beginning of his journey I wonder if it was not an altruistic seeking for the causes and relief of suffering for all beings, but for an understanding and relief from his own personal anguish and deep shame for having lived a life in ignorance.

In the months after George Floyd’s murder and the subsequent revelations of the hundreds or thousands of murders and incarcerations of innocent people of color just in my lifetime, not to mention the centuries of enslavement and oppression of non-white, folk that came before, I could no longer listen to the progressive white leaders talk about working to fix racism in America. I left my royal family of liberal white male theorists and sought out teachers and authors of color who could help me delve into the habits of racist thought and actions that were ingrained in the marrow of my being. James Baldwin led the way with his eloquent, true mirroring of white privilege. In the following autumn, I began a six month road journey to bow before and give thanks to teachers that pointed me to the way out of ignorance. The beginning of that journey was set in the reddest of red country in the Western USA. And once again I was brought to shame and nausea in seeing the ignorance I was holding onto about rural, predominately white Americans, whose depth of suffering due to the  broken promises, lies and abandonment by the political, religious and social elites, was heart rending.

Siddhartha traveled in search of teachers from his own lineage as well as those of the traditional spiritual lineages of his land, and only found teachings that always, in some way, mirrored the narrowness of understanding of his royal upbringing. There was always someone left out, someone better than, someone judged and someone elevated in these lineages. He saw how these ways of spiritual endeavor only perpetuated people’s suffering and as long as he knew that there was someone suffering he would re-experience his own anguish that resulted from his conditioned ignorance. 

Time after time throughout my road and wilderness journey, my conditioned habitual ideas and perceptions were shaken till I felt unmoored. Nothing was solid or definitive, even the daily routine of practice, movement and study changed moment to moment, in quality and depth. The expansiveness of awakened experiences would be contracted into self doubt from one day to the next. White men with with full MAGA gear would offer unconditional help when I was in need and share with me a wilderness sunset with exuberance for life, while a long life liberal friend would claim that all those folks deserved to die. Suffering was universal and any attempt to weigh and judge who deserved compassion was impossible.  The only thing that was reliable was that there was no reliability and that everyone was experiencing a suffering that seemed almost congenital and few would sit still long enough to inquire into the cause.

Siddhartha is said to have found a place to sit and inquire. I wonder if the inquiry was something like what was missing in all of these lineages, or in his own blessed life that, no matter how gratifying, easeful, mind-blowing, they still allowed suffering to exist. He was a scientist of human reality and could not stop until he experienced the truth of things first hand. In the sutras it is said that the Buddha of this Land of Endurance, Siddhartha, while sitting under the body tree, saw that suffering is the obstacle to the knowledge of the true nature of all things, including the truth of all beings’ inherent goodness. That our ignorance of this inherency is perpetuated by habitual conditioned thoughts, feelings and actions and that the fuel for this perpetual engine of ignorance is unquenchable passion and unrelenting aggression, that there is experience without suffering, and that there is a way to realize that experience and live life without suffering or causing suffering.

So, inspired by Siddhartha, Jesus, LaoTzu and all of the teachers who have pointed to the moon’s silent light of wisdom that there will always be suffering as long as there is suffering, I sit and practice, in hopes of seeing how I contribute to this suffering and how I unconsciously set up obstacles for sentient beings and myself to the realization of inherent goodness. I sit and practice and study in hopes of realizing ways that I might be able to contribute to the end of suffering and the universal realization of goodness. I sit and inquire and practice and study and be human and do human things and fall down and get back up and pray and pray and pray for the end of suffering for all beings throughout all times and in all directions.

______________

There are as many ways to the inevitable awakening to the true nature of reality and experiencing things just as they are, as there are atoms in the entire cosmos. Ways that bring about an end to suffering. In the Sangha of the Pandemic we practice and explore by meditating together and sharing insights from our unique paths. We invite you to join us whenever you can.

PRACTICE

The Sangha of the Pandemic offers several opportunities for safe, inclusive, free, virtual community contemplative practice. Everyone is welcome regardless of meditation experience or spiritual lineage.

The Zoom link is:  

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays: 6 AM Pacific Time

Sunday at 7 AM Pacific Time

and

Monday and Wednesday evenings at 4:30 PM Pacific Time                                                    

We look forward to sitting with you!     

Please feel free to share this or any post from the Sangha

Unconditioned Insight

This week in the sangha we have been inquiring into Insight in relationship to the practice of concentration. 

Damien Quartz shared the process of finding the bug in a computer program as a simile for the process of concentration/observation and insight:

When thinking about what it means to have insight, I thought about one of the processes I use when trying to determine why a computer program that I’ve written isn’t working the way I intended it to. We’re used to experiencing programs as interactive graphical interfaces, but what they actually are is a set of instructions for manipulating the state of a bunch of bits of memory. When a program has a “bug,” where it produces an incorrect result, or behaves strangely, or stops working entirely, I use another program called a debugger to freeze the buggy program at the place where I think the error might be occurring. The debugger allows me to inspect the state of all the bits of memory relevant to that portion of the program, which can give me insight into why the program is behaving incorrectly. I might see that a number in memory is negative that should never be negative, or that a piece of important text has become garbled, and I can begin to reason about how that might have happened. I can run the program again and freeze it at an earlier point in time, stepping through the instructions one by one until I discover what’s causing the error. Without a debugger it can be extremely difficult to reason about the internal state of a program because so much of the inner workings are hidden by the interface. Programs are opaque in this way, unknowable almost. A debugger allows for close, careful inspection. And, sometimes, in the course of investigating a bug, I discover that while the behavior may be unexpected, it may be that it is a legitimate outcome I did not foresee when writing the program. In these cases, it’s often OK to stop debugging and say, “Ah, it’s a feature, not a bug!”

(From William)

Folks are often drawn to meditation practice because of the experience of suffering or when a thought or action “produces an incorrect result”, or our emotional body, thinking or physical body “behaves strangely, or stops working entirely”. Meditation practice is like having a “debugger” to “freeze” the habit stream and conditioned thoughts so that we can closely observe the causes and conditions that lead to the habitual behavior or thinking causing suffering. In the stillness of open ended concentration/observation, there is an opportunity to see and experience the reality of the present moment without the interference of the “bug” of conditioned habits. This is a rich culture for unconditioned insight that leads to healing and clarity. It may even lead to the understanding that what we assumed was an aberration or obstacle is rather, a doorway to freedom from suffering. “In these cases, it’s often OK to stop debugging and say, “Ah, it’s a feature, not a bug!”

PRACTICE

The Sangha of the Pandemic offers several opportunities for safe, inclusive, free, virtual community contemplative practice. Everyone is welcome regardless of meditation experience or spiritual lineage.

The Zoom link is:  

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays: 6 AM Pacific Time

Sunday at 7 AM Pacific Time

and

Monday and Wednesday evenings at 4:30 PM Pacific Time                                                    

We look forward to sitting with you!     

Please feel free to share this or any post from the Sangha

The Sangha of the Pandemic site For more information about virtual meetings throughout the week, both mornings and evenings see:

Concentration/Observation and Insight/Wisdom

During the practice sessions this week the sangha has been reflecting on the meditative practice of Concentration or focused Observation that, when practiced without desire for attainment, clears a space for Insight and Wisdom as revelations of essential nature.

Mark Demmel shares his own experience of this unfolding.

Historically, the idea of Concentration has led to painful thoughts and feelings for me because I was concentrating on what I was not that I needed to become. To focus & work toward a goal, to increase one’s resilience, to grow, to build, to become better, to do it the way a leader/parent/guide does it, to allow shifts in direction & motivation, to not miss the moment when it comes to you. The ways I looked at concentration often led me to be thinking about a better, future state of my life, which took hard work and great effort to arrive in this future me. I found myself often not embodied, unable to connect deeply & healthfully to the people and life around me in ways I craved nourishment. Concentrating on that which I wasn’t yet, led me to believe the state I currently found myself in was not good enough, or wrong, or bad. This left a door to shame open and that door let all kinds of things in. How could I ever become that which I wanted to be and feel?

The future state of me which could never come into the present reality efforted and worked so hard to become that which it thought it needed to be….to be okay, again. A scared little kid, who had gotten some slams (of various kinds) became that which it deeply resented. I recently took a morning walk in nature on a beautiful land painted with oaks, pines, valleys holding signs of deer and coyotes, and a refreshing morning joy that had me moving slowly and feeling open to the day. On my return, I sensed my 4 year old self high upon my shoulders, taking in the hike with an elder, parent, and trusted friend. I physically put my arms around the 4 year old’s legs straddling my neck. It felt really good. I was a bit surprised by the experience as much as I was over-joyed. Why was my 4 year old trusting me? I wasn’t concentrating on fixing anything, healing my broken parts, working hard to glean some great wisdom from nature. I was just present, enjoying the moment, giving the least amount of effort to the effortlessness of a simple morning walk.

Later that night, caught up in some emotions of sadness and grief to be leaving good friends and the land I was enjoying, I forgot about my 4 year old and I pushed my body in places it did not want to be pushed. I took my hammock high in a tree and tried to sleep with the many coyotes howling every 15-20 minutes. Trying to milk every last drop of “growth” out of the day & night, even at the cost of losing sleep, with a long drive the next day. My body did not settle. My goal to sleep in a tree failed. I even felt the skin itch, which I had not experienced for several months. The coyotes were loud, yipping, hollering, going all night. Finally at 3am, I climbed down the tree and went back to the place that invited me to sleep before setting off into the dark night. My body immediately settled and a peaceful rest fell upon me.

The next morning I remembered my 4 year old. I apologized. I acknowledged the pattern of pushing myself hard, working to be better, urgent to get to that improved future state, at all costs. I’m grateful for the gift from my younger self, inviting me into the present moment, where everything is as I should be, no heavy effort needed, trusting myself, all the parts, working together to allow a needed sense of ease back into the way I concentrate. The serious one was invited to be kind. The strong handed & stubborn adult was invited back to gentleness. I invited myself (all parts) to the conversation where I listen more than I speak. Patience, real honoring and tender patience is returning. The 4 year old enjoys adventures, but they are trusting me to honor their voice in the matter, for me to trust a renewed idea of Concentration. All of us will be “better” for it.

Click here for more Perceptions from the Sangha

PRACTICE

The Sangha of the Pandemic offers several opportunities for safe, inclusive, virtual community contemplative practice.

The Zoom link is:  

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789 

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays: 6 AM Pacific Time

Sunday at 7 AM Pacific Time

and

Monday and Wednesday evenings at 4:30 PM Pacific Time                                                    

We look forward to sitting with you!     

Please feel free to share this or any post from the Sangha blog with other folks.

Faith

Catholicism was the air that I breathed in early childhood. My mother was basically raised by nuns. My father was agnostic but converted to Catholicism so that he could marry my mother. We went to mass every Sunday and all holy days, said grace at every meal and prayed on our knees before going to bed. Catholicism, the Church, Mary, God and Jesus (in that order) were what we were taught to put our faith in. As I reflect on that time, I realize I had two experiences of faith. This exoteric one was centered around obedience to the Church and  the Ten Commandments, the promise of heaven and the threat of hell. These were all thoughts imprinted on my consciousness and reinforced by fear and reward. That faith was based on fear and loss and was purely conceptual. The other faith was more magical and esoteric, like praying for and receiving guidance for very specific ways to stop my father’s rage, or to relieve my parents’ fear of having no food to put on the table, or dreams about who I should be when I grew up. While the first, which was learned faith, feels now like it was following orders in order to get something that I was told that I needed, the second was spontaneous and always about practical, real life situations that were causing suffering or fear and my exercise of faith resulted in actual results or knowledge that eased the suffering or relieved the fear. The religious faith had a type of deductive logic to it that made sense if you believed in the initial premise that there was a god rewards and punishes and the church was the adjudicator of that process. This second, more personal faith, and the its manifestations, had no logic to it and lived in a realm of experience that was ungraspable and inexplicable. It was an interior experience that had no discernible origin or direction. The faithful prayers that led to the results often rose up in me out of desperation about my suffering or the suffering of those close to me. The results were magical and nonlinear; a roast falling off the back of a delivery truck after my parents told us we wouldn’t have supper that night, a voice telling me  a precise way to stop the beatings from my father, deja vu as a warning that he was about to rage. Other times and over this lifetime there were experiences of soothing without a source and spontaneous experiences of fearlessness that eradicated all doubt and stabilized the knowledge that goodness was the inherent nature of every human being. 

The faith that was imprinted by the church and society through threat and reward and all of the objects of the faith that it promoted, became baseless, senseless, and brittle, eventually fading into an empty, useless thought. The faith that was grounded in experience, though illogical and ungraspable by thought or desire, metastasized into a systemic way of being that flowed like an underground river bubbling up into consciousness periodically, and shaking loose the false idols of conceptual faith. ( money, sex, the perfect relationship, approval, authority, and other gods) This faith manifested whenever I was still enough and awake enough to recognize and experience it. Often when these bubbling-ups occur, I’d pull out my flask of grasping and try to bottle-up the experience. I’d look for the steps that got me there and try to construct a damn of clinging to keep it in a safe reservoir for the future. These attempts to cling to the experience lead to the inevitable dissipation of the presence of faith as such. (See Failure for a humorous rendition of this.) But I noticed and still notice now when springs of faith come to the surface and retreat, that as the experience slowly dissolves and the ache of “losing” something precious eases, there remains a knowing that resonates throughout my being, and like the sound of the bell at Cloud Mountain, that rings throughout the day, calling practitioners to practice, it is reliantly there/here but ungraspable, non conceptual, unreproducible by will or thought, yet not separate from, not other than just this-ness. 

The invitation, in the practices with the Sangha of the Pandemic this week, was to explore faith and inquire into its nature and expression in our lives and practice. I experienced, in the practices and wisdom sharings, a sense that no matter what we have faith in, whether material, relational, spiritual or anything else, the essential quality that is labeled “Faith”, is an inherent quality that is discernible but not definable, experiential but not conceptual. It is ever-mutable, not containable, bubbling up into consciousness in times of suffering and stillness. Its roots are in our inherent knowledge of truth, and like Earth’s network of mycelia that break down matter to be used for promoting life, this faith patiently and persistently breaks down the obstacles to experiencing our true nature. And like the mycelia, it is active and ever-present, carrying knowledge and sustenance surreptitiously from one being to another; a reliant web of interconnectedness and interdependence.

It seems to me that all forms of contemplative practice, scientific inquiry, justice action, and acts of goodness, are drawn into being by the essential human quality of faith. Faith in the truth that goodness is the intrinsic nature of all beings, the ineffable faith in the capacity of all beings to be good, and that all beings deserve to be free from suffering.

I hope that these words and anything that arises as a result of reading them do not cause distress or doubt and that they might contribute to the awakening to goodness and the end of suffering for all beings, throughout all times and in all directions. – William

PRACTICE

The Sangha of the Pandemic offers several opportunities for safe, inclusive, virtual community contemplative practice.

The Zoom link is:  

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789 

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays: 6 AM Pacific Time

Sunday at 7 AM Pacific Time

and

Monday and Wednesday evenings at 4:30 PM Pacific Time                                                    

We look forward to sitting with you!     

Retreat Return

Dear Friends,

I returned from a four week solo retreat last Friday. During that time several folks stepped up to facilitate and keep the virtual practices going. Thank you all for keeping the sangha meetings going while I was gone and thank you Chuck, Mike and Randall for taking on the facilitation of the sits that I am responsible for. It is good to know that the sangha is its own being now and thrives independent of any one individual.

The three months at Cloud Mountain and the retreat allowed me time to practice and study with teachers and in silence in a way that I had not experienced before. These experiences guided me to a broader understanding of the practice of being human and a strong affirmation of the numerous teachings that have presented themselves in our practices in the sangha. In the next weeks, I would like to share with you some of the insights and teachings that I experienced in the past few months.

All of these meetings will be accessible to everyone regardless of experience in the sangha or otherwise. Although the sessions will have a focus of study or inquiry, they will not differ in format from our approach since the sangha formed 2 1/2 years ago. We will gather, check-in, there will be a short talk that may provide some direction for a 20 – 30 minute practice and then a space for sharing, for folks who would like to, before closing. Usually about one hour, though when the group is larger it may be longer.

At the end of this note there are brief summaries of the areas of practice and study that I would like to explore with the sangha. I hope this focus doesn’t deter anyone from joining, because just the experience of sitting in this community of good folk is a gift of tremendous goodness and will make a positive difference in your life and your community. Everyone’s presence, regardless of approach or experience contributes to the practice.

We meet:

Monday, Tuesday, and Thursdays: 6 AM Pacific Time

Sunday at 7 AM Pacific Time

and

Monday and Wednesday evenings at 4:30 PM Pacific Time    

I look forward to practicing with you!

Gratefully yours, -William

                                               

There are areas of practice and study that we will be focusing on for the next several weeks.

a) Faith. Faith in this buddhist tradition is the persistent return to practice because of firsthand experiences of essential qualities of being human like ease, joy, and freedom. It is faith in the non conceptual knowledge of universal goodness that consistently presents itself when we gather in sangha.

b) Concentration and Insight. These are the foundational practices of buddhism and most of the Eastern wisdom traditions. The meetings and retreats of Sangha of the Pandemic have been based on these with an emphasis on insight. I am hoping to bring more concentration practice into the mix that will guide us to the experiences of more open space for clarity and deeper insight into what we already have been experiencing in our practices whether in the sangha or other spiritual lineages.

c) The Three Poisons. I was introduced to these at the beginning of my practice journey as passion, aggression, and ignorance. Other terms that may be more helpful in approaching these are greed, hatred and ambivalence or attachment, aversion and delusion. These seem to be the primary manifestations resulting from forgetting our true nature and the true nature of all beings as Goodness and contribute to the obscurations of our awareness of the true nature of reality.

d) Habit Energy or Karma. This is the persistent and seemingly unending stream of thinking and resulting reactivity that we are generally unaware of. As we shine the light of concentration and insight and the understanding of the three poisons on this habitual and unconscious way of being, there is more space for kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity for ourselves and all beings.

No matter what are focus in the sittings, our aspiration is always to bring about the end of suffering for ourselves and all beings, throughout all times and in all directions.

Body Wisdom

Randall Mullins

These words 

are to help me arrive 

and stay home 

where I am 

inside this body, 

faithful 

wlth the many 

diminishments 

that belong to its nature. 

It is made 

of millions of miracles, 

cell communities, 

synapses, 

water of the planet 

flowing as blood 

in channels 

beyond comprehension. 

It is like an old mansion, 

beyond repair, 

yet with flaws 

made more beautiful with age.

Its wisdom is out in the open, 

sacred signs that it is mortal, 

not designed 

to keep this form forever. 

Blood vessels in the legs 

leak predictably, 

giving a blue hue 

to the ankles.

It offers voice, 

sight, 

sounds, 

and other ways 

of touch and love.

Slowly 

the changes continue. 

Cancer lives here, 

an uninvited guest 

that could be here 

three more years. 

It settles in 

as a good teacher.

This is my home, 

always has been, 

and will be until 

it mingles again 

with the soil 

and the eternal life 

to which it belongs.

Randall Mullins 

June, 2022

Each Tuesday morning at 6:00 AM PST the Sangha gathers virtually in a practice dedicated to body awareness. This poem from Randall blossomed from this week’s practice.

If you would like to plant some seeds through community contemplation-meditation practice you are always welcome to join us.

The Zoom link is:  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789 

You are also invited to join other practices:

Mondays and Thursdays: 6 AM Pacific Time

Sunday at 7 AM Pacific Time

and

Monday and Wednesday evenings at 4:30 PM Pacific Time                                                    

We look forward to sitting with you!     

The Sangha of the Pandemic. Randall, Linda, Chuck, Brian, Mark, Richard, Paul, Jeff, Timmer, Tom, Damien, Mike, Ginny, David, Angie, and William

Beginnings –

Embarking on a new journey, a new relationship, a new job, a new practice has always felt a bit like stepping into a cloud of unknowing. It is a moment that seems to allow space for a full spectrum of feelings and thoughts to arise. It is an experience of spaciousness that I have often tried to fill with things to do that would occupy my mind and hands in the absence of things that needed to be done. There was some of that in the preparation for the Gratefulroadwarrior journey when I began thinking about it three years ago, and more when I began choosing the vehicle and rigging them for the journey. But once I hit the road, I drove into that cloud of unknowing with the experience of the “beginner’s mind” that is so eloquently spoken of by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”

I knew that I wanted to find a way to express gratitude to teachers throughout my life who had nurtured the mustard seed of aspiration for peace, so that it sprouted and grew enough that I could begin to maintain and cultivate it with my own hands, heart and mind. What I didn’t know was that how my idea of “teacher” was narrow and that the time on the road, from the torrents of rain, the poverty of rural communities, the benevolent rivers, the nights of fear, the mornings of relinquished awe, the desolation of deserts, the weather, the thiefs, the camp stove, the empty skies, the Civil Rights Trail, would not only teach me, but teach me that everything, every thought, breath, fear, love, doubt, rock, mountain, blade in glades, is a teacher, and that the gratitude that I felt for my embodied teachers of the past was only a dust mote in the vast sky of self annihilating gratitude that I experienced on the road and that still resonates in every present moment.

I was able to walk and drive and still remain on this road of unknowing and beginner’s mind because of the practice of meditation and inquiry, and the members of Sangha of the Pandemic that rode along with me and are riding still.

________________

In these times of so much “knowing” that cuts off potentiality and inquiry; In these times of planning and filling every moment of our life with doing that undermines freedom; In these times of fear and clinging, and the cultivation of ignorance of the suffering of others; In these times it is Urgent!, as Pema Chodron likes to say, to step into the cloud of unknowing that is experienced through the simple practice of meditation and inquiry. It is time to dedicate ourselves to understanding the causes and conditions of our personal suffering which then allows us to understand and have compassion for the suffering of others. As we relinquish our attachments to rigid knowing through the easing that is the result of the practice, we begin to cultivate the possibility of seeing and experiencing reality from the perspective of beginner’s mind.

So we begin;

The Practice

EveryMonday, The Sangha of the Pandemic will offer “beginning” meditation. This will be an opportunity for new meditators to join a group sit, to learn different methods of practice, and to ask questions about the practice. It is also an opportunity for folks who have practiced to reset the practice with the mind of a beginner; relinquishing all of the habits of practice and walking into the cloud of unknowing.

The practice will begin with a brief check-in and questions, followed by some instructions then meditation practice. We will close with sharing for folks who would like and then time for more questions. We’ll plan on an hour but it may go past that. You are welcome to step out of the group anytime after the sit, though we encourage you to tay as long as possible to gain the benefit of other’s experience.

Everyone is welcome and please feel free to share this with others.

Every Monday, we will gather on ZOOM

 https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789 

at 4:30 PM, Pacific Time, every Monday. (7:30 PM Eastern)

You are also invited to join other practices:

Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays: 9 AM Eastern Time

Sunday at 10 AM Eastern Time

and

Wednesday evening at 7:30 PM Eastern Time                                                    

We look forward to sitting with you!                                                                                                                             

Sangha of the Pandemic: William, Linda, Brian, Chuck, Paul, Mike, David, Jeff, Ginny, Tom, Randall, Angie, Damien, Paul, Richard, Christo, Timmer                                                                           

–  May all beings throughout all directions and all times be free from suffering. 

Everything Contributes

Beneficial action is action that contributes to any path that leads to understanding the inherent nature of reality. Through contemplation there is the realization that inherent nature is reality and reality is inherent nature. That the absolute manifests as the relative and the relative reveals the absolute. 

When contemplating action (or non-action) that is seeded in clinging, attachment, expectation, fear, anger, conceit or thoughtlessness, it is revealed that the result or reaction points back to the causes of those seeds. The suffering that arises from actions sprouted from the seeds of self-fullness, are like gutter rails in bowling, they guide the path back to the middle. In this same way, global environmental catastrophes, wars of greed and anger, and all the subsequent suffering point us back to seeking and end to suffering and actions that will lead to an end to suffering. When contemplating even the smallest of sufferings this understanding is revealed. In some cases the ball is so wildly thrown down the lane that it ricochets from on rail to the other, all the way down the lane until it ends in the gutter without striking a pin. Then the ball is sent back to try again.

When contemplating action that is seeded in the desire to end suffering through generosity, loving kindness, compassion, unconditioned joy and equanimity, it is revealed that the result or re-action, is ease of being, openness, clarity and goodness; the songs of the inherent nature of reality. This beingness in balance is like finding the sweet spot just to the side of the head pin, yielding a strike. And the ball is sent back to go again.

And like bowling (with repeated practice and observation of the causes of the gutterballs and the strikes), repeated contemplative practice, and beneficial actions seeded in kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity will, in a moment or over time, yield the understanding of the causes and conditions of suffering, the liberation from suffering and the manifestation of goodness, for oneself and for all our relations. 

May all beings throughout all times and all directions be free from suffering.

Practice

Through regular practice of attending to our breathing and inquiring into the causes of our suffering and the suffering of others, we may begin to experience a growing ease of being.  As Thich Nhat Hanh explains, this first hand experience may lead to an arising of spontaneous compassion and a motivation to act in a way that brings this ease to all beings who experience suffering. 

According to many wisdom teachings, in order to be of help to others, we are advised to realize our interdependence and interconnectedness with all beings and then to act out of that understanding. How can we do this in a way that recognizes the infinite experiences that have led to suffering, and honor the infinite ways that point to or offer relief from suffering, without judgment, recrimination or any other type of diminishment of those who may be suffering. 

Please feel free to join us in practice once, intermittently or as often as the inspiration arises! Your presence and insights contribute to this practice and the end of suffering for all beings in all directions and in all times.

We practice on ZOOM:

Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays: 9 AM Eastern Time

Sunday at 10 AM Eastern Time

and

Wednesday evening at 7:30 PM Eastern Time

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

Sangha of the Pandemic

Brian, Linda, Chuck, Paul, Paul, Ginny, Jeff, Ned, Richard, Timmer, David, Christo, Angie, Damien, Mike, William

Helplessness.

“What can I do? I feel so helpless.”

This has been the repeated refrain this week, in check-ins during meditation practices and in community conversations. Inundated with despair is how, at times, I have been feeling about the bombardment of human aggression in the world.  

During the practice with the sangha we have been exploring “beneficial action”; one of the four embracing virtues of a bodhisattva’s practice. This exploration was planned before the war in Ukraine began but feels like it is just right for these times.

The fundamental teachings of Buddhism are founded on the Four Noble Truths:

  • There is suffering
  • There are causes that lead to the conditions of suffering
  • There is an end to suffering.
  • There is a path leading to the end of suffering.

In the practice and our explorations in the sangha, I have wondered if the despair and helplessness that is experienced in these times could be addressed by looking at these truths.

There is Suffering. Even in the peaceful, rural areas of Costa Rica I cannot find sunglasses dark enough to shield me from seeing the ever-present suffering throughout the globe. It is evident in every form of community connection. And if I try to avert my attention from the external manifestations it bubbles up internally somehow. Although there may be palaces or islands that  attempt to shield themselves and their inhabitants form the experience of suffering,( as Shakyamuni Buddha’s parents did ), we live in a time where that is just impossible for anyone. There is suffering! “I know, I know damnitt! Now what can I do about it? Please!!!”

There are causes that lead to the conditions of suffering. In general, if not universally, we want to skip this part. We want to get right to “the path that leads to the end of suffering”. “There’s a problem let’s just fix it.” Or at least let’s try to feel better by talking about ways to fix it. This, it seems to me, is the approach that leads to despair and helplessness. Even though we know from all of the wisdom teachings from Nature, Science, Psychology, Religion, etc, that we must discover the root cause to a problem before we can address it, we’re in a hurry. We want it done now. This research into the causes of suffering cannot be done through intellectual speculation or imposition of theory or relying on someone else, we have to get our hands dirty. We have to muck around in the soil of suffering in order to get our hands on the root causes. “But I cannot muck around in the soil of Ukraine, or Gaza, or the favelas of San Paulo, or the minds of folks who seem to live in another world from me.” So true! We can really only inquire deeply into the causes and conditions of the suffering in our own experience. We can really only understand and grasp the roots of suffering in our own garden.

“Great! I found the root, now I’ll just yank it out.” But as we pull and dig and yank we might see that there is no end to it and maybe, even, that it supports the whole structure of our being and we are back to helplessness and despair. This is where faith comes in.

There is an end to suffering. In my experience, faith seems to be cultivated by a practice of broadening my view of myself and the world. By taking a step back to try to see the whole picture. That allows us to see an expanded perspective of my garden and that the nasty root cause is, not only just a part of the garden but that it may even contribute to the well being of the garden as a whole. When we ask how the root came about and how it might contribute to understanding, we gain perspective. We see that it is not the only root in the garden. We begin to have first hand experience of the other aspects that might sprout and flower: joy, kindness received and offered, the deep compassion to end others suffering that started us on this journey, and ultimately equanimity towards all parts of the garden. From this perspective we can see the causes of the causes of the root of suffering and also begin to understand the causes of kindness, joy, compassion and equanimity. In the same way that we dig deep into the causes of our own suffering, when we begin to explore these attributes we discover the causes of these innate perennials of goodness. Then we can begin to cultivate them, bring the garden into balance and begin to make these experiences sustainable. And, if even only for a time of one breath, we experience being without suffering. And perhaps, in that moment, we also get a glimpse of the true root cause of suffering. That we have been unaware of, the true nature of the garden. That it is not only not Knotweed, but that it is that, and dahlias, and apple trees, and jungle and clay and loam and love, and compassion, and kindness… Then that grumpy neighbor, who always seems to be ranting about the way people put their trash out, walks by and is taken by surprise by the brilliant smell of the jasmine of joy emanating from your cultivated garden. And they ask: “How did you grow that?”

There is a path leading to the end of suffering. “Well ya see, I…” And then we see. And faith flowers and beneficial action fruits and our garden expands and includes.

“But what about Ukraine? It is my experience that all that I have to do is ask the question, be open to whatever arises as action, and then get out of my own way and the tumble of habits of thinking that block the path to action. 

“And helplessness?” The smile on the grumpy neighbor smelling jasmine of joy, the laughter of the child plucking a sunflower of kindness, the fruit of compassion, harvested and shared with family, and community, the cultivation of the garden of equanimity of our being while knowing that  the yield will somehow benefit anyone who experiences it. These may not eliminate helplessness but they will bring it into balance within the garden of our being and this action, this gifting, reflects and makes space for the true nature of all beings to come forth. 

Oh yeah… and practice, practice, practice.

May all beings throughout all directions and all times be free from suffering.

Practice

Through regular practice of attending to our breathing and inquiring into the causes of our suffering and the suffering of others, we may begin to experience a growing ease of being.  As Thich Nhat Hanh explains, this first hand experience may lead to an arising of spontaneous compassion and a motivation to act in a way that brings this ease to all beings who experience suffering. 

According to many wisdom teachings, in order to be of help to others, we are advised to realize our interdependence and interconnectedness with all beings and then to act out of that understanding. How can we do this in a way that recognizes the infinite experiences that have led to suffering, and honor the infinite ways that point to or offer relief from suffering, without judgment, recrimination or any other type of diminishment of those who may be suffering. 

Please feel free to join us in practice once, intermittently or as often as the inspiration arises! Your presence and insights contribute to this practice and the end of suffering for all beings in all directions and in all times.

We practice on ZOOM:

Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays: 9 AM Eastern Time

Sunday at 10 AM Eastern Time

and

Wednesday evening at 7:30 PM Eastern Time

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

Sangha of the Pandemic

Brian, Linda, Chuck, Paul, Paul, Ginny, Jeff, Ned, Richard, Timmer, David, Christo, Angie, Damien, Mike, William

Compassionate Action

The Four All-Embracing Virtues of the Bodhisattva

“At the heart of Buddhism is the idea of interconnectedness. We all suffer. That is the first noble truth of Buddhism: Suffering is a reality. And the practice begins with the awareness that suffering is there in you and it is there in that other person. When you have seen suffering, you are motivated by the desire to remove suffering — the suffering in you and the suffering in that other person — because if that person continues to suffer, it will make you suffer somehow later on. So helping other people remove their suffering means doing something for you also.

An act of compassion always brings about transformation. If not right now, it will happen in the future. The important thing is you don’t react with anger. You react with compassion, and sooner or later you see the transformation in the other person. You keep being compassionate, you keep being patient.”  – Thich Nhat Hanh

Dear Friends,

Through regular practice of attending to our breathing and inquiring into the causes of our suffering and the suffering of others, we may begin to experience a growing ease of being.  As Thich Nhat Hanh explains, this first hand experience may lead to an arising of spontaneous compassion and a motivation to act in a way that brings this ease to all beings who experience suffering. 

According to many wisdom teachings, in order to be of help to others, we are advised to realize our interdependence and interconnectedness with all beings and then to act out of that understanding. How can we do this in a way that recognizes the infinite experiences that have led to suffering, and honor the infinite ways that point to or offer relief from suffering, without judgment, recrimination or any other type of diminishment of those who may be suffering. 

Throughout the buddhist teachings there is reference to the Four All-Embracing Virtues or the Four Integrative Methods of the Bodhisattva* as a practice to cultivate an environment for fulfilling the desire for compassionate action.

Here is a very brief summary

  1. Dana – Paramita (skr.). In this context dana is generosity of giving what others want, without thought of self or achievement of a goal.
  2. Priyavacana (skr.) Affectionate speech. Speaking with others in a way that promotes ease of being.
  3. Arthacaryā (skr.) Conduct benefitting others.
  4. Samānavihāra (skr.) Walking in the other’s shoes. Also referred to as consistency or being in union in body, speech and mind, while remaining engaged in community. 

* (Someone who has an aspiration to awaken to truth and lives a life centered on the well being of others.)

For the next five weeks or so, during our morning gatherings we will be exploring these four methods through inquiry and meditation, using the formats of samatha (calm abiding), body awareness, tonglen and brahmavihara practices. It is not necessary to participate in every session to explore with us and to share your insights. Each sit will be a complete practice session in itself.

Please feel free to join us once, intermittently or as often as the inspiration arises! Your presence and insights contribute to this practice and the end of suffering for all beings in all directions and in all times.

We practice on ZOOM:

Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays: 9 AM Eastern Time

Sunday at 10 AM Eastern Time

and

Wednesday evening at 7:30 PM Eastern Time

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

May all beings in all directions, throughout all times be free from suffering.

William, Linda, Brian, Chuck, Paul, Mike, David, Jeff, Ginny, Tom, Randall, Angie, Damien

Weary

Weary: From the Proto-Germanic worigaz: to wander, totter

We are weary… With the burden of becoming

We are weary… With the duty to do 

We are weary … With the responsibility of our failures

We are weary… With the weight of worry

We are weary…  With promise of mañana

We are weary… With the memory of our misdeeds

We are weary… With the pressure of pandemic

We are weary… With the constriction of words of warning

We are weary… With treading water in an ocean of unshed tears

We are weary… With the fear of unknowingness

Listen to the weariness

Let it bow you down

Let it lie you down 

Let it wrap you, melt through you, rinse you

And finally liberate you from 

Becoming

Doing

Failure

Worry

Misdeeds

Pandemics

Warnings

Tears

Fears

Unknowing

Let it loosen your grasping Let it release your clinging Let it show you that your

Burdens

Duties

Responsibilities

Weights 

Promises 

Memories

Constrictions

Treadings

Fears

Are your 

Adornments, 

Guides, 

Teachers, 

As you wander, tottering, on this path of

Being human.


Practice

There are as many myriad of ways of practicing meditation as there are the myriad of sentient beings in all of the cosmos. With each of these practices, over time, or in an instant, comes an understanding of the nature of personal suffering and the suffering of others. With this understanding, knowledge of the causes and conditions that give rise to this suffering  become clear. In the light of this awareness, the grip of the habits, of thinking, acting, and speaking, on being, loosens and compassion for personal afflictive conditioning and the afflictive conditioning of others emerges; like a child awakening from a nightmare. Then the soothing voice of truth dawns with the light of first hand experience of how to alleviate suffering for all beings. And like each dawn of every day, in every location on this planet, and on all the planets throughout all directions and in all times, each first hand experience is unique, as is each response to that experience. 

Practicing in sangha, even virtually, seems to activate the yeast of meditation practice in a different way than sitting solitarily. The members of the Sangha of the Pandemic, invite you to share the bread of the practice with us, No experience is required. There is no cost. Everyone is welcome.

We practice on ZOOM:

Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays: 9 AM Eastern Time

Sunday at 10 AM Eastern Time

and

Wednesday evening at 7:30 PM Eastern Time

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

May all beings in all directions, throughout all times be free from suffering.

William, Linda, Brian, Chuck, Paul, Mike, David, Jeff, Ginny, Tom, Randall, Angie

Practice


There are as many myriads of ways of practicing meditation as there are myriads of sentient beings in all of the cosmos. With each of these practices, over time, or in an instant, comes an understanding of the nature of personal suffering and the suffering of others. With this understanding, knowledge of the causes and conditions that give rise to this suffering  become clear. In the light of this awareness, the grip of the habits, of thinking, acting, and speaking, on being, loosens and compassion for personal afflictive conditioning and the afflictive conditioning of others emerges; like a child awakening from a nightmare. Then the soothing voice of truth dawns with the light of first hand experience of how to alleviate suffering for all beings. And like each dawn of every day, in every location on this planet, and on all the planets throughout all directions and in all times, each first hand experience is unique, as is each response to that experience. 

Practicing in sangha, even virtually, seems to activate the yeast of meditation practice in a different way than sitting solitarily. The members of the Sangha of the Pandemic, invite you to share the bread of the practice with us, No experience is required. There is no cost. Everyone is welcome.

We practice on ZOOM:

Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays: 9 AM Eastern Time

Sunday at 10 AM Eastern Time

and

Monday and Wednesday evening at 7:30 PM Eastern Time

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

May all beings in all directions, throughout all times be free from suffering.

William, Linda, Brian, Chuck, Paul, Mike, David, Jeff, Ginny, Tom, Randall, Angie, Paul, Timmer, Christo

Stress

stress (n.) From Online Etymology Dictionary: 

c. 1300, “hardship, adversity, force, pressure,” in part a shortening of Middle English distress (n.); in part from Old French estrece “narrowness, oppression,” from Vulgar Latin *strictia, from Latin strictus “tight, compressed, drawn together,” past participle of stringere “draw tight”

Over that past several weeks I have become more and more aware of  the effects of the seemingly endless “being on guard-ness” that the state of humanity is in. It permeates virtually all social interactions and media. The Fourth Estate is dominated by expert-pundits who bankroll their mini kingdoms and their egos by extolling the virtues of being on guard, so much so that all of their followers are being encouraged to be on guard against being on guard. The necessary protections that we have been encouraged to use to protect us against ravages of the pandemic, social inequality, poverty, and harm are, in some circles, things to be on guard against because they threaten our personal freedom. There are security services for every aspect of our lives; remote door and bedroom cameras, drone surveillance, satellite surveillance, phalanxes of bulked up private security guards, et.al., all for the purpose of being on guard.

Where or when can we put down our guard in these days?

During practice a few days ago, an image presented itself while I was reflecting on stress and its causes and conditions. I was experiencing my body in stress as “tight, compressed, drawn together,”  twisted, as if I were trying wring out all the fear, anxiety and tension that seem to be the fuel for my revved up habitual thinking. The image was of my hands using all of their strength to wring water out of a towel. No matter how hard or how long I wrung it out, the towel never was completely dry. Then I let go of the wringing and allowed the towel to open up all the way and imagined hanging it in the sun until it was dry.

It was a simile for the practice of meditation.  Often when I begin to sit, my thoughts are a jumble of judgments and self corrections and I try to “wring” the thinking out of my experience, trying to compress it into something manageable or to override it with “better” thinking.  With practice, though, my attention loosens and broadens. I am able to expand the experience of thinking so that the light of knowledge about the causes and conditions of this suffering and stress can “dry out” my experience. The more that light of understanding permeates the experience, the more the habitual, and mostly unconscious, thinking evaporates like water in a towel hanging in the sun. And for maybe a moment or more I let down my guard and experience stresslessness.

In time and with rhythmic, consistent practice, those moments have become experiences that inform my understanding of the nature of things. Now there are times throughout the day that the practice and this awareness, of the nature of the causes and conditions of the “on guard-ness” of the stress, allows me to stop wringing, tightening, and compressing this life. So that I can hang it out in the sun and expose it to the light of the knowledge of the true nature of things as they are. In those moments, I find myself compelled to move and speak and act, in this stress filled, on guard world, to give everything over to alleviating the suffering of all beings, whatever it takes. Not by wringing out fear, anxiety and stress, or by telling folks what to do in order to be free, but by making space, expanding, like an open sky, my own narrow version of self to include all beings, so that the inherent nature of all beings as loving-kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity, may be revealed.

I dedicate these words and this practice to all buddhas, bodhisattvas, enlightening ones and teachers throughout all times and in all directions.

Warmth and ease all around!

William

The Sangha of the Pandemic is a small cohort of folks who practice together virtually a few times per week and we would like to invite you to sit with us in hopes that our practicing together might lift a little bit of the burden in these stressful times. There is no obligation, long term commitment, previous experience or fee required. Just a willingness to work toward the gradual relief of suffering for ourselves and for other beings. 

We currently meet on ZOOM four mornings per week:

Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays: 9 AM Eastern Time

Sunday at 10 AM Eastern Time

and

Wednesday evening at 7:30 PM Eastern Time

ZOOM Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

Right Speech Threedux Songs from the Sangha of Right Speech.

Right speech stuns to silence.

It emanates from the emptiness of nothing left to lose.

It is abundant in its starkness.

It touches each soul,

no matter their position in the array of infinite positions,

exactly where they are asking to be touched.

Right speech churns like a galactic hurricane through fixed concepts and obscurations,

shredding all veils and unbinding the wings of freedom.  wrg

Here are some songs from the sangha of Right Speech.

Linda Atwater

The Origin of Speech


Listen, the sound of whispered murmurings.

Of measured tympany, stone against rock.

Dancing melody, weaving wordless presence.

Drip, drop,

Stalactites call to the Earth.

Voices and response echo in dim shadows.

Flames move features into fear, awe.

Human stroke paints a vision.

I am, we are.

-Linda Atwater- https://www.ghanacommunitypathways.org/our-team.html

Angie Alkove

This is me
Deeply submerged
Dreaming
Still as death
Floating
drifting
Navigating rapids
Swimming to the shoreline
Waking up to 
to
to
all of the kingdoms
holding me up.

-Angie Alkove – https://waterhorsewriting.com/

I’m celebrating 30 days sober while stuck in Chicago-O’Hare overnight. I got this coin the first time on September 6th, 2017. I lasted maybe six months in the program. I liked it until I didn’t. I lied a lot. I used to do a thing where I would tell a story about my life that seemed to fit the place that I was telling it to. So I told a story about being an alcoholic for a while and listened to a lot of Bruce Springsteen while feeling like some kind of straight edge badass. I also started doing drag. It was not an entirely true story. I’m still not sure which if any of mine are. I still have some literature whose title is “You Think You’re Different?” and every time it pops up in shuffling things I laugh and laugh. What I know now is that my life moves in and out of meaninglessness and ecstasy and always has. What I know now is that I love extremes. What I know now is that I can’t pay attention to something unless I love it, and that I don’t always have a lot of love in me, and that other times I have so much I can only scream at oceans and busy highways to properly express it. What I know now is that when I drink and smoke and stare at my phone all day for the next like and subsist entirely on spoonfuls of JIF and cheezeits and cruise ambiguous affections as a primary means of connection for days on end like a ghost fishing off a dry dock I cease to maintain any grip on the tether that hooks me in to what little I truly do love in this world, and that I truly do want to love in this world. I made it all the way through 2020 then drank a toast on New Years Eve wondering if I had just imagined how bad it could get. I hadn’t. And now I’m back. Holding the tether again like it matters. I don’t like AA. I think inviting folk to wallpaper over a name for God when you’re not actually willing or able to do much to change the bones of a very specific mid-century theology with a very specific view of what it is to be human is dangerous. But I must acknowledge there’s real magic in the rooms. Lately I just go to listen, and it helps me. I don’t speak there, or about this in church, because I don’t want to tell half-truths about it again, and I find it difficult to be honest and feel heard by some folk who are very religious about the program. I’ve seen it save lives, though, just like I’ve seen folk change through other means, too. Abstinence helps some, shades of grey help others, everyone has to figure it out. I have a sincere desire to not drink or use. I believe I have received that desire by asking for it. I believe it’s given me my life back. And I believe folk who’ve come to know where their own solitary power ends and another one takes off can change their lives and be good for the world, one day at a time.

– Loretta Lordchild – https://www.facebook.com/loretta.lordchild

Each Sunday a group of folks join virtually to practice Tonglen meditation and inquire into the challenges and joys of being human. Everyone is welcome to drop in whenever the inspiration strikes.

Zoom link:   https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

We look forward to sitting with you!

Sangha of the Pandemic. Practicing Being Human

Each Sunday a group of folks join virtually to practice Tonglen meditation and inquire into the challenges and joys of being human.


When we practice Tonglen, we take in suffering with the in-breath, “soak” it in the waters of  of our own generative qualities then with the out-breath ,offer back to the one who is suffering, loving kindness, compassion, joy, equanimity or whatever quality of ease may be most appropriate for a particular experience of suffering. Tonglen promotes the spreading highly contagious virus of empathy that is contractible in even the smallest doses and is highly effective in alleviating suffering for all beings.

Everyone is welcome to join the practice whenever the inspiration strikes.

Zoom link:   https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89989680789

We look forward to sitting with you!

Right Action

Dharma Talk: Right Action: Waking Up to Loving Kindness

#14 Autumn 1995

By Thich Nhat Hanh

Right Action is a part of the Noble Eightfold Path taught by the Buddha. It includes, first of all, the kinds of actions that can help humans and other living beings who are being destroyed by war, political oppression, social injustice, and hunger. To protect life, prevent war, and serve living beings, we need to cultivate our energy of loving kindness.

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Loving kindness should be practiced every day. Suppose you have a transistor radio. To tune into the radio station you like, you need a battery. In order to get linked to the power of loving kindness of bodhisattvas, buddhas, and other great beings, you need to tune in to the “station” of loving kindness that is being sent from the ten directions. Then you only need to sit on the grass and practice breathing and enjoying.

But many of us are not capable of doing that because the feeling of loneliness, of being cut off from the world, is so severe we cannot reach out. We do not realize that if we are moved by the imminent death of an insect, if we see an insect suffering and we do something to help, already this energy of loving kindness is in us. If we take a small stick and help the insect out of the water, we can also reach out to the cosmos. The energy of loving kindness in us becomes real, and we derive a lot of joy from it.

The Fourth Precept of the Order of Interbeing tells us to be aware of suffering in the world, not to close our eyes before suffering. Touching those who suffer is one way to generate the energy of compassion in us, and compassion will bring joy and peace to ourselves and others. The more we generate the energy of loving kindness in ourselves, the more we are able to receive the joy, peace, and love of the buddhas and bodhisattvas throughout the cosmos. If you are too lonely, it is because you have closed the door to the rest of the world.

Right Action is the action of touching love and preventing harm. There are many things we can do. We can protect life. We can practice generosity (dana). The first person who receives something from an act of giving is the giver. The Buddha said, “After meditating on the person at whom you are angry, if you cannot generate loving kindness in yourself, send that person a gift.” Buy something or take something beautiful from your home, wrap it beautifully, and send it to him or to her. After that, you will feel better immediately, even before the gift is received. Our tendency when we are angry is to say unkind things, but if we write or say something positive about him or her, our resentment will simply vanish.

We seek pleasure in many ways, but often our so-called pleasure is really the cause of our suffering. Tourism is one example. The positive way of practicing tourism – seeing new countries, meeting new people, being in touch with cultures and societies that differ from ours – is excellent. But there are those who visit Thailand, the Philippines, or Malaysia just for the sake of consuming drugs and hiring prostitutes. Western and Japanese businessmen go to Thailand and the Philippines just to set up sex industries and use local people to run these industries. In Thailand, at least 200,000 children are involved in the sex industry. Because of poverty and social injustice, there are always people who feel they have to do this out of desperation. In the Philippines, at least 100,000 children are in the sex industry and in Vietnam, 40,000. What can we do to help them?

If we are caught up in the situation of our own daily lives, we don’t have the time or energy to do something to help these children. But if we can find a few minutes a day to help these children, suddenly the windows open and we get more light and more fresh air. We relieve our own difficult situation by performing an act of generosity. Please discuss this situation with your Sangha and see if you can do something to stop the waves of people who profit from the sex industry. These are all acts of generosity, acts of protecting life. You don’t need to be rich. You don’t need to spend months and years to do something. A few minutes a day can already help. These acts will bring fresh air into your life, and your feeling of loneliness will dissolve. You can be of help to many people in the world who really suffer.

Right Action is also the protection of the integrity of the individual, couples, and children. Sexual misbehavior has broken so many families. Children who grow up in these broken families become hungry ghosts. They don’t believe in their parents because their parents are not happy. Young people have told me that the greatest gift their parents can give them is their parents’ own happiness. There has been so much suffering because people do not practice sexual responsibility. Do you know enough about the way to practice Right Action to prevent breaking up families and creating hungry ghosts? A child who is sexually abused will suffer all his or her whole life. Those who have been sexually abused have the capacity to become bodhisattvas, helping many children. Your mind of love can transform your own grief and pain. Right Action frees you and those around you. You may think you are practicing to help others around you, but, at the same time, you are rescuing yourself.

Right Action is also the practice of mindful consuming, bringing to your body and mind only the kinds of food that are safe and healthy. Mindful eating, mindful drinking, not eating things that create toxins in your body, not using alcohol or drugs, you practice for yourself, your family, and your society. A Sangha can help a lot.

One man who came to Plum Village told me that he had been struggling to stop smoking for years, but he could not. After he came to Plum Village, he stopped smoking immediately because the group energy was so strong. “No one is smoking here. Why should I?” He just stopped. Sangha is very important. Collective group energy can help us practice mindful consumption.

Right Action is also linked to Right Livelihood. There are those who earn their living by way of wrong action – manufacturing weapons, killing, depriving others of their chance to live, destroying the environment, exploiting nature and people, including children. There are those who earn their living by producing items that bring us toxins. They may earn a lot of money, but it is wrong livelihood. We have to be mindful to protect ourselves from their wrong livelihood.

Even when we are trying to go in the direction of peace and enlightenment, our effort may also be going in the other direction, if we don’t have Right View or Right Thinking, and are not practicing Right Speech, Right Action, of Right Livelihood. That is why our effort is not Right Effort. If you teach the Heart Sutra, and do not have a deep understanding of it, you are not practicing Right Speech. When you practice sitting and walking meditation in ways that cause your body and mind to suffer, your effort will not be Right Effort, because it is not based on Right View. Your practice should be intelligent, based on Right Understanding of the teaching. It is not because you practice hard that you can say you are practicing Right Effort.

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There was a monk practicing sitting meditation very hard, day and night. He thought he was practicing the hardest of anyone, and he was very proud of his practice. He sat like a rock day and night, but he did not get any transformation. His teacher saw him there and asked, “Why are you sitting in meditation?” The monk replied, “In order to become a Buddha.” Thereupon his teacher picked up a tile and began to polish it. The monk asked, “Why are you polishing that tile?” and his master replied, “To make it into a mirror.” The monk said, “How can you make a tile into a mirror?” and his teacher responded, “How can you become a Buddha by practicing sitting meditation?”

To me, the practice should be joyful and pleasant in order to be Right Effort. If you breathe in and out and feel joy and peace, you are making Right Effort. If you suppress yourself, if you suffer during your practice, you are probably not practicing Right Effort. You have to examine your practice. Right Thinking, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, and Right Effort are manifested as the practice of mindfulness in daily life. This is the teaching of engaged Buddhism – the kind of Buddhism that is practiced in daily life, in society, in the family, and not only in the monastery.

During the last few months of his life, the Buddha talked about the Threefold Training – sila (precepts), samadhi (concentration), and prajna (understanding). Mindfulness is the source of all precepts: We are mindful of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, so we practice protecting life; We are mindful of the suffering caused by social injustice, so we practice generosity; We are mindful of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct, so we practice responsibility; We are mindful of the suffering caused by divisive speech, so we practice loving speech and deep listening; We are mindful of the destruction caused by consuming toxins, so we practice mindful consuming. These Five Precepts are a concrete expression of mindful living. The Threefold Training – precepts, concentration, and understanding – helps us practice Right Thinking, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, and Right Effort.

In his first Dharma talk, the Buddha taught the Noble Eightfold Path. When he was about to pass away at the age of eighty, it was also the Eightfold Path that the Buddha taught to his last disciples. The Noble Eightfold Path is the cream of the Buddha’s teaching. The practice of the Five Precepts is very much connected to his teaching. Not only is the practice of Right Action linked to the Five Precepts, but the practice of Right Thinking, Right Speech, Right Livelihood, and Right Effort are also linked to all Five. If you practice, you will see for yourself. The Five Precepts are connected to each link of the Eightfold Path. We need Right Speech, Right Livelihood, and Right Action. Buddhism is already engaged Buddhism. If it is not, it is not Buddhism. It is silly to create the term engaged Buddhism, but in society where people misunderstand so greatly the teaching of the Buddha, this term can play a role for a certain time. Whatever we say, what is most important is that we practice.

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Right Effort

Shifting gears from being on the road to settling into a regular householder rhythm, has given me the opportunity to deepen my relationship with Jeff in our paradisiacal home, have a regular rhythm to practice, study, work on the land, and to cultivate ease. In addition the morning meditation sangha has flowered, with a regular cast of characters and very welcomed drop-ins from new folks. I miss a lot about being a Grateful Roadwarrior, but the joy of being in a home that doesn’t change frequently has brought expanded joy.

I will be writing weekly about the practice in the Sangha and over the next several weeks the community will be studying and inquiring into The Eightfold noble Path. This week: Right Effort. If this is your first visit, it may be helpful to visit the two previous posts on Right View and Right Intention.

Through calm abiding meditation and inquiry into the reality of the moment, the Right View of the nature of Nature arises: that all beings are essentially good and that all beings’ actions, in their essence, are ignited by the Right Intention to manifest and sustain goodness. These are the seed and root of the sprouting of Right Effort.

When I reflect on my actions in the world, I’m able to see those actions that cause suffering, relieve suffering, or are neutral, and looking more carefully, I am able to see the origin of those actions in my effort. (Suffering in this context would be any action that causes the veiling or obstruction of the essential ground of goodness in myself or others.) Effort then is not the actions that I take, but the movement or will beneath and before the actions. 

How I effort is based on the causes and conditions, conscious or unconscious, that precede the effort. Unconscious conditioning is often a result of how I was raised, how my physical being was formed, how I learned to interact with the environment, as well as any pre-birth experiences and are the foundation of the causes that have led to my view of the world and developed my intentions. This unconscious conditioning is often the primary engine behind my suffering and the suffering that I inflict on others. This conditioning manifests in afflictions like ignorance, anger, hate, jealousy, or fear that seem to lurk and arise unbidden especially in situations where I feel threatened.

While this is all going on there is an ever-present call to return to goodness. I notice that when I slow the process and my thinking down, there is space for goodness to be seen, and the veiling of goodness caused by the afflictions becomes conscious. In this awakened consciousness, I begin to think toward goodness with my intention and an effort arises to move away from the afflictions. That effort is the slowing down that began the reflection as well as the effort to move toward goodness. 

Besides the call to return to goodness, the experience of suffering is another significant trigger of these processes. When I experience or see suffering I usually recoil from it or have a reaction to it. Through the practices of calm abiding and inquiry, I train my thinking, feeling and willing to pause before moving towards an action. With practice, the unconscious causes and conditions that often propel me into reaction, become conscious and are calmed by the simple act of attending to them. Then I am able to allow the natural effort that arises from Right View and Right Intent to be the ground of my actions.

Right Effort then, is the conscious willing to bring about goodness in all that I do, feel and think. The effort to sit in practice, the effort that leads to taking vows, saying prayers, cultivating Loving-kindness, Compassion, Joy and Equanimity, following commandments, or anything that flowers as actions that lead to the cessation of suffering is Right Effort.

Paradoxically, the more I practice this way of making Right Effort, the less effort there is. More and more, Right Effort appears effortless and the perpetual generator of goodness comprised of Right View, Right Intention and Right Effort, becomes a way, the only way, of being who I am.

If any of this strikes a chord or sparks some interest, the sangha would enjoy your presence in the morning practice.

We meet Monday, Tuesday and Thursday at 6 AM Pacific time. Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/4257749477 Sunday at 7 AM Pacific time at a different Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/2867859631 

Right Intention

(Beginning last week and over the next several weeks these writing will be dedicated to exploring the Noble Eightfold Path. It may be helpful to look over the previous post as an introduction and ground for subsequent postings. I would enjoy hearing from you about your experience, insights or anything else that shows up when you read these. – William)

As Right View develops in our experience, other aspects of the Eightfold Noble Path unfold. After seeing that there is suffering in the world, in our personal lives and in the lives of sentient beings, that there is the experience of knowing the causes and conditions of suffering, that there is a potential for experience without suffering, and that there is a path, or practice, or way of being, that brings about the cessation of that suffering. This is the fundamental ground of Right View that also leads to the true experience of reality:

  • Universal Goodness is the essential nature of all sentient beings
  • The core intent of all beings is to act out of that goodness.

These two Right Views of the way the world really is, precipitates the development of a personal Right Intention as well as a true perception of how all sentient beings, in all of their actions, thoughts and expressions have at their core, basic goodness and an intent to create, sustain, and offer goodness to the world. 

How I show up in the world, how I think, and how I feel, arise out of intentional and unintentional causes and conditions, and the ignorance or awareness of the effects of those causes and conditions. When I have the good sense to slow down the cataract of thought streams in the midst of my own suffering and ask “What is happening right now?” “What is the cause of this contraction, anger, fear, frustration?”, when I settle into the experience of my body and breath and kind of sit back and watch the movie unreeling, I am able to get a glimpse of some of the links to the suffering and the path that leads to its cessation. It doesn’t usually take very long, minutes maybe, and then I see or experience a memory, or a habit of thinking, or a chronic aversion, that has manifested in a clenched jaw, a bouncing foot, or an urge to say or do something to relieve the pressure.

Then I try to look at my own intention and causes and conditions  behind the suffering. I inquire into the pictures and memories that float to the surface and see the link. Usually an experience comes to the fore that was similar to an earlier experience that caused me to feel like my basic goodness, or when my intention to be good, was being challenged, or that the innate human desire and belief that all beings  are good and have good intentions had been been threatened. If I am sufficiently present in the moment, I can open my senses to the people or animals or insects around me! (See: http://gratefulroadwarrior.org/failure/) I can look at the scene playing out in front of me and see that this is not that earlier situation but merely an echo of it. My mind and body are reacting to signals that seem the same as an earlier experience and they work to defend me against the threats to my essential nature. In the simple realization of that, I often experience a settling of the turbulence and am able to look deeper into the situation as it is. In that looking I have a chance to begin to see, not only the causes and conditions of my own suffering but the causes and conditions of the situation, and the suffering of others. I may also see how their expression, or their action, may be igniting my suffering. In that moment I become free to respond, rather than react; to see that cycle of suffering working and then to bring forward the practices of loving kindness and compassion for myself and the all the beings present.

Here is a story from buddhist lore of the buddha and the raging elephant that elucidates this more clearly:

Buddha had a cousin, Devadatta, who was extremely jealous of him. Devadatta felt that he himself was as good as Buddha and was jealous that people ignored him and did not honour him the way they honoured the Buddha.He was always thinking of ways to harm the Buddha. One day he devised a plot to kill Buddha. He knew that day that Buddha was going to pass through a particular town. Before the Buddha came into the town, he brought the elephant to the town, hiding it beside a wall. He then fed the elephant a lot of liquor to make it drunk. His plan was to make use of the drunken elephant and trample Buddha to death. When he saw from a distance that the Buddha was coming, he immediately used sticks to beat the elephant brutally. The drunken elephant was in great pain and was totally enraged. Seeing this, Devadatta immediately released the elephant in the direction of the Buddha. Overwhelmed with anger and pain, the elephant was now mad and started at full speed towards the Buddha. It raised its ears, tail and trunk, making a lot of noise. It was as if thunder was striking. All the disciples who were with Buddha were horrified at this terrible sight and scrambled to flee from harm’s way. Only Ananda, Buddha’s attendant, stood firmly beside the Buddha. At that time, Buddha himself remained totally at ease and composed. He took a look at the elephant and felt great love and compassion for the poor beast. He stood where he was and radiated his loving-kindness towards the elephant. Buddha’s love and compassion was so strong and powerful that the elephant could feel it. Just a few steps before it was about to charge into the Buddha, it stopped in its path and calmed down. It then trotted towards Buddha and respectfully bowed its head. Buddha stroked the elephant’s trunk and comforted it with soft & kind words. The elephant was totally tamed.

When I am in a situation where I am particularly activated and where withdrawal for reflection and inquiry is not possible because of the activity or place, or where it might appear like i am being anti-social or aloof, I try settle into my breath and, like a mother easing a crying child or a person soothing an anxious pet, I simply breathe and follow my breath until I come to some ease or I can extricate myself. Once in a place and time where I can reflect, I look deeply into the experience and ask: “Where was the suffering and what were its causes and conditions in and beyond the immediate moment? “ From that inquiry and the resulting arisings, I am able to practice cultivating loving kindness to meet the raging elephant of my karma and the karma of all sentient beings.

This practice has the effect of activating the Right Intention to bring about the cessation of all suffering of all beings, the wish for all beings to know their own goodness, and the realization of the inherent intent in all beings to act, speak and think, out of this Universal Goodness.

If any of this strikes a chord or sparks some interest, the sangha would enjoy your presence in the morning practice.

We meet Monday, Tuesday and Thursday at 6 AM Pacific time. Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/4257749477 Sunday at 7 AM Pacific time at a different Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/2867859631 

Right View

During the morning meditation sessions with the Sangha of the Pandemic, we have been reflecting on the Four Noble Truths introduced by the Buddha 2600 years ago: 

1) There is suffering

2) There are causes and conditions that lead to suffering.

3) There is a cessation of suffering.

4) There is a path or a practice that leads to the cessation of suffering.

This week after four  weeks of reflecting on and inquiring into these Truths we began inquiring into the fourth; the practice of The Noble Eightfold Path.

The first step on the path, or the first practice, is the understanding of and experience of Right View. Although considered the first step, it is essentially the only step. The remaining seven might be considered the natural result of the cause and condition of Right View.

In  a culture that is waking up to the immeasurable diversity that exists in our biosphere, cultures, and our ways of thinking, and a culture that has, as one of its primary foundations, the Puritanical approach to goodness and evil, rightness and wrongness, and has conditioned our perceptions into rigid polarities, there is often a resistance to the word “Right”; especially when it is proclaimed by an authority. When I hear “Right View” I have an internal reaction of contraction, resistance and aversion. “Who’s to say what is the Right View anyway?” “On such a diverse planet, how can any one view be the Right View?’

In Buddhism, Right View is not a qualifier of actions, feeling or thoughts. It is not a point of view. It is not a way to separate the chaff from the wheat. Right View in this practice is the essential view of seeing things as they are, especially in terms of suffering and the Four Noble Truths. Paradoxically there is no right or wrong from this view. There is no judgment or categorizing. There is no better or worse. There is just seeing things as they are.

When I look into the world and reflect upon my own experience, I see that there is suffering; suffering including and beyond the material experience of pain, suffering of the whole being. This is a simple fact and thus from this perspective, a Right View.

When I inquire into what has led to suffering in the psyche and the mind I see that it has causes and conditions. In the same way that body pain is not a phantom and has a direct cause, suffering of the heart and mind has conditions and causes that lead to it. Through further inquiry, I discover that this is a simple fact and thus a Right View. 

When I inquire even further I notice that there are times when the experience of suffering has diminished and may even be absent and through deeper inquiry I discover that this is a simple fact and thus a Right View.

This naturally seems to lead to the question, “How does that happen?” “How can I make suffering go away?” How can I keep it from coming back?” This is where I have gotten stuck throughout this life. It is where I have latched onto dogmas and doctrines and then trashed them because they often seemed to cause just as much suffering, either for me or for those around me or other beings. While blindly engaged in the newest, wokest way, I have jumped into the quicksand of righteousness and clung to a grass blade of promised liberation while remaining ignorant of the quicksand of suffering that I was drowning in. “That blade is the true path!” “If I cling to that it will free me.!” “I’ll get to heaven, or Nirvana, or bliss, or wealth, or adoration, or a beautiful body, or a life partner.” Thrash thrash, thrash, gurgle… I had stepped away from seeing what was present and just working with that. I had stepped away from the Right View. In the case of the quicksand, that view might be: “Oh I am in deep doo-doo here and all I have is this blade of grass to get me out. I am drowning and I will die.” Or: “Oh I am stuck in some deep shit here. This blade of grass is worthless, what other options are there?”

Right View, as a step on the Noble Eightfold Path is just seeing what is without preconceived ideas about what is. This primary practice of the path has been more accessible for me when I have been able to set aside the promises of tomorrow and the fears from past experiences; when I allow my thoughts and feelings to settle down into the body in calm abiding. When I stop thrashing around in the quicksand of concepts, cravings, clinging, promises, and fears, I inevitably stop sinking in the shit of my own making. I begin to become aware: “Wow, there is suffering here.”

When I was on the Grateful Road, there were several times when my life’s conditioning and my intellectual conceptualizations about white men in pick-up trucks and MAGA hats, and black men at night in urban centers, threw me into a quicksand of fears that seemed involuntary yet overwhelming. Sometimes my impulse was to put the Element in gear and drive away, leaving campsite and all behind, or put my backpack on my belly and my hands on my key ring to prepare to defend myself. And boy was I suffering! And now, especially after recent national events, I know that there was a chance that I had also caused suffering for those men who may have just wanted to say hi or needed help, and their own conditioning was probably reaffirmed by my actions. 

Over time and with practice, I have begun to develop a capacity for Right View. Over time and with practice, the light of this view has exposed more and more of the causes and conditioning of my own suffering. Over time and with practice, my experience and view of the world has softened and opened up resulting in more, real, and simple, human connections with folks that I had shunned or run away from in the past. Over time and with practice, I have felt more human and hopefully been more humane with the whole, beautifully diverse population of all beings who may be suffering just like me.

If any of this strikes a chord or sparks some interest, the sangha would enjoy your presence in the morning practice.

We meet Monday, Tuesday and Thursday at 6 AM Pacific time. Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/4257749477 Sunday at 7 AM Pacific time at a different Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/2867859631 

Reflections on Metta and Dana

Reflections from the Spring Equinox retreat from some participants.

Reflection on Metta and Dana by Mike den Haan

The grand tree,

open to all visitors,

its trunk injured by

lightning long ago.

Many long branches,

held in place,

reaching out

to hold, invite, embrace.

Entangled roots

connecting everywhere,

sharing stories,

nourishment, energy.

Pine needles and sap.

Lichen and bark.

Source for woodpecker.

Mark for bear.

Nest for robin.

The elder, tree

beckons to consider a truth:

benevolence.

Our souls join.

Linda Atwater

From a Deep Pool    by Daniel Lefebvre

Sound of flowing water, gentle breathing  

As baby’s breath, opening the heart echo  

To the wordless fragrance of life,  

Silently touching tenderly only with your eyes  

Aaah…. Such kind eyes, sparkling at times with Crow’s feet,  Whisper a generous patience and acceptance  

A lightness of being radiating out  

Perspiring a posture of receiving all  

Open your heart to a soulful melody  

To desire for oneness, for peace of mind  

Banish any thought that disturbs the mirror image  

Of a deep pool reservoir, overflowing with Hagia Sophia *  

Absorb the essence of God’s Love for self and all beings  Breathe; be open to the movement of the Spirit  

* presence of the Divine Feminine