BUDDHISM : RIGHT THOUGHT

THE BUDDHA: Using his meditation skills he examined the internal workings of his own mind. And what the Buddha discovered contradicted the assumptions people held about the permanence of the ‘soul’, or of the self. He realized that the external world, as we experience it, was constantly changing and that we were constantly changing too!

Our material form (body), our feelings, our perceptions, our mental formations, and our consciousness were all in perpetual flux. In Buddhism this is called impermanence. Therefore, all efforts to identify a permanent self were futile, because a permanent or independent ‘self’ did not exist. Furthermore, identification with the self as a completely isolated entity caused suffering. This is why the Buddha said, ‘Nothing is to be clung to as ‘I, me, or mine.’

The Buddha had this realization and came to believe that the idea of a permanent self was not the solution to the problem of the human condition but instead, was the root of human suffering, because it made us selfish and self-absorbed.

THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS

THE FIRST NOBLE TRUTH, simply stated that human suffering was inevitable. ‘There is suffering’. To be human is to suffer. We all experience it. It is part of the human condition

THE SECOND NOBLE TRUTH identified the Causes of Suffering: Craving, Delusion and Ignorance.

THE THIRD NOBLE TRUTH was the critical step. The Buddha taught that since there was an identifiable cause for suffering, then there had to be an identifiable method for ending human suffering. The Fourth Noble Truth is the method that the Buddha identified:

THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTH was the path to end human suffering, what the Buddha called

THE EIGHTFOLD PATH : The Fourth Noble Truth was a systematic approach to the end of human suffering, meaning the dispelling of ignorance and the liberation of the mind. This is the Eightfold Path. Mindfulness is one of the eight practices of this path. However, it is the one element of the path unifying and informing all the others. All together the eight practices are:

RIGHT MINDFULNESS

RIGHT CONCENTRATION

RIGHT THOUGHT

RIGHT VIEW

RIGHT SPEECH

RIGHT LIVELIHOOD

RIGHT ACTION

RIGHT EFFORT

To rid oneself of this deep-seated delusion of independent self was the way to liberation. That realization would allow one the freedom to not get caught in the ‘I, me, or mine’ which is really the fundamental cause of suffering. The Buddha came to believe that there is a way or path to overcoming suffering.

‘Thich Nhat Hanh is blazing clear: there’s one thing we have the power to change, which will make all the difference, and that is the mind. Our mind is the instrument with which we engage and interact with the world; it holds our fears and despairs, our hopes and dreams. Our mind’s way of seeing determines the decisions and actions we take or avoid, how we relate to those we love or oppose, and how we respond in a crisis. In Buddhism we often say that with our mind we create our world.’ Sister True Dedication

If we look at the world through the lens of the mind, we readily notice what we are looking for, because the mind will focus on it. Given that the world we look through is limited, if we can train our mind and choose wisely where to focus, then we will be able to experience the world according to our state of mind.

ACCEPTING OURSELVES: I am enough: when a deep, honest conversation makes us feel connected to someone else, we become filled with equanimity or peace of mind; the beautiful experience of being connected to the ‘other’. The same connection with ourselves is possible by wholly accepting ourselves and realizing the basic goodness of ourselves. This, too, is a source of incomparable joy and freedom. The Buddha was unequivocal about our basic goodness and that we deserved love.

THE EIGHTFOLD PATH: RIGHT THOUGHT

INTERBEING ‘If you are a poet, you will see that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees can’t grow, and without trees we can’t make paper. The sunshine is also here, the logger, wheat for the logger. As a reader your mind is here as well as mine. Everything is here in this sheet of paper. When you look deeply you will find that you can’t point to one thing that is not here- time, space, earth, rain, minerals, sun, cloud, river, heat.’ Thich Nhat Hanh

Astrophysicist Neal DeGrasse Tyson beautifully articulates just how much we really are interconnected to each other, and all of Nature in his beauty. Whenever a supernova dies it releases all of the periodic table found here on earth that allowed life and us to exist. So, we are not just metaphorically, but literally made of stardust.

We are stardust.

Billion year old carbon-

We are golden

Caught in the devil’s bargain

And we’ve got to get ourselves

Back to the Garden……… Joni Mitchell

We must break the devil’s bargain and get ourselves back to the garden. And the only way we get there is by practicing Right Speech and Deep Listening. It’s the only way forward for the human race

IMPERMANENCE: Impermanence is something that we resist or deny. We want things to stay as they are. But the march of time is always on the move. Everything is impermanent and that includes ourselves. We get older and eventually die. But if we see a beautiful flower, the fact that it will soon die should make us treasure it even more. It is the same with our loved ones. Treasure every moment with them. If we see impermanence as merely a philosophy, then it is not the Buddha’s teaching. Impermanence is reality.

Time waits for no one. But resisting it causes suffering. It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not. From a Buddhist standpoint, impermanence teaches us to respect and value every moment and all the precious things around and inside of us. When we practice mindfulness of impermanence we become more grateful and more loving.

As I age, I learn how essential it is to remain in the present moment. We don’t know how much time we have left. We have no control over that. However, we can control what we do with the time remaining to us. I view impermanence as a good thing. In moments of despair and grief, we think these feelings will last forever. But if we are patient then our thoughts become: ‘This, too, shall pass’.

In moments of darkness and pain

Remember all is cyclical

Sit quietly behind your wooden door

Spring will come again Loy Ching Yuen

It is in the present moment when time stands still and you experience eternity. Why? Because if you are living in the present moment, you slip from the ‘busy, thinking mind’ and you slip into ‘being’. This happens to me when I spend time alone in nature. ‘Being’ In Nature, we often say, ‘It was so beautiful that time stood still.

Living in the present moment gives us more time. Living in our minds, reliving past traumas and regrets and dwelling in the future which we normally dread- time goes so fast because you are not experiencing life at all. We have all wasted so much time ‘thinking’ and ‘doing’ , when we should be just ‘being.’

The Beauty of Nature helps us to ‘be’ as does devoting our time to a ‘larger purpose’ which is greater than ourselves is another doorway. And meditation is the third doorway into the ‘here and now’ the experience of the power of healing and the feeling of freedom.

There are three stages in a person’s life: Birth. Living, and Death. We are not aware of being born, we die in pain, and we forget to live.

EMPTINESS: The concept of Emptiness causes a lot of confusion and debate, even within Buddhism, itself. However, everything is empty. Empty of what? Empty of a completely separate existence. A flower is full of everything in the cosmos, and so are we! It is not denying that the flower or you don’t exist. Everything is empty of only one thing- a completely separate existence.

Everything in this world is interconnected. We all breathe the same air, drink the same water, eat what grows in our soil. But we are suffering from existential loneliness. If we can see others as part of us, we can use this as a key to unlock the door to reality.

Ah, not to be cut off-

Not through the slightest partition

Shut out from the laws of the stars

The inner- What is it?

If not intensified sky,

Hurled through with birds and deep

With the winds of homecoming. Rilke

NON-SELF NATURE

We are interconnected in every conceivable aspect to others, to the world, to the universe. But we don’t feel connected to anybody or anything. It is unhealthy to see ourselves as totally separate individuals.

'Nothing is to be clung to as I, me, mine.’ The Buddha

‘Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides. If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.’ Zhuang Zhou

Fear is the cheapest room in the house-

I’d rather see you

In better living conditions. Haziz

BEYOND BIRTH: BEYOND DEATH

No-birth and no-death is a Buddhist concept that teaches us about impermanence and the interconnectedness of all life. Time always marches forward, so we get older. Eventually we will have to abandon this body. If we also see then we become impervious to the fear of the unknown! What happens when the body dies? It’s a mystery! The Dalai Lama says, ‘ When we die, we change clothes, that’s all!’

‘Throughout the whole life one must continue to learn to live and what will amaze you even more, throughout life one must learn to die.’ Seneca

Jack Kornfield relates how his teacher Ajahn Chah in the Thai Forest Monastery would hold up a beautiful cup and say, ‘You see this beautiful tea cup?I can truly appreciate it because I know that someday it will be broken and that makes it more precious to me. It is impermanent like we are.’

‘When we recognize that, just like the glass, our body is already broken, that indeed we are already dead, then life becomes precious and we open to it, just as it is, in the moment that is occurring. Our children, mates, fiends, how precious they become. How little fear can interpose: how little doubt can estrange us. When you live as if you are already dead, life takes on new meaning.’ Stephen Levine

And so long as you haven’t experienced

This; to die and so grow,

We are only a troubled guest

On the dark earth. Goethe

Our priorities change, our heart opens, and our mind begins to clear off the old holdings and pretensions. We watch all life in transit and what matters becomes instantly apparent: the transmission of love, the letting go of obstacles to understanding, the relinquishment of our grasping, of our hiding from ourselves. Seeing the mercilessness of our self-strangulation, we begin to come gently into the light we share with all beings.

In regard to giving up one’s self, what Buddhists call non-self nature, may seem to us as a cruel joke which never can be accepted fully. Especially in present-day Western culture, in which the self is held sacred and death is considered an unspeakable insult. Yet the exact opposite is the reality. It is in the giving up of self that human beings can find the most ecstatic and lasting, solid, durable joy of life.

‘A human being would certainly not grow to be 70 or 80 years of age, if this longevity had no meaning for the species. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be a pitiable appendage to life’s morning. ‘ Carl Jung

‘Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purposes. The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally unsolvable. They can never be solved but outgrown. We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learnt to bear its ills without being overcome by them.’ Carl Jung

As I have come to accept the state of my own mortality, I only find joy and solace in the great outdoors. Somehow, the peace, beauty, and stillness of nature obliterates all traces of my bewildered self and my soul, and alive in the mystery, is at peace.’ R.W. Emerson

It is death that provides life with all its meaning. This ‘secret’ is the central wisdom of spirituality. It is in this lifetime which entails a series of simultaneous deaths and births. I call it growth. If we could extinguish the delusion of self, we could see things as they truly are and our suffering would end.

The Buddha came to believe that there is a way or path to overcoming suffering. His teaching would be based on rediscovering our true nature, which is referred to as ‘non-self nature’ Live everyday as your last day!

The secret to life is the realization that living in the present moment gives us more time. If you have ever been in nature alone for a period of time, you will eventually feel as if time stands still. And it does! Why? Because you have slipped from ‘doing’ and ‘thinking’ mode and into the eternity of ‘being’ mode. The suspension of thought is to just ‘be’ and it gives us more time.

‘Live as if you were going to die tomorrow and learn as if you were going to live forever. The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself serving others. You must be the change you wish to see in the world. Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do is in harmony.’ Mahatma Gandhi

Let go and accept the present moment, including how you are feeling and what you think is happening. For these few precious moments, don’t try to change anything, just breathe and let go. Die to need to have anything be different at this moment. In this moment allow your heart and mind to allow this moment to be exactly as it is and allow yourself to be exactly as you are. Then, when you are ready, move in the direction your heart tells you to go, mindfully and with resolve.

‘Do every act of your life as if it were your last. It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if you will ever dig. And you will give yourself relief if you do every act of your life as if it were the last. ‘ Marcus Aurelius

We must be willing to fail and to appreciate the truth that often ‘life’ is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.

Appreciate the fact that life is complex. Abandon the urge to simplify everything; to look for formulas and easy answers, and begin to think multidimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life. We must be willing to fail and to appreciate the truth that often ‘life’ is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.

There is no worse bitterness than to reach the end of your life and realize you have not lived.

BEYOND BIRTH AND DEATH:: ‘It is our idea of birth and death that takes away our happiness in everyday life. And it is meditation that will rid us of the fear that is born from the idea of birth and death. This is the virtue of ‘deep seeing’ in meditation: to touch the nature of interbeing is to touch the very nature of no-death and no-birth.’ Thich Nhat Hanh

‘The notion of death, of nothingness is very dangerous. It makes people suffer a lot. In Buddhist teachings, nothingness is only a concept, and it is never applicable to reality! The Buddha said, ‘When conditions are sufficient, the thing manifests, and when they are not sufficient, the thing remains hidden.’ there is neither birth nor death. There is only manifestation and appearance.

Concepts like being and non-being, are not applicable to reality. The wave on the water is free from being and non-being.’ Thich Nhat Hanh

BREATHE -BREATHE IN THE AIR

Breathe, breathe in the air-

Don’t be afraid to care. Roger Waters

The most immediate way to experience the body as the temple of spirit, is to pay attention to the simple and profound act of breathing. The world we live in is a temple, and the miraculous light of the first stars is shining through it all the time. Like an innocent child we can rejoice in life itself; in the very fact that we are alive..

The very notion of spirit arose from the experience of breathing. The testimony of all who have practiced meditation in the Hindu, Buddhist, and Sufi traditions and in Christian mysticism is that the dimension of spirit is as close to us as and as immediately available as the act and non-act of breathing.

Breathing is at once ordinary and revelatory, a natural and supernatural experience. By paying attention to the cadence of breathing, we allow respiration to become automatic, which in turn expands the focal length of the mind.

It sounds funny to talk about ‘discovering breathing’ since we have all done it from the moment of birth. But it yields its spiritual treasure only when we practice the unnatural discipline of bringing into consciousness what has normally remained unconscious. The beauty of experimenting with intentional breathing is that it requires no belief, no faith, no dogma, no authority. The discipline of paying attention to the breath probably comes as near as we can get in the spiritual life to a genuine technique- a prescribed procedure that yields an assured result.

Try it. Sit quietly and pay attention to your breathing. Nothing else. At first you will find that your mind wanders, and you will be unable to concentrate on following the flow of the breath. Bring your attention back to your breath. When you are able to hold your attention there for a while, you will become aware that you are exerting a lot of effort. Breathing seems to require a lot of willpower. It is work.

Gradually, you will notice that the rhythm of your breathing lengthens, grows slow, and your body softens and begins to allow the breath to flow. After a long while you will feel yourself being breathed.

As you surrender to the movement of the breath, who you are changes. Where you were once acting, now you seem moved by a power beyond yourself. Your breath tells you that you are the same substance as the spirit that moves all of life. I guess this explains why I find it so much easier to focus on my breath when I find a quiet place in nature; in a green field, by a river or brook, on a mountain, or in the woods.

Eventually, with practice we develop an ability to concentrate. Then, and only then, we may practice compassion by combining attention with intention and you have the formula for going beyond mystical to moral experience, for developing compassion.

In the varieties of Buddhism in which meditation is central, the rhythm of inspiration and expiration is used to expand the boundaries of the self and the circle of care. As I inhale, I try to be aware of and thankful for the gift of life while filling my lungs, energizing and animating every cell of my body. As I exhale, I send out my gratitude, my energy, my compassion to all suffering beings.

YOUR IN-BREATH: Breathing in, I accept the gift of life.

‘Gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within us and without us.’ David Whyte

‘Be content with what you have. Rejoice in the way things are. When you realize nothing is lacking, the whole world belongs to you. He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough. Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them- that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.’ Lao Tzu

YOUR OUT BREATH: Breathing out, I surrender, cease grasping, and give my care back into the world.

‘Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of Nature in its Beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this but the striving for such achievement is part of liberation and the foundation of inner security.’ Albert Einstein

I live my life in ever widening circles

That reaches out across the world.

I may not ever complete the last one,

But I give myself to it. Rilke

Allowing and surrendering, I experience something deeper than my ego moving me.

Why focus on the breath? The breath is the bridge between the mind and the body. A lot of people have the wrong conception of what mindfulness practice or meditation is really all about. It is not about shutting out bodily sensation. In fact, it’s quite the opposite! We stop and sit and feel deeply the sensations of the body, of the senses. We meditate the body and mind at the same time. From a secular point of view this would be called a body scan- which we can do as part of our practice.

Look lovingly upon the present, for it holds the only things that are forever true. All healing lies within it. The miracle comes quietly into the mind that stops an instant and is still.

We evolved on this planet, grew up on this planet. The seeds of mindfulness and concentration of mind and body are within us. Our modern culture has weakened this ability to pay attention to our surroundings and the sensations of our mind and body, but it is still there, the product of millions of years of evolution.

The breath is also the most neutral thing for us to concentrate on; for what is the breath other than the mechanism that keeps us alive. There are no concepts, no set of beliefs to stand in our way. This is why there is absolutely no need to follow any set of precepts; religious or otherwise, to begin mindfulness practice. We can do it! If we can take one mindful breath, one mindful step, then we can take another and another. Start right here, right now!

PERCEPTION OF THE MIRACULOUS

If I am to appreciate the uniqueness of any experience I must be sufficiently aware of my preconceived ideas and characteristic emotional distortions to bracket them [set them aside] long enough to welcome strangeness and novelty into my perceptual world. This discipline of bracketing, or silencing requires sophisticated self-knowledge [awareness] and courageous honesty.

Yet, without this discipline, each present moment is only a repetition of something already seen or experienced. In order for genuine novelty to emerge, for the unique presence of things, persons, or events to take root in me, I must undergo a decentralisation of the ego.

For there are moments

When something new has entered into us

Something unknown; our feelings

Grows mute in shy perplexity,

Everything in us withdraws:

A stillness comes, and the new,

Which no one knows

Stands in the midst of it

And is silent. Rilke

We are that being who has the ability to transcend our mental- emotional-bodily conditioning: the one who can escape the imprisonment of our ancient character armour. We become the one who is not determined by yesterday.

The true wonder of the world we live in is available in the here and now, and available in the minutest part of our bodies, in the vast expanses of the cosmos, and in the intimate interconnectedness of these and all things. We are part of a finely balanced ecosystem in which interdependency goes hand in hand with individuation. We are all individuals, but we are also part of a greater whole, united in something vast and beautiful beyond description.

The more grateful we feel, the happier we become. This is because gratitude helps us realise that we are all connected. Nobody feels like an island when feeling grateful. Gratitude awakens us to the truth of our interdependent nature. If you genuinely care for others and look for ways to help others succeed, you won’t need to look for ways to boost your mood. A selfless and kind act will lift your spirit and sense of self- worth.

GRATITUDE AND JOY : Gratitude is an appreciation of all that sustains us; an acknowledgement of blessings great and small. It is confidence in life itself and confidence in ourselves and our ability to manage our own lives. The same force that causes all things to grow on this planet are within us. We exist because every single one of our ancestors from the beginning of the first man was a survivor and cared and nurtured their young and passed down to us valuable knowledge that would sustain us in life.

‘Gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within us and without us.’ David Whyte

Gratitude doesn’t envy others or compare. It is saying that we have enough. It receives in wonder the myriad blessings of rain and sunlight, the care that supports every life.

Be content with what you have. Rejoice in the way things are. When you realize nothing is lacking, the whole world belongs to you. He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough. Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them- that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.’ Lao Tzu

JOY: As gratitude grows, it gives rise to joy. We experience the courage to rejoice in our own good fortune and in the good fortune of others. In joy, we are not afraid of pleasure. We do not mistakenly believe that it is disloyal to the suffering of the world to honor the blessings we’ve been given. Joy gladdens the heart. We can be joyful for people we love, for moments of goodness, for sunlight and trees, and for the very breath in our lungs. When we allow ourselves to be present and grateful, we realize that life is a miracle.

Find a place inside where there is joy, and the joy will burn out the pain. Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls. Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy. It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life.

‘Know that joy is rarer, more difficult and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation.’ Philosopher Andre Gide

‘If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give into it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and often not very kind and much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibilities left. Perhaps this is the way of fighting back; that sometimes, something happens that is better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very often you notice it in the instant when love begins. Whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.’ Mary Oliver

THE MIRACLE OF LIFE

Life is a miracle. We, ourselves are a miracle. We are the Universe looking at itself. Miraculous here does not refer to extraordinary phenomena but to the commonplace, for absolutely anything can evoke this special awareness provided that close attention is paid to it. Once perception is disengaged from the domination of preconception and personal interests, it is free to experience the world as it is and to behold its inherent magnificence!

YOUR OWN TRUE HOME: When we are tired or discouraged by life’s daily struggles, we may not notice these miracles, but they are always there. Under the influence of awareness, you become more authentic, understanding and loving and your presence not only makes you more compassionate, it influences others as well. Our entire society can be changed by one person’s peaceful presence.

OCEANS

I have a feeling that my boat

Has struck down there in the depths,

Against a great thing.

And nothing

Happens! Nothing…. Silence…. Waves.

-Nothing happens? Or has everything happened?

And we are standing quietly

In the new Life? J.R. Jimenez.

We find that we adrift on an ocean of suffering. But if you turn around, you can still see the land. Everyone in the boat may be panicking but can be kept from despair by one person’s peaceful presence, who slowly and methodically rows the boat towards the ‘other’ people clinging desperately to what is left of their shipwreck. He then gets the people in his boat to lean to one side, so that he is able to pull the ‘others’ into the boat without it capsizing and then rows everyone back to land , back to safety.

Your true home is not an abstract idea; it is not limited. With mindfulness and concentration, you can find your true home in the full relaxation of both your mind and body in the present moment. No one can take it away from you. When you stop speaking and thinking and deeply enjoy your own in-breath and out-breath, you enjoy your true home and deeply touch the wonders of life.

SILENT LUCIDITY: Just remaining quiet, being attentive, requires a lot of courage and effort. Yet, it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover action without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity. In the final analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his life and ‘finding himself.’ If he persists in shifting responsibility to someone else, he fails to find the meaning of his own existence. My teacher once told me that sitting in meditation and embracing silence is an act of revolution against a soulless society.

In meditation, it is possible to dive

Deeper and deeper into the mind

To a place where there is no disturbance

And there is absolute solitude.

It is at this point in the profound stillness

That the sound of the mind can be heard.

Silence is like a cradle holding our endeavors and our will; a silent spaciousness sustains us in our work and at the same time connects us to larger worlds that in the busyness of our daily struggles to achieve, we have not yet investigated. Silence is the soul’s break for freedom!

It is like the sea breaking on a far-off reef,

And it lulls the being into extreme calm.

Like the sea, it is primordial

And here is no storm.

Only the silken waves soughing.

When I listen to the sound of this sea,

I sense that I am a voyager

And this sound is a wind in the sails of a ship.

But this sound is not of this world:

For other sounds are heard distinctly

And cause this sound to die-

Though it returns with the silence.

All journeys have a secret destination of which the traveler is unaware. Solitude is the place of purification. Silence is a great source of strength. To the mind that is still, the whole Universe surrenders.

The Wise Person believes profoundly in silence- the sign of a perfect equilibrium. Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind, and spirit. The person who preserves her selfhood, is ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence; not a leaf, as it were, not a ripple upon the surface of the shining pool. Silence is the ideal attitude and conduct of life. Silence is the cornerstone of character. Silence is a great source of strength. To the mind that is still, the Whole Universe Surrenders.

In your daily life, your mind and body are going in different directions. Your body is getting ready to go out, and your mind is off in la la land. Life is too precious to lose myself in my ideas and concepts, in our anger and despair. We must wake up to the marvelous reality of life. As time marches forward I want to cherish every moment I can.

We shall not cease from exploration and in the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’ T.S. Eliot

The ego tends to grasp on to certainty: certain ideas as to what constitutes reality and therefore, constructs what it perceives into accordance with what we believe is the nature of reality- our own narrow definitions of ourselves and others and the world around us. If we wish to achieve spiritual and optimal mental health we need to constantly adjust our ‘maps’ of reality, to incorporate new ideas and information and to let go of certainty and fixed notions and opinions. Certainty stifles creativity and our ability to change our outer and inner lives.

Jack Kornfield is the founder of the Spirit Rock Insight Meditation Centre. He also is a psychologist and an influential writer. When he was a young man, he signed up for the Peace Corp and ended up as a monk in the Thai jungle monastery of founder and venerated teacher Ajahn Chah.

Kornfield relates how the Master (Ajahn Chah ) responded to questions from his students about enlightenment, life after death, etc. He would smile and say ‘It’s uncertain isn’t it?’ When a senior nun left the Buddhist order to become a born-again Christian. She would go back to the monastery to try to convert her old friends, telling them that they were all going to hell. When they went to the Master, upset and confused, the Master laughed and said, ‘Maybe she’s right.’

TWO WOLVES: There is an ancient story that derives from Native North American tradition where a grandfather is talking to his granddaughter. In it, the grandfather says to his granddaughter, ‘I have two wolves in my heart that are fighting each other. One wolf is vengeful, angry, and afraid, while the other wolf is kind, forgiving, and loving.’ After some time the little girl asks, ‘Grandfather, which wolf will win?’ He replies, ‘The one I feed the most.’

Love is not a feeling. Love is an ability and if it’s an ability we can foster it and practice it and we can feed the ‘other wolf that is kind, loving and forgiving.’

THE HEALING POWER OF WALKING ON THE EARTH ‘Many of us walk for the sole purpose of getting from one place to another. Now suppose we are walking to a sacred place, we would walk quietly and take each gentle step with reverence. I propose that we walk this way every time we walk on the earth.

The Earth is sacred and when we touch her with each step we should be very respectful because we are walking on our Mother. We can train ourselves to walk with reverence. Wherever we walk we are walking on the earth and so we are in a holy sanctuary. We can be nourished and find peace with each step.’ Thich Nhat Hanh

TOUCHING THE EARTH: ‘The earth is Mother to us all. The Buddha asked the Earth to be his witness when he had fear and doubt before his awakening. When you are lost or troubled, touch the earth deeply. Suddenly you will see the Earth with all her miracles: flowers, fruits, birds, trees and all living things she has produced. Touching the Earth is a very good practice to heal you and restore your joy.’ Thich Nhat Hanh

THE FOUR RADIANT ABODES OF BUDDHISM: The four radiant abodes are loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity or peace. These abodes are treasured because they are exquisitely simple, the universal expression of an open heart. Even hearing their names: Love, Compassion, Joy, and Peace- they touch us directly. When we meet another who is filled with these qualities, our heart lights up. When we touch peace, love, joy, and compassion in ourselves we are transformed.

When developed, these qualities help to balance one another. Because love, compassion, and joy can lead to excessive attachment, they need to be balanced with equanimity. Because equanimity can lead to excessive detachment, it needs to be balanced with love, joy, and compassion. Together, they express optimal mental harmony.

‘At rest, consciousness is peaceful and open. This is natural equanimity. When our peaceful heart meets other beings it fills with love. When this love meets pain, it becomes compassion. When love meets happiness, it becomes joy.

SOMETHING AND NOTHING: Much of our personal suffering is caused by falling into one of two extreme views about reality- that everything is something or that everything is nothing. In one view, we feel that there must be something secure or substantial in the world.

There has to be something permanent that we can feel, hear, taste, know. Everything then matters a lot, because we continue to hope that somewhere there is perfect security and continuing happiness. When we are lost in this view, we grasp and cling to a world of change and appearance and so we suffer.

In the other extreme view, nothing at all matters. Everything is a void or blank and we live in random, hopeless chaos. This nihilistic view leads to paralysis and apathy. It is the worldview that since everything is empty and insubstantial, what difference does anything make anyway? We become apathetic and feel disconnected.

Almost everyone who comes to Buddhist philosophy and practice becomes confused by the concept of emptiness. I know I certainly was. It doesn’t deny that you exist, but through interconnectedness or ‘interbeing’ you are part of everything in the world and cosmos.

Even we, ourselves, are constantly changing from moment to moment. This is actually quite liberating when dealing with difficult thoughts and emotions- they are merely temporary states of mind which will change, dissipate, if we are patient and non-judgmental and we do not run from them. This, too, shall pass.

The Middle Way of the Buddha avoids both of these extreme views .It is important for us to understand that while everything that arises is translucent or insubstantial, it is also consequential. It is caused by something.

There is causality in the universe. Buddhists call this karma. Something happens which makes something else happen, and time moves in a linear manner. Because it is so difficult to convey this paradox, the Buddha often used metaphors to describe the nature of existence.

He said that we experience life like a dream, a rainbow, or a drop of dew. Note that he said, ‘Like a dream or an illusion’- not that reality is an illusion! Again this is yet another popular misconception about Buddhist thought.

THE MIDDLE WAY: Our minds allow us to time travel. We revisit the past and we think ahead to possible future scenarios. Most of this shit is negative thinking- regret, grief from the past and anxiety and worry about possible futures that most likely will never come to pass. And, as a species, we are spending more and more time in the past and the future, rather than living in the present moment and this robs us of the miracle of life- of being alive!

Therefore, if we spend most of our reality daydreaming then we experience life like a dream, dewdrop, like an illusion. Life seems like an illusion and in fact, is, if we don’t dwell in the present moment- the only moment that is the true manifestation of reality.

Through insight, we come to see both the something and nothing of existence. We see that anything that can be known with this body or mind, known through our senses, is fleeting and insubstantial. We also see that experience arises and passes in accordance with the laws of nature, such as the laws of cause and effect. (karma) We also see that we do not live in a haphazard universe. There is conditionality in this world.

There is interconnectedness and interrelatedness. When we perceive the ever-changing impermanent nature of life (impermanence), we grow in wisdom. When we perceive the interrelatedness within life (interbeing), we grow in compassion and love. One never excludes the other. Rather, they are like two wings of a bird. As the famous Japanese Haiku poet Issa wrote:

The world of dew

is only the world of dew…

And yet… Issa

It is this ‘and yet’ that we carry in our hearts and where the seeming paradox of life comes to rest.

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ISSA (1763-1827) From “The Spring of My Life”: Translation by Sam Hamill

‘Last summer at bamboo planting time, my wife gave birth to our daughter, whom we named Sato. Born in ignorance, we hoped she would grow in wisdom. On her birthday this year, she whirled her head and arms for us and cried. We thought she was asking for a paper windmill, so we bought her one. She tried licking it, then sucking on it, then simply tossed it aside.

Her mind wanders from one thing to the next, never alighting very long on anything. One minute playing with a clay pot, in the next she shatters it. She examines a shoji screen only to rip it open. When we sing her praises, her face lights up. Not a single dark cloud seems to cross her mind. She beams like clear moonlight, far more entertaining than the best stage act. When a passerby asks her to point out a bird or a dog, she performs with her whole body, head to toe, poised like a butterfly on a grass blade, resting her wings.

She lives in a state of grace. The divine Buddha watches over her. On our annual evening honoring the dead, she comes crawling out as I light the candles on the family altar and ring the prayer bell. She folds her hands, bending them like bracken shoots, and recites her prayer in a high, sweet voice.

I am old enough for frosty hair, the years add wrinkles to my face. I’ve not yet found Buddha’s grace myself. It shames me to realize that my daughter, two years old, is closer to Buddhahood than I. But the moment I turn from the altar, I engage in bad karma, despising flies that crawl across my skin, swatting mosquitoes as they buzz about the table, or-worse- drinking wine, which is forbidden by the Buddha.

In the midst of my confession, moonlight falls over the gate like a cool breath. A group of dancing children begin to sing. My daughter drops her bowl and crawls out on the porch and joins her voice to the others, lifting her hands to the moon. Watching, I forget my advancing years and worldly ways. I daydream about a time when she’ll be old enough for long waves of hair, when we encourage her to dance. Surely she could outshine the music of two dozen heavenly maidens. Day in, day out, her legs never rest.

By nightfall, she’s exhausted and sleeps deeply until the sun is high. While she sleeps, her mother cooks and cleans. Only then can her mother find a moment’s rest before she awakens with a cry. Her mother carries her out into the yard to pee, then nurses her. Our daughter sucks with a smile, poking the breast happily. Her mother then forgets the weariness and pain of carrying her in the womb, she forgets the dirty diapers she washes every day, lost in the supreme joy of having a child, more precious than jewels.

It is often said that the greatest pleasures result in the greatest misery. But why is it that my little child, who’s had no chance to savour even half of the world’s pleasures – who should be green as new needles on the eternal pine- why should she be found on her deathbed, puffy with blisters raised by the despicable god of smallpox? How can I, her father, stand by and watch her fade away each day like a perfect flower ravaged by rain and mud.

Two or three days later, her blisters dried to hard scabs and fell off like dirt softened by melting snow. Encouraged, we made a tiny boat of straw and poured hot sake over it with a prayer and sent it floating downriver in hopes of placating the god of the pox. But our hope and efforts were useless and she grew weaker day by day. Finally, at midsummer, as the morning glory flowers were closing, her eyes closed forever.

Her mother clutched her cold body and wailed. I knew her heartbreak but also knew that tears were useless, that water under the bridge never returns, that scattered flowers are gone forever. And yet, nothing I could do would cut the bonds of human love.’

The world of dew

is only the world of dew-

And yet… oh and yet… Issa

RECOMMENDED READING

1. Ajahn Chah, Being Dharma

2. Ajahn Chah, Falling is Flying: The Dharma of Facing Adversity

3. Seung Sahn, Wanting Enlightenment is a Big Mistake: The Teachings of Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn

4. Seung Sahn, The Compass of Zen

5. Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Battles: Modern Commentary on the Teachings of Master Linji

6. Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

7. Haemin Sumin, Love for Imperfect Things

8. Haemin Sumin, The Things You Notice When You Slow Down

9. Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen and the Art of Saving The Planet