sitting monkey is place where
david evans
writes about meditation, buddhism, and related topics.
two buddhist monks from the wat tham yod thong temple in thailand wear helmets to protect them from falling rocks. (via we-make-money-not-art)
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looks like benjamin franklin used what in the shambhala buddhist tradition we call slogan practice. each week he would pick a short slogan as an ongoing contemplation. if i were to write my own list of 13 contemplations to cycle through over the year, i wonder what they might be? (thanks to boingboing for reporting this)
a couple people have been puzzled about why i’m off, not working, mostly just sitting at a buddhist retreat. and sometimes they offer a well wishing that “i will find myself”. something has struck me about that phrase as really not right. it’s more like losing myself, loosing myself as well, but basically losing a sense of solidity in my self-visualization and then ultimately finding the root anxiety that causes a need to solidify a self-visualization.
i was just asked today what aspect of my self-visualization i’m actively letting go of, or would like to let go of. the most fundamental part of my self-visualization i’m trying to relate to is any sense of not being good enough, not going to be ok, not going to be happy and content, any sense of doubt about my well being. that seems to be at the root of many negative emotions and discursive thought processes and also kinds of laziness. some sense of not ok at a very basic level, not ok in not-knowing, in groundlessness, in space. not ok with space. but also just not ok with being who i am and just being. i wouldn’t be surprised if that’s driving everything, that is the root of the tree of ego in some sense.
then at a more practical and gross level, less subtle level, i think i’m trying to let go of aspects of my self-visualization that i have to be a certain kind of person or hold myself a certain way, that who i am can just arise in the moment and can even surprise me, or embarrass me, and that’s going to be fine. something like that, but without completely flopping and ignoring the situation. often i think trying to just allow yourself to be yourself is a kind of flopping, or ignoring basically. so some sort of being precise and curious and completely involved in situations yet not trying to control and manage or strategize at the same time. something like that.
just read an interesting and very short article about the kind of practice i have been doing this last week, written by buddhist master ken mcleod in his july 2005 newsletter (3 page pdf) titled “The Shattered Mirror”.
so we walk around all day with an idea of who we are, what we like, what we dislike, built of memories and concepts and even just a ‘feeling’ of ourself in our own skin. how much of that is purely conceptual and habitual, and how much of that is up-to-date and direct experience?
the major theme of this last week of meditation practice for me has been working with that self-visualization that i carry around of myself. i think of myself as davee, who is so-and-so, from such-and-such a place, etc. i have a certain awareness of my body and how i’m feeling at any given moment.
what i noticed mostly this week was that much of my discursive thought process seems to have at its root an underlying doubt, a doubt that things are ok, that i’m ok, that i might have to consider things in order to ensure that they’ll be ok. this is framed in the content of that self-visualization, but the spark that starts the chain reaction of thoughts is usually a subtle kind of doubt. doubt that there is well-being. doubt that the inherent groundlessness of the present moment is ok. then that subtle doubt cascades into a series of thoughts using my conceptual ’self’ as the meat of the thought parade.
i guess what’s surprising to me about this is that i would think the self-visualization would come first and then doubts about well being or the situation would arise from that conceptual frame. more course conceptual doubt and intellectualizing does seem to work like that. but this lower level, more subtle pervasive kind of doubt - in the moment, that spark of worry or uncertainty - seems to be primal, before the conceptual mind engages and in fact fueling the conceptual mind in the first place.
i’m settling in tonight back in vermont, for a nine day meditation intensive that starts tomorrow. this will be my first experience as a solo coordinator for a program, but it shouldn’t be too too hard with only 12 participants. please wish me good luck.
ok, i’ll continue the buddhist basics and my experience instructing at seminary in a couple weeks. tomorrow i’m heading to nova scotia for a meditation intensive and i’ll be out of touch until i get back.
so when the buddha said that life has needless suffering, what precisely did he mean? well in sanskrit the word that he’s quoted with is dukkha. literally, that translates to bad axle hole. most books render that word as suffering though. so what the hell was he saying? life is like a busted wheel?
language is a funny thing, more pointing at shared experience i’m guessing and specific somewhat to time and culture. so the aryans that swept into india, bringing the sanskrit language with them, were known as technologists. just like modern westerners, they liked their tools. specifically, they were known for their chariots and that advantage in combat may have led to their success. so how would an aryan convey a sense of things not working out the way they hoped? or that things were not going along smoothly? if you’re driving through the desert and your chariot breaks down? dukkha!
getting from “A” to “B” seems to be the basic analogy when describing buddhist teachings. it seems to be less about what belief to hold, what to have faith in, as much as describing where we are and where we might like to go and how to get there like a road map.
so when hearing buddhist teachings, one can ask if a teaching is about the ground: where we’re at; about the fruition: where we might go; or about the path: how we might get there. the four noble truth teachings include all of these. the truth of suffering and the causes of suffering is the ground. the truth of the cessation of suffering is the fruition, and then there is the five fold or eight fold path depending upon your tradition. but then other teachings, or various things i may blog about will usually either fall into the ground or the path.
another way of talking about the heart of warriorship, as talked about this month, has been sad joy. not sad in the sense of depression, but of tenderness and willing to be affected; feeling your heart and its shakiness. not joy in the sense of awash with pleasure, but in being fully present, fully engaged, willing to look at what’s going on, with freshness and curiosity and at the same time appreciation and humor. but i’m just painting a conceptual picture, it’s more of a feeling in the heart. can you remember times when you had experiences of sad joy? are there specific memories that bring this up for you?