the development of peace

so that last quote i posted has been percolating in my mind today. i walked downtown to meet with my accountant, and i passed a multitude of people and a multiplicity of emotions and tensions. mostly i noticed the tension, on people’s faces, in their shoulders, in their gaze. that seemed to be predominant… tension… i think the monkey mind quote is somewhat getting at that. because having a sense of peace, or calm abiding, isn’t to me at a gross level. it isn’t that you’re avoiding conflict or quelling anger. it’s more about relaxing into whatever is arising. that could be relaxing with irritation or anger. so therefore, i don’t mean some happy go lucky going with the flow. shamatha is not like the “it’s all good” stoner or apologist. it seems to be more about relating directly and precisely to what’s coming up in our experience. that could be tension and fear, as so many people on the street today appeared, but instead of holding it all together and holding up the armor i think it would be a sort of relaxing with it. genuinely being upset, though not acting out based on it. genuinely being one’s self, even with all the qwerks and fears and awkwardness of being human. meditation is something to do with that, something to do with practicing genuineness.

crazy monkey mind

The mind is like a crazy monkey, which leaps about and never stays in one place. It is completely restless and constantly paranoid about its surroundings. The training, or the meditation practice, is a way to catch the monkey, to begin with. That is the starting point. Traditionally, this training is called shamatha in Sanskrit, or shi-ne in Tibetan, which means simply “the development of peace.” When we talk about the development of peace, we are not talking about cultivating a peaceful state, as such, but about simplicity. - chogyam trungpa rinpoche

this from his latest book “The Tea Cup and the Skullcup” recently released: a unique collection of his talks comparing zen and tantric buddhism. i should note that chogyam trungpa is no longer alive, but his students edited a series of talks for this book.

though if you believe in the tibetan version of tulku reincarnation, you could say that his next incarnation is alive - he’s a teenage boy named choseng trungpa rinpoche living in surmang, tibet. i donated a small amount last year to help build a school in his region of tibet, a very poor area, and he sent me a small red cord that he had braided. it feels incredibly odd and special to have this small trinket in my office that this remarkable young man wove - halfway around the world.

google maps and meditation

my meditation community is now using google maps to show you where their meditation centers are located, which is pretty wizzy. when you click on an area on the map you zoom in and see thumb tacks for each center. clicking on a thumb tack presents address and contact info. ultimately all the center’s programs will be searchable so you can find beginner classes and programs in your area - but that aspect isn’t there yet. ultimately that should be much easier for people to find introductory programs in my tradition. good use of technology.

meditation causes enduring change

meditation causes enduring change to the human brain, at least according to professor davidson at the university of wisconsin, madison. more specifically, the more hours of meditation correlated with the greater change, and the changes included increased activation in the parts that underly empathy and love as well as greater connections between frontal areas and emotion centers - allowing greater control by higher thought of emotion.

so my question then is, if that’s the case, then does watching TV also have enduring brain effects and impact emotion? or does a continuous concern over self and self betterment also produce enduring effects? it seems reasonable then that narcissism or a continuous focus on one’s self would cause changes in the brain and reinforce habits. much of modern american culture seems to encourage this - with an adam smith-ian ethos that if we’re all out for our best interest then the greater society will be better for it, or at least more wealthy. but what does that do to the emotional habits of our brains i wonder?