Learning to walk

Yesterday at Sangha we were let through a guided meditation. The directions were to think of a problem that we are having and imagine that a wise person had taken over our body: we then "watched" as this wise person handled the problem. I thought about two problems: one, is the ineffective way that I communicate in an argument, the second was the fact that I lose track of my practice. While meditating the wise person gave me an answer for both questions.

The first was to repeat what the other person has said, and to find out where they are coming from. That way even if you never agree, you will at least understand what makes them feel the way they do.

The second was a lesson that I have been slow to learn. That lesson is simple, when you remember to practice, do it, when you don't, do it the next time that you remember. Most people beat themselves up over their shortcomings, this is not helpful, in fact it works to further discourage one from his or her practice.

As I meditated this wise person showed me the image of a small child learning to walk. I thought about the fact that most people don't remember what it was like to learn to walk. Without doubt, we all faltered fell, cried, and at times gave up. Our practice is like that too, we will falter, we will make mistakes, but if we can realize that it is going to happen, perhaps, just perhaps, we can pick ourselves up without beating ourselves up.

wealth

All people would agree that knowledge is something that can be shared, without lessening its value. that when you teach someone something the teacher does not lose any knowledge.
Today my brother taught me how to get my lap top hooked up to the Internet. He used his knowledge to teach me something. I do not think that anybody would say that his knowledge was cheapened or depleted in any way. we both benefit, me with new access, him with something that cannot be quantified, good feelings if you will.

When you ask people about money, the answer is different. Most people feel that when one person gives money to another, they may have the same "good feeling", but they are worth less.

Today I gave money to my husband, so that he could get something to drink. He had .25 and needed 1.25 for a drink. I had a pocket full of change, and gave him 1.25. I was left with .80 and he gave me his now extra 25 cents. Before I gave him change, I had enough for a drink, and he did not. When I gave him change he had enough for a drink, and I did not. Most people would say that I lost. I was lessened by this exchange. I do not agree, and here is why.
Without the exchange I would have had a soda, but my husband would have had nothing. With the exchange my husband has a soda and I have a bag of chips. We both win.

Once our basic needs are taken care of, we should be kingly givers to those around us. If we do this we are not worth less, we are worth much more.

Giving.

I am reading a book that describes giving as non grasping. Giving is a way to eliminate greed in our lives. I wanted to share the three types of givers that the book outlines.
1. The beggarly giver.
This is a person who is very reluctant to give, and when they do it is only things they don't want. This is the type of person that would give you what they are days away from throwing in the trash. This type of giving is not done with a lot of love. It is difficult and is done only after much deliberation.

2. The friendly giver.
This is someone that gives what they themselves would use. It is done more freely, and with less deliberation.

3. The kingly giver.
This is the highest kind of giver. This is a person who gives the best of what they have. This person gives spontaneously, without needing to deliberate at all. For them, "non-greed is so strong in their minds that at every opportunity they share what is most treasured in an easy and loving way." (1)


1. Goldstien, Joseph. "The experience of insight." Shanbalha publications inc, Boston Mass. 1987.

impermanence

At Sangha this week, we talked about the idea of impermanence. Tim, who led the meditation, talked about the fact that good things in life can be valuable teachers. He said that when things are going poorly, it is easy to recognize that there was a lesson to be learned. When things are going well, it is more difficult to realize that. He said that success is addictive, that when you get some you want more. In Buddhist teachings it is often talked about that grasping for things or feelings leads only to more grasping.
We then split up into groups to talk about the ideas presented.
One woman in my group talked about her daughter being nominated for an award. She said that when her daughter didn't win she found herself thinking that the school should have given every student an award. As she drove away she asked herself if she would have been so equitable if her daughter had won.
Then someone pointed out that not getting excited about the good things sounded lame; at this point a young man spoke up. He said that to enjoy the good moments you observe them, he described good moments as clouds in the sky.
The best way to handle any moment, good or bad, is to observe it without becoming identified with it. You simply live in the moment, watching it, knowing that it will pass. To be at peace and eliminated grasping, you need to embrace the idea of impermanence.

Potential

In his book an open heart, the Dalai Lama says that nobody is special. He says that we all have the same potential for enlightenment. He does not exclude himself from this statement. He describes his life as a series of opportunities, nothing more. In another of his books he says that beginning meditation early is best, but that beginning was the thing. Whenever you start the process of meditation and seeking to save the many beings, you are beginning to build good karma.

We often think that if someone is more attractive than we are, or has a talent that we do not, that they have a leg up on us in life. This is not so. It is not our skills that matter; it is our commitment to the process of learning. In life when we look at other people we see the “finished product”. We go to a concert and say “wow, what talent, she is so gifted.” We do not see the hours of rehearsal that went into the performance. The amount of effort a person has to expend in any given task may differ from person to person, but effort is needed. When you practice your meditation, you are the only one that matters. This is your walk down the middle path, it has to be done your way.

Yesterday I went to a sangha for the first time, while there I found that my meditation was purely relaxed. After the meditation there was sharing, where people could talk about whatever they were experiencing. I shared the idea of nobody being special. Someone across the room shared a story about a dream he had, in the dream the Dalai Lama told him not to put himself above anyone, and not to put himself below anyone either. I found this insight very inspiring, and I hope you do as well.

The natural man

Thomas Hobbs contends that the natural state of mankind is war. Buddhism teaches that the natural state of man is pure wisdom. As I have read and examined my own experience, I have come to the conclusion that the Buddhist way of thinking is the correct one.

People have been told for so long that man is imperfect, in a fallen state since Adam. Men embody this idea as a result. For centuries men have been told that they are alike. This sounds good, until you realize that this equality is all about desiring to acquire other peoples stuff.

The only way to stop living in fear of others is to get rid of these discriminations in our minds. We need to realize that humankind is equal in our potential to find enlightenment. We are also equal in our desires. We desire pleasure and want to avoid pain. That’s it! Now what is pleasure? In the only form important to the ending of suffering, pleasure is the avoidance or ending of suffering.

We need to rethink what real pleasure is. It is not the acquisition of goods. It is not taking from others and giving to ourselves. It is having a mind that is at peace. It is living in every moment. It is teaching others to do the same. Pleasure is a smile shared with a stranger. It is walking meditation, and cultivating true compassion for all beings.

Time and practice

My meditation may be short, and may happen at random times, but I notice a real difference when I do it.
I am impatient I want others to feel the effects of my meditation too. That doesn't always happen. When it doesn't I get discouraged and wonder if I am changing at all. Then I look at how I feel when I am being mindful versus when I am not. There is a big difference within me, and someday that feeling of calm and peace will flow out of me and touch others.
The Dalai Lama says that a hermit once put a black mark on his wall whenever he had an angry thought. His walls were very dark at first, but with time he was able to add plenty of white marks. If a hermit had problems with anger, surely I will.
It is important to remember that meditation is not an instant cure for ill feelings, nor is it a competition. Trust in yourself, be patient, and practice.

The Buddhist writer

I went to a writers workshop yesterday and one of the presenters had some interesting ideas for enhancing creativity. He said that you should always pay attention to what is going on around you. That if you were "in the moment" you would find many things to inspire you. He called it a "zing sensor". As I took notes I realized that he was talking about the same thing Thich Nhat Hanh talks about in his book Peace is every step. The speaker had to find his own words to explain this concept of mindfulness, but that was indeed what he was talking about.
It made me wonder, could you really tell by reading words on a page what author had been in a state of mindfulness when he was inspired? I think you could.
So if you like to write (like I do) remember to be mindful.

Selflessness

I am reading about how people and objects exist. One of the concepts of this is that people do not inherently exist. I am new to this idea, so for me to understand it I have to start small.
There is no such thing as beauty or ugliness, nothing is either lovely or ugly they only become so when compared to other things.
The second part of this is that objects only exist because of someones perception of them. For example someone sees a shape in the darkness that they think is a cat, the shadow is not a cat it is just perceived that way. I think this is supposed to lead us to think about our own sense of inherent existence. Just like the shadow was not a cat, we are not us. This means that we are not independent, we exist because of many factors and conditions. I am not sure I am on the right track about this, I will have to meditate on it. I do understand the idea of dependent arising though.
That is the idea that nothing just happens, the plant or the flower depend on many factors for their existence.

Whome do I follow?

When the Buddha was teaching in India, he was asked a question by someone who came to listen. The question was about priests, specifically this man wanted to know who would lead him to God. The Buddha then asked this man a series of questions meant to lead the questioner to the answer. He asked the man about the qualities that God possessed. Together they came up with a list, they decided that God would exemplify the following.
1. He is free from anger
2. He is free from greed
3. He is free from selfish ambition
4. He does not seek comfort in material things
5. He does not misuse sex

Using these qualities the Buddha then asked about the priests that the people were supposed to follow. He asked the man if any of these priests had all of these qualities. The man said no, and went on to recount stories of lustful and feuding priests.
The Buddha then asked this. "How do you think you can find perfection if you follow imperfect men?"
His listener didn't quite understand, so Buddha put it to him in this way. "If you want to get to God, follow God."
It is as simple as that. Use God as your guide and example if your spiritual goal is to get to God.

True compassion

In my meditations on suffering and compassion I have come to a few conclusions.
People use the belief in a better afterlife as a way of alleviating guilt for crimes they have committed against their neighbors. It is also a way to close their eyes to suffering. Or to say that there is so much suffering in the world we can do nothing about it. Or worse to distance themselves from those who suffer and say that once you give they will just want more. An afterlife is a nice way of forgetting about those around us, those who are us. We say "let God sort it out"
In "what the Buddha never taught" Tim Ward talks about visiting Calcutta. He went to a home set up by Mother Theresa, the home was for homeless people who could no longer care for themselves. He was telling this story to an American who argued that giving to the poor was fruitless. The climax of the story was a mentally disabled woman who Tim thought was going to beg from him coming up and saying "Hello". Tim's point was that Mother Theresa was not delusional, she knew she could not feed everyone. What she did do was bring love into a world of suffering.
If we practice mindful meditation we will feel true compassion. The compassion that comes from knowing that we all belong to the human family. If we do this we will give real love to our brothers and sisters. We will do it. We won't wait for them to die, and rest on belief that justice came from on high. We will give them justice, love, and compassion during their lives.

Free from fear

I was privileged to share a conversation with my brother about fear, and the afterlife. I was amazed at how similar our views are.
When I was active in the LDS faith, I was more afraid of death then at any other time in life. Part of it was that my husband has a terminal illness. The idea of an afterlife may seem comforting to some, but I found that it filled me with real fear. I found myself worrying over whether I would be good enough to see my husband again. Whether I would be forever separated from those I loved. I found this fear distracting, I found that it took away from the quality of life that I wanted.
There are many reasons that I left that church, none that need be spoken here. When I started reading about Buddhism I was impressed with the idea that practicing mindfulness was the ideal. Suddenly this fear of death fled, and I was left with a determination to live this life with compassion and real love. Sometimes people get so caught up in the idea of a perfect "second" life that they don't fully embrace this one.

The body outside of our body

The more I read in "Peace is every step" the more I feel I am growing as a person and a member of a greater family. There is a chapter about the environment that states that the sun serves the same function as our heart. Indeed that the sun is our external heart. It further states that the trees around us are our external lungs. This of course ties into the concept of Inter-being. The fact that we cannot exist without our heart or our lungs. In this way we cannot exist without the sun or trees. This is easy to understand of course, what is difficult is determining how to take care of these things. If more people understood the idea of inter-being, we would have less cars on the road. People would be aware of what damage they were causing to the people around them. The people who exist because of them, and for whom they owe their existence.
The problem is that when you say this to people they want to write it off as hippie nonsense and forget about it.
If they could see the personal benefits of taking better more loving care of the air and trees around them they might come around.
So here are a few
1. When carpooling you get to know one another. This can be an even deeper connection if you practice mindfulness.
2. You will be sick less. This is very true for people who live near water and suffer the effects of inversion in the winter months.
3. You will be able to see the sky when clouds part. Where I live on a clear day in the winter the inversion makes the blue sky a grayish white.
It only takes a moment to breathe and come back to this moment, but if you do it the benifits will be amazing. By being in the moment you don't feel rushed by worries about what will happen later or regrets about what happened earlier.

The basics

These are the basic tenets of Buddhism.

The four noble truths

1. Suffering is everywhere
2.There is a cause of suffering
3.There is liberation from suffering
4. Liberation is the eightfold path

The eightfold path
1.Right knowledge
2.Right thought
3. Right speech
4. Right conduct
5. Right livelihood
6. Right effort
7.Right recollection
8. Right absorption

The three bodies of Buddha
1. The pure empty body
2. The bliss body of mutual interdependence
3. The truth body

The four abodes
1. Loving kindness
2. Compassion
3. Joy in the liberation of others
4. Equanimity or Impartiality

The six perfections
1. Giving
2. Morality
3. Forbearance
4. Vitality
5. Focused meditation
6. Wisdom

The four additional perfections
1. Skillful means
2. Resolve
3. Strength
4. Knowledge

The sixteen Bodhisattva precepts

Refuge in the three treasures
1. Buddha
2. Bodhidharma
3. Sangha

The three pure precepts
1. To maintain the precepts
2. To practice all good Dharma's
3. To save the many beings

The ten grave precepts
1. Not to kill
2. Not to steal
3. Not to misuse sex
4. Not to speak falsely
5. Not to give or take drugs
6. Not to discuss faults of others
7. Not to praise myself while abusing others
8. Not to spare the Dharma assets
9. Not to indulge in anger
10. Not to defame the three treasures

The three poisons
1. Anger
2. Greed
3. Ignorance

The four Bodhisattva vows
1. To save the many beings
2. To abandon the three poisons
3. To wake to the countless teachings
4. To embody the way of Buddha

Inter-being

The idea behind inter-being is that everything is connected. Not just connected though, but everything is one. The best way to talk about this idea is with an example, so I will share one that I was meditating on yesterday.

When my sister and I were little our Grandma Mary would make us clothes. I remember a pair of pajamas that she made us, my sisters were baby blue mine were a rose pink.
It's easy to see how those pajamas could not exist without me my parents and my grandparents. As I thought about it more I could see other people and things that existed within those prized pajamas.
I could see the people involved in manufacturing the cloth
The artist who designed the pattern
The machines that harvested the cotton
The plants that grew to make it
and the sunlight and water that allowed all of those people and plants to live.
All of these things didn't just help this item to be created they were a part of it. They are still a part of it and a part of me every time I remember that gift.

understanding

I was reading the other day about arguments. What I read was that you cannot win an argument with reason, you have to understand where the person is coming from. I wasn't sure how I felt about this at first. It seemed to me that if that were the case you could never resolve certain conflicts. I have thought about it for a few days and believe I have come to a conclusion.
There are some things that people will always fight about, but if you understand where the other person gets their ideas from it is easier to know what to say.
This may mean that you abandon the discussion having resolved nothing. For example at this moment in time I do not believe that talking to certain family members about my belief system would be beneficial for either of us. The best I can do is meditate on them and gain an understanding of why they are who they are.
This may seem depressing or like all is lost with certain people. It is actually quite comforting it leads to knowing that most people don't mean to be hurtful, they just know no other way.
If you understand the other person you may learn a way to communicate with them that will bring joy to both of your lives.

Breathing room

In Peace is every step there is a chapter on creating a "breathing room" that is a room that is set aside for meditation. Aside from being a place for meditation this room would be kept free from conflict. The author suggests that no disagreements happen in this room.
It's a nice idea, but what if you live in a small house and don't have an extra room. I have decided that you could still have a breathing room in part of another room.
If you have the money you could by a small screen and divide a bedroom or even your living room. Or if you don't have the screen a rug could be laid out to mark the boundary of your meditation area. I am going to try it and see if it works well. I have a feeling it will work quite nicely. Our living room is very long so dividing a portion of it for a breathing room should be very easy.

A bell of mindfulness

In his book Peace is every step Thich Nhat Hanh talks about how he would use church bells as a reminder to breath and come back to the moment and his true self.
He does not limit this to church bells however, he talks about using any sound as a bell of mindfulness.
I really love this idea and, it seems so easy to do because we are always surrounded by sound.
The other morning I slept in, not a good thing to do. I was glad I did though because I heard the train whistle as it passed through town. I have always loved that sound. That morning it was my bell of mindfulness as I took a moment to breathe and enjoy being in that moment with the song of the trains whistle.