This page offers some reflections
on practice from various teachers who
have taught at The Mountain Hermitage….
From Marcia Rose:
Compassion –
“My continuing passion is to part a curtain — that invisible veil of indifference that falls between us and that blinds us to each other’s presence, each other’s wonder, each other’s human plight.”
– Eudora Welty, American author and photographer
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion
– Dalai Lama
“There is an image in Tibetan Buddhism that represents the awakened energy of unconditional, boundless compassion. It is an image of a Bodhisatta often depicted as having 1,000 arms outstretched and 1,000 eyes — an eye painted in the palm of each outstretched hand, 1,000 eyes to see all the suffering in the world, and 1,000 arms reaching out to help.
Compassion is the heart beat of the Buddha’s teaching. It may be experienced as the trembling or the quivering of the heart in response to pain -one’s own pain or another’s. Compassion is a very tender, open state and at the same time a place within us of great strength — tenderness, openness and strength — enabling us to stay present with whatever is happening within our own bodies and minds and with what is going on around us without becoming overwhelmed.
The practice and the unfolding of compassion are challenging, which means that we take to heart the Buddha’s words, “I teach one thing and one thing only – suffering and the end of suffering.” The practice of compassion asks us to gently maintain our awareness of suffering. Most of us are strongly habituated to sweep discomfort away, to sweep dis-ease “under the rug”, to hide it away in a metaphoric closet. Or, we hide ourselves away by shutting off, going to sleep or distracting ourselves. We might ignore or trivialize suffering so we don’t see the pain of others in the world — or experience our own pain and suffering.
Through the purification of the heart and mind that practice brings, we gradually turn our developing capacity for heart-full, unconditional acceptance towards suffering. We are then able to open to it with understanding and courage and move towards its alleviation. Unconditional compassion, our heartfelt connection to beings and our way of being in this world, arises out of a clear, deep seeing and understanding of suffering, its root cause and the way of its end.
Unconditional, boundless compassion is one of the wings of awakening with which we fly free.”
Equanimity –
“Equanimity – Upekkha in the Pali spiritual language (the language that the Buddha’s original teachings were first transcribed into) is a powerful force in our practice, a powerful force in the whole of our life. It manifests as the equipoise, the balance or equilibrium between the opposing forces in the mind of the desired and the undesired. The equipoise of equanimity offsets the weightiness of greed and aversion. It’s that point of balance in the middle of the see-saw of life.
As Equanimity blossoms it shows up in our practice and our lives as fearlessness, great strength, and ease within the mind and heart, keeping us balanced and impartial in the midst of it all.
As awakening beings, one way you can practice this essential quality of mind/heart is as one of the Brahma Viharas/Divine Abidings. The classical Theravada phrase used in this form of Equanimity practice is this:
‘I am/you are the heir or owner of my/your karma (my/your ‘deeds’ of thought, speech, and bodily actions). My/your happiness or suffering depends upon my/your actions (of thought, speech, and body), not upon my wishes.’
As it is done in the Brahma Vihara practice, one silently repeats this phrase over and over to oneself, staying very present and mindfully aware, but not getting caught or seduced into the stories that may show up. After directing the phrase to yourself for a few days, you can then slowly over time begin to bring in other individuals, such as someone who has been of benefit to you in your life, a dear friend, a family member, and even a difficult person. As we go on with this practice a very natural reflection and understanding will begin to blossom, not through discursive thought but simply through the process of the practice itself and your growing trust in its power.
You might consider trying this practice for 10 or 15 minutes each day keeping an open mind and heart towards the process and its fruits.”
Attitude Toward Practice–
“A good question to ask yourself now and then is: How am I holding my practice? What is my attitude, my frame of mind in relation to my practice?
It is essential to be relaxed and in the right frame of mind in relation to your practice. Everything else blossoms out of this. Holding your practice with the ‘right attitude’ means that you acknowledge, accept, observe, and bring mindfulness to whatever is happening, whether pleasant or unpleasant, in a relaxed and alert way. It’s vital to check in with yourself to see whether you are in the right frame of mind or not, which is even more important than experiencing peaceful states or having a ‘good sit’. The particular object of attention in your meditation is not really the most important aspect of your practice. Of prime importance is the observing mind working in the background to be mindful of whatever the experience is in the moment. If observation and mindfulness are done with the right attitude, any object is the right object. It’s important to know when you have the right frame of mind– but it’s equally important to recognize and mindfully investigate your wrong attitudes to see how they affect your practice and how you feel in the midst of these attitudes.”
Anicca/Impermanence –
“So you should view this fleeting world, a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, a flickering lamp, a phantom and a dream.”
– BuddhaDaily reflections on the universal truth of impermanence have been inspired with the recent deaths of two close people, my good friend and sister-in-law Karen, and Kate Krasin who was one of our deeply dedicated Mountain Hermitage yogis, and by the fact that my 70th birthday is coming very soon. I am deeply appreciative of and grateful for the liberating clarity that these reflections offer.
One of the only things we can know for sure is that everything changes. In light of this truth, the only thing we can hold onto is the realization, the intuitive insight of impermanence (Anicca in Pali). The deep knowing, the deep living with impermanence is a gateway to liberation, a gateway to freeing the heart and mind.
One of the most prevalent myths we live with, often quite unconsciously, is the myth that we can control this changing experience we call life, even though everything in this world, everything in the universe begins and ends, is born and dies, is continually changing form – every form of life, every object, every relationship, every sensation, every thought, every feeling, every mind state, every perception, every experience, every breath.
For most of us the word form implies solidity. But in reality, all forms are forming and unforming, coming together and coming apart, constantly and without end. Consequently, our world can’t be solidly objectified. Our world isn’t a noun. It’s a verb. It is incessant activity. Most of the time we only know this conceptually. And perhaps more often we forget or ignore it, or are busy distracting ourselves by accumulating, planning, living in and out of memories, fantasizing, hoping, expecting, coveting, fearing. If we tightly cling to the imagined future or the evaporated past, inevitably we will experience disappointment, anger, judgment or grief, and we will have missed the fullness of the present moment, missed our “appointment with life” as well as reinforcing the delusion of control and permanence. So, much of the time we’re actually practicing permanence.
As we learn through our practice to pay a kind of extra-ordinary attention to our experiences of body, heart and mind, we begin to directly touch, to experientially know the constant rapidity of change – from the apparent solid substantiality of form, to the smaller, perhaps micro-changes in bodily sensation, to the seeming substantiality of thoughts that fly through the mind. A Tibetan teaching tells us: “All thoughts, good, bad, happy, sad vanish into emptiness, as the imprint of a bird in the sky.”
And so our relationship to all the forms, both inner and outer, begins to change. The compulsive, addictive grasping onto the ‘passing show’ begins to loosen. Trying to control what is actually uncontrollable and ungovernable – this ongoing miracle of constant change we call life – begins to soften as we open our hearts and begin to clearly ‘see and know’. We begin to recognize the fear that is beneath the impetus to control and we see how excruciating it is to grasp on so tightly. With this blossoming recognition, the fear of being in and with life just as it is begins to relax, open and dissolve as we surrender more deeply to the truth of the moment. So now we are practicing impermanence.
As the understanding/the wisdom of Annicca/impermanence deepens, it brings great relief and lightness into our lives. We no longer need to haul around such a heavy load and there is time and energy available to live to our heart’s content.
On Finding No ‘Self’ Through the Creative Process as Practice –
In exploring the creative process as practice, with mindfulness and investigation being the root from which stem the beautiful blossoms of wisdom and creative expression in its myriad manifestations, we find that creative process can be a vehicle for peeling away layers of our habitual conditioned perceptions and reactions, thus a vehicle with great potential for revealing the interdependent and selfless nature of all physical and mental phenomena.
Whether it be the spontaneity of a moment to moment creative visceral response through the moving body, or seeing with the eye without interposing the ‘self’, meaning contacting things directly… letting the hand and pencil follow what the eye sees without the thought of ‘making’ a picture or ‘being’ creative…or trusting thoughts/words arising as though from nowhere, from no-one… allowing the immediacy and spontaneity of writing to flow from this ‘empty space’–we could say that the creative process is about forgetting what we’ve previously learned which is a necessary step in responding and seeing more directly and precisely.
Part of moving, seeing and writing is forgetting – meaning forgetting what we think we know about the subject, which includes what we may have been taught about drawing or writing or how we should or should not move the body. ‘Forgetting’ in this way stops the mind from knowing in its conditioned habitual ways. Consequently one is confronted with the object itself and one’s usual way of knowing is arrested. The heart, the mind is open, receptive, appreciative and able to respond to the inner voice, the tone, shape or texture with genuine authority and autonomy.
What keeps this openhearted “being in the presence” from happening? A common response is, “the fear of losing control.” Though without a doubt there is an ancient and subconscious urge for inventiveness and creative life in every one of us from our very beginnings, it is not so easy to be unarmed–to be without our habitual ways and self-centered identifications. Fear sometimes leaps up in us, and so we train the heart/the mind slowly and with great care to clearly see the nature of our constraints, and let go.
In our practice, including the creative process as practice, until we can suspend the need for meaning we can’t experience direct revelation/insight/wisdom. The way to returning to things themselves can be difficult as we are faced with our ‘self’–our seemingly set solid ‘self’. At times many of us may experience the simple direct presence of ‘not knowing’ as feeling stupid, but the most extraordinary insightful experiences I’ve had all had a quality of ‘bearing witness’–of being fully present with tremendous and yet relaxed interest, an openhearted mindful attention and discernment, along with the innocence of humility and no impulse to make meaning.
Engaging in the creative process with joyful interest and openhearted mindfulness can be a wonderful vehicle for freeing up honesty, authenticity and the essence energy of creativity, all of which help to create the conditions that allow for a direct revelation of insight into the not-self nature of all things.
From Joseph Goldstein:
“It was an amazing first five minutes. For the first time I saw there was a way to look at the mind, instead of looking out at the world through it. When people first get a taste of watching their minds, the discovery is tremendously compelling.”
“Calm is a state that is the opposite of restlessness. Equanimity is the quality of mind of impartiality… the equanimous mind holds everything, and in that impartiality is the chance to learn.”
“When you realize the empty or selfless nature of consciousness, the energy to bring about the good of others dawns uncontrived and effortless. When we take ourselves out of the way, what is left is love and compassion.”
“Real spiritual maturity happens when the relative and ultimate levels of truth are known as expressions of each other. When we understand truth on the ultimate level, we can engage in the world with much greater freedom.”
From Sayadaw Vivekananda:
Inner Happiness–
“As a non-meditator, we think that for our happiness and well-being we have to rely on external gadgets such as having the latest computer game, or spending holidays in the Caribbean renting a yacht. When we meditate, we gradually come to realize that more and more joy and happiness is arising within. This leads to the arising of contentment with whatever we have, with whatever social position we find ourselves in. We realize that for true inner joy, happiness, peace, and balance of mind, we don’t really need those external gadgets. And this, in a sense, is a form of inner liberation.”
Wisdom and Faith –
“There is a very simple connection between wisdom and faith.
Wisdom is bound to arise as we keep being mindful from moment to moment, exerting effort with concentration building.
At first, wisdom arises in simple ways: just knowing the nature of one rising movement, knowing the nature of a falling movement; knowing the specific nature of some pain, some ache, some hardness, some softness; gradually getting to know the different mental states; discerning the specifics of mind and matter and their relationship to each other, and other insight knowledges.
Every time a meditator intuitively (not just intellectually) realizes a new insight knowledge the meditator understands “Wow, I’m seeing something that I’ve never seen before. There really seems to be something to this path. Something is really happening.” One begins to find that their experience is in accord with what has been said in Dhamma talks or written in the texts. As a result of this, one’s faith increases.
And as our wisdom increases stage by stage, the wholesome mental state of faith is strengthened.”
Patience –
“Patience is a blessing to human beings and is the best moral practice.”
–The Buddha (Mangala Sutta; Dhp. v. 184)
“Patience leads to Nibbana”
– Burmese saying“Patience is required in performing acts of generosity, in observing precepts, and in the field of mental development (bhavana). In meditation when we observe a pain that is gradually intensifying we tend to get annoyed. This annoyance may easily turn into irritation and restlessness. We start fidgeting, we change our posture. We might even ask ourselves: Why do we have to sit still in meditation and observe this pain? This seems like a futile exercise. With this we have just missed a wonderful opportunity to gain intuitive wisdom. If we were to observe that same pain with some patience we could learn many things from it, such as seeing its inherent quality, its fascinating changes, and even its eventual dissolution. When we are remembering some undesirable event of the past we may want to push it away and rather not observe it. Once again, wisdom cannot arise. Here, too, patience will make a big difference. When we accept and observe the undesirable event of the past as an object of observation we get to know it, what it feels like in the mind, and eventually we might even come to terms with it.
Satipatthana mediation could be described as a process of developing ever greater levels of patience. At the outset of our meditation journey we easily get impatient with undesirable, and times even desirable objects. As the meditation practice is full of challenges this will give us ample opportunity to grow more and more patient. After being very diligent for quite some time, on occasion our meditation practice may collapse. At such a point again we need patience with the situation and just accept what has happened and start all over again. Sooner or later, in the presence of mindfulness and patience, we are bound to succeed and gain nibbana. Hence , the Burmese saying “Patience leads to Nibbana” very much applies to the meditation practice.
The patience gained from intensive or regular meditation at home will come in good stead in our daily life when we have to deal with the imperfections of ourselves and others. Others’ speech may be timely or untimely, true or untrue, gentle or harsh, connected with good or with harm, spoken with a mind of loving-kindness or with inner hate. Whatever others might be saying, we need to abide in patience, compassion, and loving-kindness.
In the context of the Abhidhamma patience and other positive mental qualities like loving-kindness, gentleness, and amity are various aspects of the mental state of non-hatred (adosa). The commentary to the Cariyapitaka defines patience as follows: It has the characteristic of acceptance; its function is to endure the desirable and the undesirable; its manifestation is tolerance or non-opposition; seeing things as they really are is its proximate cause. In the texts patience is much extolled as a blessing to human beings and as the best moral practice (Mangala Sutta; Dhp. v.184).”
Gentleness of Mind –
In June 2009 Sayadaw Vivekananda gave a talk on the first part of the Metta Sutta where the Buddha lists 14 Qualities a person should possess who wishes to attain the state of peace. Below is an excerpt from that talk on the quality of gentleness of mind.
It is useful to remind meditators to take a friendly attitude toward themselves and their meditation practices. Often we get tough on ourselves, thinking our meditation experiences are not up to the mark. Or we may think we shouldn’t be having unwholesome mental states and scold ourselves for this. The Buddha disagreed with this harsh attitude and instead said that one should be gentle – the fifth of the 14 qualities, ‘mudu‘ in Pali.If a person were to cherish mental states like wrong view, pride and conceit, that person might hold a view such as “I’m the most important thing in the world.” If a person held that view and on top of that were highly conceited, this would create rigidity of the mind rather than gentleness. What mental qualities and activities would make for gentleness of the mind? We might name wholesome states and activities such as kindness, compassion, patience and humility.
As neuroscientists are discovering, the mind can be changed and shaped. What happens to the mind depends on us. The Buddha says that as meditators we should have a mind that is gentle – a mind that is soft and pliable. In fact, there is even a mental state known in the Abhidhamma as malleability (muduta in Pali). This malleability dissolves rigidity in the mental body and consciousness and manifests as non-resistance. This mudutu is opposed to defilements like wrong view and conceit, which create rigidity of the mind.
When we practice and try to understand the Dhamma, the mind needs to be in congruence with the Dhamma, which is not rigid but is extremely subtle. We cannot attempt to gain the Dhamma with a rigid mind, which is tense and rough through unwholesome states. We need instead a mind that is malleable, brought about by wholesome mental states such as faith, wholesome intentions and other qualities mentioned above.
A soft and malleable mind also needs to be sharp, cherishing the meditation practice and holding it in high esteem. The Buddha’s teachings are very much characterized by causality, so if we wish to attain a state of peace, the necessary conditions need to be present. The gentleness of the mind is one of these conditions. If it is possible to turn something as hard as iron ore into a really flexible thin blade of stainless steel, it should be equally possible to turn a hard and rigid mind into a mind that is sharp and yet also gentle and malleable.
From Annie Nugent:
The Dharma In A Few Words –
“We might think that the Dharma is only to be found in long hours of sitting on our meditation cushion…but not so. It incorporates all areas of our lives if we are prepared to look at life with eyes of wisdom – and what better place to begin than with our speech?
The Buddha spoke about the importance of speaking wisely. It is one of the steps of the 8 fold path and an immediately rich area of practice for us in the busy, interactive world we live in. Each time we open our mouth to speak we have the opportunity to cultivate either wholesome or unwholesome qualities: we can perpetuate the habitual responses borne out of delusion that we have blindly acted out for many lifetimes or we can learn to pause momentarily before we speak, take note of what is happening in the mind – and then speak from a place of growing awareness of what our motivation is in our choice of words, because motivation or attitude of mind, is the key to wholesome speech. Are our words motivated by kindness or anger, greed or generosity?
For example, take the simple sentence: “Hello, how are you today?” What is our motivation in saying these words that are used so often in our daily lives? We might say them to our neighbors, the check-out clerk at the supermarket, our friends, our children, partners and people in the street. But are we aware of all of the qualities that might be present within the heart/mind as we are speaking them?
In just these few words we can find the Dharma: when the heart is open and connected to the other person – we can touch our common bond, our humanity. We are not threatening the other person or wanting anything from them, rather we are giving in a very simple, aware way. We are letting go of thoughts about ourselves and what we want, and including someone else into our world with kind awareness, transforming what might have been a mere formality, a polite, empty sentence if said without awareness, into a small gesture of kindness and inclusion borne out of awareness. In these moments we are also not trying to make any special feeling arise, instead, through being genuinely open and truly present, we can feel a quiet connectedness come to life within the heart, free of expectation of any particular result.
It takes so little of our time, yet has far reaching consequences in terms of our practice because each drop of wholesome motivation in our speech, coming from a place of generosity and kindness of heart, rather than from a place of grasping or unkindness is a step in the direction of letting go of our deeply ingrained habitual tendency of unawareness in the world.
If we are sincerely interested in developing in our practice, then we can resolve to pay attention when we speak. As we begin to include speech into our practice we will notice how difficult it is because our habits run so deep. Don’t let this dishearten you…and watch the judging mind…. we are all working towards purifying our unskillful habits….and of course, it is going to take time. The important thing to remember is to be patient with ourselves and never to give up… each moment we are willing to make the effort towards strengthening awareness in our speech brings wholesome results….a drop at a time.”
Using Everything as Food for Freedom –
When we are faced with the challenge of bringing the practice into our everyday lives, it can seem like a daunting task. Out of this we may become despondent and slowly our good intentions about practice begin to recede into the background as we become seduced by worldly distractions, relegating our practice to a period of formal sitting some time in the day. While this is an important part of the practice, it is only a part.
What about the rest of the day?
Rather than limiting the practice to some special period of time on the cushion, can we learn to see every situation as an opportunity for wisdom and compassion to grow? For example: whilst driving our car is there aversion to other drivers or are we perhaps daydreaming? When talking with others are we judging or wanting something from them? When preparing the evening meal are we rushing, leaning in to the moment? In the midst of these ordinary, worldly situations can we notice how we are relating to the moment?
The Buddha tells us that the end of suffering comes with the uprooting of the defilements of greed, hatred and delusion. Thus our job is learning to bring awareness to the presence of these unwholesome habits in the mind and not acting on them – this is how they are ultimately uprooted. In this way we are working towards ending suffering.
But this takes time – the patient, sincere willingness to begin with a gentle but determined encouragement to be aware of what is happening in the mind in one small moment. This is perfectly doable – nothing grandiose like being aware “for the whole day”. One moment of awareness begets another. Slowly and repeatedly throughout the day noticing what our attitude of mind is in any moment. Asking the question: “What’s happening in the mind now?”
In this way we can see that there is nothing special we have to do to alter our day. Only watching how the mind is operating. With awareness we begin to see the unwholesome tendencies of mind showing themselves. With time our attitude of mind shifts from living out the defilements of greed, hatred and delusion towards living from a place of generosity of heart, kindness and compassion and wisdom.
A joy comes into our lives when we realize the scope of the dharma. We see that it doesn’t narrow or limit our lives, but brings a growing ease of mind into life as wisdom and compassion is cultivated in the midst of the fullness and vibrancy of daily life. We come to understand that awareness wakes us up. It is a courageous and a deeply compassionate act because it breaks the cycle of ignorance. Gratitude arises for our lives as they may be manifesting right now, recognizing that the seeds of wisdom and compassion lie in whatever life is offering in this moment. It is up to us to use them as food for freedom.
From Venerable Dhammadinna:
The Four Noble Truths–
Of course, it’s true that mindfulness holds the presently arising moment with an attitude of non-judgment. In order to learn we have to bear with undesirable experience without condemning— and desirable experience without becoming fixated. Condemnation and fixation are kinds of judgments we make about what is worth experiencing.
The path of practice is not merely non-judgment. Mindfulness has a view. Right view guides mindfulness. This means there is discernment regarding what is dukkha, where it comes from, and how to escape from its oppression. There is a simile from The Questions of King Milinda, “Grasping a handful of barley in the left hand and a sickle in the right, the reapers cut the barley. Even so does one who is devoted to mental training take hold of the mind with wise attention and cut off the defilements with wisdom.”
Throughout the entirety of our lives we continue to review and refine our practice in the light of the Four Noble Truths. Those with an excellent understanding of these truths are likewise possessed of unhesitating energy, resolve, and fearlessness in the face of the sufferings of the world.
Moving Away & Turning Towards –
If we have had so much experience of difficulty and disappointment all our lives, why haven’t we become wise on account of our life experiences? Moving away from dukkha or suffering masks it. Turning toward dukkha, investigating dukkha unmasks it and leads to understanding dukkha.
What constitutes moving away from dukkha? One pattern of moving away is to try to get a better mood by eating something delicious, or watching a movie, for example. We want to dispose of discomfort by absorbing into something pleasant and soothing. If it works, we feel satisfied, but there are hidden problems with this strategy.
There is an allure to pleasure – it is oh so nice to get what we want. But we build up an assumption that we are hardly aware of. We see these desirable things as securely delivering us from our discomforts. The Buddha gives us a clue: “We are seeing a refuge in things that lead to bondage.” We get a sense of this bondage if we pay attention to the anxiety that is active in the background when we are planning to get again an experience that uplifted us before. How can I get it? Will it be the same? The very feeling that we lack something is oppressive. Oppressive also is the effort and expense to get that special thing.
Another problem is that at a time of life crisis we never draw strength by bringing to mind the great meals we have enjoyed. We felt so great at the time and set such importance on getting good things to enjoy. We never questioned this program and assumed pleasure would be a refuge from distress. When we face a serious loss we feel disappointed to see that pleasures are utterly empty of any ability to be that for us. In that regard, they are really valueless.
Empowered with the tools for mindful investigation, we observe again and again that pleasant experience is fleeting, ephemeral, fading quickly. Seeing this impermanence undermines our attachment, breaks up the demand we place on these things to fulfill us. Turning toward dukkha begins to unmask the problem of wanting to get a better experience. We begin to feel more and more independent of all that seeking and grasping. As that independence grows we recognize it as equipoise. This peace of mind is a real treasure for us. It is a reliable source of happiness and strength.
From the perspective of maturing practice, we see that people who are untrained in the Dharma don’t have this inner happiness within their reach. For worldly people there is no escape from unpleasant feeling except by way of pleasant feeling. It is very poignant because we know from our own experience how fraught and turbulent that way of life is. It may strike us that people are as vulnerable as little children who have no protector. An irrepressible tenderness may follow. We become willing to rise up and work to bring them something of value.
From Andrea Fella:
On Recognizing the Feeling of Awareness –
As we engage in a daily life practice, it is helpful to become familiar with what it feels like to be mindful and present. At times throughout our day, we come into mindfulness; it happens spontaneously, effortlessly, for just a moment. This actually happens to us more than we realize, but it’s like the air we breathe: we don’t notice it. Typically we get a split second of knowing what is happening, and then we start thinking about what we noticed, or planning about it, or remembering something we did yesterday that was similar to what we’re doing now. We usually simply use awareness to navigate our lives. We have an experience: the water is hot, we know it is hot, and we jerk our hand out. We notice a stain the linoleum, so we go down to clean it. We use the recognition of what is going on to plan, to further our lives. We rarely recognize the quality of
mindfulness itself.
While the feeling of knowing that you are aware can seem like a subtle feeling, actually, it is a feeling that is very familiar to us, but we rarely pay attention to the feeling. If you know that you are reading this article, then the feeling of awareness is there in your experience. Don’t look too hard for it. Just explore how your experience feels when you know that you are aware. Over time, you will begin to recognize the feeling of awareness. As you become familiar with this feeling, you will notice yourself coming back into mindfulness many, many times throughout the day. In the midst of an activity, you will suddenly recognize that you are aware of what is happening. You might be reaching for something, walking across the street, finishing a meal, or driving the car. Appreciating these moments creates the conditions for you to recognize these moments even more frequently.
From Greg Scharf:
On Renunciation –
The word renunciation doesn’t have a particularly positive connotation in our culture. It might be interesting to sit with this word and see what your response to it is; how does it sit in your heart? Often we see renunciation as a kind of self-inflicted punishment. We mistakenly think renunciation means that we will no longer enjoy anything, that our lives will become a gray, bland, dullness. At best we might regard it as something that might be good for us – like bad-tasting medicine. If we really look at our practice, we’ll see that as we bring mindfulness to our unfolding experience, we are exploring the landscape of renunciation, learning, moment by moment to let go. As Ajahn Sumedho says: “The way of spiritual life is a movement away from the distraction of attaining or acquiring. It is a relinquishing, a letting go. It simplifies our lives, freeing us from that which is unnecessary. There’s no judgment or rejection, it is pure mindfulness developing in the present moment – the only place truth can be found.”
In our lives, within the terrain of our own hearts & minds, and in our relationships to others, we see over & over how suffering arises. If we strip away our stories and explanations we see that clinging to anything at all leads to suffering, to struggle. Renunciation is really the response of wisdom & compassion in the face of that. There is nothing inherently wrong with enjoying the things of the world. The Buddha does not judge happiness born of the enjoyment of worldly pleasures but he does point to its limitations, uncovering a fundamental misunderstanding: It is the energy of grasping and craving that is the root cause of suffering, not anything inherent in the objects of worldly pleasure and happiness.
The Buddha offers us the chance to make a trade. From the Dhammapada: “If by giving up a lesser happiness, one could experience a greater happiness, a wise person would renounce the lesser to behold the greater.” Moving from the endless pursuit of desire to a meaningful relationship with renunciation is not to move from happiness to grief, from a state of abundance to one of lack. Instead as Bhikkhu Bodhi says: ” It is to pass from gross, entangling pleasures to an exalted happiness and peace, from a condition of servitude to one of self-mastery. Desire ultimately breeds fear and sorrow, but renunciation gives fearlessness and joy.” This is quite a powerful statement – that renunciation might actually lead us to fearlessness and joy! Who wouldn’t want to make that kind of trade? Renunciation is seen as so important in this traditi
on because it is held as the very practice of freedom. Rather than being presented as something dismal or bleak, renunciation is seen & described as a practice of joy and happiness and its ultimate fruition is the greatest happiness, that of peace.
