Archive | Reflections on Practice

Marcia Rose offers A Dhamma Reflection on Death

From the Buddha: “Of all the footprints, that of the elephant is supreme. Similarly, of all
mindfulness meditations, that on death is supreme.”

The deep knowing & living with impermanence is a gateway to liberation… a gateway to freeing the heart & mind. The most basic fact of our existence & the only thing we can know for sure is the constancy of change. Nothing lasts… nothing stays the same. So paradoxically the only thing we can hold onto is the realization, the intuitive insight of impermanence/Anicca; Anicca is the bedrock of the Buddha’s teachings. It was the initial insight that impelled him to leave the place where he was born & grew up in search of a path to liberation.

Death is a fact of existence… one that each of us will face at some point. Deep acceptance & understanding of mortality can lead to awakening. Truly knowing that we don’t have forever is a real & potentially tremendously motivating factor for our practice. As we pay mindful attention to all the aspects of life within us & around us, we begin to notice that everything in this world, everything in this universe begins & ends, is born & dies, is constantly 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. The outer world of form & the world of form within — none of it is static.

The word ’form’ implies solidity. In reality all forms are constantly forming & unforming, endlessly coming together & coming apart. Our world is in constant incessant activity. Most of the time we only know this as an abstraction, as a concept. Even more often we forget it, ignore it or we’re constantly distracting ourselves from it by accumulating, planning, living in & out of memories, by fantasizing, hoping, expecting, coveting & fearing. If we rigidly, tightly hold onto how we want the future to be, our energy gets used up in these thoughts. Inevitably we then come to face disappointment or anger, judgment, sadness or maybe grief and we’ve missed the fullness of the present moment… missed our ‘appointment with life’. Consequently we’re reinforcing & perpetuating the delusion of a false sense of control & permanence.

So, much of the time we’re practicing permanence with an almost desperate wanting of everything to stay as it is or become the way we want it to be… with the belief that we have control, that things will do what we want them to do. But this belief is only make-believe… made up beliefs. As our practice deepens & we begin to see more clearly, we discover that belief has little or nothing to do with reality & that the tighter we grasp onto our beliefs, the more limited our life is.

A Tibetan teaching tells us “All thoughts – good, bad, happy, sad – vanish
into emptiness, as the imprint of a bird in the sky.”

A helpful question you might ask yourself: “How often do I construct my life on this flimsy, rickety foundation of ‘make-believe’ – made up beliefs, with all their assumptions, sometimes misinformation, varying & changing opinions & ideas – and then hold on to it all quite tightly?”

Many of us harbor much fear regarding sickness, aging & death. This fear robs us of vitality because we expend so much energy trying to avoid it via repression & distracting ourselves. Through our practice we learn to acknowledge & face this fear which is a great enhancement to our life. Facing death enables us to appreciate & make the best of our life from a whole new perspective. Knowing that we will be letting go of our attachments at the time of our death can enable us to begin to let go of them now. If ‘we die’ to our attachments now, we won’t experience so much fear of death as it approaches. This doesn’t mean that we stop relating in a loving way to beings that we care about. Letting go of our clinging attachments now avails us of a deeper, truer loving & compassion that isn’t clouded with the judgmental & needy energies of clinging. We have the spaciousness of heart & mind to relate with love & compassion in clear & fresh ways… which can make a subtle & sometime huge difference in our life & in the life of others.

The very essence of life is change. So why do we resist & fear this perfectly natural phenomena, Anicca… the beginnings & endings, the births & the deaths? Why can’t we surrender to the truth of the moment? Without Anicca, there would be no life. Instead of complaining about impermanence, we might say, ‘Long live impermanence.’ Thanks to impermanence everything happens & is possible.

Looked at from this perspective, Anicca is an amazing natural marvel… the universal movement of the constant cycling of all life on the planet and the possibility of presence with the potential joys in this process. Consider that all of the life on the planet is dying all of the time in similar volume as, for instance, the new life that brings incredible beauty, joy & delight to us each spring… and the new day or the ‘new life’ that greets us each morning when we wake up.

Not long before he died author, sorcerer & teacher Carlos Castenada wrote: “Sorcerers understand discipline as the capacity to face with serenity odds that are not included in our expectations. For them, discipline is a volitional act that enables them to take anything that comes their way without regrets or expectations. For sorcerers, discipline is an art: the art of facing infinity without flinching, not because they are filled with toughness, but because they are filled with awe… Discipline is the art of feeling awe.”

A live world is in constant flux. We try to distract & defend ourselves from the impermanence of our live world… but we cannot. A primary & maybe the only truly freeing relationship & response to our live world is AWE!

Our Buddhist practice is about awakening/liberation…the great ease, lightness of being & purity of peace that comes with liberation. It’s been defined as ‘coming to the deathless’.

Thank you for your interest in & practice of the Dhamma.

With love, Marcia Rose

CLICK HERE to access DEATH AWARENESS PRACTICE SUGGESTIONS

Marcia Rose & Ajahn Chah on Impermanence is the Buddha

Today’s Dhamma reflection regarding Anicca/Impermanence comes from a condensed conversation the great Thai Meditation Master Ajahn Chah had with one of his aging disciples who was approaching death…

“Let go of all externals. Don’t go grasping at thought of your children & relatives, don’t grasp at anything whatsoever. Let go. Let the mind unite in a single point & let the composed mind dwell with the breath. Let the breath be its sole object of knowledge. Concentrate until the mind becomes increasingly subtle, until feelings are insignificant & there is great inner clarity & wakefulness. Then when painful sensations arise they will gradually cease of their own accord. Finally, you’ll look on the breath as if it was relative come to visit you.

“So let go of everything except the knowing. Don’t be fooled if visions or sounds arise in your mind during meditation. Don’t take hold of anything at all. Don’t worry about the past or the future, just be still & you will reach the place where there’s no advancing, no retreating & no stopping, where there’s nothing to grasp at or cling to. Why? Because there’s no self, no “me” or “mine”. It’s all gone. The Buddha taught us to be emptied of everything in this way, not carry anything with us. To know & having known… to let go.

Impermanence is the Buddha. If we see an impermanent phenomenon really clearly, we’ll see that it’s permanent, permanent in the sense that its subjection to change is unchanging. This is the permanence that all living beings possess… continual transformation from childhood through youth to old age. If you look at it like this, your heart will be at ease. It’s not just you that has to go through this, it’s everyone & everything.” Ajahn Chah

Through our practice & study of Anicca/Impermanence, we learn that things come together & fall apart endlessly. We are learning that whatever is occurring is neither the beginning nor the end. This is how it is & has always been from beginningless time. We can learn to be with this uncertainty with no clinging… to be with it all with a boundless open heart/mind. And we learn that the degree to which we hold onto… the degree with which we try to cling to any of our experiences, this is the degree with which we will suffer.

Through our practice we learn to accept how vulnerable we & all things are… & we learn to walk through our life fearlessly with GRATITUDE, LOVING-KINDNESS, COMPASSION, APPRECIATION, CREATIVITY, JOY & WONDER.

Thank you for your interest in & practice of the Dhamma.

With love, Marcia Rose

You can access DAILY-LIFE PRACTICES to go with all of Marcia’s articles in this series on the TMH website.

Marcia Rose on Living with Uncertainty and Impermanence

At the bottom of article you will find REAL-LIFE PRACTICES to help deepen your understanding.

A SUMMER OF TEACHINGS ON IMPERMANENCE

Over the course of the next few months, we plan to offer a series of articles by Guiding Teacher Marcia Rose based on her recent on-line course “Immersion in Life & Death with Presence & Wisdom,” which offered teachings & practices rooted in the observation, acknowledgment, & acceptance of Anicca/change/impermanence. As Marcia shares, “I want to begin this series of articles with an experience that inspired me to offer the recent on-line course, and now these articles for the Mountain Hermitage e-newsletter...”

Three years ago immediately after a relatively simple emergency surgery, all my bodily systems shut down & went into sepsis, and my lungs quickly contracted serious bacterial pneumonia. After a month in the hospital, I was sent home & entered into hospice care. I was not able to move my body at all & barely able to eat and needed to have my adult diapers changed 3 or 4 times each day. All that I was able to do was to be present with the tiny in & out breaths that I was able to take… which was very OK & quite enough to do. There was an overall sense of mental, physical & spiritual peace, quiet & ease most of the time. There was no fear, longing or hoping for things to be different than they were. In retrospect, there was a deep sense of presence in peacefully & simply letting go. For unexpected & mysterious reasons, I gradually began to be able to move my body, and my month in hospice came to an end. I learned to sit up & eventually learned to walk again. As this evolved, boundless gratitude for all the prior years of Dhamma teachings that I was offered & for the many years of practice that I engaged in arose in my heart/mind & sustained.

LIVING WITH UNCERTAINTY AND IMPERMANENCE

One of the most prevalent myths that we live with, often quite unconsciously, is the myth that we can control this constantly changing experience we call life. The Buddha said that the most powerful, fruitful & life-changing experience one can have is beginning to clearly & deeply observe, acknowledge & accept the constant process of change that always & relentlessly happens within us & with EVERYTHING around us. The seed of liberation, the seed of inner peace that is filled with vitality, compassion & love, lies in this clarity of seeing & knowing.

As the Buddha said, ‘What is born will die. What had been gathered will be dispersed. What been accumulated will be exhausted. What been built up will collapse. And what has been high will be brought low. All conditioned things are transitory. Those who realize this are freed from sorrow. This is the path to freedom.’

So I suggest that you consider this… the only thing that we can really know for sure is the constancy of change. It’s the most basic fact of our existence. Nothing lasts… nothing stays the same. So paradoxically, the only thing we can hold onto is the realization, the intuitive insight of impermanence/Anicca.

This year because of warm temperatures coming early, the bright yellow crocus & tiny deep purple Chinese iris joyfully bloomed in early March & soon disappeared. Three years ago, I was just moments away from death & here I am with you today, basically healthy & strong.

Circumstances/conditions constantly change. We just simply don’t know what’s going to happen next. We come to ‘presence’ knowing that what we can actually do is just what is right in front of us. This is what’s meaningful to me now, so I’m making my clearest & most caring best effort here, now. I don’t know what will come of it, but this is what life is offering in this moment. This is what is to be done right now.

DAILY-LIFE PRACTICES

Here are some reflective daily-life practices that can be helpful towards the realization of Anicca. I suggest spending 20 to 30 dedicated minutes a few times each week during your daily life with these observational reflective practices. We begin by bringing mindful awareness to changes happening in the world. The practice works best via picking one of the following to stick with for one 20 to 30 minute reflective practice period, and then go on with picking another observational reflective practice… one by one each day.

Changes from day-light to night… Changes from morning darkness to day-light. Intentionally observing the movement & brightness changes of the stars at night
Depending on where you live… sitting with mindful awareness in relationship to the constant changing nature of bodies of water: the ocean, lakes, rivers, streams… or intimately observing the changes in the mountains around you
Mindfully with great interest taking in the changes of trees, plants, flowers, grasses
Mindful observation & reflection of changes with animals, maybe pets or other animals, birds & insects.
Observing the constant changes in weather… even in a 20 or 30 minute period of time
Observing & letting in without commentary or judgment… changes big & small in our human society… countries, governments
Other changes that you mindfully take note of in the world around you…

You may find it helpful to keep a notebook handy to write down some of what you are observing & reflecting on. Refrain from commenting judgmentally on what you are observing. We are exploring, getting to intimately know & moving towards the acceptance of the ongoing, constant ‘river of change’ that is life. Combining this observational, reflective practice with a daily 20 to 45 minutes silent sitting meditation practice can be very helpful.

Thank you for your interest in & practice of the Dhamma.

With love, Marcia

Find audio recordings of dharma talks & all At Home Practice Documents
from this program at TMH webpage for Guiding Teacher Marcia Rose.

Ajahn Sumedho on “Going for Refuge”

When people ask: ‘What do you have to do to become a Buddhist?’, we say that we take refuge in Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha. Long ago, I remember superstitious people coming to my teacher, Ajahn Chah, wanting charmed medallions or little talismans to protect them from bullets & knives, ghosts & so on, and he would say: ‘Why do you want things like that? The only real protection is taking refuge in the Buddha.’ As we begin to realize the profundity of the Buddhist teachings, it becomes a joy to take these refuges.

Even simply reciting them inspires the mind. When we say: ‘I take refuge,’ what do we mean by that? How can this simple phrase become more than a repetition of a few words, but something that truly gives us direction & increases our dedication to the path of the Buddha? It’s a lovely word, ‘Buddha’. It means ‘the one who knows.’ When we take refuge in the Buddha, it doesn’t mean we take refuge in some historical prophet; we take refuge in that which is wise in the universe, in our minds & not something separate from us. Taking refuge in the Buddha, in wisdom, means we have a place of safety. The future remains unknown & mysterious, but by taking refuge in the Buddha we gain presence of mind in this moment, learning from life as we live it.

The second Refuge is in the Dhamma, in ultimate truth or ultimate reality. We may think that Dhamma is ‘out there,’ the Dhamma is something we have to find elsewhere. Really, it is immanent, it is here-and-now. One does not have a personal relationship with Dhamma; one cannot say, ‘I love the Dhamma!’ or, ‘The Dhamma loves me!’ We only need a personal relationship with something separate from us, like our mother, husband or wife. But we don’t need to take refuge in someone to protect us & say: ‘I love you no matter what. Everything is going to be all right.’ The Dhamma is a refuge of maturity in which we don’t need to be loved or protected any more; now we can love & protect others. When we take refuge in the Dhamma, we let go of our desire to have a personal relationship with the truth. We have to be that truth, here & now.

The third Refuge is Sangha, which refers to all those who live virtuously. Taking refuge in the Sangha means we take refuge in that which is good, virtuous, kind, compassionate & generous – doing good & refraining from evil with bodily action & speech. The refuge of Sangha is very practical for day-to-day living in the human form, in this body, in relation to the bodies of other beings & the physical world we live in. When we take this refuge, we do not act in any way that causes division, disharmony, cruelty, meanness or unkindness to any living being, including our own body & mind.

So reflect on this – consider & really see Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha as a refuge. It is not a matter of believing in Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha as concepts but in using them as symbols for mindfulness, for awakening the mind, here-and-now.

American-born Ajahn Sumedho, a monk of over 30 years, was abbot of Amaravati Monastery near London from its consecration in 1984 until his retirement in 2010. Regarded as Ajahn Chah’s most influential Western disciple, Sumedho is considered a seminal figure in the transmission of the Buddha’s teachings to the West.

This piece appears in the book, Ajahn Sumedho Anthology, Volume 5—The Wheel of Truth.

Thanissara on “Don’t Worry, Be Angry: Buddhist Wisdom on Anger”

It is important to feel upset, remorse, and anger at what humans have done. It means we have a conscience. In Buddhist understanding, the force of conscience is the guardian of the world.

It is important to let ourselves feel outrage rather than sanitize this raw emotion with spiritual speak or shame it as ignoble. Yet if we harbor or act out of anger, it almost always poisons us, diminishing our credibility and harming others. The late Thai Buddhist teacher Ajahn Chah recommended we “catch emotions in the net of mindfulness, and then examine them before reacting.” Anger is a warning that something is invading and overwhelming us. If we don’t take heed, disorder and destruction will follow.

Holding onto anger, however, is not sustainable. There is a fine line between feeling anger and being blinded by its energy. Anger can sometimes arise when we activate early patterning. This kind of upset needs careful tending.

Anger as a healthy response to injustice has a different quality. It is clarifying. In Buddhist teachings, particularly in Vajrayana Buddhism, so-called negative emotions mask pure essential energy. Once the coarser emotion is transmuted, the finer energy is distilled.

Anger is traditionally thought to be close to wisdom. When not projected outward onto others or inward toward the self, it gives us the necessary energy and clarity to understand what needs to be done.

If we prematurely condemn or repress anger because we think it unworthy to feel, then we will fail to transform it. The fullness of its embodied energy will remain unavailable to us. We won’t be able to protect what needs to be protected; we will let what is most precious slip away.

Thanissara started Buddhist practice in the Burmese school in 1975. Inspired to ordain after meeting Ajahn Chah, she spent 12 years as a Buddhist nun. She has facilitated meditation retreats internationally for the last 30 years & has an MA in Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy Practice from the Karuna Institute in the UK. With Kittisaro, she co-founded Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat in South Africa & Sacred Mountain Sangha in California. Her latest book is Time To Stand Up, An Engaged Buddhist Manifesto for Our Earth.

Read full article in Tricycle 2017.

Greg Scharf on “Letting Go of Struggle”

The heart of the Buddha’s teachings revolve around a wise understanding of what is called Dukkha in the Pali language. Dukkha is often translated as suffering, but this word is far too limited to capture the depth & breadth of this crucial term. On one level, Dukkha does point to suffering: to pain & painful feelings associated with bodily life, and the difficult mental & emotional states that arise for all of us at times. But suffering on this level represents only one aspect of Dukkha. On a more subtle level, Dukkha points to qualities of unsatisfactoriness & unreliability that are intrinsic to all conditioned experience whether pleasant or unpleasant.

There’s a basic fragility pervading all of life that is a direct reflection of the fact that everything is in a state of constant flux – a flow of changing conditions that are largely outside of our direct control. This leads to feelings of vulnerability & a subtle but pervasive inner anxiety. Pleasant experiences don’t last & unpleasant ones are unavoidable. Conditions are never fully amenable to our will, and we will never be able to get things to be way we want & then stay that way. Life is not, and never will be, controllable in this way, and the Buddha’s teachings do not offer us the key to this kind of agency.

Not that we are completely helpless in this regard. Opening to Dukkha need not lead us to a state of resignation & defeat. We do our best to live well – with grace, integrity, and care – and this does matter. At the same time, we will all experience the full range of joys & sorrows that characterize a life. Dukkha is deeply embedded in the very fabric of existence, and informs our lives constantly & profoundly. The Buddha’s liberation is not about escaping from life’s ups & downs. Life goes on with its joys & sorrows, but suffering in relation to this flow of change is another matter entirely.

Our usual strategy is to fight against or deny the truth of Dukkha but, of course, this never really works & leads to an exhausting & ultimately fruitless struggle. Luckily, the Buddha offers us a radically different strategy, one that enables us to start relating to the truth of Dukkha in a wise way, where we meet the changing conditions we encounter from a place of ease & balance of mind. We stop fighting against the way things are, and move towards harmony & alignment with reality. Through this shift of view & change in strategy, we let go of struggle & touch the possibility of a freedom of mind & heart that is to a profound extent independent of life’s changing conditions. This is true freedom.

Jean Smith on “Satipatthana in a Tangerine”

An engaging way to teach a course in beginning mindfulness is to hand each new yogi a tangerine when they arrive. They’ll sit down & gingerly hold the fruit as if it’s too hot, occasionally taking discreet glances at it to make sure it really is a tangerine, wondering what it’s for. They soon learn: It’s the object of a guided 30-minute mindfulness meditation. Even experienced yogis graced with Beginner’s Mind find this meditation unexpectedly intriguing. Briefly, this is the guidance:

*Hear & follow the meditation instructions.

*Lightly juggle the tangerine so your fingers can sense its firmness & weight.

*Look at the colors to see which are clear orange or mottled.

*Run your fingers over all of the fruit to feel where it is smooth or bumpy or creased.

*Smell the outside of the tangerine. Does this bring up memories such as the “smell of Christmas” or fruit in a holiday stocking?

*Bite the tangerine, smell & taste the inside & outside of the skin. Is either one pleasant or unpleasant? Do you want more tastes or none at all? Peel the tangerine.

*Break off a fruit section & put it in your mouth but don’t chew it. How do your taste buds react to the taste? Do you want more?

*Chew, swallow, and slowly finish eating the tangerine mindfully.

When the meditation is over, new students usually make comments like “Where did you find these tangerines?” or “This is the best tangerine I’ve ever tasted.” Their remarks are the perfect opening for the teacher to say, “Every aspect of your life can be just as delicious if you live it as mindfully as you ate this tangerine.” These students have just taken advantage of their amazing sense doors, sense discriminations of pleasant or unpleasant, and desire or aversion to eating more. They’ve probably also had short memories of holidays or picnics.

Unbeknownst to them, they have also had a short, guided tour of the Satipatthana Sutta, perhaps the Buddha’s most studied discourse because of its comprehensiveness in teaching the objects that are the best for cultivating mindfulness through meditation: the body, feeling tones of pleasant-impermanent-unpleasant, the mind, and Dhammas (teachings of the Buddha).

Why start new yogis here or invite experienced meditators to immerse themselves in the experience? Because every step of this meditation opens us to the absolutely amazing body we inhabit. After hundreds of millions of years, we beings have evolved exceptional color vision, hearing ability that would challenge the finest sound studios, tenderness of touch. We can perceive & identify through our senses most elements of the world around us, and usually know if we like or don’t like what we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. And we can think about & experience emotional responses to this perceived world.

With the intention to cultivate mindfulness, we’re not merely setting off on a path of touchy-feely pleasures. As we meditate mindfully, we are directly & in the present moment exposed to the shifts of physical & mental sensations. These experiences condition our mind to wisdom: the ability to discern what is real. Even in the smallest increments, we are moving toward a wiser, kinder, more contented life.

To learn more about the Satipatthana Sutta, CLICK HERE
to read Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s description & excellent translation.

Jean Smith practiced Buddhist meditation in the Vipassana-Insight Meditation tradition starting in 1986 & led sanghas in New York City, the Adirondack Mountains & online from Taos NM. She published nine books on Buddhism, including The Beginner’s Guide to Insight Meditation (with Arinna Weisman) & Life is Spiritual Practice (the Paramis). She served from the very beginning on the board of The Mountain Hermitage.

Jean Smith passed away on January 3rd. There will be a Memorial/Celebration Gathering this coming Spring in Taos for Jean & her life – date, place & time to be announced.

Marcia Rose on A NEW YEAR…A NEW DAY…A NEW MOMENT

As we enter into this ‘new year’… as we open to the morning of a ‘new day’… as we bring mindful attention to each ‘new moment’… through our practice, we learn to receive & be aware of each ‘new arising’ with what Suzuki Roshi called ‘beginners mind’. The GREAT GIFT of mindfulness is to learn to meet the year, the day, the moment with paying a kind of extra-ordinary attention: a non-judging, non-manipulative, non-grasping, non-rejecting orientation to our present moment’s experience.

This GIFT that we can give ourselves is an orientation to the present moment that creates an openness, a receptivity & a presence within our heart-mind & body that makes room for a spacious, clear & calm presence of being.

A truly mindful relationship to our present moment’s experience is what allows clarity & true understanding – insight/wisdom – to arise… to just simply & naturally arise, which it inevitably does. We don’t need to do anything to make it happen. The truth is actually not far away. It’s ever present, right here, right now.

Each & all of us want a happy new year. What is this… what is happiness? The Buddha spoke about happiness beyond our ordinary experience of pleasure. He said that true happiness arises when we are mindful. Our meditation practice cultivates mindfulness. Mindfulness happens when we bring our full attention without judgment or manipulation, with no grasping or rejection, to the present moment. This is not such an easy relationship to our body & heart/mind experience… and so we practice this over & over again… year by year, day by day, moment by moment.

A good question we might ask ourselves is, ‘What’s the importance of this? ‘ When we aren’t bringing a full mindful attention to the present moment, we are actually living at a distance from experience, living at a distance from life itself… which keeps the cycle of our conditioned habits, patterns & reactions going round & round… feeding & strengthening themselves. Like it is with our computers… you push a button & out comes what’s in there. Without a clear mindful presence, when our ‘buttons are pushed’, our old conditioned patterns & reactions pop out… automatically… and we’re not having a ‘happy new year, a happy new day, a happy new moment’.

Our meditation practice is about bringing everything into clear, sharp focus…. to see things as they truly are…. as though for the first time….”moving from innocence to innocence” as Krishnamurti said. When my grandson was 2 ½ years old he saw a pine cone for the first time, with a mind & heart that was fresh. He turned it round & round several times, looking at it very carefully. He smelled it. He licked it. He put it up to his ear. His mother & I said,” It’s a pine cone.” He dutifully repeated ‘pine cone’.… and then went on mindfully investigating this new object.

This is a state of mind that we can learn or re-learn to bring into our life. Our meditation practice is the perfect vehicle for this… and it’s transformative. It transforms the entire context of our life. We learn to touch the ‘radical acceptance’ & ease of simply being present in the moment. We have stopped trying to manipulate, shape or change our inner experience. For the moment, we’ve renounced the habit of restlessness, which is amazingly refreshing. It’s a moment of stillness… a resting place… a refuge.

As we begin to learn & allow ourselves to rest in this stillness more often, a great healing begins to take place… an unbinding, an unwinding of all the conditioning we’ve taken on as ‘me & mine’, as who I think I am. A great dismantling begins to happen as we begin to allow ourselves to rest in this silence & spaciousness… simply within the clarity & lucidity of present moment mindful awareness.

MAY YOU HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR.

With love, Marcia

From Wu Men – Ancient Chinese Chan Master:

“Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,

A cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.

If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things.

This is the best season of your life.”

Ajahn Amaro on “Renunciation and Joy”

I used to be a big music fan & listened to it all the time. Now that I don’t deliberately listen to it, I find that when I do happen to hear music, it’s as if I’m hearing it for the first time. Music used to be such a constant presence in my life that it had lost its power. If I hear it now, it has an astonishing quality of freshness. I am with every note, every phrase.

When we adopt the renunciate life we aren’t condemning the world of the senses, per se, because that leads to aversion & negativity. Instead we are learning to accept whatever is offered to us with full appreciation. Whatever arrives is received & cherished, but we don’t try to add anything. I think many people listen to music because they love the place that the music takes them to, which is the present moment. You are not thinking about anything else; you are experiencing the harmony, balance, and rhythm that the music suggests. But all of those qualities are present in a meditative mind. If we need music in order to get us there, then when there isn’t music (or delicious food or beautiful surroundings or whatever it might be), we are likely to feel bereft. We immediately start to look for another experience that will take us to that place of beauty.

What the precepts do is to shut the door on all our habitual sources of satisfaction so that our entire attention is directed inward. That is where we discover a beauty & clarity, and a vastness of being which is unshakable, independent of circumstances and conditions. Then when we hear a piece of music, or see a beautiful blue sky or the fine shape of a tree, that’s an extra.

But remember that the joy only comes after the self-surrender & sacrifice. I think as a culture, we are afraid of sacrifice. We feel that we must own & accumulate things in order to be complete, and not just material objects but people & relationships as well. It is hard for us to understand that letting go is not a loss, not a bereavement. Of course, when we lose something that is beautiful or dear to us, there is a shadow that crosses the heart. But we enlighten that shadow with the understanding that the feeling of loss is just the karmic result of assuming that we owned anything in the first place. The renunciate life is based on the realization that we can never really possess anything.

Read full Interview with Ajahn Amaro: The Happy Monk
by Terry Vandiver & Wes Nisker in Inquiring Mind Fall 1995

Brian Lesage on “Taking Out the Thorn”

The Buddha lived in a deeply troubled world. Kings ruled through violence, armies decimated villages, and slavery threaded daily life. Even those close to the Buddha suffered: his supporter Bimbisara was imprisoned by his own son & starved in his cell; his clan was nearly wiped out by King Viddhudabha; his cousin Devadatta tried to kill him. In this context, the Path took shape: a clear, compassionate way to meet a world on fire without adding more flame.

In the early texts the Buddha speaks of samsara as beginningless: a beginningless wandering, where the tears shed from separation & loss exceed the water in the four great oceans. Anyone attuned to today’s tragedies recognizes the tide. He names that tide, then shows how not to be swept away.

Samsara is often taken to mean the world itself. More precisely, it points to patterns of heart & mind: the habits of greed, aversion, and confusion that recreate suffering. The cycle isn’t only outer; it begins with inner patterns that shape speech & action.

One early discourse pictures the Buddha-to-be witnessing violence & shaking with fear: “creatures flopping around, like fish in water too shallow, so hostile to one another!” He longs for a place unscarred by conflict & cannot find it. Then he notices a thorn lodged deep in the heart, the hidden point that drives us to run in all directions & perpetuate harm. “If that thorn is taken out, one stops running & settles.”

It is a radical response. Instead of fastening on enemies or quick remedies, he turns toward the engine of violence itself.

That thorn has familiar names: greed, hatred, and delusion, and it does not come out with a single tug; it is layered & habitual, resurfacing in thought, speech, and action. The Buddha’s image of the bamboo acrobats, each caring for their own poise so they can truly care for the other, is fitting & precise. Mindfulness is that balance. Guarding one’s steadiness also protects others.

This is not passivity. It is the groundwork for wise action. We pause, feel the tremor of fear or heat of hatred, and soften around it. The emotion may not vanish, but space opens; in it, listening, patience, and clarity return. From that steadiness, engagement becomes medicine rather than contagion.

The civil rights leader Rev. James Lawson modeled this union of action & inner freedom. He trained protesters to endure abuse without retaliating, testing whether nonviolence had reached bone & breath. Those who lost balance weren’t sent into the hottest fires. “We started the public desegregation of the nation, and we did it without hating anybody,” he said. That is what a real revolution sounds like.

When the world’s troubles feel endless, the Dharma offers something essential: a way to stop spinning the wheel. Take out the thorn. Act, yes, but from a heart that knows its currents & trusts the possibility of a freer response. In doing so, we help this troubled world through true, steady, wise compassion.

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