Archive | Reflections on Practice

Aging: Impersonal, Impermanent

Aging, with its concomitant physical and mental changes, happens to all of us. Whether aging brings suffering or happiness depends upon how we relate to it. When we’re children, we’re delighted to add another mark to the doorway to show how much we’ve grown; we come home excited because we’ve memorized a multiplication table. Fast forward some decades to the time we go in for an annual physical exam, are measured, and are told that we’re an inch shorter than we used to be – or when we stumble trying to remember a word or name, having a “senior moment.” Somehow we’re surprised, as if we thought these changes happened to others but could never happen to us…

When we’re young, we may be happy to have physically matured enough to compete in certain sports or to ride roller coasters. But as we get beyond a certain age, we begin to be more limited in what we can do physically. When I was no longer able to hike up mountains – one of my favorite pastimes – I had the choice to just sit there in the valley or to find an alternative. I bought a horse who could go up into the mountains and a ladder so that I could get on her….

I remember the first time I went to an aquatic aerobics class with all the other “ancients.” It seemed to be the only kind of exercise I could still do. My first thought was “Has it come to this?” and when I realized realistically that it had come to that, I settled in and enjoyed the classes. At one point the instructor put on a tape of music from the 1960s. You should have seen this pool full of old gals, gray heads thrown back, singing every word, making vortexes in the water as we did a bit of the dirty boogie from our younger days. One woman commented that it was a good thing we couldn’t fall down in the water. That day, I experienced impermanence through physical changes, saw these changes in everyone around me and acknowledged that they were not personal, detached from “the way I used to be,” and enjoyed myself thoroughly.

One goal of spiritual practice is to see the world and ourselves in it clearly. When we have expectations that for the rest of our lives we’ll be able to do everything we could at some magic age – say, thirty-five – we are simply being delusional. We have opportunities throughout our lives to observe impermanence as we age. We see the choices we have about our lifestyles as we age. We see these things in others. We can look back over our lives and be grateful for all the wonderful moments we’ve had, and we can come into the present moment with gratitude for the accomplishments, wisdom, and compassion we could only have achieved with life experience during the passing of time.

–© Jean Smith, Life as Spiritual Practice: Mindfulness and the Paramis, Wisdom Publications 2014

Sharon Salzberg on Buddhism: Between Desire and Emptiness

The path of the Buddha is called the middle path because, as well as avoiding extremes of behavior, it avoids two extreme views. One view holds that somewhere in this world of appearance and presentation, this glittering world of sense pleasure, of fleeting phenomena, there is something, somewhere that we can find that will not change, that we can always count on to be stable. Somewhere there is something that is substantial, that is solid, that can be relied upon always. When we hold that view, we look for that one thing constantly. At times we think that finally we have it. Then we hold on tightly. Eventually we confront change or we experience loss, and we suffer.

I was in Toronto not too long ago and at one point passed a giant billboard that had a picture of a car and one phrase: “Lust conquers all.” I never got to go by it again to investigate further. But despite the prevalence of that kind of message, on visible and invisible billboards everywhere, counting on the fervor of our lust to conquer the exigencies of change, the flow of time, or the avoidance of death, is clearly folly.

Yet if that view permeates our belief systems and our motivations, we will continually act from that place and be disappointed again and again. This doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy anything, but the clinging and grasping and fruitless attachment can well go, and we would be happier people, living more in accord with how things actually are.

The other extreme view holds that our lives are chaos. Here, everything is empty so it doesn’t matter what we do, what we care about, what we think about. It’s all kind of blank or void. It’s from that point of view that people will say: “Well, if effort to improve my life or make this a better world is an empty phenomenon, what difference does it make if I put forth effort or not? Why bother?” It is then that a Zen master would usually take a stick and hit somebody over the head. “If everything is empty, why did that hurt?”

From the Buddhist point of view, it is true that emptiness is a characteristic of all of life – if we look carefully at any experience we will find transparency, insubstantiality, with no solid, unchanging core to our experience. But that does not mean that nothing matters. Things don’t just happen in this world of arising and passing away. We don’t live in some kind of crazy, accidental universe. Things happen according to certain laws, laws of nature. Laws such as the law of karma, which teaches us that as a certain seed gets planted, so will that fruit be. If we plant an apple seed, we can beg and plead and implore to have a mango, but we aren’t going to get it. There is a way to get a mango, because we live in a lawful universe, and that is to plant a mango seed.

It is very important that we be able to hold both these truths at the same time – the ultimate emptiness of our experience, its constant changing nature, and, at the same time, to understand that it is lawful. It’s not crazy, and it’s not haphazard, and we can, and must direct our lives according to these laws.

When the Dalai Lama was here some years ago, he was asked by somebody giving a talk about these two aspects of the teachings, understanding emptiness and the ultimate nature of all experience, and then understanding the law of karma in the relative world, the world of relationship. He was asked if he had to make a choice between these two approaches and could only teach one, which one would he teach? He said he would teach the law of karma because, in each and every moment, if we understand that law, we have the possibility of really transforming our lives.

The middle way is a view of life that avoids the extreme of misguided grasping born of believing there is something we can find, or buy, or cling to that will not change. And it avoids the despair and nihilism born from the mistaken belief that nothing matters, that all is meaningless. It avoids these extremes by offering us a vision that is empowered by its alliance with the truth of how things are: that everything arises, but also passes; that what we do matters, though we won’t find anything that does not change; that totems against impermanence won’t keep us safe, but we can, in accordance with laws of nature such as karma, create a life filled with wisdom and love.

Teacher Sharon Salzberg is a co-founder of Insight Meditation Society and author of numerous books, including Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness. Sharon is on the Advisory Board of The Mountain Hermitage. This article originally appeared May 2010 in Huffington Post.

A Reflection on The Power of Forgiveness…

Forgiveness is not simple. When we have been harmed, hurt, betrayed, abandoned, or abused, forgiveness may seem out of the question. And yet, unless we find a way to forgive, we will hold hatred, resentment and fear in our hearts forever. Without forgiveness, we’re forced to carry the suffering of the past as a great burden on our shoulders. As Jack Kornfield says, “Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past.” Thus, when we begin the work of forgiveness, it is primarily a practice for ourselves.

Forgiveness is often spoken of as a kind of indiscriminate absolution, without taking the need for fidelity, loyalty and right action into account. Instead, principled forgiveness asks us to reflect deeply and rigorously, cleaving to compassion for our shared humanity balanced with, and without dismissing, the need for accountability. Our ability to forgive allows us to make space with a kind heart for our shared humanity, and for our suffering as well as the suffering of others.

The Buddha said, “If it were not possible to free the heart from entanglement and greed, hate, fear, and delusion, I would not teach you or ask you to do so.” The power of forgiveness releases us from the power of our mental defilements. Our practice of loving-kindness is enhanced by our practice of forgiveness, because forgiveness allows us to be free from self-defeating emotions like vengeance and to be uplifted by our offer of kindness.

Forgiveness does not gloss over what has happened in a superficial way. The practice is not a misguided effort to suppress our pain or to ignore it. If you’ve suffered a great injustice, coming to forgiveness may include a long process of grief and outrage, sadness, loss and pain. Forgiveness is a deep process, calling us to investigate our difficult questions, and repeated over and over and over again in our hearts. It honors the grief and it honors the betrayal. The forgiving person, knowing she has the strength to express anger and resentment toward the offender, also knows she is strong enough to give away that anger and resentment. And in its own time, that strength ripens into the freedom to truly forgive.

If we look honestly at our own lives, we can see the sorrows and pain that have led to our own wrongdoing. In this way we can finally extend forgiveness to ourselves and hold the pain that we have caused in our heart of compassion. Without such mercy, we would live in isolation or in exile, unable to ever forgive.

In order to cultivate a truly loving and kind heart, we need to develop the practices that cultivate and strengthen forgiveness and the natural compassion within us. As you practice forgiveness, let yourself feel whatever small or large release there is in your heart. Or if there is no release, notice that too. And if you are not ready to forgive, that’s all right. Sometimes the process of forgiveness takes a lifetime, and that’s perfectly fine. You can unfold in your own time and in your own way. Emotions will come not because we force them to but because they’re expressions of deep feeling inside. Forgiveness is an attitude of welcoming, inviting and spaciousness rather than an emotion that we force and pump up in our minds and hearts.

We practice with the faith that as we practice, body, mind, and heart learn. That’s the beauty of these practices; we learn that we’re not in control of the fruits of our practice, but we are in control of how we practice—whether we do it with patience, diligence, determination, wisdom, effort and energy. We’re not in control of how it then manifests in our life. We’re not trying to make anything particular happen, because in the trying to make something happen, we will miss the beauty and delightful surprise of what does happen.

This is excerpted and edited from Tricycle’s Wisdom Collection

Buddhist Intention: Being Kind in Unkind Times…

Now more than ever we need our Mindfulness Practice.

We need the Freedom that Mindfulness invites for us — the freedom that we do not have to follow the unconscious patterns of acute reactivity. We need to remember that it is possible to notice deeply what is happening, understand it with some wisdom, treat it with some of the compassion inherent in our humanity, and move into responses and actions that are of benefit — that is, to move toward that which lessens suffering and creates happiness, not just for us as individuals, but us as a collective world.

Our Mindfulness practice, whether it is on the cushion paying attention to the emotions and thoughts that weave between the breath and bodily sensations, or whether it is in the world paying attention to our actions and behaviors which emerge from our emotions and thoughts, is always a reminder that in order to change any unhealthy or harmful patterns — in order to transform any suffering — we have to first become aware of the patterns themselves. We cannot change anything that we are not aware of. This is also true of our collective transformation into a culture that meets the needs of greater numbers of people and beings: We first have to become deeply aware of the conditions that we are living within, and then that will guide us into transforming the world into a better place to live.

On a personal level this may show up within the experience of intense emotions. Often we are driven by unconscious motivations of our emotional landscape. How often do we feel lost in the rage or the upset that sometimes arises? The powerful impact that Mindfulness brings is that the experience of being aware of the rage is not the rage itself. Being mindful of all the sensations of rage or anger is not being lost in or consumed by the fire. How often do we actually feed the experience of anger without examining what is really happening? Do you find yourself pouring fuel on the fire of rage, or even getting angry at the anger? What might be happening other than the thoughts or emotions inflaming the fuel?

If we examine closely, we will likely find that the experiences of anger and rage have pleasant sensations associated with them. Pleasant sensations are always seductive. That is the nature of “pleasant.” And generally, without an awareness practice, unconscious conditioning impels our human experience to desire more pleasant sensations — without any questions asked. We begin to enjoy the sensations of feeling angry and even feed them with experiences such as self- righteousness, or a sense of “better-than,” or even revenge. The deceptive nature of the pleasant feelings of rage is that the behaviors and actions which emerge do not always lead to less suffering in the world. Much of our behavior and actions in the world are driven by the immediacy of this kind of reaction toward strong emotions or acute pain. These actions often lead to more suffering — unless there is Mindfulness.

Anger is an important barometer possibly indicating when boundaries have been crossed, or injustices have occurred or oppression has been inflicted. However, anger can also have an unconscious life of its own when it is not met with the central question of our Awareness practice, which is also a vital choice-point of Buddhist spiritual practice: Will this lead to more suffering, or will this lead to less?

Life is complicated and this is not always a clean or clear decision point. Our practice simply invites us to do the best we can — to be as mindful, aware and kind to whatever arises, even our intense emotional landscapes. The personal mantra that I have developed to navigate through the complex dilemmas and social issues arising currently is:

Can I be mindful and loving of whatever arises.
If I can’t be loving in this moment, can I be kind.
If I can’t be kind, can I be non-judgmental.
If I can’t be non-judgmental, can I not cause harm.
And if I cannot not cause harm, can I cause the least amount of harm possible?

Beyond Self – A Pathway to Liberating Spiritual Intimacy….

‘I am’ is a conceiving;
‘I am this’ is a conceiving;
‘I shall be’ is a conceiving;
‘I shall not be’ is a conceiving;
‘I shall be possessed of form’ is a conceiving;
‘I shall be formless’ is a conceiving;
‘I shall be percipient’ is a conceiving;
‘I shall be non-percipient’ is a conceiving;
…. By overcoming all conceiving one is called a sage at peace.
The Buddha in The Middle Length Discourses 140:31

Have you ever felt confined by another person’s way of conceiving of you? Have you had someone always see you as a negative person or a sensitive person or an angry person and each time they interact with you they keep you in that box? Have you noticed how we can do this to ourselves by confining ourselves to some small concept of who we are? Concepts and identity can be useful but when they become fixed and static, discontentment arises.

Beginning to see and become free of this dynamic offers one gateway into the Buddha’s teaching on Not-Self. In the Anatta-Lakkhana Sutta, said to be the second discourse spoken by the Buddha, he gives us a way of stepping out of the confines of this type of narrow conceiving. He states: “Any kind of [experience] …whatsoever, whether past, future, or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, inferior or superior, far or near, …should be seen as it really is with correct wisdom thus: ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.'” –The Connected Discourses of the Buddha SN22:59 Mesa Vibora moon

Here the Buddha is pointing out that freedom unfolds when we deeply see that the aspects of experience we tend to identify with are, in fact, not us, not ours, and not our selves. Towards what kind of freedom does this relinquishing of identification lead? The Pali discourses describe this new-found freedom as a heart free of greed, hatred and delusion.

In his book “Liberating Intimacy,” Zen scholar Peter Herschock frames the liberative aspect of the Buddhist path in terms of intimacy. He says “…Buddhist salvation is not a liberation of any individual ‘you’ or ‘me’ but rather of intimacy itself.” I find this a compelling and inspiring way to look at the process of becoming free of greed, hatred and delusion. It helps us to understand that the practice of this path is not essentially about liberating me, an individual self, but rather allowing intimacy to flow freely. When I no longer conceive myself, or others, or the world within a narrow, fixed conceptual framework, an intimacy with all things shines forth. The 8th century Chinese poet, Li Bai, beautifully describes this unfolding process in this poem: “The birds have vanished in the sky, and now the last cloud drains away. We sit together, the mountain and I until only the mountain remains.”

Reflections, Inspirations and Intentions for the New Year 2015

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Mary Oliver

Just about every human being and culture on this planet marks the passage of cyclical time in various ways. For many of us the closure of one cycle and the opening of a new cycle has just occurred via the ending of one year and the beginning of a new year. This particular marking of time often inspires reflection regarding how we’ve lived our life through the past year… how we’ve responded or reacted to what life has offered and the wisdom or folly of the decisions we’ve made. In light of our reflections, this is often also a time when we create heartful intentions and resolves towards living life more wisely, compassionately and joyfully.

As Dhamma students and maybe also as devoted practitioners, we may find that our reflections, the deep questions and yearnings…the murmurings of our heart… often show up as variants of: “Can I be happy? Can I be at ease in this life and live with an abiding sense of well-being? What do I need to be truly happy and at ease in this life? How can I live with more grace, peace and compassion with all of the challenges and difficulties in this changing world…with all of challenges and difficulties within me and all around me?”

As we move into this new cycle, rather than mulling or stewing over these questions and the various occurrences in our personal lives and in the world, we can open to and take these happenings and questions in as a motivating force and an inspiration towards connecting to and dropping more and more deeply into our practice. There’s a wonderful Pali term in the Buddha Dhamma … ‘Samvega,’ that’s often translated into English as ‘Spiritual Urgency’. The blossoming and manifestation of Samvega is directly related to our heartful intentions and resolves towards living life more wisely, compassionately and joyfully.

As this new year begins, can we respond to and be inspired by the forces, the energies…the various ‘messengers’ that stir us…and move towards a heartfelt sense of urgency to practice and to awaken… recognizing (again) that this is what will truly steer us towards the fruits of our deepest and most heartfelt wishes, intentions and resolves for ourselves and in relationship to others?

“I would like to learn, or remember how to live. I don’t think I can learn from a wild animal how to live in particular – but I might learn something of the purity of living in the physical senses and the dignity of living without bias or motive. The weasel lives in necessity and we live in choice, hating necessity and dying at the last, ignobly in its talons. I would like to live as I should. And I suspect that for me the way is like the weasel’s: open to time and death painlessly, noticing everything, remembering nothing, choosing the given with a fierce and pointed will.”

Annie Dillard, from the first chapter ‘Living Like Weasels’ in her book Teaching a Stone to Talk

Why the Buddha Touched the Earth by John Stanley & David Loy

“The entire cosmos is a cooperative. The sun, the moon, and the stars live together as a cooperative. The same is true for humans and animals, trees, and the Earth. When we realize that the world is a mutual, interdependent, cooperative enterprise — then we can build a noble environment. If our lives are not based on this truth, then we shall perish”. —Buddhadasa Bhikkhu

“The term ‘engaged Buddhism’ was created to restore the true meaning of Buddhism. Engaged Buddhism is simply Buddhism applied in our daily lives. If it’s not engaged, it can’t be called Buddhism. Buddhist practice takes place not only in monasteries, meditation halls and Buddhist institutes, but in whatever situation we find ourselves. Engaged Buddhism means the activities of daily life combined with the practice of mindfulness.” —Thich Nhat Hanh

In one of Buddhism’s iconic images, Gautama Buddha sits in meditation with his left palm upright on his lap, while his right hand touches the earth. Demonic forces have tried to unseat him, because their king, Mara, claims that place under the bodhi tree. As they proclaim their leader’s powers, Mara demands that Gautama produce a witness to confirm his spiritual awakening. The Buddha simply touches the earth with his right hand, and the Earth itself immediately responds: “I am your witness.” Mara and his minions vanish. The morning star appears in the sky. This moment of supreme enlightenment is the central experience from which the whole of the Buddhist tradition unfolds.

The great 20th-century Vedantin sage, Ramana Maharshi said that the Earth is in a constant state of dhyana (meditative absorption). The Buddha’s earth-witness mudra (hand position) is a beautiful example of “embodied cognition.” His posture and gesture embody unshakeable self-realization. He does not ask heavenly beings for assistance. Instead, without using any words, the Buddha calls on the Earth to bear witness.

The Earth has observed much more than the Buddha’s awakening. For the last 3 billion years the Earth has borne witness to the evolution of its innumerable life-forms, from unicellular creatures to the extraordinary diversity and complexity of plant and animal life that flourishes today. We not only observe this multiplicity, we are part of it — even as our species continues to damage it. Many biologists predict that half the Earth’s plant and animal species could disappear by the end of this century, on the current growth trajectories of human population, economy and pollution. This sobering fact reminds us that global warming is the primary, but not the only, extraordinary ecological crisis confronting us today.

Has Mara taken a new form today — as our own species? Just as Mara claimed the Buddha’s sitting-place as his own, Homo sapiens today claims, in effect, that the only really important species is itself. All other species have meaning and value only insofar as they serve our purposes. Indeed, powerful elements of our economic system (notably Big Oil and its enablers) seem to have relocated to the state of “zero empathy,” a characteristic of psychopathic or narcissistic personalities.

The Earth community has a self-emergent, interdependent, cooperative nature. We humans have no substance or reality that is separate from this community. Thich Nhat Hanh refers to this as our “inter-being”: we and other species “inter-are.” If we base our life and conduct on this truth, we transcend the notion that Buddhist practice takes place within a religious framework that promotes only our own individual awakening. We realize the importance of integrating the practice of mindfulness into the activities of daily life. And if we really consider Mother Earth as an integral community and a witness of enlightenment, don’t we have a responsibility to protect her through mindful “sacred activism”?

As the Buddha’s enlightenment reminds us, our awakening too is linked to the Earth. The Earth bore witness to the Buddha, and now the Earth needs us to bear witness — to its dhyana, its steadfastness, the matrix of support it continually provides for living beings. New types of bodhisattvas — “ecosattvas” — are needed, who combine the practice of self-transformation with devotion to social and ecological transformation. Yes, we need to write letters and emails to the President, hopefully to influence his decision. But we may also need to consider other strategies if such appeals are ignored, such as nonviolent civil disobedience. That’s because this decision isn’t just about a financial debt ceiling. This is about the Earth’s carbon ceiling. This is about humanity’s survival ceiling. As the Earth is our witness.

John Stanley & David Loy direct & advise the Ecobuddhism Project which is dedicated to exploring a a Buddhist response to global warming. Their website www.ecobuddhism.org is treasure trove of resources on this important topic and includes sections on Science, Wisdom, and Solutions.

Living the Dharma on a Cellular Level

Jean Smith talks with TMH staff member Kathy Lyons….

Kathy: Would you speak about your relationship to The Mountain Hermitage?
Jean: Yes. When Marcia Rose first had a vision for The Mountain Hermitage, she talked with me about it and asked me if I wanted to be a part of it. I was so taken with the idea of making the Dharma accessible to all kinds of people in a beautiful, intimate setting with good teachers and a good relationship to nature. So I wanted to be part of it… and after I went to my first Mountain Hermitage retreats, I never left it. That was at least 10 years ago, it may have been 12, but it’s a good long while.

K: Were you involved with the Dharma before?
J: I was. I got involved with the Dharma when I was young. Sort of in a romance with “The Dharma Bums” and Zen Buddhism and that sort of thing. Then when I was in my early 40’s, I had an experience that got me involved in the Dharma from the neck down – it made that 18 inch drop from my head to my heart, so that I then had a heart-mind, whereas before I had only had a head. That experience was trekking in the Himalayas, coming into a very small village, and sitting for a couple of hours with a woman who was weaving. She was so completely mindful and involved in what she was doing… and I realized, “Wait a minute. This is a way of life. This is a way of relating to the world around you.” I knew then that she had something that I wanted, although I didn’t quite understand it at that point.

K: Was she a Tibetan Buddhist or Nepalese?
J: We were near the Tibetan border in Nepal. What I found in these small isolated villages was that people didn’t necessarily know what a Buddhist is. They knew who the Dalai Lama is, but they didn’t specifically identify themselves as Buddhist. There were some small gompas, some small monasteries, and they sometimes went to ceremonies there. But this was absolutely a way of life rather than something that would be called Buddhism. I think most telling was when I learned that these people had no word for “thank you.” You did what you were expected to do and it was beyond them. They could not imagine why anybody would thank anybody for doing these things that they ought to be doing anyway. And that, too, gave me an idea that there was something here that I wanted to know about. I wanted to be like that when I “grew up.”

I came back to this country and did what I always do – which was read every book I could find on the subject – which didn’t do me a whole lot. So then I started sitting, practicing meditation, going on retreats… and very, very slowly it moved into my heart-mind to the point that the Dharma became part of me at an absolute cellular level.

K: Were you in New Mexico during this period?
J: No, I was living in New York City and mostly I went for retreats up to the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA. My main teachers there were Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzburg, and also Sylvia Boorstein. I went on retreats as many times a year as I could get up there.

K: What were you doing in your other life?
J: My other life, I was in publishing… primarily college textbooks and humanities subjects. But I was also beginning to do some writing and some publishing on my own. And when I reached retirement, much earlier than I should have, I decided that I wanted to write the books. So I began, first of all, to edit books on Buddhism and then eventually to write books on Buddhism. Over a period of 30 years, I’ve published 10 books on Buddhism.

K: What makes you stick to the Dharma? You say it’s in your cells now, so I can imagine…
J: It’s definitely at the cellular level. It just simply made so much sense. There were so many metaphysical concepts and religious concepts out there, whereas the Dharma was just absolutely practical. And when I began to ask my major question — which was “What does this have to do with me?” – I always got an answer…and I always felt as if I had come home. And when I am involved with the Dharma, I am at home.

K: Any advice that you might give to beginning students?
J: I would say to get a tangerine and eat it mindfully. Because when you do that, when you peel it and see what it looks like and smells like and feels like, on the outside and the inside, when you break off a section and put it in your mouth, but don’t chew it yet… you suddenly discover that your tongue is doing very strange things. When you go through this and eat a tangerine this way, you’ll suddenly say something like: “I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a tangerine before!” or “Where did you get these tangerines?” And you really get the idea that – just as that tangerine tastes, looks, smells, better than any tangerine you’ve ever had – you can realize that your entire life can be a tangerine.

K: That’s wonderful. I don’t know if you wanted to add anything else for our readers?
J: Yes… being able to go on Mountain Hermitage retreats has been one of the greatest blessings for me in the last 10 years because I found that I could practice in a way that was very much unstructured. My practice could take the shape that it needed to on any given day. I found these retreats infinitely more fulfilling than any retreat that I have ever been on, and I want them to be available to everyone.

Jean’s latest book “Life is Spiritual Practice: Happiness through the 10 Perfections“ came out in February 2015 from Wisdom Publications.
For information on her other books, you can go to her website www.BuddhaBookSmith.com.

Reflection from Chris Clifford on Clear Comprehension in Daily Life

The term “clear comprehension” is frequently used in the Suttas in conjunction with mindfulness to indicate a broader and deeper kind of mindful awareness within the context of ordinary daily life activities. The commentaries to the Suttas describe four facets of clear comprehension. Reflecting on our daily life activities in these four ways allows wisdom to inform more of how we live our life.

PURPOSE

Taking time to discern the underlying purpose of whatever we are engaged in helps bring more energy and focus towards engaging in our life as a process of awakening. Is there a clear purpose in our current activity or has compulsive busyness or distraction taken over? It may be that a job, hobby or pleasure that served us earlier in life is no longer in line with maturing spiritual wisdom…? Perhaps we need to find ways to refresh the original inspiration for our work…? Can we find higher purpose in our interactions by cultivating compassion for ourselves, our clients and co-workers…? A former work colleague used to remind us, “don’t let the urgent always drive out the vital”. There is a wholesome and necessary purpose for relaxation, playfulness, creativity and nourishing the spirit.

SUITABILITY

Is how we are doing what we’re doing suitable for the purpose? Do we relax by watching a movie that arouses anxiety or desire? What is the quality of heart we bring to the moment: kindness or harshness? As a retreat cook, though the purpose and suitability of the food lies in simplicity, I can get caught up in trying too hard to make novel or overly rich food.

KEEPING ATTENTION IN THE DOMAIN OF PRACTICE

The appropriate domain for our attention is the four foundations of mindfulness. Can we stay connected and grounded in our bodies? Can we recognize judgment, grasping and emotional reactivity as conditioned, passing mind-states when they occur? Are we able to keep at least some of our attention in one of the four foundations of mindfulness during our daily life activities? We are in the domain of practice when we tune into these ways of viewing our present moment experience.

NON-DELUSION

Are we acting in a way that accords with reality…non-delusion? How upset are we with the first scratch on our new car? How much are we trying to manage or defend our self-image in relationship to how we think others see us or how we need to see ourselves? Living life with the deluded attitude that our health and life will last forever, do we keep putting off what we suspect we really need to do?

Checking in with these questions throughout the day allows our ordinary daily life… its means and its ends… to support and inform a wholesome, wise and overarching clear comprehension that the purpose of our life is to awaken to freedom from suffering.

Wise Concentration

From the Buddha: “If concentration is developed, what profit does it bring? The mind is developed. If the mind is developed, what profit does it bring? All greed is abandoned.”
“If insight is developed, what profit does it bring? Wisdom/insight is developed. If wisdom is developed, what profit does it bring? All ignorance is abandoned.”

We work with Concentration and Insight meditation in alternating sequences throughout our practice. All of this rests on the essential foundation of the gradual purification of our habits of greed, clinging, worry, resistance, anger and fear… a process which comes about in part through the understanding that blossoms via the exploration of Virtue/Sila with its underlying principle of non-harming. These unwholesome habits are primarily what create suffering in this here & now round of daily and meditative life and obstruct the development of a deep and purifying concentration… and our growing recognition of the true nature of things.

Understanding the difference between wholesome and unwholesome states of mind is essential for the development of concentration and its attendant wholesome states. The wholesome fruits of concentration, calm, joy, tranquility, happiness, peace & equanimity along with the deeper states of concentration called Jhana cannot grow when unwholesome habits of mind such as greed, clinging, aversion, lethargy, agitation, and doubt are occurring.

The active force of a peaceful, lucid and undisturbed state of mind attained by the practice of strong mental concentration begins by gathering together the potentially powerful energy of the mind that ordinarily is Pink & white flower center quite dispersed. The initial act of concentration reins the mind in from its myriad distractions. We then learn how to focus it by coming back again and again to the simple present so that our mental and physical energy isn’t being used up or usurped in unconscious and unskillful ways. For this, one needs a willingness rooted in the wholesome intention to stay present with the chosen object of attention, along with the development of clearly knowing when the attention gets lost in something other than what is intended. A clear, relaxed and focused mind feeds itself as our ability to stay present with the object of attention and not attach to other things strengthens. The mind is just where it is… pure, clear, and calm… which can be an energizing, refreshing and beautiful experience.

In order for us to learn how to properly apply the three active forces of purification – virtue, concentration and wisdom — just as the Buddha did, we need to learn directly from our own experience — from some of our most difficult experiences and also from our quieter, pleasant, beautiful, and subtle experience. The process of purification is synonymous with this act of learning.

Within the three currents that carried the Buddha across the river of dissatisfaction and confusion to the other side –the currents of virtue, concentration and wisdom — the current of concentration, possibly including states of deeply absorbed concentration/Jhana, is beautiful, healing and powerful in and of itself. At whatever level we are able to develop a concentrated mind, from the perspective of the Buddha Dhamma it is ultimately to be used towards seeing the true nature of phenomena – towards parting the veil, untangling the tangle that keeps us from seeing it, thus allowing us to awaken into the natural state of an undisturbed mind.

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