Archive | Reflections on Practice

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.

On Samatha Practice

The practice of samadhi is part of the threefold central Buddhist path to liberation, namely sila (ethical cultivation), samadhi (cultivation of the mind), and panna (cultivation of wisdom). In this context, samadhi refers to more than just the establishment of one pointed concentration, but also includes the cultivation of other meditative practices through mindfulness and loving-kindness. The practice of samatha, nevertheless, lays thefoundation in establishing the stability in the mind for cultivation of these essential mental qualities.

Samatha is often translated from Pali as the English word concentration. The word concentration, unfortunately, often has the connotation of tense effort and conjures up the image of a furrowed brow, with a practitioner needing Herculian effort to stop distractions in their tracks and working hard to pull a distracted mind to one pointed concentration. A more apt translation, often used by many Buddhist teachers, is stablizing or calming the mind. Here, the idea is not so much to attempt to tame the lion of the unruly mind with force or threat of a whip, but giving gentle and affectionate, yet continuous, reminders to a beloved puppy.

The mind training and establishing of samadhi is not achieved by the force of will, but by putting the right conditions into place for the mind to stabilize in a state of ease and calm by itself. The same way that we cannot will ourselves to fall asleep (have you tried? and how did it work?!), we cannot will ourselves to a state of samadhi. We can only put the right conditions in place, with right attention, ease, kindness to ourselves, gentle yet persistent effort (atapi), and the mind will naturally settle into a state of calm, just as a child who is fed and rocked gently will fall asleep in her mothers arms.

Climate Change & the Buddha Dhamma

Vivekananda 6
A recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report tells us that , “It is extremely likely…that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.” Given this, what should be our attitude towards nature and the environment be? We can turn to the wisdom traditions of the world’s religions in search of inspiration.

The Buddhist community has pondered the issue of climate change deeply over the last couple of decades. As early as June 1986, H.H. Dalai Lama offered “An Ethical Approach to Environmental Protection.” The seminal 2009 book “A Buddhist Response to the Climate Emergency” brought together contributions from Buddhist teachers in many traditions and helped to focus the attention of the Buddhist community on climate change issues.

Well-known Buddhist ethicist Peter Harvey wrote “…the Buddhist ideal for humanity‘s relationship with animals, plants and the landscape is one of harmonious co-operation. Buddhism emphasizes a disciplining and overcoming of the negativities within the conditioned nature of the human heart. Such an approach goes hand-in-hand with a friendly attitude to the environment.” White flowers underneath

The Buddhist practice of loving kindness or metta invites us to wish for the welfare and happiness of all beings: “Whatever living beings there be: feeble or strong, tall, stout or medium, short, small or large, without exception: seen or unseen, those dwelling far or near, those who are born or those who are to be born, may all beings be happy!”

Compassion or karuna moves the heart of the good towards observing the pain of others, inspiring us to shelter and embrace the distressed. The Pali commentaries explain karuna as the desire to remove harm and suffering or dukkha from others. Witnessing the suffering of species threatened by extinction calls us to alleviate this suffering.

Movements such as Buddhism and Jainism in India have emphasized ahimsa or non-violence. This practice encourages sympathy (daya) and a trembling of the heart (anukampa) for living creatures, cultivating increased empathy with them based on awareness that others dislike pain and death just as much as we do. As the Dhammapada notes, “All tremble at violence, all fear death. Comparing oneself with others one should neither kill nor cause to kill.”

The law of karma supports compassion and motivates us to follow this precept, as we cannot intentionally harm beings without bringing harm to ourselves in the future. Thus when the Buddha found some children molesting a snake with sticks, he said, “Whoever, seeking his/her own happiness, and Sandhill cranes flying 4 who harms pleasure-loving beings with the rod gets no happiness hereafter.”

Out of gratitude for the bounty of resources nature provides us, we should protect and care for nature. The Petavatthu states: “If one were to sleep or sit under the shade of a tree, one may not break the branches of that tree. If one does so, one is an evil, false friend.”

H.H. Dalai Lama leaves no doubt about our responsibility to take action to protect the future of our planet and ensure the survival of human kind: “The key thing is the sense of universal responsibility; that is the real source of strength, the real source of happiness. If our generation exploits everything available—the trees, the water, and the minerals—without any care for the coming generations or the future, then we are at fault, aren’t we?”

You can find a fuller version of this reflection, complete with citations, by clicking HERE.

Writing Practice & the Study of Mind…

Mindfulness of mind is one of the central practices of Buddhism, and writing can be a highly effective tool for investigating this particularly transformative aspect of practice — especially when the mind has been clarified through extended meditation. Where do the words and thoughts that populate our minds arise from? Through the Sean Murphy front AustingHaus practice of focused, dispassionate observation we may find that when we look closely we cannot discover their source. There’s no apparent ‘self’ generating them or ‘location’ from which they arise.

This discovery in itself — and the associated insight that we are not our thoughts, and are not limited by our thinking minds, can be transformative. Writing practice, also known as freewriting, is a uniquely deep method for clarifying this process of studying the mind, opening up the creative flow and liberating the natural, uncontrived voice, while allowing us to discover what words and thoughts may arise when the ego doesn’t get in the way. Through working directly with words and thoughts, we may find ourselves able to let go of certain long-held patterns and beliefs that are encoded through them, that make up the story known as the ‘self’.

What happens when we let go and simply allow our words and thoughts flow freely onto the page without filtering or editing or ‘trying’ to say something beautiful or profound or impressive? We may find ourselves surprised at the results. We may find that beauty and wisdom can arise naturally from the mind of emptiness, without ‘trying’. We may discover that we are able to step beyond our conditioned view of ourselves, and perhaps even find ourselves touching that deep intuitive source from which all creation and insight springs — the source known as not-self. Then we’re free to experience the joy and wisdom which comes with making that connection. 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.

Joy & Insight Through Seeing/Drawing

Seeing/drawing is a way to achieve intimate touch with the visible world around us as we reconnect with nature, thereby reconnecting with ourselves. The practice is to receive what is seen without interposing the ‘self’, to allow the mind, eye and heart to simply reflect like Marcia reviewing drawings a clear mirror. We find our capacity for wonder restored, along with new or renewed awe for the gift of seeing that we may have forgotten or set aside.

The experience of seeing/drawing has nothing to do with fabricating a product. Seeing/Drawing is not devoted to self-expression and even less to making ‘art objects’ or ‘being creative’. We’re experimenting in retrieving the ‘lost art’ of seeing, and fusing seeing, drawing and meditation. We could call this practice ‘meditation-in-action’ on that which matters…an awakening from the habit of non-seeing, awakening from what could be called the coma of ‘looking-at’ into the immediacy, the intimacy of seeing.

When the eye wakes up to seeing again, the eye, mind and heart suddenly stop taking things for granted. When we’re truly seeing and drawing a leaf, a flower, a moth, a branch or a foot, we’re saying “yes” to its existence. We dignify it, declare it worthy of our total attention…as worthy of attention as you and I are ourselves, simply because we and it are here in the midst of this awesome mystery and miracle that we share.

The thing that we draw, be it a mushroom, onion, tree bark or a face is no longer a thing, no longer an object…no longer my object, and I am no longer the overbearing subject who objectifies things . Something else has the potential to happen. The quality of our perception changes with seeing/drawing, when nothing interferes between the eye and what it sees. It’s as though every line, curve and dot goes through our whole organism. We are no longer the onlooker. Drawing another person’s face I ‘become’ that person. I don’t feel separated from them. The split is healed. This is what seeing/drawing really does. You become what you draw. Unless you become it, you cannot draw it.

Wisdom Through the Moving Body….

Wynn at AustingHaus 5b Dance as with other movement practices, demands heightened awareness of the body – the Buddha’s first foundation of mindfulness. Like an instrument, our bodies are tuned with mindful attention. Whether mastering a step, improvising freely, or choreographing, we are connected into the world of touch and sensation. We gather the mind within the physical experience. We listen to the body as we learn its rules and impulses. We are embodied.

The moving body provides unique feedback from our nervous system. Kind attention to the body through movement nourishes the body and generates its own form of intelligence. It is basic to our sense of well-being.

Bodily sensations also reveal states of mind. Mental tensions, emotions, and imagery felt and expressed within the physical terrain can be a source of insight and creativity. With the support of our movement and meditation practices, the mind-body relationship can be seen more clearly.

In dance and with the movement practice the body itself is the instrument of creative expression, and can SnoS movement edited 2 highlight one’s personal identification with how the body looks, feels and moves. This heightened vulnerability is an opportunity to explore the sense of self as it manifests in the form of bodily contraction.

For instance, in a moment of humiliation there is a feeling that “squeezes our hearts” as Ajahn Chah describes. Fear, doubt, clinging, and self-aggrandizement can be observed in our bodies again and again. These moments of self-consciousness are potent opportunities for insight. Observing the arising of self-view, free from judgment is a source of joy – the joy of release.

We can make an intentional and courageous practice of learning about suffering and its release through our disciplines of movement.

On Empathetic Joy…

I recently watched a video of my grandniece. Genny was sitting in some kind of floor vehicle, which she could scoot around the kitchen. This ride was musical, too. When she pushed a button on the handlebars, a Beatles tune Winnie N lighter
would play. When “Eight Days A Week” sounded, she danced with abandon, moving her head from side to side and rhythmically bouncing up and down. She slapped her hands in time with the beat, movin’ and groovin’ with the music.

Watching her joy, I was filled with happiness. My nearly ninety-year-old mother watched and laughed. I saw my mother’s pleasure and laughed too. My sister saw us both, saw our grandniece grooving to the music and sang along. Unlike the main dancer, we didn’t have a tray to slap, but if we did we would have. We were happy because Genny was happy. We were experiencing mudita.

This state of mind, mudita, is translated into English in a variety of ways. The most resonant for me is “empathetic joy”, or happiness experiencing the joy, happiness, and well being of another. In order to reliably experience mudita, we need to have a basic attitude of goodwill, or metta towards others as a foundation. If we sincerely wish others well, when we see their happiness we naturally wish for it to continue and grow.

But the development of mudita as a universal attitude can be surprisingly challenging, because we ourselves sometimes feel unhappy and lacking. Seeing the happiness of others, under some circumstances, can actually result in our unhappiness. Comparing ourselves to others who seem to have more, we may experience the painful states of envy, jealousy and resentment.

It is part of the genius of Buddhism that it teaches clear practices and methods empowering us to overcome these difficult states and the contracted view they reflect. We can learn how to strengthen the mind’s access togoodwill and empathetic joy. If we do, the beautiful state of mudita will arise more and more often in the mind, and we will be happier. As the Dalai Lama once said about mudita: “Six billion people, six billion chances for (my) happiness!’ “

Metta: The Heart’s Release

“It is in this way that we must train ourselves:
by liberation of the self through love.
We will develop love, we will practice it
we will make it both a way and a basis,
take our stand upon it, store it up,
and thoroughly set it going.”
— The Buddha – Samyutta Nikaya

Roses pink in shadow The great strength of a heart/mind protected through the energy of metta, this quality-this capacity to stay present and connect with a heart that is fearless and free of ill will. Ghandi called this the most powerful and the most subtle force in the universe. It’s the energy that keeps it all together and is called for again and again throughout our practice, throughout our life. Metta is one of the best medicines…a very powerful medicine. The practice and the energetic experience of metta is offered and felt as a natural heartfelt wish that is directed towards oneself, another particular person or a group of beings …wishing oneself and others to be happy, to be safe, to live with a deep sense of ease, well being and peace.

With the opening and the transformation into the greatness of the heart of metta, there’s a great letting go, a release of much of what we’ve been holding onto and grasped so tightly. There’s a release of the contractions of the heart…the past pains, hurts, and anguish that we’ve taken in and taken on as ‘mine’, as ‘me’, as ‘I am’. It’s not so easy to relinquish these habituated pattern of our ‘self’, but this is what binds the heart/mind. Our commitment to our practice, our willingness to take the journey is what affords the transformation.

There’s a tremendous fullness of energy which is constituted by great confidence, strength, patience, and a very clear straightforwardness that come from the loving heart of metta. A heart/mind filled with metta has the capacity to impartially embrace all beings, not only those we’re close to in our lives, those it’s easy to care about or those who might be pleasing or useful or amusing to us. A heart/mind filled with metta holds the possibility of a capacity for what can be called ‘immeasurable impartiality’..the capacity for being able to connect to and care for any being…all beings.

Some Thoughts on Patience…

San Antonio Mountain early April 2 Patience, the 6th of 10 perfections or manifestations of Buddha- mind, is the underpinning of much of what we cultivate in practice. To discover the perfection of patience is to discover the quality of resting, waiting & calling forth what needs to unfold. It is in the waiting itself, in the listening, in what the poet Rilke called “living the question,” in staying with the process of life, that spiritual practice is fulfilled. It is taking a breath & resting in how things are.

Suzuki Roshi taught that a wonderful word that captures the spirit of patience is constancy-the willingness to be ever present for what is. Patience calls us to simply sit, breathe out and in, and be aware of what is present, however it is–thinking, anxiety, discomfort, sadness, joy, love–allowing what is, to arise and pass in its own way and time, resting in the rhythm of life and nature. Really, what’s the hurry? Where are we going? Our striving can be like a bud on a branch hoping for its petals to be pulled so it can hurry up and open. Rather, it fills itself out gradually according to conditions, and then one day it blooms. Patience is a slow walk in the country, holding hands, sitting in the sun–like planting an orchard that takes however long it takes to bear fruit.

Kindness and contentment transform impatience, helping us to grow in patience, in which the capacity to rest and to trust in a spirit of wonder, develop and inhere. It uncurls the fist of expectation and relaxes the body, mind and spirit. Aaaaaaaaah……..

Reflect: How does patience manifest in your own life? Have you developed the capacity to plant now what may blossom far into the future, beyond your own life?

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.

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