Cattāri Brahmavihārā

Posted by: Michael | 03/09/2015

One-Sided Practice

I’ve been reflecting on the need to begin training the body as well as the mind and came across this quote by Upasika Kee Nanayon on ATI and I think it speaks to the problem with such a one-sided practice:

§ The Buddha compared the training of the mind to holding a bird in your hand. The mind is like a tiny bird, and the question is how to hold the bird so that it doesn’t fly away. If you hold it too tightly, it will die in your hand. If you hold it too loosely, the tiny bird will slip out through your fingers. So how are you going to hold it so that it doesn’t die and doesn’t get away? The same holds true with our training of the mind in a way that’s not too tense and not too lax but always just right.

There are many things you have to know in training the mind, and you have to look after them correctly. On the physical side, you have to change postures in a way that’s balanced and just right so that the mind can stay at normalcy, so that it can stay at a natural level of stillness or emptiness continuously.

Physical exercise is also necessary. Even yogis who practice high levels of concentration have to exercise the body by stretching and bending it in various postures. We don’t have to go to extremes like them, but we can exercise enough so that the mind can maintain its stillness naturally in a way that allows it to contemplate physical and mental phenomena to see them as inconstant, stressful, and not-self…

If you force the mind too much, it dies just like the bird held too tightly. In other words, it grows deadened, insensitive, and will simply stay frozen in stillness without contemplating to see what inconstancy, stress, and not-selfness are like.

Our practice is to make the mind still enough so that it can contemplate inconstancy, stress, and not-selfness. This is the point for which we train and contemplate, and that makes it easy to train. As for changing postures or working and getting exercise, we do these things with an empty mind.

When you’re practicing in total seclusion, you should get some physical exercise. If you simply sit and lie down, the flow of blood and breath energy in the body will get abnormal.

I haven’t missed more than a day of formal meditation practice in years but I can’t even begin to compare that with physical exercise. I think I will try to begin again with the 1088 full body prostration practice that I have done from time to time as a way of luring myself into a body practice and see how that develops.

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Daily Practice, Dhamma, Seon | Tags: Boredom, Brain fitness, British Columbia, Chan Chan, Chief Secretary, Chinese Chán, Civil service, Civo Stadium, Consciousness, Physical exercise

Posted by: Michael | 03/07/2015

Crossroads

So it appears that I have to come to the first of many crossroads in the practice of using buddho to stay with the breath. Yesterday and today during my formal, seated meditation I was asked time and again by the hundred of doubt. The mind kept returning to the right “is this working?” and “Why am I not feeling anything?” Obviously, there is much clinging and crashing for results here and, in writing this, I see too that there is also the hindrance of restlessness as well. The good news is, of course, that I will not be so easily swayed and fur good reason.

This morning I wrote up after the kids and had to get them breakfast and situated before I was even able to think of practice. Still I remembered buddho and it was this recollection that kept me from losing my cool as they banned in boxes and toy barrels while I was in the midst of the morning routine. I was immediately aware of the change and grateful for it. So, even if formal practice is not immediately producing the fruits of concentration it saved me on at least one occasion from akusala kamma.

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Dhamma, Formal Meditation, Meditation Word, Theravada | Tags: akusala, fruits of the practice, kamma

Posted by: Michael | 03/06/2015

Practice Well for Self and Other

65. Once, the Lord dwelt among the Sakyas in the Park of the Banyan Tree at Kapilavatthu, and while there, Mahanama the Sakyan came to him and asked: “How, Lord, does one become a lay disciple?”
“When one has taken refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha, then one is a lay disciple.”
“How, Lord, is a disciple virtuous?”
“When a lay disciple abstains from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and drinking intoxicants, then he is virtuous.”
“How, Lord, does one help oneself but not others?”
“When one has achieved faith, virtue and renunciation, when one longs to see the monks, to hear the good Dhamma, to be mindful of the Dhamma once heard, when one reflects on it, knows it in both the letter and the spirit and walks in conformity with it, but one does not strive to establish such things in others, then one helps oneself but not others.”
“Then how, Lord, does one help oneself and others also?”
“When one has oneself achieved faith, virtue, and renunciation and strives to establish such things in others, when one longs to see the monks, to learn the good Dhamma, to be mindful of the Dhamma once heard, when one reflects upon its meaning, knows it in both the letter and spirit and walks in conformity with it and strives to establish such things in others, then one helps both oneself and others also.”

Anguttara Nikaya IV.219

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Dhamma, Sangha, Theravada | Tags: lay disciple, mahanama

Posted by: Michael | 03/05/2015

The Path in a Single Word

Practicing with “buddho” I have at times experienced doubt, restlessness and even aversion but what is truly inspiring about this method is that it seems too be almost holographic in nature. Before I get too far afield let me be clear about what I mean: as I silently recite buddho on the in and out breath it is as if I can see the entire path laid before me. The Lord Buddha Buddha recommended anapanasati as one of the Beth methods for cultivating jhana and this technique is a form of breath meditation. At the same time, when don’t sets in it also serves as a recollection of the Buddha and the fact that each one of us, that I, am able to make and end to suffering just as he did and countless other men and women have through the ages. What’s more, when I think oh the Buddha I see how important the brahmaviharas are and how he, by his very life and teachings, was the greatest example of compassion one can think of. So, in this one word I have so far found metta bhavana, buddhanussati and anapanasati. What more will I find in the minutes and his to come?

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Dhamma | Tags: Buddhanussati, Buddho, metta

Posted by: Michael | 03/04/2015

Bud-dho

The idea of staying with the breath through the course of one’s daily life is a teaching that can be traced directly back to the Satipatthana Sutta and which is the especial focus of the group with whom I have practiced for the better part of the last ten years. In our gruop this form of quotidian breath awareness is often called natural meditation but is a skill which has largely eluded me. And, yet, I may have had a small breakthrough last night and I wanted to jot down my ideas before they are lost in a thousand other fantasies and resolves.

The practice of young the meditation word “Buddho” and coordinating it with the breath should be pretty familiar with anyone trained in the Thai Forest tradition of the Theravada. In short, you mentally recite “bud” in the in or out breath and “dho” on the following one. This gives the mind a little more purchase especially during those times when the breath seems too subtle or is otherwise distracted. I have experimented with this technique and had limited success but last night I was reading about silent japa recitation and it occurred to me that I could also use buddho as a form of buddhanussati in tandem with the breath. Doing so at least gives an unquiet mind a little more to hold onto while also helping it to attend to something more wholesome. As it stands, I have only been experimenting with this approach for the past twenty four hours but it holds promise and I can think of many worse ways to pass the time.

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Dhamma, Formal Meditation, Theravada | Tags: breath, Buddho, contemplation, japa, mantra, meditation

Posted by: Michael | 03/03/2015

Patient Persistence

This last weekend was very tough for me and, in many ways, my practice completely fell apart. Between driving for long hours in bad conditions and not being able to fulfill my obligations at work for to technical difficulties encountered during our two day trip to New Hampshire I completely lost my cool and any semblance of equanimity. As yet I am still not clear hour to resolve the issue of bringing the practice to bear on these real life situations that see seem to be so unmanageable and intractable despite the hope and inkling that patience and persistence will win the day. May I practice with patient persistence and make acc end to such suffering.

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Daily Practice, Dhamma, Dukkha, Khanti, Theravada | Tags: persistence

Posted by: Michael | 03/02/2015

Arise

60. Arise! Sit up!
Of what use are your dreams?
How can you who are sick
And pierced with the arrow of grief
Continue to sleep?

Arise! Sit up!
Train yourself to win peace.
Let not the king of death,
Knowing you to be lazy,
Trick you into his realm.

Cross over this attachment,
Tied to which both gods and men are trapped.
Do not let this chance slip by,
Because for those who do,
There is only hell.

Dusty is indolence.
Dust comes in its wake.
With knowledge and vigilance,
Draw out the arrow of suffering from yourself.

Sutta Nipata 331-334

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Dhamma, Theravada | Tags: samvega, striving

Posted by: Michael | 02/28/2015

Wisdom

59. Of little importance is the loss of such things as wealth. But a terrible thing it is to lose wisdom.
Of little importance is the gaining of such things as wealth. Great is the importance of gaining wisdom.

Anguttara Nikaya I.15

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Posted by: Michael | 02/27/2015

Right Speech

Skillful speech is so important to the Path that it not only takes its place as the fourth precept in the panca sila but it also constitutes the fourth factor of the Eightfold Path. Although I saw samma vaca for along time as little more than a commitment to telling the truth we see, time and again in the suttas, that Right Speech extends to other forms of verbal action. In fact, the Eight Lifetime precepts which I recite every morning attest to the further division of samma vaca into the absence of false speech, divisive speech, harsh speech and idle chatter. Despite the fact that I have been faithfully reciting these words for years it seems to me that I have been merely paying them lip service.

Last night, during the class I help manage, the then was on Sila and we were asked to take on one of the precepts as our project for the next six months. Almost immediately I realized that I needed to work on idle chatter in particular and Right Speech in general. So, for the next several months I will work with this precept and recount my experience here from time to time. Sukhi hotu!

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Daily Practice, Dhamma, Sammā Vācā, Sila, Theravada | Tags: right speech, samma vaca, sila

Posted by: Michael | 02/26/2015

An Uposatha

Today is an Uposatha day and I decided almost immediately upon waking that I would only be observing partially today. If it’s not obvious, I have an ingrown aversion to doing things only “half way” and this is especially so when it comes to the practice. Still, I don’t believe that the point of the practice, of all Dhamma practice, is to punish ourselves by not living up to its mandates in idealized form. Rather, might it not be more skillful to take joy in those parts of the observance I feel ready to take up today and make a resolution to do more as time and energy allow? From what little I know about the Dhamma, such an idea certainly seems to be in accord with it.

So, this morning I took only the third Uposatha precept and will keep that in purity until sunrise tomorrow. May I practice with compassion and ardour so as not to waste this precious life I have stumbled into.

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Dhamma, Karuna, Theravada, Uposatha | Tags: ardor, compassion, intensity