It has been a rather rough weekend and I have barely managed to keep my wits about me. In times like this at least I an rely on my confidence on the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha even if heroic feats of asceticism and spiritual striving are far beyond me. May we all find freedom from suffering.
Posted by: Michael | 11/18/2013
Good Night
Posted by: Michael | 11/17/2013
Da capo
In many ways, the pressure and overwhelming stress I have been under lately has forced me to begin again. It is as if I am being steadily crushed by an enormous, iron mountain and all of the excess energy I had to devote the practice has been sapped leaving me to choose carefully exactly what the theme of each session should be. In this respect, I am grateful for the lesson that intense dukkha has provided because it has really stripped away all of the inessential clutter in the mind and brought everything down to brass tacks.
One thing which I have gotten back into the habit of doing and which seems to be worthwhile is to review the session in the last minute or so of the meditation. Sometimes I review in terms of what should have been done or, as in tonight’s review, I reflect on the fact that whatever I was doing worked to calm the mind and that the practice has benefits. For now, this is all I can ask for and I am grateful to the Tisarana, my parents, teachers and all beings upon whom I depend. Sabbe satta sukhita hontu!
Related articles
- The Four Noble Truths, Introvert Style (psychologytoday.com)
Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Dhamma, Dukkha, Formal Meditation, Gratitude, Theravada, Tisarana | Tags: Alternative, Dukkha, health, meditation, overwhelming stress
Posted by: Michael | 11/15/2013
Embrace
Still dogged by the same worries and problems I managed to hold myself down this morning long enough to sit for fifteen minutes. I can’t really charaacterize the type of meditation I was doing although the object was more or less the breath. Still, for at lleast the first half I was more sensitive to the whole-body sensation of buzzing and tingling that seems to accompany anxiety and worry. And, although this wasn’t my intended object, simply being aware of it allowed an extra-verbal understanding of what was happening to begin to bud and flower. At some point I heard a thought whisper the idea “Embrace this” and that is precisely what I did. I stopped struggling to keep the panic out and to remain calm and just let it be there. Imagine my surprise as it dissipated to reveal an ease that I never would have expected.
Posted in Anapanasati, Buddha, Buddhism, Dhamma, Dukkha, Theravada | Tags: cattari ariya saccani, dukhha, Four Noble Truths, meditation
Posted by: Michael | 11/14/2013
Money
I feel like it has been a long time since I was able to think about much else beyond money and my business. Lately, and I mean the last few days, my practice has been cut to shreds and reduced to a simple bearing witness to and standing under the sheer weight of it during formal meditation. At times I’ll catch a glimpse of the breath before it darts back into the gloomy tangle of obsessive thinking but that’s it. It feels almost as if there is no relief sometimes but that belies just how deep my delusion has gone–forgetting the truth of anicca and thinking that any conditioned experience could last forever is to be far from the Path.
So, just what is my duty here? To see dukkha, to understand it, to practice the path to be free from it and to find release. Not easy and especially so in a world that is as driven by money as ours. Even my teachers here in NYC are constantly reminding us to give and, now that I am unable, I am even ashamed to visit them any longer. So, what does that speak to? Obviously it speaks to what’s in my own heart and says more about my own misunderstanding than it does about my teachers.
It is always helpful for me to reflect at times like this on the reality of impermanence and the fact that dukkha will be as my shadow even if I were to have all the wealth in the world. Where is security? What is wealth? The Lord Buddha answered these questions and my obsessions reflect just how little the Dhamma has penetrated. Anicca vata sankhara.
Posted by: Michael | 11/12/2013
Not Wanting to See
I don’t know why but it has suddenly struck me as completely strange that we look away, bury our heads in the sand and “don’t want to know” when we are confronted with suffering. Now, this may not be everyone’s response to suffering and it is certainly not the only thing we do to escape it but it is the strategy that I seem to have defaulted to recently. And, of all possible ways to meet our suffering, wilfully ignoring it and half-wishing it away seems like the worst possible response in terms of the Eightfold Path: how can we comprehend suffering if we turn away from it at every opportunity? As yet I’m unclear what to make of this and I need to proceed a little more gingerly than usual with myself as I have been rattled yet again by the ebb and flow of life and battered about by the worldly winds. Still, it is worth contemplating just how we meet our suffering as understandng it is the key to freedom.
Posted by: Michael | 11/11/2013
Happy Uposatha – Imperfections
I have had a perfect morning in respect of Dhamma practice and yet, as I left my house, I was assailed again by alternating waves of aversion and lust. What to do? Yes, I averted to the fact that the mind was now chasing after, now pushing away this or that perception but somehow just noting it didn’t seem to suffice to put it to rest. The negativity and greed just kept coming back and threatenn to completely capsize any mindfulness that remained.
What is Right Effort here? How does one meet these defilements with wisdom? I believe it is MN 2 that speaks just to this dilemma and advises which kilesas are to be tolerated, to be ignore, to be made use of, etc… I intend to make the sutta in question the subject of further investigation today and for some time to come. I will double check its location and correct it here if it has been incorrectly listed.
May all beings be free of suffering and come to know the true Dhamma.
Posted in Dhamma | Tags: imperfections, kilesas, uposatha
Posted by: Michael | 11/10/2013
Not to Be Neglected
It occurred to me this morning as I was preparing to begin my first session of walking meditation that there was a way to cut off the obsessive thoughts I have been plagued by for at least the last three months. Rather than simply trying to catch a breath or two while being inundated and drowned by endless thoughts about work, finances and security, the best course of action would be to take up a theme and object that immediately put all of those things into perspective and showed them to be the ephemera that they really are: maranasati.
There was a time, especially in the early years of my practice, where I relied on the recollection of death perhaps overmuch and, as the pendulum swung away from that pole, I have neglected the practice. Today’s experiment with recollecting the certainty of my death while doing cankama bhavana proved to me just how potent the practice really is and that I need to add it back into my formal practice regimen once more. I have, therefore, updated my daily practice outline and although I have slotted only five minutes for maranasati at present I may lengthen it later. I simply don’t want to fall into the trap of using the reflection as a justification for aversion to my life so I need to proceed cautiously with so potent a medicine. I have also backed off of my aditthana to learn the Dhammacakkapavattana sutta by memory as I do not feel I was benefiting mightily from it and instead feel that using that time to memorize the recollection of death verses or the Karaniya Metta sutta in Pali would be a better use of time.
Thank you all who read this and all those who make WordPress a place to share and workout one’s thoughts. I am grateful to all beings who, through their sufferings, allow me to live in ease and comfort and do not take lightly the gifts I am given. May I be worthy of the sacrifices of all beings and not squander my life in distraction and ingratitude! May there be happiness and well-being!
Related articles
- Compassion: Taha Mohammad Ali (trinitylewisham.com)
- ‘Going for Refuge’ as Idiom and Metaphor (dhivanthomasjones.wordpress.com)
- 5 Tips for Practicing Walking Meditation (dailycupofyoga.com)
Posted in Aditthana, Buddha, Buddhism, Daily Practice, Dhamma, Dukkha, Maranasati, Metta, Theravada | Tags: Alternative, Buddhism, Dharma, health, Karaniya Metta, Kinhin, meditation, metta sutta, obsessive thoughts, Pali, Practices, recollection, Religion and Spirituality, Shopping, Sutra, Teachings, Yoga
Posted by: Michael | 11/10/2013
Perfect Opportunity
Today was perfect in the sense of providing me with every opportunity to practice. The wife and kids were gone visiting family and I didn’t need to work all day long but, despite the fact that I met my practice commitments, I didn’t take advantage the way I felt I should. Instead I spent a lot of my time watching shows that I never normally watch (Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares if you must know). But why? I feel that I do this at least once every month or two and although I haven’t even come close to sullying my precepts I still can’t help but feel as if I have squandered my time.
Is there a balance there or should I be striving to leave these foolish things behind? Are they conducive to letting go, to peace? If I am to take the Lord Buddha’s teaching as my sole criterion for judgement then I have to answer in the negative and yet…I seem to fall for this kind of indulgent indolence time and again. I suppose I’m being a bit dramatic here but I do get the feeling that there needs to be an inclination to let these things go as well as a compassion for the dull ache that I hide from by indulging in distraction.
Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Daily Practice, Dhamma, Dukkha, Theravada | Tags: distraction, restraint, squandering
Posted by: Michael | 11/09/2013
Lost
The last ten hours were spent in a panic and a fury and now, on a cold and half-empty platform, I feel as though I have been chewed up and spit out here like a piece of unwanted gum by the defilements. At work I will have moments where I recall the Dhamma and try to bring it to my mind and mingle my mind with it but the force of my past kamma seems to overwhelm me and I slipped under the waves of confusion and greed. How to remember this place of calm?
Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Daily Practice, Dhamma, Parenting, Practice at Work, Theravada | Tags: dhamma at work, practice at work
Posted by: Michael | 11/07/2013
Like a Mother Her Only Child
The fragment that I’ve used as the title for this post is perhaps one of the most widely quoted and misunderstood lines in Western Theravadin circles. I know that for years I labored under the common misunderstaning that the instructions in the Karaniya Metta sutta above wereintended to refer to loving all beings the way a mother loves her only child. I am forever indebted to Ven. Thanissaro bhikkhu for pointing out that what we should be protecting in this way is our attitude of loving-kindness as opposed to the utterly romantic and attractive ideal of loving all beings as if they were our children. I still like that idea but it simply isn’t what the sutta says.
Anyway, as I was standing on the bus as it picked its way through 14th Street traffic on this rainy November day, I realized how far I had let my mind slip away from me and how I had succumbed to anger and aversion. I began reciting metta verses in spite of how clunky and lifeless they felt in my mind and was struck by the fragility of a heightened mind and the fact that it is so very precious despite how much I take it for granted.
May we guard our minds of good-will as a mother would her only child and appreciate the blessing of the Dhamma.
Categories
- Abhaya-cariya
- Abyapajjo homi
- Aditthana
- Anatta
- Anicca
- Anigho homi
- asubha
- bhavana
- Bodhisattvayana
- brahmacariya
- Buddha
- Buddha Vacana
- Buddhism
- Cheerfulness
- Confession of Fault
- Daily Practice
- Dana
- Devata
- Dhamma
- Dream Yoga | Lucid Dreaming
- Dukkha
- Family Life
- Fasting
- Forgiveness
- Formal Meditation
- Gratitude
- Islam
- Karuna
- Khanti
- Kwan Se Um
- Lojong
- mahayana
- Maranasati
- Maranassati
- maranānussati
- martial arts
- Meditation Word
- Metta
- Mudita
- Nekkhama
- pañña
- Parami
- Parisa Abhaya Dana
- Practice at Work
- Pure Land
- religio romana
- Restlessness and Remorse
- samadhi
- Samma Ajivo
- samma sankappo
- Samma Sāti
- samma vayamo
- Sammā Vācā
- Sangha
- Sensual Desire
- Seon
- Sila
- Stoicism
- Taṇhā
- Theravada
- Tibetan Buddhism
- Tisarana
- Upekkha
- Upekkha
- Uposatha
- Video
- Vipassana
- Zen
Cattāri Brahmavihārā 