Cattāri Brahmavihārā

Posted by: Michael | 09/21/2013

Balance

Lately, as a result of my fears, I find myself working intolerably long hours while being excited to do so. It is almost as if this frantic busyness in some way helps to quell if not mask the anxiety growing in my chest. After soccer this morning with my son, I have spent the last 3 hours working to create content for various blogs, etc… that relate to my work and, although I can congratulate myself on working hard to support my family where to find the balance? Certainly, working like this does not lead to dispassion, disenchantment and detachment.

How do you find the balance? When is it enough?

Taking Care of Busyness (christianitytoday.com)
Busyness: the barrier to creativity… (emeraldscribe21.wordpress.com)
We face an epidemic of excessive busyness (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
Anxiety & Impatience (fearmastery.wordpress.com)

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Daily Practice, Dhamma, Parenting, Practice at Work, Restlessness and Remorse, Theravada | Tags: Anxiety, Buddhism, CONCACAF, Disorders, dispassion, health, Mental Health, Sports, United States

Posted by: Michael | 09/19/2013

Happy Uposatha – Resistance

It has been some time since I was last willing and able to observe the uposatha and I am finding some resistance to renunciation in the heart. I feel that I have always been pretty gung ho about renunciate practices and that I have never really had to struggle to force myself onto it. In fact, for years I enjoyed throwing myself into the uposatha and nekkhama practices. Yet, something has changed now and I can’t be certain if it is that I have become more mindful of the movements of the heart or that my former brashness and vehemence has cooled somewhat. Be that as it may I know find myself a bit fearful of the prospect of failure as the recent weeks have witnessed more than one aborted attempt at observance.

Despite my apparent griping and the very real resistance I feel I am nonetheless happy and grateful to be able to practice these precepts. What’s more I feel indebted to and inspired by all of my brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles in the Dhamma who have preserved the teachings and are themselves shining exemplars of the Dhamma. Sukhita hontu!

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Posted in Dhamma | Tags: Dhamma, gratitude, practice, upasaka, upasika, uposatha

Posted by: Michael | 09/18/2013

Integration

Lately I feel as if my daily life and my practice have become evee more divergent and I am struggling to come up with a way to live more fully in line with the Dhamma. I cannot truly tell if the problem is in my mind and I simply need to see my aversion as just that and carry on or if I need to take definitive steps to bring my mode of living more in line with the Dhamma.

This becomes ever more pressing when various people in my life view me as a source of knowledge or as their only example of a Buddhist layperson. As such I feel almost as if I am failing the Triple Gem or actively defiling and defaming it when my comportment or speech is not up to par.

Regardless of whether it is simply in the head or if there is something to it in an objective sense I don’t suppose I could come to harm by being more punctillious in my precepts and behavior. Anyone else experience these types of doubts?

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Daily Practice, Dhamma, Parenting, Practice at Work, Theravada | Tags: Dhamma, dhammaduta, practice, triple gem

Posted by: Michael | 09/17/2013

Friends in the Dhamma

I feel that for most of my adult life, once I stopped drinking and partying and began to act like a fully mature person, I have not really made many new friendships. At the same time, I have somewhat deliberately allowed many old friends to slip away largely due to the fact that they were interested in continuing a style of living that seemed a dead end to me and had no interest whatsoever in the Dhamma. And although I have always thought that practicing the Dhamma with others IRL was important I have made friends with precious few people in the group. Why is that? No idea really although fear is the first thing that comes to mind.

So, what is this about? Maybe when we expose ourselves to others along the same path we may have to acknowledge things about our own practice that we don’t want to see. It’s a lot easier being the ideal Buddhist when there’s no around for comparison. I think that this is really one of the greatest reasons beyond the additional difficulties of scheduling with a job and two kids. So tonight a Dhamma friend from the group wanted to get together to have some Dhamma discussion and I have agreed despite my trepidation. The Lord did say that friendship was the whole of the holy life so I think I should take his word for it and start to actively seek out more friends in the Dhamma.

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Daily Practice, Dhamma, Parenting, Practice at Work, Theravada | Tags: admirable friends, Dhamma, kalyanamitta

Posted by: Michael | 09/17/2013

Trust

This morning I was able to complete a fourty five minute routine of walking and sitting meditation and although it now feels like an eternity ago I feel a brightness that has yet to dim from it. I am no less tired and stressed than I have been of late and only a little less sick but I do feel that there has been a shift which I can only attribute to my teacher and the presence of the community that I was fortunate enough to enjoy last night.

In essence, I feel that I have a renewed trust in my ability to practice and in the practice itself. Reminders of the fundamentals and of the inherently improvisational nature of lived practice are just so vital to keeping myself afloat that I can hardly believe anyone is capable of solitary practice while treading water in the flood of lay life. I am so grateful to have found the teachings and a commu

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Posted by: Michael | 09/14/2013

Indiscernible Origins

I had a rather strange experience this morning during the five minute sit I was able to get in and I’m not quite sure how to categorize it. As I was mentally reciting “Buddho” with my mala a question seemed to bubble up with the meditation words and was this: where is this intention and this word coming from? It was actually more of a visceral and pre-verbal befuddlement and I am as yet unsure of how to relate to it. Is it a darkened mind’s encounter with anatta? Is it simply a misapprehension? I’m certainly not ready nor aam I sage enough to make any pronouncements but I am nonetheless intrigued.

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Posted in Anatta, Buddha, Buddhism, Daily Practice, Dhamma, Formal Meditation, Meditation Word, Theravada | Tags: anatta, Buddho, confusion, will, worlding

Posted by: Michael | 09/13/2013

Buddho

Last night as I was laying in bed I decided that a good place to place the mind and to put the time before bed to good use would be to mentally repeat the word “buddho.” I quickly realized that I should disconnect it from the breath as trying to coordinate the breathing with the syllables proved to scatter the mind over much. So I simply focused on the meditation word and repeated it over and over. The sensation was definitely interesting as I watched the mind slip under into sleep and bob up again to catch the word again and again. Eventually I lost all consciousness but I was inspired enough by the results that I did a few rounds of the word this morning prior as I sat for my formal meditation. It seemed to have helped me to center the mind and the minute I realized I was off somewhere else I switched to the brahma viharas which is a much more involved subject.

I think my whole point in documenting this is simply to point to the fact that at different points in my practice I find different techniques, ideas and approaches to be of value. Using this meditation word seems to help now when I am struggling to get back on track and to re-establish a routine in the midst of unrelenting stress and obligations but it may not be the case if I am in a more grounded space later. My hunch is that when the mind is coarse such meditation techniques work well to refine it and smooth it out but they can only go so far. Then again, I could be completely mistaken on that point.

In the final analysis, what is important to me is not so much where I am in the practice (although I don’t want anyone to misconstrue and take me for practicing a goal-less path) but simply that I am ever inclining towards the practice and doing my best not to squander this short life. May we all practice to find the eternal freedom from bondage.

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Daily Practice, Dhamma, Formal Meditation, Meditation Word, Parenting, Practice at Work, Theravada | Tags: Buddho, mantra, meditation, meditation word, practice

Posted by: Michael | 09/12/2013

Anicca

How quickly the mind and heart can change. Last night, as I made my way in the stifling heat and suffering from a bad head cold I wondered at the delight and jooy I felt dwelling in the brahma viharas and recollecting my goodness (doing my pep talk walk if you will). This morning, however, I discovered that the heart had hardened and a general darkness descended over the mind. Yes, I’m sick and have been pushing myself over much at work but I am also tortured by the thought of allowing my practice to slide as I chase pleasant states and run from painful ones. What is that but the way of one who has learned nothing of the Dhamma. So, I resolved to keep my seat for 15 minutes.

Initially I tried to lighten the mind with metta and caganussati but after two rounds of my mala I was in a stae of near total despair. Nothing seemed to suffice to pull me out of it and no tool or trick had any effect. As I sat now watching the breath, reciting “bud-dho” it struck me: this suffering is the truth of the moment and to run from it won’t help. And, yet, to believe it would never change only deepened the pain so I brought in the recollection of anicca-impermanence. Suddenly, it was as if the sun had begun to rise and rays of warm light began to break up the inky darkness enveloping my heart. That was as far as it wnt though, the sun nevr completely arose but it was solace enough to carry me through to the end.

May all be beings be free of pain and suffering and may they understand the impermanent nature of all conditioned things.

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Posted in Anicca, Buddha, Buddhism, Dhamma, Formal Meditation, Theravada | Tags: anicca, caganussati, Dukkha, karuna, metta

Posted by: Michael | 09/10/2013

Finding the Heart

In so many of the metta intructions given in our group we are asked to connect with that place in the heart where our desire to be truly happy can be felt. Furthermore, we are asked to explore this felt sense of well-wishing in as non-verbal way as possible and take this fabrication as the basis upon which we can develop the brahma viharas for ourselves and ultimately all beings. Despite hearing these instructions for years it seems to me that I have rarely put them into practice. Why? Well, for a long time I suppose my doubt and lack of faith was such that instructions to “feel” into things in a non-discursive way seemed hoky at best and disingenuous at worst but over time I have come to see the truth of this perspective. So, in that vein, I have been experimenting with feeling into the ink black recesses of the mind to find the wellspring of self-love that is the source of metta and the divine abodes. Faith, it seems, is not limited to theists. Be well!

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Dhamma, Formal Meditation, Karuna, Metta, Mudita, Theravada | Tags: brahma vihara, heart practice, karuna, metta, mudita

Posted by: Michael | 09/09/2013

Pep Talk Walk

Last night one of the junior teachers led the class and focussed on the relationship between joy and concentration. He described a practiced which he termd the “Pep Talk Walk” wherein he will take a half an hour walk and just use that time to mentally talk to himself about all of the good and skillful actions he has been taking. Integral to this practice (and derived from the Lord’s instructions to Rahula) is the reflection on the impact of such skillful fabrication to see that it does, in fact, condition the mind and prepare it for samadhi.

I found the idea very apropos considering where I’m at right now. The timeliness of the Dhamma talk and the informal way it is to be practiced were attractive to me and I intend to incorporate pep talk walks into my daily life as each day is filled with long stretches of commuter walking.

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Posted in Dhamma | Tags: daily life, metta, mudita, skillful fabrication