MINDSPACE

DRINK HIMALAYAN TEAS . . . AND HELP THE TIBETANS TOO

I don't typically endorse products of this sort on our website, but I thought that our readers who are also tea-drinkers might want to know about Choice Organic Teas.  They are fair-trade and organic, and if you purchase the Himalayan Green Tea, a portion of the proceeds goes to supporting the non-profit organization, Save the Himalayan Kingdom.  Read more about this project at the website.

Although I'm no connoisseur of tea, the Himalayan Green we received at The Tibetan Cultural Institute of Arkansas seemed very good, and we're happy to offer this company our support.  Give them a try if you're so inclined.

A TASTE OF CHAH

I have at times read too much.  Too many books, too many magazines, too many cereal boxes . . . anything, it seemed, to keep me from . . . not reading.  Of course, there were always benefits to being seen reading. My friends thought I was "smart," my teachers called me "dedicated," but all the while, I was just reading. . . .  I still do read, although not as much as I did in the past, and I have noticed this falling off as any addict might notice, with anxiety, the gradual disappearance of his drug of choice. 

So it's not surprising that certain dharma books have served as empowerments to me.  Given the right book at the right time, I have reaped enormous benefit from simply sitting and reading, quietly, intensely.  When I find one of these books, and when I am absorbed by it, I feel an essential and undisturbed stillness of mind, the closest I ever get to this quality of mind that experienced meditators are always talking about; this quality of mind seems to hover around the book's subject, and it seems to be a quality that the book has uncovered for me. Having discovered it through the book, I'm better able to find it again while sitting on the cushion without the book.

In an earlier posting, I mentioned a book by Ajahn Chah, Food for the Heart: The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah, and as I indicated there, this book has been for me one of those books . . . an empowerment, a light, an inspiration.  Not every word, surely, nor every essay in it, but certainly enough power and light scattered between its covers to justify my typing out for you the first chapter in its entirety. It's only three paragraphs, but I reread them continually, and I have found them deeply useful:

About this mind--in truth there is nothing really wrong with it.  It is intrinsically pure. Within itself it's already peaceful.  If the mind is not peaceful these days, it's because it follows moods.  The real mind doesn't have anything to it; it is simply an aspect of nature. It becomes peaceful or agitated because moods deceive it.  The untrained mind is stupid. Sense impressions come and trick it into happiness, suffering, gladness, and sorrow, but the mind's true nature is none of those things.  That gladness or sadness is not the mind, but only a mood coming to deceive us.  The untrained mind gets lost and follows these things; it forgets itself.  Then we think that it is we who are upset or at ease or whatever.

But really this mind of ours is already unmoving and peaceful--really peaceful!  Just like a leaf which remains still so long as the wind doesn't blow.  If a wind comes up, the leaf flutters.  The fluttering is due to the wind--the fluttering of the mind is due to those sense impressions; the mind follows them.  If it doesn't follow them, it doesn't flutter.  If we know fully the true nature of sense impressions, we will be unmoved.

Our practice is simply to see the "Original Mind."  We must train the mind to know those sense impressions and not get lost in them, to make it peaceful.  Just this is the aim of all this difficult practice we put ourselves through.

There is much to say about this brief passage, but I'll refrain, except for this:  I find these three paragraphs particularly useful as they provide the essential focus of every other teaching or practice that we might encounter along the way.  A tantric empowerment, a disquisition on the nature of the mind, an offering to your guru, Green Tara's mantra--none of these will be as helpful as they might have been if we don't see them as somehow drawing us closer to the undisturbed mind that Ajahn Chah is talking about here.  

One more time:  "Our practice is simply to see the 'Original Mind."  

Precisely.  

We will take all the help that we can get in our attempts to see that mind--for 'help,' read:  'practices, initiations, empowerments, mantras, prostrations, etc., whatever draws us closer to it'--but the goal remains, always and everywhere, the same:  "to see the Original Mind."

The goal then is fairly simple--to see the Original Mind; the playbook, the various ways and means and practices that we deploy to achieve that goal, well, therein lies the complexity.  

THREE BOOKS TO STRENGTHEN YOUR MEDITATION PRACTICE

As I mentioned in an earlier posting, I recently completed a four-week meditation program.  I'd undertaken it partly because I'd just returned from India and hadn't meditated regularly for the three weeks that I was traveling.  But I also did it because I like programs--exercise programs, reading programs, cooking programs . . . you choose the adjective and stick the noun "program" behind it, and if I haven't already tried it, I might well give it a try.  I guess I like the feeling of progress, of gradually approaching an end point, and then beginning again with a new map, a new plan to go a little further.

The book I used to set up the four weeks, Commit to Sit, outlined a very gradual course of seated and walking meditation.  It had originally appeared in an issue of tricycle, and I had seen it then but hadn't undertaken the program.  But now it was available in  book form, and I couldn't resist trying it.  Each week was carefully described and supporting articles were included by recognized authorities on the subject at hand.  If you know little to nothing about meditation, this is the perfect place to begin.  The articles are very brief, to-the-point, and exceptionally clear and practical.  They tell you how to meditate. Period.  Most of them were helpful because they answered the very basic questions that both novice and long-term meditators continually confront. Ultimately, of course, your meditation practice is your own, but this book is one of the best ones I've encountered for helping you discover the precise dimensions of that practice.

But I read another book first, a spiritual classic, if you will, and I'd also recommend that you start with this one.  The book is by Chogyam Trungpa, one of the first Tibetan lamas to come to America.  In 1974, he gave a series of lectures that have been collected and published as The Path is the Goal: A Basic Handbook of Buddhist Meditation.  Trungpa was in short, a phenomenon:  his English was perfect, his energy level was cosmic, and he made every effort to understand how Westerners think--a daunting task for someone of his background. He died in 1987, leaving behind thousands of students, as well as hundreds of lectures, teachings, meditation centers, books, and one very talented and charismatic son, who is well on his way to becoming an equally powerful teacher and representative of the Kagyu tradition. 

The Path is the Goal outlines the simple--but profound--philosophy behind samatha meditation.  The first sentence of the book captures nicely the essence of the teachings:  "The idea of this particular seminar is to establish a fundamental understanding of the Buddhist approach toward the practice of meditation." And so it does, point by point, question by question.  If you have any interest in seeing how one very authoritative and legendary teacher describes the fundamentals of Buddhist meditation practice, you must have a look at this little book. 

And finally a book to grow with:  Food for the Heart: The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah. If you haven't heard of Ajahn Chah, you might want to read a little about him. He comes out of the Thai tradition, and became a recognized meditation master as well as a highly effective and revered teacher.  His teachings are simple, profound, and unwaveringly practical.  I read this book over a year ago, but it is nearly falling apart now because I have gone back to it frequently.  For those of us who have found the Gelugpa tradition to be so attractive, Ajahn Chah's teachings provide a valuable counter-weight as they are immediately accessible, yet deeply illuminating at the same time.

In the following video, you will hear one of Ajahn Chah's students talk about the nature of Chah's accomplishment--he uses the word "arhat," which roughly means "someone who has destroyed all inner obstructions," and he believes that Ajahn Chah achieved this level.  You will notice two things about this tradition that differ from the Gelugpas:  first, the reliance on the sutras, or the texts that record what the Buddha actually said (you have probably noticed that in Geshe la's classes we have focused on explanations of what the Buddha said and spent little time grappling with the actual words of the Buddha--this is entirely typical of the Gelugpa tradition as it has been transplanted in America for Americans); and second, the idea of faith, which plays a large role in the Thai tradition that Ajahn Chah came from--there are times in extended periods of sitting that faith is the only resource that salvages the meditation session.  Or so I have been told . . . At any rate, Food for the Heart amounts to a beautiful gathering of wisdom, and I wouldn't want to be without it.

If you choose to have a look at any of these books, I hope that you enjoy them, and most importantly, that they enrich your practice . . . they are gems, each in their own way.

GREED, VIOLENCE, AND HOW THE ONE LEADS TO THE OTHER

The New York Times on Wednesday, July 29, 2009 ran four lead articles across its front page, above the fold.  If you scanned them from left to right you saw that the first one concerned prison abuse in Iran after the elections; the second one dealt with a lucrative money-management firm and a federal agency with billions to invest; the third article analyzed the fate of one of the youngest detainees at Guantánamo Bay prison; and the last one discussed the precipitous fall in housing prices that has left many home-owners upside down in their mortgages.

In other words, two articles about prison abuse, and two articles about financial abuse; or to say it another way, two articles about violence and two articles about greed.  And the way the articles were laid out on the page, intertwined, moving left to right, from violence to greed to violence to greed, made the larger point of just how intimately connected these human, all too human, traits have become.  Violence and greed are intimately related.

I wouldn’t have noticed this had I not recently returned from India, and as a result of a noxious cocktail of medicines, fallen sick as soon as I landed stateside and stopped taking the medicine.  After a brief stay in the hospital, I returned home and began a process of recuperation that involved rest, a change in my daily schedule, and a commitment to take better care of myself—the kinds of things you typically hear from middle-aged people like myself who, for various reasons, still believe that they are a good deal younger than they actually are. 

I changed my meditation schedule and decided to undertake a four-week program that the editors of tricycle had put together in Spring 2007.  They called it the “Commit to Sit” program, and I guess the catchy phrase was designed to sell copies of their magazine.  It must have been a popular program because they later re-published it as a book, and that was what I’d purchased.  I tweaked the program a little, based on my own strengths and weaknesses, but I was due to finish the four weeks the day after I saw the front page of the Times. 

(In a later posting, I’ll list and offer a few comments on the books that I used during this period of time.  I found some very helpful things that I believe many of you who are immersed in the Gelugpa tradition would also find helpful, as a kind of counter-balance, if you will.)

Each day before beginning the meditation session, I took the Five Precepts, promising to make my best effort to keep them until the next session.  You are, of course, wondering which five precepts I took because one of the first things Westerners learn about Buddhism is that all phenomena can be numbered and that Buddhists have made an exhaustive effort to number them—from the Four Noble Truths to the 108 delusions that account for the 108 beads on the mala, numbering is a way to get a handle on chaos, which leads to confusion, which leads to ignorance, which leads to suffering.  To number something is to know, at least, how many things you’re dealing with, and to know how many things you’re dealing with is to make a small step on the path toward knowledge.  So Buddhists number things, and the Precepts are no exception.  As I said, I took five of them, twice a day, before each meditation session.

Here are the five that I took (and take): 

1.     1. Refrain from killing or physical violence.

2.     2. Refrain from stealing.

3.     3. Refrain from sexual misconduct.

4.     4. Refrain from irresponsible speech.

5.     5. Refrain from intoxicants.

But I don’t like talking about these precepts using the negative form (don’t do this, don’t do that) because they weren’t originally conceived in that manner and because whenever I’m given a list of things I shouldn’t do, I’m reminded of the Ten Commandments, and that’s not a helpful association for me. 

To my mind, Buddhists precepts are intended to describe enlightened behavior more than prohibit unenlightened behavior, and so I revise them slightly whenever I commit to them and wind up with something like this:

1.     1. It appears that highly realized spiritual people are naturally non-violent and don’t kill living beings (Precept 1);

2.     2. Also that they are satisfied deeply with whatever they have to hand that is healthy and life-giving, and therefore don’t feel the need to steal or misappropriate or envy (Precept 2);

3.     3. That they use their physical appetites and attractions responsibly and with full consideration of their partners’ well-being (Precept 3);

4.     4. That they speak with reason, gentleness, and a sense of the real power and influence of every word they utter (Precept 4);

5.     5. And that they don’t become fixed on ideas, behaviors, emotions, foods, and drinks that distort their views of themselves or the world around them; in this sense, you can become intoxicated by just about anything (Precept 5).

When viewed in this fashion, I can commit to them wholly and without reservation.

Besides, I believe that authentic spiritual realization naturally gives rise to these characteristics anyway, and so I also believe that if I cultivate these insights within myself, these very same characteristics will show up in my own life. 

In other words, it’s better to be non-violent than to practice non-violence, although I know that in most cases the practice precedes the being, if you see what I’m driving at. 

So I’ll use these precepts as guidelines, as reminders of what the target looks like, because there are many times when I’m so angry or so thirsty or so fixated on something that I forget the target altogether.  Then the precepts are there to remind me.

The two that I want to talk about in reference to the New York Times article are the injunctions against violence and stealing.  And to talk about them I’d like to quote from the Buddha himself.  The passage comes from the Digha Nikaya  or the long discourses of the Buddha:

Thus, Ananda, in dependence upon feeling there is craving; in dependence upon craving there is pursuit; in dependence upon pursuit there is gain; in dependence upon gain there is decision-making; in dependence upon decision-making there is desire and lust; in dependence upon desire and lust there is attachment; in dependence upon attachment there is possessiveness; in dependence upon possessiveness, there is stinginess; in dependence upon stinginess, there is defensiveness; and because of defensiveness, various evil, unwholesome things originate—the taking up of clubs and weapons, conflicts, quarrels, and disputes, insults, slander, and falsehood.

It’s a helpful exercise to try and paraphrase this concise summary of the chain of causation—after all, it accounts for all that’s wrong with the world, and it does so in 93 words! 

 My paraphrase goes something like this:

We crave pleasurable feelings and desirable possessions, and so we pursue them.  To get what we want, though, we have to make decisions that derive from our desire and lust for these things, and when we do that, our attachment to these things increases because we have now committed ourselves to a plan of action for acquiring them.  Once we get them, of course, we become attached to them, but even before they arrive, our anticipation of their arrival is simply another form of attachment.  And once we are in possession of whatever it is we wanted, we don’t willingly give it up--we become possessive of it and stingy about keeping it to ourselves; and our stinginess leads us to become defensive about what we have acquired because we can’t imagine happiness without this acquisition.  It is at this point that we become prone to violence in order to keep our stuff whenever we feel our stuff is threatened, and we will resort to all manner of conflicts, quarrels, disputes, insults, slander, and falsehood to fight for it.

That’s 179 words, but I’m not the Buddha.  Here’s the point: you begin, innocently enough, with a craving for pleasurable feelings, and in pursuit of them, you end up with violence or war.

So when I saw the piece in The Times, I saw violence and greed and realized that the one exists in the service of the other.  I saw that the violence in Iran and Guantánamo are attempts to maintain an empire of power and possessions that has arisen, in turn, from the greed that fuels the lucrative money-management firms and the incessant quest for larger and larger homes that we can less and less afford. 

In other words, once we become attached to something, we’ll fight to keep it.

And that can be a problem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE DALAI LAMA INTERVIEWED

Summer 2007, the Dalai Lama visited Madison, Wisconsin and answered questions after his lecture.  A charming, very human side of His Holiness is revealed here.

ROBERT THURMAN ON THE THREE KINDS OF WISDOM

For those of you who aren't familiar with Robert Thurman's work--aside from fathering Uma--he's one of the most distinguished Tibetanists in the world.  He's retired from Columbia, but has remained a major force in the field of Tibetan studies and human spirituality in general.  I've never had the pleasure of meeting the man, but I feel as though I know him in one sense because of the books he's written--some of which are personal in nature, and most all of which are personally compelling.  Most recently, I've discovered his Podcasts, which are now on my iPod and accompany me wherever I go. 

I can't recommend them highly enough.  As our meditation and study groups (the one that meets on Sunday and the one that meets on Wednesday) have been addressing some of the traditional Tibetan philosophical texts, I thought it might be helpful to listen to Thurman on the subject of the three kinds of wisdom.  Click here, and scroll down to podcast # 58.  It's an MP3 file so you can download it and listen to it in several ways.  You can spend the next several weeks going through these podcasts, and you won't be disappointed.

The video podcasts are equally good, but they address a specific text ("The Holy Teachings of Vimalakirti"), which I have recently read and found very helpful, and which I can recommend as well.  The visual dimension of Thurman's teaching I find engaging too--watch one of the video podcasts, and I think you'll agree.

RETREAT AT WATTLE HOLLOW IN OCTOBER

Geshe Dorjee and Lama Mepham will lead a retreat at Wattle Hollow, October 24-26, 2008.  The retreat will focus on guided meditation the first day, with small-group and individual instruction, and on the Tara, long-life initiation the second day.  Lama Mepham, of the Kagyu lineage, is new to the Fayetteville area and has completed two 3-year, 3-month retreats while in Tibet.  He is a recognized master of meditation.  Geshe Dorjee holds the highest degree offered by a Buddhist monastic university and is a an authority on all aspects of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and practice.  Together, they present an authoritative source of knowledge regarding Tibetan Buddhism and meditation, and the weekend at Wattle Hollow offers a wonderful opportunity for beginners and more experienced practitioners alike.

CONGRATULATIONS TO THOSE WHO TOOK REFUGE

On Saturday, August 16, thirteen of Geshe la's students formally took the refuge vows that signal a new relationship with the Dharma:   Kate, Cheryl, Christy, Karen, Kim, Georgia, Anna, Michael, Cheryl, Jesse, Marcia, Juba, and Arden.  Our good wishes go out to them, with hopes for the future that they will all prosper on their paths and make steady progress in the journey of realization.  We have been blessed to have Geshe la, Rinzin la, and now Mepham la among us, and I believe that these blessing flowered on Saturday within each of you.  It has been a great pleasure getting to know you, and I look forward to working with you in the future. 

Before Geshe la arrived, northwest Arkansas was home to a thriving Buddhist community, and his presence here has strengthened and added diversity to that community.  Thanks to all of you who have supported these and other Buddhist communities over the years; this little corner of the state has indeed proven unusually receptive to the Dharma.

COME CELEBRATE BUDDHA'S BIRTHDAY, ENLIGHTENMENT AND PARANIRVANA

Northwest Arkansas Buddhists will celebrate Vesak 2008 with a potluck picnic beginning at 3:30 pm (dinner starts around 5:30 pm) on Sunday, May 18 at Agri Park in Fayetteville. All area Buddhists and all those interested in Buddhist theory and practice are cordially invited to attend.
Sometimes informally called “Buddha’s birthday,” Vesak celebrates the birth, enlightenment (Nirvana), and passing (Paranirvana) of the historical Buddha Sakyamuni. An official state holiday in many Buddhist countries, Vesak is also known as Vaisakha, Buddha Jayanti, and Saga Dawa. The exact date of Vesak varies according to the various lunar calendars used in different traditions. For many of those traditions, Vesak falls on May 20 in 2008.
Please bring food and drink, plates, cups, and utensils to share with those attending, as well as lawn chairs, games, etc. Local practice groups are invited to bring information about their group’s practice and activities to share with others. Those who wish may bring offerings of fruit, flowers, incense, or candles to be placed on the altar.
The event will feature a period of silent meditation, and perhaps a Dharma talk or two. At the close of the event, Ven. Geshe Thupten Dorjee will offer to those interested the Eight Precepts Vow, to be honored for the 24-hour period beginning at sunrise on Tuesday May 20. Participants who take the vow undertake to abstain from: taking life (both human and nonhuman); taking what is not given (stealing); all sexual activity; telling lies; using intoxicating drinks and drugs which lead to carelessness; eating at the wrong time (the right time is eating once, after sunrise, before noon); singing, dancing, playing music, attending entertainment performances, wearing perfume, and using cosmetics and garlands; and using luxurious places for sitting or sleeping.
Located on Garland Avenue north of the University of Arkansas and Deane Street, Agri Park features a covered pavilion; in the event of rain, the event will proceed as planned.

ANAM THUBTEN RINPOCHE TEACHES AT ST. PAUL'S

Anam Thubten Rinpoche gave an extraordinary teaching on Monday, April 21 at St. Paul's.  Thanks to all of you who turned out for Rinpoche's teaching.  He had a wonderful time and would like to return to do a weekend retreat. Thanks also to St. Paul's for hosting the event, and to Veronica Pucci for the wonderful photographs, which you can view at Dharma Eyes.  There is a possibility that we will have a visit from another Lama in late May or early June; I'll keep you posted.