Incomplete: Completed

Something I quoted in last week's post (from the Third Zen Patriarch) has stuck with me and grown ever more significant:

The Great Way is not hard
For those who have no preferences.

No preferences? How could that possibly work? But I have an inkling, a nagging feeling, that this is one of the most important statements I have ever heard. I have been there, have at times had no preferences. This happens almost exclusively at meditation retreats and is most noticeable when doing mundane chores we call "yogi tasks".

Let me explain breifly about yogi tasks. No retreat center is set up to provide for every need of those who come there to meditate (we call ourselves yogis). Rather, part of the practice is to take on a chore to keep the place running. Some yogis clean bathrooms, others chop vegetables or wash dishes (I have done all these). When I am truly invested in the retreat, everything I do is enveloped in what has been called "choiceless awareness". Whether sitting on a cushion watching my breath or using an old toothbrush to scrub grout in a shower stall, I am equally at peace. I have no preference.

But real life is, alas, not a meditation retreat.

I am having a great deal of trouble at work. I am in conflict with someone and it seems to be getting worse. I don't want to get into all of the details or who is right or wrong (for one thing, how should I know?). What interests me here is meditating on how I can apply the Patriarch's prescription to this situation. How can I have no preferences here? I wish this person thought well of me. I wish our personalities did not clash. I wish I could come to work and be at peace. I wish I didn't feel as if my every action was under scrutiny. These are my preferences. And this much is certainly true: my preferences are causing suffering for me. If I could not prefer these things, I would not suffer from their lack.

But how is this "no preferences" dissimilar to indifference? No matter how far down the road to freedom I travel, I always run up against this question. How can I not prefer harmony to disharmony or pleasure to pain? The Buddha listed eight paired states (usually called vicissitudes) that can cause us disquiet:

Pleasure and Pain

Gain and Loss

Praise and Blame

Fame and Disrepute

his point being that preferring either of the pair will cause us to suffer.

But how can I have no preference when it comes to my own emotional pain? For example, how do I feel in this situation at work? Well, let's see...hurt, offended, angry, misunderstood, disrespected, threatened, afraid. All this week I have been using this situation as a meditation on the question of preference. Would it be possible for me to have no preference here? This is not an invitation to suppress these feelings; if I were able to have no preference, I wouldn't feel them to begin with.

Now, I am not asking whether or not this is possible—it clearly is. This lack of preference is, as the Patriarch said, The Great Way. I believe with all my heart that the Buddha had reached this plateau of choiceless awareness and that many people before and since have also achieved this state. So, a person can do this; the question is, can I? And how does one achieve this without becoming indifferent?

There is a classic Zen story of an abbot who heard a knock at his door and upon opening it was confronted with two angry grandparents. "You are a terrible man!" they said, holding an infant out to him. "Our daughter tells us it was you who fathered this child. We had so much respect for you and now that is all gone. Well, you take this child, he is yours!" And the abbot replied, "Ah, is that so?" and took the child.

A few weeks later the couple came to his door abashed and ashamed, saying, "Oh, great abbot, please accept our most abject apologies. The father of this child is a village boy. Our daughter was afraid to tell us so and blamed it on the first man she thought of. He is not your child, and we have come to take him home." To which the abbot replied, "Ah, is that so?" and gave them the child.

I have thought about this story a lot over the past few weeks. The central question facing the abbot, it seems to me is, who will be best served by whatever action he chooses to take? If he denies the accusation of paternity, will the child benefit? The young woman? Her parents? Clearly, none of them would. He cannot lie and admit to fathering the child, but he can minimize the harm he might do by simply accepting the fact of what they have to say and taking the child into his house and into his heart.

There is a limit to this tolerance, however. If his ability to carry out his duties or to remain a Zen priest were threatened by this accusation, he might have to consider differently. Not because this would be bad for him, but because it was his role to serve not just his monastery but the entire community. Under these circumstances, he might have to make clear that, although he was willing to accept the child into his care, he denied fathering him. But the most vital point here is that this choice would not be made on the basis of selfishness or self-interest, that in this regard he had reached the place where he truly had no preference.

We can also see from this story that having no preferences is clearly not indifference. The abbot could not be indifferent to the needs of others—the child, the grandparents, the mother, the monks at his abbey, the people of his community. He was able to be blind to his own preferences and in that way was far from indifferent, was, in fact, quite the opposite of indifferent—compassionate.

This is a question without easy answers. There are also many stories of those who purport to have achieved this freedom who, when tested, demonstrate that they have merely made themselves indifferent and, when pushed far enough, the true selfishness of their motives came to the fore. I don't pretend to have come close to having no preferences, but I see the outlines of freedom in the far distance. I intend to walk in that direction.

Retreat

I have been back from retreat for a few days. It always feels like a profound realization to do this and nearly impossible to say why. What do we do on retreat? We sit, we walk, we work, we eat, we sleep, we listen to instruction from a teacher, all while being as thoroughly conscious of what we are doing as we possibly can. So what?

Sitting meditation

It is immeasurably valuable to recognize the distinction between the small mind (mind, ego) and the larger mind (consciousness, awareness). The small mind plans and executes, is essential for day-to-day tasks. But the small mind has certain inherent limitations. It has little judgement and no wisdom. It has an unshakable belief in the proposition that getting things done is the essence of what it is to be a successful human being. In fact, it believes that the road to happiness, the only road to happiness, is in the doing of things, the achieving of goals, the reaching for and getting more, always more.

Now, one can see how practically necessary this small mind is. I could not write this blog, rent a car, brush my teeth, or lock the door without it. One of my former teachers tells of when he was a young monk and came back from Burma to the U.S. He was sitting in an airport, feeling all holy and above it all in his saffron robes. He went into a bathroom, used it, came back out and realized he had been in the women's restroom. It is wonderful to be immersed in consciousness, but the small mind is necessary to keep us from wandering away.

Eating meditation

 The larger consciousness contains and envelopes the small mind. It is expansive, vast, infinite. The space of the larger mind can absorb all the world has to offer without feeling cramped or crowded. It is ultimately accepting and benign. It is not spaciness or lack of awareness (despite the story above) but an acute realization of the underlying nature of things.

Here's the problem, though, and the crux of why retreat is so essential: the small mind believes it is in charge and that consciousness is superfluous, a luxury to be indulged after the to-do list is completed. This feeds into the Judeo-Christian sensibility in which many of us were raised ("finish your chores and you can have some dessert"). I would wager that nearly all persons in the West, and an overwhelming majority elsewhere, live with the belief that the small mind is all there is. Oh, we might touch something deeper from time to time: looking into the eyes of a newborn, standing by the sea, on top of a mountain, in true intimacy with another being, but there is an underlying assumption that this is extra and extraneous, not what life is really about.

Here's a question though: if happiness is just around the corner, why do we keep turning corners to find that it is just around the corner? This is dream logic, chasing the uncatchable unicorn but never giving up on the idea that it can be caught. Isn't it time we woke up?

Walking meditation

This is what retreat can demonstrate to us. When we can put down the lists and books and vapid speaking and smart phones and computers for a while we can clearly see that what creates all of the suffering in our lives is the fact that the small self is constantly yearning for the next thing to make it happy or fulfilled. It has an opinion on everything and everyone, is full of judgement and anger. It is constantly moving on to the next desire, even while still doing something else.

Remember that the Buddha said, "I have come to teach suffering and the end of suffering". He did not say, "I have come to teach suffering, the end of suffering, and how to be comfortable and charming and well-liked and successful". Here's the real truth: we will never, never, never, never make the small mind happy. It believes that after that ice cream cone it will finally be happy forever and has convinced us of this over and over, but it never is. Which is not to say there is anything wrong with ice cream, but it isn't really the answer to anything. Life is not about doing things, achieving things, or getting things. It is about opening your heart.

One of the qualities inherent to the small mind is extreme shortsightedness. Oh, yes, it plans for the future, but only with that extremely limited point of view which thinks that these plans will finally buy it the happiness it craves. Putting it in charge of our overall happiness is like putting a small child in charge of a nuclear power facility. The small mind does not have the perspective, experience, knowledge, or judgment to take on such a task. Eventually, inevitably, the meltdown will come.

A few things retreat is not: relaxing (it's hard work doing nothing), a time to figure things out (that's the small mind churning), social (noble silence includes avoiding eye contact as well as not speaking, writing, or reading—with some exceptions). It is fairly common for those who have never been on retreat to ask, "Don't you get bored?" Here is the truth of it, an insight that came to me on this retreat: only the small mind becomes bored. In fact, part of what we are doing with the repetitive tasks in a retreat—watching our breath, noting our steps while walking, being fully aware of what we are doing while eating—is giving the small mind a task that fully absorbs it so the larger mind has a change to emerge. In any case, though, the answer is, no, retreat is not boring. It is the most fascinating investigation one can do into what makes up this humanness with which we have been gifted.

Going on retreat

Kathy and I are leaving today for a five day meditation retreat. I will not be posting to the blog (except for this) until next weekend.

One thing that I think it will be interesting to comment on once I return is the fact of my anxiety and resistance I am feeling now in anticipating the retreat. It seems to me that the small mind (or ego, or whatever we are calling it these days) is resisting the loss of control that is implied by the retreat experience. Its comfort zone is that delusion of control my daily experience seems to reinforce.

Stay tuned....

A change

My friend Lindsay just had her baby and seeing his picture entirely changed the direction my thoughts and feelings had been going. Isn't it fascinating how that happens?
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One of the great things about retreat is how it clarifies priorities. I have rarely asked in meditation for the answer to a particular question; I don't think that's what it's for. Nonetheless, I often receive them unbidden.
In just that way it became clear to me that I need to slow down on the blogging a bit. Not that I regret for a moment those first 90 days or so of intensity. That time allowed me to get a great many of my thoughts out there that had been knocking around in my head for quite a while. But I have decided that I need to change to weekly rather than daily posting. A few notes on the change:

• I would like to take more time to compose my posts. Though the writing exercise of a commitment to put something up every day is exhilarating and constructive, I want to be a bit more meticulous in how I write them. I would also like to have the time to do further study on the topics I address. As I hope I have made clear, my ideas have always been based in dharma study, but there is much, much more study left to be done. I have already covered the simplest concepts of the dharma and in order to avoid being misleading, I must do due diligence before I write further. 

• I will post weekly, at least, probably on the weekend. I will post more often as topics arise I feel compelled to share. I will finish Jacob's Children, but will not use my weekly posts to do it. I am enjoying the writing of it and also think it's a vital part of the blog, especially considering where it's going (which, of course, I know and you don't). Still, I am choosing to complete it during the week rather than as part of the main weekly post.

• I am getting the impression that several of you are having a hard time keeping up with a daily blog. It is a lot of words to read, I know. In fact, another of my motivations is to catch up on other blogs I am reading (sorry, Mr. Greenwald, I will need to skim a bit!) Hopefully, you can catch up with me, if that is your desire.

• Finally, it really is a bit time-consuming and I would like to have more time for other things, like being with my lovely wife. Yeah, I think I'll do that. Oh, and maybe I can spend some time with Lindsay's baby. That would be nice.

(No, that's not him. I just felt like putting up a cute baby picture. Hers is even cuter, though).

Retreat

What is retreat? In the most literal sense, it is what the word implies, a wholesale if temporary retreat from the distractions of the world. The goal is to have no goals, really, to drop all expectations and aspirations and practice being wholly in each moment.

Retreat usually consists of several different kinds of meditative activities: sitting meditation, walking meditation, eating meditation, and so on. Every thing we do during a retreat has the capacity to be treated meditatively. Of course, everything we do every day of our lives has this capacity as well, which is what retreat asks us to recall.

Retreat is also hearing the dharma from a teacher. He or she prepares a discourse on the dharma and gives this gift to the assembled retreatants. This is not usually dry or technical, but is taught is such a way that we can incorporate the teachings of the Buddha into our daily lives. Remember that the Buddha wanted nothing so much as to make what he said accessible to all and good dharma teachers in our time work toward this goal, too. If you want a taste of what a dharma talk might be like, go to Dharma Seed and try some out. I would suggest you begin with Heather Martin, Christina Feldman, or Tara Brach. These teachers are very accessible and friendly.

Retreat is most often silent. In this context it is called "noble silence" and does not imply only the silence of no spoken words. It also includes no eye contact with others, no reading, no writing, no cell phones, no music, no chatter of any kind. What this does is remove all distractions from your intimate contact with your heart, the mind, your consciousness. There are many who say, "Oh, I could never do that!" The question that arises, then, is: what is so very frightening about coming face-to-face with your truest self for an entire day or week or month? That question alone may be worth doing a retreat to investigate.

Retreat is entirely voluntary; no one will kick you out if you don't follow the guidelines set out. As you might expect, any action that causes harm or interferes with anyone else's ability to engage fully in the retreat is not acceptable, but beyond that no one will monitor your compliance with the structure of the retreat (unless you do a Zen retreat; they tend to be a little stricter). However, the more you give yourself over to the discipline of the retreat, the more you will gain. I can speak from personal experience; I have done retreats my way and have also totally immersed myself in the experience, even when I didn't particularly want to. The latter approach benefited me far, far more than the former.

Retreat is total and complete acceptance of ourselves as we are.

Retreat is an opportunity to see how clinging causes us to suffer by consciously removing many of the sources of that clinging temporarily.

Retreat challenges the concepts of the necessity and utility of control.

Retreat is more a way of being than a series of activities.

Retreat is coming to rest. My question would be, when do we come to rest? When in this hectic world do we totally come to rest? Certainly not in our sleep, which is rife with the stresses and tensions of our day-to-day lives. Not on vacations, at least not usually, for they are quite often heavily planned and filled with anxiety and stress. I'm not at all sure most of us ever come to rest. Retreat is an opportunity to do so.

Retreat is releasing our wills.

Retreat is total and complete acceptance of ourselves as we are.

Retreat is a temporary relinquishment of all that is habitual and a recognition of how thoroughly the habitual rules our lives.

Retreat is a stepping out of the world of assumption and into a world of impermanence and ambiguity. Retreat makes us acutely aware of how often we live in judgment.

Retreat is the generosity of creating a space in which others may also be in retreat. Retreat is also an act of generosity to ourselves.

Retreat is meditating as a group, which is far easier, believe it or not, than doing it alone. There is something is the atmosphere of being in meditation with others that is nurturing and guides us more naturally into the meditative state.

Retreat can be intensely uncomfortable, but only in the best way. It takes us out of our comfort zones of constant chatter and activity and connectedness and brings us in contact with our selves. Retreat makes clear just how uncomfortable most of our comfort zones really are, filled with expectation, anxiety and disappointment.

Retreat can be non-residential (you go home in the evening) or residential (you stay 24/7 at a retreat center). Most non-residentials are just over the two weekend days (that's what I did this last weekend). Residential retreats vary from two days to one year in length. The longest I have ever done is 10 days (twice). I have a friend on a 3 month retreat right now; I find that idea both exhilirating and intimidating.

Retreat is available to anyone and nearly anywhere. If you search online in your community, if its a large one, you will find centers and other people who are doing this work and would love to have you join them. Don't worry; retreat is a wonderful, gentle practice. You have nothing to fear but your self.