What I think I know

There are some days I truly wonder if I understand anything at all about what makes things tick in our world. It has been my aspiration to make some sense of the world, but that may just be another brand of insanity. I am even still naïve enough sometimes to think the world might in some fashion be just, but really find very little evidence that this is true.

There is a radio in my head, one channel playing the You Are The Best station (on the Top Ten: "The World Revolves Around You"), the other the You Are Scum Network. (I borrow the metaphor from Anne Lamott). Sometimes one channel is louder than the other, sometimes it seems as if one or the other has permanently gone off the air, only to come back louder than ever. I woke up the day before yesterday with  the hit song "Failure, Failure, Failure, Failure, Failure" playing in my head. Not a favorite, exactly, but a Golden Oldie for sure. I can never be a good enough ______________; fill in the blank--son, brother, nurse, man, Buddhist, human being....

Here's the thing: I know better. But the feelings are very, very real.

Sometimes it seems to me that I have glimpsed THE answer, but can't articulate it. Some days it feels as if the answer is, "No", some days "Yes", some days "I don't know". There are times I am convinced it is "Acceptance" and others when it seems it might be, "Oh, no you don't, you son of a bitch!" Oddly enough, when I am what appears to me to be most in tune with the universe, the answer often looks like All Of The Above, not that all are separately true but that, antithetical as it may seem, they are all the same answer.

Part of the mythology of Buddhism is that we are all serene beings, but there are as many different kinds of us as there are people, which is to say no two are truly the same as far as I can tell. The more honest we are, the more bewildered. Shouldn't one simply be able to decide to be kind? Choose calm? I don't think I'm cut out to be the serene type. I try for kindness and get there more often than I used to, but admit that's a bit paltry, even if it is the best I can do. What events make of us such solid stuff? We are born as soft as butter and harden to obsidian and no one asked of us which shape we will take."O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt". Please, I'll have a dollop more patience and a soupçon less judgment; thank you very much. But I have never even been offered the menu. I suppose it's just as well; if anyone thought I chose this life intentionally they would only shake their heads.

But this much I know to be true: as uncomfortable as it sometimes may be, the uncertainty is more true than the certainty. Being a solid self is a fantasy; I am forever in flux and to cling to the reality of the previous moment is to miss out entirely on this one. At the core, the Buddha was trying to say little other than this. I am less certain every day who I am. Why does such a good thing feel so dangerous?

Eightfold Path: Wise Mindfulness

The Buddha once spoke a rather odd little parable (found in the Sedaka Sutta) that goes like this:

"Suppose, monks, that a large crowd of people comes thronging together, saying, 'The beauty queen! The beauty queen!' And suppose that the beauty queen is highly accomplished at singing and dancing, so that an even greater crowd comes thronging, saying, 'The beauty queen is singing! The beauty queen is dancing!' Then a man comes along, desiring life and shrinking from death, desiring pleasure and abhorring pain. They say to him, 'Now look here, mister. You must take this bowl filled to the brim with oil and carry it on your head in between the great crowd and the beauty queen. A man with a raised sword will follow right behind you, and wherever you spill even a drop of oil, right there will he cut off your head.' Now what do you think, monks: Will that man, not paying attention to the bowl of oil, let himself get distracted outside?

"I have given you this parable to convey a meaning. The meaning is this: The bowl filled to the brim with oil stands for mindfulness immersed in the body. Thus you should train yourselves: 'We will develop mindfulness immersed in the body. We will pursue it, hand it the reins and take it as a basis, give it a grounding, steady it, consolidate it, and undertake it well.' That is how you should train yourselves."

But why? Why would we take on such an arduous training? We could take the Buddha at his word and simply believe that there is some virtue in this. But the Buddha himself recommended against this path, exhorting us to find the worth of his teachings for ourselves and even to reject those in which we could find no meaning. So what worth is there is such mindfulness?

What the parable tells us is that mindfulness is nothing other than to be entirely in this moment and that the object of our attention is in fact far less important than the mindfulness itself. But why should this be? How can something as simple as full awareness of the breath, for instance, be the basis for anything other than fruitless naval-gazing? What could possible be the use of something so simple in such a complicated world?

In the Maha-satipatthana sutta, though, the Buddha says that "this is the direct path for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, for the disappearance of pain and distress, for the attainment of the right method, and for the realization of Unbinding".

A wise teacher, Ajahn Thanissaro, has described  the relationship of mindfulness to the Path in this way: Awakening is the ultimate destination, the peak of the mountain we are climbing. Mindfulness is the way we stay on the path rather than becoming distracted by all the other paths and byways we can travel, the taverns and inns we could visit along the way.

What is difficult for me is coming to grips with the idea that a practice so simple can be so powerful. Mindfulness is deceptively simple in description: it is nothing other than being fully and completely aware of whatever is within our awareness in this moment. This can be the breath, another person, a flower, a building, a bomb, a telephone—take your pick! Though it may seem odd that this can be such a powerful practice, we need only remind ourselves of the nature of suffering to see how helpful it can be. Since suffering is the seeking for things to be other than they are (and samsara, the world of suffering in which we live, is composed of only these impulses), one can easily accept that mindfulness in the present moment is the "anti-samsara" and will lead to the end of suffering, which is the ultimate "Unbinding" referred to above.

If there is any residual doubt that mindfulness of breath or mindfulness of any other object can lead to such ultimate Awareness, we need only think of these as exercises, as the development of the psychic muscles required to apply this to our everyday lives. Yet even this is only a partial truth. In the end, it doesn't really matter much how we develop our mindfulness, whether it be in contemplation of a flower or contemplation of death. The ultimate truth is contained in the fact of mindfulness rather than its object. Or, put another way, there really is no difference between mindfulness of a flower and mindfulness of death. One is not more (nor less) important than the other to contemplate. Mindfulness is a progressive conditioning and in the final analysis whether we practice on a banana to better understand God or on God to better understand a banana is irrelevant to the fruition of the path, which is to know with all our hearts that they are One and the same.

God

The next step on the path is here. Some more thoughts on mindfulness are here.

Eightfold Path: Wise Effort

It has been a couple of weeks since I have addressed any of the Eightfold Path. I think it is important to recap why I am writing about this path. As I said in the introduction to this whole thing, our tendency is to overcomplicate things; all things, really, or so it seems to me, but especially this simple path that the Buddha outlined. He taught suffering and the end of suffering and nothing else, and detailed in the Four Noble Truths that the path to the end of suffering goes through the Eightfold Path.

I have already spoken of Wise Speech, Wise Action (parts one and two) and Wise Livelihood. (By the way, sometimes these are spoken of in a different order, but I am following the order in which they are presented by Sayadaw U Pandita in his seminal book, In This Very Life).

Wise Effort, the next step on the path, is defined as the development of wholesome states and the avoidance of unwholesome states. That's not really very helpful, though, is it? We all want what is wholesome and don't want what is unwholesome, or at least we think so. It's almost as if we reach this description of Wise Effort and feel we can check this one off. Not so fast.

Someone once said that we dislike samsara but are addicted to its causes. (Samsara, for those who might not be familiar with this terminology, is all of those things that keep us from Nirvana, or complete peace). When we look for something outside our deepest selves to give us happiness, we are creating suffering and looking for lasting satisfaction where it cannot be found. We are constantly creating worlds of illusion that we believe will bring us happiness, and when those fairy kingdoms fall apart, we build another and another. This is unwise effort.

Why do we keep this up, though? It's quite simple: we still believe, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that these actions will bring us lasting happiness, or what I prefer to call joy, but they don't and can't. This is no trivial matter. All the suffering of the world has its root cause in this delusion of what is good and right. Wars are fought, drugs are taken, food is overeaten. What we must recall is that all people everywhere are seeking the end of suffering. Just because we are very, very bad at figuring out what will bring about the end of suffering does not mean we are not entirely sincere in seeking it. What strikes me as most odd, both in myself and in others, is that we cannot seem to learn from our experience. We eat the ice cream, which brings us transient happiness, but adds pounds to our bodies, stress to our hearts, and fuel to our diabetes. Yet the next time we feel the need for an emotional boost, we turn right back to the ice cream (or the wine or the tobacco or the crack or the television or the exercise or the shopping) as if we had never realized that it could not bring us what we truly desired. Much has been made of what kind of food we eat and how this appears to have made us the most obese nation ever, yet it seems to me quite likely that this has more to do with this misguided sense of what will bring us happiness.

But it's not so surprising, really. We are not inherently beings who think in the long term. We are built for survival, which is a moment to moment phenomenon. It requires the Wise Effort of continuing to question our assumptions to break down the barriers we place between us and Nirvana. Always, always, we must question if the choices we are making are truly leading to lasting happiness or as likely to melt away as an ice cream cone in the sun.

The next step on the path is here.

Nothing to say

I find I have nothing I want to say this week. Since two of the things that helped lift me out of this most recent funk was not stressing over that which I can't control and trying not to do things solely from a sense of obligation, I just won't write anything this week. Have a wonderful one!

Joyful

I am joyful today. I have been feeling a bit down the last few weeks and it feels good to feel good again. It's not that I discovered anything new; on the contrary, what I remembered is as old as the race. What is true now and how always been true is that the degree to which we give into desire--the desire to have something more or different, the desire to have things be other than they are--is the degree to which we suffer. We try to change this equation, add complications, subtract realities, multiply difficulties, divide ourselves from the truth, but the equation remains the same. Circumstances may change, but it is not circumstances that create suffering. Our resistance to those circumstances creates suffering. Period.

What I was doing was grieving over things I cannot change. It is important for me to recognize the difference between aspiring to have things be different or to make changes that can realistically be achieved and the pointless rumination on the facts of my existence. I would suggest, though, that fretting is much more common than planning. The one can masquerade as the other, but the acid test for me is whether or not anything new is being discussed inside that echo chamber of my head. If not, then it really is just fruitless rehashing of old news. To what end?

The well-know Serenity Prayer asks that we have the courage to change the things we can, to accept the things we cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference. I believe that part of acceptance is to not continue asking the question once you have an answer unless new evidence arises. I am by nature a fretter and a planner, but have had to learn that these activities are just another form of desiring, specifically the belief that I will be safe if I can think really hard about the things that make me feel unsafe.l Somehow (so the theory goes) they will magically not happen if I think about them hard enough. This. Is. Not. True. I will still age. I will be ill. I will still die. Those I love will age, grow ill and die. Less dramatically, there are many more mundane things about my life I would have be other than they are. There are many things about myself I would have be other than they are. Some I can work to change. Some are more resistant to intervention. Some cannot be changed at all.

Everything begins with acceptance, though. When I can accept my life as it is in this moment, in that moment I am living in joy.

Eightfold Path: Wise Livelihood

How we make a living has many effects that ripple out to the larger community as well as inward to our deepest hearts. As with the other steps on this path there are levels to this step that become more subtle the deeper we go into thinking about it.

At the most basic level, it is recommended that we avoid any form of making a living which causes direct harm without any extenuation. Thus, being a contract killer or torturer are undoubtedly unskillful occupations. But it doesn't require much in the way of digging deeper to realize that if one is a thief or cheats people for a living and then an attempt is made to sit down to meditate or practice lovingkindness it would be very difficult to do so, no matter how one tried to justify those unskillful actions. Of course, we can split hairs and find a moral justification for many things. The great novel Les Miserables is predicated on the notion that some forms of theft (in that case, a loaf of bread for Jean Valjean's starving family) are permissible; in fact that illegal act is more skillful than not taking that action would be. But those situations are very rare and most of us do not have to face them in our lifetimes, nor do we have to practice them as our primary profession. So it is safe to say that for the vast majority of us in the vast majority of situations things like stealing and cheating for a living would be unwise.

The manufacture or sale of illicit drugs would generally be considered unskillful. There is some argument to made for the idea that adults making conscious decisions about what they put into their own bodies ought not be the purview of government or morality, but most if not all illicit substances cloud the mind, create confusion, lead to addiction, promote crime and violence and lead to other forms of illegal and unskillful behavior. So, even from the point of view of wise livelihood, since anything that leads another person away from the path of light is by its very nature unskillful, these actions cannot be otherwise than unwise.

But when we go down further, into layers of ambiguity, where the light of what is wise does not shine as clearly, we must trust our hearts to tell us if what we are doing is right. Is it wise livelihood to use legal loopholes to help free someone we know to be a violent criminal? On the other hand, doesn't that person deserve the most rigorous defense that can be afforded to him or her? Is it ethical to provide good medical care to one group of people when we are aware that most others cannot afford it? Would it be ethical not to? When are the practices of financial speculation playing the game by the rules as established and when do they become manipulative or deceptive? Is serving a drink to someone we know to be dying from the effects of alcohol a skillful act?

In my own profession of nursing, though I have chosen to work with needy populations I often find myself wondering if the care we give and the way we give it are not less than entirely right. Do we empower people to make their own choices? Do we enable some people to make unwise choices and not suffer any consequences? Is it wise to give medication to those we know will not take it properly, thereby creating the potential for serious consequences? Would it do more harm to withhold the medication? Do our judgments of their harmful behaviors (drug use or sexual activity, for instance) prejudice us toward them in subtle ways we do not understand? Does our acquiescence in bureaucratic meddling lead to poor outcomes? Not that I am trying to say our work is not wise livelihood, but how could we make it more so?

I have pondered this idea of wise livelihood and the only profession I can think of that has no taint of moral ambiguity is that of being a firefighter. I mean, what could be ambiguous about putting out fires? Not that I am implying that all firefighters are entirely moral or skillful, but it seems to me that the profession itself is without question inherently moral, though I am sure that some of those who read this may come up with examples of how that is not the case. My point is, though, that the rest of us are faced with questioning what we do for a living through the lens of wise livelihood, with the aim of making it the best and most skillful work we can.

Wise livelihood must not only ensure that we are as spiritually attuned in our work as possible, but that others are not led to place others in a position of carrying out an unwise livelihood. It may be that it is perfectly moral for us to accept a ridiculously low price on something we purchase, even if we have no idea where it came from, but if we suspect that the item was stolen or there was trickery in how it was obtained, then we may be encouraging a livelihood that is unskillful.

It can also be significant to ask the question: is what I do to make money truly a reflection of who I am? Or is it just...well...what I do to make money? And is there anything wrong with that? I have recently had to face the fact that, while I consider my work good work, I really am doing it primarily for money, benefits, and pension. The fact that it is good work makes it less painful to go there, but if I didn't need these things, I would be doing something else. The typical response to such an admission is the advice to go do that other thing. But I have yet to find anyone who will give me a decent salary and benefit package for writing this blog or reading books and commenting on them. Perhaps it is wise livelihood to know that in order to do the things I love most I must work hard at something I love less well.

I would be remiss if I did not mention in the context of Wise Livelihood the wonderful book Work As A Spiritual Practice by Lewis Richmond. This is probably not the right time or place to go into a detailed description of this work, but it is well worth a read for anyone who is trying to incorporate spiritual principles in to day-to-day work life.

The next step on the path is here.

Shaking up the snowglobe

There is a metaphor I use for the inside of my head. I compare it to a snowglobe. My (delusional, illusionist) goal is to always have the snow sitting passively on the bottom of the globe, placidly coating the little bench, the plastic tree, the picturesque streetscape. But the mind is not prone to passivity and the snowglobe will be shaken from time to time, sometimes more violently than others.

Lately I have been in a bit of a swirl and the snow has been a-flying. I am a creature of habit (always a losing proposition in a world that doesn't much care what my tendencies are) and I have deviated from my habits the past few weeks. Mostly, though, it is this damn book, Trauma Stewardship, which I have mentioned here before but still have not quite finished, that is shaking up the snow in my globey little head. I call it "this damn book" with only the greatest affection, of course. In the grand scheme, in my larger mind, when my ego is put aside, I want my snow to be agitated. But it can be pretty disconcerting.

What Trauma Stewardship has done is cause me to challenge, oh, pretty much everything I value and the way I spend my energy and time. A very valuable service, the sort of deep cleaning. You would pay a pretty penny to have done to your house, but it feels a bit like (to quote Mel Ash) shaving the inside of my skull. I don't mind, really I don't, but it's a little uncomfortable.

As always, I refer back to the Buddha, who tells me that this is, in fact, what life is all about, this discomfort, this comfort with uncertainty, this insubstantiality. He would tell me, no doubt, that my feelings of security and certainty were mere phantasms with no basis in what is really going on. Just look, he would say: where do you find something that stays the same from day to day? If you find something, be assured that this solidity is a delusion, for every building, every mountain, every person, every day, every thought, every feeling, every relationship, every belief, every creed, every teaching is constantly in the process of decay and reformation. It is, he would remind me (again, again) that the nature of suffering is not this transience but my intransigence toward it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks a bunch, Bud. I am feeling bad (confused, tired, uncertain, insecure) right now. Spare me your platitudes. To which he would, no doubt, just chuckle wisely. Bastard.

But I know he is right. What I am experiencing, for umpteen-millionth time, is change. Just change. Merely change. The usual change. I admit it, though, I am 55 and kinda tired and would just as soon just sit still, thank you very much, with the snow in my globe all on the ground and not stirred up. Of course, of course, the Buddha would no doubt say, that is also an option. Watch a bunch of TV ("reality" shows are good for this). Read stupid books. Dumb down, numb out, plumb no depths. But beware! No real happiness, no lasting joy can be found in this way. Only by embracing the reality of constant change, of being open to the flow of the void, by not only accepting the shaking of my snowglobe but actively seeking it and letting it fall where it may, only then can I find anything like real joy. Sigh.

It's not that I'm not willing; I am, really I am. I just get tired sometimes. I feel as if I have climbed this mountain before and always found that it has no peak, no point at which I can say, "I have arrived at the top of the world. I am now certain of being on the right path." So be it. I will carry on. Truly, I have joy in my heart for the journey. I am not sad or depressed or discouraged. But it is scary, isn't it, to open your heart to being constantly challenged? Bring it on. I'm ready.