Posts

The Great Awakened Elephant

Image
Many years ago, I heard a rendition of what is called a "spontaneous vajra song." In the Tibetan Buddhist traditioni, vagja songs are improvisational teaching poems that expresses a realization occurring in that moment by the yogi who is reciting it. The first vajra song I heard was from the Venerable Lama Gendun Rinpoche :  Happiness can not be found through great effort and willpower, but is already present, in open relaxation and letting go. Don't strain yourself, there is nothing to do or undo. Whatever momentarily arises in the body-mind has no real importance at all, has little reality whatsoever. Why identify with, and become attached to it, passing judgment upon it and ourselves? Far better to simply let the entire game happen on its own, springing up and falling back like waves without changing or manipulating anything and notice how everything vanishes and reappears, magically, again and again, time without end. Only our searching for happiness prevents us from ...

Fun With Koans

Image
 A koan is a teaching device often used in certain traditions of Buddhism, particularly the Chan  and Zen  lineages. In some ways they are considered "dharma riddles," and like most riddles, working with them can be either fun or frustrating. Sometimes they take the form of a question ("What is the sound of one hand clapping?"), or they can be embedded in a teaching story. Here's one... "The leader of a monastery encounters two novice monks arguing about the movement of the flag atop the temple. One monk says the flag is moving, and the other insists that the wind is moving. The leader tells them, 'It is your mind  that is moving."  See what I mean about frustrating? And yet, did you notice that your mind stopped just for a second, as though all the gears and wheels froze up? That's one of the results of hearing a koan, perhaps because of the paradoxical nature of these questions or stories; the human mind may not be able to hold the polaritie...

The Unknown and The Wisdom of Uncertainty

Have you ever stopped to consider that everything you now know you once did not know? Everything. How to tie your shoes. How to walk. How to speak. Read. Write. Use a computer. All of this, and everything else was once relegated to the realm of The Unknown.  If you ask folks what they fear most, near the top of the list is The Unknown.  When I was getting ready to begin Kindergarten I was fearful of The Unknown of school. What would be expected of me? What if I didn't know something? Was I supposed to know how to read and write? I literally made myself sick worrying about The Unknown of school.  I was afraid of The Unknown that lurked in the darkness -- ghosts, witches, boogeymen, ferocious animals. I feared The Unknown of practically any new situation in which I found myself, and this caused me no end of anxiousness and nearly psychotic thoughts that I would someday be abandoned by my parents -- literally left by the side of the road -- to fend for myself in The Unknown ...

Opening the Tightly Closed Fist

Image
This blog will have a lot to say about what I term “the tightly clinging fist” to describe the primary mechanism that leads to suffering ( dukkha ). Our human tendency to cling to wanting things to be different than the way they are will be an underlying theme through many of the posts, so I want to present an introduction to this concept here. In the teachings of the Buddhadharma, and in particular, the Four Noble Truths, there is a lot of airtime given to the releasing of attachment and opening the tight fist of grasping. The Buddha knew, somehow, that this tendency to hold tightly to things is an inherent part of being human. In fact, it’s called the "grasp reflex," and  we are born with it . I teach that the entire Buddhadharma can be summed up in one movement of the hand: opening the tight clinging fist. Therefore, this will be one of the most important ideas throughout this blog, and the throughout the book that will be built from it. If you move an object, such as ...

Reflections on Dharma (2009) - From the Dharma Talk Blog Archives

(Originally Posted Thursday, November 5, 2009) The word "Dharma" has many meanings. For purposes of this blog, the Dharma I refer to usually indicates some relationship to the teachings of the Buddha ( Buddhadharma ). I also believe there is another dimension of Dharma that is much more difficult to translate into words because language can be clumsy. As Gustave Flaubert wrote in  Madame Bovary   (1928/1993), "Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that would melt the stars" (p. 180). This does not mean, however, that we should abandon attempts to render the subtler aspects of the Dharma into modern English. Here is one of my attempts from a journal entry on January 1, 2003: The Dharma is a unifying force, through which, and by which, everything is held together in perfect order and harmony. Dharma is always full and complete at all levels of existence, from   atomic to cosmic. There is ...

The Gift of Loss

Losing threatens our sense of self. It echoes the baked-in fear that all humans share of annihilation. The fear of losing our identity is clearly on display in the words we use when we win. In sports we “wipe out” a rival team. In business we “blow away” the competition. In war the enemy is “obliterated.” We believe that only total victory will protect our precious and precarious self from being destroyed. UCLA football coach “Red” Sanders came up with the saying, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.” If you spend just a few moments looking at this statement it is obvious that it is incorrect. We cannot “only” win. If winning is placed at the top of the pyramid as the essential ingredient for happiness, then our quotient of happiness will be determined by outside conditions. In order to really be happy, we must learn how to lose, and by doing so, we have the opportunity to discover true equanimity and have less suffering. Equanimity was defined by one of my teachers as...

Boredom (2009) - From the Dharma Talk Blog Archives

(Originally Posted Friday, November 6, 2009) For the past six weeks, I have been facilitating two groups in a process called Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, or MBCT, which is the adaptation of vipassana meditation to help prevent or minimize depressive relapse. In the first weeks of introducing the MBCT process to these groups, there inevitably arise comments that indicate a certain level of boredom with the various practices, such as the body scan or the sitting meditations. I am alsays a bit perplexed by these reports of boredom. I cannot think of having experienced it very much as an adult, although I'm sure I must have had periods of boredom as a child. For people with a history of depression, however, boredom can be an ugly demon that can suck them into a deep, downward spiral. When the British actor, George Sanders, committed suicide in 1972, the note he left read, in part, "Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored." This from a man who allegedly had seven p...