Mindfulness-Based Everything: The Dharma of Daily Living

    A couple of months ago, a meditation and dharma student with whom I have been working privately for a number of years remarked during one of our meetings, "I just want to be free!" I gave the standard dharma teacher reply. "Who is keeping you in bondage?" It's a glib answer to a deep longing, and I knew it. So I followed up with another one. "What if you are already  free, but it's just not how you imagined 'free' would be?"  This question is useful in all aspects of our lives. What if this moment is perfect as it is, and it's just not the way we imagined "perfect" would be? What if this relationship is perfect, and just not how we imagined a relationship should be? What if this experience in the body is perfect, but it's just not how I thought my body experience would be? After all, this moment can only be the way it is right now . So since it can only be this way, isn't that the way this moment is supposed  to be...

  Sunday, August 15, 2010 The Miracle of Sympathetic Joy Sympathetic Joy,  mudita  in Pali, the language of the Buddha, is one of the natural abodes that are cultivated through the practice of meditation. Generally speaking, it refers to the joy we feel at the good fortune and joy of others. Some years back [1997?] I came into possession of a sitar through a set of circuitous circumstances. I had never considered learning to play one of these instruments, even though I had been playing guitar since I was nine. The sitar, however, is much more complicated. For example, in addition the seven "playable" strings, it also has sixteen "sympathetic" strings, each tuned to match one of the strumming strings and closely aligned below them. These strings are not plucked, but merely vibrate sympathetically when the main strings are played. This is one of the familiar sounds of the sitar: the resonating tonal buzz after the striking of a main string...

 From the archives of the Dharma Talk Blog. Monday, March 29, 2010 In Praise of Silence This past weekend, I attended a memorial service for a friend in an Episcopal church. I have not been a regular attendee to these kinds of institutions for a long time, now only setting foot in them for weddings, funerals, or, as in the case of Chartres Cathedral, to sightsee. Perhaps my being such an infrequent visitor is what brought my attention to something that seemed very obvious to me, but may not have been to those more accustomed to these places: the inability for many people to tolerate silence.  Now, I do not intend any disrespect to the Episcopal Church, nor to any other. However, it seemed to me that, in the context of a time of remembering a person who has passed away, silence is one of the most powerful tools at our disposal. The minister, no doubt a well-meaning, experienced, and learned man, asked if anyone had anything they would like to share about the deceased. After onl...

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 ...

 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...

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 ...