No self? No soul?

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Today is the fourth and final talk in the series on the Basics of Buddhism.  We have been following the book Naked Buddha, a Practical Guide to the Buddha’s Life and Teachings, by Adrienne Howley.   Today, we tackle the tough stuff.  

A key teaching by the Buddha was on the three marks of existence :  impermanence (anicca), suffering (dukkha) and no self (anatta).  Having dealt with the first two, we come to the last, no self.

I admit that I myself still struggle with this last one. 

Adrienne notes that there are probably more misunderstandings about the Buddha’s teachings on no self and no soul than anything else that he taught.  He did NOT teach that we are trying to get rid of our self, but that in fact there is no self to get rid of.  He taught that we are just an aggregate of elements that are ever-changing.  

There’s was an article in the KC Star this week about a little boy in Minnesota who has been identified as a reincarnated Lama.  In it, they quote some guy that was a religion professor in Minnesota who stated unequivocally that “all Buddhists believe in reincarnation”.  All?  There is evidence, in fact, that is NOT what the Buddha taught.  If asked, he was agnostic about this idea.  Remember, the Buddha focused on what can be experienced and what can be proven.  He believed strongly that it was a waste of time to speculate.  Speculating did nothing to relieve suffering, and the Buddha was focused on relieving suffering.   So, for our discussion today, the Buddha would say we are wasting our time, but let’s do it anyway.  Don’t we all ponder this question from time to time?  How would you answer these questions:  What happens after we die?  Do we have a soul?  What is a soul anyway?   

The Buddha taught that there is no solid separate unchanging self, and he put the question this way:

“Since there is no inherently permanent self, only a constant changing physical, emotional or mental state, what is reborn?”

While I was I India, I came upon a book entitled The Buddha and His Dhamma, by an well-respected Indian statesman named Dr. B. R. Ambedkar who converted to Buddhism.  In it, Dr. Ambedkar carefully describes the Buddha’s original teaching on anatta from the Pali Canon (the first writings of the Buddha’s teaching).

“Mind is different from the soul.  Soul is often defined as the essence of a being, or used interchangeably with the word spirit.  The soul is based on speculation. The Buddha was agnostic on this subject  The soul by its very definition is unknown and unseen.

The Buddha believed that believing in a soul created superstition, and he taught only what he could prove and experience.  Soul as described in most writings is vague and unprovable.  The Buddha stated that discussion of the existence of the soul was as unprofitable as the discussion of the existence of God.  He was agnostic on God as well.”

Part of the Buddha’s reticence in participating in these discussions was that, at the time, the evolving Brahmin caste used the idea of God and Soul to exlpain why some people were superior to others.  The Brahmins had power over everyone because only Brahmins could talk directly to God.  How did they know that?  Because they wrote it the Vedas, which is like the Bible in Hindusim.  They wrote the book that said they were superior.  They rationalized that people born into poor conditions were the result of bad karma from a prior life (carried forward in their soul), and that the poor were to be of service to the Brahmins, so that they could create good karma and might get reborn in a higher caste next time.  The Buddha, on the other hand, rebelled against this notion.  He was about equality and relieving the suffering of all beings--much like the message of Jesus--not just the ones we like, not just the ones that “deserve” it, but relieving the suffering of ALL beings. 

In Catholicism, we have seen some of the same things happen, when it is thought that only the priest had a direct line to God, and we are supposed to be good so that our souls would go to heaven.   Maybe this is true—who knows for sure? However, we now know from experience that these beliefs often lead to fear and can give too much power to those in charge.  In contrast, the Buddha focused on each person’s innate wisdom and goodness, our ability to think for ourselves and to make choices because we want to relieve suffering, NOT because we fear hell or other punishment.

The Buddha was agnostic about the existence of a soul and even about the existence of God, because he didn’t see that it relieved suffering in any way.  Instead, he saw the human being as a collection of certain physical elements and mental elements.    Wherever a certain combination of these elements is found, also is found consciousness.  Does consciousness cease to exist after our body dies?  We don’t know.

Some think of consciousness as awareness of being aware, of putting oneself in a moment in time, aware of the past and the possibility of a future.   No other living creature does that, as far as we know.  Awareness of past experience and ability to see possibilities in the future enable us to have imagination.  We can imagine the possibilities beyond what we can see and experience.  We can imagine a soul, and we can imagine God.  Who knows for sure? 

This whole idea of no self/no soul, strays into the question of what happens when we die.  Is it Rebirth? Reincarnation? Transmigration? 

·        Rebirth: Energy remains constant but transforms into another form.  The various elements of our body turn into ash, which turns into soil, which turns into food, trees, etc.

·        Reincarnation:  In certain Buddhist traditions, it is defined as our spirit of either the mind, the speech or the body, that returns in other being.  (In Tibetan Buddhism, these three do not always reincarnate in just one being)

·        Transmigration: The Hindu belief that the soul transfers after death to another being.

Who knows?  I am encouraged by the Dalai Lama’s statement, that if something he believes is scientifically proven to be wrong, he will stop believing it!

So how can it be proven?

In 2004, ABC News did a story about a young boy named James Leininger who, around his second birthday, began having terrifying nightmares that went on night after night.  James began screaming out recurring phrases like, "Plane on fire! Little man can't get out!" His parents were alarmed, concerned and perplexed.

In one video they did of James at age 3, he goes over a toy plane as if he's doing a preflight check. Another time, his mother bought him another toy plane (his favorite toy), and pointed out what appeared to be a bomb on its underside. She said that James corrected her and told her it was a drop tank. "I'd never heard of a drop tank," she said. "I didn't know what a drop tank was."

Over the next four years, he told more details of the plane and the plane crash that no little boy could know.  He gave many details, like he talked of his sister named Ann, yet he had no sister.  James also told his father the name of the boat he took off from — Natoma — and the name of someone he flew with — "Jack Larson." The parents pieced together what their son was communicating and eventually discovered that it matched exactly the details of the life of World War II fighter pilot named James Huston. They wanted to share their story to show that they were a typical suburban family who did not believe in reincarnation, they were not looking for any signs.  They simply observed their young son telling specific details of a man who lived sixty years prior. 

So, in the end, who knows?  The Buddha taught that all conditioned phenomena is impermanent—that phenomena (energy) is constant and simply takes different forms in our ever-changing world.  And yet...one of the recent discoveries in Quantum physics finds that even energy may be changed by the fact that we observe it. 

Perhaps there is still a mystery to be discovered.

The Fourth Noble Truth - the Eightfold Path

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We are continuing a series of talks on the Basics of Buddhism.  I recommend the book Naked Buddha, a Practical Guide to the Buddha’s Life and Teachings, by Adrienne Howley.   We’ve talked about compassionate awareness, honesty and curiosity and how we often inaccurately label ourselves and others.

For the third talk in this series, we’ll discuss the Fourth Noble Truth, which is the Eightfold Path.  These eight practices are designed to invigorate our daily lives with compassionate awareness, honesty and curiosity.  It’s translated as a path but in the original teachings it was described more like a wheel with eight spokes or an eight-limb concurrent process.  It’s not designed to start at the first step and end at the last, but rather to incorporate each as the situation arises. 

These steps are often described as Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.  However, the word “Right” may not accurately relate the original teaching.   Many translations use the word, “Right”, but that implies a rigidness, a right versus wrong.  A better translation might be Clear or Wise or Complete.  I like the word “Clear” because it describes how we are wiping off the windows of our vision to see more clearly ourselves and our lives.  But perhaps Wise is the best description.  Wise describes what is skillful and what does the most good and the least harm. 

The Eightfold Path is often broken down into three sections—this is a little different than Adrienne Howley’s take on them, but I admit I prefer the description in Lama Surya Das’ book, Awakening the Buddha Within, which is the book we are going to tackle next.  In it, he describes the three sections as Wisdom, Ethics and Meditation.  Let’s look at these three separately.

The first two steps are part of the Wisdom training:  Wise View and Wise Intention.  We all have a certain view of the world.  We may hang on to the view that our parents told us, or we may have come up with our own perspective through our life experiences.  If I were to ask you, “How do you describe the world?”  What would you say?  What would your parents have said?  Is it a scary place?  A difficult place?  A wonderful place?  An unfair place?  A beautiful place?   We often view the world through our past experiences or from the perspective of others who have convinced us of how they see things.

When I was growing up, there was a girl down the street named Shirley Stewart.  I can see her face right now.  She lived catty-cornered to me, and she would follow me home from school every day and taunt me the whole way, saying that she wanted to fight me for some reason or other.  Now, I was a scrawny, sickly little kid—I did not have one good punch in me, but I certainly fantasized about hitting her right in the face!  I’d like to say I was a pacifist but I was just too dang scared to try and mess with her.   She never hit me but threatened to do so about a thousand times.  Luckily, we moved away from the neighborhood when I was 12, but I can still see Shirley’s face staring me down, making me feel stupid and weak.  When I was young, I saw myself through the eyes of Shirley Stewart.  When I was in college, I began to have more confidence in myself, the mental and emotional energy looking for ways to hate her.  She turned out to be a very nice person, but at first I didn’t realize why I hated her so much.   I wasn’t seeing her clearly.  Wise view is about about being willing to have a certain fresh curiosity about ourselves and those around us.

Can we really put one label on the world or on ourselves or on others, particularly since everything and everyone are always changing?  What has happened in your past that you are still hanging on to? What are the filters through which you see the world?  We may have a relationship that went sour, and then all potential partners start to seem to have those same traits.  We may have been mistreated when we were young, now the whole world might look like a scary place.   We begin to recognize these filters and peel them away, so that we can see ourselves and others more clearly. It helps build a sense of wonder in each moment, a fresh curiosity to see more clearly. 

Wise intention is how we prioritize what to do.  What are your intentions in your life?  What do you value?  If you could describe your values in three words, what would it be?  Now, think about your thoughts, words and actions this last week.  How well did those match your values that you just described?   The Buddhist path is designed to help us live our values, and the first step is being clear about what you care about, then translating that into practice every day. 

These first two steps are cultivating a desire and intention to see ourselves and the world more clearly.    The next three steps are about ethical living.  With this clear perspective, we can begin to live a sacred life.

Wise speech is about being more careful before we respond.  As we discussed the very first day in this series, we can ask ourselves three questions:  Is it true?  Is it kind?  Is it necessary?  That may cut out about 75% of what we’re telling ourselves and others! 

Have you ever hung up your cellphone and started recapping the conversation to the person you’re with, only to double check that the cellphone is disconnected?  What were you saying that you didn’t want the person on the phone to hear?  It’s easy to use gossip and slander as a bonding process among friends.  Wise speech is reminding us that words have power, and we can choose words to encourage and support.  Encouragement and support can be a better way to bond with each other.  What do you say to yourself? How do you encourage and support yourself each day?

Wise Action is acting in ways that are wise and compassionate.  With greater awareness, we can create more options on how to respond to outer circumstance.  Habit and past experience are not the only ways to choose how to act.  Wise action comes from a place of reflection and an intention for good.

Wise Livelihood is working in a way that supports oneself and others on their spiritual journey.  This step does not mean we all have to change jobs! Of course, we try to choose jobs that don’t include weapons of mass destruction, but any job has some potential for killing—even a nurse is killing bacteria in order to reduce illnesses.  It is far more important to wake up to how we work.  You may have an awesome job but still be acting in ways that are unskillful.  Wise Livelihood reminds us to seek work that is supportive but also to do whatever work we’re doing in ways that are supportive as well.

And lastly, we have the Meditation Training of Wise Effort, Wise Mindfulness and Wise Concentration.  Adrienne translates these in slight different words, but I think they convey the same meaning

Wise Effort is having a passion for enlightenment.  It can feel much easier sometimes to just do what we’ve done before.  Go back to the rut, go back to old habits.  This Eightfold Path is about applying energy and focus to a new way of living.  What thought will you have in those difficult moments to keep you doing/thinking this new habit?  Wise Effort is encouraging us to reach within and find that passion for happiness and to, as the Dalai Lama proclaims, “Never give up!”

We talked a few weeks ago that we can practice mindfulness as if our hair is on fire, and the only way to put out the flames is compassionate awareness.  This new way of living takes practice and energy.  Dig deep within you to find the passion and fire to change.  In the coming weeks, there will be moments when an old way of thinking will arise.  A moment of craving to go back to the old way of living, it will at times seem so much easier than practicing these newfangled steps.  At that moment, when the past coping mechanisms seem to have renewed allure, we can remember to connect with the passion to live a new life, a greater life, a more fulfilling life.  Find that passion now so you’ll know where it is when the going gets tough.

Wise Mindfulness is practicing mindfulness by being fully present in each moment.  Mindfulness is a commitment to staying awake to the reality in each moment, no sleepwalking through life.  We can approach living with curiosity and non-preference, savoring things just as they are.  Then, from this place of curiosity, the richness and fullness of the world opens up and provides us with amazing gifts of clarity.  It’s important to NOT think about mindfulness as a burden to bear but as a gift that we are giving ourselves, a totally free, easily obtained, always there, medication for what ails us.

"He who maintains attentive mindfulness is like the great sage, the Buddha. Careful attention to mindfulness is an elixir and a blessing."  --Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche, Tibet, nineteenth century

Wise Concentration is practicing concentration to train our mind.  These changes don’t occur overnight.  It takes practice and focus. To experience this amazing transformation, it helps to practice concentration daily. We practice by focusing on our breath or on a mantra or on walking or on eating, being very focused on whatever is that we are doing.  Eventually, we can release the focus into just being, when just being becomes our natural state of openness and awareness. 

So, this week, your assignment is simple:  Look for ways to bless yourself and the people around you. Bless others with your undivided attention, listen with an open heart.  Bless others with your smile-smile at people you don’t know even smile at the people you do know.  Bless yourself by kind thoughts of encouragement and support. Try being with yourself or another in a non-judgmental way.  You might even have someone in your life that would be willing to have a mindful lunch or dinner with, where the two of you practice these eight steps as best you can.  It might make for a very different eating experience!

First podcast available!

To download or stream (listen live) the Basics of Buddhism 1 talk, click below:
http://templebuddhistcenter.org/podcasts/Basics-of-Buddhism-1.mp3

Basics of Buddhism 2: Compassionate Awareness and Honesty

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Today we continue a series of talks on the Basics of Buddhism.  I’m highly recommending the book, Naked Buddha, a Practical Guide to the Buddha’s Life and Teachings, by Adrienne Howley. 

This man who lived 2600 years ago, named Siddhartha Gautama, left home in search of a way to relieve suffering, his own and all beings.  He had been studying many different spiritual methods available at that time.  There were several people trying two very different methods—indulging to excess in worldly pleasures until you were repulsed by them (many of us have already tried that method), or denying yourself any worldly pleasure, a practice called Asceticism, which encouraged eating barely any food and sleeping in the forest, to find spiritual enlightenment.  Siddhartha had all the finest things when he was a prince growing up, and then decided to become an ascetic for 5-6 years.  He almost died from the extreme deprivation.  When he gave up asceticism, he realized that there must be a middle way. This is why Buddhism is often described as the middle path. 

In its essence, he found out that if you are compassionately aware and perfectly honest with yourself, you can begin to relieve suffering.   The first teaching by the Buddha after his enlightenment was the Four Noble Truths: 

·  Life is difficult.

·  Life is difficult because we seek to satisfy ourselves in ways that are inherently unsatisfying.

·  The possibility of liberation from difficulties exists for everyone.

·  The way to free ourselves is to practice the Eightfold path that results in enlightened living. 

The first Truth is that life is difficult.  The word in Pali was dukkha. In his book, Insight Meditation, The Practice of Freedom, Joseph Goldstein translates dukkha in three ways, suffering, insecurity or being unsatisfied.  The Buddha realized that most of us live with some sense that things or we are just not quite right.  We might even get close, achieve a goal, feel successful, then we often go right back to feeling that there is something more to be done.  It seems our culture encourages doing--doing can be confused as the thing that gives us value as a person. 

There is also deep suffering in life--We get old, we get sick, we die.  Those that we love get old, get sick, and die. This is the reality of living, and we often suffer because of it.  The First Noble Truth is about facing this reality honestly.

Many times, it might seem like detaching from our thoughts and feelings would relieve the suffering.   Many of us have tried to not get involved in order to avoid being hurt.  Many of us have found that this method does not work very well either.  We then suffer from a feeling of isolation and loneliness.  The word non-attachment is often used in Buddhist texts, and it is sometimes misunderstood that the teachings are encouraging us to deny our thoughts, our emotions, deny anything that causes us suffering.  However, the truth of the teachings is the exact opposite.  We are encouraged to get to know our selves in a deeply honest and compassionate way, to get to know our thoughts, our emotions, our relationships, very very well.  Non-attachment is to realize that these thoughts and emotions are NOT who we truly are, but FIRST we have to SEE them in order to transform our response to them.   Compassionate awareness and honesty are the key ingredients to the Buddhist path.  Adrienne Howley goes so far to say that, “Buddhism can be of no real value to an individual unless one learns to be perfectly honest with oneself.”

So, I encourage you, in this moment, to finish the sentence silently, “if I were perfectly honest with myself, …”  What would you say? This level of questioning doesn’t stop at the first answer that might arise.  Sometimes when we’re in pain, we feel angry, but when we probe deeper, there might be fear underneath the anger.  This process of perfect honesty is a method to retrace the steps of our difficulties, to get to the root cause. 

So, this first Noble Truth, “Life is difficult”, is a statement of honesty.  We don’t shy away from it, we don’t pretend it’s not true, and we don’t just accept it as, The Second Noble Truth points out that we make life difficult because we seek to be happy in inherently unsatisfying ways.  We keep trying to rearrange the external circumstances of our lives in order to be happy, and if we do manage to get everything and everyone doing what we consider to be the “right” thing (which in and of itself would be a miracle!), then before we know it, everything and everyone changes. 

This second Noble Truth reveals itself in two ways:  first, we seek happiness outside of ourselves, and second, if we do find some happiness, we wish for things never to change.  Understanding impermanence is also a key factor in the Buddhist teachings.  Everything is changing.  Some things are changing faster or slower than others, but everything and everyone is changing.  The underlying energy may remain, but the things created by that energy are constantly changing.   The “you” that you were in high school is the not the “you” that you are right now (some might think, “Thank goodness!”).  In fact, the “you” now is not the “you” that will be in ten minutes.  Yet, we wish so badly for things to remain constant so we can get a handle on things.  We all want to have some control over our lives to find happiness, and everything keeps changing, seemingly thwarting our efforts.

One of the inherently unsatisfying ways we deal with our world is that we put labels on everything, so we can feel like we know it, and it’s done. We label things like doorknobs and lightbulbs and other objects—some labels are helpful.  But, we also label ourselves and other people.  These labels can cause us to not see what is really happening in the here and now. 

I want to tell this painful story about myself.  I remember a couple of years ago driving down the road, my cellphone rings and I see my sister’s number appear on my phone.  My thoughts and emotions immediately kicked into gear—“oh God, I just can’t deal with my sister today—she is the most negative person I know.  Should I answer it? Should I let it go to voicemail? Then, I’ll have to call her back and then I dread it until I do”….and on and on…the dialogue went back and forth in my head.  I decided to answer the phone.  She had an idea about something to do with our mom’s house.  I listened for about five minutes, and it felt like torture.  I finally shouted back at my sister that I just couldn’t handle all her negativity.  At that moment, my sister broke down and cried.  Now, I really felt badly.  She gained her composure and told me that in the last week, she had read the book called the Secret”, and that she had been working on being more positive all week.  She had actually taken two hours preparing to call me because she knew I’d be more open to her idea if she presented in a positive way.  In that moment, I realized that I had not really listened to a word that my sister said in the first five minutes of the phone call.  I had labeled her negative long before I picked up the phone.  I was on the lookout for any sign of a negative perspective, I even saw it when it probably wasn’t even there.  That is how putting labels on people can bring us suffering.  Experiment with seeing everyone first in a non-judging way. The person may not dramatically change, but our experience of the relationship with them will change dramatically.

Even worse, we often label ourselves in the same way—“I’m always like this, I’ll never change.  I’ll never be able to….”  There may be things that we cannot do, but I guarantee that every single one of us is changing at this very moment, and exciting new options are arising in each moment, and each of us has the power within us to decide which direction to go from here.   We have an amazing number of choices in this culture, and most of the time, we don’t even consider anything but the ones we’ve chosen before.

So, life is difficult because we seek to satisfy ourselves in inherently dis-satisfying ways.  The Third Noble Truth is what the Buddha discovered. There is a way out of our unskillful thoughts and behaviors.  He discovered that there is peace hiding in each and every moment.  And we can learn to tap into that peace, regardless of our external circumstances.  These teachings are that powerful.  Imagine what it would be like to come from a place of peace and have control over your responses in each situation as it arises? 

Adrienne Howley states that the Buddhist path begins with learning mind control.  Not that we will be able to stop unskillful thoughts or unhelpful emotions from arising, but we can learn how to create a gap between stimulus and response, so we have a choice, have the time to respond differently.  We can learn how to place our power in compassionate awareness and honesty instead of wasting it on unhelpful conditioned behaviors and knee-jerk responses that create more suffering for ourselves and those around us. 

To redirect the power within you, you’ll need to have the desire to choose differently, you’ll need to tap into the inspiration needed to keep going when the going gets tough.  It might be a word, a phrase, a picture, a vision, whatever might work for you.   I encourage you to give that some thought.  As an example, we are encouraged to be mindful as if our hair is on fire, and visualize that compassionate awareness is the only thing that will put out the flames.

The Fourth Noble Truth is the Eightfold Path, eight ways of living that encourages this honesty and inspiration.  And we’ll talk more about that on Tuesday evening.

As we leave this room and experience the world outside, we can use the tool of mindfulness, or compassionate awareness in each moment, to decipher what is actually happening, beyond the labels and old habits.  One practice that you might try is to pick any common activity that you do throughout a week, like opening a door, or starting your car, or when the phone rings.  Consider choosing one activity for this week, and each time it happens, practice being fully present and compassionate aware in that moment.  That small step is an excellent start to embracing the Four Noble Truths!

Lastly, Roz Stoneking offered this answer to the question “What is the difference between Christian prayer and Buddhist prayer, since there is no “God” to pray “to”.  Roz describes Buddhist prayer as  "a commitment to join your energy to that divine energy within each of us which unites and sustains us as we work for the good of all beings.”   Well said!

Basics of Buddhism 1: Common Misperceptions about Buddhism

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Today we begin a series of talks on the Basics of Buddhism.  I’m highly recommending the book, Naked Buddha, a Practical Guide to the Buddha’s Life and Teachings, by Adrienne Howley. 

So why are you here?  What is it about Buddhism that draws you in? Reflect for a moment on what you have learned or heard about Buddhism that seems interesting…

Perhaps you are looking for stress relief or for some peace in life, or as a replacement for Christianity or a way to make sense of the world.  We each come to study and practice Buddhism for a myriad of reasons.

The Buddha was a man, Siddhartha Gautama, who lived 2600 years ago,  and he practiced this way of life for one single reason.  That reason was to relieve suffering in himself and in others.  He discovered a way to live that creates more peace and happiness and joy and love in the world, and although it can seem surprisingly simple to describe and to read about, there is only one way to know these teachings, and that is to experience them. 

The first of the year is always a great time to reflect on how our life is going. What are we doing that’s working?  What are we doing that is causing us to suffer?  Then we often make a list of things we want to do differently this year to create a different outcome.  That is an excellent idea!  Except, in a couple of weeks, or a couple of days or maybe this afternoon, some difficult situation will arise, or some old habit, some old thoughts or emotions, and suddenly that list of new objectives might get thrown out the window.  This practice of Buddhism is an opportunity to have a tool that works in every moment of every day of every week of every year.  If we screw up, we don’t have to wait until next year to try again.  We don’t have to wait until tomorrow morning, we can start in the very next moment—that is what these teachings are about.

So each of us is always At the Brink of Truth:

Every breathing moment of our lives presents us with the possibility of awakening to wisdom OR getting mired in fear. Every action, every thought we generate gives us an opportunity to discover our true selves. We alone can choose.

–Ajahn Sumano Bhikkhu with Emily Popp, from Meeting the Monkey Halfway (Weiser)

The mind is often described like a monkey, swinging from thought to thought…

Today I wanted to dispel some of the common misperceptions about Buddhism.  There are two primary practices in Buddhism, meditation and mindfulness, that are ways to bring awareness to the true reality of each moment.  Mindfulness is being compassionately aware of what you’re thinking or feeling, and taking the time to look at your surroundings, and looking at things objectively as if the witness.  Meditation is simple practicing mindfulness in a quiet, still way, like having using training wheels to hone the skill of awareness.

You might have heard that meditation is about getting rid of your thoughts or maybe just getting rid of the annoying or unskillful thoughts.  BUT, these practices are not about getting rid of thoughts at all.  It is NOT your thoughts or your emotions that are causing you suffering.  It is your RESPONSE to those thoughts and emotions.  If you practiced meditation and mindfulness diligently for the rest of your life, you may still have annoying and unskillful thoughts, BUT you slowly no longer give them any power.  Not giving them power will relieve your suffering.

In order to not give them power, we are learning to create a gap between stimulus and response.  Our thoughts and emotions are the stimulae that urge us to act in old habitual ways.  We alone choose how to respond, and we need time to evaluate the options and choose the most skillful response.  The gap is only found in the present moment and is the ONLY opportunity that you have to change your way of living.   Applying compassionate awareness buys us time to reflect on what to do. 

Often, when people first start meditating, it’s a bit of shock to realize all the thoughts and emotions we’ve been having all these years.  Most importantly, don’t be hard on yourself—that’s why the compassionate part of mindfulness is so important.  In Buddhism, we start with the conviction that each us is innately kind, innately compassionate, innately wise.  Everyone, no one is left …. Yes even Hitler.  Our innate goodness is in there, but it is sometimes covered up by our old habits, and our skewed way of seeing the world and ourselves, our past experiences that may have given us some false belief that we’re no good or that we will always fail.  All these preconceived notions may or may not have anything to do with this present moment.  Therefore, we practice being fully present, of SEEING more clearly what is really going on. 

There are no commandments in Buddhism.  There are five precepts that we are encouraged to follow which are to not kill, not lie, not steal, not use sex in a harmful way, and do not let intoxicants cloud your ability to be present.  These are guidelines not commandments, because the Buddhist teachings require us to be fully aware of what’s happening in any given moment in order to make the most compassionate and wise response.  Here’s an example, if you see a man stab another man in the chest with a knife, what should you do?.....  What if that man doing the stabbing is a surgeon?   We must be mentally present to understand the circumstances in order to respond in the way that is most likely to relieve suffering.

In her book, Naked Buddha, Adrienne is very practical about her approach to these teachings.  She peels off all the cultural additions to Buddhism that sometimes have nothing to do with the original teachings.  Misperceptions about Buddhism abound when just looking at how others practice the teachings.  With all these Buddha statues, one might ask, am I worshiping Buddha, is Buddha a God?  He was not, nor did he claim to be.  He claimed only to be a man who had studied various techniques for relieving suffering, and these practices are what he found to work.  In fact, Buddha didn’t say you must believe every word he said just because he said it.  He said the opposite, don’t believe a word he said, you must try it out for yourself.  The Buddha didn’t talk about a deity at all.  He only wanted to teach about what could be practiced and experienced to relieve suffering.

In this context, it’s important to mention that Buddhism does not require you to give up whatever religion you might already be practicing.  There are many Catholic priests who feel quite comfortable practicing Buddhism in addition to their Christian faith.  From my perspective, I think there were many similarities between Jesus and the Buddha, and we will talk about these similarities in the coming weeks. 

Do you have to be Buddhist to practice these teachings, and what does being Buddhist really mean?  Being Buddhist usually means that you commit to the Refuge Vows as your primary spiritual path, and look to the Five precepts as guidelines for living.  We’ll talk about that more on Tuesday evening, but this morning, I just want to emphasize that you don’t have to designate yourself as a Buddhist in order to benefit from these teachings.  Knowing many of you, I know that sitting here today, some of you are Christians or Jews who are adding these teachings to your other spiritual practices, some of you are Buddhists who take this as your primary path, and some of you don’t feel the need for any label on your spirituality, some of you are even atheists.  What a mixed bag we are!  How delightful!

Did Buddha believe in some afterlife?  Buddha was actually silent on any issue where no proof was available.  He said he didn’t know what happened after we die, nor was it relevant to relieving suffering in this moment.  Buddhism is not about speculation or conjecture, only about the experience we are having in our body in our brain in our world in this moment.  In fact, all we have is this moment.  Peace comes from giving up hope for a better past, and the future depends on what we do in this moment.  

Lastly, I want to talk about karma.  Karma has worked its way into our western culture, but actually has many different interpretations.  In Hinduism, karma is believed to be quite linear.  If you screwed up in this lifetime, you will pay next time in your rebirth.  But in Buddhism, Karma is viewed more broadly, we are all interconnected and everything is arising because of many, many things that happened in the past.  Past on my past misdeeds, I was encouraged by the story of Milarepa.  When he was a young man, someone killed his father, and he was so enraged that he hunted down everyone having anything to do with the murder, and he in turn murdered them.  While he was on the run, he took shelter with a Buddhist monk, who said that he could only stay if he studied and practiced the Dharma.  Milarepa agreed and went on to become a brilliant Buddhist teacher.  His teachings still ring true even though they are 1,000 years old. 

It is not to say that actions do not have consequences, but in Buddhism, Karma has an element of grace.  You cannot change your past.  The ONLY thing you can change is what you are doing in this present moment.  That is why it is so precious, that is why it’s so important to be present for it, not distracted or consumed by regretting the past or anxiously awaiting the future.  This present moment is amazing because it is all we have to work with.

So, in this next week, your assignment is to simply observe your thoughts and emotions as best you can.  As we become aware of your thoughts, and before you speak, ask yourself these three questions:

Is it true?      Is it kind?       Is it necessary?

Inner Freedom

At this wondrous beginning of 2012,  I wanted to share some thoughts on freedom as it relates to Buddhism.  When we were all children, most of us wanted the freedom to stay up late or watch TV and we thought that was what happiness was all about.  Then, as we became teenagers, we wanted the freedom to stay out late and be with our friends, and we thought that would bring us happiness.  Then, we got out of the house, away from our parents and wanted the freedom of being on our own, the freedom that money could buy, being able to buy and do the things that we thought would make us happy. 


So, here we are today. At whatever point you are in your life, you are here, right now.  Now, when you think about being free, what comes to mind?  What is the freedom you desire?  Sometimes, even though we have grown up, we may still feel enslaved to our old ways of thinking about ourselves and the world.  We may still feel enslaved to any thought or emotion or sensation that arises within us.   


In our culture, freedom is often thought of as an ability to chase after any desire that we have.  We want the freedom to eat what we want to eat, to drink what we want to drink, the freedom to act on any whim that strikes us.  But what the Buddha discovered is that acting on any whim that arises is actually no freedom at all. In fact, it becomes the worst kind of imprisonment.  We are imprisoned by our desires, forced to act on them, unable to withstand the feelings of withdrawal that arise if not acted upon.  


What the Buddha discovered was that NOT acting on every whim of desire was the FIRST step towards ultimate happiness.  Starting with a willingness to see clearly what these whims are all about, we start to see the world at a deeper level of richness, of fullness, of true reality, of true freedom. 

A great Italian novelist, Luigi Pirandello said,

“You must not count overmuch on your reality as you FEEL it today, since, like that of yesterday, it may prove an illusion for you tomorrow.”

In Buddhism, the desire for ultimate freedom is one of the tools that we can harness to find the long-lasting peace and happiness that we’ve been looking for all along.  As adults, we are no longer constrained by our parents, or at least not physically.  But we may feel constrained by our unskillful habits or constrained by our emotions or even our thoughts, constrained by our illusions about what life is about or constrained by what we think we are supposed to be doing.  It’s easy to get lost in the shackles of illusions that keep us from being completely happy and at peace.  The Buddha taught that the only obstacle to complete freedom and happiness is our own misguided way of thinking. 


The very important first step to finding this deep sense of happiness, is to disengage from the constant need to become entangled with these passing thoughts and emotions. 


Buddhism teaches us to focus our desire on this inner freedom of choice.  Emotions or thoughts will continue to arise, and yet we always have the freedom to choose IF to react and then HOW to react.

-Matthieu Ricard, "Working with Desire" (Tricycle, Summer 2004)

“If we know how to focus on our inner freedom, we can experience all sensations within the pristine simplicity of the present moment, in a state of well-being that is free from grasping and expectation.”

When we become aware of our emotional and mental entanglements, only then, we can see them more clearly, see them for what they are—only illusive and illusory, and only then can we become free of them. 


In a beautifully written book entitled Wake Up to Your Life, Ken McLeod gives an eloquent description of how bringing attention to our thoughts and emotions can free us from their hold.  He gives a four-step process for dismantling these old patterns.

1.    Recognize:  When we have sensations or emotions or thoughts, we begin to pay attention to them, become aware that a particular thought or emotion is arising. 

2.    Disidentify: We start to see these sensations or emotions or thoughts as NOT who we are, but rather to see them as just ephemeral desires or aversions arising.  We are NOT our thoughts.  We are NOT our emotions. 

3.    Develop a practice: We practice not identifying with them.  Each time a thought or emotion arises, we have an opportunity to form a new habit, to pay attention, to examine it and disidentify with it, so we can see it more clearly.  At the start of this new year, you might be considering adding “have a regular meditation and mindfulness practice” to your New Year’s resolutions.  This is a fantastic idea!  I encourage you to also be prepared for all the ups and downs of life that will inevitably occur this year.  Be clear in your intention for inner freedom, so that difficult situations or thoughts or emotions no longer keep you from your deepest desire.

4.    Cut through with practice:  The Buddhist practice as about more than sitting on a cushion quietly.  It’s greatest power comes from using these tools in each moment of our daily lives.  Each time a thought or emotion arises, we can apply the antidote to it, the antidote of awareness and compassionate attention.  Again and again, until compassionate attention becomes the habit.

When compassionate attention becomes the habit, then we are truly free to live our lives in peace regardless of what arises.


Joseph Goldstein in "The Evolution of Happiness" (Fall 2005) describes this state as The Highest Happiness:

"It is said that after his enlightenment the Buddha was motivated to teach by seeing that all beings were seeking happiness, yet out of ignorance were doing the very things that brought them suffering. This aroused his great compassion to point the way to freedom.

The Buddha spoke of the various stages on the unfolding path of awakening. As we penetrate deeper into the process of opening, to awakening to what is, the happiness of each stage brings us progressively closer to the highest kind of happiness, the happiness of nibbana, of freedom.  That is the point of being fully awake."

 

But, let’s not wait for some magical time when we think we can get it right every time.  Let’s start now, in this moment, working at it, with each thought and emotion, a fresh opportunity to practice. With each opportunity, we open ourselves to this incredible freedom little by little.  Over time, our lives do become magical, from the deep happiness that develops from the experience of inner freedom. 


If I can wish for only one thing for you in this next year or at any point in your life, it would be to have a deep desire and commitment to inner freedom…that’s where real happiness is found.


Have a mindful and magical 2012!