(For Podcast, click here. For ITunes version, click here)
This
morning we continue a series of talks based on the book, Turning
the Mind into an Ally, by Sakyong Mipham.
In the third chapter, he expands on this powerful practice of peaceful
abiding, (shamatha in Sanskrit) practice that we began talking about a few
weeks ago. We start by simply
concentrating on the breath. This is the
very first step in taming our mind.
Just
as an athlete prepares for his sport with practice, we prepare for living by
finding time to practice meditation. The
concentration tool enables us to tame our mind and be more fully aware of what is arising moment by moment. Often, when people first
start meditating, they do so to relieve stress, and that is often a good side
effect. BUT, it is also important to
know that meditation brings a quieter environment externally which sometimes
brings more awareness of our internal frenetic thoughts, emotions and
sensations. We have been having all
these thoughts, emotions and sensations before, but perhaps we didn’t realize them
consciously. Sometimes like a storm that
has been brewing outside a window, meditation is like opening the window for
the first time and experiencing the storm firsthand.
This
place of presence is where we incorporate the practice of peaceful abiding to
weather the storm of our varying thoughts, emotions and sensations. You might think that you have to
artificially create a peaceful abiding, but the Buddhist teachings encourage
us that human beings are at their core peaceful. If that’s true, why have we fought ourselves
and each other so much for so many years, decades, millennia? I could jokingly blame it on too much
testosterone, but I’m sure too much estrogen can be blamed as well. It seems that all that conflict may have been
part of our evolutionary process. We
fight when we are afraid. We fight when
we are not even aware of the possibility of peaceful responses.
It also seems we fight out of habit sometimes. Now, right here, we can challenge this old
notion that we are inherently angry, inherently at odds with the world. Perhaps that is just what we have learned. If you are holding on to an assumption that human beings are inherently fighters, imagine if that were not true. What if we could realize and tap into an innate ability to find peaceful solutions to
whatever conflict arises?
I
want to stop and add a caveat. I
understand that there are times when aggressive tactics must be taken. I often tell the Buddhist story that if you
are able to save the lives of 200 people by killing one person, then you should
do so, even going against the Buddhist guidelines of not killing. However, I also offer that we often rush to
judgment that the aggressive solution is always the best solution.
If natural peacefulness is our birthright, how might we reclaim the experience, and find a way to
respond in kinder, more skillful, ways? Sakyong encourages us that there are several
practices to rediscover our innate ability to peacefully abide in each moment.
First,
we can decide to have a larger motivation than simply the comfort of our own
mind. Our selfish desires and
distractions often lead to unskillful words and actions. We can become more intentional in our
motivation. Ask yourself this
question: “Do I want to be a better
person?” “Do I want to be stronger,
kinder, wiser and more focused?” "Am I willing to give up some old unskillful habits to see the bigger picture, to be of greater service to myself and to the world?" We all need to be clear about our motivation
and intentions in order to get through the dark night of the spirit when
difficult times arise. Are you willing
to no longer put the simple comfort of your own mind as your first priority?
We all know the feeling of giving in to our discursive thoughts and emotions, those fleeting
desires and aversions that we all have. Sakyong describes this process as if we have an allergy to a certain
food and eat it anyway, wanting so desperately that initial sense of pleasure that comes
from the taste and the texture, but later experiencing the allergic reaction
that causes us great suffering. I really
relate to this analogy! I am allergic to
dairy—I get terrible migraines after ingesting it, but I absolutely LOVE
cheese. There are times when I just want
to smell, to savor, and to taste a glorious piece of cheese, and I succeed
sometimes in ignoring the fact that I will have a severe migraine that will
last for hours, if not days. Ahhhh, but
that desire for the taste and experience of cheese sometimes overwhelms me…..
We
can choose to be aware of the desire for those things that are unskillful, and learn instead to tolerate the craving, then refocus all our energies on the feeling of peaceful abiding that can ultimately dissolve
the unskillful thinking and emotions. I learn to
tolerate the desire for cheese, but not give in to the action (most of the time :-).
Second
and third, there are two forms of thinking and emotions that
often increase the likelihood of an allergic reaction: expectations and preferences.
Our culture often encourages everyone to have lots of expectations. Thinking we must decide in advance exactly what we
want, we then feel disappointed, unhappy and discouraged when we don't get exactly what we want. What caused the expectation in the first
place? Is it necessary to have
expectations? You might find it valuable to reflect
on these questions. We can explore
the possibility of practicing being so present in the moment that we don’t need
to know exactly how things are going to turn out. We learn through peaceful abiding, we show up
fully and with kindness, and see what happens.
Imagine life unfolding through awareness and kindness—what might that
look like?
Then,
there are all the preferences we have about most everything. I like sushi, but I hate creamed corn. I like funnel cakes but don't like Mexican food. We meet someone and often think "I like", "I don't like" or "I ignore". On and on and on, we form these preferences
and begin to dissect the world, the people around us, and ourselves into three
categories: like, dislike or
irrelevant. These preferences can strongly color our experience
of each moment. In Buddhism, we are encouraged
to replace the need for preferences with the practice of curiosity. We learn to get comfortable with not
needing everything to be a certain way.
I
am very much a neat-freak (I like to think of it as being very "zen"). I
find myself liking my outer environment to be a very certain way. (I especially love the smell of Windex.) When my daughter comes to visit, she has a VERY different perspective of "clean enough", and finds my "zen" habits very annoying. So, we both practice compromising. Every time I start to feel unhappy when
my surroundings aren’t spic and span, I try exploring not needing things to be exactly the way I want them to be. What am I feeling
right now? Is it really that important
to clean everything in the house?
Sometimes the answer might be yes!
Other times, not so much.
To
sum up this beautiful chapter on Peaceful Abiding, we can look beyond our
desire to simply make the mind comfortable and instead expand our motivation to a
greater good. We can use concentration
to bring awareness to the presence of thoughts, emotions and sensations and
begin to disentangle ourselves from our storylines, our expectations and our preferences.
Little
by little, sitting in calm abiding, a little more joy arises for "no
external reason". There is joy within you
right now, just waiting to be unleashed. Through cultivating curiosity and non-preference, we give greater joy and happiness room to expand. Let that joy and happiness come out and be.
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