TNH - 11 - Wise Effort

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We continue our series of talks from the book, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, by Thich Nhat Hanh, and this morning I’ll talk about a key component of the Eightfold Path- Wise Effort.  We often talk about The Middle Way in Buddhism, finding the path between the extremes.  Wise Effort is often described as “not too tight and not too loose.”  How do we practice Wise Effort in everyday life?

First, it is helpful to understand that religion has a tendency to run in cycles.  Someone has a direct experience of awakening, seeing themselves and the world in a dramatically different way, an experience of that inter-connectness, of themselves with everything around them, as well as with a greater "energy" or some might say innate potential all around them.  This experience is often so powerful that others flock to them--like Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed--to study, learn and experience it themselves.  Then, the original person dies, and those left try to study, learn and practice as best they can.  Herein lies the problem--there is a tendency to hold on to the original direct experiencer’s experience, and work to preserve exactly what happened and what was said and what was done.  Slowly, the power of the direct experience gets less emphasis, and the power of the religious organization starts to dogmatize, concretize and use the teachings for gaining power over others.  Then, someone bucks the system, decides to go back to the direct experience, then reform arises and new enthusiasm, new teachings, leading eventually to new dogmatism and new power struggles.  Buddhism is no different.  There are many cycles of direct experience, rise of the organization, concretization of the experience, power struggle and decline of original purpose. 

The joy of this moment is that we are living in the time when Buddhism is being integrated into Western culture, and we are finding anew these amazing teachings.  We have this precious opportunity to have a direct experience of what the Buddha experienced, of what Jesus experienced, of what Mohamed and Moses experienced. The books, the Dharma talks, the practice are simply tools to support the direct experience. 

Wise effort teaches us how we can utilize these tools to experience awakening. Surprisingly, reading and practicing can also become obstacles.  For example, once anyone starts to practice meditation, it is a common occurrence that we inadvertently start to judge each meditation session as “oh, that was a good one!” or “that was awful—my mind just spun like a tornado the whole time—that was of no value!”  Awareness of what is happening in your mind and your body is very helpful, BUT judging each meditation session is NOT helpful.  Wise effort includes just continuing to practice whether the meditation feels blissful or boring or beautiful or painful.  An Indian man named Goenka, who founded the modern Vipassana movement would always say, “Continuity is the secret of success”, and “Start again”.

Goenka had this clear understanding that awakening is available here and now, in the midst of ordinary practice.  As we meditate and become aware of more present moments in life, we begin to awakened to the habits, judgments, labels, preferences, stories, rationalizations and everything else that may or may not be serving our greater good.  So, we can practice Wise Effort by continuing to meditate and be fully present, even when we don’t feel like it, even when it’s uncomfortable, even when, ESPECIALLY WHEN, we are having a strong emotion or thought or story.  That’s when the power of the practice really gets turbo-charged.  

I have a visual aid—this vase.  It seems that many of us often think of ourselves as individual silos of stuff, stuff collected from a lifetime of experiences.  What’s in your vase?  Probably some good stuff, some bad stuff, boring stuff and joyful stuff and painful stuff.  This Buddhist practice is about clearly seeing it all, everything that we are holding onto and think of as “Who We Are”.  Most importantly, this practice is about clearly seeing that we are NOT all this stuff in the vase.  Look inside, can you locate where exactly that story is you’ve been telling yourself about who you are and what kind of person you are?  Where are the stories about your family and your upbringing and what's right about you and what's wrong about you?  Where are those bad habits and judgments that often cause so much suffering?  

Through this practice, we can become aware that we often assume our vase is solid, separate and permanent, when that is simply not true.  The Buddha had a direct experience of this Truth.  The vase is just an illusion that we hold on to.  We are permeable, porous living beings with cells that are being born anew and dying in each second. We have this incredible ability to see clearly our stories, then to let fall away those stories that are no longer serving us.   

We can even create new stories that might be more helpful to this practice of awakening.  Thich Nhat Hanh has a beautiful, simple “story” that we could tell ourselves each day: 

“Waking up this morning, I smile.

Twenty-four brand new hours are before me.

I vow to live fully in each moment as best I can

And to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.” 

These are words that he suggests, but I encourage you to come up with your own words.  What words of encouragement could you re-iterate to yourself regularly to remember to practice being present? Goenka said to himself, “Continuity is the secret of success.”  And it was!  And is!  He also said, “Start again.”  This simple phrase encourages us to simply start again, at the beginning of each meditation session, at the beginning of each morning, even at the beginning of each moment.  No matter how distracted or confused or frustrated or angry or anxious we might feel, we can start again with the practice of directly experiencing this moment, beyond old habits, judgments and stories.  Just start again and again, fresh and anew.  See through the vase full of “stuff” to the essence of aliveness that you are.

Nagarjuna wrote: 

“Clinging is to insist on being someone, not to cling is to be free to be no one”.  

In being no one, we are free to have the direct experience of simply being awake.

Infinitive Awarenes and Intimate Awareness practice

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click here.  (Thanks!)

Christopher Robin said, “'What I like doing best is Nothing.'
'How do you do Nothing,' asked Pooh after he had wondered for a long time.
'Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, "What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?" and you say, "Oh, Nothing," and then you go and do it.
It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.'
'Oh!' said Pooh.”   

"Pooh!"
"Yes, Christopher Robin?"
"I'm not going to do Nothing any more."
"Never again?"
"Well not so much. They don't let you."

 “You live in illusion and appearance of things.  There is a reality, but you do not know this.  When you understand this, you will see that you are nothing.  And being nothing, you are everything.  That is all.” –Kalu Rinpoche

We can practice experience that we are nothing, by sitting quietly then silently reflecting upon these questions: 

·        First, silently reflect upon how would you describe yourself?

·        What would it feel like to throw all those labels away? 

·        Who were you before you first had your heart broken? 

·        Who were you when you were when you were just born? 

·        Who are you without the filters of your past experiences?

I was reading a story about a doctor who had a transformative experience delivering a child.  He said that a woman came to the ER in the throes of childbirth, and he shifted into gear to help her have this child.  Initially, he said that he felt like the expert, the one who was going to save her and her baby.  Then, minutes later, the baby came out, and as the doctor suctioned the baby’s mouth so she could breathe, she opened her eyes, and looked up at him.  He said that moment of knowing he was the first person she had ever seen gave him such a sense of awe and wonder.  He realized that he was no longer the expert saving someone, but simply a fellow traveler on this journey of life.

Each of us here are fellow travelers on this journey of life.  We are here in this moment together, sharing this experience, in fact, co-creating this experience. Jack Kornfield goes on to say that emptiness is contagious, by letting go of the filters and illusions, we are encouraging and inspiring others around us.  It is often said that we are not trying to be Buddhists, but rather Buddha, and each of us are capable of being a Buddha, an awakened bundle of energy and inspiration. 

So, together we are creating this experience of emptiness, the luminous void.  Getting comfortable resting in the silence, going beyond the mind chatter that often distracts us and is often responsible of this illusion of a self and a world based in such a limited way by merely our past experiences.  Meditation support the experience of getting comfortable with nothingness—even to begin to see the vastness and spaciousness that is created by doing nothing. 

There is no place to go—here it is right now.  He ends the chapter by relating Isaac Newton’s view of the world:

“To myself, I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me” 

We can practice experiencing each moment with childlike wonder, and with this practice, the vast unknown does not have to be a source of terror, but the potential for awe and wonder.

Guided meditation:  Infinite Awareness and Intimate Awareness Practice
 

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.