Eightfold Path - Wise Livelihood

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Today, we are finishing up our series on Awakening the Buddha Within with the last Eightfold Path component to be covered:  Wise Livelihood.  How do we reconcile making a living with making a life?  The teaching at its simplest says we earn a living without harming others.  Ah, that it was that easy to be happy, make money, and do no harm!

I know some of you have jobs that you adore.  You wake up in the morning and can’t wait to get to work.  Others I know are less enthusiastic—you might think, meh, I’m okay with what I do.  There are also some that might have that Bataan death march feeling every day—where your brain toys with the idea of steering the car toward the highway going the opposite direction of work and running away from life.  Or maybe… you have a job that includes all three experiences in any given day or week or any given year.  No job is perfect.  Even if you are retired or working in the home, there is an opportunity to see whatever action we are taking in life to support ourselves as an opportunity to support our values, to live our values.   Wise livelihood is about living our values, living an ethical life, and exploring the possibility of joy in a myriad of places.

So, first we must be clear on what we value.   What is most important to you?  Take this moment to make a mental list. Now, think about how your work is supporting those values.

In Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teachings, he says "To practice Right Livelihood, you have to find a way to earn your living without trampling upon the values of love and compassion. The way you support yourself can be an expression of your innate Buddha nature, OR it can be a source of suffering for you and others. " ... We should be awake to the consequences, far and near, of the way we earn our living."  The way you earn your living is not merely about the product or service created.  It includes your attitude and actions in HOW you do your work, how you interact with yourself and others, day by day, moment by moment.

Work is an opportunity to put our spiritual beliefs into action.  One of the most practical applications I have found for enjoying my work are:

Miguel Ruiz  The Four Agreements

1.    Be Impeccable With Your Word.

2.    Don't Take Anything Personally.

3.    Don't Make Assumptions.

4.    Always Do Your Best.

See work as an opportunity to practice the four Agreements.  Sometimes, we spend too much time asking ourselves the big questions of what do I want to be when I grow up, that we miss the daily opportunities to show generosity and compassion.  And an critical component of these agreement is to let go of expectations!  We can do the right thing and not expect anyone to notice or thank us for it.  That is part of the Buddhist practice.  Do your best, do what is needed in each moment, be generous, help others, be grateful. 

I would add a five agreement:  Look for the good!  Many times, people sabotage their work by pro-actively looking for the negative in themselves and in others.  Catch yourself and your co-workers doing something good and praise it.

Officially, the Buddha is quoted as saying, "A householder should not engage in five types of business: Business in weapons, business in human beings, business in meat, business in intoxicants, and business in poison."   So, we can each evaluate whether we feel ethical about what we do to make a living.

A common misperception is that Buddha was against making money.  Not at all—he counsel Kings and businessman of his day.  He just encouraged it to be done in ethical and skillful ways.  But he knew that does not buy happiness in and of itself.  So we get to decide, how much money to we really need?  Matthieu Ricard’s story about Tahiti. 

How we relate to money?  Money comes with plenty of baggage from our parents and hard times or good times we might have had with it.  Only you can decide how much money you need to live a skillful life.  And each of us, we have the capability, if we have the willingness, to spend our money wisely.

There’s sometimes this fantasy that we will find the perfect job for our skills, our interests and our desired lifestyle.  And, it is worthwhile to explore what makes your heart sing.  But, don’t let the fantasizing cause you to miss the magic to be found in each moment.  Sometimes, we will miss many of them when we only fantasize about something in the future that is “better” than what we’ve got in the now.  In my own life, I began my corporate career in love with my job, fighting the good fight, feeling delighted by the competition.  But slowly, my perspective changed, and I found myself stuck in what we lovingly would call the golden handcuffs of a good paying job that no longer brought me any joy.  With family obligations at the time, I felt selfish wanting to simply walk away.  So, I decided to uphold the Four Agreements, and worked at infusing loving-kindness and compassion into every moment of every workday as best I could.  It got me through another seven years of working there and got my daughter through college. We each have these decisions to make in our lives, some big and some small.

Daily, we each make a decision to stay where we’re at or try something new.  There are a myriad of options to consider.  First, if you love what you do, don’t take it for granted.  And you might ask yourself how could you serve others by helping them along as well.   Second, if you don’t love what you do, how could you begin to explore other options without causing financial disaster?

Third, if you don’t have a job, how can you choose wisely for the next one.  Doreen is an excellent role model for going through the tough process of 100 interviews to find the job that she truly loves.  And the people you interact with, the places you hang out, the attitude about getting a job that you have, these are the critical components to enabling the right job to appear.

Fourth, how do you make the most of each moment regardless of whatever situation you currently find yourself in?  Regardless of our job, we always have the opportunity to bring spiritual energy in daily life. 

Dogen was a 13^th century Zen master who said:

“Those who see worldly life as an obstacle to

Seeking the spiritual truth see no spiritual truth in everyday actions;

They have not yet discovered that there are no

Everyday actions outside of the spiritual truth.”

So dream, but also be present in each moment and appreciate what we have.

Eightfold Path - Wise Mindfulness

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We continue our series of talks from the book, Awakening the Buddha Within, by Lama Surya Das, and this morning I’ll talk about another key component of the Eightfold Path- Wise Mindfulness, or sometimes translated as Wise Meditation.  It is the primary practice in Buddhism for transforming your life.  It’s been found to be one of the most powerful tools for creating a change in both the way we respond to the world and how we experience the world.  It’s been tested by millions of people for 2600 years.  Lama Surya Das even describes it as “the escalator to enlightenment”!   So how come we all ain’t doing it every day?  How come it’s not a priority in our lives?  Let’s explore what it will take for each of us to make mindfulness a priority and a focus.  


First, what the heck is it?  To say “now be mindful” sounds a bit like my mom sending me out the door as a child “now be safe!” (I’m 55 years old, and she still says it to me every time I leave...)   What do we do with this information?  What does being mindful feel like?  What are we going to do differently because we know this fact?


Some describe it in the simplest terms:  when you eat, you just eat.  When you sleep, you just sleep.  When you walk, you just walk.  But, there is more going on than that.  Mindfulness is paying attention to three things:  

• what is going on inside of us
• what is going on outside of us and 
• aware of ourselves amidst all that is happening, moment by moment.  

For most of us, we mindLESSly react to stimulae in our lives with pre-conceived ideas about ourselves and the world and with sometimes unskillful habits.  Mindfulness creates a gap between stimulus and response, so we have time to choose more skillfully how to respond to life.  Mindfulness can sound a little harsh, so Pema Chodron prefers the term, “compassionate awarenesss” so we’re less likely to use Mindfulness as a weapon to bludgeon us over the head with one more item for our “to do” list that doesn’t get done.  We’re just doing the best that we can, moment to moment.


Sometimes it seems that one might think of mindfulness like going on a diet.  "I know it’s good for me, but it’s going to be difficult."  Anybody ever planned on having a super mindful day?  Before you go to bed, you set your alarm a little early, so you’ll have time to meditate first thing.  Then, when the alarm goes off in the morning, you feel sleepy, so you hit the snooze button a couple of times, and before you know it, you’re late and rushing out of bed and have barely enough time to get ready to get out the door, perhaps thinking, "I don’t have time to be mindful today!  I’ll try again tomorrow or next week."  If we think of it like a diet, we are doing ourselves a disservice.  We might think if we don’t meditate first thing in the morning, then the whole day is shot.  Is that true?


Each moment we get an opportunity to start fresh.  So many of you have told me that when you put your energy into being mindful, that the entire day goes more smoothly.  Mindfulness is simply focusing our energy on what we are doing in this exact moment.  We all have plenty of energy, but we often scatter it around with multi-tasking and distraction.  Energy is just being diffused all around us most of the time.  We’re distracted…We’re putting a little here and a little there, so there is no sense of what’s really going on.  
So, we rely on old habits and preconceived notions about ourselves and the world, a sort of shorthand for seeing things, because it SEEMS more efficiently, but upon reflection, these shortcuts we’re taking, THEY are what are causing our suffering!  


We have to make a conscious decision to focus our energy on mindfulness.  It’s like the power of a laser.  This practice is encouraging us to slow down, just enough, to see what is actually happening in each moment—inside yourself, in your world, and where you are in the midst of things.  We slow down by gathering up this massive amount of energy that every person has, even if you feel tired and depressed, there is energy all around and within you, waiting to be tapped into.  We gather up this energy, and become a laser on each moment.


Let’s figure out how we can think of mindfulness as something different than a diet.  Imagine that you thought about Mindfulness like some precious jewel that you were gathering up.  That there are jewels strewn throughout your life, and you are so busy hurrying past that you don’t even see them.  What if Mindfulness was an opportunity to collect all the precious jewels in our lives?


Ask yourself the question, “Fpr me, what is standing in the way of Mindfulness?”… Well, let’s be honest, sometimes, some moments aren’t very pleasant.  We are in pain, or we have a problem in our life that we can’t seem to solve or the stress of living feels overwhelming.  Being present in those moments might feel like throwing gasoline on a small fire that suddenly bursts into uncontrollable flames.  I agree that it’s probably easier to be mindful during the pleasant times—thinking I want to savor this moment—than it is during the difficult times.  So, let’s work on some tricks and tools to keep us present when the going gets tough.


For each of you, bring to mind a situation or emotion in your own life that you are struggling with right now.   It could be a job or family situation, it could be an addiction or stress, it could be depression, fear, anxiety, anger, resentment.  Let’s talk about the times when these situations and these emotions arise, and what we might do to stay present and see things and ourselves more clearly.


First, let’s find a way to recognize that the struggle is happening in the first place. This sense of struggling with life is so integrated into our culture and even into our reptilian brain, it’s not surprising that we focus on the negative.  When we were cave people, not being mindful of something positive, like your cave partner made you a nice dinner of dinosaur or something, did not have a huge impact to your survival.  Maybe you got the cold shoulder or had to sleep in the other part of the cave that night, that’s not too dangerous.  But, if you hear something in the middle of the night, and it might be a saber-toothed tiger coming to devour you, underestimating that sound could mean death.  That’s how we are wired.  But, there aren’t too many saber-toothed tigers running around these days, and in fact violent crime has declined dramatically over the last 50 years.  The FBI reports that violent crime is one third of what it was in 1994.  Our average lifespan has doubled in the last 100 years, but, watching the news, you’d think we were on the verge of an apocalypse.  Who knows?  May we are….but you yourself are safer than any human being has ever been in the history of mankind. 


So, researchers have found that we can counter this tendency of our reptilian brain to be negative, but balancing it with the positive.  Pro-actively being mindful of the blessings in your life.  When the going gets tough, look for the lessons learn, the positive outcomes that might arise out of the difficult times.  Look for the good.  This isn’t about walking out into traffic and assuming we will not get run over.  It is about BALANCING our need for safety with the mindfulness of all the goodness that is all around us.  We have within us everything we need to be free.  So, first we can stay present with negative situations and feelings, then look for the good, we can count our blessings. 


The last of human freedoms is the ability to choose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances.-  Viktor E. Frankl


Second, there’s a wonderful technique called worst case scenario.  What’s the worst that can happen?  This might seem counter to what I just said, but sometimes naming what we are most afraid of, enables us to deal with it in a forthright manner.  If you are afraid of something right now, what’s the worst that can happen?  Then, put a probability on that worst case scenario.  There’s a wonderful book called The Resilience Factor, by Karen Reivich, who has a great exercise about putting things into perspective, using this worst case scenario practice.  We see it, we name it, we prepare for it, we no longer fear it, and we move on.    


What is it that you are afraid of that you can’t stay present for? Name it, acknowledge it.  If you can do nothing to stop it, come to peace with it.  Mindfulness brings peace amidst the pain.


Third, Mindfulness can be a way to lighten up, to add some humor and lightness to our lives.  Pema Chodron says that when she realizes that she is distracted from her breath, she imagines this funny looking bird, like one of those that would sit on a pirate’s shoulder, sitting on her own shoulder and squawking, oops! Thinking!  The picture and the funny voice inside her head is enough to make her smile and return to the present.  How can we enfuse more laughter and lightheartedness into our live?


Lastly, Mindfulness doesn’t have to be perfect.  Just like thinking the diet is ruined when we fall off and eat a doughnut, we don’t have to give up mindfulness for the entire day or the entire week, just because we become distracted.  Each moment is the perfect moment to start fresh.  And in Buddhism, this middle way, this going easy on ourselves is an integral part of the practice.  There are five precepts/guidelines that we are to follow like don’t lie and don’t kill.  Have respect for human life.  Perhaps we not quite there yet where we can bless the mosquito that is biting us, but what small step could we take toward honoring life?   Jack Kornfied says, that if we only didn’t kill human beings that would make a big difference in the world.  


Here’s a recap of our tools and techniques:
1. Count your blessings
2. Face the worst case scenario
3. Add some laughter and humor to each day
4. It doesn’t have to be perfect.


Wise Mindfulness and Meditation are the cornerstones of the Buddhist practice.  If you don’t sit and meditate every single day, that doesn’t mean you’re a Bad Buddhist.  It means you are human.  This is a lifelong project.  We look for a moment here and a moment there, stringing together as many as we can.  And moment by moment, we will become enlightened.  So, join me on the escalator to enlightenment.  


Krishnamurti says, “Meditation and Mindfulness are not means to an end.  They are both the means and the end."

Eightfold Path - Wise Action

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We continue our series of talks from the book, Awakening the Buddha Within, by Lama Surya Das, and this morning I’ll talk about a key component of the Eightfold Path- Wise Action.  You know, it all comes down to this.  There is a saying in Buddhism:

Death is certain.

The time of death is uncertain.

What shall we do?

Although we sometimes feel trapped and limited in our options for action, the truth is that everyone has an almost endless number of options of what actions can be taken.  So, how do we decide what to do?  What drives your decisions that you make every day in your life?  We know from the other parts of the Eightfold Path that our actions begin with our view of the world, and with our intentions, and with our level of mindfulness.  I watched two documentaries this last week, one on Adolph Hitler and one on Mother Theresa.  I was curious to see how two lives turned out so different.

Now, it would be easy to just think of Hitler as a devil or evil being, but in truth, he was a human being, just like you and me, and within him were tendencies that we all share.   And with Mother Teresa, it might be easy to think of her as a saint, some supernatural being, but she was a human being, just like you and me, and within her were tendencies that we all share.  When we look at the spectrum of actions to be taken, arguably Hitler and Mother Teresa demonstrate the widest variety of choices that we all have in our lifetime.

In Buddhism, as in Unity, we emphasize that our thoughts create our actions.  As we think, so we become.  So, how did Hitler and Mother Teresa come up with such different actions?  Ironically, both Hitler and Mother Teresa felt that God had given them a specific mission.  They were both driven and confident in their abilities.  They were both inspiring speakers, and gained great followings.  They both had great appeal with the poor and downtrodden.  But, what made their actions so different?

I would suggest it began with their intentions.  Hitler wanted to rule the world, and Mother Teresa wanted to heal it.  I would offer that their actions, in the simplest terms, were driven by significantly different motivations, and it primarily had to do with how they view themselves within the world.  Hitler focused on his own ego-gratification and Mother Teresa focused on her interconnectedness with all beings.  Each and every one of us has the potential to go in the direction of Hitler or Mother Teresa.  Reflecting on your past, what do you see?  We probably all have a mixture of at times craving ego-gratification and other times being loving and compassionate. 

Let’s look at these two different motivations:  Ego gratification.  Haven’t we all had moments where we wanted to outshine all others?  That we just wanted to make ourselves feel good?  Perhaps that’s innocent enough.  But perhaps we can each recall times that gratifying our own ego came at a negative cost to another, the cost of belittling or humiliating or injuring another person.  Hitler built up the poor and struggling Germans but turning them against the Jews.  Oh, simple, just kill all the Jews, and we’ll be fine.  This logic has been used hundreds of times to build the case for genocide.  But, even more subtly, in our current day world.  Who are those “people” that we label as causing our suffering?  Perhaps we lump all Muslims or bankers in that category, or terrorists.  It seems so easy to define, right?  If you had been British during the American Revolution, you would have called George Washington a terrorist.  Any time we attempt to paint a broad stroke over an entire population, we risk acting unskillfully.  The Chinese are terrorizing the Tibetans.  Are all Chinese bad people?

Mother Teresa spent her life helping many people, but she saw each person as a unique human being.

“Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.”

― Mother Teresa

In Buddhism, the primary criteria used for determining Wise Action is what is the Truth in each moment?  We each must assess our view of the world and of ourselves, We each must asses our intentions.  Are we craving attention over the needs of others?  We each must be mindful of each moment to assess the best response.

There are no commandments in Buddhism.  Some denigrate that fact as relativism, but I am advocating that wise action can ONLY be achieved by weighing the specifics of each situation.   In his book, Lama Surya Das goes through a list of difficult situations, including:

• Is abortion right or wrong?
• Is euthanasia right or wrong?

Even though one of the Buddhist precepts or guidelines is to cherish life, to not kill, Buddhism’s primary purpose is to relieve suffering. The details of each situation are required to take the best action.

We can choose our actions based on what will relieve the most suffering or sometimes at least what will cause the least suffering.  Therefore, you are in a powerful position in your life in each moment to make a wise decision, to take wise action.  We can use the elimination of suffering as our litmus test.

These teachings have been tested and proven that long-term deep happiness is created by reducing our own ego-gratification and increasing our feelings of connection to others.  Don’t take my word for it.  Go out and try it in your own life.  

Death is certain.

The time of death is uncertain.

What shall we do?

Eightfold Path - Wise Effort

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We are continuing our series of talks from the book, Awakening the Buddha Within, by Lama Surya Das, and this morning I want to talk about another key component of the Eightfold Path- Wise Effort.  Let’s start with the amazing fact that, because you are sitting in this room (or reading this blog), you are an innovator.  You are doing something a bit strange.  Of all the people in the United States, only about 10% try to meditate, and the number of people who have converted to Buddhism in the U.S. is a measly .5% of the population.  When you reflect on what we are trying to accomplish here, it is unusual within the context of American culture.  Someone said that we Americans live in arguably the free-est country in the world and in history, and yet, ironically, most people are trying to be like everyone else.   It is with great bravery that you show up to some event called a Buddhist meditation.  It can seem a bit weird at times, and perhaps a little confusing.  Sometimes, it might seem that all we are trying to do is to sit quietly, but it’s important to understand that meditation is not the goal.  Our goal is to wake up and to be alive fully and completely in each moment of each day.

The good news is that even though we are doing something a bit weird, it’s well tested.  There have been others before you, for 2500 years, who have been willing to be a little weird, and who found that these teachings transformed their lives.  I’m grateful that you are here and willing to be a little weird with me.

Sometimes, it can be a daunting task to think about what is our purpose in life.  It might seem that we need to create something big in order to be remembered.  However, I offer that each and every one of us has a unique purpose and power within us to make our mark on the world in our own special way.  I was thinking about this guy that I used to work with.  I spent many years working in a large corporation, and there was a guy in the mailroom named Alvin.  Alvin was the happiest person I’ve ever met.  He never wanted to be promoted, he never had any issues with his co-workers.  He was really nothing special, just a clerk in the mailroom. Yet, it’s interesting that, of the 3,000 people that worked in that building, everyone knew and loved Alvin.   Everyone looked forward to that time during the day when Alvin was going to stop by each person’s desk and drop off the mail.  I guess it seems strange to have anyone dropping mail off at each desk in this day and age.  But, twenty years ago, Alvin did his job with flair.  I still remember the day when Alvin was ready to retire, and in this huge building filled with “important” people, like Vice Presidents and such, people who felt themselves to be quite important, everyone turned out for Alvin’s retirement party.  I still remember the sense that, with Alvin retiring, something was going to be missing.  We weren’t going to be able to look forward to Alvin coming by every day, with this incredible smiling and big heart, always with a sense of caring and devotion to his job and to each and every person who he met. 

I share this story about Alvin because Alvin wasn’t special, no more special than you are or I am.  Yet, each of us has exactly what Alvin had—this incredible opportunity in each moment of every day to show up in an authentic and kind and caring way.   The importance of Wise Effort is to teach us to motivate ourselves to wake up and be loving and kind—this is the path to relieve suffering—our own suffering and others as well.  When the going gets tough, and it seems like it would be easier to go back to sleep, to go back into the rut of our old unskillful ways of being, we need to make an effort to stay on this new path.   When it seems like it might be easier to follow the path that most people are walking, we need to find that inner strength that will enable us to bring out our inner Alvin, that innate strength and power within us, and to find our unique and powerful purpose--the reason why we are here on this planet in this moment.  

In the book, Lama Surya Das breaks down Wise Effort into four aspects, as recorded in the Pali Canon long ago:

1.      RESTRAINT:  The effort to prevent unskillful thoughts and actions -- especially craving, aversion and ignorance -- from arising.  Restraint is not something in our culture that is usually encouraged or admired, but making an effort to have some restraint in our life can transform our experience.  Issues will always come up—frustrations, traumas and tragedies, we may crave things, we get angry or try to avoid difficult decisions.  Instead of going down that old road that we know doesn’t work very well, we can find the inner strength to restrain ourselves, AND RETRAIN ourselves to follow this new skillful way of living, to give ourselves the gift of transformation.   

2.      RENUNCIATION:  The effort to extinguish unskillful thoughts and actions that already have arisen.  Renunciation doesn’t have to be about going into a cave and never coming out.  It is about how we surrender to this new process in our everyday lives.   Renunciation is probably an even less desired word in our culture—to renounce, to give up, to surrender.  We can be willing to make the effort to give up those old unskillful ways that we know are no longer working for us, and we can be willing to surrender to new skillful ways of being and doing.  This idea of surrender is so powerful, but it seems to go against our cultural bias for competition, and never giving up, and going it alone.  However, I suggest that the act of surrender can be one of the most powerful practices to awakening.  One of the exercises I enjoy very much is doing prostrations, bowing down completely, surrendering to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.  Some people might think that is really weird—that someone would be willing surrender themselves fully to this idea of the three Jewels, and lie down on the floor, face down, in front of a statue of a guy called The Buddha.  How strange it might seem to completely surrender oneself to the process.  My own experience has been that when I am lying on floor, surrendering everything, it often feels like deep bliss, being more alive in such a profound way.  I no longer have to fight my demons by myself. I can surrender to this process that has worked for 2500 years.  I can be willing to give it a try.  We have an opportunity in each moment to renounce our old unskillful ways of doing and being and surrender to this new process of awareness and transformation.

3.      CULTIVATION:  The effort to cultivate skillful qualities – the six perfections of Generosity, Ethics, Patience, Enthusiastic Effort, Concentration and Wisdom. Cultivation is finding the power within us to cultivate these wonderful qualities, by focusing on them, practicing them, imaging feeling them, visualizing these pure loving qualities.  Who wouldn’t want to have the joy of feeling more wise?  We can cultivate the way we want to show up in life.  We can think about how Alvin showed up.  I am quite sure, without a doubt, that Alvin was not a Buddhist, and he may have never heard anything about Buddhism.  And yet, he was such a great Buddha!  He showed up with loving-kindness and compassion and joy and wisdom, every single day.  I learned a lot about Buddhism from Alvin.

4.      PRESERVATION:  The effort to strengthen the skillful qualities that have already arisen.  We make an effort to strengthen the good, the skillful qualities, that we are already demonstrating.  Many of us are often our own worst critic.  If someone else said to us what we say to ourselves, we would slap them silly.  With Wise Effort, we have an opportunity to be a little kinder to ourselves, to realize that we  have done good things in our lives, that we have been loving and we have been kind.  We can have that wish and commitment to recognize that within ourselves and be willing to cultivate these qualities further.  Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche said that “We are far more Buddha-like than we know.” With Wise Effort, there is an opportunity to find the unique and powerful purpose that is within each and every one of us. 

The last part about wise effort is effortlessness.  This is one of the paradoxes in the teachings of Buddhism.  We are going to show up and make a strong effort to be and do things differently, AND we are also going to surrender to the process.  We make the effort, then we let go of the result.  We make the effort, then we rest in the natural perfection of each moment.  This paradoxical teaching can be one of the most powerful processes to transform lives. 

The Buddha said, and the Dalai Lama quotes regularly, “There is no way to happiness and peace.  Happiness and peace is the way.”   Oh happy day!  We get a chance in every moment of every day to make the effort to wake up and then surrender to the natural perfection of being.   

Eightfold Path – Wise Concentration

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We continue our series of talks from the book, Awakening the Buddha Within, by Lama Surya Das, and this morning I’ll talk about a key component of the Eightfold Path- Wise Concentration.  Wise concentration is more than just learning how to focus our attention.  If you’ve ever watched people watching a basketball game, they are concentrating, but that probably won’t lead to awakening, even if the Jayhawks had won.

Wise concentration is a bringing together of five components:  spiritual intention, focus, mental discipline, energy and attention.  We are harnessing our ability to awaken.  When we master awareness, we see how all things fit together, including how we fit in to the bigger picture. 

When natural awareness arises spontaneously, everything is known.  It is like opening up the encyclopedia of all knowledge.  Or I guess these days, we would describe it like having an internal Google search machine.

Before I talk about the various ways to concentrate our mind, We must make a commitment to concentration, by having a clear intention and creating some mental discipline.  Ask yourself the question. Why are you here?  Why do you want to learn to meditate?  When the going gets tough, what thought or emotion will motivate you to keep trying?  We begin by making a commitment to ourselves to learn and practice consistently and as continually as we can.  Our practice of concentration is not just while we are meditating.  We can actually spend every moment of our lives building up the muscle of concentration.   

The process of learning how to focus our minds is outlined in Lama Surya Das’ book, and he calls it the Five T’s of Concentration:

1.      Taming: a practice to keep coming back to the single point

2.      Training; a practice to allow the mind to relax and slow down

3.      Testing:  Take our practice out into the “real” world and practice concentration when sounds and other feelings and emotions and thoughts arise

4.      Transforming:  When we can use this focused energy to serve ourselves and others in higher ways of being

5.      Transcendence:  The mind and the practice become one.  It all becomes one;  you and I become one, experiencing ourselves and each other as part of the greater whole; it becomes possible to “go with the flow” regardless of our external circumstances

Concentration exercises:

1.      Watching the breath, counting the breath

2.      Awareness of breathing  (like a sharpened pencil at the point of making a dot on the paper)

3.      Walking meditation  (forwards and backwards)

4.      Chewing meditation  (three raisins for the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha)

The challenges of concentration (the five hindrances):

1.      Craving

2.      Anger/resentment

3.      Restlessness

4.      Sleepinesss/boredom

5.      Doubt

So, what are you paying attention to?  As you begin to study your mind, you will find where your energy is being spent.  Each of us has more than enough energy to create amazing lives.  But most of the time, we are scattering our energy hither and yon, with no sense of purpose or priority.  Practicing concentration helps bring your energy back to a central point, giving you the power to place that energy where love and compassion and wisdom can be found.  It’s no less than a miracle what you can accomplish when you conquer your mind.

“The one who has conquered himself is a far greater hero than he who has defeated a thousand times a thousand men.”  From the Dhammapada

Dharma Talk by Robin O'Connor on Wise Concentration

Today’s topic is about “Wise Concentration”.   My concentration is completely off so I felt the need to type out what to say.  The rock sitting here is a souvenir from a hike on my retreat which serves as a reminder that I should be kind and compassionate to myself.  Ironically, I did not sleep well last night since I felt a cold coming on.  I ended up waking up late this morning and rushing to get out the door and to make an 8:30 a.m. meeting.  Of course, Murphy’s Law, I could not find my keys.  I searched everywhere in the house, dumped my purse, and it was becoming later and later by the minute.  I was angry at myself for losing them in the first place.  I ALWAYS put my key in the same pocket in my purse. Then, I started blaming the kids.  Okay, which of the kids took them from my purse?!?   Then, I looked over at my poor little dog Sophie hiding on her bed in the corner of the kitchen—her big eyes bugging out of her head and shaky little body reminded me that I was losing it—I was out of control.  I knew what to do.  Slow down…close your eyes…breath…just be.  I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw were my keys hanging in the front door lock.

When Janet asked me to facilitate this evening, she suggested that I talk about my experience at the one week silent retreat we attended a few weeks ago.  The truth is, I am still trying to figure out what it all means and I am not sure what to share.  I did not want to make up some cutesy story.  I want you to know it was not an easy thing to do.  Instead, I will tell you the entire experience of going on retreat is described in this chapter of “Awakening the Buddha Within”.

When I first arrived at the retreat center we were late—I don’t like to be late.  We missed dinner, missed Surya’s opening discussion, and it was pouring down rain.  Janet tucked me away safely in my cottage and the week-long Nobel Silence officially began. It felt weird and uncomfortable.  The cottage smelled like Pine Sol and it was cold.  The process of the 5 T’s (Taming, Training, Testing, Transforming, and Transcendence) as Lama Surya Das describes in this chapter officially began.  I crawled into the twin bed like a scared little girl at summer camp, pulled my blanket from home that smelled of fabric softener up to my nose, and fell asleep.

The next day, I felt naked, vulnerable, raw and scared.  I wanted to leave.  If this were a play, here enters the 5 Hindrances in their full glory.

I felt out of my skin without the distractions, the responsibilities, without the worries of what to do next, no TV, no radio, no cell phone to fiddle with, no work, and no kids, and I missed my dog.  I was craving all of the stuff from my day to day.

I was very angry at myself for using up a week of vacation that could be better spent on a sunny beach relaxing with an umbrella drink in hand.  I was resentful and jealous of the woman in front of me in meditation who had perfect curly hair and mine was in a pony tail because I forgot my hair conditioner.  I was angry at Janet Taylor because she told me that there was wi-fi and it did not work—like it was Janet’s fault?  Why did I only come to the retreat with only Pema Chodron and Lama Surya Das books on my e-reader?

I was restless since I did not know what to do with my body feeling awkward and sore sitting in long meditations.  Crazy thoughts were racing through my head—I could not concentrate.

Every time I meditated I started to fall asleep and it was not even lunch time yet.  I had nothing to do and time seemed to stop.

I started to doubt why I was there.  Will they be able to tell I am struggling more than everyone else?  Rinpoche who?  Should I be here?  All of the people seem to know so much more than me.  What is with all the people in the maroon scarves?  Janet has one too.  Must mean they are important.  How can I possibly ask a question of Lama Surya Das?  I will sound stupid.

Instead of getting the running for the hills, I forced myself to stick with it.  I meditated, meditated, and meditated more.  Eyes open, eyes closed, chanting, walking, sky gazing, and eating meditation.  I did Tibetan Yoga, regular yoga on my own, and I started feeling the energy pumping through my body.  I started creating my own meditations to pass time like sound meditation or sunset meditation.  I cried lots of tears along the way.

Over a few days time, I began to transform.  I began journaling everyday what I was grateful for.  I began feeling the heavy weighted backpack I carry everyday full of the craving, anger, resentment, restlessness, sleepiness, and boredom becoming lighter and lighter.  I felt in my body. I felt healthy.  For the first time in my adult life, I felt my spirit running my life.  I felt free.

I gained some wonderful insight into who I am and my meditation practice.  I realize am still learning.  On the last day of my retreat, I made the following notes to myself in my journal to carry what I learned from the retreat back with me.

“March 31, 2012

It is the last day of my retreat and I am sitting in my favorite spot by the fountain next to the Lotus Meditation building.  The wind is blowing fiercely as if it is trying to blow me back into my day to day life—reality.  However, I now know that THIS moment, with my hair wildly whipping around IS reality.  Not tomorrow, not yesterday.

1.      Slow down in life.  Live the moments.  Be mindful and cherish them.  Be grateful.
2.      See the joy in living—smile!
3.      Go on retreat again soon. It is necessary.
4.      Be compassionate to yourself.  Give yourself a break every now and then. You don’t have to push yourself so hard.
5.      Be silent more.  Sometimes saying nothing is best.

Things I am grateful for--Retreat Day 7:
1.      The cool wind and the fact I have so much hair to mess up.
2.      Finally seeing the desert
3.      Knowing I have my kids and my dog to go home to
4.      Janet Taylor for her influence on my life and how it has carried into my children’s lives.”

Here I am.  I have moments like I had this morning that are far cry from wise concentration.  I lost 8 pounds on retreat and, as of today, I have gained it all back.  Enlightened?  Nope.  At moments?  Possibly.  I have my flashlight to keep me on the path.

Elizabeth Lesser said in the The Seeker’s Guide, “Meditation practice is like piano scales, basketball drills, ballroom dance class. Practice requires discipline; it can be tedious; it is necessary. After you have practiced enough, you become more skilled at the art form itself. You do not practice to become a great scale player or drill champion. You practice to become a musician or athlete. Likewise, one does not practice meditation to become a great meditator. We meditate to wake up and live, to become skilled at the art of living.”

Why I love and hate Brad Warner by John Corbaley

Here's John Corbaley's Dharma talk from Sunday.  Enjoy, and thanks, John!

I have this love/hate thing with Brad Warner. Does everyone know who Brad Warner is? He gave a presentation here about a year ago. He had just written a new book, and his stop in Kansas City was, I think, part of a promotional tour.

He’s so cool.  He writes a very popular blog on Buddhism. He’s an actor in independent films. He has kind of a messed up personal life. He’s in a punk rock band. At the same time, He received “inka”-- Dharma transmission from Nishijima Roshi. He wears strange glasses. We know you can never trust somebody who wears strange glasses.

His books are always provocatively titled: “Hardcore Zen,” “Sex, Sin, and Zen,” “Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate.” When I read his books, I always get the feeling that there’s no THERE there. He spends alot of time being very hip and cool and provocative in the way that only Zen can be. Always challenging your assumptions, always looking to put you ever so slightly off balance.

But sometimes, all that challenging, and all that bombast sometimes just makes me tired...In the end it can end up leaving you a little troubled. Which is, I am sure, exactly his intent. If you’ve ever read one of his books, you can see what I mean. There’s a lot of entertainment and not so much teaching. A lot of declaring that Zen Buddhism is not this, it’s not that; but when it comes to explaining what it really is, what you usually get left with is a paper thin, less than complete or satisfying answer.

And then there’s the whole “Dharma Transmission” thing. I mean, what is that, really?You know the story. It comes from the Flower Sermon. One of the Buddha’s disciples, mahakasyapa was looking at him one day, and the Buddha looked at a lotus flower, looked up at him, and ZAP, the tradition of “silent” transmission was, born, and the entire tradition of Zen was born.

The Buddha is quoted as saying, “I have the right Dharma Eye Treasury, the wondrous mind of nirvana, the reality beyond appearance. The Dharma-door of mind to mind transmission has been entrusted to Kāśyapa.”

There was, of course, the small detail that the Flower Sermon sutra does not exist in the Pali canon, the oldest existing texts of buddhist teaching, and that there was about a thousand years of history between the Buddha’s time and the actual arise of the popular practice of Ch-an in China, which was to become Zen in Japan.

There are other times, though, when Brad Warner gets right to the point and it totally resonates with me. He was being interviewed for Tricycle magazine recently and was talking about his life and his work, and he made some comments that I could really identify with. He was talking about his work at the Hill Street Zen Center in Santa Monica, where he led a sitting group and gave periodic talks. He says this about it:

"I was naive at first [about giving talks about my books] but I quickly realized that most of the people I was talking to were never going to do Zen practice. Essentially, when I’m giving a lecture, I just view it as  entertainment for the audience. I try to put on a show that will have something of value within it, rather than seeing the audience as potential practitioners, because most of them, realistically, are not."

Here is where I found a real connection with Brad Warner. As part of my work at the St. Luke’s Brain Fitness Center, I give presentations to the public every week, with audiences ranging from 10 people to 500. When I give these talks about the elements of brain fitness and what people can do keep their brains fit and healthy, I get a similar feeling to what Brad was saying. Most of the the people are there to be entertained.

I’ve even heard it referred to with the label: “Edutainment.” They think that attending a talk on brain fitness constitutes the extent of what they need to do, not exercising more, changing their diets, going back to college, learning to play a new sport or learn a foreign language. They’re certainly not going to start meditating. All they’re going to do is come to my talk. These folks are there and they are reading the menu. They have no intention of eating the meal.

So in this way, I totally get what Brad Warner is referring to, in the quote above, and what he says about his audiences. In his Tricycle interview, he also says something about teaching which I found very close to my thoughts, especially as I set down to write a ‘dharma talk.’ When you do this, you really develop very quickly an acute appreciation for what Janet does here every week.

She is able to crank out a dharma teaching that is  apt and funny and personal and natural. And she does it every week. It never ceases to amaze me at how she does it. Anyway, Brad Warner says,

            

"I know Zen teachers who will give a dharma talk once a month and that’s all they’ll do. That’s as much dharma as they’ve got in them, and I think those people are intelligent. There’s only so much that can be said.”

That’s definitely how I feel most of the time. Hacking away for hours with stacks of books all around me. I’m not saying this to try to impress anybody. What I’m trying to say is that, for me, at least, this is hard. I absolutely don’t know how Janet does it.

Anyway, that’s why I have this love hate thing with Brad Warner. There are times he will say something I totally get, agree with and resonate with. And there are other times, I just think oh please. In this way, Brad Warner can push my buttons, for good or ill. I have to look beyond the punk persona, the attitude, the glasses.

I am reminded about the story of Santideva, the monk who wrote the Bodhicaryvatara, the way of the Bodhisattva, one of the most important works of early Mahayana movement. It was said that because he kept to himself, the other monks didn’t really think that much of him. It seemed to them that Santideva simply lazed around doing nothing, in their chiding words, “just eating, sleeping, and defecating.”

In his introduction to a translation of the Bodhicaryvatara, Paul Williams relates the story. The monks decided to humiliate Santideva by asking him to give a recitation before the entire monastery, the great Nalanda University. They erected a seat for him in the monastery square. A seat so high he couldn’t possibly reach it. One story has him levitate to the top of the seat, another has him magically lowering the seat with a magic hand.

Santideva then asks the gathered monks if they want to hear something old or something new. They ask for something new. So from memory, he recites the whole of the Bodhicaryvatara, at one point ascending in the air and disappearing, with only his voice remaining to recite the remainder of the work. Santideva, who for all his learning appeared to be an ordinary monk and yet in his humility, wisdom and compassionate warmth to those who knew him showed an inner development which maybe some guessed but few understood. And my understanding of Brad Warner grows with time, too. We have a lot in common. That’s what I mean when I say I have a love--hate thing with him.

References:

“Interview: Sex, Sin, and Zen: Tricycle discusses Buddhist blogging, power, and the generation gap with Zen teacher Brad Warner” pp. 42-45, Tricycle, winter, 2011.

Williams, Paul, Introduction, The Bodhicaryavatara, pp. vii-xxvi, Oxford University Press, 1995.

---John Corbaley M.S., M.A.