January 3, 2010

New Year: Sickness, Aging and Dying

Posted by dragonflydm under Buddha, Buddhism, Darma, Dhamma, Dharma, Divorce, Ethics, Four Noble Truths, Karma, Kharma, Lifestyle, Mahayana, Marriage, Meditation, New Age, Noble Eightfold Path, Philosophy, Relationships, Theravada, Tibet, Virajana, Work, khamma | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
[3] Comments 

“JUST AS A SNAKE SHED ITS SKIN, WE SHOULD SHED OUR PAST OVER AND OVER AGAIN.”
~The Buddha

By Joshua Sumitta Hudson

The big holiday season comes at the end of the year. We celebrate the coming of winter, the shortest day of the year, good will towards men, peace on Earth, resolve to be better to ourselves and others. This time,for most in America, is spent with family and loved ones, huddled over dinner tables of potatoes and yams.

As the end of the year came, I had an experience that brought this time of year back to the first realizations of the Buddha. The Buddha Gotoma, who was always sheltered from the world, had made four trips outside his castle and had his eyes opened to the world around him. He saw the sick, the old and the dying that is the condition of all mankind. He also saw the spiritual people of the world who found happiness.

Sickness and Two Arrows

The holiday season saw a lot of sickness for me: primarily my own sickness. I did not walk into the New Year, but saw it come from my bed as I made two trips to the hospital ER in less than a month.

Applying my Buddhist practice, I worked hard to be mindful of the experience: the arising of the conditions of my illness. The quality of my experience was made more tolerable and positive as I took the time to clear the clinging and aversion of the experience.

With each breath in, I remembered that all things are impermanent. This sickness will pass. With each breath out, I observed the nature of my pains and recognized that my body is not me, and that “I” am a construct of the processes of the moment. Throughout it all I let go of the ideations of the pain lasting forever, the “woe is I” mental anguish, and all of the “only if,” “should have,” and “would be” comments that come when we want the world to be other than it is.

Did my practices stop my illnesses and cure me? No. But as the Buddha says, when we feel pain it is the pain of two arrows: the first of the physical pain, and the second of the mental. I believe that I had a much better illness with one arrow only.

The Aging of Candles

This American holiday season, I also turned 40. For many, it seemed an important age marker, and for awhile, I fell into the conditioning of seeing it as important as well. It took a lot of meditation to remember the tricky natures of mara and samsara.

As the New Year approached, as well as my birthday, I had to renew my own revelations of the nature of the world. All things that arise and are born will eventually die: all things are impermanent.

We so often lament the loss of what we no longer have—youth, friends, lovers, etc.— that we forget that life is not about holding onto the past but living in the present with appreciation.

In our temple, we celebrate birthdays by lighting a candle and sharing it. It is not a celebration of how many years we have collected to carry with us, but a reminder that our time is being used up as we speak, and that we must share it and use it wisely.

The Buddha said a thousand candles can be lit from a single candle and the life of that candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. I would add that we do not measure candles by how much has candle used to be there, but how much is left. In this way, we should always remember that our time should never be measured but how much time we have had, but how much time we have left on this world to spread our light to the world.

Dying to Get Out of Here

As 2009 ends and 2010 begins, we give rebirth to our concept of time. In all reality, January 1st is just the day after December31st. In all reality, January 1st doesn’t really exist,but is a reference point for us to measure our relative space in time. We as a collective society have given time measures and created universes within them.

And so the existence of the time we call 2009 dies, as all things do. The TV shows to retrospectives on what happened all year, and we think back on the good experiences we wish we could keep and run from the bad experiences we wish never happened.

But how is this different from any other aspect of our lives? As we practice Buddhism, we are always slipping into states of samsara,where we crave and avoid. We must continue our practice daily to be mindful of these states and see the nature of the arising of craving and avoidance.

One craving that I hope we can all put aside is the craving for Nirvana. So many Buddhists, I talk to speak as if it is a place they are trying to get to like heaven. But Nirvana is not a place but a condition of being. Reaching a state of nirvana is not a state of transcendence but a condition of liberation. The flames of our candle no longer crave the fuel for which it is fed (in Pali “nibbuti”).

Nirvanna is a BIG subject, but as we continue our practiceof a contemplative life, I wish that all of us learn that (according to Bhikkhu Bodhi) all phenomena are rooted in desire, which creates the “there” in consciousness. So we must explore if our desires long for a “there” to get to,or a “here” to find happiness within. Be in a world where the light from our candle has no “there” to cast a shadow on, no “places” it wishes to go, “desires”it craves for.

Let this time, in which we exist now, be where we work to find our happiness. Our lives are temporary: don’t be dying to get out of here craving.

 

December 28, 2009

Marriage and Buddhism

Posted by dragonflydm under Buddha, Buddhism, Darma, Dhamma, Dharma, Divorce, Ethics, Four Noble Truths, Karma, Kharma, Lifestyle, Mahayana, Marriage, Meditation, New Age, Noble Eightfold Path, Philosophy, Relationships, Theravada, Tibet, Virajana, Work, khamma | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
[2] Comments 

Sumitta,

I appreciate your point about a certain kind of clinging love, vs unconditional. But i am still uncertain: for a Buddhist layperson (not a monk), is it OK to fall madly in love, so that for a few months you crave the person, and feel pain when separated. And then, if you marry, and 5 years later your spouse dies, and it pains you to lose her, does this all show that loved her in a good way, or does it show that you craved her, and were attached to her inappropriately.  (a mother would feel terrible pain at the loss of her child). I still believe, based on what you wrote to me, that the Buddha would say you were wrong at both ends — the falling in love, and the pain at loss. If that’s true, then I think Buddhism does take its concern about attachments too far. Perhaps more modern Buddhists, or even ancient Mahayana Buddhists, allowed poeple to fall madly in love. What do you think?

~~ J.H, PhD

Grieving does not indicated an unwholesome love. There is a great story about a mother whose child had died and she could not deal with the grief.

“Lord Buddha,” she asked. “My child has died and I cannot live without him. Is there anything you can do to bring him to me?”

The Buddha replied, “Yes. Go and get a mustard seed and I can show you how.”

Mustard seeds are very common, so the woman was excited and cried tears of joy, “Oh yes, Lord Buddha, I will get a mustard seed.”

“But,” the Buddha added, “it must be from a house that has never known death.”

The woman ran from the Buddha and went searching for an undefiled mustard seed. However, at each house, no matter how kind the tenant, she could not find a home with an undefiled seed.

“My father has died here.”

“My child has died.”

No house could be found where death was not known. It was then that the woman realized that death was common to all creatures. She was able to see the wisdom of the Buddha, that all things that live must die and that we must all accept death as a part of life. Not feeling so isolated in this knowledge, she was able to understand this wisdom and did not hold so tightly to the clinging of her child’s life.

In psychology, we know that one of the feelings that many people have when they are distressed is a feeling that they are the only people in the world suffering. When we expose them to others who have suffered they remove that isolation and see that we all have our illnesses, grieving, and unhappinesses.

Consider the three poisons of the world: aversion, clinging, and ignorance (which is also translated as hatred/fear, greed and delusion) in a different metaphor. If our consciousness was a rider of a chariot and then the two horses pulling the chariot would be aversion and clinging riding through a fog of delusion. One horse is always pulling away from the chariot to run away from what is before us and the other is always trying to grab a hold of everything it sees and drag it with us. Neither horse will allow the rider to navigate. In addition, we are ignorant of the world as it really is and also unable to clearly see how to navigate the Middle Path.

The woman’s horse of aversion was running from the world, not wanting to deal with the child’s death (out of fear). The other was pulling at every straw, twig and branch trying to keep time still and hold onto the child (out of clinging and greed). Unable to see the wisdom of the reality of mortality, she was in a fog and unable to bring her horses under control, since she was unable to see the truth of the world clearly.

The misconception is that Buddhism wants us to get off the chariot totally and just sit. We would just remove ourselves from the world and all that living entails. This is not Buddhism. Believing that being separate from the world is not Buddhist message. We are all part of the world and interconnected.

Like a violin, we must not tighten the strings too tightly or too loosely or we cannot make music. This is the Middle Path: a path of living within the right tension to be in this world harmoniously.

So when we love, we must always analyze HOW we love. Certainly codependent love is harmful. So is a love with a spouse that is too aloof. Marriage is an extension of our inter-dependent society. It grows wholesomely through understanding, compassion and sharing: not indulgence, lust, and clinging. Knowing that all relationships that start will end—whether by natural illness and death or unwholesome development of the relationship—we can see clearly how important it is to cherish the experiences we are fortunate to share with others for the time we have.

Unwholesome love encompasses more than codependence. We are all good and bad. We all have things that are attractive and unattractive to our mates.  In a Buddhist context, when the romance wears off, we stop seeing only that which is attractive and start seeing the revelation of our full partner: bit by bit. It is here, and in boredom of the mundane, that disillusion sets in and we look for the next external pleasure to excite us.

For a monk, marriage means that there is an attachment to the physical world. We all are made of five aggregate materials, and when we marry we adopt five more to be responsible for. For each child, there are five more to carry on our load of responsibilities. The Buddha did not condemn marriage for lay people, but lay people make a volitional choice to study Buddhism with these extra burdens.

In Buddhism, “man does not exist for religion but religion for man.” To this end, each of us must use the tools of Buddhism to better the quality of the life that he chooses.

According to the Buddha, a marriage has responsibilities. A husband should expect his wife to be loving, attentive, faithful, be a good mother, be a partner in the house, and be compassionate. In return a wife should expect her husband to be tender, courteous, a partner in the house, loyal, faithful, honest, and supportive. The husband and wife are inter-dependent just as every man is inter-dependent on the rest of society.

So my advice is always to seek love and develop love with the knowledge of the mortality of love, just as there is mortality in anything that is born. All things are impermanent, but all things are also inter-dependent. The love, compassion, and acceptance we develop with our spouses carries on beyond our marriages. The love we develop in our marriages is not less important because it is temporary, but more precious because of this fact. Two people who have bonded and joined their lives to journey their short time on this world together are a blessed by each other and are able to take a non-monastic path in their understanding of happiness, wisdom, understanding and compassion.

We must choose the Buddhists we wish to be develop and become, always understanding that the goal is not nirvana, but true happiness. While a married lay person must carry a heavier burden in the physical world, they still walk the Middle Path.

 

December 24, 2009

How to deal with people who bother you

Posted by dragonflydm under Buddha, Buddhism, Darma, Dhamma, Dharma, Divorce, Ethics, Four Noble Truths, Karma, Kharma, Lifestyle, Mahayana, Marriage, Meditation, New Age, Noble Eightfold Path, Philosophy, Relationships, Theravada, Tibet, Virajana, Work, khamma | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |
1 Comment 

It is in times like this, that we should focus on patience. Being present at the moment and letting go of what should be.

Let me whip a little story on ya’!

A father saw his boy stomping around the yard. “What is wrong?” asked the father.

“The kids at school are just so annoying,” grumbled the son.

“Really?” the father replied. “How so?”

“Well, there are some boys who take too long to order their lunch and hold up the line, and I never have enough time to eat. Some of the girls giggle in the back of class, and I sometimes miss what the teacher is saying. The teacher yells at me when I don’t understand the class assignments then. A few kids tell me I am goofy and others won’t let me play four square …” the boy went on for a long time.

The father smiled and said, “would you like to know how to stop them making you so angry?”

“Oh yes!”

The father went into the shed and pulled out a iron cauldron. “This is a magic cauldron. It can stop you from being angry all the time. But you must do as I say.”

The son excitedly agreed. The father told the son to gather potatoes and write the names and offenses of each person that angered them and put them into the cauldron.

“What now, father?”

“Carry the cauldron with you until the magic works,” the father answered.

The boy picked up the cauldron of potatoes, and being strong he didn’t feel that it was a problem at all. But in a few minutes, the weight of the cauldron increased as gradual fatigue came. In addition, as the boy went about his day, the cauldron (always in one hand) became a burden to everyday tasks. By the next morning, the boy saw the cauldron with dread.

“How much long father?” the boy asked. “It is very uncomfortable to carry this cauldron.”

“If it is too heavy,” the father replied, “then find some of the offenses that you think probably aren’t all that important and get rid of them.”

The boy found a few potatoes that had names of people that — a day later– did not bother him so much. BUT the other names still made his blood boil. With a slightly lighter cauldron of potatoes he continued his day.

In addition to the weight and cumbersome nature of the cauldron, the potatoes now started to rot and smell. In the heat it was very unpleasant. Remembering his father’s words, he once again wanted to reduce his displeasure by re-evaluating if all of these people written on potatoes were worth the trouble.

Lightening his load a little more, he went about his day. By the next morning, the pot was full of maggots and other insects. The boy had enough and refused to spend a day with the bugs infesting his life.

“How much longer?” he asked his father.

The father looked at his son, “You choose to carry those potatoes. You carry them as long as you like. You hold onto your anger until it becomes unpleasant, exhausting, rotting, and brings decay to your life. And what of those who have ‘offended you?’ They do not even know you have a cauldron, let alone carry their name on rotting potatoes.”

The boy understood and tossed the potatoes away. He also put down the cauldron because he had no more need to carry marked potatoes.

We must recognize that when we harbor negative feelings about someone, that it is not a gift or curse from others, but a choice we have to develop those negative thoughts and hold onto them until they become very unpleasant– and only to us.

Instead, let these feelings go. Remind yourself that you should focus on liberating yourself from negativity and replace the arising of those negative thoughts with something positive.

And if you focusing only on the present situation without developing judgments about it you will find that you will not give power to the negative energy we all so easily hold onto in our lives. This is the poison of aversion and clinging. To avoid and push negative energy away, itself takes energy and develops a sense of validity to negative thoughts, just as clinging to them feeds those negative thoughts as well. We end up carrying rotting potatoes.

Feel the lightness of being when we can put down the burden and move forward in our lives without dealing with such things.

 

December 9, 2009

Do I Exist?

Posted by dragonflydm under Buddha, Buddhism, Darma, Dhamma, Dharma, Divorce, Ethics, Four Noble Truths, Karma, Kharma, Lifestyle, Mahayana, Marriage, Meditation, New Age, Noble Eightfold Path, Philosophy, Relationships, Theravada, Tibet, Virajana, khamma | Tags: , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

“JUST AS A SNAKE SHED ITS SKIN, WE SHOULD SHED OUR PAST OVER AND OVER AGAIN.”
~The Buddha

By Joshua Sumitta Hudson

Rene Descartes said, “I think therefore I am.”  In one short sentence,he was able to sum up the delusion of man, because while he could deny and question the existence of everything external to him, he was unable to rationalize away his own existence. (Actually, he said it in Latin, “Cogito ergo sum!” which made it sound even more impressive.)

But is his statement true? Because we think, do we exist? In Buddhism, so many try to wrap their heads around the concept of emptiness (sunyata): the concept that we have no true nature and therefore possibly do NOT exist. In addition, this concept of emptiness raises other questions of “does any thing exists?” and “what is the point if nothing exists?”

How do we know what is and what is not?

First, let us look at this concept of “I” as our starting point of knowledge. We are aware. We have physical shape. We interact with our environment. To this extent there is something “there” that exists. In this sense, Descartes is correct. “Something is there and self-aware.”

In Buddhism, we break down the person into five aggregates or khandhas (skhandhas): five collections that make up who we are. These are our physical material (rupa), feeling senses (vedana), perceptions of the worlds based on our feeling senses (sanna), our constructed opinions or volitional formations based on our experience with the world around us (sankhara), and our consciousness (vinnana). Change any of these factors and change who we are, and we are changing all the time. We age, get sick, loose the quality of our senses, gain wisdom and insight.

While there is certainly a process that is operating with these five aggregates, it is forever changing and evolving. Each moment is a new experience, and change in the body, and shift in our volitional formations. So the concept of “I” remains elusive to Descartes’ definition, because what was”I” in one moment changes with every tick of the clock. When the aggregates are removed, the construction falls apart like a house of cards: nothing is left.

But if we are ever changing, impermanent, and without solid definition,what about the rest of the world? It too is made up of aggregates that are forever changing. In addition, the world is bound by our relational definitions of them. A chair is only a chair to someone that uses it as such: A wooden chair would be a meal to a termite, a throw toy for an elephant, an obstacle for a dog.

Our senses interpret the world falsely as well. How often have we been fooled by optical illusions, faulty perceptions, and misinformation? There is a story of a man at twilight being frightened to death by a rattle snake on the road, only to find out in the morning it was a bit of discarded rope under the light of day.

So how do we know what is and what is not? Perhaps the problem is not in the answer but in the question.

Knowing that the world around us is a perception and not a concrete hard fact, knowing that the world is forever changing, knowing that our perceptions are constantly changing: Perhaps, we should stop asking “how do we know?” but “how do we accept?”

When we accept that the world is perception, relational, conditional; we can then accept that it is integrated, communal, and a projection of ourselves.We can accept that all things are impermanent and find happiness in the time we exist the way the world is, not in the delusions of how we think it should be.

John Milton wrote, “The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell and a hell of Heaven.”

Our world is not seen through our eyes, but our eyes create the world around us.

 

December 8, 2009

Mindful Marriage: How to reconnect

Posted by dragonflydm under Buddha, Buddhism, Darma, Dhamma, Dharma, Divorce, Ethics, Four Noble Truths, Karma, Kharma, Lifestyle, Mahayana, Marriage, Meditation, New Age, Noble Eightfold Path, Philosophy, Relationships, Theravada, Tibet, Virajana, Work, khamma | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

 by J. Sumitta Hudson

With all the news of Tiger Woods’ marital troubles, I have to think why we care so much. I believe that we have always imagined Tiger as the perfect role model (even for non-golfers) of a decent human being, and when our role models fail to live up to their legend, disappointment sets in. So what is the secret to a good marriage that alludes even the great Tiger Woods?

After the rings are exchanged, cake is cut, honeymoon tans have faded marriages have to get down to business. The enthusiasm of this new phase in the relationship – the marriage phase—is exciting like a new car: it is shiny, sexy, smooth to ride.  Like a new car, we are extra careful in how we treat our new relationships. With a car we do what we can to avoid scratches, change oil regularly, etc. In a new marriage, we work hard to avoid conflict, temptation, maintain passion.

So what happens? What happened to this snapshot of a “perfect couple?”

The first realization is that we must understand that the union of two people dynamically changes people. Each person is an ever changing process of phenomena where each experience continually changes who we are. We continually grow, change and redefine ourselves. When two people get married they create a third process amalgamating the processes of the two individuals. Two people get married, which creates three processes: him, her, and us.

All too often, we are too stuck in our own activities to notice that we are continually changing creatures. Our minds have what is called “body schema” where each change in our body and personality is instantly rewritten into the definition of who we are. This is why we do not associate ourselves as the person we were when we were two, ten or twenty years old. This is how patients who lose a limb are able to make body adjustments.

So when we are unaware of how we are continually changing as a process and see ourselves unmindfully as defined and static individuals, it is easy to do the same with our partner. He is the man (or woman) you married oh so many years ago: except that he isn’t.

How many times have we heard, “He used to be so…” or “She used to do …” or “We always use to …” as the lamenting cry of people looking to divorce. A couple walking unmindfully through time will always be surprised when they look back someday and see that their partner has wondered off. The process of “them” has been a distant memory.

Coming out of the fog, we call to our partners and ask them to go back to where you came from. Trying to retrace back to the way things use to be only makes it worse, because it is like trying to fit into the blue jeans you used to wear in 6th grade—you have just outgrown them.

But are drifting relationships doomed? No. They just need to be evaluated anew. They need to be seen with fresh eyes.

1)     Do not try and judge a renewing relationship based on history. Evaluate who you are now and who your partner is now. Without knowing each other previously, would both of you be interested in each other romantically and for a committed relationship? Too many couples keep trying to drag in their history to justify staying together or breaking up. We must recognize that the people that originally married are gone.
BUDDHIST PRACTICE: Meditate on the fact that all things are impermanent. Everything has its time and changes. Liberate yourself from what no longer exists and engage in the world around you now.

2)     Be honest with each other. This seems pretty obvious, and yet so few people do it. Many people believe that lying or withholding the truth is what is best. Not only is lying harmful to the relationship, but it is harmful to yourself. Each lie, cover up, and truth shoved under the rug is a secret that takes up energy to maintain. Lies have to be remembered, alibis have to be constructed, and reality has to be altered. Do this for long enough and it gets exhausting.
BUDDHIST PRACTICE:  The fourth precept of “I will refrain from false speech” (Musāvāda veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi) develops our mind to keep our thoughts wholesome.

3)     Don’t just say “I love you,” love. We use the heart to symbolize the organ that loves. It is also the organ that never stops working. Love is a verb and requires continual effort and development. When we hear the phrases, “fell out of love” or “I love them but I am not IN love with them” we are essentially saying that we stopped exercising those muscles and let them atrophy.
BUDDHIST PRACTICE: Metta, or loving-kindness, meditation is a regular part of our daily practice. We practice it wishing the world to be well and happy. We must also put it into practice—starting with those at home.

4)     Let go of Ego! Remember the analogy of relationships being like a car? Well cars fall apart from wear and tear, which is caused by friction. Work to remove the unnecessary friction in your relationship. These are arguments and struggles we have caused by our own ego. We always have a choice to be right or happy in an argument, rarely both. That is because most arguments aren’t about anything substantive, but about our desire to be in charge, seem smart, appear in control. Imagine each argument you have with your partner as if the people talking were strangers—does the argument seem less important now? When you feel the urge to get into an argument with your partner be silent for as long as you can and see how often the problem works itself out by itself.
BUDDHIST PRACTICE: Mindfulness meditation develops the mind to see what is and is not. When we can calm out mind from the five hindrances and reevaluate our relationships, it is easy to see how ego has not given the best relationship advice.

5)     Be partners. Relationship words say it all: couple, partner, marriage, etc. The reason why you are together is because you are creating that third entity of “us.” That requires that you do things together and share your lives. A good team sticks together and supports each other. Unfortunately, people forget that teams don’t just happen, they are developed.
BUDDHIST PRACTICE: Part of our Buddhist practice is to see how all things are interconnected, and nowhere is that more obvious than in a committed relationship. Your family is your own little Sangha that is there to support you and for you to support.

 

December 8, 2009

Craving

Posted by dragonflydm under Buddha, Buddhism, Darma, Dhamma, Dharma, Ethics, Four Noble Truths, Karma, Kharma, Lifestyle, Mahayana, Meditation, New Age, Noble Eightfold Path, Philosophy, Theravada, Tibet, Virajana, khamma
[2] Comments 

Ajahn Brahm addresses the issue of craving.

 

December 1, 2009

Being Alone

Posted by dragonflydm under Buddha, Buddhism, Darma, Dhamma, Dharma, Divorce, Four Noble Truths, Karma, Kharma, Lifestyle, Mahayana, Marriage, Meditation, New Age, Noble Eightfold Path, Philosophy, Relationships, Theravada, Tibet, Virajana, khamma | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

“Being alone is not about geography, but about walking away from the thoughts that crowd our mind.”
~J. Sumitta Hudson

By Joshua Sumitta Hudson

The holidays, we are told, are times for family. It is a time for family and friends to come together and share of themselves. It is a time where we can renew our connections with others.

It is a predominate theory that the reason human beings have large brains—brains that use about 20% of our energy output—is because we are hyper-social creatures. We do not have claws, fur, and animal strength: what we have is our communal power.

It is therefore always interesting to me when Buddhists misunderstand the power of solitude in their practice. So many suttas mention solitude and the power of solitary practice. For Example:

“Renouncing violence for all living beings,
harming not even a one, you would not wish for offspring,
so how a companion?
Wander alone like a rhinoceros.
For a sociable person there are allurements;
on the heels of allurement, this pain. Seeing allurement’s drawback,
wander alone like a rhinoceros.”

~~KhaggavisanaSutta: A Rhinoceros

I could continue sutta after sutta where solitude is lauded and the impulse to have company seems to be a detractor to our application of Buddhism.

But we are social creatures. Our survival relies on our ability to live with one another.Our emotions, our attitudes, our delusions and realizations are based in our relationships with others. Whether we are lay people, living in communities as householders; or monks, living in monasteries—we cannot survive alone.

The sangha itself is a community that supports our other Dhamma-followers and our monks.

So what is the solitude that the Buddha says that we need? We need the solitude of practice. We need the time alone to quiet our minds so that we can see the delusions,analyze our aversions and liberate our cravings. However, in the end we must rejoin the world and use that new understanding to engage with the world and apply our Buddhist mind.

After Jesus left his 40 days in the desert, after Mohammed went to the mountain, and after Buddha went to the bodhi tree, they returned to the world.  They did not leave the world and stay there,but they took the time to be apart and see what is true.

Everything we accept as true is trained and conditioned from the outside. It is how the delusions of samsara works. Every belief we have was given to us from our parents, our ignorance; and from our fear, greed, hatred, and delusions. It is only by removing ourselves from those external factors can we see clearly and reorient our compasses to see the world correctly can we understand the truth.

One of those truths is that we are all interconnected, and we are all dependent on each other. We must embrace this and the world around us, because to hold close the world is to ourselves close. We are part of the universe, and the universe is within us.

Too many of us mistake a call to solitude as a mandate for loneliness, and nothing could be farther from the truth. As we practice to liberate ourselves from grasping, we can learn to gently and lightly hold the gifts that are given to us.

Take the time for seclusion, but not at the expense of exclusion. There is a reason why the Buddha asked us to take refuge in the triple gem, and why one of those refuges is with others.

So this holiday season, when we see our friends and family; rejoice in all the connections we have made with others. Open the door to your heart by swinging wide your arms ready to embrace and be amazed how many people walk in to sit next to you by the burning hearth that is your heart.

 

November 30, 2009

Buddhism and Thanksgiving

Posted by dragonflydm under Buddha, Buddhism, Darma, Dhamma, Dharma, Four Noble Truths, Karma, Kharma, Lifestyle, Mahayana, Marriage, Philosophy, Relationships, Theravada, Tibet, Virajana, khamma | Tags: , , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice.”
~Meister Eckhart

By Joshua Sumitta Hudson

Thanksgiving is a great time for Buddhist. The act of giving thanks is a way we can develop ourselves. By recognizing all the wonderful gifts we receive in life Buddhists can appreciate the world around us.

The gift of the dhamma (dhammadana) we have received this past year is as important as the food and drink received to sustain the body.
The gifts we have given are shared with others out of compassion. Giving counteracts the states of aversion and clinging. Accepting gifts are opportunities to develop appreciation and connection. The changes within us maybe profound or minor, but they are important to be recognized.

Giving comes naturally to some and not so for others. For those who find it easy are blessed with the joys of doing good deeds. Those who do not can practice the unequalled joy of “merit-making” for the world.

Giving comes very naturally to some people — they enjoy giving and are unhappy if they cannot do so. And though it is obvious that one can give foolishly, it is in general a very good and meritorious thing to give. This is recognized in, probably, all religions: in Christianity we are told that it is more blessed to give than to receive, and in Islam there is a positive injunction to give part of one’s wealth to the poor.

Giving is the practice of developing a mind of emptying ourselves and lessening our clinging to possessions, and strengthening our skills of compassion. This is why dana is considered a good starting point of a successful Buddhist practice.

Bhikkhu Bodhi wrote, “The practice of giving is universally recognized as one of the most basic human virtues, a quality that testifies to the depth of one’s humanity and one’s capacity for self-transcendence. In the teaching of the Buddha, too, the practice of giving claims a place of special eminence, one which singles it out as being in a sense the foundation and seed of spiritual development. In the Pali suttas we read time and again that “talk on giving” (danakatha) was invariably the first topic to be discussed by the Buddha in his “graduated exposition” of the Dhamma.

Whenever the Buddha delivered a discourse to an audience of people who had not yet come to regard him as their teacher, he would start by emphasizing the value of giving.Only after his audience had come to appreciate this virtue would he introduce other aspects of his teaching, such as morality, the law of kamma, and the benefits in renunciation, and only after all these principles had made their impact on the minds of his listeners would he expound to them that unique discovery of the Awakened Ones, the Four Noble Truths.”

 

November 18, 2009

Emotions and Dharma

Posted by dragonflydm under Buddha, Buddhism, Darma, Dhamma, Dharma, Divorce, Ethics, Four Noble Truths, Karma, Kharma, Lifestyle, Mahayana, Meditation, New Age, Noble Eightfold Path, Philosophy, Relationships, Theravada, Tibet, Virajana, khamma | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |
1 Comment 

“Nothing is miserable unless you think it is so.”
~Boethius

By Joshua Sumitta Hudson

When we read the sentence, “Susan left home” we probably have little response to the action at all. Change the sentence to “Susan left her husband and newborn baby never to return” and anyone can reasonably infer that the response will be different. If the person reading that sentence waste husband and there certainly would be some strong feelings on the matter.
What is important is the “context” of the action. Our relationship and how we relate to the situations before us trigger the responses we have to any situation. In this case, depending on the context of the Susan leaving a building can go from indifferent to outraged depending how that action relates to our lives. In this way we can see how events in the world affect us only through our interpretations of them.

There is no reality: only perception.

The Buddha stated that he only taught the understanding and ending of suffering. In other words, he understood how to be happy. Happiness is a choice, a point of view, a lifestyle. When we put the world in the right context, we remove the defilements that detract from understanding (and being in a state of) happiness.
The poisons of hate, greed and delusion are developed— and reinforce— by ignorance. On a very simple level we know that we have conditioned our mind and our habits to trigger emotional responses that are not always wise or wholesome. When we develop mindfulness, we create an awareness of the world as it really is instead of our skewed perceptions.

In this way we can engage in the world more fully without clinging or aversion: without hate, fear, greed, lust, and delusion. But it always that simple.

Emotional responses are necessary.

There is always the risk of misconception that emotions are the problem. However, we can never live without emotions. The Buddha said that we are like an elephant and rider, where our animal aspect of our being is willful and headstrong requiring a skilled rider to direct the team along the Eightfold Path. While we may develop mindfulness to help steer our elephant more skillfully, I always question if enlightenment should unemotional as well as dispassionate.
Emotions certainly can be the basis of delusion. Our decisions are biased by our feelings. A monkey tastes a banana and finds it pleasurable, it continues to eat. A monkey eats mud and dislikes it; it doesn’t take a second bite. In THIS way our animal body uses our emotional cravings and aversions to help us in our decision making.
Do you want to read a book or go see a movie? These are not decisions that are rationally based. In fact, almost all decisions we make are primarily emotionally based. This is why it is so easy for the three poisons to defile our minds. It is a great elephant and little rider, but there is a good evolutionary reason it is that way.
Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio studied the effects of brain injuries that only affect the areas of the brain where emotions are generated. Losing their emotional ability resulted in their inability to make decisions. With no “preference” towards reading and movies, how many more choices are there? How do you logically choose between just the two choices? On the subconscious level there are millions of decisions and processes that are being decided on by emotional habit.

Emotional Dharma

The stated of mindful awareness, we want someone else to make the decisions. Because the elephant is an essential part of who we are, we want the rider to be in control. If you want ride an elephant you must guide and work them to their destination: just as we must develop our minds to recondition our habits, outlooks, and cravings. At the moment of decision the elephant (and our emotions) will be favorably disposed to make the appropriate choices.
When we develop our Buddhist practice, we develop the habits of loving kindness to replace greed, we develop compassion to replace hatred, and we develop equanimity to replace delusion. We embrace the emotional aspects of who we are, but recognize that emotions are conditioned responses are what we must focus on for change. Nothing is miserable unless we think it is so.

 

November 12, 2009

Be Happy Without Wanting

Posted by dragonflydm under Buddha, Buddhism, Darma, Dhamma, Dharma, Ethics, Four Noble Truths, Karma, Kharma, Lifestyle, Mahayana, Meditation, New Age, Philosophy, Relationships, Theravada, Tibet, Virajana, khamma | Tags: , , , , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

By Joshua Sumitta Hudson

Enlightenment is not born from ecstasy but from the displeasure of discontentment. Stimulated enjoyment is simulated happiness. The arousal of the senses to pleasurable experiences distracts the mind from genuine experience. We know this because when we turn the stimulation off—we are left empty and wanting.

All pleasure is like food. We can satiate our appetites, but only for awhile. Eventually the great sucking maw of want hungers for more—more food, more sex, more experience, more money, more everything. Most of us are so busy seeking our next pleasure that we are deluded to think that this is normal: this is what life is all about. But there are moments of stillness where each of us can feel the inherent unsatisfactory nature of always wanting and looking outside ourselves to find happiness.

KICKING THE HABIT

From the time we are born we are conditioned into the habits of seeking outside ourselves.  At first it is the physical needs of food, water, and shelter for survival. We then look for social, physical, emotional and economic safety. Eventually, as our basic needs are met, we create more and more complex desires.

Each level of need for survival reinforces a sense that external fulfillment is always a good thing. The pleasant sensations of a full belly and a warm fire provide us the proof that getting what we need is beneficial.

The mind of “external appetite” doesn’t stop at what is necessary for survival. We mistakenly think, “If having a meal for dinner is good, than having a horde of food in the cave to eat whenever we wish is better.” Our “needs” are soon mixed in with our “wants.” “I need a safe place to sleep,” is exchanged for “I want a mansion with beautiful things.” If a warm bed is good, then a luxurious home is better—right?

On every level, we are deluded to think that feeding our desires and cravings is the path to becoming happy.  Even when we give up the greedy monetary desires; we still seek out other cravings of companionship, knowledge, thrill-seeking, etc. We are addicted to “wanting” like a drug and we need to kick the habit.

UNCONDITIONING

Ask any four-year old whose toys are on the floor, and they will answer you, “those are mind and these are so-and-sos … “Every child has been trained to see the world as “mine” and “yours.” Every child in the world has been trained to believe in the “happiness of owning.” Our conditioning is so profound that most of the habits are unnoticeable to us. Imagine when those children grow up and are told that wanting things doesn’t bring happiness—they would call you crazy.

This is why we must spend so much time unconditioning those habits of delusion that make up who we define ourselves. We must uncondition the concept of “ourselves.”

When we ask, “Who am I?” we must stop seeing who we wish we were and start seeing us as we truly are. When we ask, “What is this?” or “Why is this so?” or “When will this be?”—we must develop the ability to understand that the question is not about the answer but the experience.

To see an unconditioned world is to see a world as it is, rather than as it ought to be. It is removing our wanting, craving and desire to create a world in our imagination, but live in the world that we exist in. An unconditioned world is ever-changing, and we are ever-changing within it: all things are impermanent.

Impermanence is a concept that is uncomfortable. The idea means that we cannot rely on food, shelter, fire, family, money, and even health will always be there. When we trust someone, it is based on our ability to label them and define who they are. If that person is impermanent, then we cannot rely on them to be there forever, or that the labels we assign them will be accurate. When things are impermanent nothing is solid, fixed or certain.

Most people avoid the truth of impermanence, like Plato’s allegory of the cave. Plato wrote of a group of people forced to live in a cave. They were only able to see the shadows from the world outside the cave and believed that to be the true nature of the world. When one man was freed and went outside, he was amazed at how much richer life was than their limited experience. But when we returned, the cave dwellers killed him preferring to believe in their delusion than be wrong about the universe.

LIVING FULLY

If we spend our life meeting our needs and then seeking our wants only to find out that we can never find real happiness when we find them; If we realize that the world is impermanent—that nothing is ever certain or constant; When we realize that we are impermanent and death is the final destination of everything—we can start to be free.

The first freedom is from anger: avoiding life and its difficulties. This fear is overcome by a sense of self-actualization and wisdom that happiness is not found in avoiding but in engaging the world around us. How can we live fully in the world if we are busy avoiding half of it?

The second freedom is from fear:  clinging to what is unwholesome.  How much misery in our lives is seeded in clinging to a person, a hope, a fantasy? We horde “things” as if they have real value, and ignore experiences that could enrich our lives.

How many people do you know that work 80 hours a week to earn large paychecks and expensive cars? How often do we hear them complain of stress, deadlines, and missed family vacation? Eventually, they end up just as dead as the rest of us—and how much of all those “things” are they bringing with them?

Orienting ourselves to an unconditioned world, we can see where engaging with the world without unwholesome clinging allows us the opportunity to revalue what is worth our time and energy.

The third freedom is from delusion.  Living life fully without fear and clinging we can see clearly the world around us. That claritycomes from an acceptance of the world the way it is, and not how we wish it to be.

UNCONDITOINAL ACCEPTANCE

The word “metta” is Pali (the language of the time of the Buddha), and it means “loving kindness.” It may also be translated as “unconditional acceptance.”

While unconditioning ourselves from our need to crave, cling and avoid may help us in our journey to find acceptance and happiness—it is also true that practicing acceptance also helps us in our journey to uncondition ourselves from unwholesome craving, clinging and avoidance of the world.

Many meditators practice metta meditation regularly developing this quality of character. All that it requires is time spent focusing on accepting the world as it is, and wishing our compassion and good wishes to everything and everyone in the world — including ourselves.

INTO PRACTICE TO FIND HAPPINESS

Shifting our mind from seeking external stimuli and pleasures to find happiness towards an outlook where acceptance of the world around us is a significant step in creating a mind that finds happiness without blame (i.e. without the need for external causes). This is not the only factor in discovering happiness, but it is a step in the right direction.

Take time in each day questioning those moments in your life where you find yourself thinking “only if …” or “life should be like …” or “when I …” and think on the impermanence of the world. Reassess the value of those wants and see if they as important as you originally believed– are really bringing you happiness?

Then spend time everyday practicing metta. See how developing acceptance reorients your outlook– one where the word happiness comes without strings.

 

Next Page »