Who are you REALLY?

Ramana Maharshi claimed you could unveil your true nature by constantly dwelling on the question, "Who Am I?" The practice of self-inquiry has been a doorway to insight for eons.  The more we look, according to both science and Buddhism, the more we into the nature of things.

One of the cornerstones in Buddhist practice, which many say is the single-most profound contribution of the Buddha, is the concept of anatta, or 'no-self.'

This is a gnarly thing to try to wrap our brains around because to fully grasp it, we have to go beyond the linear, rationale mind.  As I understand it, to dwell on the philosophy of 'no self' is pretty much a waste of time and was actively discouraged by the Buddha.  The practice, though, can lead to profound insights into the nature of self.

The following clip is from a program exploring the illusion of the human self.  The first portion explores a bit about memory and self.  At about 4:33, Eckhardt Tolle speaks on the topic in his interview with Oprah last year.  I find his western perspective quite refreshing.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZoTqn077S0&feature=related]

If you're interested, I'll be leading a daylong retreat of inquiry into the question "What Am I?" in May.

Pain and the Second Arrow

Conehead

Since the topic of suffering is a constant in Buddhist teachings, I thought I'd mention how my dog is doing.  His relationship to pain is so much different than mine.

Three years ago in a fit of irrational exuberance, he took off chasing some deer in the Maryland woods and launched himself off a dry river bank, landing really hard and tearing his anterior cruciate ligament.

Explaining to him that he was now using his college fund, he had TPLO surgery on his left knee, a pretty aggressive surgery  to stabilize the joint.  It involved cutting and reshaping the tibia bone.  On Monday I took him in because at least one of the screws in the plate holding his leg together had apparently worked loose and was infected.

We'd tried a few months of antibiotics, but the infection was deeply lodged in the bone.

On looking at the x-ray, the vet was concerned about bone density and warned me that there might be a possibility of bone cancer.

I spent the day at a cafe working and trying not to obsess.  In the early afternoon I got word that the surgery went fine, the bone was surprisingly healthy and he saw no reason to even do a biopsy.  That was a relief.

One the way home he was retching from the anesthesia wearing off and much of the night he was uncomfortable. As I've been nursing Hakuna since then, I've watched his relationship to pain.

Buddhism speaks of the pain and ' the second arrow.'  The first arrow is pain itself.  That is inevitable.  The second arrow is how we react to it.  When we add aversion, craving, resistance, worry and obsessive thinking, we add immeasurably to our experience.

One thing I've noticed is that Hakuna doesn't appear to add anything to the pain he's in.  It's just pain.

I keep reminding myself that the second arrow is optional.

Happy for No Reason: The T-Mobile Dance

There are a number of viral videos of 'spontaneous' group events in public places.  This is the first time I've seen a company get involved in sponsorship.  I've watched this a few times and find it hard not to get choked up, especially when I look for the faces of people who get caught up in the energy of it all. What is it about a group of people coordinating and choreographing themselves that touches us so?

[youtube]exkfGhz-YsU[/youtube]

Thanks, Dirk, for passing this along.

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Working with Desire

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  Trying a little too hard?

Buddhist psychology speaks to cultivating healthy desires, minimizing unhealthy desires and ultimately going beyond desire.

Willpower determines how energy flows. Healthy desires lead to gratitude, joy, generosity, stewardship and service.  Unhealthy desires lead to greed, compulsion, self-centeredness and suffering.

I remember years ago on a retreat going through the food line and realizing that what I'd choose to eat would have three potential qualities.  Anything I ate would either give me energy, be neutral or drain my energy.  I'd either feel uplifted, the same or worse.

I started to slow down my food selection.  I'd look at the dish in front of me and ask my body if it was going to give me energy, be neutral or be a drain.  (I soon realized it wasn't just what I chose, it was how much as well.)  That slowing down helped me quite a bit.  I learned more about the difference between satisfying my mind and listening to my body.  

The choices we face each day have the same possible outcomes, though the results may not be so immediate. 

One of the most striking things about the potency of Buddhist psychology is how much emphasis there is on cause and effect.  

We are invited to reflect on the consequences of any action.

If I restrain from a habit I know is not life-enhancing and pay attention, I notice some kind of compulsion or need arise.  When I pull myself away from getting lost in internet surfing, for example, I notice a restlessness ... a desire for entertainment to satisfy a hungry, unsettled mind.

Stepping away from addiction reveals a 'hungry ghost,' some form of craving that gnaws from inside.

The Buddha put it this way: 

Everything is based on mind, is led by mind, is fashioned by mind. If you speak and act with a polluted mind, suffering will follow you, as the wheels of the oxcart follow the footsteps of the ox. Everything is based on mind, is led by mind, is fashioned by mind. If you speak and act with a pure mind, happiness will follow you, as a shadow clings to a form.

I heard Joseph Goldstein make a nice distinction about this quote.  When we act from unhealthy desire, just like the wheel of the oxcart, suffering will follow.  But there can be a little lag time.  When you speak or act from healthy desire, happiness follows like a shadow.  Less lag time.  The experience of  happiness is more immediate. --------
Ultimately we can go beyond desire altogether.  When we release grasping and greed the opposite states can arise:  generosity and abundance.   When we desire nothing other than what we already have, the moment, in it's fullness and emptiness, is complete.

Happy for No Reason, Part VII

  Hanna and Allison dancing at our wedding

And 

 

For no reason  I start skipping like a child. 

And  For no reason  I turn into a leaf  That is carried so high  I kiss the sun's mouth  And dissolve. 

And  For no reason  A thousand birds  Choose my head for a conference table,  Start passing their  Cups of wine  And their wild songbooks all around. 

And  For every reason in existence  I begin to eternally,  To eternally laugh and love! 

When I turn into a leaf  And start dancing,  I run to kiss our beautiful Friend  And I dissolve in the Truth  That I Am.

- Hafiz

 

Hat tip to Ellen.  Thanks!

Fear is My Friend

jf-miserable1 The topic this week in the Monday and Thursday class is “Working with Fear.” I am not teaching this week but the topic has been on my mind recently.

I’ve always been prone to anxiety. As a child I worried about everything. At about age seven or eight I decided if I imagined the worst outcome for anything that frightened me then I would not be surprised when it happened. My parents would drive off to go play pinochle for the night. I would assume something terrible would happen and they were not coming back. When I would wake up the next morning and they were there, well, good for me. This time.

Fear and anxiety are all wrapped up with the desire to be in control.

When I moved down to Washington DC a few years ago my arrival corresponded with an article I read which stated there were a number of suitcase bombs that were unaccounted for in Russia and Chechnya and were already placed in US cities. I grew up on a farm and had always lived in the country - with regular access to wilderness.  When I moved to Bethesda and had my first experiences in DC traffic, I started to freak. What would happen in an emergency - surrounded by so many people?

I started doing research on safety and disaster preparedness. I got pretty sucked in. (The web can be a terrible thing when you start looking at doom and gloom scenarios.)

I found out is important to have:

  1. A personal bag
  2. A “get out of town bag’ and
  3. A home survival kit

I could not find suitable information that summarized everything so I wrote up my research which you can view here.

As much as I may have spent a bit too much time hyperventilating and indulging in worst case scenarios, I got a really good insight out of my hours of obsessive thinking. I began to discern what I had control over and what I did not.  I do have some control over my personal safety. I don’t have much control over what could happen externally.

That distinction has made a big difference in my life. While I still habitually go to fear and anxiety, something in my awareness is just a little more quick to wake up to the conditioning. I spend less time on the hamster wheel of circular, negative thinking.

And ... My car is stocked with food, water and supplies in case I’m stuck in it for some reason. I do have a bag I can grab with supplies for a few days and our house is now stocked with enough to ensure we’ll stay warm, dry, fed and hydrated for a while.

I feel a lot happier than I did before. More relaxed.

Having sat with that fear, I have found a balance between being responsible and increasing my capacity to savor what’s right in front of me.

If you’d like to like to read a summary of my research with some links, click here.

Meditation in Motion

A Great Time of Year to Be Inside I'm just back from nine days at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health where I led a retreat and training for the Advanced Yoga Teacher Training program on the topic of meditation.  

What a treat to be with such deep, authentic and caring people.  We balanced our time between understanding more challenging postures and techniques for assisting, but the overall theme was about meditation.  Each morning we chanted prayers in the Kripalu tradition and explored various doorways into meditation ranging from sense-based practices as breath, slow motion movement, walking and scanning to approaches such as mantra and metta.

While my first take on spiritual practice was through meditation, I found the embodied practice of yoga to be grounding and balancing.

The two work together beautifully, though there are traps in both.   A yoga practice unto itself can reinforce the idea that we need to do something to improve our experience.  All the techniques can lead us to believe that we can subtly (or not so subtly) manipulate our way to feeling better and better inside.  A meditation practice alone, if not connected with the wisdom of the body, can lead to a sense of disengagement and delusion.

I celebrate the blending of yoga and meditation and am thrilled to have shared nine days with fellow teachers exploring how we can offer this to a suffering world.

A fellow teacher who has been teaching meditation for over 30 years said that each time he ends a retreat he feels like he just barely has his fingernails in the iceberg.  It's daunting to take on even the idea of teaching meditation.

One thing I tend to repeat, ad nauseum perhaps, is my definition of a teacher.  "A teacher is one who shares the radiance of her own discovery.'  When we share what we're most lit up about, the result is not so much teaching as a transmission of energy and inspiration.  

Jack Kornfield was asked his advice on being the best teacher one can be.  His response:  "Be Yourself."  

Now there's a lifetime inquiry.

Practice Teaching Slow Motion Meditation