Thoughts about thinking

We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with an impure mind
And trouble will follow you
As the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart.

We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with a pure mind
And happiness will follow you
As your shadow, unshakable.


-- Dhammapada 

We create our world with our thoughts, the Buddha said. So to follow the Buddha's path, we examine those thoughts, considering whether they are true, how they color our reactions, how they create a world.

The thoughts come from our family, our culture, our experience. They help us make sense of the world.  But they also limit how we experience the world.

Consider this, from the book Welcome to Night Vale:

Imagine a fifteen-year-old boy.
Nope that was not right at all. Try again.
No.
No.
OK. Stop.
He is tall. He is skinny with short hair and long teeth that he deliberately hides when he smiles. He smiles more than he thinks he does.
Imagine a fifteen-year-old boy.
No, again.
No. Not close.

When you're told to imagine that boy, you get a picture in your mind based on what you know about 15-year-old boys, personally or from the news or from the media. But there's no one thing that's a 15-year-old boy. So when you meet one who doesn't fit your thoughts, you might think he looks old or young for his age; you might find him threatening or scary; you might think he's silly -- or sweet. You might think he's unacceptable, even if -- or especially -- if he's yours and he doesn't meet your image.

The boy is just a boy. The adjectives are our thoughts or views. The views may affect how we respond to the boy -- and then how he responds to us.

In this way, as the Buddha says, our actions are like the cart that follows the ox of our thoughts. If our thoughts are impure -- based on delusion, aggression, or desire -- we suffer and we act to create more suffering. Actions become habits, which condition us to act in certain ways that become ingrained and repeated.

The problem with thoughts is not that we have them but that we believe them. Because we think things are a certain way, we are discombobulated when they're not, and we suffer about that. The more we believe that our thoughts create a solid reality, the less we're able to respond with acceptance and flexibility to what happens in life. Instead, we create a world and we try to make life fit into it. That leads to what the Buddha called suffering, the dukkha of going through life pushing a shopping cart with a wobbly wheel.

The other problem with thoughts is that they distance us from the present moment. We can become  a brain on a stick, out of touch with our actual experience in the world. We think about our experience rather than simply experiencing it. We narrate it, analyze it, share it on Facebook, Instagram it.

Buddhist practice is about getting back to the original experience.

Suzuki Roshi calls it "beginner's mind," adding that "in the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind, there are few." In "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind," he writes:

Our original mind includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. You should not lose your self-sufficient state of mind. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty and ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything.

We tend, however, not to believe that we have everything we need within ourselves. We tend to believe -- aided by consumer culture and advertising (although this also was the case 2,500 years ago in the Buddha's day, before there was mass media) -- that what we need is outside of ourselves. And that, the Buddha said, is the problem.

We don't recognize our genuine nature, so we're always grasping outwards, says Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, reaching for happiness in appearances, in things, in indicators of success. That happiness is insecure and impermanent, always destined to fade, leaving us with a sense of unease.

The only true way to happiness is to connect with our inner sufficiency, with the place where we have everything we need to ride the waves of external life with ease and grace. How do we do that?

It starts with meditation, with connecting with the awareness that sees the thoughts, that recognizes them as the mind-creations that they are. Thoughts arise and pass, if we don't grab onto them and elaborate. We see the ephemeral nature of desire, of views, or labels. We begin to meet each moment freshly, without preconceptions about what should happen.

Buddhism offers many styles of meditation to help us get there. In some methods of meditation, you allow thoughts to arise and pass. In others you take a more active role, examining thoughts and considering their veracity. Tantric meditation uses thoughts to invoke the experience of being in the presence of -- or of embodying -- an enlightened being. There also are meditations to cultivate certain qualities, such as kindness and compassion, to align the mind with thoughts that decrease suffering.

Different styles work for different people. All of them aim to help us to see our thoughts and to rest in the awareness that sees the thoughts. We stop trying to control every aspect of a situation because we see that we are OK despite the outer circumstances. We see that we really are enough.

Genuine happiness comes from the heart. It comes from a mind which has become more stable, more clear, more present in the moment; a mind which is open and cares for the happiness of other beings. It is a mind which has that inner security, a knowing that whatever happens can be handled. It is a mind that doesn't hold on so tightly anymore; it is a mind that holds things lightly. It is a happy mind. - Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

Off the cushion, on the dance floor

"It's a meditation," the dance instructor says, coaxing me to relax and follow him in the tango.

I immediately realize he's right -- or at least that tango requires me to bring my meditation training to the dance. Just before his comment, I'd been looking over his shoulder at the pairs of students moving around the studio, shifting my attention off my partner and his guidance. Wrong move. Like bringing my awareness back to my breath in shamata meditation, I bring my attention back to Jack, the instructor, back to this moment, this step, this gentle pressure that his palm exerts against mine, telling my body to pivot left.

Tango lessons are nowhere on my bucket list, but I'm visiting a dear friend who's just started and asks if I want to go with her. I can take the intro class and stay for the beginner class, if I'm inclined. After that we can go practice at nearby sushi restaurant that lets the tango-ers take over a back room that's under-used in the late afternoon.

I'm neutral on the tango, personally, but I'm delighted by her delight and willing to explore its spark. I've no personal investment in this -- if I somehow am unable to perform the duties of tango, I can sit on the side and watch. I love to watch dance, to observe bodies in space.

Why the tango? the instructor asks the three couples and me who are there for the rank beginner intro class (my friend opts for the more advanced technique side of the room). I'm just here with a friend, I say. I'm open to whatever the experience is. (That's meditation practice right there -- going in without hope or fear, free from attachment and aversion.)

And if it is a meditation, the tango is tantric meditation -- at least as I hear it explained by this instructor. It's less about following a set pattern of steps and more about sensing and playing with energy, he says. The leader doesn't push his partner into steps but feels her energy and uses that to guide her. It's a movement of active and receptive energy, subtle and silent, sensed rather than announced. It requires concentration and relaxation, stillness and movement. There's a leader and follower -- male and female, for this class -- but those roles are fluid; the leader actually follows the follower's energy; the follower guides the leader, taking languid pauses for a flip of the heel or a circle on the floor.

Most of all, it requires presence, the willingness to be there with the energy and let it flow. Try to anticipate, and you block the movement. Look around and compare yourself to others and stumble. It's only fun if you're doing only it.

And it is fun -- to take those attention-gathering skills off the cushion and bring them to the dance, to use them with bodies in motion -- and in relationship, not just in stillness. (I confess: I love the prostration part of my ngondro practice because of the physicality, a rare time when the body in the body-speech-mind triad gets to move.)

And if meditation training applies to tango lessons, maybe there are other, less exotic places 

where it also can bring vibrancy and delight and an awareness of energies interacting, giving and receiving, guiding and following.  Maybe we can be like the Padma deities in the Dechen Barwa, "magical dancers ... in the boundless net of illusion."

Maybe enlightenment is being able to tango with reality. Backwards, sometimes. And in glittery high heels.

Tis the Season

At this time of year, hope takes center stage. Children draw up lists of presents they hope Santa will deliver. Everyone who lives north of a certain point hopes for a picturesque white Christmas -- enough snow to make it pretty but not enough to make travel dangerous or require strenuous

digging out. Family members hope that other family members will like their gifts, that the sweaters will fit, and everyone will behave themselves. Singles hope for an invitation.

Hope is all around.

Buddhism says the best gift you could give yourself is to give that up.

Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron describes hope as an addiction to the idea that things would be better if they were somehow different. That keeps us from seeing and working with things as they are, which is the only way we actually can create change.

"Abandon hope" is one of the lojong, or mind training slogans.

“Abandoning hope is an affirmation, the beginning of the beginning,” she writes. The hope we’re giving up, she says, is the idea that we could “be saved from being who we are.”

“Without giving up hope – that there’s somewhere better to be, that there’s someone better to be – we will never relax with who or where we are," she writes in When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times.  When we do relax and look around without a judgmental eye, we begin to see what is there, to realize that we are sufficient and the world is not out to get us. Life becomes workable.

Abandoning hope relies on a foundation of impermanence. To give up the hope that things will change for the better, you need the refuge of knowing that things will change, whether you want them to or not. The bad news and the good news about impermanence are the same -- things will change.  If you look around at where you are and realize you don't want to be stuck there forever, you can be assured that it won't stay that way forever -- it's already changing. What you do in this moment influences what that change will be. 

Ani Pema notes that hope is the other side of fear, and that pairing is the root of our pain.

“In the world of hope and fear, we always have to change the channel, change the music, because something is getting uneasy, something is getting restless, something is beginning to hurt, and we keep looking for alternatives.” 

If instead we stay with the feeling of discomfort, get to know our true selves, we can find confidence in our basic nature and our ability to be ourselves in the world. We can identify the source of the discomfort, rather than escaping it or covering it over, and work with that. 

The practice of meditation is based not on how we would like things to be but on what is. We often do not have a proper understanding of what we are, of what we are actually doing. From the beginning, spirituality should be concerned with the actuality of who is involved in the practice. In the Buddhist form of meditation, we try to look at the perceiver of the universe, the perceiver that is self, ego, me, mine.
—The Sanity We Are Born With: A Buddhist Approach to Psychotherapy by Chögyam Trungpa

Anger is an energy

The whole world is watching Ferguson, Missouri, as a grand jury verdict is expected any day on whether to indict a police officer who shot an unarmed black man. That action led to protests, arrests, and boiling anger. In advance of the grand jury action, extra officers, FBI, and the National Guard are in place -- and officials urge people to be calm.
In this space, the St. Louis/Bentwood Transcendental Meditation (TM) Center is offering a talk on meditation to relieve stress for all Ferguson residents.
The whole world is watching Ferguson, Missouri, as a grand jury verdict is expected any day on whether to indict a police officer who shot an unarmed black man. That action led to protests, arrests, and boiling anger. In advance of the grand jury action, extra officers, FBI, and the National Guard are in place -- and officials urge people to be calm.
In this space, the St. Louis/Bentwood Transcendental Meditation (TM) Center is offering a talk on meditation to relieve stress for all Ferguson residents.
This might seems a bit disengenuous, crass (TM is a trademarked technique that costs money to learn), or too little too late -- the talk is Dec. 2. But a phrase in the notice caught at my heart:

Stress can cause people to react in ways that takes away from a person’s message and make it harder for people to hear each other.

And that is true, whether the issue is the nation's racial history, police tactics, or Thanksgiving dinner and the debate over whether canned or fresh cranberry sauce is better.
I'm not saying that people shouldn't feel angry. Anger is an energy and intelligence that tells us something is wrong here. Anger points out problems -- it doesn't solve them. Hatred never ends hatred, the Buddha said.
Notice the anger rising and look at what it's pointing to. Then look for the skillful action that you can take to change that.
This might seems a bit disengenuous, crass (TM is a trademarked technique that costs money to learn), or too little too late -- the talk is Dec. 2. But a phrase in the notice caught at my heart:

Stress can cause people to react in ways that takes away from a person’s message and make it harder for people to hear each other.

And that is true, whether the issue is the nation's racial history, police tactics, or Thanksgiving dinner and the debate over whether canned or fresh cranberry sauce is better.
I'm not saying that people shouldn't feel angry. Anger is an energy and intelligence that tells us something is wrong here. Anger points out problems -- it doesn't solve them. Hatred never ends hatred, the Buddha said.
Notice the anger rising and look at what it's pointing to. Then look for the skillful action that you can take to change that.

Enlightenment takes effort

When I lead meditation, I start by asking people to feel the floor under them, to notice where their

hard places come into contact with the building's hardness -- to feel the strength and stability of that solidness, and to think about how the building connects to the earth. It's easiest to notice where hard places come in contact -- it's one of the first places we notice discomfort.

And feeling the evidence of that connection to the building and its connection to the earth, I ask them to trust that, to relax into it, to let it hold them. There's a relaxation that comes with being held by something or someone you trust.

I thought of that recently when I heard a teacher use the phrase "being held by the dharma." It struck me and stuck with me, so I contemplated it.

Being held by the dharma is like relaxing into the ground -- you can let go completely, trusting that it will be big enough and strong enough to hold whatever weight you carry. You are not too heavy

for the earth and nothing is too big for the dharma, which is limitless.


I think this is the quality -- this trust, this safety -- that Stacey D'Ersamo is referencing in  her New York Times essay, Is God Just Not That into Me? The essay is about her relationship with the man she lives with, who is a Zen Buddhist priest.

She's jealous of his trust in buddhanature, in the ultimate OK-ness of reality, which she compares to falling in love with God. "How come he got access to all that divine unconditional love? What am I to the universe? What do I have to do to get the good stuff?" she writes. Her monk, as she calls him, reads this. “You already have it,” he said. “You are it.” He paused. “By the way, we need coffee.”

How come he got access to all that divine unconditional love? What am I to the universe? What do I have to do to get the good stuff?

You have to work at it. Maybe some people are born with that. Most question, test, examine. And when they find the thing that can hold them, they relax into it.

The Buddha lists Wise Effort as a step on the Eightfold Path, and exertion as one of the paramitas, or perfections of the heart (ie practices we can do to cultivate perfect heart). There's no switch that turns on enlightenment. You move toward it with your effort. It's an effort that might be unrecognizable to those who think "effort" mean trying hard. You have to try soft -- to be curious and open to whatever it is that results. Effort doesn't mean gritting your teeth and pushing through to the other side; it means sitting where you're stuck and not running away.

It means being present and lifting the mucky veils to see clearly -- which means, Ms. D'Erasmo, understanding and using appropriate words, not ones that amuse you. Your Zen priest, who is not a monk, gets access to "unconditional stuff" because he's worked at seeing causes and conditions that cloud the mind and block access to buddhanature.

Being held by the dharma isn't a passive stance. Relaxing and trusting isn't easy. It takes effort not to tighten up, to expect certain results, to demand that an outcome be as anticipated. You can't grab the dharma and shake it until you get what you want.

You can't hold onto the dharma and be held by it. You have to let go. And then it will be there.

"Give up the mind that wants to meditate and calm down. Focus on nothing at all. Disturbing thoughts and lazy indifference are not liberation. Remain unstained by thoughts and circumstances. Rest relaxed in the uncontrived nature of mind, free of elaboration or alteration. For the benefit of one and all, simply preserve peerless awareness."
~ Wisdom Dakini Sukhasiddhi

Meditating with (the mind of) a kitten

Traditional meditation texts sometimes describe the unmeditated state as "monkey mind." But for the last week I've been sitting with my new kitten, and I feel like I'm seeing my mind manifested. The kitten is all over the place -- chasing a piece of paper, disappearing under the shrine, jumping sideways, kneading the mat, settling into one posture and resting.

My mind does all those things -- follows after an intriguing thought, gets lost in thought, skips from topic to topic, and finds ease and space.

All purrs are mantra.

And a piece of advice -- don't wear drawstring pants. It's like that itch you can't get out of your mind.

The dark side of meditation

Buddhist meditation is a way of working with your mind, which means that whatever is is your mind is going to come into your awareness. That's how you learn to work with it. But if what's in your mind is threatening? What if your investigation into thought patterns leads to unresolved trauma?

What if you can't handle your own inner truth?

The issue's come up recently because Aaron Alexis, who shot 12 people at the Navy Yard near Washington, D.C., this week has been reported to be a meditator who lived for a time at a Buddhist center in Texas.

Such violence contradicts the popular notion that meditation leads to calmness and reduces stress and anxiety. Dozens of scientific research projects have found measurable beneficial effects from meditation.

But meditation isn't a magic pill. A serious meditation practice, particularly a Buddhist  meditation practice, involves working with your mind, discerning habitual ways of reacting to conditions and circumstances, and investigating them -- where they came from and whether they're still appropriate ways to cope. That awareness can bring buried issues to light.

Maia Szalavitz writes:

People with depression or past experiences of trauma, for example, may find themselves feeling increasingly anxious during  meditation, no matter how much they try to focus on the moment. Or they may be plagued by intrusive thoughts, feelings and images of the past during their mindfulness exercises.

That’s why [University of Washington researcher Sarah] Bowen suggests that people with depression or trauma issues who want to benefit from meditation should try it with expert guidance.  “If you get stuck in ruts like rumination, there are ways to work with that,” she says, “It’s important to have teachers who are very familiar with meditation to guide you as you are learning.”  Experts can let people know what to expect and offer emotional support to help them through rough patches.

Extraordinarily popular (for good reason) Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron notes that "meditation is not just about feeling good ... even the most settled meditator experiences psychological and physical pain. Meditation takes us just as we are, with our confusion and our sanity."

Brown University neuroscientist Dr. Willoughby Britton, who has published research on using meditation in treating depression, is working on what she calls the “dark night” project. Her interest was piqued after she treated two patients who had attended meditation retreats and went on one herself where she experienced mental distress, Szalavitz reports.

She eventually learned that overwhelming anxiety, fear and emotional pain— sometimes including symptoms severe enough to merit psychiatric diagnosis— are “actually classic stages of meditation”  that eastern practitioners are familiar with. But Western doctors and researchers who co-opted the practice and began advocating meditative techniques to treat mental illness were not studying them. They saw only the calming ability of meditation to focus the mind.

Meditation allows us to settle our minds and look at what's there. It won't give you a serious mental condition, but it -- alone -- probably can't treat one. And especially without guidance or grounding. I've heard Buddhist teacher Vinny Ferraro say that his mind is like a bad neighborhood -- he won't go there unarmed. The weapons he carries are meditation techniques.

The Buddha sent his first adherents out into the forests to meditate, only to have them return, terrorized by demons they thought were in the forest. Recognizing that the demons were projections of internal fears, the Buddha taught them how to do metta, lovingkindness meditation. By changing their view of the demons -- meeting them with kindness rather than fear -- the meditators found they were no longer a threat. There are other stories of meeting demons -- those thoughts that bedevil our minds -- with kindness, inviting them to tea, feeding them, not fighting them.

When I began studying Buddhism in 2006, I was depressed and anxious. Therapy and medication helped, but Buddhism and meditation provided the tools that helped move out of familiar patterns. I am deeply grateful to the path and especially to teachers who provided guidance. It took time and getting to know myself and what I could be with. For some people, jumping into emptiness can be threatening and disorienting -- sometimes you need ground -- in ways that last longer than the empowerment ceremony or the weekend retreat where you practiced it.

I practice meditation. I teach meditation. I wholeheartedly endorse meditation. But it's not all good. Sometimes it's bad. Meditation is about being aware of all that and learning how to respond skillfully.

Put on your dharma shoes -- and walk

Buddhism isn't what you do in meditation; that's meditation. Buddhism is how you walk in the world. I heard that phrasing from a teacher at one of the first Buddhist retreats I attended several years ago, and it stuck with me.

I've always admired people who live their principles, who communicate their beliefs through their behavior, not through words. And I'm suspicious of those whose behavior conflicts with their stated beliefs. Occasional lapses, I get. Constant conflict seems to say something's not genuine.

In the "Bringing Your Practice to Life" class, Jeff Rubin asked people to think of a an area where they feel an ethical challenge and to think of a small way to bring their practice into their activities -- and do it. Not just intend to do it, not just aspire to do it, but do it.

This is where the metta meets the road, where the shoes come off and the tender soles come into contact with the sharp stones and rocks and garbage on the ground.

The ancients (including the Buddha) tells a story about a man who complained about the pervasiveness of suffering and the limits of practice. How could his meditation practice make the world better? Buddha says that if the ground is rough and painful to walk on, you could cover it all with leather so that you can walk comfortably with bare feet. Or you can cover your feet and walk in the world.

Which is not to say that you'll be shielded from pain by wearing metaphorical shoes. I once broke a bone in my foot by stepping on a large stone while wearing Keds. (I am suspicious of the safety of the trendy minimalist shoes.) But you will be able to move through the world as it is, changing only yourself.

I feel like my practice pervades my life. It is so entwined that I can see that I could do more without beating myself up for not having done enough. As you practice, doors open and you see new areas for practice.

For this week, my ethical challenge is discipline, or following through on what I know I is right. And my specific practice is getting to work on time.

My work day is supposed to start at 7 a.m. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a person who gets up easily at 5:30 a.m. I am not, and have not been since childhood, a person who goes to sleep early. Even if I try. And over the last several months, my arrival has been creeping back later and later.

How is this a matter of ethics? I work at a newspaper, where we have to meet several rigid deadlines. My late arrival has the potential to affect that. It also shows a lack of respect for my co-workers. (It's not a theft of time from my employer because I stay later.) Is this an expression of some subtle resentment, some message that I want something to be different, and I need to look at that? Some incongruence? Or maybe it's a matter of self-care, and I need to look again at bedtime.

At any rate, I'm self-conscious about it when I walk in, so I know it bothers me. It's time to shine the light of dharma on that area of my life, to put on my dharma shoes and walk through the muck.

  

Note: There are no actual dharma shoes. You cannot buy something at the Nike store to propel you down the path to enlightenment. However, you can get the Nike Roshe Run (right), which the company describes as:

Inspired by the practice of meditation and the concept of Zen, the Nike Roshe Run epitomizes simplicity. It has no embellishments, just basic shoe necessities brought to life with every detail. Almost every part of the shoe reflects an aspect of a tranquil Zen garden: a modified Waffle outsole made to look like stepping stones, an insole that mirrors a raked rock garden, and slightly different midsole side lengths-a juxtaposition of seriousness and playfulness. 

Seriously, though, they won't help your practice. This is materialism, pure and simple. 

Another meditator heads to Congress

Mark Sanford, who on Tuesday was elected to Congress by South Carolina voters, reveals he turned to meditation after the spectacular implosion of his political career as governor of that state after the revelation of his trip to Argentina in pursuit of a woman while he told his wife and staff that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Interviewed on the campaign trail, the Republican said he retreated to his remote family farm after he left office and began studying meditation, a practice he continues to this day.

Mark Sanford meets with voters at Whole Foods. (Cristina Caraballo)

"A buddy of mine said, 'Mark, you're becoming a Buddhist Christian.' I come from the after Christian faith. That's my faith tradition. But  I do like about Buddhism is the idea of being present," Sanford said. "I think that that's missed in Western culture, where we're so busy looking a week out, two weeks out, a month out, a year out, and we're hurried and we're busy. And I think if there's any one thing I learned from that year I spent on the farm in the wake of getting out of office and just having a very, very quiet year, is the importance of stillness and quietness. And that extends beyond just the physical location. It extends really into the moment of, are you really with that person or are you thinking of the next thing you've got to do? So I do like very much that part of Buddhism. I think it's right."
Sanford declined to describe his meditation techniques, but said, "I've tried to be disciplined about a quiet time each day."

His practice was evident earlier in the interview as he spoke to shoppers individually at campaign stops:

"My view is, bigger the crowd, the fewer the votes," Sanford said. "If you can just keep moving as an individual and you're present — I don't want to sound Buddhist on you—but you're in the moment. You're present with them, you actually can have a real conversation. You can talk about issues that they like, what they don't like, in a way that you can't if you have a crowd."

Maybe he and Rep. Tim Ryan, author of "A Mindful Nation," can start a meditation group on Capitol Hill. Maybe they could move from mindfulness to cultivating compassion.


May it benefit all beings.

Note: Sanford's not the first famous adulterer to find solace in Buddhism.

Photos of Sanford with voters at Whole Foods by Cristina Caraballo, from Yahoo.

Meditative art

Excerpted From The Nation:

Fashion photographer and avid dharma practitioner Punsiri Siriwetchapun believes there is little difference between working on his art and meditation.

"The teaching of Lord Buddha seeks to achieve the cessation of suffering. The way to undo suffering is to explore the causes as they manifest themselves in our own bodies and minds in order to understand their origins. It's the same with my art. I search within myself to convey my thoughts. My art presents my inner self," says Punsiri who has been practising dharma for more than a decade.

Punsiri has teamed up with three fellow artists for the devotional exhibition "No Absolute Truth in the Universe" at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.

"Many people think that dharma practice is limited to the temple. I think meditation can be done everywhere, so I dress my sculptures in the costumes of everyday life," explains one of the artists.

Like the practise of dharma itself, this exhibition is best appreciated through personal experience

For more details, visit www.BACC.or.th.