Daily Dharma

[1] First, train in the preliminaries.

The preliminaries are also known as the four reminders. In your daily life, try to: (1) Maintain an awareness of the preciousness of human life, (2) Be aware of the reality that life ends; death comes for everyone. (3) Recall that whatever you do, whether virtuous or not, has a result; what goes around comes around. (4) Contemplate that as long as you are too focused on self-importance and too caught up in thinking about how you are good or bad, you will suffer. Obsessing about getting what you want and avoiding what you don't want does not result in happiness.

[...from The Compassion Box by Pema Chodron, lojong card No. 1]

A Year in the Sangha

We've had a whirlwind of activity at Still Point this month... a precepts ceremony for children, Buddha's birthday, an ordination ceremony for two Dharma students. This time last year, I took vows for the first time. I had a sangha for the first time. I started to learn about the rich, colorful tradition of Korean Zen.

What difference has it made... this year in the Sangha? I'm starting to learn to be less studious and more experiential with my practice. I've always been a reader, a student. I've always thought the way to get to know something was to study it... and this year I mostly approached my Zen practice in this way. When something troubled me, I looked for wisdom in books. I looked for Dharma.

Until I started Intensive Practice, I didn't understand the beauty or simplicity of practice. I've always thought that everything needed to be complicated, that things are only resolved through strenuous effort... hard work. In Intensive Practice, I started to touch the beauty of "just sit" and of "don't know." I didn't sustain consistent involvement in the program for more than a couple of months, but those were valuable months.

I've dealt with a great deal of resistance and a mountain of stress this past year. I did not hold on to my practice to the degree that I could have to get through the difficult moments. I don't know why.

Developing consistency in practice has been hard... maybe because I've tried to intellectualize my practice instead of just doing it. Maybe because I expected to make big strides without first making small steps. In order to sit mindfully for 30 minutes, you first have to sit mindfully for one minute, then five, then ten. Mostly, I think I tried to do more than I was prepared to do before I was prepared to do it.

I'm noticing a shift in my focus. I can see that this past year I've mostly wanted to just be a good student... to have a good Practice Report Card. Now, it is time to train in the preliminaries without worrying about whether or not I'm good at it, if I'm doing enough... without expecting anything to change because of it, especially things I don't always like about myself.

Pearl

Sometimes I read non-stop. I pour every ounce of spare time into a book. Somtimes fiction, sometimes non-fiction. For the past week or so I've been consumed by Pearl, a novel by Mary Gordon.

Here is the premise:

A young American woman studying language in Ireland chains herself to the American Embassy. She has not eaten for six weeks. She will not eat, she will not drink, she will not move or be moved. She writes a treatise, explaining what she is doing and why. She wants nothing. She has no demands. She just wants to die.

What brought her to this place? This determination? She wants peace. She wants the peace treaty to end the violence in Ireland. She wants the IRA to stop bombing. But personally, she wants to apologize but feels she is unforgivable. She hurt someone. She feels responsible for his death. She cannot live with this. She says that we have an inherent will to do harm... a tendency that will not go away. She wants people to look at this. Her death, she thinks, will make people look at this.

I understand her point.

Life and death. Most days, there is no immediacy... no urgency. We just don't see it because nothing seems "life or death." Nothing seems to be on the line.

"No need to think about that now... I've got time. No need to do anything about that now... it can wait."

For me this book was about waking up. Somehow we have to wake up from the notion that we have an interest-bearing savings account... storing up time that we will spend tomorrow, next month, next year, in five years. So why sit today when i'm tired and I don't feel good. I have time. It can wait.

I started kong'an (koan) interviews two weeks ago. My teacher set a watch down in front of me and asked "What is this? If you say it is a watch, I will say wrong."

I clap my hands together really loud. For three whole seconds my mind is blank. I say "WEIGHT!" as loud as I can.

I have no idea what the right answer is.

But the immediacy of death points to the weight, the gravity of time. When someone is so willing to give it up... to end their life for a cause, we take pause. We start to feel the weight. We start to wonder. We slow down. We forgive. We appreciate.We look at how greedily we hold on to our own lives... how perfectly unwilling we are to give it up for anything. We marvel that someone could be.  We look at our lives and the time that we have and we wonder if we are doing enough with it.

Pearl. It is an amazing story... one I wouldn't have read if it wasn't recommended to me.

Daily Dharma

There was a man so displeased by the sight of his own shadow and so displeased with his own footsteps that he determined to get rid of both. The method he hit upon was to run away from them. So he got up and ran. But every time he put his foot down there was another step, while his shadow kept up with them without the slightest difficulty. He attributed his failure to the fact that he wasn't running fast enough. So he ran faster and faster, without stopping, until he finally dropped dead. He failed to realize that if he merely stepped into the shade, his shadow would vanish, and if he sat down and stayed still, there would be no more footsteps.
— Chuang Tzu

[...quoted in Loving-kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness by Sharon Salzberg on pg. 90]

Buddha Laughs, I Obsess

I'm reading Eve Ensler's The Good Body. I'm reading it because I have at least 10 diet books in my library. I'm reading it because I become mesmerized by ads and infomercials about the latest, greatest ab machines, exercise equipment, or diet plans. Before my pregnancy, I was a slender size four. Strangely, I didn't think I was thin. I still have some of my size four clothes, mostly because my mother said I will never wear them again and I long to prove her wrong. Now, I hover between a size 12 and 14, and I have a round belly like the Laughing Buddha.

The part of me that wishes Zen practice would change me, wishes it could somehow remove certain tendencies that I have acquired as a Western woman. As an African-American, I wish I were more like African women who celebrate their bodies whatever the shape or size. I wish I wasn't taught to be deeply concerned about my skin, my hair, or my body or to be expected to strive for the perfection of my surface at the expense of deeper pursuits. I wish I felt at ease in my body like Laughing Buddha. Just look at him. Pure ease, contentment, lightness, whimsy.

Eve's preface says it all. A few excerpts:

Why write a play about my stomach?

This play is my prayer, my attempt to analyze the mechanisms of our imprisonment, to break free so that we may spend more time running the world than running away from it; so that we may be consumed by the sorrow of the world rather than consuming to avoid that sorrow and suffering.

The Laughing Buddha pictured above was carved into "the Peak that Flew Afar" at Lingyin Temple. It is said that this Buddha keeps the troubles of the world in his belly. My belly, in contrast, is rather self-centered and holds only my own.

This body obsession obstructs my practice... not just my Zen practice, my yoga practice as well. I find that I move between "trying to make my body better to improve my practice" and "practice so I'm not so concerned with my body." With yoga practice, I find myself moving between avoiding the practice because it really exposes where all of your fat lives, to breaking through my body drama and going deep into asanas just because that is what you do if you practice yoga. Some days, I go easy on myself. Some days, self-judgement drives deep. Some days, I'm working out because I really just want to be healthier and better equipped to keep up with my daughter. Some days, I'm working out because I want to be on the cover of Cosmo. (Well, not really... I just want to look like I could be).

As I read this book I'm going to pull it into my practice, and really practice Insight Meditation around these issues/thoughts/feelings/obsessions. And I'm going to do Metta practice for myself and all women everywhere who think they are not enough for whatever reason.

The Four Paramitas

Four children stood before us this morning. They placed offerings on the altar. They took refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. They took on six precepts. They received Buddhist names. Each child was named after one of the Six Paramitas. They received cedarwood malas and mindfulness bells. The ceremony was incredibly moving. I can't think of a better way to begin Mother's Day.

My daughter's Buddhist name is Ksanti. We also have a Virya, a Sila, and a Prajna.

Ksanti means patience or forbearance. In the Meditation on the Six Paramitas, we say:

May I be patient! May I learn to bear and forbear the wrongs of others!

For me, this is always the hardest practice of all the paramitas. Sometimes it is just hard to forgive, hard to let go. So far, my daughter has been the perfect example of this level of patience. I hope she carries it with her always.

This morning, before leaving for Still Point, we talked a bit about practice. I mentioned that I want to get back into the Intensive Practice routine. We did some bows. We sat for about five minutes. We talked about keeping a Precepts journal. Her decision to begin a practice makes me deeply committed to mine. Whatever reasons I had for not sitting, now bowing, not "getting off it" and forgiving someone... they were quashed today. I think it is a good thing that I'm not alone in my practice anymore. Sangha extends to home now, and we can take refuge in each other.

Ksanti... she always encourages me... to do my workout when I don't want to... to play when I'm tired... to just be present. She will be a good partner in the Dharma. I'm sure she will be a teacher for me more than I will ever be a teacher for her.

Daily Dharma

Happiness steadily  increases for the person
who is energetic, heedful,
pure in conduct,
and kind.

Persevere.
With your sustained effort,
earnestness,
discipline,
and self-control,
you will make for yourself an island
which no flood can destroy.

[... from Chapter 2 on Heedfulness in The Still Point Dhammapada: Living the Buddha's Essential Teachings by Geri Larkin, pg. 10-11]

Confessions of a TV Addict

Last week was TV Turn Off week. My daughter's school participated in the campaign this year, and she came home excited about the experiment. She reported the facts:

Americans watch an average of more than four hours of TV a day, or two full months of TV a year.

Two whole months.

I'm probably the average American in terms of media consumption. My recent complaint has been that I don't have time to do anything, but I wasn't really paying attention to where a good chunk of my time went. I admit I wasn't completely thrilled with the prospect of giving up any of my viewing time... I guess I felt like Calvin:

At the end of a stressful day, TV was my cold beer... TV was my cigarette. I've watched friends who smoke blow tension and stress right out of their bodies at the first puff of a cigarette. Some part of me must've thought I was getting the same release while watching television. On the other side of this experiment I realize how lethargic and just plain "blah" I feel after sitting in front of the set for long periods.

Now I can see why it has been a struggle to get everything done. I watch too much television.

I decided to limit myself to five hours last week. Monday and Tuesday nights, I didn't turn on the set at all. Wednesday is my favorite night of prime time... I really enjoy Lost, Alias and Eyes. Thursday, I watched the Apprentice and ER. Then I had a TV-free Friday. Saturday, I folded on the experiment. I think Saturday taught me the most... because I had created all this spaciousness without television, I could actually feel the shift when I started to add more television back into my life. It just didn't feel good.

So we will keep going. Today was a TV free day.

None of this is new to me... I've had periods before when I turned the TV off... But something about the first part of the year... the level of stress... the drama and turmoil... TV became a constant escape... It is no coincidence that as my TV watching increased, my practice decreased.

Dharma for Kids... WWBD?

Up until recently, my Zen practice has been my own. I have read some Buddhist stories to my daughter, and allowed her to explore the books we have at her leisure... but I never decided that I was going to "make her" Buddhist. As she prepares to participate in the upcoming precepts ceremony, I wonder if she is drastically unprepared.

A few weeks ago, there was an article posted on The Buddhist News Channel about teaching Dharma to children. I flagged it as something I wanted to read later. With all of this "precepts preparation" going on, it seemed a good time to read it. The article, How would Buddha handle your kids, has simple advice which took a great weight off of my shoulders:

The Buddha's advice to parents is straightforward - help your children become generous, virtuous, responsible, skilled and self-sufficient adults [see DN 31 and Sn II.4].

Teaching Buddhism to one's children does not mean giving them long lectures about dependent  co-arising, or forcing them to memorize the Buddha's lists of the eightfold  this, the ten such-and-suches, the seventeen so-and-sos. It simply means giving  them the basic skills they'll need in order to find true happiness. The  rest will take care of itself.

The article references the Ambalatthikarahulovada Sutta [Instructions to Rahula at Mango Stone], which recounts Buddha's teaching to his son Rahula upon catching him in a lie. The teaching is SO practical... In the beginning, Buddha uses a series of metaphors and questions to explain that a person who takes no shame in telling a deliberate lie throws away whatever merit or skill they might have accumulated through contemplative practice. The teaching goes on:

Before you perform a bodily, mental, or verbal act...

1. Think about it.
2. Do you think it will be skillful or unskillful?
3. If you think it will be unskillful, abandon it... don't do it.
4. If you think it will be skillful, try it.

After you perform a bodily, mental or verbal act...

1. Think about it.
2. Were the results skillful or unskillful?
3. If the act resulted in suffering (by self, others or both) it was unskillful. Confess it. Practice restraint. Abandon it.
4. If the act resulted in happy consequences and joyful results, you may continue it.

Buddhism is not meant to be theoretical... You can read the dharma and study the sutras, but the point of study is to take the teachings on in a practical sense. When we had our precepts preparation meetings last year, each week we were asked to reflect on two precepts, what they meant to us, how we might apply them to our lives, what "came up" for us around them, etc. We would then sit in a circle and talk about them.

The children's precepts are a bit different than the ones we take as adults:

1. Do not harm, but cherish all life
2. Do not take what is not given but respect the things of others
3. Do not lie but speak the truth
4. Do not waste but conserve energy and natural resources
5. Do not stay angry or hold grudges
6. Do not cling to things that belong to you, but practice generosity and the joy of sharing

The precepts we take are phrased a bit differenly than they are in other places... I suppose the fact that they are prefixed with the words "Do Not..." makes them seem rather authoritative. Paul mentions this in his recent comment:

I have to ask about these precepts. I agree with all of them, yet the features of Buddhism that have most attracted me are meditation, following the Eightfold Path, and developing one's inner being in a direction of enlightenment.

My Buddhist reading has been eclectic and self directed, but I haven't run into precepts before. I guess that frankly I'm a little concerned that it starts to have the feeling of the Ten Commandments, and the dogmatic rather than experiential approach I was familiar with growing up as a Catholic.

On their face, I suppose they would come off a bit authoritative... but we are not taught to use them that way. We are taught to try them on. We are taught that we can grow into them. "Do not harm but cherish all life" doesn't mean we have to be vegetarian... but we might find that we end up there naturally. We are in constant relationship with our precepts... sometimes we might be totally mindless about conserving energy, for example. At other times, we might be more deliberate... turning off lights that aren't being used... limiting the time we are in the shower, washing clothes in cold water, etc.

As we discuss them, I'm looking for ways to make them practical for my daughter, and to have her think about the consequences of breaking a precept instead of looking at them simply as "you must/must not..." rules or prescriptions. What happens to you when you stay angry? How does it make you feel? Does it help? What would help?