June 28th, 2009 by Paul
Ajahns Pasanno, Amaro and Jayasaro at Abhayagiri Monastery
My visit to Abhayagiri Monastery last week – and the 13-hour drive to and from – is in the past. So too is the feeling that overcame me shortly after arriving early Friday evening. The Buddha speaks of three kinds of feeling: pleasant, unpleasant and neither pleasant nor unpleasant. What I experienced during the initial hours of my stay was inwardly unpleasant.
I and my two traveling companions arrived a few minutes after 5:00. We briefly greeted several others from Portland already there, then pitched our tents in a field – the guest lodgings were full. Then we joined the monks in the shrine room for tea. That’s when the mental nagging began.
There are five hindrances to one’s practice: desire, ill will, restlessness and remorse, sloth and torpor, and doubt. Yes, that’s seven, but two of them are paired. No matter. The hindrance weighing on me was doubt.
Tea time at the monastery is an opportunity for open discussion with the monks. It’s a casual affair, but there are certain formalities that the serious practitioner will follow. I had a strong sense of uncertainty about what to do. But it was more than that. I didn’t trust that I could just be with what was happening without concern about what was to happen next or what I was supposed to do.
When interacting with monastics, reverence and respect are the most important qualities to cultivate. Protocols – which can be learned over time through instruction and careful observation – are of less importance. But this mind of mine had begun to question everything about this visit. All the bowing and deference seemed so pointless. Why was I here? Why are these monks here? What do they get out of it? What’s the point of any of this? Later that night, exhausted after having been up since 3:15, I fell asleep with these questions going through my mind in the form of a doubtful mush.
The next morning I awoke at 6:00 – late by monastic standards. At 6:30 we were assigned light duties, followed by a breakfast of oatmeal at 7:00. Then we gathered in the shrine room where, after chanting and meditation, we were assigned various duties for the morning work session. Much of what needed to be done involved clearing brush and trail maintenance. I volunteered to mend some tools, something I’m suited to do. Besides, it kept me away from any exposure to the ubiquitous poison oak.
Before sending us off to work, Ajahn Pasanno advised us not to get caught up in our chores or in what others were doing. “Just watch your mind,” he said. This is standard Buddhist stuff, and I’ve heard it and done it for years. But this morning, at this very moment, it made more sense than ever before. Of course, this is why I was here. This is why the monks are here.
Monastic life is one of discipline. So too, is any spiritual life. But it’s not discipline for the sake of it. The discipline creates the conditions for training the mind. To train the mind is to watch it carefully and bring it back in before it romps away into the poison oak of ill will, desire, remorse, sluggishness and doubt. Only then can one cultivate the more wholesome qualities of kindness, joy, equanimity and tranquility.
That’s the point.
June 18th, 2009 by Paul
Sunday, while many are celebrating Father’s Day, I will be at Abhayagiri Monastery participating in the annual Upasika Renewal Day. I’ll be traveling there tomorrow with several others from Portland Friends of the Dhamma. It will be my first visit to Abhayagiri.
We plan to arrive by 5:30, in time to share tea and conversation with the monks. Saturday morning will be given to working around the monastery, taking care of whatever needs doing. The afternoon will provide lots of time for meditation.
On Sunday morning, I, as a new upasaka, will formally take the Three Refuges and Five Precepts. Those who have gone before will take them as a group.
The rest of the day will be devoted to meditation and talks on the Dhamma by guest teacher Ajahn Jayasaro. He will speak on Education in Buddhism, exploring how Dhamma teachings can be used educational settings from the home to schools to professional training.
An upasaka (male) or upasika (female) is a lay person who commits to the Three Refuges and Five Precepts, and joins with monastics in practice of the Dhamma. Read more about the Upasika Program here.
June 14th, 2009 by Paul
- Tualatin River, September 22, 1999
On Friday I sold my canoe. The last time we had it in the water was the summer of, maybe, 2005. Since then it’s been in the backyard, covered with a decaying plastic tarp. It needed some minor repairs to make it usable and a lot of work to bring it back to its original luster.
Each spring I’d think, This year I’m going to fix it up and take it out on the water, but it never happened. I had neither the room nor the inclination. It was a beautiful boat, and I enjoyed the looks I’d get while driving down the road with it lashed to the top of my car. And I really enjoyed it when people would ask where I got it and I was able to say I built it myself.
It took me a year and a half to build (not straight through, there were weeks when I didn’t touch it). I finished it in the early fall of 1999. I took the picture on September 22, the first time it touched water. Up until that moment, I had my doubts it would float.
I built it for two reasons. I had another canoe, also one that I’d built, but it was much heavier. It took two people to get it on and off the car. A solitary person, I liked, at the time, going out alone. This was before I’d met Robin, whose company I’m glad to have anytime. During that lifetime, when I built my canoe, I often desired solitude.
My other reason for building it was much more complex. A couple of years prior, I found myself spiritually adrift. The faith I was raised with had slowly eroded until, finally, there was nothing of it left for me. I was desperate for spiritual direction. At about the same time, a 10-year stint as an author of how-to books had come to a close. I nurtured the idea of writing a book about some aspect of my spiritual dilemma, but I couldn’t figure out where to go with it.
Back then, I carried around the concept of “spiritual journey.” I was on a journey of discovery, finding myself and all that. It’s the journey that matters, not the destination was the mantra of the day. Looking back, it seems so, well, silly. It’s been years since I’ve considered the journey metaphor viable. The destination is important.
Back then, though, I had this idea that a canoe – not the boat itself, but the building of it – could be a vehicle for a book, a spiritual book of my journey.
It never happened. Perhaps it wasn’t the journey after all that mattered. But I do feel that having sold my boat, I have arrived at a new beginning. I didn’t realize it until yesterday, the day after I watched it leaving on the top of someone else’s car.
Olallie Lake, Summer 2002
Although I never wrote the book (read the essay), I did use it often in its early life. I took it out alone many times, usually to the many lakes on Sauvie Island. My daughter Kathryn and I would take it on our once-annual camping trips together. It was she who took the picture of my boat and me on the shore of Olallie Lake. And Robin and I had some very pleasant paddles together.
Not all canoes are alike. Some are made for whitewater, others for flat water (small lakes and slow-moving streams). Mine was a flat-water canoe. Whitewater canoeing is exhilarating, sure, but I prefer the placid nature of still water. Besides, I’m not much of a risk taker – at least with my physical being.
Except for the arrangements of the two seats, my canoe was the same end to end. If there were two people in the boat, we’d paddle it one direction. When by myself, I’d paddle it in the other direction (placing my weight closer to the center). Either end could be the front, depending on the circumstances. I loved the symmetry of it all.
And this is why I had no trouble letting the boat go. Not only had it had served it’s purpose (solitude when I needed it), I had reached the end of one journey to find myself at the beginning of another.
In Buddhism there is the metaphor of the raft. The Buddha compares his teachings, the Dhamma, to a raft used to take one to the far shore (of liberation). Once there, he says, one doesn’t carry the raft on one’s back. Rather, one leaves it behind as it is of no more use.
On Friday, I am traveling with several others to Abhayagiri Monastery for the annual Upasika Renewal weekend. An upasika/upasaka (feminine/masculine versions) is a Buddhist lay person who joins with monastics in Dhamma practice. This will be my first visit to Abhyagiri as an upasaka or otherwise. I’ve been practicing Buddhism for more than a dozen years, but now it seems I’m bringing it to another level.
It’s fitting to have put aside the canoe – once a symbol of my spirituality – at this time in my life. It’s not that it went without a sense of loss. Robin and Kathryn both have pleasant memories of paddling with me (and I with them, to be sure). Today, as I was writing this, Kathryn burst into my room. “You sold the canoe!?” She had been away for the past couple of days and, because I hadn’t told her of my plans, it came as a surprise. She sniffed and took her complaint to Robin, who agreed that it was a bit of a shock. “I didn’t even get to say good-bye,” Robin had said when she came home Friday after the fact.
I regret having caused them to suffer the loss, but it was time for me to put it down. I have no regrets about that.
June 7th, 2009 by Paul
Note: For background on this series, please read the Introduction to the 32-Parts Project.
Human Remains, Wikimedia Commons
When I was 11 years old, I had what may have been my first real moment of insight. I was in fifth grade at a Catholic elementary school in Portland, when I slipped out onto the playground ahead of the rest of my class. I can’t remember why I was out there alone – perhaps I didn’t have to go to the bathroom, where the rest of my classmates were herded before recess. This was 1962, and the Sisters of the Holy Child maintained the strictest order to ensure that all God’s children in their care would eventually be herded into heaven.
Whatever the reason for my being separated from my classmates and teacher, there I was clambering up the metal bars of the the play structure at the farthest corner of the asphalt playground, alone. Near the top, I reached out for a bar but lost my grip. In an instant, I hit the ground, stunned by the pain that came from my right arm near the wrist.
The playground now swarmed with kids. I sought out my teacher to tell her I’d hurt myself. “That’s what you get for coming out here before everyone else,” she said. When I insisted that it hurt, she told me I had a sprain and sent me to another nun who, she said, used to be a nurse. The nun who used to be a nurse told me to run cold water over it. At a water fountain, my left hand twisted awkwardly around the handle and my right arm under the meager trickle, I did what I was told. It didn’t help.
I noticed my arm had a slight S curve to it. I considered the situation, hearing in my memory the snap when I hit the ground. I’d heard of people breaking arms and legs. But before this moment, I hadn’t understood what it meant. I’d figured that having a broken arm was something like having doll with a broken arm. There were two pieces: the doll in one hand, the arm in the other. Now, no one needed to explain it to me. The bone inside my arm was broken, and I knew it.
Eventually I made it into the office. My mother was called, and off we went to the hospital.
By definition, a bone is an organ, although it’s not usually what comes to mind when we think of organs. The 206 bones in an adult human make up the skeletal system, the framework of the body. Our bones serve more purposes than providing structure and support, however. Bones protect the brain and spinal column and the contents of the thoracic, abdominal, and pelvic cavities. Muscles and tendons work with the skeleton to create movement. Tiny bones in the ears allow for hearing and the bones of the skull enhance the the sounds we hear and give resonance to our voices.
Bones are a storehouse of calcium and phosphorus. Through the marrow within them, bones are the site of blood cell production. (Marrow and blood are separate categories in the contemplation of the 32 parts of the body and will be discussed later.)
Bones are comprised of living cells and the non-living mineral calcium phosphate. Like other tissues of the body, bones grow through the process of cellular division. In addition, and unlike other tissues, specialized cells called osteoblasts create a protein mixture that mineralizes into the solid structural component, bone. Other cells – osteoclasts – break down bone tissue to release calcium and phosphorus into the bloodstream. Bones go through an ongoing process called remodeling. Our bones – like everything else – are constantly changing. On the molecular level they come into and go out of existence day after day, just as each breath does.
Bones, being mostly inorganic calcium phosphate, remain long after the once living tissues of the body decay after death. The skeleton, or some parts of it, is a symbol of death. The skull and crossbones is the universal symbol for poison. Some pirates used it as a symbol on their flags – the Jolly Roger – as a means of frightening their victims into surrender. Not doing so was certain death.
Skeletons make popular Halloween costumes and play a prominent role in Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico (these two religious holidays are related).
Sometimes, while lying next to Robin, I feel her bones. There is a skeleton beneath her skin – skull, ribs, vertebrae, tibiae, pelvis, etc. Her bones hold her up, allow her to move through space, and to touch me back. Someday, though, they will not. Nor will mine.
Surrendering to the inevitable – and not clinging to what is impossible to hold for long – is the purpose of contemplation of the 32 parts of the body.
For background on this series, please read the Introduction to the 32-Parts Project.
