A few days ago, in meditation, I had a clear understanding of another concept: noticing what isn’t there. It began with the pain growing in my left hip. I’ve focussed on various pains before, but that method usually seemed to intensify the pain rather than alleviate it.

This time I tried something else. I looked to where there wasn’t pain. My right hip felt very comfortable, so I focussed my attention there. After a few moments I noticed that the pain in the left side had diminished. But as I shifted my attention to the left side, the pain returned. So I wen’t back to the right. And once again, the pain on the left subsided.

It reminded me of a phenomenon I’d played with as a kid. One day I was lying in the grass, looking up at the blue sky. Overhead were a cluster of electric wires and such. I noticed as I looked past the wires to the sky beyond, the wires seemed to disappear. Then, when I looked at the wires, there they were. And I could make them disappear again at will. I was sure I’d developed some sort of super power, but I was disappointed when I could not perform this optical trick with anything else.

Back to meditation. Relocating my attention from a painful spot to a pain-free area had the effect of making the pain disappear. I knew it was still there, the pain. I just wasn’t perceiving it. Or was I just perceiving the sensations as something different? Either way, I was able to meditate comfortably and without the anxiety and fear that often accompanies pain.

That’s when I realized the importance of noticing what’s not present and it’s direct relationship to the five hindrances to productive meditation (or to any other practice). The five hindrances are:

• Sensual desire
• Ill will
• Restlessness & remorse (or worry)
• Sloth & torpor (reluctance to make effort & lethargy)
• Doubt (in the practice)

A definition of rapture is the absence of the five hindrances. Indeed, it’s necessary to overcome the hindrances entirely in order to attain full awakening. But how do you know when you’re in a state of rapture as opposed to a common, every-day state of happiness? It’s when you notice, upon careful examination, that the mind is free of the five hindrances. It’s noticing what’s not there.

Not only were Michael and I colleagues in the larger field of massage therapy, we both taught classes (I still do) at Oregon School of Massage. Some of the women involved in the investigation were former students of his. Students of mine, too, for that matter.

After his arrest, the rumor mill at the school was, I thought, especially quiet. Or perhaps I didn’t hear much because I wasn’t all that interested to actively seek out information. It’s a sensitive area, too, because as a legitimate profession massage therapy has always struggled to dissociate itself from its disreputable cousin, prostitution. As a truly reputable school, we didn’t need this.

I must confess, though, that when I read the story of Michael’s arrest—complete with mugshot—a small feeling of satisfaction arose. Several things he’d said at staff meetings didn’t sit well with me. One thing he’d said I took personally because, although it was a general criticism, it seemed directed straight my way. From then on, I’d seen him as an adversary. He wasn’t, of course, but that’s how I saw it.

Another colleague of mine, a former student who practices massage therapy as well as the middle way, expressed outrage that Michael got only 90 days of jail time. He also described how his anger made it difficult for him to do his daily metta practice. It was my friend’s comments on Facebook that inspired this post, leading me to wonder how the four noble truths figured into the difficulty one has with sending kindness to people one doesn’t like.

The first noble truth is the truth of suffering. Life is full of it. But the first noble truth is not a mere statement of fact, e.g., “there is suffering.” Rather it is an injunction to see suffering for what it is, to understand it thoroughly. It’s hard to wish kindness upon people we intensely dislike because it hurts. That’s my experience, anyway.

The cause of this pain, though, is not external. It has nothing to do with what crimes or grievances someone committed against me or others. The cause is my very firm grip on what I want or how I think things should be. This is the second noble truth, the truth of the cause of suffering. If the cause of suffering is clinging, then the solution is to let go the grip.

Relaxing the grip leads to the third noble truth, which states release from suffering is possible. This is the goal Buddhist practitioners strive for: release from suffering. The fourth truth is the means to accomplish the goal: the eightfold path.

The practice of metta is the act of wishing kindness toward others. But it’s more than that. It’s one of four ideal mind states conducive to cultivating the eightfold path. The other three are compassion, joy in the good fortune of others, and equanimity.

When I conjure up the image of Michael’s mugshot, I don’t see the boastful, overly self-assured man I once gave forced-friendly nods to in the hallway before classes. Nor do I see a sexual predator who must be locked up as a menace to society. Rather I see the face of a man destroyed—whether he knows it or not—by his own delusion.

I too have delusions, those self-imposed mental shackles I strive to wrest myself from. And I know, were I to be standing shackled before a judge, I would desperately want the compassion of others rather than their scorn. And I would want to be treated kindly, too.

And what of  his gullible followers, some of whom spent all their money or otherwise divested themselves of possessions deemed unnecessary after the rapture? In scanning for news stories of the anti-apocalyptic aftermath, “false prophet” is a phrase I’ve come across. If Camping is a false prophet today, he was just as much so on May 20, 2011 as he was in 1994. And yet there were enough believers in his delusion to offer him the millions and millions of dollars he spent on advertising what was to be a non-event on typical day in May.

Now the laughter has subsided and we can let May 22 roll into the 23rd and so on. Other news—serious as well as trivial—will captivate us, and Harold Camping will no longer be able to grab much attention no matter how much he spends.

Yet I can’t help feeling a certain sadness for Camping. He was defeated not only by his own miscalculations, but in his belief in them and the book they were based on. He  must have been crushed when his prediction didn’t come to pass. Although this story suggests he was merely “bewildered.”

It’s easy to say—after the fact—that Camping and his followers were deluded in their belief. But from the perspective of someone who strives to sort what’s true from what isn’t, I can see how holding on to such a belief can result in nothing but a bad end.

Consider how much strife there is in the world—today and historically—because of strongly held beliefs. Given that fact, I wonder why belief isn’t outlawed. I’m being facetious, but it’s true that so much destruction can be attributed to a belief in God, country, race, democracy, capitalism or anything else that makes “us” better and more deserving than “them.”

And yet we insist that what we believe in is always right and worthy and will always lead to good. No matter how much sad evidence there is to the contrary.

The people at merkaba.org (I’m not sure who they are, but there is mention of the “family’s ancient records”) claim to know the truth, as shown in the bilboard above. Judgment day is December 21, 2012. The 2012 date is based on the end of the Mayan Calendar, which supposedly is a better way of marking time, because it is “ancient wisdom.” (If you want to know whether you’re among the family of 144,000 who will be saved on 12/21/12 here is the test. All you have to do is listen.)

But this is direct conflict with Harold Camping of Family Radio Worldwide, who is certain Judgment Day is just two days from now! According to Mr. Camping, beginning Saturday God will start killing off the unraptured until October 21, 2011, on which day he will destroy the world. At least some of us will get to enjoy the summer — so long as we don’t dwell too much on the future.

I just don’t know what to believe. With so many conflicting truths going around it’s enough to make a person crazy. Of course, I can just pick one and wrap myself up in it. But what criteria do I use to make such choice? Who can I believe? How do I know who’s telling me the truth and who is just another deluded charlatan?

I just want to be free. I don’t want to be bound up by someone else’s beliefs.

The Buddha said to be “an island unto yourself, a refuge unto yourself, seeking no external refuge.” I think I’ll build myself a raft and paddle to my own island of freedom.

But I have my doubts. Non-believer that I am, I am a firm believer that belief and truth often have nothing to do with one another.

Take for instance this story that says 34 percent of Republicans still don’t believe Barack Obama was born in the USA, and 18 percent are not sure. And maybe there is a small percentage of Republicans – and maybe a couple Democrats too – who believe a flat Earth is smack in the center of the universe, right where God put it. But that’s beside the point.

The point is that when I went to the Family Radio website, a little window popped up telling me that their donation server was down for maintenance. I wonder why a guy who is certain to be sucked up to heaven in a little more than a week is still taking donations.

The NPR stories describe believers who are in the process of divesting themselves of their possessions in preparation for the biggest bang since the Big Bang. As one interviewee put it, “We budgeted everything so that, on May 21, we won’t have anything left.” Another said, ”I have sold everything off. I have no more personal ambitions but to get the Gospel out to warn the world.”

Not only am I’m a non-believer, but I also have a slight cynical streak. Which makes me wonder if the Family Radio donation server was down for maintenance because it was swamped with believers giving all their money to Harold Camping — who, on May 22, may take it as a sign from God to continue his research.

What do you think?

At such times I’m content to sit and listen. And this is what I was doing last week when Ajahn Sudanto looked right at me and asked, “How’s your practice going, Paul? Do you have any questions?”

I replied that even though I may have questions that arise during the week, they never come to mind when I have an opportunity to ask.

Then he said, “I have a question for you. Why are you still suffering?”

Instantly the thought arose: Who let you in my head? But I realized it was question he could have asked of anyone in the room, so I didn’t take it personally. Yet he did ask the question. I did not dare speak the answer forming in my mind. Instead I rambled on about my practice, how last week it seemed as though I’d reached some new level of understanding, but this week I’d had a big setback. It seemed, I’d said, that I go through these cycles of progress and setbacks. Only in retrospect did I realize how evasive I’d been, trying to be philosophical rather than truthful. I’m good at that. Or so I think.

The simple answer to the question “Why are you still suffering?” is this: It’s because of all those other people out there! Those people who don’t understand me, who are inconsiderate, who are irresponsible, who think my ways of doing things are inferior to theirs, who don’t appreciate me, who expect more of me than I’m able to provide, who cannot see the obvious truth about things, who send text messages while driving, who think Sarah Palin is a great American, who think Barak Obama is a Muslim, who… stop. That’s enough. You wouldn’t understand, anyway.

Maybe this topic has been discussed, debated, and deconstructed more than any other in Buddhism – who knows? But I feel compelled to add my own thoughts.

The Hindu idea of reincarnation and the Buddhist idea of rebirth are different. What’s more, the various Buddhist schools seem to disagree on what it’s all about, which adds to the confusion.

Reincarnation, as I understand it, is the transmigration of a soul (Sanskrit: atman) from one lifetime to another as it inhabits a different body each time. Over and over and over – the same “person” ends up in a different body and life circumstance according to deeds performed in the prior lifetime. An analogy is where a person passes through an infinitely long series of dressing rooms, changing from one costume to another. Same person, different costume.

Rebirth, as I understand it (from the Theravada position, anyway), is that at the moment of death one’s actions (i.e., thoughts) propel a particular kind of consciousness forward in a continuum of cause and effect called samsara, and a new being comes into existence. This consciousness is not one’s soul – there is none, according to the doctrine of anatta (Sanskrit: anatman): no-self, not-self, no-soul. So there is this perennial question: If there is no soul, then what goes from one life to the next?

This is a good point to suggest a mind-game. I present here a scenario, but only to stimulate your own imagination. As you may see, the possibilities are endless.

You are in a hospital room. You’ve had surgery to correct a progressive illness. But something went wrong, and you and your family have been informed you have only a day or two to live. Your family has gathered around – spouse, children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. Your mind is flooded with thoughts and conflicted emotions. One of your older grandchildren comes to the bedside with a fat photo album. And there is your life before you. The birthdays, graduations, weddings, and dozens of other joyful events.

There is the picture of your first child at age three, playing in the backyard with the puppy. And your heart breaks again as you remember the day a year later when the dog returned but the child did not. The grief, the sorrow, the blame and self-recrimination, and arguments about who left the gate open.

Your wedding pictures show the two of you so obviously happy and in love, and now you can feel in your brittle bones that longing, that craving you had for one another. Especially the craving that seemed you couldn’t satisfy. Farther and farther back you turn the pages, viewing scenes from your own childhood. Your parents’ wedding picture. Isn’t it striking how much you look like them? You wonder about your father and why he left when you were seven. You wonder how your life would be different had he not slammed out of the house that night, leaving your mother crying in despair on the kitchen floor.

Your grandparents, too, are pictured in the album. You don’t remember much about them, but you know their lives were difficult. Again you are struck by how much you resemble them. And, as you look around the room, you see how much your children and grandchildren resemble them too.

It feels as though you can run your fingers over that coiled thread of DNA that links them with you and with your parents and grandparents and great grandparents – back and back. You see how that thread will go on and on into the future – without you. You understand how the specific actions of your forebears helped bring you to this very place. And you understand with frightening clarity how your own actions contributed to the lives of these people you love.

As you scan the faces around you can feel the quiet suffering. You know the lives of  your children are marked by one trial or another – divorce, debt, illness, trouble with the law, and of course your own imminent death. You wish there is something you can do to ease their pain. But you feel helpless.

And now something comes to mind and you realize you are not helpless. There is much you can do and there is plenty of time to do it. You open your heart to everyone gathered around you and tell them through quiet example that the secret to living well is knowing how to die well, without clinging, without remorse. And that’s just what you do.

Do I believe in rebirth? Do I believe in an afterlife? Does it matter? Try this statement on for size and see how it feels: “I don’t believe in DNA.” Of course you don’t have to believe in DNA for an aspect of your life to go on and on with infinite moments of joy and suffering. Belief in rebirth is not required either. That’s one of the interesting things about Buddhism. You don’t have to believe anything. There is no Creed and no judge to condemn you for not believing.

But there is the law of cause and effect, the law of kamma. Good actions bring good results, bad actions bring bad results. It’s inescapable. With a true understanding of the law of kamma and skillful action you can have a positive effect on the future – even if your not around to see it.

NOAA photo courtesy WikiCommons

On Saturday, just a couple of days ago now, I was in a bad mood. Not my occasionally cranky self, but the worst mood I’d been in for perhaps 15 years. It had been building all week, like a storm on the horizon.

In contrast I had spent the previous weekend – Thursday evening through Monday morning – at Abhayagiri Monastery. It was not a retreat, per se, but an annual gathering called Upasika Renewal. It’s where individuals can formally renew their commitment to the Three Refuges and the Five Precepts. It was a positive experience with lots of meditation time as well as time for some physical labor, relaxation, and discussion.

I dreaded leaving for Abhayagiri, though, because of my work load. I’d spent the week prior trying to get as much accomplished as possible, but I never felt satisfied that I was actually ready to go. I dreaded coming home, too, because what awaited me were three full days packed with immediate day-long activities and responsibilities. I had no time for reintegration or to catch up on what I was unable to accomplish during the five days away.

It wasn’t until Friday that I had a chance to sit back and sort through the paperwork, as it were, and to begin to get caught up on what was actually eight days of “missed work,” so to speak. But there were a few things from the various compartments of my life that had been vexing me since my return – something someone said, a look someone gave. Just a few small things, but you know how the mind likes to jumble things up and slap on layers and then tug and pull and churn.

On Saturday, the first if the month, I did what I usually do: bookkeeping. Reconciling checking accounts and deciding which bills I can pay and which I can put aside until later have never been activities that lead to calm. Then throw in a software problem…

Frustration gathered into clouds of despair and hopelessness. I’d thought I’d left these story emotions long behind in the distant past, but here they were, ready to unleash a deluge.

Fortunately, I had a couple of hours to myself Saturday evening. Fortunately, too, I decided to give meditation one more chance. I focused on the first noble truth of suffering. Yep, this is it, all right. This is dukkha. And the cause. Yes, there is a cause, that pesky second noble truth: clinging. It was my inability to let go of the attachment to that which bothered me. “Letting go.” Such a trite phrase. Easy for you to say. You don’t have my grip of steel.

Suddenly, my mind went back to Abhayagiri. We had been treated to two documentaries about Ajahn Chah. I’d heard the virtues of Ajahn Chah extolled many times, but only then at the monastery did I get an idea of why he was – and still is – revered by those who spent any time with him.

Ajahn Pasanno, co-abbot (and soon to be sole abbot) of Abhayagiri, was one of Ajahn Chah’s long-time students and attendants. In his introductory remarks to the 1977 documentary “The Mindful Way,” he said Ajahn Chah had lots of doubt. I’ve heard too he’d had lots of anger and other mental trials as well. But, Ajahn Pasanno said, he had determined that he would live each day of his life as though it would be his last and each day he would practice Dhamma with every ounce of effort. As I understand it, for Ajahn Chah practicing Dhamma meant “letting go.” There must be something to this. Ajahn Amaro, the other co-abbot of Abhayagiri (and soon to be abbot of Amaravati in England) said that what he saw in Ajahn Chah those long years ago in Thailand was “the happiest man in the world,” and he wanted to be like that too.

I got up from my cushion and searched for the documentary on YouTube, where I found it in three parts. After watching it again, I went back to the cushion for 30 more minutes. The slight parting of the clouds was palpable, and I sensed of the possibility of sunshine – not immediately, but soon. Sunday was a good day. And I’m also getting of sense of ease at getting back into my routine.

Buddhism has its own paradox of the heap. One of the renderings of the Pali word “khandha” (the Sanskrit is “skandha”) is “heap.” Another rendering is “aggregate.” The Buddha taught that a person is comprised of five heaps, or aggregates: form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.

Form is the heap of things that make up the body. The other four come together in the shape of the mind.

Feelings describe a how we feel about something that has come into our sphere of awareness. That is, we have a pleasant feeling, an unpleasant feeling, or a neutral feeling. I hear a warbling sound that feels pleasant to my ear.

Perceptions are the labels we apply to things that come into our sphere of awareness. A warbling sound comes to my ear. I gives me a pleasant feeling. I immediately label it “birdsong,” or even “robin.”

Mental formations are those things we are constantly creating in that little workshop of the mind. They are the thoughts and emotions which become the seeds of action. I hear the pleasant sound of a robin and begin to think about spring, cutting the grass, cleaning up the lawnmower, getting gas for the mower, what about fertilizer for the lawn?… and on, and on.

Consciousness is the quality of awareness. Without consciousness we are not aware of the other four aggregates.

So where is the paradox? All these heaps together make a person. And each of us identifies with the five parts and the myriad parts of the parts: my eyes, my hair, my toenails, my mind, my thoughts, my opinions, my knowledge, my worries. This is who I am. This is what makes me me. Or is it?

These heaps of things are inconstant, insubstantial, always changing. Take the body, for example. And let’s leave aside the millions of subtle physiological changes the body goes through day to day and look at a drastic way the body can change. I worked once with a man named Bill. He was a happy-go-lucky average guy, good-looking and always whistling. One day he said, “I didn’t always look like this.” This surprised me, because there was no indication he’d ever looked different. No scars or anything I could see. He went on to tell me about the car crash he’d been in years before. It killed his wife and the two others in the car and left him hospitalized for a year. His face, he’d said, had been completely reconstructed. He had become, by appearances, a different person. But was he really?

And what of someone with Alzheimer’s disease, or memory loss? If I don’t remember who I am, am I not me?

It doesn’t take much effort to come up with dozens and dozens of examples of how people can change either physically or mentally: the beauty queen who has become old and flabby, the high-powered CEO who can no longer remember how to tie his shoes, the athlete bound for the rest of his life to a wheelchair. Imagine yourself suddenly different from who you were yesterday. Are you still you? Or not you?

Day to day we identify with the shape of our bodies and landscape of our minds. This identification is a significant source of tension and stress.

Much of Buddhist practice is toward dis-identifying with the five aggregates – piece by piece, grain by grain. That doesn’t mean striving to not exist or becoming a nobody. It means seeing your body for what it is: a conglomeration of things that are subject to instability and change and not something permanent and forever reliable. Same with the mind: unstable, inconstant, changing moment to moment. In some ways it seems rather silly to try to hold on to and defend and justify something so slippery. Yet we do hang on with vigorous determination.

There is the paradox.

Isn’t that why we have the Christian metaphor of the Good Shepherd? Someone who will tell us right from wrong, who will keep us safe from harm, who will tuck us snugly in the warm blankets of heaven on that last and most frightening darkest night of the soul?

Not all people are like sheep, though. There are a few who prefer – or stumble into – the role of shepherd. They are smarter and more intelligent than the flock they aspire to lead. Some of them aspire to the role of shepherd out of love and compassion for the poor sheep, who, by their nature, are truly helpless. Others aspire to the role of shepherd out of the delusion they know what’s best – at least for themselves – and will take the flock by whatever means they can.

All shepherds and hopeful shepherds have a message for the flock. But the sheep have difficulty discerning among those who would help them from those who would harm them. After all, they are just sheep.

Many people, like sheep, don’t have – or don’t utilize – the capacity to discern the truth and make skillful decisions about what’s in their own long-term best interests and the best interests of those who share the pasture. Because, like sheep, they can only know what their immediate instincts tell them. And the instincts of sheep aren’t very good. Can a sheep tell when the butcher walks into the pen with a loaded rifle?

But we’re really not’t sheep. And it is possible to separate the good shepherds from the bad shepherds – if we’d really care to take a close look at them and listen carefully to their messages.

Is the message filled with compassion, hope, love, tolerance, and concern for the welfare of everyone in the flock? Or is the message filled with hatred of “the other,” fear that “the other” will take what’s “yours,” and intolerance of anyone who doesn’t accept the message? What’s the overall demeanor of those who would aspire to lead you? How do they live their lives – not just when they are in the spotlight, but when no one is looking? Are they kind, gentle and honest;  are they authoritarian, overbearing, and deceptive; are they generous, or greedy for money, fame, and power? Are they wise or deluded? Although it may take a long time and require some effort, it really isn’t so hard to discern the truth.

Providing truth is what you really want.

The photo collage is of some notable shepherds, some of whom are speaking to their flocks. Can you tell the good ones from the bad ones? In the picture are, in no particular order: the Buddha, Jerry Fallwell, Benazir Bhutto, Idi Amin, Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, Anwar Sadat, Jimmie Carter, Menachem Begin, Mother Teresa, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt, Rush Limbaugh, Nelson Mandela, Joseph Stalin, Pat Roberson, Dick Cheney, Aung San Suu Kyi, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Martin Luther King, Mao Zedong, Mahatma Ghandi, Barack Obama, Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, Dorothy Day, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Jesus, who is shone once as the Good Shepherd and again preaching the Sermon on the Mount.

*This post was inspired by this story, sent to me by someone suggesting that Barack Obama is leading the United States down the same path as did Adolf Hitler lead Germany.