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.

It’s finally over, that super-hyped time of year known as the Holiday Season or, simply, the Holidays. For me, as you may have guessed already, it’s a relief that it’s over. But, if you’ve  guessed this to be a rant about the commercialization of Christmas and a yearning for the good old days of celebrating the birth of Jesus, please put those ideas aside. That’s not where I’m going.

What disturbs me about this time of year are two overarching obligations inculcated – mostly, but not always – by the media. The first is to insist that things be just so, or else my “Christmas is ruined!” (Yes, I’ve been told that more than once, although, gratefully, not in this lifetime.) This is the realm of tradition. “It’s the way it was when I was little, and that’s the way it’s going to be now.”

The other obligation belongs in the realm of the material. (“Have you done your Christmas shopping yet?” Um, no, I haven’t even started. “Better hurry. I get all my shopping done in January when everything is cheap and the malls aren’t crowded with crazy people.” Good for you.) It’s the obligation to spend scarce money on things people neither need nor appreciate. “It’s the thought that counts” is a thin excuse for spending money out of the obligation to be thoughtful rather than pure and spontaneous thoughtfulness.

These two obligations – the traditional and material – come together into a set of expectations we have about this time of year. And if the expectations aren’t met, there is bound to be some level of dissatisfaction and disappointment.

And that is where I see a similarity between Christmas (or the Holidays, if you prefer) and Enlightenment. Notice I’m referring to Enlightenment with the capital E. It’s intentional. As I’ve written before, I’m not striving to “become Enlightened.” I started meditating and following the middle way because I wanted to conquer this unruly mind of mine. I’ve accomplished a great deal in that regard over the past 15 or so years of what I loosely refer to as “practice.” But the mere use of the above phase that begins, “What disturbs me most…” is a good indication that this mind continues to give me trouble.

In the culture of convert Buddhism – and maybe even in ethnic Buddhism too – there seems to be the idea that once I am Enlightened, then everything will be as perfect as Christmas Morning in America. Enlightenment becomes a destination much like Heaven is a destination. I don’t think so.

Getting control of the mind is hard work. It’s constant work. I do have an expectation of payoff (why else make all this effort?). But I’m sure that if after all this work I expect some life of Perfect Bliss I am bound to be disappointed. I will be satisfied with plain old contentment and peace of mind.

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.

Next week Ajahn Thanissaro, abbot of Metta Forest Monastery in Southern California, will be teaching at Friends of the Dhamma. His topic will be on the importance of developing a strong practice in concentration. Ajahn will base his discussion on parts of the Pali Canon which he has compiled in his book, A Meditator’s Tools: A Study Guide on the Ten Recollections.

In preparation, Sakula, PFOD’s spiritual director, read some passages from Ajahn Thanissaro’s book. She then gathered all five available copies and said to the 20 or so people in the room, “Who would like one?”

My mental response to the question went something like this: I want the book. I know I have the PDF on my computer, but I’d rather read it in book form. I want the book, but there are only five copies, and someone else is certainly more deserving than me. I want the book, but I don’t need it. Let it go. I let it go.

Meanwhile, Sakula was busy passing books around to those with a hand up. Apparently, there were several others who must have had similar thoughts to mine because only four people raised a hand.

“One left,” Sakula said. “Who wants it?”

After what seemed a very long time, I realized it was my duty (okay, I want the book) to take it. She slid it across the carpet in my direction.

“Now,” she said. “Just sit back and close your eyes. “Those of you with the book, how does it feel? Those of you without a book, how does it feel? If you have a book, can you just be happy with that without feeling that you got something that someone else didn’t? If you don’t have one, can you be happy that someone else got a copy without having any feelings of resentment or loss?”

Of course we’re all sitting in a room filled with people of goodwill. And, this is obviously an experiment. Don’t we all want to feel good about our participation, regardless of our response? Under such conditions, it’s difficult to harbor any feelings of resentment on the one hand or guilt on the other.

But Sakula wasn’t finished. “Those of you who didn’t get a book, raise your hand if you really wanted one. Those of you with a book, find someone to give it to.”

Meg, to my left, raised her hand. Without hesitating I passed my copy to her. Easy come, easy go.

Isn’t this the way life is all the time? Sometimes you get things, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes someone else gets what you want. And sometimes you get what someone else wants. Regardless of the situation, we’re conditioned to have the same subjective responses: I feel great when I gain something, bad when I lose something. If I get something you want (and I know you and like you) I may feel a bit guilty (but, hey, that’s life). If you get something I want, I’m bound to have feelings of resentment or envy.

This exercise clearly demonstrated to me that the conditioned responses are not the only ones available. I can find contentment and even happiness in the acts of giving, receiving, and letting go. As easy as it sounds, it’s not always that easy. The conditioned responses are deep indeed.

But, as one of our group so aptly put it last night, not objecting to the way things are is the basis of equanimity. With equanimity, conditioned responses don’t have a chance.

Incidentally, there is one more episode in the story of gained and lost book. Meg was the happy recipient of two books, one of which she passed back to me.

Understanding the law of cause and effect is central to – critical to – Buddhist practice. In the external world it’s easy to see how this may play out. If I smile at you when we meet, then I am much more likely to get a positive response from you than if I scowl. One could come up with thousands of examples. The point here is that I have a choice in my actions. That is, if I choose my actions wisely, I can influence what happens next. This is not speculation or something I take on faith. I have direct experience with this phenomenon in my own life. Therefore, I know it to be true.

Still, despite what I know to be true, I sometimes work myself into certain unwholesome mind states. Most often it’s because of something someone has said to me or something I have said to myself in the form of a thought. Either way, the result is a bad mood. Sometimes the mood builds gradually, other times it’s instant. Sometimes I can stop it before it gets too far. Other times the mental state gets to the point of no return as the negative, self-critical thoughts churn over and over, reinforcing themselves. Until the mood lifts I’m not very good company.

Through Ajahn Jayasaro’s words I got a clear understanding of the purpose behind practicing the Brahma Viharas – the four sublime mind states of loving kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity. These create the mental conditions for spiritual transformation. All that is necessary is training the mind to overcome decades of unskillful practices. This takes place through the combined and ongoing practices of acting forthrightly in the external world of society and the inner world of the mind.

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.

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.

We went to a dance performance at my step-daughter’s high school. It’s a magnet school for the arts, and the performance was first-rate. The environment, though, was uncomfortable throughout. What was troublesome for me was the perfume the girls around me wore. The cloud of competing scents was so thick at times, I felt I could see it as I would a fog rolling in off the ocean. It’s a mystifying behavior.

It’s not that I’m mystified only by the use of perfume by some females. Humans in general display a lot of baffling behaviors (car stereos that create minor earthquakes come to mind). But I do wonder why some girls – and grown women, too – believe that dousing themselves with unpleasant odors makes them more attractive. Attractive to whom, I’m not sure. Of course, I know, unpleasant is a judgment on my part. But it’s not a unique judgment.

I once worked in an environment where the receptionist wore heavy perfume. Many on the staff complained among themselves about it, but never took it up with the woman. A supervisor from another department said it should be addressed directly. “Wouldn’t you tell her if she had a bit of food stuck between her teeth?” Everyone agreed, but people don’t generally stick food between their teeth in the belief that it makes them more attractive.

On these spring mornings, I awaken to pleasant yet competing sounds of birds singing. Birds, I think, are communicating with others of their own species, staking out their territories for the day. Last evening I had the impression these girls were saying with their scents, “Smell me!” “No, smell me!” No, me! My smell is better!”

People generally are repelled by others with offensive body odor, a result of poor on nonexistent hygiene. Yet there is something odd about the practice of putting on odors that others find offensive. It’s obviously just fine for the girls trying to make a statement or attract someone’s attention. I know it’s not my attention they are trying to attract, but, too me, perfume is people repellent.

]]> http://paulgerhards.com/blog_thisisthatis/2009/05/15/people-repellent/feed/ 0 http://paulgerhards.com/blog_thisisthatis/2009/04/25/buddhism-suffering-love-and-making-comparisons/ http://paulgerhards.com/blog_thisisthatis/2009/04/25/buddhism-suffering-love-and-making-comparisons/#comments Sat, 25 Apr 2009 17:39:12 +0000 Paul http://paulgerhards.com/blog_thisisthatis/?p=1130 Last week I led a Dharma discussion where the topic drifted to Buddhism’s emphasis on suffering. It’s very common for people to get the impression that Buddhism is a negative, depressive religion because of all its talk about suffering.

“Why not teach love?” someone asked during the discussion, adding that love is what Christ taught.

That Christ taught love is indisputable, and I said as much. I added that the Buddha also taught love – along with compassion for and appreciation of others. In fact, central to Buddhism is the understanding that if one wants to be safe and happy and treated with kindness, others must also – therefore one acts accordingly. But getting into a debate where we were comparing Buddhism with Christianity didn’t seem the right thing to do. I let it drop.

When I began my studies of Buddhism I found it helpful to compare it with Catholicism, the faith I was raised in. Comparing and contrasting is, for me anyway, a useful means of sorting through my thoughts and establishing my view of the world. There are some things within the teachings and practice of the two faiths that are similar. (The Vietnamese Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh wrote at two books on the subject – Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers and Living Buddha, Living Christ.) Yet there are fundamental differences between Christianity and Buddhism. Deep in my mind I’ve covered many of them. But taking my thoughtful comparisons outside to play among others who have different ideas of the way things are or should be may not be beneficial. In fact, it could lead to harm by creating discord and bad feelings.

We all want the same thing: to be happy and safe. How we define happiness and safety and how we achieve them is a matter of opinion. From a Buddhist perspective, though, I think its of value to keep the focus on suffering, its cause, and its end. Wrapped up in the means to the end of suffering is, among other things, love.

Imagine someone saying, “I’m not a Christian. I just follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.” Doesn’t that by definition make one a Christian? OK, maybe that’s not a good example, because, first, one has to be baptized to be a Christian. Second, not all Christians follow the teachings of Jesus, so that doesn’t seem to be a prerequisite.

Unlike Christianity, one doesn’t become a Buddhist through the performance of any rite or ritual. One becomes a Buddhist by taking refuge in the Buddha (the teacher), the Dharma (the teachings), and the Sangha (the community of monks and nuns who practice the teachings) – collectively known as the the Three Jewels or Triple Gem. But what does taking refuge mean? 

Historically, common people sought the protection of those who had the capacity to protect them. It was a matter of physical survival. Also, in matters of spiritual survival, people would take refuge in spiritual leaders. Very simple, really. Taking refuge, then as now, is a matter of putting one’s faith in a protector. In this case, the Three Jewels. 

The Buddha teaches the end of suffering. One needs faith that practicing what the Buddha teaches will lead to that end. The only effect of a lack of faith (which implies a lack of skillful practice) is more suffering. It’s not punishment, but a logical consequence.

The teachings of the Buddha are divided into eight categories that instruct on living skillfully, so skillfully that when all these skills are sharpened to perfection, ultimate happiness is realized. In other words, the effect of skillful living is happiness, the effect of unskilful living is unhappiness. The eight categories are known as the Eightfold Path of Right View, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.

Following the Eightfold Path to the best of one’s ability is practicing the Dharma. Practicing the Dharma is applying the teachings of the Buddha to one’s life. This seems to me a good description of Buddhist. Why not just say so? If that’s what I do – skillfully or not – that’s what I am.