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.

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.

Meditation, introspection, meditative absorption, and concentration are activities central to Buddhist practice. They have everything to do with developing a tranquil mind and gaining insight into reality. The reality the Buddha speaks of is the impermanence of everything that comes into existence, the unsatisfactoriness of anything impermanent, and that no “self” can be found in anything at all.

Navels gazing inward

Meditation involves fixing one’s attention on an object such as the breath, an image, or even the navel. It can also involve maintaining awareness of the arising and passing away of sounds or sensations felt throughout the body. This is easier said than done, because the mind is such an unruly thing as it bounces from one thought to the next. Always in search of anything but the here and now, the mind serves up a constant stream of distractions. One of those distractions is a preoccupation with the body – either one’s own, or another’s. Being self-absorbed with one’s own body certainly fits with navel-gazing. Being absorbed in thoughts of another’s body is just plain lust. As pleasurable these thoughts may be, they definitely are a hindrance to insight and tranquility.

Controlling the flow of thoughts that hinder meditation is part of the meditative process. One of the methods the Buddha offers to help control lust and other body-oriented distractions is called Contemplation of the 32 Parts of the Body. When the body is seen as a composite of not-so-pretty parts it becomes easier to relax the grip of delusion and return to the task at hand: maintaining a stable and focused mind where tranquility and insight can be nurtured. The meditator brings attention to each one of the 32 parts so as to notice its inherent repulsiveness as it stands alone and out of context. The bouncy red hair of a woman isn’t so attractive when a strand or two are found in a casserole or on a pillow where it ought not be. When seen this way, the body – any body – becomes less desirable and less of a distraction.

The 32 parts of the body*

1. Hair of the head
2. Hair of the body
3. Nails
4. Teeth
5. Skin
6. Flesh (muscles)
7. Sinews (tendons)
8. Bones
9. Bone marrow
10. Kidneys
11. Heart
12. Liver
13. Membranes (e.g. pleura, diaphragm)
14. Spleen
15. Lungs
16. Large intestine
17. Small intestine
18. Gorge (contents of the stomach)
19. Dung
20. Bile
21. Phlegm
22. Pus (lymph)
23. Blood
24. Sweat
25. Fat
26. Tears
27. Skin-oil
28. Spittle
29. Mucous (snot)
30. Fluid of the joints
31. Urine
32. Brain

Turning my attention now to the purpose at hand, my goal is to use all 32 parts of the body, not only as individual objects of meditation, but as prompts for writing. I intend to work my way down the list, using each part as the subject of an essay. The idea came to me last summer, inspired by this post on the The Buddha Diaries where Peter offers up – in essay form – a full-frontal self-portrait. I considered taking my own shot at it, but I couldn’t imagine how I could individualize it enough to appear as anything other than a cheap knock-off of an original. Hence, the 32-Parts Project. I have no idea how it will evolve, how long it will take, or if I finish at all, but it begins today with this intention.

*Some references in the texts list only 31 parts, leaving out the brain.

For more information on the Contemplation of the 32 Parts, follow these links:

http://www.arrowriver.ca/dhamma/body.html
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.than.html
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/khantipalo/wheel271.html

When I sit long enough, I notice a threshold where discomfort gives rise to pain. I noticed it the other day with the pain in my right hip. When I had stuck with it long enough I had two simultaneous responses. They were subtle but vivid. They were panic and fear. Panic said I had get out of this situation fast. Fear said this pain will last forever. Both were untrue, of course. This was my mind talking. I know how my mind can talk a good story. I also know how some of those stories are not at all based in fact. They are unreal and groundless.

Often, when I experience a moment of insight, it feels so profound and big. Yet moments later I can’t remember what it was. Not so with the insight that come to me after noting this panic and fear. It occurred to me, as I sat there examining the mounting pain and the sensations that surrounded it, that behind all discomfort there is a wisp of fear.

It may strike you as silly that something as insignificant as an itch or the mildly annoying behavior of another induces fear and panic. But there it is.

As a kid I enjoyed those weeks between summer and fall. That?s when the package would arrive from Sears & Roebuck. There were long pants and long-sleeved flannel shirts and T-shirts and socks my mother and I had selected from the catalog a few weeks prior. I liked putting on these new cozy clothes in preparation of the transitional change in weather.

Now, the change in weather means a change in mood. This year it happened quickly, with the transition from daylight savings time to daylight wasting time.

As the days grow shorter, the mind tends tends to sluggishness. Several years ago I read about seasonal affective disorder. I then understood why I was always so tired this time of year. Shorter days means less sunlight coming through the retinas to stimulate the brain. The brain says it?s time for sleeping. Being tired and mentally sluggish most of the day has an effect on mood. It?s difficult to keep positive under these circumstances. There is work to be done, places to go, people to see. Tomorrow. Maybe. Right now I cannot resist the oppressive weight behind my eyes. I just want to close them. ?Why bother?? becomes a fitting mantra.

I tried light therapy. I installed a bank of full-spectrum lights in my work area. That didn?t do much for me. Antidepressants – serotonin reuptake inhibitors – didn?t do much either. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter and also thought to play a role in moods. I gave up on both long ago. A new strategy I?ve adopted is meditation. Specifically, during meditation I concentrate on focusing light on the pineal gland. Wake up. It?s a bright world out there.

If that doesn?t work, it?s reassuring to know that on December 22, the days will begin to get longer. Just the thought of it is uplifting.

I take no interest in the birds or the fish other than to notice them as they do what they do day after day, living their lives. I am intent on this smooth water, this water that sends me an invitation with its stillness. I grab the paddle from where it leans against a tree and walk down to the bank. Awaiting me there is my canoe, a third of its length pulled ashore. It lists a little toward me, beckoning.

Composed of thin strips of Western red cedar the hull is two-tone, predominately light honey in the bilges, and dark brown just below the gunwales. Above the water line run two stripes of deep red mahogany. The decks, gunwales, yoke, laced seats, and steam-bent stems are made of ash. Thin bands of copper accent and protect the stems, fore and aft.

As I approach the boat I consider the involvement of my own hands in its fabrication: selecting the clear boards and sawing them into strips, painstakingly gluing those strips together as I tacked them into place over the mold with hundreds of brads, sandwiching the hull between sheets of fiberglass impregnated with epoxy. And all that sanding. Hours and hours of it. I consider how the smoothing and polishing of wood are themselves time-honored forms of meditation.

I place the paddle in the boat. Two staccato beats reverberate across the water as the blade of the paddle knocks against the boat’s bottom and the shaft clunks the seat. The small racket cracks the stillness. I imagine fish scattering in all directions, and every animal, every insect, going on alert. An hour later the same noises would go unnoticed, muffled by the chop that will dapple the lake.

I take hold of the line tied to the beached end of the boat and raise it off the gravel, freeing it from the shore. I step into the water, my toes curling with aversion to the iciness of it. I nudge the boat ahead of me, enough that it is now able to float its full length. I ease it a little farther out so it will carry my weight without scraping bottom on any one of the several submerged rocks that line the shoreline. I grab the gunwales, and in one motion push away from the shore and leap into the boat.

I settle in noisily, sloshing water aboard. I adjust the cushion under my knees and lean back in a semi-seated position. Kneeling is the preferred position for paddling a canoe. In spite of the initial discomfort, there are advantages. The center of gravity is lower, making the boat more stable, and it puts me closer to the water, giving me more control.

Half a dozen anglers in rowboats surround me at a distance. From about a hundred yards away I hear two men talking in clipped sentences. Their voices walk across the water, clear and easy. Suddenly one of them cries, “Ah!” as his rod bends and he begins to reel in his breakfast.

I do not fish. I don’t care for the taste of trout or the mess involved in its preparation. Nor do I care to get involved in the tangle of tackle necessary to bring one into the boat. As a kid I loved to go through my father’s tackle box, sorting the lures and hooks, examining the dry flies, and feeling the weight of the lead shot. To catch a fish, though, one needs more than tackle. One needs a certain passion for it, something that never developed within me. I leave the fish alone.

Paddling on a small lake is of itself the end, the purpose of being on the water. I have no destination. This flat-water paddling is different in that regard from white-water canoeing, where one churns downstream in a rush of adrenaline. There is a beginning, there is an end. Here, on this lake, I reach ahead, dip the paddle in the water, pull back, and do it again and again. Around the perimeter, across and back, into coves, and through reed beds. There is much to be had, much to be learned in this repetition of motion that takes a person nowhere in particular.

I once had a notion to paddle a canoe from east coast to west, to embark on a grand journey of discovery of my own Northwest Passage. I imagined getting a huge advance for the book I’d write describing not only the physical journey but the spiritual awakening I’d go through.

Such was the stuff of dreams. The light of morning showed me I hadn’t any idea of how to make such a journey happen. Perhaps I didn’t have the courage to find out.

Still, I was desperate for discovery. I longed for something beyond what being a loyal consumer could give me. Somehow, some long time ago, a tiny seed of emptiness had germinated within me. Slowly it grew, expanding and deepening, this void with its choking roots and grasping branches.

My religion, the one I was raised in, offered little help. It raised more questions than it provided in answers. Perhaps I lacked faith, wasn’t worthy. Or perhaps I just practiced the wrong religion. Either way, years of introspection exposed this void and demanded it be filled. Spiritually, I was adrift. There was no current I felt comfortable in.

So I set out to build a canoe instead, nurturing the belief that the process would be my own personal journey of revelation.

Boats are beautiful things, and watching one come together can be as beautiful an experience as watching a sunrise. But being enmeshed in the process – with all its challenges and frustrations – was more like peering through a sky filled with drizzle than one of radiance. Nor did I have any spiritual revelations as I labored away, fitting one piece against another, redoing this or that, and, of course, sanding, sanding, sanding to make everything fair.

I looked forward to being finished, getting the boat in the water. I saw myself as I am now, paddling on a mirror lake on a crisp summer morning, listening to the subtle kisses of the bow cutting through the water. Back then, however, I had to remind myself so many times that it’s the journey that counts, not the destination. I had to be content with my plodding steps. I found this reminder somewhat comforting. I knew I would be finished eventually, that someday I would reach the end of this journey, that I should be satisfied with the process, and without expectations.

And so it is, I think, the way all spiritual paths. One just plods along day after day, doing the work – not mindlessly and dejectedly, but with purpose and faith. There is a kind of joy in this, too. It’s not a gleeful, outward kind of joy, but an underlying current of contentedness and satisfaction with life just as it is. Everything one encounters is just part of the subtle scenery along the way.

I confess I missed a good deal of scenery as I put my boat together.

Yet came the day when my vehicle of discovery was finished, sleek and shiny and oh so fair. At my first opportunity I lashed my new craft to my car and sought water. I found a put-in along the Tualitin, a muddy, slow moving river not far from home that offered near stillness and privacy. As I slipped it into the water, I remember thinking It floats! as though I had some doubt that it would. And perhaps I did. Yet there it was, sitting not so much in the water but on it. Moments later it carried me into the river.
I had no idea what to expect, but this maiden voyage was nothing like I had in mind – meaning I hadn’t expected to be disappointed. The boat was awkward, ungainly. None of the movements seemed to match the boat itself. What looked like a swan handled like a dodo. After 15 minutes I hauled the boat out of the water and went home.

I wasn’t thoroughly discouraged, however, and soon I gave it another go. What else could I do with this thing if I couldn’t use it? It wasn’t long before the boat handled as smoothly as it looked. It just took a while for me to understand that there was nothing at all wrong with the canoe. I just needed time to learn how to paddle this canoe.

The mist is gone from the lake now, with the sun well above the ridge. A breeze ripples the surface. A sensed but unseen agitation has replaced the stillness in the air. Sounds are dampened by the activity of a day already growing old. I turn my canoe around and head across the lake to my campsite. My focus has shifted from easy exploration of the moment to being somewhere else. Instead of being effortless and timeless, paddling becomes a chore that I just want to be done with. I put my back into it as I plow homeward.

Time shifts in odd ways. We have clocks that indicate its advance with measured precision. One minute today is neither longer nor shorter than a minute 50 years ago. How long I’d been on the water I have no idea. Surely, paddling with steadfast intention, I should be back at my campsite in just a flash of the time spent getting here. It seems, however, that my impatience, my longing for a moment that does not yet exist, distorts time and distance. Time and distance are not real. They are merely perceptions, conditions of the mind, the stuff of science fiction.

Finally it comes into view as I round a rocky point along the shore, the little clearing in the brush with it’s stretch of rock-strewn beach that indicates home. As I enter my little cove I am once again fooled by the illusions of time and distance. From the body of the lake, the shoreline passes by slowly. Now, with the shoreline so close, it feels as though I cover a great distance with just a couple of strokes of the paddle. There is a sensation that my speed has increased by a factor of five. I alter my course to give clearance to a pair of fishing lines angling into the water. The man and boy watch me from their perch on a rocky outcropping. I imagine the man admiring my boat, perhaps saying, “Now there, son, is one fine looking canoe.”

I size up the shore, looking for the spot where I will guide the bow onto the beach. I am nearly there and must make quick adjustments. I imagine the fisherman saying, “See how skillful he is.”

I feel it before I hear it, the submerged rock grinding into the hull. I am three feet from the bank. I am stuck.

Quickly, as if it’s all part of the plan, I step out of the boat into knee-deep water. As the boat rolls to the side it grinds against the rock one more time before floating free. As I lift the bow onto the beach, I inspect the damage: a pair of heavy scratches about two feet long. I try not to imagine what the man might be saying and consciously avoid looking in his direction.

A curse wells up, but in a moment it ebbs. I take a breath, sidestepping the rocky crags of self-recrimination. It’s not much effort to sand the hull and apply a couple of coats of varnish. Maybe next spring I’ll do that bit of maintenance. Meanwhile, I see the scratches for what they are, just more scenery that flows through my morning.