Puppet Master

The five senses are the windows or bridges to experiencing the world of sights, sounds, scents, tastes, and tactile sensations around us.  Yet, what of the world of thoughts and feelings within us that cannot be grasped through the five senses?  What about the mind and the heart?  I find the mind is the home of thoughts or opinions.  While the heart is the home of what is known and felt as timeless facts.

Imagine a puppet master’s strings connecting all of your five senses to your heart.  The tendency of an untrained mind is to cover what is already known within the heart with illusions.  A trained mind remains in touch with the heart, not allowing for anything to cover it.  So, who is the one in control of your heart or senses?  Could the pains you feel within your heart or mind be avoided?

The senses themselves are only conduits or channels for the world to be experienced by the mind and felt by the heart.  You can’t be controlled by your TV.  But you are definitely conditioned by what you consume from it.  “You are what you eat,” as they say.  So the experiences we favor, we choose.  And what we choose conditions what we are.  So, who is the one doing all that choosing?  Well, in an untrained mind, who the HELL knows??!!  This is the reason why we must Practice.

Practicing, as I understand it, will bring about the hearts ability to do what makes us happy.  Achieving such an excellent and pure state of happiness is the very foundation of noble discernment.  That can cut the puppet masters strings all together!  This does not mean we cannot still experience the world.  On the contrary, this is true freedom!!  This is the only time we can truly experience the world without being controlled by it, or have a need to control it.

Talking

Most people love to talk.  And their favorite subject tends to be, themselves.  I am guilty of this, truly!  There is nothing wrong with this, except when it gets in the way of the Practice.  “If you can’t control your mouth, how will you control your mind?”  It is after all the fourth precept.

Yet, in today’s digital age of social networks, and blogs (like this) talking is not only done with the mouth.  It is done with a keyboard as well.  And even if we convince ourselves we are talking about enlightening things, or nirvana itself.  How much talk about practicing does it take to practice?  Better yet, how much talk of practicing can you do before it distracts you from Practicing?

I will be the first to admit that I have a problem with idle chatter, among other things.  I can tell when I’ve been using FB too much because my meditations become littered with anxious thinking and restlessness.  That’s if they allow me to show any interest in my meditation at all!  Although, the thoughts maybe about useful things, they are not serving me to achieve the goal of why I am sitting, besides, if they are really that important.  They will be their when I’m done. 

The Buddha divided actions into two types: those imbued with renunciation and skillfulness, and those imbued with greed and aversion.  This is hard to see in the way we use speech with others.  But it is even harder and more subtle to see with the way we use speech on ourselves.  In fact it will be impossible for anyone to attain a noble state of concentration without talking to themselves skillfully.  But before you delete your FB or Blog, remember, that you can come into your body, and breath.  What is the mind like?  How does the breath feel?  Are your verbal actions imbued with love?  We need to learn how to talk skillfully.  But in order to do that we must be willing to make some mistakes.  How else will we learn?

Knock! Knock!

My father is very dear to me.  He died when I was only fifteen years old.  I watched him wither away from the strong hard working man he was, to a bed ridden vegetable!  Cancer claimed my father’s life, but his sense of humor and mind went first.  I watched the most courageous man I knew clinging to any identity he could find, as death came knocking.

Seeing my father this way began my initiation into the spiritual.  As my adolescent eyes saw my father greeting the pain of Separation, Old age, Illness and Death.  I needed to know what the point of all this suffering was.  I thought of how I could prepare to greet such pain.  However, as a young misguided teen, surrounded by poverty, (like most here) I turned to the streets for answers.  But I only found misery, and more questions.

To find such answers we must be honest, and willing to see how we lie to ourselves.  Allowing the stories we’ve told ourselves to unravel, to uncover the truth.  This is most threatening, most terrifying, and most liberating.  This I find to be the reason why most will not sit and meditate.  They have grown attached to the great stories they’ve told themselves, which meditation brings up to the surface.  I know this, because I see it in myself.

That is why this Practice is so important.  Why I must have quiet time to myself.  So that I may ask myself “what am I becoming as the days and nights go by?”  My practice feels like it's bringing me closer to peace.  Increasing myself worth, allowing me to see myself and all my flaws with courage.  I am still a work in progress.  But progress is a good thing.  So, will I have the courage to greet death undisturbed?  I don’t know.

KNOCK! KNOCK!
“Who’s there?”
“The Conceit-”
“The Conceit Who?”
“The Conceit, I Am.”