Ear Contact

I enjoy pushing my limits in the gym, and I do just that consistently.  Today was no exception while trying to observe Uposatha, I just didn’t listen to music.  This allowed me to hear the conversations of other people.  Not that I wanted to listen to them, or the faint sounds of music in the background.  I just tried not to linger on any of it.

The music was easy, as well as most of the conversations.  Yet, there was this one fellow that was picking out all the weaknesses he could observe in anyone training intensely.  This of course is coming from someone that is lifting weights and talking at the same time.  Frankly, I think everyone is doing their best to be where they are, and I respect that.  But, why go out and pick on others weaknesses?  Let alone speak them out loud to others.

I found myself getting all worked up and angry about this one guy.  I was going to tell him off, I thought.  But, I considered, it’s Uposatha!  He is spewing all this negative energy.  Why am I feeding on it?  It’s not helping him, the person he is speaking to, or anyone else.  The unskillful fabrications in my mind were just as bad, if not worse.  So, I decided to flip it.

I decided to look for what positive elements he might have to offer that I could feed on instead.  I decided to be encouraged by the fact that he was even in a gym training at all, and I was also inspired by his youth.  I aimed to feed on that which was good and not negative.  This did not make me joyful or friendly to him.  But, it did give me back my concentration, and I was able to enjoy the rest of my workout, without saying a word to him at all.

Bed of Spikes

The doubt that comes up in my practice is like a soft mattress with hidden razor-sharp-spikes inside.  I enjoy the familiar look of the mattress and so I run to jump on it.  But once I land and put my weight on it, ouch!  It’s the old story of how I am simply not good enough.

During my formal sittings doubt manifests with my knees.  The more stress and doubt I bring into the meditation.  The less likely I’ll be able to sit without struggling with knee pain.  My perceptions of the knee pain give birth to aversion, and the aversion feeds the doubt.  It is like a negative loop that begins with “I can’t do this or it hurts too much” that just grows, and grows, until it really becomes too much.

Throughout the day when I am struggling to stay with my Natural Meditation practice I find that doubt arises about my ability to stay with the concentration object, my breathing.  The mind convinces me, more than half the time, to chase after sense experience and old thought patterns.  That old story again of “I am not good enough.”  Sometimes I recognize it and catch it “OH!  That’s just doubt.  Let me set that aside and try again anyway.”  Whenever I remember to do this it works!  Ah; mindfulness, indeed.

I just started taking a new course called “Faith and Doubt.”  The reflections I mentioned above are a direct result of my Teacher’s encouragement.  It just so happens that I am observing today and I will be returning with the results from my assignment as well, which you just got a sneak preview of.  I am looking forward to class tonight.  But, above all if I keep this mindfulness thing up.  I might just have what it takes to banish doubt from my mind, or better yet, sleep on a bed of spikes with no harm.  Wish me luck!

Art of Living

This day of Uposatha is yet another day of unlearning old habits of aversion, pushing and impatience.  Things that were once subtle and difficult to see have become (almost) unbearably clear and obvious.  I can see it in the simplest things, like how much time I meditate for and the attitude I bring to it.  Especially, the difficulty I have in being grateful for my own determination because of the joy it brings.  All these are the sirens shouting that I’m still holding to my own suffering with conceit.

It’s so easy to forget that we are not the only ones struggling, and that all this can be overcome.  That’s why it’s so important to meet with others on the path, even to read and listen to the talks of those further along.  It gives us the strength to keep going, nourishing that which is already good in us.  I don’t know where I would be today if it were not for those that contributed to my life and practice.

Many people that saw me growing up as a teen thought I’d never make it to see my 18 birthday.  Being 36 years of age today, I’ve proved them wrong.  But it was only because of the good people I kept around; just as many of the troublesome things I picked up were because of the troubled minds I kept around.  Time and time again I’ve seen the truth of this proven in my life.

The voices in the mind reflect what we keep around us.  But what we keep around us takes on many forms.  i.e. TV programs, news articles, your Facebook feed, the Internet, social media, Netflix, books, magazines, etc…  But wait, this doesn’t mean we just get rid of it all and stop living.  The practice is an art of living happily.  First we must identify that which is good around us and feed on that.  Then as we develop goodness in ourselves with some consistency we will identify naturally of our own accord what should be eliminated or developed.  This I am still working on...

Labyrinth

So often I have been faced with walls of silence.  Old karma writes on them with anxiety and delusion like graffiti.  I treat silence like my mortal enemy.  Worse yet, I create a labyrinth of stories with assumptions and conceit.  What in life is not uncertain?  That’s what we practice to seek.

Death is the ultimate uncertainty in life.  When will it come?  How will it feel?  Where will it lead?  But, some of us still manage to thrive within uncertainty.  Those that do, focus on what is known.  Building a foundation of truth regardless of whether it is pleasing or displeasing.  It is most often comfort and the inclination to seek it that betrays.

Yet, we cannot live without knowing any pleasure at all.  This is why virtue, gratitude and the joys of wholesome concentration are vital to anyone on the path.  I’ve spent so much time taking joy in painful things; I am still unraveling old stubborn habits.  Changing my tendency to clutch and hold pain, by learning to stay within the body and get out of the head.

I am facing many uncertainties during this day of Uposatha.  Ironic, as my practice improves I see more of what I fear in myself.  But my practice did not create this labyrinth.  My practice has only shown it to me, and how I create it.  Slowly I let the wisdom accumulate to discern how to dismantle it. Being grateful for my honesty and determination along the way.

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.”