East West Wisdoms

This morning I have been struck by three bright experiences that I want to share with you. The first arrived when sitting in meditation, ‘trying’ to “become like a rainbow!” A rainbow-like experience arises briefly but is quickly followed by sensory observations and fleeting thoughts. I remember the instruction: “Just allow whatever is there to be there”. In other words, “be aware!” Gradually as I drop the struggle to stop thoughts and be a rainbow, the thoughts and sensory read-outs do move to the background and a sense of clarity and spaciousness arises. The focus is on ‘allowing’ and brightening awareness of what is.

My second experience came sipping my coffee after a quiet breakfast, sitting alone on the deck of my house, overlooking grass, trees and water as I contemplated the flow of cause and effect described in the TV documentary “Crude”[oil] that my husband and I had watched last night. Inspired  by the wondrous, continually dissolving and re-forming, colourful visuals of the documentary, I experienced the history of earth - formed predominantly by the combinations of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen - as the interdependence of all beings and all phenomena.

The documentary (as I understood and summarised it) traced the history of oil as the energy of the sun captured in the plants that sank to the ocean’s depths to form a plankton graveyard. During the Jurassic period of the dinosaurs the excessive clouds of carbon dioxide led to dramatic climate change and super greenhouse-increased temperatures, humidity and flooding. The dead material washed into the ocean depths was then ‘cooked’ by  pressure into oil or gas. As the changed conditions burned the vegetation and killed other life forms, the overheated oceans were deprived of oxygen and became dead, stagnant graveyards that locked up the excessive carbon as oil and gas, eventually resulting in temperatures dropping, until mankind discovered this amazing source of energy and released it back into the environment.

Driven by greed and blinded through lack of awareness, our excessive use of oil in all its many discovered forms has dangerously effected our climate and the health of air, earth and water.  So round and round we go as our actions change the conditions and the conditions influence our actions. In other words, the flow of karma shapes the samsaric world!

And so I come to my third ‘experience’ of this morning. This time I am struck by some wise teaching I have read in the current version of Buddhadharma in which Glenn Wallis quotes the following sutra by Siddhartha Gautama on ‘Destination‘:

I will teach the destination and the path leading to the destination. Listen to what I say. What is the destination?
The eradication of infatuation, the eradication of hostility, and the eradication of delusion is what is called the destination.
And what is the path leading to the destination?
Present-moment awareness directed toward the body. This awareness is what is called the path leading to the destination.
In this way, I have taught to you the destination and the path leading to the destination. That which should be done out of compassion by a caring teacher who desires the welfare of his students, I have done for you.
There are secluded places. Meditate, do not be negligent! Don’t have regrets later! This is my instruction to you.
-Parayana Sutta; Samyuttanikaya 4.43.44.

Now to my mind this is a very clear instruction by the Buddha on why the increased awareness promoted in meditation practice leads to the reduction of suffering and brings you to the destination of Nirvana. If we look at the grand story of oil and the history of planet earth, we can see how infatuation (or greed, desire and passion) for what oil appears to give us has blinded us to the negative consequences of our overuse of this ‘liquid gold’ and even now, as many eyes open to see the dangers, infatuation for wealth and convenience  stops us from taking the steps that may prevent threatened catastrophe.

On the micro level, this teaching is a great reassurance and a guide to me on how to relate to my meditation practice. It reminds me that the purpose of my sitting mindfully, with clear awareness, is to notice what arises and let it go. Notice the body states, the mind states and the impulses and let them go, thus undermining the habits of infatuation/desire, hostility and grasping at the delusion of a separate self.

So there you have it: the three bright thoughts that have moved me this beautiful, sunny morning. Perhaps you can think of some bright experiences of the last twenty-four hours?

With warm wishes,

Jacqui

Noticing the strength of habitual self referencing, reflected in the show of excessive apologising during recent hosting of wealthy English family members visiting us for Christmas, I am prompted to make some resolutions for 2010. Clearly, I need further work on developing loving kindness, acceptance, compassion and equanimity - amongst many other qualities!

It was somewhat unnerving to notice - with the help of my 22 year old and 32 year old daughters - how frequently (read ‘impulsively’) I fell into what I had thought was an outdated habit of internalised ‘put-downs’, expressed externally as apologies for inferior sleeping quarters; inferior, squashed seating arrangements for eating and limited cooking abilities of ‘vegetarian-only’ food!

On reflection, I noticed that I had unconsciously slipped into judging and negatively comparing our simple country house, lifestyle and limited cash supply with the visiting family’s urban, up-market, successful-business-oriented lifestyle, house, clothes, possessions and ready cash.

On a conscious level, I was and am very happy with our values and lifestyle and have no wish to swap places. However, it appears that although we all got on very well together, in a warm, happy, celebrating, sharing atmosphere, at an unconscious level the material lifestyle differences between our two families triggered some of the defensive behaviours learned during childhood.

From big things little things grow!

My childhood family were caught in endless financial struggle, trying to uphold their social place as their material resources relentlessly slipped further and further behind their peers. While my mother struggled to care for the five children and overly large house that was falling apart, my father’s snobbish ’superior/inferior’ defence, angry criticisms and erratic behaviours became ever more marked.

However much I have always disliked the thought, some of these defences rubbed off on me! The endless criticisms became internalised and often unconscious. I have for many years been targeting for demolition the English, class-based, habits of endless judgement and comparison and so it was sobering to find, so recently, that these particular seeds of karma were still alive and well once watered with a strong dose of supportive conditions!

This brief reflection on one of my less attractive “little me” behaviours during the Christmas period, has provided a good launching pad for a set of new year aspirations. I need to further develop loving kindness and acceptance of myself and others, ‘warts and all!’ What is also needed is a good dose of compassion blended with effort to develop the wisdom to fully comprehend ‘anatta’, the essential emptiness of a self-existing ego-entity, or any other abiding substance. To put myself down shows as much pride and ignorance as comparing myself favourably, or even believing that I am ‘equal to’ the other.

There is no reason for me to despair in response to noticing the continued life in my impulsive self degradations and comparisons. Instead, it is much more useful to notice that I need to remain mindful of these karmic predispositions (or seeds of past action) and, as soon as I notice myself comparing, excusing, judging or criticising myself or others, replace this negative mind state with loving kindness and acceptance so that equanimity develops and the self referencing drops away. As is usually the case, self referencing (or putting myself centre stage and separate) is the root cause of these negative tendencies. The relative truth of the continually changing and impermanent form, socially identified as “me”, must be balanced with the absolute truth of the impersonality, insubstantiality and continual forming and emptying of all existence.

To increase my understanding of this central Buddhist doctrine of anatta is a lifetime aspiration that can be supported by the day to day development of loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. The more I can develop these qualities during 2010 the less susceptible I will be to comparing, judging and criticising. What a relief that will be!

If any of you would like to share your new year resolutions, or any reflections or questions arising from this piece of writing, I’d love you to express them in the comments box below.

With very warm wishes for the new year of 2010,

Jacqui

I have just launched an ebook titled “Meditation and Cancer: It Does help!” For details see under new menu category “Things to Buy“.

This eBook combines a guide on meditation practices to promote health with true stories of people living with cancer who used meditation as part of their healing strategy.   In addition, each chapter ends with a guided meditation and some questions to prompt reflection on possible areas of one’s lifestyle and ways of relating that might benefit from change.

This eBook “Meditation and Cancer : It Does help!“ details research that I undertook and which was awarded a first class honours degree.  The research won me a scholarship to do further doctoral research on alternative and complementary ways of healing cancer.

My hope is that the combination of a step-by-step guide on meditating for health and the examples of people who have tried such methods when actually unwell with a life-threatening illness will inspire and help people use these methods of working with the mind to heal the body and other unsatisfactory aspects of one’s life.

Unlike so many medicines and treatments, meditation is free and can be practiced in the privacy of one’s own home, at one’s own pace.

If you, or someone close to you, has a chronic or life-threatening illness - such as cancer - then take a look at this ebook “Meditation and Cancer: It Does Help!“

Warm wishes,

Jacqui

The Quakers - or Society of Friends - probably have the Western world’s record for their consistent commitment over the centuries to peace and non-violence, in the face of numerous wars and oppression often fought in the name of religion. Listen to my interview with 83 y.o. Ruth Watson, who - as a Quaker - has spent much of her life supporting peace, mutual understanding and non-violent action for justice. In addition to describing some of the defining practices and beliefs of the Quakers, Ruth speaks about the many similarities with Buddhist thought and reflects on her service representing the Quakers on The United Nations Peace Committee.

Enjoy the interview with Ruth!

Warm wishes,

Jacqui

Most of us find periods of explicit uncertainty very difficult to handle with equanimity. Indeed, the urgent desire to ‘know’ the way forward — to escape that uncertainty — or change the scenario, can feel quite overwhelming. It is this desire for it to be different that causes the extreme suffering associated with the times when we know we don’t know. I’m thinking of times that we may be waiting for medical or academic test results. Or news from a loved one or awaiting our estranged partner’s decision to return home or set up house elsewhere. So many times when we know we have no control over what comes next.

As the Buddha said, “suffering is wanting things to be different!” We yearn to be able to fix things; to be able to turn the clock backwards or forwards!

Impermanence ensures uncertainty

However, if we look carefully, we can see the impermanent nature of all things, resulting in moment-to-moment uncertainty! Everything we can experience, on any level of being, is constantly changing. In order to feel more comfortable, we have a strong tendency to think and act as though we can predict at least some of the more mundane aspects of our day to day life. The authority figures in our particular culture play on this desire for ‘certainty’ when they issue their directions and their predictions of how things will be. The problem is that it is a delusion to believe we - or the authorities - can accurately predict even the next moment!

Yesterday I heard that a friend had died. He felt he had a touch of ‘flu one night and lay down on the living room couch. His wife decided to leave him there for the night. In the morning he was dead! He was a few years short of 50 and thought to be healthy.

Which way? Which way?

‘Bardo’ —  the in-between state

This in-between period, between knowing and not-knowing; between one perception and the next; between feeling good and learning you have lost something precious; or between learning of the death of a loved person and the grieving period prior to accepting this loss, is known in Buddhist terms as ‘bardo’. The term ‘bardo’ is often seen as the period between birth and death and death and the next life but, more accurately, it is the gap between this moment and the next unknown moment.

In Buddha Dharma, the larger bardos are (1) the bardo of this life;  (2) the bardo of dream (the gap between going to sleep and waking up); (3) the bardo of meditation; (4) the bardo of dying; (5) the bardo of dharmata (or reality — the seeing as it really is) and (6) the bardo of existence (or becoming).

So bardo is both the gap between moments and the much larger intervals that punctuate all our experience of waking, sleeping, meditating, being born and dying.

Freedom in accepting uncertainty

Pema Chodron, a wise North American Buddhist nun and spiritual teacher, tells us that “nothing to hold on to” is the root of happiness! She points to the sense of freedom that comes from acceptance that we are not in control and we don’t “know.”

Generally we don’t want to stay in that middle place of “unknowing” because it makes us feel vulnerable and uneasy. However, it is by staying open and flexible, explicitly acknowledging our uncertainty, that we begin to access our inner strength, a strength that is based on compassion, wisdom and loving acceptance, or equanimity.

As Pema Chodron says, our practice is “to stay with the uneasiness and not solidify into a view. We can meditate, do tonglen, or simply look at the open sky–anything that encourages us to stay on the brink and not solidify into a view.”

Misty blue distance …

Working with paradox

As time goes on and my awareness of impermanence deepens as I watch my body — and the bodies and circumstances of my family and friends — age and change, I find myself thinking more and more in terms of paradox, rather than right or wrong; this or that! Interestingly, allowing paradox (the co-existence of opposite ideas) to more frequently replace my learned tendency to make ’statements’, as though I know things, has indeed brought with it a sense of spaciousness and possibility that feels joyful and hopeful.

On those rare occasions that I allow myself to watch the (generally bad) news of global warming, disasters, war and terrorism, I am tested to maintain this open view. I notice the definiteness with which the news and predicted dire consequences are pronounced and it is indeed a challenge to remember how peace follows war and disasters can bring out the best in people, as well as causing enormous suffering.

Hopefully, I remember that I don’t know, and they don’t know what comes next. Hopefully I remember to keep my heart open and hold the aspiration for courage, support and skilful resolution of the challenges each of us face, moment to moment, in our unknowing.

The goal is to maintain a state of non-clinging awareness and equanimity. In this state we are free, open and happy!

Perhaps some of you have ideas on coming to terms with uncertainty? Any thoughts, comments, questions are most welcome!

Warm wishes,

Jacqui

I am moved to share with you my present experience of passing time, waiting the long seven hours at an airport before I can take the late night flight back to my home city, a further five and a half hours away. I am entirely responsible for this inconvenience as I have missed my planned flight. Although I have cut times tight before, I have never yet actually missed a flight. It is a timely lesson for me and I want to share with you some of my reactions to putting myself in this position. Read the rest of this entry …

It’s all very well to feel a compassionate response to hearing about a friend in trouble or pain, or to be strongly moved by a story on the news or in a documentary, but how can I put this compassion into action?

Tonglen is a long established Buddhist practice of taking into one’s heart the pain of another, or others, whether they be human, animal, bird or insect. I have heard some people expressing concern that by doing this you are inviting illness, or the particular form of suffering you are taking into your heart, to actually take root in your being and make you sick. But then I wonder why so many revered Buddhist teachers, from many different schools, strongly encourage their students to take up this practice, both for their own spiritual development and to relieve the suffering of others. Sogyal Rinpoche, for example,  Read the rest of this entry …

The audio interview with Cecilie Kwiat, a Canadian dharma teacher, based in Alberta, is now available. Cecilie has been primarily influenced by her, now deceased, root guru, Namgyal Rinpoche, of the Kargyu Tibetan Buddhist school. She has also practiced a wide range of dharma with teachers from Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Burma, India, China and Tibet, teaching from Vajrayana, Mahayana, Theravadin and Zen Buddhist schools.

In this (hour long) interview Cecilie shares how she has learned to live and work with her own physical pain and aging process and the physical and mental pain of others. She reflects on her distinctive and trusting attitude towards money, ranging over her experiences living on the street in her youth through to the last thirty or so years living “by the bowl”, dependent on free giving by others. She compares some of the basic similarities and differences between Buddhist and Western psychological approaches to suffering and healing, plus some of the similarities and differences in the relationships between therapists and their clients and teachers and their students. She emphasises the key importance of compassionate motivation and has some particularly interesting things to say about some unhelpful Western attitudes towards rituals that are seen as shaped by mystifying Eastern cultural influences but may actually be powerful vehicles for wisdom transmission, when explored with an open mind.

I hope you enjoy this stimulating interview as much as I did. I look forward to any comments or questions that it might evoke in you. 

Warm wishes,

Jacqui

The Dalai Lama is reported as recently addressing thousands of devotees in Ladakh, where he described the basic principles of Buddhism as a faith that stands for wisdom, compassion, peace and brotherhood. He also underlined the importance of spiritual development of mankind, particularly in the present time.

As he said, “there has to be openness, truth and compassion.This strife torn world needs the message of peace and progress now more than ever before”.  

TV filled with news of violence

I rarely watch the TV news these days as I find the strong bias towards stories of conflict, injustice and violence fills me with dismay and sorrow. Okay, I do follow up this reaction with a strong sense of compassion for both the victims and the reported aggressors, but I have come to the conclusion that it is not helpful to feed myself a daily dose of these distressing stories. Read the rest of this entry …

The  interview with His Eminence, Gyana Vajra Rinpoche of the Sakya Tradition, one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism is now ready for listening. His Eminence is the youngest son of His Holiness the Sakya Trizin. He lives at the Sakya Centre in India and is currently initiating new and expanded educational opportunities for young monks attending the Sakya Academy, of which he is a founding member.

Amongst many interesting topics, H.E. Gyana Vajra Rinpoche talks about the development of faith in the children living in traditional Buddhist communities; the changes he is making in the education of young monks at Sakya Academy project; the influence of culture on the process of asking questions in a public teaching forum; the commitments attached to empowerments; the qualities associated with sacred languages and some difficulties associated with translations into the languages of Western countries.

He claims that there is nothing new or particularly challenging about such social problems as drug abuse and social isolation and dislocation that is often associated with Western capitalist influences and rapid technological developments but that, since the Buddha’s time, meditation and appropriate spiritual teaching helps alleviate these problems. He notes how the faith and spiritual understandings of young Tibetans living around the world is growing, largely as a result of improved education.

Sign in Now and listen.