Bhikkhu Cintita

Category: buddhism

  • Buddha’s Meditation and its Variants 8

    Buddha’s Samadhi: The Shape of the Flame
    First Quarter Moon January 1, 2012                index to series

    In summary of last week, Buddha’s samadhi is at its core concentration, but it is not one-pointed concentration; it is broad. Its breadth is clear in the various descriptions of what factors give rise to Right Samadhi, most particularly Right Mindfulness, and of what factors are alive within Right Samadhi itself. It is also clear from the core function of Right Samadhi in the attainment of knowledge of vision of things as they really are, which would not come to fruition in one-pointed concentration.

    Conditions for Right Samadhi. Last week I listeda variety of factors that the Buddha described as conditions for samadhi, by way of demonstrating that one-pointedness, which would be almost sufficient in itself, is not needed. Let’s look at these factors in a bit more detail, mostly because they are really interesting.

    Systemically I see two functions for the broad conditioning of Right Samadhi: First, to weave wisdom and virtue into our meditation, and second, to displace one-pointedness. Both serve the larger functions of samadhi in promoting knowledge and view, and in ending the taints. To accomplish the first the entire Eightfold Noble Path prior to Right Samadhi is regarded as prerequisites for Right Samadhi, as stated in DN 18, MN 117, SN 45.28, etc. The mind thus prepared as it enters samadhi already inclines toward wisdom and virtue, toward viewing reality in terms of impermanence, suffering and non-self, toward renunciation, kindness and harmlessness, toward purification of the mind of unwholesome factors and toward wise consideration and mindfulness.

    Mindfulness is most generally regarded as the most immediate condition for samadhi.

    For one of right mindfulness, right samadhi springs up. – S.V.25-6

    It is indeed to be expected … that a noble disciple who has faith, whose energy is aroused, and whose mindfulness is established will gain samadhi … – S.V. 225.23-28.

    Seclusion, dispassion, renunciation, wise reflection, and of course good wholesome friends, are often mentioned. Right Effort is an especially critical factor, and in fact it is only with the stilling of the hindrances that samadhi arises.

    As he abides thus diligent, ardent and resolute, his memories and intentions based on the household life are abandoned; with their abandoning his mind becomes steadied internally, quieted, brought to singleness and concentrated. That is how a monk develops mindfulness of the body.– Kayagatasati Sutta MN 119

    Now, the Buddha describes mindfulness in terms of attending to alternative themes. Some of these themes may arouse samadhi more readily than others; this can be determined through personal experience, and I venture to guess there will be considerable variation in personal experience. However, probably no theme is incapable of arousing samadhi. For instance,

    … a monk guards a favorable basis of samadhi which has arisen: the perception of a worm-infested corpse, the perception of a livid corpse. – A II 17.1-6

    Notice that perception of a livid corpse is unlikely to be a one-pointed contemplation, another indicator that one-pointedness is not a necessary condition for samadhi.

    Elsewhere the transition from mindfulness to samadhi is viewed with finer resolution. The well known seven Factors of Enlightenment (bojjhangas) actually take us through a causal sequence from mindfulness to samadhi and beyond:

    1. mindfulness (sati)
    2. investigation of states (dhammavicaya)
    3. energy (viriya)
    4. delight (piti)
    5. calm (passadhi)
    6. concentration (samadhi)
    7. equanimity (upekkha)

    Actually these various factors snowball and are all present in samadhi, equanimity coming to the fore in the higher jhanas as delight recedes. Delight is again particularly noteworthy in this sequence.

    Constituents of Samadhi. Last week we considered concentration (ekaggata) as the essence of samadhi. In fact a variety of factors are present to varying degrees and sometimes absent. These need to be tuned in tending the fire of Right Samadhi, basically along two dimensions: jhana level and samatha-vipassana. Jhana in simple terms is the depth of concentration; the mind becomes stiller and more subtle and refined as one moves from first to second to third and finally to fourth jhana. The following are often listed as the factors of jhana used to describe this progression:

    discoursive thought (vitakka-vicara)

    delight (piti)

    happiness (sukha)

    singleness (ekaggata)

    This progresses from gross factors to more refined factors. It may be surprising to find discoursive thought in this list, since we think of that as the opposite of meditation, but there it is. In fact it is the grossest factor that can be present in samadhi, but is only present in the first jhana. Discoursive thought is actually two factors, applied thought (vitakka) and sustained thought (vicara), having a thought and running with a thought. This is identified as discursive in this passage:

    Applied and sustained thought are the verbal formation, one breaks into speech. -MN 44

    Also, the second jhana and beyond, in which discursive thought no longer arises, is often referred to as Noble Silence.

    Every meditator, I assume, is aware of the persistence discursive thought in meditation, but will notice that once the hindrances are removed, such as restlessness, it is a much more refined kind of discursive thought than our normal babbling. In fact it often represents some of the most creative and insightful forms of discursive thinking you will ever do, and commonly turns to the Dharma. It also plays a role in reviewing what we are doing on the cushion, adjusting our postures, clarifying our intentions for the sitting period, and of course following the contemplations of mindfulness. The Buddha could well have said that this is not yet samadhi and started counting the three jhanas after discursive thought has disappeared, yet he did not. This would seem to indicate that he thought of this factor as valuable and worth sitting with in itself.

    Be that as it may, progressing through the jhanas is simply a matter of progressively losing the currently most disturbing factor at each stage. Losing discursive thought puts you in the second jhana, where the elation of delight becomes the dominant factor. Now delight is a crucial factor in developing the stillness of concentration in the first place. However at this subtle stage is becomes an impediment to yet deeper samadhi; it is the most disturbing of the remaining jhana factors.

    Losing delight puts you in the third jhana, where the lift of happiness is the most disturbing factor. Losing happiness puts you in the fourth and highest jhana, in which singleness of mind remains. As jhana factors are lost is progressively higher jhanas they are replaced with inner composure, keener mindfulness and pure equanimity. Delight and happiness might not seem so disturbing prior to jhana, but when the mind becomes very subtle and refined these can be like acid rock or “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas” blaring from a neighbor’s house.

    One way I generally think of depth of samadhi — maybe this will help — is as different parts of the mind progressively shutting or slowing down. The more active parts have to do with formations, that is, intentions and complex thoughts. Then feelings and perceptions might begin to stop. However, you discover that the mind has many very subtle layers of intentionality, of thinking, of feeling, so it is very difficult to pin down what happens at what point. But that’s OK: you don’t need to. The Buddha’s description of the jhanas is actually a very brief and coarse outline; the Buddha certainly understood he did not have to devote a whole a basket of leaves to describing the ineffable realm we will each explore for ourselves in our own meditative experience.

    Now, it is important to recognize that at least something we might call “thought” is present in all of the jhanas. For instance, MN 136 admonishes us to continue satipatthana practice in the second, third and fourth jhanas, but “without thought and examination.” So this must involve a non-discursive form of reflection, and intentionality, extending all the way to the deepest jhana. Also relevant here are the practices of suffusing the body with delight, happiness and equanimity discussed in previous weeks. In MN 111 the Buddha takes Sariputta as a model and says of him,

    Whatever qualities there are in the first jhāna … he ferrets them out one by one. Known to him they remain, known to him they subside…

    He then makes exactly the same statement but with regard to the “second jhana,” the “third jhana” and the “fourth jhana.” In AN 9.36 we have:

    A monk in each jhana regards whatever phenomena connected with form, feelings, perceptions, fabrications and consciousness as inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an afflection, alian, a disintegration, a void, non-self …

    AN 8.63 describes the contemplation of each of the brahmaviharas in each of the jhānas. Why isn’t all of this discursive thinking? I would say, because it is clear of purpose and extremely concentrated. Yet the mind is moving, perhaps subtly.

    A question often arises in discussions of samadhi whether at some point the senses shut down, in particular whether there is seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and bodily sensation in the different jhanas. Many meditators report this, but if they are engaged in some kind of one-pointed meditation practice their experiences are not relevant to this discussion. It nonetheless seems to be an individual phenomenon that does occur, but it is not a state to be worthy of development: In the Indriyabhavana Suttathe Buddha explicitly belittles a practice like this taught by the brahmin Parasiri:

    [Uttara:] “There is the case where one does not see forms with the eye, or hear sounds with the ear [in a trance of non-perception]. That’s how the brahman Parasiri teaches his followers the development of the faculties.”

    [Buddha:] “That being the case, Uttara, then a blind person will have developed faculties, and a deaf person will have developed faculties, according to the words of the brahman Parasiri. For a blind person does not see forms with the eye, and a deaf person does not hear sounds with the ear.”– MN 152

    On the other hand there is a reference in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta to the Buddha sitting in samadhi and failing to hear a lightning strike that killed two farmers and four oxen. In another passage Mogallana while sitting in meditation hears elephants plunging into the river and crossing it while trumpeting, to which the Buddha remarked that his samadhi was not fully purified. Brockhurst speculates that these are in fact “foreign intrusions,” that is, a non-Buddhist practice attributed to the Buddha, since similar qualities are attributed to the meditation of the Buddha’s two teachers, whose meditation the Buddha clearly rejects. Āḷāra Kālāma, for instance, did not perceive 500 carts going by.

    Another account of these cases is available: Hearing a lightning strike or elephants splashing and trumpeting is actually a complex event that involves mental processes at several levels. First, there is impingement on the ear and arising of a sound experience in consciousness. Then there is a process of perception as to the nature of this experience. Then there is an inference as to the external source of the experience. Then there is the arising of interest in, or distraction by, the external source. If any of these processes fails to complete the whole event of hearing as described will not be fulfilled. It is not necessary that the senses themselves have shut down.

    Next week we will discuss samatha and vipassana, two remaining and very critical features of Buddha’s samadhi.

  • Buddha’s Meditation and its Variants 7

    Buddha’s Samadhi: Concentration
    New Moon Uposatha,      December 24, 2012                  index to series

    Mindfulness is the method of meditation, samadhi is the resulting experience of meditation. The analogy is the tending of a fire, and the fire itself as the result. You never know what samadhi is from any description, but practice the method and you shall see; samadhi is ineffible.

    Nevertheless certain qualities of samdhi need to be highlighted because you need to be mindful of its proper shape. Again, this is like tending a fire: If the fire is for heating a house you want it to give off heat, but not too much, and to burn long and steadily. If the fire is for forging metal you probably want a small fire that you can bring to a very high temperature at critical times. Similarly, you want a samadhi that gives rise to knowledge and vision and to the ending of taints. To that end you need to be mindful of certain qualities of samadhi. For the next couple of weeks we will look at the qualities of Buddha’s samadhi.

    Concentration. The word samadhi derives from ‘sam + ā + dhā‘ , which means ‘bring together’, or ‘collect’. The mind, left on its own, tends to be scattered, jumping from here to there, relentlessly churning, generally beyond control. Samadhi is a controlled state of mind, arising from mindfulness, in which the various factors of mind seem to run in a common direction, it is often translated as ‘concentration of mind’. Again, as the enlightened nun Dhammadinna states in the suttas:

    Unification of mind, friend Visakha, is samadhi, the four foundations of mindfulness are the basis of samadhi, the four right kinds of striving are the equipment of samadhi, the repetition, development and cultivation of these same states is the development of samadhi therein. – MN 44, Cuḷavedalla Sutta

    Now, a powerful technique in the absence of a match or lighter for getting a fire to flare up quickly is to use a magnifying glass to focus the rays of the sun unmovingly on a single point of easily combustible fuel. Similarly a means of producing the flames of samadhi quickly is to focus the mind unmovingly on a single point of experience. Fixing the mind in this way brings it under strict control, it produces an extremely narrow and very effective concentration of mind. The method here is what I called one-pointed mindfulness. The result is a one-pointed samadhi. Now, I pointed out in our discussion of mindfulness that the Buddha never ever seems to recommend one-pointed mindfulness. I want here to make the complementary point that the Buddha’s Samadhi is similarly not one-pointed. In one-pointed mindfulness experience is fixed an unmoving; in its pure form that one point is all that is happening. In contrast in Buddha’s samdadhi the mind is unmoving, or we might say centered, but vast and perceptive as experience flows past, around and through it. The Buddha’s samadhi is a state that is open but stable and unified, a middle way between being scattered and fixed.

    This centered, but broadly aware and fluid basis for concentration is probably the most important point to understand about Buddha’s meditation. Most variants make at least some use of one-pointed mindfulness and one-pointed mind. When I teach meditation to beginners, for instance, I teach one-pointed focus on the breath, locating the point in the belly. This yields a fairly quick experience of concentration that gives the beginner confidence and inspires him to pursue meditation further, and that has many beneficial qualities by itself. But I also explain explain that it is inadequate as a basis for attaining knowledge and vision nor in ending the taints, nor attaining final liberation. As far as I can see the Buddha was very clear and consistent about this, … but he seems to have found no use for one-pointedness.

    To underscore the point that Buddha’s meditation is not one-pointed, I list the evidence.

    First, the suttas make no reference to a method of one-pointed mindfulness that would form a basis of one-pointed samadhi. I pointed this out a couple of weeks ago. I also mentioned on the other hand that there is a common contrary interpretation of Satipatthana and Anapanasati Suttas that alleges one-pointed mindfulness. This has to do with the interpretation of one word, parimukhaŋ in the Pali, which occurs in the phrase parimukhaŋ satiŋ upaṭṭhapeti. Satiŋ upaṭṭhapeti means ‘sets up mindfulness’; everyone agrees on that. Parimukhaŋ is alleged to refer to the experience of the in-and-out breath as it touches the nose or upper lip. Apparently the word derives from ‘mouth’, which would put it very roughly in the general vicinity needed, but mouth is not its normal interpretation. The on-line Pali Text Society dictionary provides the following entry:

    Parimukha (adj.) [pari+mukha] facing, in front; only as nt. adv. ˚ŋ in front, before, in phrase parimukhaŋ satiŋ upaṭṭhapeti “set up his memory in front” (i. e. of the object of thought), to set one’s mindfulness alert Vin i.24; D ii.291; M

    Under sati it also provides this interpretation:

    parimukhaŋ satiŋ upaṭṭhāpetuŋ, to surround oneself with watchfulness of mind

    Thanissaro Bhikkhu points out a use of parimukha in the Vinaya clearly conveys ‘in front of the chest‘. It seems like a stretch to interpret it as referring to the point where the breath touches the nostrils or the upper lip. If the Buddha wanted to set up a fixed point of concentration we would expect him to provide a more less casual description of what that point is in any case.

    Second, the suttas do not refer to one-pointed samadhi that I am aware of. The word ekaggata in Pali, used to describe concentration and equated with samadhi, is often translated as ‘one-pointed-ness’ but alternatively as ‘unified”. Now, eka means one, and agga can mean ‘point’, and ta means ‘-ness’. However agga means ‘point’ as of a knife and also means ‘peak’ as of a mountain, which is something that can be rather broad. And in fact the PTS dictionary defines aggata as follows:

    Aggatā (f.) [abstr. of agga] pre– eminence, prominence, superiority Kvu 556 (˚ŋ gata); Dpvs iv.1 (guṇaggataŋ gatā). — (adj.) mahaggata of great value or superiority D i.80; iii.224.

    There is nothing here to suggest a fixed very precise object of attention, only a prominence of a single theme.

    Third, the suttas provide a sufficient basis for samadhi independent of one-pointed mindfulness. One-pointed mindfulness is a powerful means of inducing samadhi and then attaining deep levels of concentration. This raises the question, Is one-pointed mindfulness necessary for samadhi? Can you attain samadhi at all without it? The answer is “Yes.”

    First, there are many yogis of greater authority than I who will answer affirmatively on the basis of personal experience.

    Second, the Buddha gives a wide variety of other, unpointed, factors as conditions Right Samadhi, which collectively seem to put you over the top. In fact it is remarkable how many conditions he describes as underlying samdhi. These include faith, mindfulness, ardency, alertness, seclusion, peace and quiet, investigation, delight, pleasure, inner composure, tranquility, virtue, wisdom andall seven steps prior to Right Samadhi in the Noble Eightfold Path. This is not to mention sitting at the root of a tree in meditation posture.

    Many of these conditions, aside from helping to induce samadhi, probably serve primarily to weave the qualities of wisdom and virtue into samadhi rather to induce a state of concentration, but I suspect that these conditions as a whole are intended to displace the necessity of one-pointed mindfulness.

    Fourth, the suttas refer to many mental processes that occur even in deep states of meditation, i.e., in the higher jhanas, that according to experience would be shut down by one-pointed concentration. One-pointedness narrows the range of consciousness to such a degree that there is little room for much else to go on.

    Yet in the Buddha’s samadhi “the repetition, development and cultivation of these same states [factors giving rise to samadhi in the first place] is the development of samadhi therein.” This means that the cultivation of Right Mindfulness, for example, continues in the jhanas. Furthermore, you are able to visualize delight, happiness and equanimity suffusing the body in all the jhanas, and to turn the attention selectively to an inspiring theme if the hindrances begin to intrude. You are able to “regard whatever phenomena connected with form, feelings, perceptions, fabrications and consciousness as inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a disintegration, a void, non-self.” You are able to contemplate each of the brahmaviharas in each of the jhānas. You are potentially able to “ferret out one by one” whatever qualities arise in each of the jhanas and know them as they remain and know when they subside.You are able to “incline [your] mind toward realizing any state that may be realized by direct knowledge.” More about these things, including references, next week.

    Fifth, one-pointed concentration would seem to inhibit the process of cultivation of insight, of vipassana. You will appreciate that many of these mental activities listed in the last couple of paragraphs support knowledge and vision. The reason that it is important that these activities occur in samadhi is that the mind in samadhi is highly refined, still and clear, qualitatively different from the clunky common mind we usually use to bungle about in the world. It is the mind that is capable of considering things as they really are in and of themselves, without the bias of passion, habit or preconception. It is a mind that is subtle, but not shut down.

    The mind is not one-pointed because that would not support insight.

    Assumptions in Presenting Evidence. Since the claim that Buddha’s meditation is not one-pointed is contrary to how many people practice Buddhism, let me reiterate my game rules in reaching these conclusions. I’ve used all three of the following methods in today’s post:

    1. We let the early suttas speak for themselves and try to read nothing into or out of them. This is not entirely reliable in itself because of the ancient history of these texts.

    I have tried to represent the early texts faithfully. Although these ancient texts are often subject to debate and confusion, concerning meditation I find them surprisingly consistent when interpreted quite simply. Notice I am scrupulously avoiding the evidence of later texts often taken as authoritative, such as the Pali commentaries. Otherwise we have no way of distinguishing Buddha’s meditation from its variants, since most variants make some claim to purity of pedigree. There will always be pressure among those who, like me, practice a variant to read the variant back into the early texts.

    1. We see if a coherent system shines through, with its own internal logic. This is like the jig-saw puzzle in which confidence in the result is established in spite of missing or extraneous pieces.

    I have been giving particular attention to this source of evidence, showing that the Buddha’s meditation has a brilliantly conceived internal logic, that all of the parts fit into a unified whole that functions to consolidate all of the rays developed in the initial five stages of the Noble Eightfold Path and progressively focus then toward liberation. Both wisdom and virtue, developed initially by other means, are combined to form the fuel of samadhi, the hyer-refined state of clarity and calm in which higher knowledge the loss of taints can be developed. This logic is surprisingly consistent with the simplest interpretations of the suttas as mentioned in (1).

    1. We see if the system and its parts work in practice.

    The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If the system that seems to shine through in the texts fails to shine through on the cushion, then we need to reconsider what the texts say and what the underlying logic might be. If the same system shines through in both places, then we can be fairly confident are sitting on the bodhimanda (seat of enlightenment). I cannot verify the system that shines through in others’ practice; I need to ask each of you to do that for your own. I can report my limited experience of the various parts of the system I have described are quite consistent with the results of (1) and (2) above.

    Next week we will look at the various factors of samadhi in more detail.

  • Buddha’s Meditation and its Variants 6

    Six Remarkable Features of Buddha’s Mindfulness
    Last Quarter Moon Uposatha Day                              index to series

    Last week … er, two weeks ago, I provided an overview of Right Mindfulness as described in the Satipatthana Sutta and many other related suttas. Recall that mindfulness is essentially keeping something in mind. What and how you keep that something in mind is the heart of your meditation technique. Samadhi is the most significant part of your meditation experience. The Buddha defines four basic domains for applying mindfulness: body, feelings, mind or consciousness, and (mental) qualities. He provides specific exercises particularly with regard to body and more particularly breath. For each theme he admonishes us to practice as follows:

    The bhikkhu contemplates the body in the body, ardently, with full comprehension, mindfully and putting aside covetousness and grief for the world.

    … and as for “body” similarly to body for feelings, mind and qualities. He supplements this with some limited advice on dealing with distractions, and with encouraging certain mental factors like delight and happiness. He also suggests in a couple of the Pali suttas (but not the Agamas) giving special attention to the rising and falling of phenomena. Out of mindfulness stability of mind and ultimately samadhi arise.

    This week I want to highlight six features that are particularly characteristic of the Buddha’s method. It will be interesting to see which of these carry over to the variants of the Buddha’s meditation.

    Buddha’s Mindfulness is Fun. An Asian meditation teacher came to America for the first time to lead a retreat. Into the first day of the retreat he asked his American attendant about the meditators, “Why do they all look so grim?” Apparently before the Buddha’s time any pleasure was to be scrupulously avoided by the dedicated ascetic. Maybe we have a bit of the same attitude in this country: “No pain, no gain.”

    The Buddha, while recognizing danger in sensual pleasures, found spiritual pleasures to be of a quite different quality. Recall that shortly before his awakening the Buddha was sitting in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree and spontaneously “entered and remained in the first jhana: delight and pleasure born from seclusion, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation.” Then he thought,

    Why am I afraid of such pleasure? It is pleasure that has nothing to do with sensual desires and unwholesome things. – MN 36

    The meditation suttas make constant reference to delight (piti, what many translate as rapture) and happiness (sukka, what many translate as pleasure) as qualities of the early stages of meditation. “A pleasant dwelling in this very life,” “refreshing,” and other phrases are used as well. It sounds like fun to me.

    Unlike in the case of fun things like wild parties, just singing in the rain, tango, chocolate truffles, practical jokes or scary movies, fun in the case of Buddha’s meditation is not primarily a goal, it is an enabling factor. Tuning into refined levels of pleasure makes one more aware of the refined levels of suffering, helps recognize the disadvantages of sensual pleasures, gives a place of rest in practice, and provides an early incentive to making practice a habit.

    It is also a much different kind of fun, one that the uninitiated might perceive as boredom, but on close examination it is a much purer form of joyful happiness, untainted by stress, anxiety, fear and many other things that the uninitiated might not even recognize always accompanies wild partying, singing in the rain, and the others.

    Sariputta gives us a somewhat enigmatic hint of the nature of spiritual pleasure:

    Just that is the pleasure here, my friend, where there is nothing felt. – AN 9.34

    Buddha’s Mindfulness is Being Present. “Being present” is indeed often taken to be almost synonymous with “mindfulness.” However, mindfulness does not logically entail being present. We might envision an inspirational speaker suggesting a mindfulness exercise such as, “Now, imagine the big bag of money you have charmed out of people in five years time. Rest your mind right there. Imagine how heavy the bag is, …” Or, “When you find your mind has wandered away from the daydream bring it gently back to the daydream.” Mindfulness could also involve contemplations of abstractions, like goodness or honor, and who knows where they are?

    But the Buddha’s exercises are not generally like this; they are almost always very grounded in the present moment: almost every one takes a topic of current experience for contemplation, for instance, the breath, breathing in then out, the present posture, physical movements like carrying things, the composition of the body, current feelings, current states of mind, suffering or anxiety, and so on. In fact we are asked to attend to the rising and falling of phenomena as they occur for each of the four foundations of mindfulness. Distractions, on the other hand, tend to be thoughts about the past, such as regrets, or the future, such as plans and expectations. Elsewhere the Buddha admonishes us:

    You shouldn’t chase after the past or place expectations on the future. What is past is left behind. The future is as yet unreached. – MN 131

    Now, there are some peripheral exceptions in Buddha’s meditation; the Buddha does make use of certain visualizations of things that would not arise on their own. Metta meditation is generally like this; one imagines metta extending to an ever-widening circle of beings which must be brought to mind. The charnel ground contemplations ask us to consider that our bodies will be just like that at some future time. As we enter the jhanas we are asked in turn to imagine delight and happiness, happiness and equanimity suffusing the whole body.

    Buddha’s Mindfulness is potentially a Wall-to-wall, 24/7 Activity. Sariputta and his best friend Mogallana were young ascetics and students of Master Sanjaya but were becoming disappointed with the results. One day Sariputta spotted another ascetic in the village on alms round and was astounded by his mindful deportment. It was Assaji, one of the first five disciples of the Buddha. Curious, Sariputta inquired as to Assaji’s background and both he and his friend were on their way to becoming not only arahants but the two foremost disciples of the Buddha. In Burma today monks leave the monasteries by the hundreds every morning as if to reenact Assaji’s alms round. It is beautiful to watch their calm composure, even that of the little novice monks.

    The plot of the story of Sariputta’s introduction to Buddhism has undoubtedly played itself out in every generation since. An American ballet dancer was on tour in Japan and spotted a man at a train station not only of unusual attire but of remarkable deportment. Fascinated, she began following him around for a long time before she finally inquired as to who or what he was. He was a Korean monk. She ended up staying in Japan for many many years to study Zen. She is Dai-En Bennage, now abbess of a Zen center in Pennsylvania.

    Mindfulness in manifold postures and activities, while walking, sitting or lying down, while lifting an arm, even while defecating, is characteristic of Buddhism prescribed right in the Satipatthana Sutta. It is not just something we do on the meditation cushion. And it gives rise to the characteristic Buddhist deportment. (The public perception of one’s deportment, by the way, will vary considerably, even among yogis of great attainment. Some of them have a natural flair, while others seem to come off as hopelessly klutzy or dumpy no matter how much mindfulness they internalize.)

    Because mindfulness is an all-day and every-place practice in Buddhism, it entails an almost constant stillness and composure. The result is like hot coals, that retain their heat and provide warmth. But the flames of samadhi will then arise quite quickly and naturally with a log and a poke. Under controlled circumstances, such as that provided by your meditation cushion, samadhi will flare up.

    Buddha’s Mindfulness Weaves Wisdom, along with Virtue, into Meditation. The sole function of mindfulness in many meditation traditions is to induce jhana, a serene state of mind. If this was the Buddha’s sole intent, he would not have given us such a wide variety of meditation subjects, nor asked us to consider them in a rather analytical way. He would not have given us mindfulness tasks that clearly relate to the training in Wisdom begun at the beginning of the Noble Eightfold Path, in particular observing experiences that bear on impermanence, suffering and insubstantiality and the aggregates of body, feelings, perception, formations and consciousness.

    This is where the Buddha is at his cleverest and where the logic of his method shines forth. Consider: First the Buddha asks us to practice Wisdom through Right View and Right Resolve until the cows come home. Then he asks us to practice Virtue through Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood until we drop. This is prerequisite to meditation practice.

    Without purifying view it is impossible to cultivate Right Samadhi – AN 6.68

    When your virtue is well purified and your view is straight, based upon virtue, established upon virtue, you should develop the four foundations of mindfulness. – SN 47.15

    Now the Buddha asks us to consolidate that mind of Virtue in Right Effort and that mind of Wisdom in Right Mindfulness and then to weave them together, … into a sitting mat. Here is where the weaving takes place:

    The bhikkhu contemplates the body in the body, ardently, with full comprehension, mindfully and putting aside covetousness and grief for the world.

    Next the Buddha will ask us to place samadhi on that sitting mat. In this way the beginning practices of Wisdom and Virtue will be able to continue but within the mind of samadhi, that is, with a hyper-refined, serene and keenly aware mind. This is like kicking our practices of Wisdom and Virtue into hyperdrive, and this will lead, if we keep at it, to the arising of higher knowledge, to the removal of all taints and to ultimate liberation. More about samadhi and beyond in coming weeks.

    Buddha’s Mindfulness is Centered in the Body. Probably the most salient symbol in Buddhist iconography is the full-body posture of the Buddha in seated meditation. When I, along with perhaps most other Buddhist yogis, sit in meditation I am keenly aware I am emulating the posture of the Buddha (well, roughly: I never have been able to manage full lotus).

    Mindfulness anchors the mind in any of a variety of subjects, mental and physical. Aspects of the physical body and particularly the entire body play distinguished roles. Of the subjects of mindfulness, the largest number have to do with the body: Breathing, types of deportment (standing, sitting, lying down, etc.), bodily activities (going forwards and backwards, looking straight ahead, away, bending and the stretching of limbs, eating, bathing, urinating, etc.), composition of the body (body parts, and elements), and decaying corpses. Mindfulness of the body is specifically treated in the Kayagata Sutta (MN 119). Among the body contemplations in- and out-breathing is particularly distinguished, the observation of the whole breath. Mindfulness of the breath is specifically treated in the Anapanasati Sutta (MN 118). This sutta recommends watching the breath while simultaneously attending to each of the other three foundations of mindfulness, so the breath functions as a kind of anchor which still permits other forms of mindfulness.

    The Dhammapada tells us:

    With mindfulness immersed in the body well established, restrained with regard to the six media of contact — always centered, the monk can know Unbinding for himself. — Ud 3.5

    They awaken, always wide awake: Gotama’s disciples whose mindfulness, both day & night, is constantly immersed in the body. — Dhp 299

    Also, the whole body in many suttas is visualized as a container in each stage of jhana respectively for a characteristic set of mental factors. For instance, the first jhana involves the following visualization:

    He makes rapture and pleasure born of seclusion drench, steep, fill and pervade his body so that there is no part of his whole body unpervaded by the rapture and pleasure born of seclusion. – MN 119, etc.

    It is easy to appreciate how centering the mind in the whole body might provide a natural place for the mind to rest. The body provides the basic coordinates for relating to the physical world; it determines up, down, front, back, right, left, in the self and outside of the self.

    Buddha’s Mindfulness is Never One-Pointed. The Buddha describes a simile for the four foundations of mindfulness (MN 125), that of binding a forest elephant by a rope to a post to break the elephant of its wide forest habits. Notice that the elephant still retains some freedom of movement, but within a limited range. One-pointed mindfulness would be like the more extreme measure of putting the elephant into a container or a cage so that he cannot ever turn around, much like animals are often treated in factory farms. Recall that the common technique of one-pointed mindfulness involves fixing the attention unmovingly on a single small object or point of meditation. This is not the Buddha’s mindfulness.

    The Buddha offers us not fixed objects of meditation, but rather broader themes of contemplation. For instance, the breath is a process that involves much of the entire body. We consider the different forms of breath, and even what feelings and thoughts arise with the breath, but remain loosely teathered to the breath. We contemplate the mind as a whole, notice the state of the mind and become aware of whatever arises. We contemplate a rotting corpse from all aspects, then even consider that that will be us some day. And there is a logic to this: One-pointed mindfulness would do little for developing wisdom; awareness must be broad.

    Nowhere that I am aware in the suttas of does the Buddha ever ask us to focus the attention more narrowly than this, not on a candle flame, not on the breath perceived at a particular point in the body such as the upper lip or even in the belly, not on an image fixed in the mind (nimitta), not on a colored disk. I suspect one-pointed mindfulness is entirely foreign to his method.

    This last point will be a bit controversial, since much of Buddhist meditation is in fact one-pointed. However this is exactly one of the places where we need to distinguish Buddha’s meditation from its variants. Next week I would like to reflect a bit on my logic in making this distinction. Among other examples I will discuss the most likely counterexample to my claim that one-pointed mindfulness is outside of the Buddha’s method.

     

  • Buddha’s Meditation and its Variants 1

    Introduction

    Uposatha Teaching for First Quarter Moon

    A number of people have asked if I would write about meditation in this blog. Meditation practice is a very individual thing, opening deep levels of personal exploration, hopefully in communication with an engaged and understanding teacher. The audience for this blog is moreover likely to come from a daunting plethora of perspectives, each with its own vocabulary, conceptual framework and representative teachers. Although I balk at the thought of trying to teach meditation in this venue, the existence of this daunting plethora is itself of some interest and I would like to spend some weeks writing about this.

    This daunting plethora has proved itself a source of bewilderment, doubt and contention in Asia but particularly in the West where a large sample of Buddha’s meditation and its variants can often be found within a single community. As a result meditators bandy about many terms, like “mindfulness,” “insight,” and “jhana” with little agreement on what these mean, and with much uncertainty about the relative merits of alternative techniques or doubts about the viability of their own chosen practices. Often knowledgeable meditators talk right past one another with an uneasy feeling that something is out of accord but unable to determine what.

    For the most part I contentedly practice shikantaza, just sitting, the predominant form of meditation in the East Asian Soto Zen school in which I long practiced and was once ordained. I find myself now, however, in the Theravada tradition and am therefore frequently asked questions like, “Do Zennies practice vipassana or samatha?”or “What is your object of meditation?” As simple as the questions seem to the Theravada practitioner they do not make much sense in the framework of Zen. Even within the relatively orthodox Theravada tradition there are profound disagreements concerning, for instance, what exactly samadhi or jhanas are, whether samadhi is really necessary in Buddhist practice, and whether insight can arise only after leaving jhana. Then there are things like koans as practiced in Soto’s sister, the Rinzai Zen tradition, as objects of meditation, and all these esoteric Tibetan practices I keep hearing about.

    In spite of the modern daunting plethora of methods, the Buddha actually gave some us some very clear instructions about meditation, available to us today in the Pali Suttas and in the Chinese Agamas. I will spend the first few weeks on the Buddha’s meditation. Radically innovative in its day, the Buddha’s meditation forms a coherent and comprehensive system, fully an expression of the remarkable genius of the Buddha. He describes a framework that gathers and focuses the rays of the entirety of Buddhist practice, in its conceptual, ethical and affective dimensions, and turns them ineluctably toward Nirvana.

    Not many Buddhist practitioners actually follow the letter of the Buddha’s meditation, fewer than claim to do so. Every major school of Buddhism that I am aware of has introduced significant changes into the Buddha’s description of meditation. However this is not necessarily a bad thing: Many changes seem to have been a pedagogical necessity as Buddhism has been transmitted over time and culture to people with radically different world views and conceptual habits than those of the Buddha’s time and place. Many other changes were probably due to misunderstandings or miscommunications, for instance, as a purely intellectual understanding transmitted in a period of slump without verification through practice. However, some of these misunderstandings seem in subsequent periods of resurgence to have evolved further into new methods that restored the Buddha’s original intention. Other changes involve swapping in elements from the techniques of non-Buddhist traditions. And finally, some changes may be intentional modifications of what had come before because someone had a good idea that may even produce improved results. Just as human languages evolve across time and place yet maintain their function, Buddhism has shown itself capable of similar change.

    Next week I will begin this project by outlining my understanding about what the Buddha taught about meditation. I will let the early suttas for the most part speak for themselves. I would like to spend the final few weeks of this series on the variants to Buddha’s meditation, especially shikantaza and some modern “vipassana” techniques. I will consider how they preserve the elements and structure of the Buddha’s meditation and speculate how and why they may have deviated from it.

    Since my knowledge of the range of the daunting plethora is limited, I encourage others who have knowledge of techniques beyond my small scope of familiarity to apply the exercise I will exemplify here to them as well. I expect that we will find that almost every technique preserves the Buddha’s original intention.

  • The Art of Lay Life 11: Lay and Monastic (cont.)

    Uposatha Teaching for the Last Quarter Moon (Index to Series)

    In this series I have been careful to distinguish the monastic lifestyle from the being an ordained monastic. The monastic lifestyle is adopted as a matter of degree, an ordained monastic is something you either are or are not. The two do not necessary coincide.

    Ven. Pema Chodron (USA)

    This is an important distinction because it helps us understand what kind of attainment a layperson is capable of or might expect from Buddhist practice. In particular I hope I have dispelled the notion that you must be an ordained nun or monk in order to become enlightened. Your potential derives not in being ordained but from adopting to some degree a monastic lifestyle. I hope I have clarified in this series both why the monastic lifestyle is a huge aid to practice and how the monastic lifestyle can be integrated with the elements of a lay life as a primary factor in that life. So the monastic life style is a desirable development for both the layperson and the ordained monastic, and a challenge for each, albeit in general more of a challenge for the layperson.

    Last week I began discussing the role of actual monastic ordination. This is important to consider lest everything I had written before last week give the impression that monastic ordination is unnecessary or unimportant in Buddhism. In fact it is of critical importance for laypeople as well as monastics. Last week I described why it is immensely useful to ordain as a monastic as an immediate way of developing a monastic lifestyle. Monastic ordination, in short, is something that has enjoyed the support of monastic communities throughout Buddhist history without interruption. As an ordained monastic I, to take the most immediate example, am supported by laypeople in my aspiration to live a monastic lifestyle, as well as to have the time for meditation, teaching and being of benefit to others that complement that.

    Ven. Buddharakkhita (Uganda)

    So, why does the laity support monastics so willingly? Is there a tangible benefit for the laity? The answer is … yes! In fact I would probably not be a monastic if this were not the case.

    First, many believe in what monastics are doing and want to support it selflessly, without thought of personal gain. Interestingly it seems that the laity are generally particular eager to support meditating monastics, by all appearances the most idle, but generally held in very high regard .

    Second, the monastics set an example that inspires laypeople in their own practice. This might be compared to the inspiration that professional athletes give to amateur tennis players, cyclists, joggers and so on. The example they set is that of the monastic life, toward which lay practitioners lives most beneficially will lean. Of course individual monastics might fail to be strong examples, but by and large the monastic sangha will provide examples in high concentration. A key part of the example these monastics will set is in providing a reality check to the notion that personal excess leads to happiness; my own experience is that monastics as a class are, contrary to any unexamined common sense, the happiest people in the world. Each is a kind of very visible walking science experiment, a test tube in which the ingredients of the monastic life have been poured and then stirred with results open to inspection.

    Ven. Thubten Chodron (USA)

    Third, the laity probably get the cheapest clergy in the world. A monastic’s needs are very modest, they do not have to have a fancy house with a two-car garage, do not have to support a family and send kids to college, unlike, say, a Protestant minister. Also since as a group they are very immersed in Buddhist practice, ideally living that practice 24-7, Buddhist monastics probably include within their ranks some of the most qualified spiritual teachers on the planet.

    I should point out parenthetically that some Buddhist traditions also have a non-monastic clergy, sometimes alongside the monastic. Most of the Japanese clergy is now non-monastic, which is why we generally talk about Zen priests in the West rather than Zen monks, and much of the Korean, even though these ordain in a fashion once historically reserved for monks and nuns. In the Tibetan tradition there are some lamas (teachers) who are not monks. And of course in the West it is rare to find a qualified teacher who is a monastic, but also common to find teachers with no recognizable qualifications. However non-monastic clergy generally have specific training that qualifies them as clergy, sometimes very rigorous, very often including a long period of living as a monastic, or simply in extreme seclusion. But non-monastic clergy do not continually share the monastic lifestyle, and so most of which I report here about the advantages of monastic ordination does not carry over to them.

    Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi (USA)

    Fourth, the support of the monastic community encourages selflessness by making practice not just a personal concern but a community concern. Supporting monastics is traditionally a focal point for the the joyful and selfless practice of generosity (dana). It is a natural focal point, because it involves these people who are essentially helpless without lay support and yet who inspire that support for reasons other than being cute like kittens or puppies. However, it quickly spills over into other areas, which can be more readily observed in Asia than in the West. Generosity is the life-blood of the Buddhist community.

    Ven. Brahmavamso (UK/Australia)

    For instance, traditionally if you, as a layperson, want to devote a month to meditation, you could expect, in Asia, to be fully supported in that aspiration. You would be given a hut in a meditation center, meditation instruction and one-on-one meetings with a teacher, a schedule and a place to meditate with others, and meals, all at no cost to you. Why? Because laypeople have contributed to the material needs of the center, and the monastics or laypeople have come forward as instructors. Why do they do all this? For almost all the same reasons monastics are readily supported. The sustainers of a meditation center believe in your aspirations, they value you as a stronger practitioner living in their community, they believe your efforts are worth supporting.

    Fifth, the ordained monastic sangha was charged by the Buddha with maintaining the integrity of the teachings, and has historically succeeded in doing just that. It is the primary channel through which the Buddha’s teachings have passed through all these centuries down to you, and will be the primary channel through which it will be passed to future generations. Why is this channel necessary? There are certainly many religious traditions that have nothing like this; Quakers do not even have a clergy of any kind. Islam is supposed to be the same way, though it has developed an informal clergy. However, Buddhism has more stringent requirements.

    Ven. Dalai Lama (Tibet)

    Buddhism is an unusually sophisticated religion. It doesn’t need to be for everyone; many people approach it in terms of devotional practices, some ethical guidelines and the practice of dana, for instance. But at its most refined it entails a detailed program of practices and studies or understandings, which fall under the various parts of the Noble Eightfold Path. One can spend years in practice and study and not yet reach the depths of the teachings. Moreover study and practice is depends on the availability of teachers and adepts because the teachings are easily subject to misinterpretation. Before the Buddha began his teaching career he doubted that even he could correctly convey the teachings and the early suttas are full of stories in which he corrects incorrect understanding.

    Ven Cheng Yen (Taiwan)

    The ordained monastic sangha, as long as it thrives, practices diligently and follows the monastic code, ensures that there is always a concentration of adepts who devote their lives full time to practice and study, and teaching. It does not ensure all ordained monastics will be adepts, nor entail that all adepts are ordained, only that there is a concentration of adepts that will keep the flame of Dharma burning. And since monastics are required to wear robes, that flame is easy to locate. The laypeople who become exceptional practitioners are those that stand close to that flame; very few of them are more than one or two steps away from monastics who shaped their practice and understanding, even among Western teachers.

    This is comparable to the role of the academic community, for instance, in ensuring the progress of science. Science also involves a core of adepts, those who are credentialed or have academic appointments, supported by the greater society, even when individuals produce no tangible benefit to the society (in fact often the most respected scientists are the “pure” scientists who have the least concern for practical results, just as the most respected monastics tend to be those who meditate all day). Just as in the monastic sangha, individual scientists may sometimes be poor examples of productive research, and individuals outside of that core may produce exceptional research (remember that Einstein in his most brilliant early days was an amateur scientist, and a “pure” scientist), but that core does represent a concentration of talent that keeps Science alive, and keeps it from dissipating into pseudo-science and wild speculation. A productive amateur scientist will have stood close to the flame and rarely been more than a step away from professors who shaped their ability to do research and the urgency to report results with integrity.

    Noble Lay Practitioners of the Dharma

    With this I conclude this series on the Art of Lay Practice. I hope this has given readers a lot to work with as you navigate the many threads of your life. The key concept I hope I have conveyed is: Simplicity! Make your personal footprint, the domain of your own affairs, what you choose to have a personal stake in, as small as you possibly can. Next year reconsider and try to make your personal footprint even smaller, and so on. People have such huge footprints for such little feet. This will supercharge your practice. Our footprints are outward projections of our sense of self. Buddhist practice is about letting go gradually over time of every manifestation of that sense of being a substantial self. Our lifestyles display the most tangible manifestations and are therefore the most obvious place to begin. When that sense of self vanishes altogether, that is Liberation. And Liberation is possible within the parameters of a lay life.

  • New Episode: “Through the Looking Glass”

    Book II: The Young and the Samsaric
    Episode Two: Becoming

    Synopsis. With difficulty met by determination, John becomes what he once was.

    Find complete contents including this new episode:

    HERE

  • The Art of Lay Life 10: Lay and Monastic

    Uposatha Day Essay for the Full Moon

    Index to Art of Lay Life Series

    Over the last nine weeks I have presented the Art of Lay Life. Summarized in brief the ideal is to live a life that includes those elements, aside from recognized Buddhist practices, that you just have to include, but otherwise is as much like a monastic life as possible. This is an ideal in that I do not expect any readers to take this principle to heart absolutely; lack of conviction, lack of discipline, overwhelming impulses and all of these things conspire against the ideal. An ideal practitioner is a rare thing. However each of you can lean toward the ideal and study your own life to gain conviction that what I write might have some merit.

    The Art of Monastic Life is to renounce and simplify, hanging on to nothing, most especially not any sense of personal identity but also not any of those things that sustain and gratify a special person. Now I have made a big distinction between living a monastic life and being an ordained monastic. The reason is most ordained monastics also only approximate the ideal of a monastic life and in this way are not much different than devout laypeople. It is certainly possible for a devout layperson to sustain a more monastic life than most ordained monastics, and accordingly realize great benefit in practice. This raises the question, Why do we have monastics? The answer, it turns out, is very important to the lay Buddhist.

    First, although an ordained monastic may be imperfect in living a monastic life they vow to do so and have a social obligation to do so. These vows and obligations can be compared to marriage vows and the obligations of being a husband or life, which are also commonly kept imperfectly, and yet generally do make a big difference in sustaining the marriage as a cycle of transgression and repentance  serves to keep a spouse within the understood boundaries. Ordained monastics take a set of vows laypeople generally do not. Moreover just as the wedding ring marks the spouse’s obligations in a way that invites public scrutiny, the robes and the shaved head mark the ordained monastic’s.

    Second, a monastic has a clear blueprint for life more detailed than I could insist on in this series. A monastic’s vows have the form of hundreds, of precepts which specify in detain how to Select, Reject, Balance and Simplify. They leave very little wiggle-room. If you examine them carefully you find that systematically they prohibit virtually every opportunity for seeking personal advantage, for self-enhancement, for self-gratification. Most fundamentally they are based on simplicity, renunciation, and sensual restraint. Celibacy is generally taken as definitive of the monastic. The monastic is not allowed to beautify herself, is not allowed to engage in any normal livelihood, like farming, is not allowed to barter or trade, must strictly curtail sensual pleasures. The monastic is not even allowed to purposely endear themselves to laypeople in the aims of receiving better offerings of food and clothing. In this way the pure ordained monastic becomes the ultimate renunciate, and is likely to progress rapidly on the path. This does not mean the monastic cannot live comfortably, it means that it is, except in crisis situations, it none of her business.

    Third, the monastic has the institutional support necessary to lead a monastic life uncompromised by life’s many contingencies. The institution is that of monastic ordination/vow and of lay support. A lot of people balk at the very idea of religious institutions or organized religions.  (My adult daughter has always maintained that she does not believe in organized religions. She used to often come to the Austin Zen Center, where I used to live as a priest, particularly if some event like a potluck was underway. I would point out to her that someone had to organize that. Ajahn Brahm likes to describe Buddhism as the most disorganized religion.)  The importance of monastic institution to Buddhism is evident in the importance the Buddha attached to it. Consider that the Buddha consistently referred to the entirety of his teachings as the Dharma-Vinaya. The Vinaya, half of this compound, specifically defines the monastic institution in its behavioral, procedural and social aspects. So it is important to understand what functions this institution serves, for both monastics and laity.

    The immediate reason the ordained monastic requires institutional support is that in letting go of seeking any personal advantage she puts herself in an extremely vulnerable situation, and so is totally dependent on the goodwill of the laity, who must take an interest in the welfare of the monastics if they are to survive as monastics. Monastics are like your cat, who would also have a hard time surviving by herself. With that support monastics are in a unique position to fully embrace the monastic lifestyle with virtually no distractions. Thus institutionally Buddhism provides exceptional support for an exceptional lifestyle, for those who are able and willing to vow to pursue that lifestyle. A Buddhist community, in effect, commits itself to offering this opportunity to those able and willing to take advantage of it, thereby enabling a significant numbers of its members will advance far along the path of Buddhist practice.

    This often raises eyebrows in the West, perhaps particularly in a culture like America’s that values individuality and independence. The question arises, Why would lay people trying to progress in their own lay practice support monastics so they can progress in their own?

    Before answering this, consider the following.  The monastic who takes sincere advantage of the opportunity provided by the Buddhist community, when her mind falls in line with the monastic lifestyle, that is, when any thoughts of personal advantage are totally frustrated, has an enormous reserve of time and energy. These can go in any combination of three directions. First, into contemplative practice and study. Second, into activities that directly benefit others. And third, sleep.

    Unfortunately many monastics like to sleep a lot, but it is discouraged, and many spend most of their time in meditation, and many engage themselves not only in teaching the Dharma and providing pastoral counseling (expected clerical functions), but also in general education, founding of hospitals and other social services and public works. This engagement in public welfare is often unrecognized in the West; I was amazed to observe what a significant factor it is in Burmese society. The reason is we tend to think of monastics as pretty idle. They must be idle when it comes to acting on their own behalf, but there is nothing in the monastic precepts that keeps them from being as active as they possibly can on behalf of others. Monastic practice is not about escape from the world, only about escape from self-centered engagement in the world. Ven. Walpola Rahula, author of the classic What the Buddha Taught, wrote another book in which he traces the history of social engagement by monastics in Sri Lanka in the pre-colonial and then colonial times and argues that the idea that monastics are idle came about as the colonial powers disenfranchised the monastics of their traditional social roles as a means of reducing their powerful influence in the society.

    So, why does the laity support monastics? This will be the topic of next week’s essay on the Art of Lay Life.

  • The Art of Lay Life 9: Simplifying

    Uposatha Day Teaching (Index to Series)
    Layman Pang is the very model of the enlightened layman from Eighth Century Chinese Zen (or Chan) lore. He had been a wealthy merchant with a wife and daughter who studied the Sutras and aspired to progress along the Buddhist path. His wife and daughter shared the same aspirations. In fact his daughter is the very model of the enlightened woman, since she all along had a deeper understanding than her father. Layman Pang is the one however who is most often referred to in patriarchal China.

    The first substantial step the three of them took was to gather all of their wealth together in a boat, row out to the middle of the lake and drop it all overboard so that it would not be a burden. They then supported themselves by making and selling utensils of bamboo and traveling from place to place, often visiting monasteries.

    Select. The Pang family whole-heartedly embraced Buddhist teachings and practice. However they also valued each other and their life as a family. They selected little, but clearly family was something they valued independently of the concerns of Buddhist practice. In this sense they were not candidates for monastic ordination.

    Reject. Whether or not their merchant life was always honest is not said. But they took up a livelihood that easily lent itself to virtue and integrity. They are not reported to have spent time drinking or partying, going to shows, gossiping.

    Balance.  Family and their small bamboo manufacturing and selling activities are their primary activities outside of Buddhist practice. We can imagine that they readily brought these within the fold of Buddhist practice by engaging in these activities skillfully, mindfully and with devotion. It is often said that Buddhism does not distinguish the sacred from the secular. Balance is the reason; our practice is, insofar as we are able, to treat the secular as sacred. This is the practice of Balance.

    Simplify. The primary symbolic act of this is the dumping of their wealth in the lake. Practically speaking it would have made more sense to give their wealth to a charitable cause, but this step lends drama to the imperative of ridding themselves of all complications and distractions.

    Now, simplifying was implicit in my discussion of Selecting, when I suggest that you prioritize your values and be sparse in your Selecting. I repeat it as the final step because it cannot be emphasized enough. Even if you have Selected a small set of things you intend to sustain aside from Buddhist practice, Reject everything that is karmically unwholesome and therefore does not sit comfortably in a Buddhist life, Balance what you have Selected by integrating it into sound Buddhist practice, you will probably, if you are at all like most people, still manage to accumulate new complications, hardly knowing it.

    An apt analogy is the way people accumulate home furnishings. If you go into a museum there is a lot of space between artifacts. The artifacts might be paintings or sculpture, but actually might be home furnishings, such as Paul Revere metalware and King Louis’ furniture. If you go into an antique shop everything is packed tightly together and it is hard to walk around. Which is your home like? Most people move into a home with something like the museum in mind, but quickly their homes become more like the junk shop. Often they do not notice the change until they move their place of residence and wonder why they need such a big Ryder truck. It is not a factor of the nature of the artifacts, rather how many they accumulate. More is generally not better. It is the same with the activities they take on, and with the activities of our mind. Clutter keeps them endlessly confused, makes mindfulness difficult, leaves little space for practice or for what is really important, and tends to be a manifestation of a certain level of craving and desire for distraction. Let me repeat my advice of a few weeks ago: If you are serious about simplifying your life, study Voluntary Simplicity, either on line, or the few books on the topic.

    The aim of a Buddhist lifestyle is renunciation. Renunciation is not deprivation, but rather the removal of those aspects of the ordinary life that are self-serving, that seek personal advantage, gratification and enhancement, that serve as the Self’s playground. Selection makes room for aspects of our lives that may not fit this requirement, yet are either valuable to us or a matter of obligation. The other three steps aim to strip away the Self. Rejecting removes the most obvious of the Self’s excesses, or those conditions that lead to the Self’s excesses. Balancing shifts our relationship to the elements in our lives so that our attitude is not that of a master to a servant. Simplifying removes the distracting clutter.

    Now, all this does not entail that a Buddhist life cannot be busy. If you spend your time shopping and channel-surfing this is clutter. If you spend it teaching kids to read or volunteering to plant trees in a park or protesting against a war, this is wholesome, generous, not self-serving and is to be encouraged as a manifestation of kindness and compassion, as well as renunciation. (Caveat: Just as we can shift or relationship  toward selflessness, we can shift our relationship the other way. It is easy to make charity self-serving, using it as a means to garner reputation, for instance).  We simplify in order to make space for the calm abiding which blends into contemplative Buddhist practice, and for all the good we can be doing in the world with the time and energy we save.

    All this does not entail that a Buddhist life is somehow an escape from the world. A common misconception is that laypeople practice in the world, while monastics practice apart from the world. This is at root a license to change nothing in the outward circumstances of your life, to continue living your life exactly as you have been doing, but maybe do it more mindfully. You can presumably slaughter animals mindfully, get drunk mindfully, blow up at your office mate mindfully, sell unneeded insurance mindfully. Nobody escapes from the world. The essence of the Buddhist life is to live in the world responsibly, to finally grow up, to reform those parts of life that lead us astray, that are karmically unwholesome so that the overall trajectory of your life is toward Nirvana.

    The advice I have given in this series is to incline your lifestyle toward the monastic lifestyle. The extent to which you do this is up to you, but it will be a primary determinant of your progress along the Path. This is exactly the same as meditation practice: You can learn to meditate, but then how much you meditate is up to you, but it will be a primary determinant (secondary to lifestyle!) of your progress along the Path. The early scriptures attest to the ability of laypeople to progress along the path, to even reach the Big E. But this arises not casually. The great thing about the Art of Lay Life is that in general it does not preclude what you really have already taken to heart in your life, for instance, family. It just builds around it.

  • New Episode: “Through the Looking Glass”

    Book II: The Young and the Samsaric
    Episode One: Good Friends

    Synopsis. After false starts as Mathematician, Carpenter, Hippie and Traveler, John thinks he has found his true path.

    Find complete contents including this new episode:

    HERE

  • New Episode: “Through the Looking Glass”

    Introduction to Book II: The Young and the Samsaric

    I have posted the brief introduction to the second book of my tale, in which John (no longer Little Johnny) entangles himself in Samsara big time. This ultimately will lead to discovering the Buddhist Path. My plan to post the 24-page first chapter in a day or two. Find this new episode:

    HERE