On retreat...

I arrived a day early for this retreat to unpack, get my bearings, and begin to settle my mind and heart after weeks of anxiety building news, dire warnings, and wonderful energizing rallies.   A handful of people arrived yesterday, a few more this morning and the bulk of the retreatants will descend this afternoon.  It has been a lovely peaceful morning getting to know a few of the early arrivers before we go into silence this evening.  We all feel the peacefulness of the place seeping into our bones.  Thousands of meditators have sat and walked here and at the two related retreat centers up the hill and down road since the late 70’s.  It reminds me of going into churches in Europe and feeling the power of hundreds of thousands of people over the centuries praying and lifting their hearts for solace.  

And yet, it’s completely different - open, spacious, with lawns, meadows, gardens, many varieties of daffodils and flowering trees, and a huge stone stupa - a round stone structure about 20 feet high that houses relics of Buddhism - built by the founding director with his bare hands.  The first time he built it, he didn’t use cement.  It eventually fell down.  So he built it again using cement.  

Just like practice.  We begin and then we continue.  Something happens and we fall away.  We wake up and begin again.  The patience needed for stupa building and practice is the same.

As I write this, I am filled with gratitude - gratitude for this place and this opportunity to engage in intensive practice, gratitude to the support staff here who feed and house us, to the teachers who guide us, to the sangha who gather here from far and wide to practice together in community, to all the people at home who watch over my fish, the birds, the plants, the house, to my family and friends who support me with their well wishes...and especially, to all of you who have given me the gift of your presence, your attention, your interest, your feedback over the years.  

I was reflecting while telling a fellow retreatant about our sangha how you have all grown in your interest and understanding of mindfulness meditation and the Buddha’s related teachings, how each of you has reached out to make the teachings relevant to you, have practiced, have read, and have begun to share your journey with others.  Some of you have related how you and your families have noticed a difference in you, a lightness, more openness.  Some of you have tried retreat life that has enriched and deepened your practice and your contemplations.  Some of you have moved into teaching in a more formal way.  

I am moved and deeply grateful to have been a part of your journey and to see how the teachings I have been given have moved through me to you to enrich your journey on this earth as they have enriched mine.

On the First Noble Truth of Suffering...

The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path
The last teaching listed in the Fourth Foundation or Establishment of Mindfulness is the Four Noble Truths, the most central, bedrock teaching of all Buddhism.  And within the Four Noble Truths lies the Eight Fold Path.  

It is no accident that this teaching comes at the very end of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness.  The practitioner had much to learn in order to begin investigating the Four Noble Truths in earnest.  First was mindfulness of body, then feelings, then the mind, and finally all the elements of the dharmas or “the way things are” - the five hindrances to mindfulness, the five aggregates of clinging, the six sense spheres, and the seven factors of enlightenment.  With this foundation, the practitioner is equipped to contemplate the first truth of suffering, the second truth of the causes of suffering, the third truth of the end of suffering, and the fourth truth of the eightfold path.

Bhikku Bodhi in his Preface to The Noble Eightfold Path: Way to the End of Suffering, describes the importance of these teachings this way:

The essence of the Buddha’s teaching can be summed up in two principles: the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path.  The first covers the side of doctrine, and the primary response it elicits is understanding; the second overs the side of discipline, in the broadest sense of that word, and the primary response it calls for is practice. In the structure of the teaching these two principles lock together into an indivisible unity called.. in brief, the Dhamma.  The internal unity of the Dhamma is guaranteed by the fact that the last of the Four Noble Truths, the truth of the way, is the Noble Eightfold Path, while the first factor of the Noble Eightfold path, right view, is the understanding of the Four Noble Truths. Thus the two principles penetrate and include one another, the formula for the Four Noble Truths containing the Eightfold Path and the Noble Eightfold Path containing the Four Truths.

He goes on to say in his first chapter, "The Way to the End of Suffering," that the Buddha’s teachings can be evaluated much as one might evaluate trust in a doctor.  First, did the doctor get the diagnosis right?  Second, does he or she seem to understand the underlying causes?  Third, does the doctor believe there can be an end to this disease?  And what does the doctor prescribe?  

The Buddha encouraged his followers to see for themselves.  He could point the way but the practitioner must do the investigating that would build the faith that this is the way out of suffering.  Come and see for yourself, was the Buddha’s invitation.

It seems fitting for this time we live in that we might be more aware than ever of the first Noble Truth.  This is Dukkha.  The Pali word dukkha can be translated as suffering, but also as unsatisfactoriness.  And in fact, there is such a range of suffering that this truth would not be believable if it only pertained to one kind of suffering.

Joseph Goldstein in his book Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, describes three kinds of suffering. (p.291-3) There is the suffering of painful experience - the painful experiences brought on by wars, violence, natural disasters, political and social injustice, and oppression.  There are the inevitable painful experiences of the body related to sickness, injury, aging, and death.  There are painful experiences of the mind which are often caused by deeply held conditioning - feelings of fear, anger, jealously, hatred, anxiety, grief, envy, loneliness.  We have all had opportunities to work with these painful experiences whether by changing our behavior to find relief, or by going into seclusion from the suffering in concentration practice, or by turning toward and opening to these experiences and knowing the truth of suffering for ourselves.

The second kind of suffering Goldstein describes is that brought about by the changing nature of things.  We want good things to last and bad things to go away.  We are continually frustrated in this wanting of something that is not possible.  As an example of this, daffodils are in huge, glorious, vibrant profusion just now.  And when one comments upon it, the inevitable response is “too bad they won’t last.”  Good things don’t last, bad things last too long.  So we are frequently beset with this wanting, this sense of unsatisfactoriness.

The third kind of suffering is the suffering of conditioned experience.  In its simplest description, everything that arises also passes away.  That which is born will die.  Goldstein breaks it down into smaller and larger suffering from conditioned experience.  Taking care of ourselves, maintenance of our bodies and our lifestyles is one level of suffering.  We shower, brush our teeth, launder our clothes, shop for food, prepare meals, take out the trash, clean and straighten our homes, pull weeds and mow the lawn, go to work, exercise....  And before we know it, we have to do it all again.  If we don’t continually breathe air, drink water, and eat, our bodies will stop functioning.  The deterioration of body is constant causing us to have to wash, use the bathroom, change our clothes, and wash again.  And eventually no matter how well we take care of our bodies, these bodies will sicken and die.  That is the hard truth of suffering.  Our bodies are not permanent.  They grow, grow old, can be injured, can become sick, and eventually die.  As Goldstein quotes the Satipatthana Sutta, (The Four Foundations of Mindfulness), “‘Here one knows as it really is - this is dukkha.’"

This realization - taken into our bodies, our minds, our hearts as it really is - is, as Goldstein says, “the gateway” to awakening, to freedom from suffering.  It is also the gateway to compassion. “Compassion is that feeling in the heart that wants to help others and ourselves be free of suffering.  It’s the feeling described by the Japanese Zen master and poet Ryokan,  ‘O that my monk's robes / were wide enough / to gather up all the people / in this floating world.’  The first noble truth leads us to the practice of compassion, because it is the practice of letting things in, letting people in, letting all part of ourselves in.” (Goldstein, p. 297)

As Goldstein concludes, the profound importance of the first noble truth to awakening is contained in the words of the Buddha the night he was enlightened, “’This noble truth of dukkha has been fully understood:' thus, monks, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.’” (Ibid, 297)

On taking refuge...

There is a well-known Buddhist chant that is often used to open retreats or gatherings of the mindfulness community.   It goes like this :

I go to the Buddha for refuge.
I go to the Dharma for refuge.
I go to the Sangha for refuge.

A second time, I go to the Buddha for refuge.
A second time, I go to the Dharma for refuge.
A second time, I go to the Sangha for refuge.

A third time, I go to the Buddha for refuge.
A third time, I go to the Dharma for refuge.
A third time, I go to the Sangha for refuge.

The Buddha here refers both to the historical Buddha but also to the Buddha within each of us.

The Buddha often said, the most important of these is the Sangha - the community of meditators, of like-minded people.  The repetition of going for refuge a second and a third time serves to capture the essence of starting over contained in the practice.  Every new moment is an opportunity to start over.  

As our practice unfolds, it inevitably has ups and downs, moments of connecting, of insight, of tranquility and equanimity and moments of falling away into ignorance and suffering, into grasping and delusion.  And then we come to the truth of suffering and cry out, there must be a better way.  

Ajahn Chah, revered Thai Forest meditation master, taught there were two kinds of suffering - the suffering that leads to confusion, and the suffering that leads to the end of suffering.  We all know both kinds.  The power of the second kind - the suffering that leads to the end of suffering - is in the coming home to the first noble truth, there is suffering.  Letting go of our grasping and striving to find a way out of our suffering, we settle back, rest back in our suffering, acknowledge that it is here.  And here, we encounter the truth of the first noble truth, there is suffering.  What makes the difference between the suffering that leads to confusion and the suffering that leads to the end of suffering is the faith or confidence that arises when suffering encounters the dharma, the teachings of the Buddha.  By placing our feet on this path and taking just one step, we take refuge in the teachings.    

Some teachers emphasize this faith in the teachings.  Others point to a kernel of virtue which can be as slight as letting go of the striving for pleasant experiences as a deluded grasping for freedom and acknowledging the truth of suffering.  That letting go and acknowledging places our feet on the ancient path that leads us onward.

What arises in the momentary encounter with the teachings, that faith, that tiny light of virtue, is mindfulness - the first factor of enlightenment - which is the condition for the arising of curiosity and investigation, energy, and, surprisingly, joy - a very subtle joy - we were striving for all along.  

Saturday many of us went to the sangha, the community, for refuge and came away filled and moved and healed by the surging crowds, the waving sentiments, the honking horns, the vast, irrefutable truth that we are not alone, that our values of freedom, equality, justice, peace, inclusivity, compassion, and community are shared by hundreds of people around us, thousands close by, hundreds of thousands around the land, and certainly millions around the world.

And many of us who meditate felt the power of taking our practice off the cushion.  There are many ways to serve and not everyone was called to or able to respond in this way.  There are many ways.  But there is no denying the energy that manifested in sharing our passion with others and in supporting each other in this virtuous journey.  And it was a virtuous journey.  For there came a time for many of us when the contraction of the small self eased, the suffering of aloneness dissipated and we felt a sense of belonging.  At their same time, we also felt a sense of freedom, of lightness, of being free of something.  Without necessarily recognizing it, that freedom we experienced might have been a sense of non-selfness.  While we may have been proud of our signs, our presence in the community, much of that fell away.  Ultimately, we weren’t there to lift up our own accomplishments, our identification of being a meditator or an activist or a good community member.  We were there to be a part of something larger than ourselves, a communication and a communion that allowed us to be free of our concepts of self, to simply be - and enter into being - with others.

We took refuge once again in community, in the sangha.  

I go to the Buddha for refuge.
I go to the Dharma for refuge.
I go to the Sangha for refuge.

For a second time,...

As the early Buddhist nun said in her enlightenment poem, 

 “Oh my heart.  
You don’t have to go it alone.”

On sticky notes, carrots, and barrels...

Our local US Senator has a quote from Edmund Burke, influential statesman, political thinker and a staunch supporter of the American Revolution, that he keeps on a sticky note near his computer screen.  “Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.”

Buddhist teachers have another way of expressing a similar teaching in a story about a little boy who plants carrots.  He is so eager for his carrots to grow that when the tender feathery shoots come up, he goes out every day and pulls up a shoot to see if it is a carrot yet.  Some of you gardeners may argue that carrots need thinning anyway but the story makes a different point for our practice and for our lives.  The carrot is growing under ground away from our prying eyes and fingers.  At a certain point, the carrot will ripen - and there are signs that indicate that is so.  The green top looks full and bushy, the carrots shoulders may crest above ground, there has been time for the carrot to grow and ripen.  But for much of its growing cycle, we don’t really know what’s going on underground.

Our resistance to this administration's destructive efforts and our practice have this in common.  We don’t know what effect our individual efforts will have.  How does our attendance at this rally affect the tide of negative actions streaming out of Washington?  How does this morning’s meditation affect our whole meditative development?  

When we call a friend in trouble, did we say the right thing?  Did it help?  When we intervene in a wayward teen’s misadventures, did we help?  Did they understand the lesson in the consequences?  

I spent a few years studying and practicing chaplaincy in the Buddhist tradition as an intern in two New York City hospitals.  Our teachers and mentors always told us that we wouldn’t always get to know the affect of our visits on a patients and their families.  Sometimes it seemed obvious.  Our presence and prayers and conversation might calm the patient and family, might help collect energies scattered by fear of a surgery into a unified sense of gratitude at the patient's survival.  But other times our actions might reveal more about the condition of the patient than the family understood and we might leave a room in greater turmoil than we found it.  But maybe that was a needed transition. We wouldn’t get to know that.

In a wider view, if we get tangled up in making sure the results are in conformance with our desires, we won't let the process unfold. 

The wise action is to do the best we can, continue to do it, and let go of the results.  The one thing we can be sure of is that our actions have an impact, have consequences - however small.  So rechecking our motivation, and practicing patience and resolve and above all, kindness, we can endeavor to have the most positive impact possible.  

Can you see the application of this idea to our practice?  Sharon Salzberg once said that practicing metta was like filling a 50 gallon barrel with a teaspoon.  If we keep checking the level of liquid in the barrel after every teaspoon, we will frustrate ourselves and waste a lot of time.  And we won’t see a difference from teaspoon to teaspoon.  But over time, there will be indications that our efforts are contributing to change in ourselves and how we live our lives.  

One thing we learned from our exploration of the Seven Factors of Awakening is that each factor is a necessary condition for the next factor to arise.  When mindfulness is present, investigation naturally follows - or even arises at the same time.  Energy follows naturally as our curiosity reveals our experience more deeply.  Joy arises followed by tranquillity, concentration and equanimity.  

So just by sitting on the cushion every day or walking mindfully or listening to dharma talks, even telling friends about a talk we heard, all of these aspects of practice and study and sharing reinforce our own progress on the path of freedom from suffering.  And this happens whether we will it to - as in will power - or not.  This is the natural unfolding of the dharma, of practice.  If we do the practice, the practice unfolds and reveals itself to us.

And sometimes that practice is hard.  The path may become obscure.  We feel our efforts are not accomplishing anything, not working.  Then we need to remember the first two lessons of practice.  

First you begin.  And then you continue.

I’m including a poem by one of the early female practitioners of the Buddha’s path.  The women monastics, as Ginger Rogers said about dancing with Fred Astaire, had to do everything the male monastics did but backwards and in high heels.  They were not expected to progress along the path because they were women nor were they allowed to join the Buddha’s community.  And even when they finally were allowed to leave household life and follow the Buddha, they ranked lower than the newest and youngest male monastic.  Yet the fact that their poems survived and were translated and published a few years ago is testament to their resolve to practice regardless of the impediments and setbacks.   

Seven Factors Poem

I was forever getting lost
until one day the Buddha told me:
To walk this path, you will need seven friends - Mindfulness, curiosity, courage, joy, calmness,
stillness and perspective.

For many year, these friends and I have traveled together.

Sometimes wandering in circles.
Sometimes taking the long way around.

There were days when I thought I couldn’t go on.
There were days when I thought I was finally beaten.

It’s scary to give all of yourself to just one thing.
What if you don’t make it?

Oh, my heart.
You don’t have to go it alone.

Train yourself To train
Just
A little

More gently.

from The First Free Women: Poems of the Early Buddhist Nuns

Perhaps we can see that this persistent resolve and letting go of results might be exactly what Edmund Burke was pointing to in his quotation, “Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.”  And we can see why this is valuable advice that our senator sought for himself as he went into battle day after day with the forces of destruction.

Suffering, joy, and letting go...

It’s a grey day here in Rhode Island and the news is even worse than last week.  There are bright spots all around and resistance is rising.  But the level of fear and anxiety is rising in direct proportion to the suffering inflicted.

So it is perhaps fortuitous that we have been spending some time with the seven factors of enlightenment and we are about to launch into the final item in the fourth foundation of mindfulness, the Four Noble Truths and the Noble 8-Fold Path.  

Just a quick review, the first foundation is mindfulness of the body, the second is mindfulness of feeling tone of positive, negative, or neutral, the third is mindfulness of mind, and the fourth is mindfulness of dharmas or the way things are.  You may remember within mindfulness of dharmas, we touched on the 5 hindrances, the six sense spheres, the 5 aggregates of clinging, and most recently, the seven factors of enlightenment.  The final item in the mindfulness of dharmas may be familiar as we have spent some time with it in the past.  It is the most important teaching in all of Buddhism and no matter what tradition you hail from, the teaching of the Four Noble Truths and the Noble 8-Fold Path is front and center as the seminal teaching.  (Remember, before the time of paper and pens, the Buddha made lists to help the monks remember and recite the teachings.)  

What these two teachings show us is that our own happiness is closer at hand than we might imagine.  And it is within our grasp regardless of conditions around us.  When we turn to the seven factors of awakening, we establish mindfulness by bringing awareness to our breath.  That leads us to notice that our mind may be steady or it may be squirrely and we can turn naturally to investigating what is going on.   What is the quality of the mind when it is steady?  When it is squirrely?  Are these forces strong or weak?  Can we bring our minds back to our breath or are the forces of agitation overpowering?  We investigate our minds.  This arouses energy to continue our investigation.  And our mindfulness deepens.  And the very establishment of mindfulness, of being mindful of the present moment, arouses joy.  And if our minds continue in this direction and are not distracted, tranquillity will arise, concentration will follow, and equanimity will become manifest.  

The seven factors of awakening are a useful tool for working with our meditation.  If the mind is a little dull, we use the arousing factors of mindfulness, investigation and energy which lead to joy.  If the mind is agitated or too active, we bring mindfulness to help establish tranquility and concentration which lead to equanimity.  Always it starts with mindfulness.  

The Four Noble Truths can be a key part of our investigation.  The first noble truth is the truth of dukkha - suffering or stress.  The Buddha referred to big dukkha and little dukkha.  Big dukkha is sickness, pain, extreme weather, fire, war, natural disasters.  Little dukkha is not getting what we want, irritation, stress.  

The Second Noble Truth says there are causes for stress, suffering.  Attachment, grasping, clinging is at the root of all our suffering - wanting things to be other than what they are.

The Third Noble Truth assures us there is an end to suffering, there is a way out of our pain.

The Fourth Noble Truth shows us the path to freedom of suffering which is the Noble 8-Fold Path of wise view, wise intention, wise speech, wise action, wise livelihood, wise effort, wise mindfulness, and wise concentration.

We will delve into this in more depth in the coming weeks.  For now, however, it may be useful just to stay with the first Noble Truth - there is suffering.  This is so important because we put a great deal of effort into avoiding suffering.  Often the struggle against admitting suffering dances just outside our conscious awareness while we maintain our cheerful exterior at great cost to our internal alignment.  So, simply acknowledging when suffering exists, when events are not going the way we want, can be a relief.  This acceptance doesn’t catastrophize the future but simply accepts that this is what is, this uncomfortable feeling, this pain, this upset, this agitation is just the way it is right now, in this moment.  

Sometimes Buddhism gets a reputation for being all about suffering.  This is a misunderstanding.  Buddhism is about the freedom from suffering and the lasting happiness that is available to us.  But it starts with acknowledging when suffering exists.  Without that acknowledgment, we can get stuck.  A common catch phrase says, what we resist persists.  Sometimes just admitting and being with the suffering is enough to allow the clouds to lift and our natural joy and well being to surface.

If we want to look further, we may also investigate the causes of our suffering - the Second Noble Truth - and begin to see the tangle of attachments that keep us enslaved, the constant wanting things to be different - wanting bad things to go away and good things to stay.  

We don’t have that kind of control over this thing called life.  We can see that central delusion - that we can make good things stay and keep bad things away - being enacted and played out in every level of society from the personal to the national to the world-wide stage.  Everyone struggling to make things the way they want and avoid having things any other way.

Seeing that dynamic clearly, into the very depths of every situation of suffering, is cause for compassion to arise, a vast compassion for ourselves and our fellow human beings who are endlessly caught in this struggle to control something none of us can control.

Until we learn to let go…to accept…to allow….  Then we can move into a space of alignment and take action with wisdom.  We make the best effort we can without attachment to the outcome.  And by letting go of outcomes, we allow for the release of suffering in ourselves and in those around us.   

Seclusion: Going to the forest, to the root of a tree, to an empty hut...

The tide of injustice and heartbreak has begun to cover Rhode Island’s shores - as elsewhere - with the recent detainments, uncivil treatment, and deportations of citizens with visas and green cards.  Detailing the injustices is outside the remit of these pages as are the many actions that are being and can be taken.  But the heartbreak is not.

Our mindfulness and meditation practices are critical to our taking care of ourselves and others.  They are the oxygen mask we put on ourselves before we attempt to help the child sitting next to us.  

But sometimes the tide of heartbreak threatens to overwhelm us.  This pain we don’t like, we don’t want, and sometimes we resist even knowing about.  It is not uncommon to distract ourselves from the hurt, the frustration, the anger, the sense of helplessness.  We may find we are listening to and experiencing more and more agitated messages and rhythms in our daily lives, in the news media, in our friend circles, in our own hearts and minds.  The agitation scatters our attention.  It is an assault on our attention and leaves us scattered and deeply distracted.  Sitting can become more difficult.  Finding calm in the roiling storms can feel impossible.  Even our weather systems are having their own paroxysms as tornadoes torethrough the midwest and south this weekend.

Agitation, we have been learning, is one of the five hindrances that interfere with meditation and mindfulness.  And some level of agitation is deeply seated in our psyches - feeding and being fed by the hyper-vigilance we think we need to survive.

It is often said in the Buddha’s teachings that a monk (community of meditators) goes into seclusion - often to the forest or the root of a tree.  In the first foundation of mindfulness, mindfulness of body, this teaching embodies that idea.  

“And how, monks, does a monk abide contemplating the body as a body?  Here a monk gone to the forest or the root of a tree or to an empty hut, sits down; having folded his legs crosswise, set his body erects, and established mindfulness in front of him, ever mindful he breathes in, mindful he breaths out…” Joseph Goldstein, Mindfulness p. 46

This seclusion is key to mindfulness and the calm tranquillity that we find so healing and it can take many different forms.  In the Buddha’s day, the meditator was advised to go to the forest, the root of a tree, an empty hut.  Physical seclusion was the first step.  Being apart from people and the busyness of urban life.  Especially important now is going into seclusion from the tv, our computers, our cell phones.  Our meditation practice is one key way we go into seclusion.  Often people find it’s easier to meditate at night or the early morning - when the world becomes quiet and our minds are refreshed by sleep or the knowledge that our day is over.

But we may find these days that events are ringing more loudly in our ears and our minds recycle the resultant agitation to a great degree.  How are we to find seclusion from our own wild thoughts?  

Shaila Catherine, in her book Beyond Distraction:  Five Practical Ways to Focus the Mind, has outlined five practices to working with our disturbed thoughts and wounded hearts.

First is to replace negative thoughts and messages with positive ones, the unwholesome with the wholesome.  Loving kindness and compassion practice is so important here.

Second is to examine the consequences of the disturbed thoughts and try to arouse a sense of the dangers to the mind such rumination can bring.  This is not to say we ignore, turn away from, push out of our minds and hearts the injustice to our fellow travelers.  But we need to take care of ourselves and the health of our own minds.  And we need to stay in the present moment and not become overwhelmed by past regrets and future worries.  We do need to find seclusion from such thoughts and events to stabilize our own minds in order to serve.  

The third strategy works is to withdraw the fuel - to avoid the triggers, ignore unwanted data, forget about unwholesome stimuli.  This is not meant to circumvent mindfulness but instructs us to assess whether the input in front of us is wholesome or unwholesome.  An example given is coming into a meeting where pastries are being served and selecting a chair right in front of the pastries or farther away.  We have some choice about where we place our awareness.  And we can focus more on the positive action we might take rather than the details of the negative news we have heard.

The fourth strategy is to investigate the causes of distraction.  This investigation often will take us straight to the pain or hurt that we wished to avoid in the first place.  For this investigation we need to bring our hearts to our hearts - bringing compassion and loving kindness gently to the place of pain.  This kindness toward ourselves transforms into coming home to ourselves, bathing our wounded hearts with compassion and caring.  This caring approach is a powerful way to free ourselves from the enslavement of suffering.  It enables us to soothe ourselves and others with compassion and to re-gather our energies toward effective action.

The fifth strategy is to apply determination and resolve.  This involves making a decision not to be picked apart by unsettling thoughts and itchy agitation, saying no to the distraction, the restlessness, the disturbance in that moment. Sometimes that resolve allows the agitation to fall away and a center of calm to grow.

We can explore for ourselves, in our own situations, what going into seclusion means for us.  What are the conditions that continue the distraction once it has begun?  What conditions soothe, quiet, comfort, and stabilize our attention so that we can drop into our own inner spring of wellness?  

These are increasingly disturbing and perilous times.  Our practice becomes even more important than ever and the work we have done so far will support us and help us navigate a path forward to restoring our fragmented attention and supporting our best selves.

The Seven Factors of Awakening - What it means to be on the path

A teaching assistant in a class I am taking describes the path of awakening in its most simplified form like this: 

1.  Abandon the hindrances
2.  Establish mindfulness
3.  Cultivate the awakening factors.

In his book Mindfulness, A Practical Guide to Awakening, Joseph Goldstein quotes the Buddha saying a similar thing.  The Buddha is referencing all the Buddhas that have come before which lends great weight to this passage:

“All those Arahant Buddhas of the past attained to supreme enlightenment by abandoning the five hindrances, defilements of the mind which weaken understanding, having firmly established the four foundations of mindfulness in their minds, and realized the seven factors of awakening as they really are.”

We have been introduced to the hindrances in these past months.  We have also gained some understanding of the four foundations of mindfulness - mindfulness of the body, of feelings, of the mind, and of the way things are, the dharmas.  The seven factors of enlightenment are found in mindfulness of the dharmas or the way things are as are the five hindrances.  

The importance of the seven factors of enlightenment on the path toward freedom from suffering cannot be overstated.  Venerable Analayo in Satipatthana*: The Direct Path of Realization (p.233) says this:  "Just as a river inclines and flows toward the ocean, so the awakening factors incline toward Nibbana.”  Nibbana translates to awakening or enlightenment or realization.
*Four Foundations of Mindfulness

A river inclining and flowing toward the ocean is drawn by gravity.  There is an inevitability about this progress of the water within the river banks.  This inevitability is also indicated in the seven factors of enlightenment.  Cultivating each factor in turn creates the conditions for the arising of the next factor which creates the conditions of the next factor and so on.  These factors are called forward leaning because their cultivation inclines the mind towards enlightenment.  

This forward leaning or gravitation pull gives another flavor to the phrase of being “on the path.”  Our practice, our contemplations, our investigations, our study, our conversations with teachers and each other incline our minds towards realization, towards freedom just as the river inclines and flows towards the ocean.

What are these seven factors?  They are first and foremost mindfulness, then investigation arises, then energy, joy, tranquility, contemplation, and equanimity.  These seven factors sound very appealing and they are.  Part of the dynamic that occurs here is that the experiences of these seven factors incline towards joy and happiness, contentment and tranquility.  Equanimity is the ultimate peaceful state.  These are considered unworldly pleasures and serve to attract the mind - perhaps even compensate the mind initially - for abandoning the more worldly pleasures of the senses.  Cultivation of mindfulness by itself sets up conditions for the arising of all the other factors culminating in equanimity.

How do we cultivate these seven factors of enlightenment?  

Venerable Analayo (p.234) explains the process of this cultivation as indicated in the Buddha’s teachings as follows:

"Contemplation of the awakening factors proceeds similarly to the contemplation of the hindrances:  first, awareness turns to the presence or absence of the mental quality in question, and then to the conditions for its presence or absence.  However, while in the case of contemplating the hindrances, awareness is concerned with conditions for their future non-arising, with the awakening factors the task is to know how to develop and firmly establish these beneficial mental qualities.”

The first task is to become aware of the presence or absence of each awakening factor.  Is mindfulness present?  Investigation?  Energy?  Joy?  Tranquillity?  Concentration?  Equanimity?  The second stage is to become aware of the conditions that are necessary for its presence or that prevented its arising.  In the case of conditions necessary for each arising, the previous factor needs to be present for the next factor to arise.  These will not necessarily arise in our awareness in a neat progressive order.  If we are aware of investigation, for instance, energy is usually present.  Joy may be subtle and, if not looked for, then overlooked.  But tranquillity may be more easily noticed.  

On the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies website, Venerable Analayo offers guided meditation what interweaves his guidance of the Satipatthana Sutta - the Four Foundations of Mindfulness - with the seven awakening factors to help us investigate the presence or absence of these factors in our own experience.  

From Mindfulness to freedom...

This week a friend wrote me wanting to know more about mindfulness.   And last week I left you all hanging with the six sense spheres - the five senses plus the mind - and the teaching, “In the seeing is just the seen.  In the hearing, it just the heard.”  So I thought it would be fun to connect the two.

So first what is mindfulness?  A great question for those newer to meditation and a good review for more experienced folks.  This is the definition of mindfulness according to Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder, developer, and scientific observer of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).  

Mindfulness is paying attention in an intentional way 
to your present moment experience 
without judgement.  

There are a number of different elements to note here:  First is paying attention in a certain way, with intention.  What is the object of our paying attention?  Our own experience in this present moment.  Not in the future although your imaginings of the future as imaginings of the future are fair game.  Not in the past although your memories as memories (as I am having a memory) are also fair game.  And all this is without judgment - without pushing away a thought because we don’t like it or we think it’s a wrong thought, or trying to bring up a pleasant or worthy or “mindful” thought.  Accepting what ever experience is arising in this moment and looking more closely at it.

Some meditation teachers say you don’t need to add the “without judgement” piece - because mindfulness by definition is without judgement.  But we in the West can pay attention with judgement as is our habit pattern and not even be aware that judgement is present.  So it’s a good practice to check. 

Thich Nhat Hanh says mindfulness is shining a light on our own experience.  In the “Introduction" to his book The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation, he writes:  

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”

So let’s take an example of how we can practice mindfulness of our own experience.  I have a bird feeder hanging from my deck.  If I hear an unusual bird call, I often stop to see if I can see and identify the bird.  So hearing happened.  Then arose the desire to see and identify the bird.  First I was aware of hearing, then the mind added curiosity and the desire to see.    

If I’m sitting in meditation and hear the bird call, I hear the sound.  Then I identify the sound as belonging to a bird. Then I might notice that I like the sound and want to hear it again.  Now I’m desirous of hearing the sound, leaning forward in my mind to will the bird to sing again.  And now I’m aware of a slight dissatisfaction that the bird is not singing and also that I’m caught in wanting the bird to sing.  

So mindfulness allows me to hold the sound of the bird, the images of bird that arose, the question of what kind of bird, the desire to hear more bird, the awareness that I am caught in desire to hear more bird, and then perhaps the letting go of the wanting and feeling the difference between wanting what I can’t control and letting go.  So mindfulness took me from the sense sphere of hearing into the perceiving capacity of the mind, into thoughts and images in the mind, into feeling the pleasure in the bird call and seeing the pleasure turn to desire/wanting/craving and slight suffering.  And then the waking up to the mind caught in desire and letting go, feeling into the freedom of just being mindful without wanting.

As we have been studying the Four Foundation of Mindfulness, let’s look at the experience of hearing the bird call through those foundations.  The first foundation of mindfulness is mindfulness of the body - hearing the bird with the ears.  The second foundation is feeling - the pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral feeling that arose as soon as I heard the bird sound - in this case, pleasant.  The third foundation is mindfulness of the mind and seeing how the mind wanted to identify the bird, then wanted to hear more bird, then ruminated about why the bird was suddenly silent.  The fourth foundation of mindfulness is mindfulness of the way things are.  I might bring mindfulness to the impermanence of a bird call, it arises and passes away.  Then I notice I have no control over when the bird sings or even whether I hear it or not.  Hearing happens, singing happens.  No “I” in there making it happen.  Then I notice that because it is impermanent and because it is not under my control, there is suffering.  Pleasant things go away too soon and “I” can’t make them stay or come back to my liking.  

The three marks of existence of insight meditation are an overarching truth.  Every experience is “marked” by impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and non-self.  And mindfulness took me all the way there.

So we come back to the teaching:  “In the seeing is just the seen.  In the hearing is just the heard.  In the sensing is just the sensed.  In the cognizing is just the cognized.”  How does this profound teaching relate to mindfulness?  

The Six Sense Spheres, part of the Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness, "the way things are", are a model for how we experience the world.  Every experience we have comes in through one of the sense spheres - the five senses plus the mind.

So can we imagine sitting in meditation and hearing a bird sound and allowing that experience to be on its own, without embellishing it, thinking about it,  trying to control it?  We may also be aware of the pleasant feeling tone that arises with the bird sound.  Can we just say, hearing, hearing.  And maybe pleasant pleasant…

This requires us to become more aware of the pleasant before it turns to wanting or craving, and to be aware of the flood of thoughts on the brink of washing over us before they get a good foothold.  With practice, we can spend some time in our meditation practice simply allowing the hearing - just the hearing - without encouraging the craving and thinking.  In Buddhism it is sometimes referred to as “not taking up the sign.”  We can practice not taking up the signs of the bird call sound (it’s identity, our perception, our thoughts, etc.) or if some of them arise before we become aware of them, we can also practice abandoning the “signs” of the bird call.  In the hearing is just the heard.  

And the second part of that teaching which was to a seeker named Bahiya who traveled many miles to learn the path to freedom from the Buddha, is as follows:

“And since for you, Bāhiya, in what is seen there will be only what is seen, in what is heard there will be only what is heard, in what is sensed there will be only what is sensed, in what is cognized there will be only what is cognized, therefore, Bāhiya, you will not be with that; and since, Bāhiya, you will not be with that, therefore, Bāhiya, you will not be in that; and since, Bāhiya, you will not be in that, therefore, Bāhiya, you will not be here or hereafter or in between the two—just this is the end of suffering.”

This last part is deep and a little opaque depending on the translation.  But basically the teaching is about our tendency to make everything into a subject-object relationship, “I" am seeing that “bird."  I am the subject.  Bird is the object. "In the seeing is just the seen” cuts through this mind-made subject-object relationship and cuts through our illusion of a solid sense of “I” seeing and appropriating “bird.”  There is just bird being seen.  No one is “doing” the seeing.  When our eyes alight on bird, seeing happens.  When our ears are stimulated by a bird sound, hearing happens.

It is often said that the Buddha was practicing mindfulness of breathing when he was enlightened.  You can get a glimpse here of the journey that mindfulness can take us from our illusions, our suffering, our sense of I, our sense of objects being permanent, to clear vision and seeing things as they are, to freedom from suffering.

The News and the Six Sense Spheres..

Perhaps after all that is occurring in the news it seems a little irrelevant to talk about the Four Foundations of Mindfulness.  But that is exactly what I want to do because the Buddha was about suffering and the end of suffering.  So these teachings are relevant to how we experience our world right now, in every moment and are the tools which help us discern wise action from reactivity and actions which contribute to our suffering.  The news and those behind the news are quite skilled at triggering all our worst fears.  So our job as meditators is to look deeply at the roots of our own triggering, to free ourselves from hooks and triggers as much as possible so that we can view the events of our world with calm and balance and take actions that have the greatest chance of leading to the end of suffering for ourselves and others.

It may be helpful to know and be reminded that the Buddha was a scientist, a participant observer, as the sociologists would say.  He was looking carefully at his own experience to discern what led to suffering and what led to freedom from suffering.  When he didn’t get it right, he would get up and go find another master and learn from him until he realized he just had to sit down under a Bodhi tree and observe his own mind until he truly understood.  

So this Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness gives us these tools:   1) The five hindrances help us discern how our meditation is going and take corrective steps where we can.   2) The five aggregates is a model by which we can see how we cling through the body, through feelings, through perception (big hook for suffering here), through habit patterns and volitional formations, and through consciousness - how our mind fastens on one thing and another.  3) The six sense spheres is another model for how we experience our world which I’ll describe in a minute. 4) The seven factors of enlightenment outline an internal unfolding toward freedom.  5) And the Four Noble Truths with the Noble Eightfold Path shows the truth of suffering and freedom from suffering and the ancient human path to such freedom.  Just a note - the Buddha was a great list-maker because it helped people remember in the time before writing.

So we come to the six sense spheres.  The six sense spheres are the five sense organs we are familiar with - the eye, the ear, the body, the tongue, the nose, and the mind plus the function of those organs - sight, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting, plus cognizing.  Everything we know and experience in the world comes to us through one of these six sense spheres - sometimes known as doors.  The Buddha taught this model to help us analyze how clinging arises and also how we create a sense of self.  

But first of all, the six sense spheres are how we know what we know.  It’s a sunny day.  What told us that?  The sight of brightness, blue sky, the unobscured sun, shadows of trees creating a pattern of dark and light.  Does sound tell us it’s a sunny day?  Perhaps a newscaster or a neighbor commenting on the beautiful weather. The sensation of warm sun on our arms might tell us the sun is shining and it’s almost hot.  

The Buddha broke these elements down even farther.  Sight is a combination of the eye organ, the external sight or contact, and the ability of the eye and mind to process the information into seeing - eye consciousness.  The same with the ear, the external sound, and ear consciousness.  And so on with the body, touch, and touch consciousness, the tongue… and the nose….  The mind is also made up of mind/brain, the arisings in the mind of thoughts and emotions, and mind consciousness - the ability of the mind to process internal arisings like thoughts as well as external arisings such as sights and sounds.

This briefly outlines the six sense spheres.  The usefulness of this model lies in beginning to look at what we bring to sight, hearing, touching, etc.  For instance, we look out on our backyard and we bring the concept of backyard versus front yard versus green space versus meadow.  We bring the idea that this is mine.  I own this backyard.  I identify with it, I will protect it from others, it says something about me and who I am.  So in just looking at the backyard there arises clinging, attachment, and the sense of self, the “I” who owns this, who has appropriated land that birds and insects use without our permission as “me” and “mine.”  To take the teaching even further, it describes our duality with this area of grass - it is over there and I am over here - a subject and an object.  

One of the great teachings of the Buddha is encapsulated in the phrase, “in the seeing is just the seen.”  Is it possible to look without adding the concepts, the labels, the ownership, the attachment, the sense of self, and the separation into subject and object?  It is a liberating practice and can help us begin to see the entanglements of our minds with which we see everything - our homes, yards, neighborhoods, families, friends.  

What we see in the news is a mass of such entanglements, of attachments and aversions, of appropriations, of the sense of self which overtakes all the space that others hold for themselves.  Lives can be destroyed by this ignorance and ill will.

Can this simple teaching - “in the seeing is just the seen” - help free us from our own entanglements and allow us to move through this morass with more calm, balance, and equanimity without losing the resolve to help free ourselves and others from suffering?

Anger: its roots and its consequences

I’ve been thinking about anger this morning.  Recently, I got into a snit about something which led to my saying something rather intemperate to someone I care about.  And to venting to others about it.  And all the while, I had this split screen experience - seeing the irritation and righteous indignation on the one hand, and on the other saying, what’s the big deal?  People are being inconvenienced, not harmed.  And further, looking at how my mindfulness was not strong enough to slow down the runaway horses of irritation.  

And I wondered if others might be finding surprising upsurges of anger or irritation in their lives. While I don’t think anger as such is anything new, I’m wondering if the toxic atmosphere of our political world might be seeping into our psyches on different, more everyday levels.  

So I want to share a few thoughts about anger from the point of view of our own internal health and our practice.  

The Dalai Lama recounts a conversation with one of his monks who had been caught in Tibet when the Chinese invaded.  This monk spent some time in captivity enduring privation and torture at the hands of his captors.  When he finally gained his freedom, he made his way to the Dalai Lama.  In that conversation, the Dalai Lama asked how he was.  The monk replied, “I was in very grave danger.”  The Dalai Lama nodding thinking he understood.  But the monk went on to say, “At times I was in danger of hating my captors."  The Dalai Lama bowed to the monk’s practice saying it was even deeper than his own. 

Anger as we understand it often arises as a reaction to being hurt, as a protection, or a shield for future feared hurt.  As empathic human beings, when we see others being hurt, we might feel that pain ourselves and anger rises up.

The problem is that anger destroys wisdom.  It is a reactive emotion of a being hurt in battle.  And sometimes the wound from an earlier time is triggered by a current provocation that leads to reactive anger.

In the Buddha’s teachings, anger is a defilement that must be overcome on the path to liberation from suffering.  This is not to say that people should be passive in the face of wrong doing, injustice, harm.  As I’ve said before, these teachings on anger are not to render us passive.  

Instead we need to investigate anger, look more deeply at its roots, and consider its consequences for harm to ourselves and to others.  One of the first major actions we can take is to offer compassion to ourselves and others and spend time coming into the presence of our own interior wounding that offered up such a trigger for the anger to arise.  Spending time nurturing and healing our internal pain and hurt is one of the most valuable missions we can undertake.  This healing and familiarization can help guard us against the reactivity of anger which seeks solutions outside of ourselves.  

Rodney Smith, meditation teacher in Seattle, said on a retreat I was on, “We are hermetically sealed in our reactions.”  I initially rejected this notion.  But what he meant was we need to look inside to find the “cause” of our reactions to outside provocation.  Our reactions are always our responsibility. The outside trigger touched an internal trigger/wound that wasn’t healed.  So the outside provocation is not the cause of our upset.  Our own reactivity is where we need to look when we are aroused to anger.

Thich Nhat Hanh puts it another way, “If you know what the real roots of your anger are, you can also transform your anger. At first you think that your anger has been caused by the one outside… that something he said or did caused your anger. You don’t know that the main cause of your anger is the seed of anger in you. […] ...The first thing we can do is accept that the main cause of our anger is the seed of it inside us. Then we must realise that if we don’t deal with our anger, it will spill over and hurt others.”  I recommend the full article on anger on the PlumVillage website.  https://plumvillage.app/thich-nhat-hanh-on-the-roots-of-anger/

While we need to be able to act upon our world to reject injustice and defend the innocent, this is better motivated by in the bedrock of fierce compassion, fierce resolve rather than the white-hot lashing out of reactivity, of anger.

Ajahn Chah, well known and beloved Buddhist master in the Thai forest tradition (now deceased), said there are two kinds of suffering.  The suffering that leads to confusion and the suffering that leads to freedom.  The suffering that leads to freedom is suffering that encounters the dharma.  In that meeting of suffering and the teachings, faith arises - a sense that there is a way out.  To start with, this is a tentative believing kind of faith that becomes stronger with exposure to practice and the teachings.  As we see the benefits of practice for ourselves, faith can become the pillar of our practice guarding our minds against ignorance and the defilements of craving, anger/hatred, and ignorance.  

And faith is a necessary condition for joy to arise.  This joy can strengthen and lead us on the path to untangling and freedom.

But another element that strengthens this connection to joy is the presence of virtue.  This very humble virtue is based on our endeavors to be a good person, to do good deeds, to refrain from harming ourselves and others.  This refraining also includes working with the negative consequences of anger when it arises.  Anger causes us suffering because it separates us from the uplifting states of joy and peace and equanimity.

And because anger destroys wisdom, it weakens or breaks our defenses against it.  The Buddha called anger the poison arrow with the honeyed tip.  The honeyed tip is how good righteous indignation feels in the moment, that "I’m right, you’re wrong" moment.  But the poison of ill will invades us at the same time.  

Thich Nhat Hanh recommends caring for our anger like a mother would a child.  

“Everyone knows that anger is not good for us and for other people. Everyone knows that. But the fact is that they cannot help it. They are overwhelmed by the energy of violence, of anger; that is why everyone should learn the art of embracing anger and transforming it.

“The first step is to learn how to breathe mindfully, to smile to your own anger, and to embrace your anger tenderly like a mother embracing her baby. […]

“We know that when anger manifests in us, we should not do anything, we should not say anything. Because doing or saying something out of anger will bring about negative things that will make us regret later.”

So the best thing to do when anger arises is to take care of it by:

– Practicing mindful breathing and mindful walking

– Not yet talking to or approaching the person we think is the cause of our anger.” * 

So the teachings are to be on guard about anger and irritation, to look deeply into the consequences of anger to understand at a foundational level the harmful consequences to self and others and to care for ourselves and our anger whenever it arises.  At the same time, we also need to dedicate much of our practice to strengthen loving kindness and compassion towards ourselves and others so that these become more readily available responses to provocation than irrational anger.

I wonder how you experience this dynamic in your own lives.

infinite possibility arising out of vast compassionate emptiness...

It’s been a difficult week for many of us. Part of my journey was through some cold/flu/whatever which took my voice. One of the silver linings of having no voice (there are a few) is that it has given me pause to think about not having a voice, not being heard, and not even having an instrument through which we can be heard.  

Much of the suffering around the world is accompanied and exacerbated by the feeling that no one knows and there is no way to communicate. No voice. No megaphone.  And maybe no ears open.

These past few weeks many of us across the country have been experiencing having no voice and then finding voice and then despairing because it seems we have no voice on a larger and larger scale.  When we finally communicate with our elected representatives, we find that they can give voice all night long and then it is as if they had no voice.  Our voices are joined in ever larger groups and venues.  And our voices are reaching the courts.  And the courts are speaking. We are hearing the courts.  And we feel cheered.  Yet funds frozen illegally and ordered by the courts to be unfrozen remain frozen.  Private information taken from the Treasury and ordered by the courts to be destroyed remains out of sight and unaccounted for.  

When our voices give out, we as meditators know to turn inward, to listen to our own voices, our own pain and frustration, our own anger.  And we begin again - at the beginning, breath by breath, getting back in touch with what’s true now, in this moment.  Not getting lost in the imaginings of a future where we have no voice.  And we get in touch with our own loving kindness and compassion for ourselves and others.  We realize in that settling back that we tap into a vast silence where voice and being heard are held with compassion, where healing and restoration and wisdom reside.  

But where most of all a vast compassionate emptiness opens to infinite possibility.

And here’s my own take, our sense of democracy is deeply engrained and it is aligned with our values, our morality, our sense of equality, freedom, and justice for all, with our basic sense of respect for the rights and dignity of all beings.  And because it is so deeply engrained in so many people, it will rise up and manifest in ways we can’t begin to imagine.  That’s my belief and my hope.

As we stay connected to our own sense of compassionate emptiness, we will find ourselves able to care for ourselves and more prepared to move into wise action when the possibilities arise.  Moving back and forth, pendulating, between restoration and wise action, we will find the middle way.

What to do...or more importantly, how to do it...

I got up this morning and uncharacteristically did not meditate right away.  The news over the weekend was too distressing.  So I went to my computer and my phone and both called and emailed all my elected representatives with a long laundry list of concerns (concerns is a mild word in this context).
Then I meditated.  Then I wrote them all again.  Then I sat down to write this and re-read the first paragraph of last week’s email copied here.

One of the major goals of all the Buddha’s teachings is seeing with clear knowledge and vision the way things are.  This is the path to the end of suffering.  The implication here is that it is our own inattention, obscurations, prejudices and faulty reasoning, emotional entanglements, fears and desires, mistaken beliefs that interfere with our seeing clearly.  This lack of seeing clearly prolongs our suffering. When we see clearly and deeply, we let go of old habits of mind and heart that don’t work for us.  We gain freedom.

And I wondered, not for the first time, how that applies in this situation we/I find ourselves/myself in.  It was clear suffering was present.  It was clear that attachment to the way things were was also present.  Aversion to the huge changes and destruction taking place was very present.  And yes, it was also clear to me that some form of ignorance on my part was also present.  After all, it was clear I was not happy with the way things were.  I, my ignorant belief in the non-existent I, was not happy.

The clear knowledge and vision of the way things are is a very specific reference in Buddhism as is the word “ignorance.” 

Here I quote Bhikku Bodhi from the book I quoted from last week (Transcendental Dependent Arising):

"Wisdom is “the one thing needed’ to cut off the defilements (of greed, hatred, and delusion/ignorance) because the most fundamental of all the mental depravities is ignorance.  Ignorance is the kingpost upon which all the other defilements converge and the linchpin which holds them all in place.  While it remains the others remain, and for the others to be destroyed it must be destroyed.  …ignorance signifieds not so much the lack of specific pieces of information as a basic non-comprehension regarding the true nature of things as expressed in the four (noble) truths.  Since the eradication of the defilements depends upon the eradication of ignorance, the one factor capable of abolishing the defilements is the factor capable of abolishing their fundamental root, and that is the direct antithesis of ignorance - wisdom or “the knowledge and vision of things as they really are.”

What Bhikku Bodhi is saying is that the key to "knowledge and vision the way things are” is understanding the four noble truths - there is suffering, there are causes for suffering, there can be an end of suffering, and end of suffering is the noble 8 fold path of wise view, intention, thought, speech, action, livelihood, mindfulness, and contemplation.

Ok, sounds like the whole of the Buddha’s path.  Actually yes.  

Matthew Brensilver, meditation teacher at Spirit Rock writes:  "The Eightfold Path is broken down into three baskets. There's ethical conduct (sīla): wise speech, wise action, wise livelihood. And then there's samādhi, or mind training: wise effort, wise concentration, wise mindfulness. And then the wisdom basket, pañña in Pāli, of wise intention and wise view.

"Ajahn Chah (Thai meditation master) said that sīla-samādhi-pañña, ethical conduct, mind training, and wisdom, are not three separate activities, they are part of the same fruit. They are the mango pit, flesh, and skin. And that mango may be in a different state of ripeness or unripeness, may be big or small. But these three cultivations are one and the same: inextricably bound.” 

The good news is that what’s needed is an understanding of the causes of ignorance.  The ignorance and other defilements fall away with this wise comprehension.  We don’t have to work at it once we understand it.  Well, yes we do but not the way we think.  There is no striving involved.  
What is required is the first question in the midst of suffering - there must be a better way.  What is the way out?  Piling on more food, alcohol, social media, tv, video games, angry rants, etc., won’t cut it.  Those are the path to more suffering.  

So the first inkling of light in the ignorance of suffering is the faith that there is a better way.  This is not proven faith but called “bright faith” when we hear the Buddha’s teachings or someone tells us about MBSR and we believe this might be a way out of our suffering.

The next element is the willingness to try something different, to renounce the habits of food, alcohol, social media…etc even for a moment.  This momentary renunciation is a tiny ray of light produced by virtue, ethical conduct - sīla.  With virtue comes the relief of lack of remorse.  

That relief that comes with a brief pause into renunciation, lack of remorse, allows gladness to arise.  And that faint wisp of gladness allows mindfulness to surface, allows curiosity, our investigative abilities, our energy to get to work looking more deeply at our circumstances, our motivations, our actions.  And perhaps allows us just to stop, to forgo trying to “figure it out” and return to our breath.  Therein lies our freedom.

And yet, what of action?  Engagement?  Working for the collective good?  The best purest motivation for our actions is compassion and caring for ourselves, our family, friends, community, our world.

Once when I was on retreat in the middle of a family crisis, I went to my meditation teacher and told her of the suffering and distraction I was experiencing about the family circumstance.  She started her advice, “When there is nothing more you can do…”  I broke in with “But there is something more I can do.”  Her response was immediate and piercing.  “When there is something more you can do, do it.”

I keep that in mind as a flame for wise action.  The path does not ask passivity of us even though the hours of meditation sometimes require quelling habits of restlessness and agitation.  

For our own sanity, we need to find a balance and build up our resilience to the wrong energy of reactivity.  So we need to find time to check in with our selves, find seclusion for our minds and hearts to rest and heal, to nurture our spirits.  And we need to learn to rely on our wisdom and compassion to guide our actions.  And if we find there is something more we can do, we do it.

This is not easy.  But it’s all we’ve got.

What are the Five Aggregates and what do they have to do with anything??

One of the major goals of all the Buddha’s teachings is seeing with clear knowledge and vision the way things are.  This is the path to the end of suffering.  The implication here is that it is our own inattention, obscurations, prejudices and faulty reasoning, emotional entanglements, fears and desires, mistaken beliefs that interfere with our seeing clearly.  This lack of seeing clearly prolongs our suffering. When we see clearly and deeply, we let go of old habits of mind and heart that don’t work for us.  We gain freedom.

The fourth foundation of mindfulness is the road map toward that seeing clearly and that freedom.  In this teaching, the Buddha talks about 5 categories of practice - the 5 hindrances, the 5 aggregates of clinging, the 6 sense doors (5 senses plus consciousness), the 7 factors of awakening, and the 4 Noble Truths.  We have spent some time on the hindrances.  We have even touched on the 7 factors of awakening, and we have explored the Four Noble Truths.  

But the 5 aggregates of clinging sound a bit more alien and off-putting.  So I have spent a few months looking at the 5 aggregates to become more familiar with their place in the teachings. 

The 5 aggregates of clinging are the Buddha’s model for the categories of experience we all have.  He used the word “aggregates” to indicate masses of stuff bundled together.  Our experience feels like one more or less seamless field of experiential phenomena and this seamless field supports our belief that we are a solid self experiencing all of this.  The Buddha’s model was a way for meditators to consider each aspect of our experience by contemplating each aggregate to begin to perceive their separateness.

Bhikku Bodhi explains in an article on the Upanisa Sutta, “The five aggregates - material form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness - are the basic categories structuring the Buddha’s analysis of experience.  Each experiential occasion, from the Buddha’s perspective, is a complex process involving a number of factors functioning in unison.  To normal, non-analytical consciousness, this unified complex appears as a uniform mass, a false appearance which, when accepted at face value,  leads to the assumption of a simple solid self as the permanent subject of cognition…  

“To dispel the illusion of independent selfhood, the experiential process must be submitted to searching scrutiny which rectifies the false perceptions contributing to its formation.  The first phase in this examination is the dissection of the cognitive fabric into the distant threads entering into its make-up.  These ’threads’ or components are the five aggregates.  The aggregate of material form covers the physical side of experience, comprising both external material objects and the body together with its sense faculties.   The other four aggregates constitute the mental side of experience.  Feeling is the affective quality of pleasure or pain, or the neutral tone of neither pleasure nor pain, present on any occasion of mental activity.  Perception is the selective faculty, which singles out the object's distinctive marks as a basis for recognition. The formations [sometimes known as volitional formations] aggregate is a comprehensive category incorporating all mental factors other than feeling and perception; its most conspicuous member is volition.  And consciousness is the faculty of cognition itself, which sustains and coordinates all the other factors in the task of apprehending the object.  These five aggregates function in complete autonomy, entirely through their reciprocal support without the need for a self-subsistent unifying principle to be identified as self or subject.”*

Through meditative contemplation, we can begin to see our physical experiences as belonging to the material aggregate, experiences with an affective tone as the aggregate of feeling, our noticing of an object’s distinctive signs (chirping as a bird call, facial recognition) as the workings of perception, our experience of will or volition as belonging to the mental formation aggregate, and of course our ability to cognize as our consciousness aggregate.  This investigation helps us begin to see how experience unfolds with each aspect of experience arising and passing away - without a little man behind a green curtain making it happen.  If our faculties are working properly, we can’t not see when we look around.  We can’t not hear when there is a noise nearby.  We may not notice, but the perception of sight and sound are present with or without our willing them to happen.

And the 5 aggregates are often referred to as the five aggregates of clinging because we can see with some analysis which aspect of experience is craving and clinging.  The body hurts and wants to shift position.  We like the bird sound and listen for more of it.  We don’t like remembering the fight we had with a colleague and move to distract ourselves.

This may sound familiar to those who took Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in the past.  As we negotiate an environment that may seem to present greater opportunities for suffering in store, it is helpful to have a practice like this to help ground us in the causes of our suffering.  Attachment and clinging - often to the way things were, even when we weren’t all that happy about the way things were.  Fear and aversion to what the future might bring which is based on our imaginings about the future.  We can begin to see through the illusory nature of both past and future and stay with our present moment experience as a refuge that will help us connect to our inner calm, strength, and resolve.

* Bhikku Bhodi, Transendental Dependent Arising: Translation & Exposition of the Upanisa Sutta, Buddhist Publication Society, 1980.

A turning point....

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  Yesterday the cease fire in the Gaza held and the first three hostages were released.  And today also is the Inauguration of, as Jon Kabat-Zinn says, who knows what, maybe the end of democracy, maybe something else unknown, surprisingly better or just different, unimaginable in our today’s thinking.  

So this is an extraordinary time.  We honor Martin Luther King, Jr.’s memory, courage, sense of justice, wisdom, urgent leadership.  We crumple in gratitude and compassion for those at the center of the cease fire and hostage release.  But how do we respond appropriately, wisely, heartfully, to this Inauguration?     

I listened yesterday to an on-line session called AWARENESS IN ACTION: Poly-Crisis, offered by Upaya Meditation Center during which Jon Kabat-Zinn talked with Roshi Joan Halifax and an audience of over 1200 people.  Poly-Crisis is a term the UN is developing to describe the increasing environmental crises we face.  Over 1200 participants is 40 screens on zoom and another couple hundred on YouTube - remarkable as these things go, testament to the strength of feeling out there at this time.  All these people, mostly meditators from all over, gathered together to listen to what the father of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) had to say about this moment in time and how we fit into it, what we can do, how we can be.  He has continued to be a radical leader in the world of mindfulness in relationship to ourselves and to the larger world, reinventing himself in the most natural and gently expansive way to support us and also to urge us to regard ourselves called to this moment to contribute something we are uniquely suited to contribute.  

Tonight we will listen to a bit of the introduction to this session and to the guided meditation he offered to the group.  I think you’ll find it inspiring and calming.  He also offered, in conversation with Roshi Joan Halifax, a wider perspective on the forces propelling this world in this direction at this time.  He cited the creation of a dynasty about 4000 years ago that was destroyed 3600 years ago.  It lasted 400 years - a long time but was, as are all things, impermanent. "Never forget the 10,000 year view,” he quoted. At least backwards, who knows how long the view forward will extend.  He also reassured us that, “On a million different levels, you are not alone.”  

It began with a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.:

 “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.  Power at best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” 

He ended with this well-known quote from Howard Zinn, his father in law:

“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”    ~~ Howard Zinn

In Buddhism, Kabat-Zinn reminded us, monks were often instructed to go meditate in the charnel grounds, surrounded by deceased bodies burning and decaying, to help them understand and come to know deeply the finite-ness of this life and the urgency of living it as wisely as possible.  Today, he said, Gaza and the Ukraine are our charnel grounds.  

As I scanned the zoom screens, I saw various people I recognized - one from the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care where I studied chaplaincy, one from a cohort of participants in a mindfulness meditation teacher training, many MBSR teachers and meditators I had met or practiced with.  So it resonated with painful beauty when he said we are called to belong to wider and wider circles of community  - whether our small Monday night gatherings with overlapping members of the different regional communities or different political action communities such as the progressive group Indivisible, or this gatherings for the Upaya series, or any other gathering inspired to help us remember and live for the best that is possible in ourselves and in our communities, country and world.  On a million levels, we are not alone.

Today and tomorrow are turning points.  And yet they are only a series of present moment experiences with each moment the mother of the moment to come, as Thich Nhat Hanh said.  And as Howard Zinn said, "The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

I found this a heartful way to consider and live in this point of time.

 I want to offer a poem by Stephen Levine.  Some of you may remember it from other times I’ve offered it.  Some of you may know it already.

If prayer would do it
I'd pray.
If reading esteemed thinkers would do it
I'd be halfway through the Patriarch.
If discourse would do it
I'd be sitting with His Holiness
every moment he was free.
If contemplation would do it
I'd have translated the Periodic Table
to hermit poems, converting
matter to spirit.
If even fighting would do it
I'd already be a black belt.
If anything other than love could do it
I've done it already
and left the hardest for last.
~~Stephen Levine 

The Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness and the Coming Together of the Inner and the Outer

Yesterday as I took down the Christmas tree and made some of the last of the holiday calls to old friends, I determined that I would get back on track and take us through the interesting but more complex Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness.

The first three foundations or establishments of mindfulness seem relatively straight forward compared to the fourth.  In the first, we investigate the body with mindfulness, including the breath, the posture, the activities, the anatomical parts, the elemental make-up and the body in death.  In the second, we explore the first flicker that accompanies any arising experience, the sense that this experience is positive, negative or neutral.  And we see how this first feeling tone leads to wanting and then grasping, not wanting and then pushing away, or neither one which leads to confusion and wandering.  In the third foundation, we take our courage in hand and dive into the experiences of mind - the emotions, moods, the experience of grasping or pushing away, the experiences of confusion, delusion, memory and fantasy, and we have learned how slippery this investigation of the mind can be

In the fourth foundation called mindfulness of dharmas, we are asked to bring mindfulness to the way things are.  We are also asked to use our prodigiously busy minds to “think” about the way things are.  So we are bringing awareness to the way things are and we are also bringing our capacity to think, evaluate, discern, and decide what to “do” about the way things are.

Just to give you an idea how complex this fourth foundation can be, I’ll give you a little overview that I got from reading Andy Olendzki on the subject.  Andy Olendzki founded or co-founded the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (BCBS).  He is a Buddhist scholar and has taught there for many years.  Relatively recently, he left and has been teaching in many different venues including several colleges.  I have taken a number of retreat/courses with him and, not only have I learned a lot about Buddhist psychology, I have also been impressed with his depth of knowledge and understanding.  For those of you who have been to BCBS, he built the stone structure called a stupa in the middle of the lawn which is featured on the BCBS home page.  It fell down once, and he rebuilt it.  Such is his dedication to the dharma.

The Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness is made up of mindfulness of the five hindrances, the five aggregates of clinging, the six sense doors, the seven factors of enlightenment, and the Four Noble Truths.  

Andy Olendzki writes the following:  https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/article/the-fourth-foundation-of-mindfulness/

"Now with the fourth foundation of mind­fulness, mindfulness of mental objects or of mental phenomena, we are sometimes told in meditation instuction to simply notice when a thought arises, be mindful of it, and allow it to pass away unobstructed. There is nothing wrong with this, of course, but actually the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta is directing through a much more precise exploration of the inner landscape of mental experience…. Almost as a guided meditation, the fourth foundation of mind­fulness investigates 108 mental objects, and in the process manages to guide the meditator through the whole curriculum of Buddhist psychology: five hindrances, five aggregates, six sense spheres, seven factors of awakening, and four noble truths.

"These are subjects familiar to all students of Buddhism. But in working with them as objects of meditation we are asked to look not just at their presense or absence in the mind, but also at how these factors are in motion. And in practice we are directed by the text to working with the arisen mental states in particular ways: when they are hin­drances we want to loosen our attachments and abandon them; when they are factors of awakening, which are beneficial for the growth of understanding, we are invited to learn how to cultivate, develop and strength­en them.

"This goes well beyond an agenda of passive observation of phenomena, and takes us into the realm of transformation.”

108 is a significant number in a great many realms.  For a deeper dive into the meaning of the number 108 see the article “What’s So Sacred About the number 108?” in the link below.  Olendzkie arrives at the 108 mental objects through the Buddha’s teaching in each category of the Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness. For each of the five hindrances, this instruction applies: 

1) When there is sense desire in him, a person is aware: ‘There is sense desire in me’; 
2)  or when there is no sense desire in him, he is aware: ‘There is no sense desire in me’;
3) and when the arising of unarisen sense desire occurs, he is aware of that;
4) and when the abandoning of arisen sense desire occurs, he is aware of that;
5) and when the future non-arising of abandoned sense desire occurs, he is aware of that.

For each of the Five Aggregates - form, feeling, perception, volition, and consciousness, there are three states to consider:  

1) Such is material form (or feeling or perception or volition or consciousness);
2) such is its origin;
3) such is its disappearance.

And for each of the other three categories, there are a prescribed number of mental “objects” or occurrences to be aware of for each, the total of all these adding up to 108.

This may seem confusing and off-putting.  I alternate by being inspired and discouraged with the precision of mindfulness of the way things are that the Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness asks of us.  But remember, this is the path to full awakening.  It also gives you an idea what those monks are doing when they sit in meditation for days, months, years… Their minds are discerning in finer and finer grain, the way the mind works with unarisen states, with arisen states, with disappearing states, with developing states.  They are learning to abandon all unwholesome states no matter how subtle.  They are learning to nurture all wholesome states.  And as their minds become more adept at awareness of these objects, their attachments weaken and begin to fall away.  They become increasingly free.

And we know some of this falling away of attachment and increasing freedom in our own minds and hearts - because the fruits of practice are not reserved for only the most experienced meditators.  These fruits have been felt by each and every one of us and will continue to be felt and discovered as we continue along the path.  

So the two most important instructions in meditation apply equally to the adepts and the novices:  

First you begin.  And then you continue.

https://www.himalayanyogainstitute.com/what-is-so-sacred-about-the-number-108/#:~:text=In%20Buddhism%2C%20it%20is%20also,usually%20made%20of%20108%20beads.

*  *  *  *  *

Recently, two people sent me Chris Hayes’s NY Times opinion piece, “I want your attention.  I need your attention.  Here is how I mastered my own."  https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/03/opinion/chris-hayes-msnbc-attention.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare  

For those of you who watch MSNBC or who have recently stopped watching the news and the news you stopped watching was MSNBC, Chris Hayes has a regular evening news hour.  And although I never questioned his intelligence and political acuity,  I would not have imagined this level of self-awareness in him.

This morning, I received an email and signed up for a program featuring Jon Kabat-Zinn.  The program is entitled, “Awareness in Action: The Radical Path of Engaged Practice.”   JKZ explores the question:  “What Is Your/Our Karmic Assignment? Activist Embodied Dharma in the Face of the Full Catastrophe of the Human Condition and the Planetary Poly-Crisis.”   https://www.upaya.org/program/awareness-in-action-the-radical-path-of-engaged-practice-online-january-19-2025/

Most of you know Jon Kabat-Zinn as the founder/developer of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and author of Full Catastrophe Living.  More recently, Jon has explored questions of diversity, equality, inclusiveness in the medical profession and Buddhism and Activism.  

What I was struck by with these two threads is how public figures deeply engaged in the political-social sphere are turning their sharp exploratory skills inward while major Buddhist figures with considerable chops on looking inward are exploring how we bring our practice into the world, what our larger purpose or calling or remit is in this one precious life we have been given.

I think this is a hopeful trend.

Starting over....

As we approach the end of one year and the beginning of another, we may all be contemplating what lies ahead with some degree of trepidation or at least with a sober outlook.  Days of rain when in other years we might have experienced snow is one reminder that the world is changing, moving on, impermanent.  Another, of course, is the approach of a change of leadership or perhaps the end of leadership and the transition to planned chaos.

I for one have looked around after the intensity and disruptions of the holidays - some of which I enjoyed very much, some of which I did not - and asked myself, where is my practice????

This morning as I got down on the yoga mat again, did stretching and PT again, sat on my cushion again, I felt the aches and pains of NOT doing that for a number of days and the discouraging thoughts about having backslid.  I was getting vaguely caught up in the being discouraged, in calculating how many days it would take to “get back to where I was,”  to feeling bad about wasting so many precious opportunities to practice.  And that’s when I realized, this was no big deal.  I was just “starting over.”  I was “beginning again.”  

Does that sound familiar?

Sharon Salzberg is one of my meditation teachers who counseled about “starting over.”   We do it with every breath.  We breathe in, we let go and release the breath.  And then, we start over - we breathe in again.  

Further, we pay attention to this in-breath, we pay attention to this out-breath, our mind wanders off, we drift around in thinking, planning, remembering, we wake up to the present moment, to the mind wandering, and we begin again - paying attention to this breath.

There are a number of aspects to starting over.  One is that we have to let go of all the negative, discouraging thoughts that come with the waking up to ourselves and where we are.  When we realize our minds have wandered, that we have back slid as I did above, we need to acknowledge where we are and loosen our grip on those habitual thoughts and self-condemnations.  We can breathe and be right there, acknowledging the judgments without getting involved or caught by them.  Having judging thoughts and bringing awareness to them, we can cultivate patience and resolve to begin again.    With these qualities of mindfulness, patience, and resolve, the judgments will lessen.  

What we may also begin to see is how our judgments, condemnations, aversions are based on false expectations.  We expect that we should be able to stay present during the holidays, during bad news, during friends and families suffering reversals and misfortunes.  Sometimes we can.  But other times, these influences catch us up in expectations we have about ourselves, our practice, the world.  For instance, as much as we have believed and embraced the climate emergency, we might still harbor a secret wish, magical thinking, that the earth will right itself, snow will return, intense heat or drought will not come to us, and so forth.  We may harbor the delusion that through our practice, we have somehow gotten ahead of the world’s ability to throw us for a loop.

Phillip Moffitt’s, well known meditation teacher, has this wisdom to share about ‘starting over’:    

"I first heard the phrase 'just start over' used to describe a spiritual practice some 20 years ago from the Buddhist meditation teacher and author Sharon Salzberg. During a mindfulness meditation retreat she taught at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, Sharon told us about her own struggle with learning to meditate – how she would become lost, distracted, and discouraged and would constantly second-guess herself and her teachers. Gradually she learned to pay no attention to the mental and emotional chatter and to just start over by meditating on her breath as she had been instructed. “Just start over” became her mantra, which she now teaches to her students.

"Each time Salzberg repeated this phrase during the retreat, I was deeply inspired. I realized that she was pointing to a radical attitudinal shift in which you cease to be reactive when you are knocked off your intended path. Instead, when you discover that you have lost your focus, you just begin again without getting caught up in emotional stories about why you can’t achieve your aim or judgments about how unworthy you are or why the change you seek is impossible. With Sharon as my inspiration, I set about developing 'just start over' into a daily life practice.

"Often the problem is that you don’t know how to be resolute without also being rigid in your expectations. You haven’t learned how to sail the waves of the ocean of your mind or successfully navigate those emotionally charged or intractable parts of yourself that cause the inner storms in your daily life. You have the mistaken notion that you must know why you have a problem and must get rid of it before you can act in a more self-empowering manner. Starting-over practice takes a different approach. It switches your focus away from dwelling on those characteristics that limit you and redirects it toward recognizing your strengths from which you can realize your potential.

"This shift in focus is attitudinal: You simply do what you care about as well as you can. This is a humble attitude, but it is exactly what’s needed for you to sustain your resolution. In so doing, you free yourself from your judging mind that thinks it can control results and creates the grandiose expectation that you can do more than you can do in the present moment. You become a more effective person by simply learning to use your time and energy to do what you can do right now….

"So just how do you practice starting over? Think of it as shifting your attention away from controlling the outcome and abandoning your usual reactions – criticizing, judging, complaining, and lamenting – to getting off track. You don’t deny your thoughts and feelings, and you don’t try to make them go away. Instead, you acknowledge them without making any judgments about them and with compassion for how difficult this moment is. You then follow the acknowledgment with what I call “and” practice, in which you say to yourself, “Yes, I just got lost, and now I’ll just start over.”  Phillip Moffitt, https://dharmawisdom.org/starting-over/

So here we are - back to the cusp of the new year - perhaps wondering how 'starting over' will help us get through this next year.  The lessons are simple.  Stay in the present moment and don’t let our expectations for what we think is going to happen get in the way of our ability to be present for what is happening.
After all, every one is this mess we call life has expectations for the future.  And no one’s expectations are going to come true exactly as they hope or predict.  Our charge for the new year is to stay open to the possibilities, not to foreclose the future with our expectations, to have compassion for ourselves and others, and as Moffitt says, “…do what you care about as well as you can.”

These past few weeks have been hard ones for people in my friendship circle and in the community.  A young person with friends and family dies in despair.  An older person passes away surrounded by family, to be followed by an older woman with a terminal illness. Some deaths are shocking and painful and out of time.  Others are within the realm of expectation and yet still wrenching.  Close friends, acquaintances, strangers struggling with illnesses, disruption, death.  

It is worth noting that these things happen all the time - somewhere, to someone.  But the stresses of the last two months have been of an order considerably larger than we have known, and certainly larger than we were anticipating.  

And stresses will find our weaknesses and play on them - perhaps adding just that feather weight to the tipping point already teetering.

At the same time, the holiday season is full upon us.  Sparkling lights at the Newport Cottages enthrall the freezing visitors who wander the grounds and amaze the inside guests who take pictures of the 12 foot high poinsettia tree and red carpeted marble staircases lined with white poinsettias and holly garlands.  

The holidays have their own stresses as families get together in harmony - or not - while others look forward to loneliness and want - and every combination in between.

The first noble truth tells us suffering exists.   

But we, as practitioners of mindfulness and meditation, have practiced - often for years - to give ourselves the tools and habits of resilience and balance.  The tale of the two arrows tells us that the first arrow pierces our vulnerable bodies but the second arrow invades our minds with fear of the pain, of the outcome, of the causes, of the consequences.  And our charge to ourselves is to work with the second arrow, the arrow of how we relate to the first arrow.  

There will be the suffering.   Our human existence is heir to these sufferings.  The Buddha himself was familiar with these misfortunes. 

How we relate makes all the difference.  Do we react?  Blindly lashing out, freezing up, frantically rushing to push away?  Or can we stop, breathe, take a moment and then respond with our best, most centered selves?  Can we build a refuge in our minds of patience, clear seeing, and gratitude?  Can we nourish kindness, compassion, joy for others and for ourselves, and equanimity?  These are qualities we can practice, develop and count on to help us weather the inevitable whirlwinds of living.

Our goal is not to insulate ourselves so that we are blocking out and avoiding suffering, insulating ourselves from life. That doesn’t work.

Rather we seek patience to endure what we can’t change, contentment with our lives just as they are, insight to see the impermanence of suffering as well as that of good fortune.  

So can we allow the suffering and understand that this too is part of life?  Can we see the unfolding of life as just that, an unfolding?  We are not making it happen and our ability to alter it is limited.  We protect ourselves and others as best we can.  And then we say “yes” to the unfolding, allowing and accepting.  

Our practice is our refuge and our path to equanimity.

gratitude for the brilliance of teachers...

Two weeks ago we listened to a guided meditation on mindfulness of breathing given by Venerable Analayo, renowned meditation teacher and scholar of early Buddhism.  In this meditation, Ven. Analayo interwove mindferulness of breathing progressing through the 16 steps of the teaching on mindfulness of breathing known as the Anapanasati Sutta ( see below) with the seven factors of enlightenment - mindfulness, investigation, energy, joy, tranquility, concentration and equanimity.  You can listen to this meditation by connecting through this link and choosing Meditation 5.   https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/resources/breathing-audio/

Last week we listened to the first half of an interview Venerable Analayo gave with Wisdom Academy on the Satipatthāna Sutta or Four Foundations of Mindfulness - the same teaching we have been exploring these many months.  

This except from the Wisdom Academy’s website reviews in part what we heard last week:

... Bhikkhu Anālayo discusses the role of mindfulness in early Buddhist texts, specifically the Satipatthana Sutta, and then explains some important etymological points regarding the word satipatthana. He talks about how Pali became one of the early languages of Buddhism and provides some pointers for doing comparative study of the Satipatthana Sutta. He also reflects on how it is important to not reject certain Buddhist teachings just because they were not originally taught by the Buddha himself. Bhikkhu Anālayo then explains what the true meaning of the “direct path” to awakening means and how to understand the various types of mindfulness. 

Tonight we’ll hear the second half of Ven. Analayo’s interview.  The Wisdom Academy overview concludes below:

He also discusses the role that mindfulness plays in the path to liberation, the relationship between mindfulness practice and breathing practice, the continuity between the four satipatthanas, the importance of body contemplation practice, and much more.

A couple points to clarify.  We have been studying what is commonly referred to as the Four Foundations of Mindfulness.  Ven. Analayo concludes that a more accurate translation would be The Four Establishments of Mindfulness - so that mindfulness is established in the body, established in feeling tones, established in the mind, established in the Dharmas through the practices in the teaching.

He also points out that the Buddha states rather empathically that the Four Establishments of Mindfulness are "the direct path for the purification of beings, for the surmounting of sorrow and lamentation, for the disappearance of dukkha (suffering) and discontent, for the acquiring of the true method, for the realization of Nibbāna (enlightenment), namely the four satipatthānas.” (Analayo, Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization, p.3) 

So this a pretty big deal teaching.

Many of you, especially those of you who have been practicing a while, have grown into the practice through mindfulness of breathing.  This practice which is contained in full in the Anapanasati Sutta, 16 steps of Mindfulness of Breathing (see below), also leads to full awakening, realization, enlightenment, Nibbana…

Ven. Analayo talks in this interview how he realized that the two teachings overlap as the sixteen steps divide into four tetrads each of which corresponds to one of the four establishments of mindfulness - body, feeling, mind, and dharmas or insights.  

The final tetrad of the Mindfulness of Breathing teaching is about the realization of insights - the insights of impermanence, dispassion, cessation, and letting go.  These are found in the Fourth Establishment of Mindfulness, Mindfulness of Dharmas, in the teachings on the five hindrances, the five aggregates of clinging, the six sense doors, the seven factors of awakening, and the Four Noble Truths in an expanded and more comprehensive way.  The brilliance of Analayo is that he has incorporated this wider understanding of both teachings into his guided meditations on his resource page on the BCBS website making these powerful teachings available at the experiential level for the lay practitioner.

This entire investigation may seem a bit esoteric and even technical.  And it is.  

But since the main two meditation buzz words/buzz phrases in western culture are “mindfulness" and "breath awareness", I thought it might be useful to delve into the relationship between the two in their historical context and to know that these two overlapping practices have deep roots as Buddhist practices leading to full awakening, realization, the deathless, full enlightenment, the island...

* * * * *

MN 118 - Anapanasati Sutta: Mindfulness of Breathing (An Excerpt0

"Now how is mindfulness of in-&-out breathing developed & pursued so as to be of great fruit, of great benefit?

"There is the case where a monk, having gone to the wilderness, to the shade of a tree, or to an empty building, sits down folding his legs crosswise, holding his body erect, and setting mindfulness to the fore.[1] Always mindful, he breathes in; mindful he breathes out.

"[1] Breathing in long, he discerns, 'I am breathing in long'; or breathing out long, he discerns, 'I am breathing out long.' [2] Or breathing in short, he discerns, 'I am breathing in short'; or breathing out short, he discerns, 'I am breathing out short.' [3] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to the entire body.'[2] He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to the entire body.' [4] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in calming bodily fabrication.'[3] He trains himself, 'I will breathe out calming bodily fabrication.'

"[5] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to rapture.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to rapture.' [6] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to pleasure.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to pleasure.' [7] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to mental fabrication.'[4] He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to mental fabrication.' [8] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in calming mental fabrication.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out calming mental fabrication.'

"[9] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to the mind.' [10] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in satisfying the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out satisfying the mind.' [11] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in steadying the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out steadying the mind.' [12] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in releasing the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out releasing the mind.'[5]

"[13] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in focusing on inconstancy [Ed. note: impermanence].' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out focusing on inconstancy.' [14] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in focusing on dispassion [literally, fading].' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out focusing on dispassion.' [15] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in focusing on cessation.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out focusing on cessation.' [16] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in focusing on relinquishment.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out focusing on relinquishment.'

"This is how mindfulness of in-&-out breathing is developed & pursued so as to be of great fruit, of great benefit.

The Way Ahead

Now that Thanksgiving has passed and we are well and truly in the weeds of the impending holiday season, something became clear this morning.  As I move through the Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness with you, I have slowly been realizing that the journey seems to get longer and longer the farther we progress along our path.  As I ponder it, I think it’s because the Buddha is teaching about the whole of "the way things are".  So it makes sense that "the way things are" might take a little time to understand.  And in turn to teach.  If "the way things are" was a simple concept, we probably wouldn’t be spending so much time trying to escape into or avoid a future that will never exist the way we imagine it or a past that we will mourn either because we loved it or we didn’t love it.  Accepting and settling into the way things are is the whole of the path - but it has a number of approaches.

So I want to offer a bit of an overview of the journey ahead.  

But first, I want to give you a greater sense of how our current subject - the seven factors of awakening - appears in our daily experience during practice.  The seven factors of awakening - mindfulness, investigation, energy, joy, tranquillity, concentration, and equanimity or equipoise - sound so lofty that we might mistake them for qualities we will only access much, much further down a murky path that doesn’t feel like it relates to us.  

This is both true and not true.    

We experience many of these factors already but we may not realize it or be able to name them when they arise.  Venerable Analayo, renowned meditation teacher, scholar of early Buddhism, and revered practitioner, shares some deep and surprisingly clear guided meditations on his corner of the Barre Center for Buddhist Center (BCBS) website.  Tonight we will hear a guided meditation on awareness of breathing that will help us to see, in first hand experiential terms, how the seven factors of awakening appear in the course of the practice of mindfulness of breath.  The meditation is about 27 minutes long. We’ll try to get to the meditation by 5:55pm so that we might have a few minutes at the end for questions or reflections on the experience.

Venerable Analayo is currently in residence at BCBS.  He is supported entirely by dana - the Pali word for generosity. He offers these guided meditations free of charge for listening or for downloading.  If you feel so moved, you could go to the website and offer dana to contribute to his support at the center in gratitude for his practice and his teachings.  The following is the link to his guided meditations and the donation page.  https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/resources/type/offerings-analayo/

Now for the overview, there are three more “topics” in this Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness:  1) the six sense doors; 2) the five aggregates of clinging; and 3) the Four Noble Truths.  

This is how the Buddha introduced this seminal teaching of the Four Foundation of Mindfulness to his monks:

This is the only way, monks, for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, for the destruction of suffering and grief, for reaching the right path, for the attainment of Nibbana, namely, the four foundations of mindfulness. What are the four?

The Buddha didn’t mince words.  This is the only way, he says, for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation… and so on.  The only way.  Mindfulness of body, feelings, "objects" of mind such as emotions, thoughts, concepts, etc., and “the way things are.”  

The next two topics of the fourth foundation deal with the concepts in our minds that cause us suffering.  The six sense doors refer to seeing, hearing, touch, smell, taste and consciousness (anything in our minds which is pretty all-encompassing).  The Buddha teaches that what we add to seeing or hearing etc., what we think about, remember, attach to, project on to what we see, causes us suffering.  Can we just see?  The same with the other five.

The five aggregates of clinging are a model of human experience the Buddha used to help the monks let go of clinging.  Aggregates refer to things stuck together but not dissolved one into another - like a sack of five different items.  Those items are form (body, materiality), feelings (feeling tones of positive, negative or neutral), perceptions, volitional formations (this includes our will, habit formation, and more and bears more elaboration), and consciousness (thoughts, concepts, emotions, moods, mind states).  Remember this is a model that he found useful. More about these later.

The Four Noble Truths we have come across before - 1) there is suffering (recognizing, acknowledging, accepting that suffering is present when it is), 2) there are causes for suffering, 3) there can be an end to suffering, and 4) here, the Eight fold Noble Path, is the way out of suffering.  

These three topics open into a universe but we will just introduce them in coming weeks.

Later on this year or early next, I think it might be useful to explore the teachings on Mindfulness of Breathing in greater depth.  There are two - the one we have just covered in the first foundation of mindfulness and a second one called the Ānāpānasati Sutta which is an in-depth look at the progress of mindfulness of breathing as it leads toward full awakening.  It is made of sixteen steps divided into tetrads.  So you will hear Analayo refer to tetrads in this guided meditation tonight.  I have included the sixteen steps at the end of this email.

We will also explore what is meant by full awakening and why it’s so important.  As it was considered indescribable, Buddhist scholars have counted 52 words used to refer to full awakening including enlightenment, the deathless, the island and more.

And we’ll move back and forth between these teachings and their relevance to our own lives and especially our current predicament in which we might be anticipating greater suffering.  And we’ll ground our experience in loving kindness, compassion, joy in the good fortune of ourselves and others, and equanimity.  These four sublime feelings can help us transform our suffering and that of others.

If this all seems a bit overwhelming, please just let it go.  It will unfold in its own time.  Laying it out like this is as much for me as for you.  But it will give you a glimpse of the way ahead.

If you are accessing this Musings from the internet and wish to learn more, please go to https://www.innerlightyoga.com/

The Last Days of the Buddha....

In a teaching described as The Last Days of the Buddha, the Buddha summarized his teachings.  Here he refers to the Seven Factors of Enlightenment which we have been encountering in the Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness.  If you remember, the first three foundations were Mindfulness of Body, Mindfulness of Feelings (tone), Mindfulness of Mind, and now here, Mindfulness of Dharmas or the way things are.  These Four Foundations of Mindfulness, one of the Buddha’s most important teachings, cover every aspect of our experience.  Hence its importance.  We are encouraged to be mindful of everything in our experience.  Everything.  Nothing left out.

This fourth foundation, as I have said before, contains a cluster of teachings about the way things are:  the five hindrances to meditation encountered by every meditator, the seven factors of enlightenment as the way leading onward, how to work with the temptations presented by the six sense doors, the five aggregates of clinging, and the four Noble Truths which culminates in the Noble Eight Fold Path.  Note: The Buddha used lists as a memory device for his followers since nothing was written down until many many years after his death.

Here is the excerpt on the seven factors of enlightenment. These seven are considered factors of enlightenment because they lead onward from one to another toward final realization.  And yet these factors arise in our meditations often if we can pay attention and recognize them for what they are. 

9.  "Seven further conditions leading to welfare I shall set forth, bhikkhus [Ed.: monks]. Listen and pay heed to what I shall say."

"So be it, Lord."

"The growth of the bhikkhus is to be expected, not their decline, bhikkhus, so long as they cultivate the seven factors of enlightenment, that is: mindfulness, investigation into phenomena, energy, bliss, tranquillity, concentration, and equanimity. So long, bhikkhus, as these seven conditions leading to welfare endure among the bhikkhus, and the bhikkhus are known for it, their growth is to be expected, not their decline.

Mindfulness is the first factor.  We are familiar with this quality in our lives and in our meditations.  So we begin with mindfulness.  We can simply allow mindfulness to note when the other six factors arise.  Awareness of these factors can strengthen their presence and their arising in our lives.  

But the six factors - investigation into phenomena, energy, bliss, tranquility, concentration and equanimity - can be divided into energizing factors and calming factors and we can apply these factors skillfully to balance our meditation energy.  If we are feeling a little dull or sleepy, we can start with mindfulness and then apply investigation.  Investigation then arouses energy and leads to bliss or joy.  If we are excitable or agitated, we can apply the calming factors of tranquillity, concentration and equanimity.

These days you might note that there is extra energy in the form of agitation or anxiety in our lives - perhaps listening to the news for any amount of time triggers these reactions.  Perhaps the approach of Thanksgiving which may include positive anticipation, or the agitation of desire, or perhaps the anxiety of knowing that the family in all its beautiful and difficult forms may be coming together, or not coming together.

If we can keep arousing mindfulness by asking ourselves, ‘what is happening right now?’, we will arouse curiosity and investigation.  Bliss or joy might arise because we know we are mindful.  Pay attention closely.  Bliss can be subtle but becomes more noticeable when we pay attention.

If mindfulness allows us to see that agitation or anxiety is present, we can support tranquillity by letting go of our striving for a certain result, by asking if we can be content with what is.  We can apply concentration either through mindfulness of breathing or the practice of loving kindness or compassion.  We can foster equanimity by letting go of striving for a reality that is different from what is here.  We can bring acceptance of the way things are to the fore.

These seven factors of enlightenment can be a wonderful addition to our conscious practice.  Discovering that they are present - in ones, twos or threes - can be invigorating.  Learning to see them as tools that can be applied to help us center and keep moving forward, that our “growth” is to be expected with their presence, is also a wonderful benefit.  And finally, learning to use them as balancing factors - bringing in the calming factors when we are agitated or over excited, bringing in the energizing factors when our minds are dull and sluggish - can be very helpful to our practice of the art of meditation. 

In closing, I want to offer the poem I mentioned at the end of our last session.  It’s by Mary Oliver (who is sometimes referred to as the patron saint or poet laureate of mindfulness practice) and is called “The Buddha’s Last Instruction”.

“Make of yourself a light,” said the Buddha, before he died.

I think of this every morning

as the east begins

to tear off its many clouds

of darkness, to send up the first

signal — a white fan

streaked with pink and violet,

even green.

An old man, he lay down

between two sala trees,

and he might have said anything,

knowing it was his final hour.

The light burns upward,

it thickens and settles over the fields.

Around him, the villagers gathered

and stretched forward to listen.

Even before the sun itself

hangs, disattached, in the blue air,

I am touched everywhere

by its ocean of yellow waves.

No doubt he thought of everything

that had happened in his difficult life.

And then I feel the sun itself

as it blazes over the hills,

like a million flowers on fire —

clearly I’m not needed,

yet I feel myself turning

into something of inexplicable value.

Slowly, beneath the branches,

he raised his head.

He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.

~~From House of Light by Mary Oliver
Copyright 1990 by Mary Oliver.  
Used by permission of The Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency Inc. Courtesy of Beacon Press, Boston