It appears that the local playground will occupy the high energies and equally high volume of my half nieces and nephews this afternoon. So in gratitude for the genius of child-size zip lines and scary tunnel slides, I will be present for this evening’s session - humbled by their small, strong bodies and also by the challenges their vitality presents to my own peace of mind. I have to keep reminding myself that these young life forces which push all my buttons of insecurity, competition, desire to be liked, desire for control, desire for “QUIET!” are only “almost three,” four, and five years old. And, as some of you may know, the biggest trigger puller is an “almost” three year old.
Late one evening as I faced the sobering realization of all this, I found Ayya Chema’s The Path to Peace and opened to the first chapter. Venerable Ayya Chema may be best known as Leigh Brassington’s teacher. Brassington regularly gives Jhana (deep absorption) retreats at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. The Jhana he teaches is considered by some to be Jhana-lite because it is accessible to a wide number of people on a 10 day retreat. I found it a valuable experience and found Leigh to be one of the more knowledgable teachers I have practiced with an encyclopedic mind and a verve for exploration of the mind in meditation.
Ayya Chema’s lesson in that first chapter is that we come into this world with the capacity to do good and be at peace and the capacity to be highly unskillful, wrong, and be in constant turmoil. She points out that any time our ego is touched, things go off track. In her book, she gives a series of talks on loving kindness or metta from the Buddha’s teaching called The Metta Sutta: The Buddha’s Word on Loving-Kindness. The first line goes like this:
What should be done by one who is skilled in wholesomeness
to gain the state of peacefulness is this:
She points out an important truth in that first line. Wholesomeness is possible. But it is a skill. We need to learn to recognize wholesomeness, learn to practice wholesomeness, learn to cultivate all the ways wholesomeness can be established in us in order to have wholesomeness become more engrained, perhaps more of a “habit” that unwholesomeness.
And further, she points out that we must do this for ourselves. No one can do it for us. Reading about esteemed teachers can inspire us but we still have to ask the question as she does: “How am I going to do this?”
The answer may not come as a surprise - we need to recognize when an eruption of negative, unwholesome states occur. And this eruption comes about through the interaction of our thoughts and feelings, through allowing negative thoughts and feelings to go unnoticed, through not understanding how much thoughts influence feelings and feelings influence thoughts.
This is the essence of the Third Foundation of Mindfulness - Mindfulness of Mind. Thoughts and feelings and how they influence one another.
The key to this recognition and bringing about change is the Second Foundation of Mindfulness - Mindfulness of Feeling or feeling tone, positive, negative or neutral. Feeling tone arises with every contact. Feeling tone is not the problem. Not being aware of feeling tone is how we get in trouble. So bombarded by the numerous “Auntie Nancy, can I have...?” or “Auntie Nancy,…” accompanied by pointing or grunting or moaning or that “wanting" sound children make before they can fully verbalize, I was so intent on responding, on being a loving Auntie, a patient Auntie, a caring Auntie, that I was not paying attention to the rising irritation. And when it all reached a fever pitch of yelling punctuated by occasional shrieks, I recognized the jangled nerves but tried to suppress them. (Note to self…again: That doesn’t work.) So negative feeling tone leads to not wanting. Suppressed negative feeling tone leads to more not wanting and more negative feeling tone and more not wanting. An unpleasant spiral.
What are we to do? Or to ask Ayya Khema’s question, how am I going to do this? Mindfulness is the key here. Knowing our own reactions as they arise, allowing, holding them with awareness and compassion leads us to clear thinking and clear seeing. And the stronger our mindfulness, the more clarity we are capable of. Mindfulness brings us back to ourselves and allows us to find a foothold in equanimity, the highest of our emotions. This is the way things are. Things are not as I would like them to be. Things are difficult or challenging right now. And I can just be with them and with my breath and at ease in the center of the whirlwind.
* * * * *
This week, I learned a meditation master revered by all also suffered from painful knees. In fact, another meditation master, Charlotte Joko Beck writes of painful knees on retreats as well so I suspect painful knees are commonplace among meditation practitioners - whether students, teachers, or masters, especially in the west where sitting cross-legged has not been as extensively cultivated. This master I heard about this week chose not to have knee surgery because it might interfere with his sitting posture, and he preferred to work with the pain instead.
Initially, I found myself judging his decision, thinking he was “attached” to his sitting posture at the expense of his body. He could meditate in any posture as I have been saying for several weeks. Taking care of the body and adjusting the sitting posture seemed a wiser course.
But then I reflected further and began to wonder. Didn’t my quest of surgery represent an “attachment” to the body over my sitting posture? A wish to have the body restored to near perfection? Actually, yes. I found a revulsion to the injury and a wish to “fix” the body. And underlying that was a rejection of the aging and injury of the body, a rejection that the body will grow old, and ultimately a rejection of the ultimate end of the body.
Through this lens, I could see the wisdom of that meditation master in allowing a deeper contemplation of the impermanence of the body and also a deeper aspiration to support his spiritual practice above all.
It was a beautiful lesson. And an “aspiration” for me, to use Gil Fronsdal’s word from his article "The Spectrum of Desire”.
The ultimate decision is not as important as the motivation. The important task is to bring mindfulness or awareness to the different attachments at work, to hold those attachments and see the suffering associated with them, to contemplate “letting go” of those attachments - whether a little bit, a lot, or completely.
As the great Thai forest master Ajahn Chah said:
"If you let go a little, you will have a little peace.
If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.
If you let go completely, you will have complete peace.”