Sunday, December 30, 2012

Is Traveling a Waste of Resources?

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes but in having new eyes."

                                                                         - Marcel Proust

It is for this reason that I sometimes wonder what the point of all this traveling business is. What are we really after, by setting out to see new places, full of different types of people with different cultures and ideas? For me, the answer is not always so clear. Sometimes, I just know it is something I want to do, but at other times, I see that it's just another form of desire, and something to be attached to.

The idea of seeing something familiar as new is a different type of experience though. In a way, because it really enables one to question everything they always see, it sparks the imagination. When you travel within, you can find that the reality you live in is much different than you might have imagined. Similarly, if you travel around the world, you might find that the world is much different than you believed, but it's just learning new things. All the things you learn and know compile together to form the body of your knowledge, but it is penetrating insight that can really prove to have life changing effects and bring about real wisdom and understanding.

You don't need to go anywhere to have a spiritual journey. 

When I was living in Colorado last year, I worked at a small college that was up on a mesa above my house. Everyday, I would hike up the mesa to work on the same trail. One day, after returning from a meditation retreat and feeling inspired, I jotted down a 1/2 day schedule based on what I could remember from the retreat, and my friend Gunnar and I got up early and practiced all morning. We alternated 45 minute sitting and walking meditations, and on one of my walks, after having practiced continuously for a few hours, I walked on the trail that I take to work. Even though I took that trail 5 days a week, and had for a couple months, I saw the trail with fresh eyes that day, like I had never seen it before. The whole thing came to life and was much more vivid and exciting.

After that experience, I can't help but to wonder what the difference was. Why can't I always see the world like that? And why do I need to travel if this magical world is always right here in front of me?

I feel that it's important to continue to ask these questions when the desire to travel or learn new things arises. It's not meant to discourage or discredit the idea that it's good to explore, but just that we don't have to wait until we have extra time and money and are afforded the opportunity. It is from this kind of attitude that these fresh eyes can appear, to offer new things around every corner, even familiar corners.

It is certainly much cheaper and more eco-friendly to become fascinated with your backyard in new and exciting ways than to be using gas-powered machines to haul you around the globe.

Additionally, it serves as a reminder, that if we do have the extra time and money, and the desire to go, that we should find a purpose for our travels other than accumulating more knowledge about other places and cultures, which often just serves to solidify the ego and a sense of self, the one who is doing all this traveling and learning all these new things. If we just want to be more worldly, have more experience and more to talk about, then we are only serving ourselves.

If we want to discover, if we want to understand and we like to explore, let's remind ourselves that we can do this in any given moment. We don't have to travel across the world to make it happen. All we need to do is look within ourselves. Every atom is like a holograph of the entire universe. The world within is boundless.

So as I prepare to fly out to India in a couple days, I have to wonder what it's all for. Am I just adding to the list of places I've gone? Am I just building up my resume of interesting things I've done and places I claim to know about? If so, I might as well stay home, because the intention isn't pure. If I have pure intentions, then maybe what I experience and the effort to see things with new eyes will stay with me, allowing me to go on to make steps toward improving the world by starting with myself, and expanding outward.

Only then can I justify spending all this money and resources, money that could go to feed a hungry child in a poor country for a long time, maybe even a matter of years. When I think about it that way, I have to really consider what my intentions are. Is what I am going to do more important for the world than feeding a starving child and possibly saving a little boy or girl's life?

When I think in these terms, I have to be determined that I will strive to save more than one life. I will try to save many. I will reach down and garner strength in order to effect change on a greater scale than I am capable of doing with my current level of strength and means. If I can purify my heart and mind, I know I can do a greater service. But what it will be, I cannot say. It's not something that you can lay out on paper, it's not something that offers much security.

The important thing is that I have faith, that by working to purify my mind in order to help others is a worthwhile cause, and that even though I am faced with many obstacles, I must push on, determined to not let "life" get in the way of my dream. If I can stay connected to my dream, and my intentions, I can only let the rest fall into place. I can't control what will happen, but with observation I can take a look at my intentions, and when I see that they are misaligned with my dream, I can take steps to correct them. When I find that my ego is the driving force behind my actions, instead of my heart, I will do my best to stop moving forward until I can align my intentions for the benefit of all.

So is this trip I am going to take going be worth it? Will it be better than saving a human life? I don't know. It's hard to say that it will, but it might. I think that just having this insight into the driving forces of my actions will help me open up my eyes, even if the landscapes are new, to see the world as it really is, and not how I am conditioned to see it. If I can see the world for the way it is, then maybe, with hard work and determination, I can effect the change I wish to see. I have the vision, but sometimes motives change. We can be misled by our egos and the desire to accumulate new things, or new stories, or something amazing we have done. Even if we are helping people, we can ask, why? We all know someone who brags about their volunteer efforts as if to exemplify how great of a person they are. It is easy to see they are volunteering to impress other people, or maybe to feel a certain sense of self-worth.

The point is, there are numerous reasons why we act, and if we aren't careful, our intentions can become spoiled, or never be pure to begin with. Traveling in particular, seems to be a selfish act, and oftentimes, it probably is. Knowing that the true journey of discovery lies within, we might lose our motivation to travel, but if we purify our intentions, there are a lot of resources out there to inspire us and help us grow in ways that will enable us to be the change. So we don't have to sit at home, fearing that by traveling we will be wasting resources, but if we are at home, we don't have to be fooled into thinking that we already know what is in front of us. In either situation, we can work to find the beauty and the awesomeness of everything in this world. We can also work to purify our hearts and minds in order to act from a place of selflessness, for the benefit of all, regardless of how insignificant it may seem. And to do this, all one must do is stop and take a look. Not with your eyes, but with your power of observation. Be patient, be understanding, and most importantly, just keep watching!


Sunday, December 23, 2012

Happiness is not the answer


It seems  a common thing, that people say happiness is what we are really after in life. In a way, they may be right, but the  happiness most people think of is not the type of happiness that we should be striving for. So in this sense, there are two different types of happiness. One comes from gratification, or in other words, pleasure. Pleasure, or the experience of pleasantness, comes and goes from our lives and is not the type of happiness that will bring us real happiness. Real happiness, on the other hand, doesn't come and go with the changing conditions we experience. That is to say, it doesn't depend on the gratification of our sense pleasures in order to be fulfilled. This type of happiness is possible even when things aren't going our way, and as you might imagine, is much harder to cultivate than the feeling of being pleased.

It this is type of happiness that is our birthright, our natural state, but it doesn't happen naturally. If this sounds like somewhat of conundrum, it is. What I mean by that is that we have to work to cultivate it, just like the cultivation of a garden. If we don't cultivate the garden, it becomes overgrown with weeds, and is no longer beautiful. The beautiful elements of the garden haven't changed, all the plants and flowers that make it beautiful are still there, it's just that their beauty is covered up by other things that we don't find as attractive. In the same way, if we don't work to cultivate real happiness, we won't be able to see it, it will be covered by the weeds of our minds.

The gratification of sense pleasures has a shelf-life. It only exists for as long as we have access to whatever it is that brings us pleasure. Whether it is love, food, entertainment, comfort, security, well-being, or any other thing, or state, we will lose it as soon as we lose it. This happiness is nothing more than an emotion, and emotions are constantly changing. We feel happy one minute, one hour, one day, one week, one month, or for some other amount of time, and then we lose it. When we lose it, we either experience neutrality or unhappiness, or somewhere in between. Think about it, mentally or emotionally, you either feel good, you feel so-so, or you don't feel good. Of course, there are the degrees of feeling good or not good, but there are no other options here. Every other emotion carries with it some amount of these two extremes, or is neutral in its essence. In Buddhism, these are called the feeling tones. They are associated with the ways in which we receive and process any sensory input, including emotions and feelings.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't accept the feeling of being temporarily happy, that we should feel that it's wrong or unworthy, but just that it is dangerous to see it as the point of life, or to give it more value than states of unhappiness. If we assign it a special value, and we think "Oh yes, this is it, this is what it's all about," then when we lose it, we are lost, confused, and sometimes even angry. When we see happiness and unhappiness as being equal in value, that is to say that we see them both as sharing the same characteristics of being temporary, not who or what we really are, and things that we can't necessarily control and therefore able to able to cause us suffering, we understand their true nature and we aren't so caught up in the inevitable ride that is the swing of emotions. When we become attached to changing emotional states, we suffer when they are gone. It is the same as becoming attached to anything else, money, power, health, possessions, or lifestyles.

All this means is that when we are happy, we should know we are happy, and the best way to do that is to remind ourselves, with the power of awareness, that we are in fact experiencing a temporary feeling of happiness. That way, we don't get confused about what it is we are experiencing. We don't suddenly think that the real "us" has returned, and that things are back to normal. This is not normal. This type of happiness is not what should be considered normal. On the contrary, normality is the ever-changing nature of emotions. What matters is how we view these changing states. If we cling to them, we fail to understand their transitory nature.

The same goes for unhappiness. It might be hard to believe, but we often cling to unhappy states as well. In other words, we take them to heart. We give them value, like there is some reason we are unhappy. We tell ourselves that we shouldn't be feeling this way, that we should be happy. But this is nonsense, and will just lead to more suffering. There is nothing wrong with feeling unhappy, it is totally natural.

Understanding this can help us avoid states of feeling unworthy. If we personalize unhappiness, it is like twisting the knife. While most don't prefer to feel unhappy, it's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it is necessary. If we didn't feel unhappy, neither could we feel happy, in the temporary sense of the word. Without the darkness, there would be no light. In the conventional sense of reality, we live in a world of opposing forces. That is why we need to assign the same value to these opposing forces. Yin and Yang. Sunrise and sunset. Can you imagine a world where the sun never set? Having daytime and nighttime are necessary for us to feel balanced and whole. If there was only daytime, we'd go crazy.

I think it's important for you to know that I am not writing this out of some feeling that this is a practice that I have mastered. Quite the contrary, I am writing this as a reminder that this is something that I need to practice, because although I am vacationing in paradise, I have lost my temporary happiness. Instead of taking it personally, and twisting the knife, I have decided it best to regroup my stance, and connect with the wisdom that says this type of happiness is not what it's all about. I feel this truth in my heart, but all too often, I forget.

So what it comes down to is whether or not we know this to be true. It is at this point in our inquiry that we stumble upon the question, how do we know if this is true or not? For me, now, the answer is right in front of my face. It's the reality that we can have all those things that we want, we can have great weather, perfect white sandy beaches, cheap food and accommodation, good company, and financial security (thanks to my credit card), but yet we can still feel unhappy. In this situation, we can no longer say "If only I had this or that, I'd be happy," because everything we want is right in front of us, yet the happiness isn't there. This means we can stop believing the lie that these things can bring us happiness, or that when they do, the happiness will last.

Is this the type of happiness we are looking for? 

If so, we are bound to suffer. When we realize that in reality, things can never be the cause for real happiness, we begin to ask what can. Now, the real search for happiness begins. Or, going back to garden analogy, we can start to identify the weeds of the mind and then it is our choice as to whether or not we do the work to start cleaning things up a bit.

At this point, I won't try to pretend that I have found this ultimate sense of happiness, so neither will I define it. But what I can say is that I have tasted it, and that before I started doing the work, it was not something I knew to be real.

There seems to be a common understanding that material things don't bring us happiness, especially in the west. The saying of "more money, more problems," is something that we seem to know firsthand, or maybe second-hand. If it isn't us that has an excess of money, we all know someone that does. All we have to do is look to the rich and famous, whose problems are plastered all over the media, to see that having everything that the world has to offer doesn't make one truly happy.

In Thailand, and many other Asian countries, material success is something that is sought after with the sort of innocent belief that it will bring true happiness. They haven't seen the possible dangers of it, so they still believe the lie. But we know better, and yet we still fall victim to it. We compensate by substituting other temporary things with material things, but these are still temporary. We say that having a loving family and relationships is what will bring us true happiness, and although these things might be a step in the right direction, they are still based on attachments. We cling to these things and we dread the idea that someone or some thing might take them away. But the truth of the matter is, that someday, we will lose everything, including our loved ones. It might not be until the time of death, but it might be before. Either way, we will lose them. Then what will we have?

The secret here is to take the crutch away. The crutch isn't the thing itself, it is simply the attachment to it. Many people are averse to this idea, that we shouldn't be attached to our loved ones, because in a practical way, it doesn't make any sense. In order to understand this, we need to take a step back from conventional reality and see the bigger picture. Not being attached to our loved ones doesn't mean that we love them any less, it just means that we understand that will lose them. If we cling to them like they are permanent, we will suffer, just like we will suffer when the good times run out.

So even though I know this secret, it doesn't mean that I have embodied it. Just like in AA, the first step is to admit there is a problem, then the healing can begin. But even after accepting that this is the problem, we can still avoid the real healing process because we don't want to submit ourselves to doing the actual work. Instead of diet and exercise, we look online for some sort of diet pills to fix our problem. In the context of this problem, the diet pill is the idea that we can overcome this problem on the intellectual level.

We have it figured out, we understand the lie that says that clinging to that which is temporary will bring us true happiness, so why do anything else?

The problem with this line of thinking is that when we have an insight on the intellectual level, that is to say when we understanding something intellectually, we don't necessarily realize it. What I've found with my meditation practice is that, even when I understand something through my repeated experience, I still don't necessarily realize it. In other words, I still fall into the same traps of conditioned reactivity. When I find that even practicing diligently, I can fall into the traps of the mind, I know that a mere intellectual understanding definitely won't suffice.

The point here is that to understand and embrace true happiness, we must constantly work to cultivate it. It isn't a stopping point, and especially not at the intellectual level. So if you are reading this and it resonates with you, and you think, "Yeah, I agree," then what might follow is the idea that your work is done, but I can assure you, it is not a stopping point. That is why it's called the path to liberation, the path to freedom. It's a journey, not a destination. If we have stopped at the intellectual level, thinking that no other work needs to be done, it is considered to be like an exit on the freeway. You see a big flashy billboard that looks like an attractive viewpoint and you pull off to check it out. Why continue when where you are seems to be such a good place?

What I am here to remind myself of is that I must push on. There is so much work left to  be done, and that although I have both tasted this freedom and understand it intellectually, I still find myself suffering when I lose the temporary  feeling of being happy.

Now the question remains, what is this work that needs to be done? And for this, I will let my other writings on this blog speak for themselves. More important, for this entry, is the idea that the belief in temporary happiness as the purpose of our existence is invalid. There is more to our existence, and even though I know that it is my true nature, I am determined to continue to pick the weeds in my garden in order to see the beautiful flowers and plants that are the intended purpose. But just for the sake of offering a complete entry, I can mention a few words in regards to what this practice entails.

The mind is the only thing that separates us from true, lasting happiness, which probably looks a lot more like peace and contentment than always smiling. Does it make sense to always wear a huge smile on our face, even in the presence of extreme suffering? No. Sometimes, we need to respond to the changing conditions of our lives with wisdom. We need to respond with compassion, with tolerance, with lending our time and efforts to those who need our help. If someone has just lost a loved one and we are grinning from ear to ear, we might find that we aren't serving them. Instead, we might need to offer a sincere presence. They might just need someone to listen, someone to understand. They might just need a shoulder to cry on.

To find this lasting happiness, we need to purify the mind from the defilements of greed, hatred, and delusion. That's it, really. And in the trends of a modern, new-age spirituality, sometimes it's nice to look back to an ancient tradition such as the Buddha's teachings to clarify the problem so succinctly. That doesn't mean that we need to be Buddhists, but that we can honor the teachings that these three defilements, in all of their manifestations, are really the sum of our problems. And as quickly as the Buddha offered a problem, he also followed up with a solution.

If we use the power of our own minds, we can eradicate these defilements. These powers are nothing supernatural, it's just concentration, investigation, and acceptance, mixed in with a little honesty and humility. All we have to do is observe, be willing to admit and accept what he have observed, and then practice kindness for ourselves and all those involved. This is stepping out of the realm of intellectual activity and into moment-to-moment awareness of what is.

When we can take a deep look at our lives, and accept what we see, we have begun to invite awareness into our lives and we are that much closer to finding true, lasting happiness. As for the rest of it, that remains to be unseen for me, but there isn't a day that goes by that I am not grateful that I have at least started this life-long journey, and that has proved to be enough to keep me motivated, to keep me going even when times are tough and I just want to give up. And even when I lose sight of the path, the progress I've made serves as a reminder to what I already know with my heart, and although I can be quick to forget, that which the heart knows and understands is nothing that no one or no thing can ever take away from me, and for now, I'm going to let that be enough.

Thanks for listening.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

T-minus 5 days to the end, what will you do?

With the prospect of the end upon us, we are afforded the opportunity to take a deeper look at our lives than we might normally be willing to do. I realized as I was making plans for 2013, that I was reminded, I just don't know what's going to happen. But is this only specific to the end of the Mayan calendar?

The truth is, we never know what's going to happen. Any day could be the last day, for us and humanity. We live in these little bubbles that tell us we know how things work. We are smart and we have it all figured out. Not only that, but we are in control, and that nothing is going to happen to us. But this just isn't the case. No one expects that something bad is going to happen, nor should they.

There seems to be a middle ground here, that says that we shouldn't expect that something bad will happen, but we should still hold the validity of uncertainty and impermanence. Can you accept that the world might end in just a few days? I don't personally believe that it will, and I have a feeling that most of you feel the same way, but what a wonderful reminder it has been for me, that by all means, it could.

It always could, but it seems that we need a date shrouded with prophesy before we can wake up to the fact that this is always the case. We tend to think that life is something that is so solid, and we carry on like the sun will always rise tomorrow. But what if it doesn't? As a kid, I remember saying the prayer before I would fall asleep, "and if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." I remember actually contemplating that on a regular basis, that every time I fell asleep, I might not wake up.

But now, something has changed. I seem to just expect that tomorrow will come and that I will be there, for better or worse. I think, like most people, we have just seen so many days come and go that we sort of forget about the uncertainty. We forget that it could all be over in an instant, and even though we are always hearing things like "live everyday as if it was your last," we still don't seem to believe it.

And why should we? What we know is based on our observations from our own life experience. For example, we have observed that every day, the sun rises and sets again. So we can make the assumption that this will continue to happen everyday. It seems so solid, that we can't help but to take it for granted. We ourselves have gone to bed and risen again the next morning, every single time, have we not? So that sense of uncertainty that I had as a kid, and you may have had as well, just sort of gets buried and on top of it we build a mountain of security.

So yes, we shouldn't take our lives for granted. We should be grateful for all that we have and never miss an opportunity to tell someone we love them. We should do all of those typical things they say we should do about embracing life and living to the fullest. And now, with just 5 days left on the Mayan calendar (what time zone is that valid for, by the way?), we have a slightly more real threat than we have on any other day.

So when you are planning for New Years Eve, and you just can't wait, maybe you can stop and acknowledge the fact that you might not make it. You just don't know, and you never will. Even if the world doesn't end, any of us could have their lives taken before that day comes.

For me, planning to take a trip on January 1st, I find myself very neutral about it. Yes, I still want to be prepared and do my research, but I really don't expect that I'm going to make it. I know there are a million things that need to go right to allow me to go. And having just returned last month from Myanmar, I can think back to the weeks leading up to that trip, and my mentality was much different. It was like I knew for sure that I was going to Myanmar. It turns out that I was right, but that was based on an assumption that all those little things that had to go right to get me there, would go right. The trip to the airport, getting through the checkpoints, a safe flight, being allowed through immigration. Or, I could have been killed the day before while crossing the street, or from a brain aneurysm.

The challenge to us all is to stop taking life for granted. Stop believing the lie that there's always tomorrow, or next year. When you make a plan, know that it's only a possibility. Instead of thinking that something won't go wrong, think of all the things that have to go right, in order for your plan to be possible. When you see all the things that have to go right everyday, you will see life as a miracle, and a very fragile one at that. You will see that this life is precious, and that although we've had it everyday, we will all die someday, and no one knows when. Maybe, it will be in 5 days, on December 21st, or maybe, that will just be another day. Even if it is, many people will still die on that day, and for them, it will prove to be the end of days.

So no, I'm not planning to do anything special on this countdown, other than keep this in mind that my future is uncertain. I'm not planning to live it up, to go to some end of the world party, and dance all night in celebration of a new era. I want to celebrate by opening my heart to the mystery of the world, to remind myself that everything is always changing, and that my time on this earth is but a blink in time. But by all means, take this opportunity and do something, treat everyday as if it were Thanksgiving. Do whatever you've always wanted to do. Express yourself in the fullest. Don't wait until it's too late.

In this way, we shouldn't be afraid to entertain thoughts about disaster, because they will help us pop that little bubble that says nothing will ever happen to us Something will happen to us, it's just a matter of when.

And with that, I want to say that I love each and everyone of you. You are my friends and family, whether we know each other well or not. It has been a wild ride, and I have no regrets. Feeling blessed on T-minus 5 days to the end of the world, and hope you are too!


Is this the 'Way'?


As I continue to invite change and personal growth into my life, I face many obstacles, and most, if not all, are related to the mind. The biggest question I find myself asking is this: "Is this the way?"

The mind loves to compare, to judge, and it is always uncertain of everything. That is because nothing is for certain, we really don’t know what’s going to happen, and we can only pretend to assume a position of control. But in other terms, I can’t help but to wonder what the best way to get the most out of life is.

Just a few short years ago, I was living it up. I had hundreds of friends and was on top of the world. Everything was perfect and it seemed like it would never end. “We’re in this for life” I remember thinking, and also saying to my buddies. “This is it, it really doesn’t get any better than this!”

And now here I am, leading a life far from that of my recent past, and I can’t help but to wonder, what happened? Why did I walk away from such a good thing, and should I go back?

Sometimes, I feel like I know exactly who I am, what I’m doing, and where I'm going, and yet other times, I feel so lost, and alone, and just can’t seem to make sense of it all.

There seems to be two contradicting approaches out there in the world. One says live it up, life is short and you might as well make the most out of it while you still can. Do everything you want, don’t hold back. Party like there’s no tomorrow. Dance all night. Be free.

The other approach says that this is suffering. That chasing pleasure, whether it’s through music, friendship, or getting wasted, none of these things will bring you happiness. And yet I felt like I was so happy. If I was suffering so much, why did I never want it to end?

But then again, I walked away. So is it really that I was never as happy as I made myself out to be? Was I really that deluded?

There is no clear answer here, and that, I suppose, is my revelation tonight. Why do I submit myself to this world that is so black in white when I know in my heart that it’s all just shades of grey?

You can’t separate. This is the mantra that is bubbling up. My suffering isn’t from living one way versus the other. My suffering comes from the idea that they are indeed two different ways. But in reality, this isn’t the case. Everything everyone is doing is just an expression of this situation that we all share. Everything is the human condition doing what it feels it should be doing, whether it’s based on fear, love, or something else, we are all just doing what we do because that’s who we are and that’s where we’re at.

So is there something that I am supposed to be doing? Absolutely not. There’s no one that is any better than me and neither is anyone any worse. We are all equals, trying to survive the best we can, dealing with the same challenges of greed, hatred, and delusion.

Yes, some approaches are more deluded than others, but that doesn’t make them inferior. Reality isn’t a fixed entity. It's changing all the time and we are all creating it from moment to moment. If we stop and think about why we do the things we do, it will bring up what drives us, it will bring up memories and conditioning. It will bring up hopes and dreams and fears and delusion and everything in between.

As I sit here tonight, feeling once again like I’m torn between two worlds, I can’t help but to think that unity is the only thing that makes sense.

There is a practice that I remember learning about somewhere along the way that says to see yourself in others, not just your family and friends but everyone. See yourself in the homeless guy, the crazy people, the rich and greedy. See yourself in the famous and the infamous. See yourself in the criminals, in the cocky and the weary, in the strong and in the weak. If you don’t, you have made yourself into an island, and you will always be alone, no matter how much you surround yourself with friends and family.

So maybe that’s it. Maybe I’ve always felt alone because I’ve always seen myself as different. Even with a million friends and all the love one could ask for, I was alone. And maybe I still am, and on one level, that’s a reality; we all are. But in a deeper, more ultimate sense, none of us are. Can we connect with this ultimate truth that says that we are all inter-connected? Can we connect with this idea that we will never be alone, even if we live out our lives in some cave or some far away land without a soul in sight?

If we continue to see that which is impermanent, and uncertain, and unable to bring us true happiness, as permanent, certain, and able to bring us true happiness, we will continue to suffer. What it really comes down to is not where we are, not what we are doing, but the quality of our hearts. Who is to say that they are right and another is wrong? This is arrogance. No one is perfect, and we are all just doing our best. Maybe there are different approaches to life, and maybe one seems more pure and more dignified than another, but it boils down to whether or not we are surrounded by water, or whether we are connected to the greater body of land. 


A couple weeks ago I went to a nice forest monastery to spend a week with the monks and ended up getting more than I bargained for. I ended up making a new friend, who arrived the day after I did while I was sweeping the leaves in the parking lot. When I saw him get out of the van, I wasn't sure what to make of him, but can't say I wasn't a little disappointed when I saw the guest monk escort him to the big empty room I had the night before all to myself. As it turned out, that first night would be my only night there alone, and at one point, there was about 10 of us staying in there together. It was plenty big enough to fit everyone, but I have trouble sleeping in a room full of strangers, so it wasn't a spacial concern, but more of concern of comfort.

The new visitor didn't turn out to be a burden though, and instead, was more like a shining light sent by the angels. At age 60, he's spent the last 18 years teaching meditation at a hermitage with his wife in South Africa. I was the only one there who didn't know him by name. He is quite well known in this tradition of Buddhism and meditation, especially in the western world. His wife was a nun and he was a monk when they met, and in a short time frame, they fell in love, disrobed, and got married. Now, in addition to teaching at their hermitage, they are invited to teach at the most respected and well-established retreat centers in the US. When I found out they were scheduled to teach a workshop in Bangkok, I knew I had to attend.

That workshop was today, and during the question and answer period, I thought to ask a practical question to please my curiosity. "What is it like to be married and also teach together? Do you ever have those moments when you are like, are you sure you are a meditation teacher, because right now, you are acting like a 7 year old!?"

The answer was so full of humanness and humility that I doubt I'll ever forget it.

I can't quote his wife, Thanissaro, directly, but this is what I gathered:

"If you try too hard to be perfect, you are bound to slip. It's better to admit your faults and then you are able to work with them." 

For me, this really makes a lot of sense, as this path to purification can tend to lead to imitation instead of recognition. If you want to purify your heart and mind, you need to find your faults and work on them. If you think you can just walk away, and become a saint, it's only a matter of time before you are found to be a fraud. It was so real and honest that there can't be said to be anything fraudulent about it.

"We have our blowouts, we are human," she said.

This is after 36 years of devoting their lives to meditation, at least for him, whose name is Kittisaro.

"It really comes down to being able to say, 'I made a mistake, and I'm sorry." - Kittisaro

Me with Kittisaro.
So when faced with my past and thoughts about what is the best way to get the most out of life, I will try to remember these humbling words from these two teachers who I have had the privilege of meeting. It's not about perfection after all. It's about being a human being. It's about this capacity to admit that I don't know and to be okay with that. Yes, they have purified their hearts and minds, but they still make mistakes. So when my mind is full of questions, and I wonder if I should just go back to my old ways, and just make the most out of things, I now understand that these are questions that I don't need to answer. To answer, is to separate, and I know that more important than how far I make it on this path to liberation, is how much I have made myself into an island. Besides, something is telling me that the two go hand in hand. The more I fail to see myself in others, in all others, the further from freedom I really am.

If you open your heart, and connect with others, you are making the most out of life, no matter what you are doing.

So I leave you now with a challenge. Can you find ways to not separate yourself from others? Can you see that what you are doing is what you are meant to be doing, but also trust your instinct and your ability to move on? If we keep moving forward, and understand that sometimes moving forward seems like we are staying in the same place, we will be ready to invite change and personal growth into our lives without having to create these boundaries, without having to see it terms of black and white.

There is nothing that is supposed to be happening. 

It's just happening, and we are a part of it. So do what your heart is telling you, and rest assured, that for now, that's the right thing to do.

And in my closing thoughts, I just want to acknowledge my appreciation for all of you, regardless of what you are doing, and where you are going. Moreover, it has been a real pleasure to put these thoughts to paper, or screen as it be, and if someone out there is reading it, it means I'm getting off the island. I'm building a boat and I'm headed for shore.

I'll meet you there.

-Dougie


Friday, December 14, 2012

Don't let them die in vain; be the change!

In a world changing so quickly. there is an ever-growing importance to look at where we are, where we've been, and where we are going. If you can't see the change you wish to see in the world, how can you expect it to happen?

So the question becomes, what do you want to see?

If you have no vision, maybe it will work out, maybe it won't. Maybe we we will just drift aimlessly through life, unable to effect any positive change.

On a day like this one, we have to live with yet another shocking story of a mass shooting, and we can't help but to wonder why. But instead of focusing our energies on preventing such madness, I want to offer an alternative. Fill your heart with love. Fill it with compassion and forgiveness. Try to understand that things happen as a result of their causes. This is the law of Kamma (Karma).

What then, is the cause of such madness? Who can say for sure! It's probably not as simple as being able to blame one thing, one movie or video game, one genre of music, one abusive figure, one haunting memory. If we could easily say what caused these things, and we could change that cause, then by all means, let's do it. But the truth is, we can't do that. There are just too many factors here, and it seems like a waste of time and energy to make speculations and point fingers.

Let's look to the future.

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi

The change starts with you. If you are waiting for everyone else to change, it's never going to happen. You have to believe that by opening your own heart, you are doing your part. Even if you can't see how that is going to make a difference, it will.

Do you envision a world with more security guards, cameras and surveillance everywhere? Locked doors and buildings and checkpoints and having to be searched TSA style to even get into a mall or a school? Do you want to be patted down before you go see a movie?  More gates, more guard dogs, more alarm systems?

Although this is not a competition, this is allowing those who commit such acts of hate against us to win. This is them getting under our skin. This is us on our knees, weak, with our spirits crippled.

So when we use wise contemplative reflection to see what has happened, we see a recent past full of blood-shed. When we use wise observational analysis of where we are, we see a system that lives in fear, a system that breeds hate through hatred. We see a system that has changed, and we wonder what happened. And when we use wise speculative projection to see where we are going, now we have a choice.

Do we want to increase security measures, lock everything down, and live in a world of fear? Or do we want to live in a world of love, with one global family, taking responsibility for our weakest links. When you honor the goodness is others, that is what you get. But we seem quick to point fingers and see "them" as so much different from "us." But what is the difference? Are we all not humans? Do we not have blood pumping through our hearts? Are "they" born killers, or were they driven to act with such cruelty.

I personally believe in the goodness of humankind, and will continue to make changes in my own heart, opening up with compassion for ALL, not just those who I choose as being worthy. If we separate, if we isolate, we might as well bar the windows and the doors, stock-pile the weapons, and hide our families in fear. Might as well spring for the bullet-proof glass while we're at it.

The past is gone, but here in the present moment is when we have an opportunity to lay the framework for the future. I hope, for the sake of the children and all others who have died for seemingly no reason, that we choose to love one another, to acknowledge that the fundamental change needs to start within our own hearts, and then, and only then, can we pave the way for a brighter future.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Meditation Technique pt. 2: Mindfulness of Body

When practicing mindfulness, you might find that there is an overwhelming amount of things going on. What to be mindful of? Where to start? Or, you might find that there doesn't seem to be much of anything going on. Both situations are ones that I experience regularly; some days seem to be more action-packed than others. In either situation, knowing how to direct your attention to a particular aspect of your experience can be a good way to establish mindfulness.

The Theory:

Sitting in a tree in Cambodia.
Sometimes, I let my experience direct my attention, and other times, I direct my attention myself. What I mean by that is that if I find that I have been lost in thought, when I have that experiencing of "coming back," I often will acknowledge what has happened, and then direct my attention to something that will ground me in the here and now. If I find that I had been planning for the future, I might acknowledge it by labeling it, "planning, planning, planning." Or, sometimes I chose different vocabulary, such as "planning mind." The vocabulary that you choose isn't important, the important thing is that knowing is happening, and that you are mindful of the knowing. That is what I mean by acknowledging. 

For some, mindfulness of the knowing happens without the need for  using a mental note, and for others, noting is necessary. Especially when dealing with the mind and mental formations, I find that noting is an effective method for identifying what is happening, or what has just transpired. For example, it's quite impossible to note "lost in thought" as you are lost in thought, because there is no mindfulness of the fact that "lost in thought" is happening until it has already happened. If you were mindful of it while it was happening, you wouldn't be lost in thought, you'd just be thinking. In that case, you would able to label it "as it is happening" simply by noting, "thinking, thinking, thinking." The tendency of the mind, once it has been figured out, is to stop proliferating, so you might experience a cessation of your thoughts somewhere in the process of your labeling. Either way, the practice is the same, continue to be mindful by acknowledging the knowing of whatever is happening as your life unfolds, from moment to moment. 

Okay, okay, I know that this is a bit of a mental pretzel, so let me elaborate, and try, unsuccesfully, to simplify it. One problem is that we are limited by the words we chose and the way in which they strike us. Some have different ideas about a certain word than others, and it's impossible to please everyone, so the challenge of the writer is to pick a meaning and stick to it, and the challenge of the reader is to determine that meaning and not allow pre-conceived notions to interfere with the ability to comprehend what is being said. Mindfulness, concentration, awareness, knowing, WHAT? 

Try this one on for size, and bear with me if it's not your usage-of-choice. The way we experience life is through one of the 5 sense doors and, what is considered the 6th sense door in Buddhism, the mind. There is nothing that we can experience outside of what we can see, hear, taste, touch, smell, think, or feel on the mental/emotional level. That's not an attempt to put the wide range of human experience into a little box, it's just an observation that the Buddha made. When an object comes in contact with one or more of these 6 sense doors, we have the experience of knowing. That is to say that the mind presents itself to receive the incoming message. The object arises, as does the mind.

For example, when a gun is fired, we hear it. This experience of hearing is likened to us knowing that there was indeed a sound. It's not the type of knowing that takes place after that, the knowing that tells us that the sound came from a gun, that is a different knowing. This is simply the knowing that recognizes the experience of hearing. As we find out, this type of knowing can go on unnoticed. It can be lost in the jumble of what is going on in our minds, and we miss a lot of what we experience due to being lost in thought. In this practice, what we are interested in is whether or not there is mindfulness of the knowing.

What I mean by that is whether our attention is present. Do we realize that hearing is happening, or are we lost in thought, ignorant of the fact that we just heard something. When the object that meets the sense door is the sound of a gunshot, chances are, it will win our attention, as gunshots tend to be quite loud. But what if it is something that is sometimes harder to notice, like anger or judgment. Are we lost in the judgment, or do we recognize that judgment is at work in our lives?

Let me use another example, one that more commonly lacks mindfulness. When we think, we often aren't mindful of 1. the content, and 2. the fact that we are even thinking in the first place. This is the experience of being lost in thought. When we practice mindfulness, that means we try to be mindfulness, not that we are mindful all the time. That's why it's called a practice. I am speaking for myself here, and most practitioners who aren't yet masters. While trying, sometimes we realize what we are experiencing, and other times, we are baffled. The one thing that all of us share is this experience of "coming back." We suddenly realize that "we" have been somewhere else. By "we" I mean our attention. Maybe we were lost in a memory, or daydreaming about the future. Maybe we were wrapped up in some fantasy or anxious about that upcoming school or work assignment. It is at this moment of coming back, that we can make sense of all of this rambling that I've been doing. 

We all know what it's like to be lost in some sort of mental activity, and we all know what it's like to suddenly arrive in the moment and realize that we have been elsewhere. The interesting thing is that sometimes, we can remember where we've been. In these situations, we can remember the content of the mental activity, which is the first thing I mentioned that we often aren't mindful of when we think. So if we don't realize it "as it is happening," but somehow we can remember, what is it that remembers? In my usage of vocabulary that I've chosen today, it is the faculty of knowing. Knowing was happening the entire time, but our mindfulness wasn't there. That is to say that while we were thinking, we were lost in thought, and didn't realize that we were in fact thinking. There was just thinking, not the observant perspective of mindfulness. 

Let's step out of this theory a bit and into the actual application of practicing mindfulness of body (yes, I have been mindful of my digression this entire time).

Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon, Myanmar. 

The Practice:

While sitting comfortably, bring your attention to the experience of sitting. Take it all in. Whether you want to do so by using mental labels, or by acknowledging the knowing element of your experience without labeling, is up to you. You may notice the feeling of your sitz bones coming in contact with the chair or cushion or floor. You may notice that your abdomen is rising and falling as you inhale and exhale. Any adjustments that need to be made to ensure that you can sit relatively still and with some level of comfort, should be made at this time. 

Having gotten a good feel for what it is like to be alive while sitting here in the moment, you can begin to zoom in, and isolate more detailed aspects of your experience. You can decide whether you want your experience to direct your attention, or whether you want to direct it yourself. If you have a shooting pain in your knee or back, that is an obvious place to go next and that would be an example of letting your experience direct your attention. Whenever some aspect of your body takes the center stage, give it the microphone, and then sit back and watch it. When nothing is really calling you, you can practice choosing, and in that case, you can zoom in or out, choosing to return to the sitz bones, the abdomen, any pain you may have, or an itch, or the overall experience of sitting.

"It doesn't matter what you are mindful of, it just matters that you are mindful."  Eric Kolvig

If you are choosing to practice mindfulness of body and nothing else, then every time you are distracted by a sound or a thought, come back to your body. You may do so by gently returning to some aspect of the experience of sitting immediately, or you may, for the sake of record keeping, make a mental note of whatever it was that stole your attention before coming back to your body. 

If you are choosing to practice mindfulness of body along with the other practices of mindfulness, you may choose to stay with whatever experience distracts you. That is to say that if it starts raining, you might note "hearing, hearing, hearing" for as long as you'd like, staying with that experience of hearing the rain. No need to get wrapped up in the content of what you hear, just label it as "hearing" and stay with that direct experience. Or, if you start thinking, you can not only identify "judging mind" at work, but you can also stay with the mind and see what happens next. In this way you can continue to identify, and note if you choose, whatever mental activity you experience, for as long as you want, before coming back to the body or moving on to another sense object. 

The Anchor:

If you have chosen to incorporate multiple aspects of mindfulness into your session, it is good to have an anchor, or something to return your attention to, to keep you grounded. The body/breath is usually the best object to use as an anchor, because it is always there. Thoughts come and go too quickly, and are too slippery to be an anchor. Hearing may or may not be prevalent at any given time, depending on our environment. But either the breath or body, which are really sort of connected, are much more reliable and are easy to locate. 

Now you might be wondering, should I just practice mindfulness of body or should I incorporate all the sense doors? There is no right or wrong answer. In general, since we are looking to be aware of what is happening from moment to moment, and what is happening isn't limited to just one sense door, it's probably better to spend the majority of our time practicing with all the aspects of mindfulness. That being said, just try, at least once, to move through the different sense doors, one at a time, singling them out for a certain length of time, ideally for the entire session. Then you can experiment with mixing them, or going back and forth, in other sessions. 

During that session, when you single out those aspects of your direct experience that come in through the body, you may gain some insight into a wonderful world that is constantly bursting with life. Sometimes our bodies feel so dull and lifeless, but that's usually just when we aren't connected to them. If we learn to tune into our bodies, we find that there is always something happening. In fact, there is always a lot happening! 

From gross sensations to subtle ones, we can play around with this zoom lens, learning to "take it all in" one moment and single out the tiniest sensation in another. If you like to label, you might find yourself labeling "pain, pain, pain" on a regular basis. But what is pain? What is it really like? See if you can investigate further, and get past the mental formation of it. Upon a closer look, you might find that the experience of pain includes things like burning, heat, numbness, throbbing, aching, or shooting pains.

Other things you might find in your body are heaviness or lightness, dullness or vibrancy, warmth or coolness. You might find sensations that are stagnant and others that are in motion. You might be able to feel your heartbeat. You might get a sense of your skeletal arrangement, how your vertebrae are stacked on top of each other. You might just sense a heavy blob devoid of all feeling. You might gain insights into the nature of form and the impermanence of all things. 

The truth is, I don't know what you might find, and neither do you, unless you look. Not only will you find yourself more connected with your body, but you will also be strengthening your ability to concentrate and be mindful. You will have a sensory experience, there will be knowing, and by acknowledging the knowing, you will be mindful. In this way, you won't be lost in your thoughts, you will be alert, and able to identify and acknowledge the different aspects of your experience as they arise and pass away, always aware of what is happening. To me, life is too short to be sleepwalking most of the time. Even though this practice takes effort, discipline, and determination, the rewards of actually being here to enjoy these fleeting moments of our lives seems to make it all worth it. 

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Doubting the Path to Freedom

In the last couple months, I have stayed at a few different monasteries on what has become somewhat of a quest for the best technique, the right teacher, the perfect setting, etc. It's not that there's anything wrong with looking around a little, as opposed to the more risky act of giving yourself to the first fancy thing that comes your way, but the question remains, why seek for that which I already am?

There are many ideas about the path to freedom leading inward, and that we should look no further than ourselves to find truth. These ideas come from many different traditions from all over the world, and I have absolutely no doubt as to their validity. So why even bother? Why leave my house (if I had one)? Why do anything?

These are questions that have been coming up for me as of late, and I want to take the time to address them, for my own sake and others that might have had similar doubts, which brings me to my main point. Both this act of looking around, "window shopping," as it's called, is a form of doubt, and so is my questioning of "why bother?" Even though one is the motivating force and one is more of a preventative force, they are really the same thing.

In Buddhism, there are said (by the Buddha) to be five hindrances that will obstruct the path to freedom:

1. desire
2. anger/ill-will
3. sloth-torpor/boredom
4. restlessness/worry
5. doubt

Basically, doubt is the opposite of some sort of faith in that which you are doing. Without some faith, not necessarily in Buddhism, but just that meditation or a certain technique will work, progress becomes quite difficult or impossible. It's sort of like the suspension of disbelief that comes when you watch a good movie or play, or read a fictional book. If you never let yourself relax into the storyline, and just allow yourself to believe it, it is hard to enjoy. If the movie is too cheasy, or we just can't see past all the flaws of the acting, the dialogue, or the storyline, it's almost impossible to enjoy it. We at least have to have that minimal level of faith in the movie, or play, or story, in order to get some enjoyment out of it.

It's the same with meditation. You don't have to be sure that it's going to do great things, but you have to have some minimal amount of faith, at least, that it's worth it. Otherwise, your motivation to do it won't be there, and if you make yourself do it, you won't have the right amount of effort. If the effort is too high, you will exerperience restlessness/worry. If it is too low, you will experience sloth/torpor/doubt.

But for us westerners, if in fact that's what you are, doubt seems to be a necessary step to our awakening. Afterall, would we even be here, would we even be looking to things like meditation if we didn't question our own system? Unlike many countries in the East, most of us weren't introduced to meditation at a young age. Yes, contemplative Christian practices do exist, but it's largely something that the majority of Christians know little about and certainly don't practice.

Even so, contemplation is only part of the picture. What is really important to cultivate here is a connection to the ever passing moment, and to do that, we practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is like the glue that keeps "us" in the here and now. If you're not sure what that means, try doing something and see how long it takes before your mind gets lost in thought. Try walking and focus on your steps. Or try watching your breath. Chances are, that unless you've spent a ridiculous amount of time training your mind to be in the present moment, you're probably not in the present moment most of the time. The truth is, most of us aren't (myself included).

So is this a problem? Why do we care if we are in the present moment or not?

Well, this is a question each of us needs to come to terms with. There is nothing we need to do. If you want to live in the present moment, you will probably need to work hard to make that happen. If you don't care, you don't need to anything. The choice is yours. As for me, I know I want to live in the present moment, but I am also lazy. So sometimes I can pull it together to practice mindfulness and sometimes I can't seem to get out of bed. I guess I find that I want it, but if I don't have it, it's not the end of the world. In one way, that's sort of how I define the middle way. It's about having a motivation without being attached to the results. If I wanted mindfulness so much that nothing else mattered, I would probably never be able to take responsibility for my life, I'd also chose meditation over a job, and why sleep when I could be practicing?

So there is a healthy balance here, there is a place where we can acknowledge that we aren't where we want to be, but we also acknowledge that there is a certain timeline between where we are and where we are going. In this acknowledgement we discover the path.

On the path is where we can find our foothold. We can find our balance. On the path, we can find the way. It's where we can turn around, see where we've been, and we can look ahead, to see where we are going, but most importantly, we can acknowledge where we are. We also have to accept that we can only take one step at a time. Even if we get super motivated and start running, we can't skip steps. And also we know that when we run too fast for too long, we get tired, and then we can barely stand up. So we establish our pace. We know that slow and steady wins the race. More important than speed is going in the right direction. When we get distracted, and we start going different directions, we are no longer moving forward, and progress is delayed.

This delay can be seen as doubt. If I shop around, trying too many different techniques and never sticking with any of them, it will be hard to move forward.

The path also shows us that it's not about the destination. The journey becomes the goal, and that is where the perfection comes in. There is nowhere to end up, it's about moving forward, always improving ourselves and getting rid of deluded and unwholesome mind-states. There is nowhere to stop. There is nowhere that we can say, okay, I'm done, there is nothing left to do. We must push on.

In this scenario, we can see that there is no comparison, that with every step of the way we are indeed perfect. But it also shows us that without a place to stop, we are always putting forth the effort to continue. So what is perfect in one moment, can not be true for the next. In this way, we know we have to keep moving.

Even if we don't run, we know we can't walk forever. We need to stop to eat, and rest, and sleep. So there are times when we only need to eat, sleep, and rest a little, and there are times when we need to rest deeply. It can be a time when great doubt arises, these times when we can't seem to get off the couch or out of bed, but as long as we don't lose sight of the path we are on, we can acknowledge that there is no harm in "checking out" when that is what we are feeling called to do. And when the opposite is true, when we are called to act, whether through meditation, helping others, creating something, finding a job, or doing the dishes, then we stand up and we do just that.

Okay, so I admit this isn't an easy thing to swallow, that's why I'm writing it, because it's something I struggle with on a daily basis. Am I doing too much? Am I doing too little? Why do anything at all? If I can remind myself that every step of the way is necessary, even the mistakes, even the laziness, it's all there helping me find my way, then I don't need to let doubt overrun my practice. I don't need to doubt as to whether putting in all this effort into meditation is worth it, because I have already seen that it is, I already know in my heart that it's worth it, for me, and that should be enough.

So yes, it is important to question things, and to think for ourselves. It's important to stay connected to our desires and aspirations, to always consider whether what is driving us is coming from a wholesome or unwholesome place. Do we just want to be mindful so we can gain mental powers or impress people? Or maybe we are attached to that image of being enlightened? If we aren't careful, we will lose sight of what is important, and that is acknowledging where we are, where we've been, and where we are going.

It seems that the best we can do, at least as a westerner, is to keep our doubt in check, and keep moving forward, on what we feel in our hearts to be the path to freedom, with one step, or breath, at a time. As with many aspects of the Buddhist path, the important thing is to be aware of what is happening, so when doubt is arising, being aware of it, and acknowledging that awareness, will give you a good chance of keeping your doubts at bay and keeping you on the straight and narrow.

Keep practicing and good luck!

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Dishwashing Meditation

Okay, I admit it, I hate washing dishes as much as the next person, but not always. Sometimes, I have moments that go something like, "This isn't so bad," and others, I actually find myself enjoying it. So what's the difference? What determines whether or not I will hate or enjoy washing the dishes?

For me, it all comes down to mindfulness. If we are lost in our minds, in the stories that we tell ourselves about how we shouldn't have to do this, we will surely suffer. If we are doing the dishes, and we are hating it, we are probably lost in the negativity, in the resistance. We don't want to do it, or we want to put it off until later, but here we are, somehow, at the sink, and we are actually doing it, we are actually washing the dishes.

Let's take a look at this situation for a second to gain some perspective. I thought about this as I was just squatting down on a 6" stool on the "balcony" of my friend's studio apartment here in Bangkok. The balcony is about 4' x 4', with a tile floor and a drain, so that it can be used for washing clothes and dishes. You might think she is living in the ghetto, but this is not the case. Her place is pretty nice actually, even for western standards.  She has a hot shower and air conditioning in a newer building with an elevator and a restaurant on the first floor that delivers hot meals for a buck in a few minutes. If anything, this is above the Thai standard.

If you have a kitchen sink, be grateful!
Maybe it's me, or maybe it's because they have less, but Thai people don't seem to mind doing the dishes, and I think I know why: gratitude. So even if your squatting down on a sweaty balcony in Bangkok, hating life as you wash the dishes, you might find that you have something to be grateful for afterall. Yes, I feel pretty good about making this assumption, because nearly everyone who has the displeasure of washing dishes has something in common.

Why you should be grateful:

1. If you are washing dishes, you probably just ate or at least have food to eat. You don't see starving children in Africa washing random dishes for fun, pretending like they just had a feast. Even if you are doing it as part of your job, that means you are getting money and can use that money to buy food. Plus, if you work in a restaurant, you are probably getting at least a little bit of free food, which is yet another reason to be grateful!

2. If you are washing dishes, you probably have some sort of residence, or are at least afforded the opportunity to stay in one (the latter goes for me right now).

3. If you are washing dishes, you probably have two hands that work, with at least most of your fingers, and enough dexterity to hold a plate.

4. If you are washing dishes, there is pretty good chance you have running water in your house (not necessarily, but I bet most of my readers do).

5. If you are washing dishes, you probably have your vision (not necessarily, I bet most of my readers do).

6. If you are washing dishes, you can look forward to the fact that you'll soon have clean dishes again.

Okay, so it's pretty easy to see why you should be grateful when your washing dishes. Now let's look at ways you can get out of the headspace that whines and complains about this fact of life, or the fact that your roommates are in denial about their personal responsibilities, and into the actual experience of washing.

The point of this is that the actual experience usually isn't as bad as the mental proliferation of it. That is to say, that the mind makes it out to be much worse than it is, especially if not all the dishes are yours and you are doing more than you should be.

Mindfulness of dishwashing:

1. Set the intention to be as mindful as possible (AMAP).

2. Feel your hand floating through time and space as it reaches forward to turn on the water.

3. Grab a dish. Try to notice the interplay between the intention to grab and the experience of grabbing. Are you just blindly grabbing dishes in life, or are you aware of what you're doing, carefully selecting the next dish, and opening and closing your hand with intention. This is a place to become curious.

4. Reach for and grab the sponge or your utensil of choice. Many Thai people I've seen at the monastery seem to think the hand is an appropriate tool, without soap, but let me clarify, use a sponge and lather that sucker up with some nice dish soap for good measure. Feel the texture of the sponge in your hand. Is it rough or smooth? Is it heavy or light? Just notice what it's like to hold a sponge in your hand. Don't forget you are a living, breathing, creature.

5. Begin to wash the dishes. Wash the dishes as if it were the most important thing in the world. You don't need to go fast, or you might miss some of the magic. Wash as if the aliens are watching you, and only you, for 5 minutes to determine the fate of humankind and the world. If you don't convince them through your dishwashing that we are an intelligent, compassionate, and lovable species, they will press a button and blow the entire planet into smithereens.

6. Feel the water on your hands. Is it hot, warm, or cold? If you have warm water, can you find a sense of gratitude for that? Thai people might have hot showers, but not hot water elsewhere in the house, so washing the dishes with warm water on my hands is something that I miss living over here. Don't miss an opportunity to appreciate that nice feeling of having warm water running on your hands as you scrub the dishes.

7. Check in with the mind. Even if you have been mindful, and are impressing the aliens, maybe the mind is still commentating, complaining about having to do this most awful task when you could be doing something much easier like watching TV. If the mind is judging, just notice that it is so. You might do this by noting to yourself silently, "judgment arising." If the mind is aggravated, notice that it is so. Maybe you are thinking about how you want to kill your roommates, planning the exact revenge and then how you will laugh in their face as they take their last breath. If so, maybe you need to see a psychiatrist, but first, just notice that it is so. When the mind continues to run its course of madness under the radar, it drives us crazy. The best thing to do is just to shine the light of awareness on it, and say, "Okay, I hear ya, but I'm not going to play your stupid games!" Be careful not to pick a fight, it just wants attention. If you don't let it get a rise out of you, you are still in control. If you don't realize it's in the back of the class throwing things behind your back (that was me for many years in school), you are not in control (sorry former teachers).

So instead of being lost in the story about how you shouldn't be having to do this, how your roommate or your husband or your children never help out, don't put yourself through the extra grief and just pay attention to the actual experience of holding a dish, feeling the water and the sponge, and being grateful for all that you have, because there are many out there who would kill to be able to say that they had dishes to do, or food to eat, or a place to live, or a family to clean up after, or running water, or hands and eyes, or any of these things that you probably have if you are in fact washing the dishes, or reading this for that matter.

Again, one of the best ways to do this is just by identifying mental activity and thereby finding freedom from its negativity. This is actually the practice of vipassana meditation while washing the dishes, and can also be used at any given point in your waking life, with any task, or in any moment of relaxation. Find that space between that voice of negativity in your head and "you," because you've been working hard, and you owe it to yourself. Afterall, you have been doing the dishes!

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Village People - Life in Rural Myanmar

Delays in posting articles has led to me just skipping some and also not writing others. I think I'm going to abandon trying to maintain any sort of continuity or chronological order. Although we seemingly go through life chronologically, it's largely not how we experience it, as we spend so much time reflecting, and planning, and so little time in the present moment. We jump through time and space like a trigger-happy channel surfer who goes from watching a live news broadcast, to a futuristic sci-fi movie, to the history channel.

Especially for my life at the moment, "living" abroad, but with no place to call home, drifting about aim-fully and only touching down long enough to catch my breath and regain my composure before heading back out into the world, refining my sense of purpose, it just doesn't make sense to be chronological. That being said, as I experience new things, I will probably write about them first, but don't be surprised to see old reflections thrown into the mix.

So before I head out today to another monastery for a week, I wanted to share with you at least some photos from the 4 days I spent in a small rural village, high in the mountains of Myanmar, where the people are living a life largely how they have been for centuries.

What interests me is how should we feel about the inevitable changes these people face, and what do we stand to learn from their way of life?

As much as we want to help these people with things like education, health-care, and having a clean water source, we also want to preserve their culture, something we can use as a model of a people that live a simpler life. But how to do? This is no easy task. I think the one thing is that we can be aware, and we can reserve a special place in our hearts for those peoples of the world that are still living off the land, disconnected from the progress of modern civilization, and living in such a way that in their hearts and homes, they are thriving, happy, and living peacefully.

I am very grateful for having had the opportunity to spend some time in this village, with these people, and I hope to not forget that in the midst of this crazy world, there exists a place within the hearts of all of us that remembers what it's like to live a simple life.

WANT SOME?
Not uncommon to see the young caring for
the extremely young.
At the watering hole. Seemed to be a job they
gave their children. Yes, that's drinking water...
Overlooking the village I stayed in for 3 nights. 
Not exactly camera-shy.
My guide carrying my pack for me in flipflops on
the 3 hour hike back to civilization. A day rate is less than $3,
and I paid this guy $6, so I didn't feel too bad...
Sunrise over valley on the other side of the ridge from
where I was staying.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Me in Myanmar

The monks walking to lunch. They went first, then us (the lay men),
 then the nuns, and finally the lay women. 

Well, today marks my 28th day in this country and that means the end of the allotted duration of stay on my tourist visa. In other words, I am sitting at the airport in Yangon and will soon fly back to Thailand.

Having just left the Mahasi Meditation Center, and excited to return home, it's hard to express the happiness that I am feeling. If I was excited to come here in the first place, I am easily twice as excited to get back to Thailand. I miss it there, it has become a place that feels like home to me, so have been away from home for 4 weeks now, and alone, has been somewhat difficult.

Nuns. 
The past 9 days have been by far the most difficult. Myanmar is known as having one of the strictest disciplines of meditation in the world. Many of the hardcore temples and meditation centers in Thailand are actually taking Myanamar's lead, and most of those temples are also using the Mahasi Method, which was developed by the Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw, who although has been dead longer than I have been alive, has a presence that can be felt all over this country. His centers are also located all over the world, numbering in the hundreds, and he is regarded as one of the most influencial Buddhist meditation masters of the 20th century.

This is how you cook for a monastery.
Unfortunately for me, he also is responsible for developing one of the most intense training regimines that would be conceivable to expect a normal human to be able to endure, and willingly. As to whether I knew exactly what I was getting into is a matter of uncertainty. I recently finished a 21 day course at Wat Chom Tong in Thailand that also uses the Mahasi Method and a similar program, but the expected 10 hours a day at Wat Chom Tong was nothing compared to the schedule of at least 15 here at the Mahasi Center, and in Thailand, they let you sleep 6 hours as opposed to only 4 here.

That being said, the 21 day course was intense, and given that it was a course, it had a beginning and an end. The beginning was easy, starting out with short sittings, and taking breaks in between. Then it gradually eased you into 1 hour increments of sitting and walking, and maintained the 20 minute breaks in between. Around day 15, they started reducing my sleep, and had me take my meals in my room instead of eating at the dining hall with everyone else, and for the last 3 nights, I was not permitted to sleep whatsoever, nor take a shower. I was to practice all day, and all night, for 3 days, while only taking breaks when necessary. But, because it sort of worked its way up to that point, I was able to endure, and although I ended up accidentally falling asleep a few short times during those final 3 days, I managed to endure and mostly stuck to the program.

My only roommate. Every time I came back to my room, I'd play where's frogger.
Sometimes, he proved to be pretty elusive. I wanted to catch him and put him outside
at first, but then I realized he had been there longer than I had. If anyone
was the intruder, it was me...
Here in Yangon, if there is a program, I wasn't aware of it. You just sort of come and go and practice on your own. From the first day to the last, you should be practicing 15 hours a day and only sleeping 4. No one really watches you, with the exception of a monk who will make sure everyone at least wakes up in time for the 4 am group sitting, but other than that, you are on your own. I didn't really know what I was getting into 9 days ago when I arrived at the center, as I hadn't really looked into it much, I just decided to go and showed up.

So I did my best, but I only got in 15 hours on one of the days, and I only reduced my sleep to 4 hours on one of the nights. I started to get lazy by the end and the past few days I have been taking it easy, and not worrying about the schedule so much.

This guy beating against a huge piece of wood was a nice addition to the lunch bell. 
Today, now, I feel incredible. I guess one of the best parts about going to a place like that is leaving. But not only because I'm finally out of there, but because of what happened inside. Because I was able to let go of my initial goal of getting in 100 hours in 9 days and only 7 full days, I think I feel better now than I would have if I had reached my goal. While it is nice to set goals for ourselves, especially healthy ones, we can become attached to them. Sometime, a few days ago, I was finally able to admit that I had become attached to the outcome of my goal and it was just another thing I was reaching for, just another thing to accomplish and latch onto.



Since I met my goal of 200 hours during the 3 week course, I was worried that I might let myself down if I didn't come through this time around. But I'm not disappointed. What I am looking for is freedom, and although meditation practice is helping me find it, I need to constantly check in with my motivations. If I'm just trying to rack up hours, I might as well stay home, because the meditation won't do me any good with that attitude. It can be a difficult thing, to see what drives us to do the things we do, but with observation and a little honesty, we can gain insight into whether it's the heart or that head that is fueling our fire.

This time, I had to stop and refocus. What am I really after here? What is my reason for putting in all this time and effort? It's not just something you can do once and be done with. You have to keep checking in, keep looking in the mirror to make sure you haven't lost your initial wholesome purpose.


Some elder monks eating lunch. The guy on the left was a badass.
So today, I feel light, and I have realized an important lesson. It doesn't matter if I practice a lot or a little, it matters if I cultivate an attitude that will help me learn to let go and not identify with a false sense of self that is created by the ego. Sure, meditation has become the primary focus of my life and my sense of direction in the last 2 or 3 years, but it's not who I am. As long as I remember that, I can keep practicing and moving forward, instead of getting stuck in conquests and concepts, going round in circles in the back eddy of my life-stream. At the moment, I have found my place somewhere in the middle, and that is good enough for me, for now. As for tomorrow, well, that will offer another wonderful opportunity to take a deep look, and see if I've once again lost my balance.


Thanks for listening.