Many

Molly Brown, over at Destination the Journey, today broached something that is a strong component of my practice.

While you sit reading this, someone is giving birth, another is dying, another grieves the loss of a love one. Everything in the breadth and depth of daily human experience is happening right now.

As I move through my day, I do my best to bear this in mind, and honor all these beings and their experiences with my behavior. It doesn't always work, and I am constantly having to pull myself back to this thought, but I try to do my best.

When I begin to pity myself or my situation, I find remembering that many of my brothers and sisters are in far worse places returns me to center. I pray for peace and strength of heart for them, and then also for myself.

A New Day...

...well, after a fashion, at least. Time for another, more concerted effort, on a lot of fronts, including everyday life.

For the moment - I found something interesting on lotusinthemud today:

facing our own boredom, impatience, and fears

Having an initial good look round is a good idea but pick'n'mix isn't Buddhist training:

If we do a little of one kind of practice and a little of another, the work we have done in one often doesn't continue to build as we change to the next. It is as if we were to dig many shallow wells instead of one deep one. In continually moving from one approach to another, we are never forced to face our own boredom, impatience, and fears. We are never brought face to face with ourselves. So we need to choose a way of practice that is deep and ancient and connected with our hearts, and then make a commitment to follow it as long as it takes to transform ourselves.

~ Jack Kornfield in A Path with Heart

So, interesting food for thought, and an interesting counterpoint/addition to The Buddhist Blog's latest post.

Wonderful Failure

There is a wonderful aspect to the mindfulness trainings: they are actually impossible to keep! To refrain from harming others? What a profound practice! We receive the Five Mindfulness Trainings knowing that by doing so we are opening up to our own failure. We cannot fix the world, we cannot even fix our own life. By accepting failure we express our willingness to begin again, time after time. By recognizing failure, we change, renew, adapt, listen, and grow. It is only by practicing without expectation of success that we can ever truly open to the world, to suffering and to joy. What extraordinary courage there is in risking losing what you know for the sake of the unknown; risking what you think you are capable of for the sake of your true capability! What profound freedom -- not having to get it right all the time, not having to live for the sake of appearance! By opening to our own failure, we open to the magnificence of the unknown, participating unconditionally, renewing our life.

-- Caitriona Reed
pp. 15-16, For a Future to Be Possible

I read this book (by Venerable Hanh) a while back, and found it to be a concise and useful read. However, it is this passage by Ms. Reed, quoted at the beginning of a discussion of the Second Precept, that I've really been thinking about lately. I don't know about y'all, but I've got a huge amount of perfectionist "habit energy." This quote really spoke to me, and has had such a relevant impact on my practice of mindfulness, but also on the texture of my emotional and intellectual landscape. Reflecting on the great gift of failure, it is easier for me not to dwell when I inevitably break a precept. (Right Listening and Speech, most recently and most notably.) Ms. Reed is totally right - what profound freedom there is in moving beyond the need to always be "correct" in our practice.

Chö-kor Düchen

Via the Palyul Yahoo forum, from http://www.pcddallas.org/Tibetan_Calendar_2007.htm

TODAY is Chökhor Düchen July 18, 2007

There are four major Special Buddha Days or "Festivals" (düchen) in a year which relate to the life of Buddha Shakyamuni.

During these days, it is said that the effects of positive or negative actions are multiplied 10 million times, so practice is strongly advised.

...

Chokhor Düchen - Buddha Shakyamuni First Turns the Wheel of Dharma

...

Chökhor Düchen July 18, 2007 (Tibetan Chö-kor Düchen-14th day of 6th lunar month): the "First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma" (first teaching) is celebrated. For the first seven weeks after his Enlightenment, Buddha did not teach. Encouraged by Indra and Brahma, he then gave his first teachings at Sarnath on the Four Noble Truths.

Well, there you are. If you didn't know, now you do.

Moving Meditation

This is obviously not directly Buddhism-related, but it's fairly close to the version of Surya Namaskar that I do. Or at least will begin to do again as soon as I feel my shoulder is rested enough. Anyway, there are some little differences, but it's more or less the form I was taught. I love this practice, and for as long as I've done it I've considered it a meditation on mindfulness and balance.

Hurrah!

Last night I went for my first Dharma Study, though it was a bit of a drive - I had to haul my cookies all the way to Gulf Breeze (just outside of Pensacola) to visit Palyul Changchub Choling. They're "... a sangha or group who study and practice Tibetan Buddhism in the Nyingma tradition according to the Palyul nam-cho practices.[Links are mine]"

I doubt I can go every week right now (2 hrs in a car with $3 gas), but they're such a great group, and I can do preliminary practices (Ngondro) with them and take refuge the next time the lama comes. I've thought about it, and I think Tibetan Buddhism is the best place for me to start right now, although I have a great deal of respect for the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. Going to the study group last night felt so right - I was comfortable with the meditation session and the dharma discussion - I felt at home in the material and even felt like I had something to contribute to the discussion. (For what it's worth, they were discussing What Makes You Not a Buddhist by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse. I don't have it, but it seems like an interesting read, if slim. Maybe once I've caught up on my other Dharma reading....Apparently, this is a much lighter/easier work than their last selection, which was a book on Dzogchen.)

Perhaps soon I can go back, and maybe I'll even remember to bring my camera. ^_^

Impermanence

I had the fantastic fortune of going back to yoga this week. I've really missed it since we moved. I tried to establish a practice here, but it's a bit crowded, and never very quiet. When yoga is properly practiced, at least for me, it's such a wonderful moving meditation. At least, that's how I think it ought to be.

I was lucky enough to have a classically trained teacher - a true yogini. I learned SO much from her. In fact, right before we left, I was contemplating certifying, at her suggestion. At this point, though, I've got a long journey back to where I was....

At the end of my first week back of regular practice, I had an instructor who's practice was less than balanced. We did entirely too many sustained inversions, to my mind, at least for the mixed level of participants there. I was thinking that through most of the practice. After the class, I was trying to show my MIL (she was in the class that day) the traditional sun salutation (Surya Namaskar) I "grew up" with when my right shoulder just gave way and collapsed, right in the middle of bhujangasana. Talk about a total shock. I use my arms all the time - they are not weak, to my mind (think farmer's wife). The only thing I can think of is that it was the same shoulder that I dislocated 3 times when I was a toddler. I dunno. Anyway, I've been forced to rest it this week, and practice has been impossible. Actually, for the first few days, a lot of things were impossible, or at least very painful.

It occurred to me that this was a great teaching for me - a lesson in humility and impermanence. Life changes, we all age, the range of possibilities shifts. I have no doubt I can return to my yoga practice. I just need to be more mindful and gentle with myself.

The Quote I'm Chewing On, Currently:

When starting to practice, be eager like a deer
trapped in a pen seeking to get out.
In the middle be like a farmer during harvest
not waiting for anything.
In the end be like a shepherd who has
brought the flock home.
-- Paltrul Rinpoche's Sacred Word

I wish I understood precisely what he was saying. I guess having the context of the entire work would be nice, but I found it isolated in a dharma book I'm reading right now. So I guess I'll have to just think about it.

Car-ma

OK, this is a car commercial, but I love this:

(Found at Awakening the Buddha in us - thanks!)

Love

Via Entering the Path I found a quote by Brad Warner:

“Transcending emotions doesn’t mean you have no feelings. You have them. But you recognize them for what they are and respond appropriately without letting them develop into what we call emotions, which are really just feelings that have been blown way out of proportion.”

To an extent I agree with this. However, in my humble, unschooled opinion, he's oversimplifying things. The breadth and depth of the palette of human emotion is a good thing, with a potential for great beauty. It's an essential part of what it means to be human, I think. If a human incarnation is to be viewed as a precious thing - an opportunity not to be wasted - it seems to me that human emotion is something not to be wasted, as well.

Problems arise when emotional experience becomes an attachment. Recently, just as I was ending my meditation practice, I had the thought that emotional pain can very easily become an attachment if one is unable or unwilling to move beyond past experience. However, not all emotion is pain and not all emotion is attachment. One can experience intense pain, one can experience intense emotion. I don’t believe suffering is dependent on either. It’s all in how you greet your experience.

There is much emphasis in Buddhism on loving-kindness and compassion. Compassion - the root of lovingness and kindness – is an emotion. I can’t think of another way to describe it. When one practices compassion and – as a consequence – kindness, one experiences great joy. This is not (should not be) the end result of practicing loving-kindness, but it’s a wonderful lagniappe. The emotional rewards of being loving are the fruit, not the tree.

The context of Mr. Warner's blog entry relates mostly to romantic love, so I'll focus my comments on love, specifically. To truly know and love someone - once one has moved beyond romantic love and on to the deeper realities of everyday love - can be one of the great joys of life. Within the structure of real love (whether it be filial, marital, or what-have-you), there is a great deal of room for mindfulness, compassion and understanding. Love can provide a fantastic context for one's daily practice - great opportunities for growth are to be found in our daily interactions. One might even argue that they are necessary for love to continue to ripen and expand.

I am a humble (I hope.), unknowledgeable student of Dharma. So perhaps I simply don’t understand the Truth of what Mr. Warner is saying. I also am not as well-read in Zen thought as I am in the other branches of Buddhism. So perhaps my lack of understanding lies there. In any case, for now, I’ll have to disagree. In my mind a feeling is an itch, and an emotion such as love - while a much “larger” issue – is still a useful experience.

Sitting

So, my meditation practice has been skittering all over the place lately.

It's not that I'm not sitting - I am. My lovely husband pointed out to me that if I was going to become Buddhist and live a Buddhist life I had absolutely no excuse for not establishing a meditation practice. Since that day I've made a point to try and sit everyday. I missed one day - and then decided I liked life better with a little bit of daily "sitting."

I've meditated off and on for many years of my life. Never with any formal education, mind you. The closest I came to that is the guided meditation at the end of my yoga classes, and that's simply not the same thing as a thoughtful, mindful, Buddhist practice.

I've been muddling through it on my own, with a small amount of good affect. For instance, this morning I had my blood pressure checked (while I was having blood drawn) and, for what it's worth, my reading was 98/60. Surprised the tech, as I have a rather girlish figure, in the words of a sweet acquaintance of mine.

As I've no sangha, no teacher, and no local examples, I've been relying on what I can glean from reading and listening to others from a distance (Thank goodness for the internet!). Right now I'm working on a simple approach, mostly focusing on breath meditation. Seems like a good place to start, and I've learned a lot.

Recently, though, my mind has been everywhere, and it is very difficult to be focused even on my breath. Occasionally my entire practice consists of naming my distraction and moving back to my breath. Obviously I've got a lot of work to do. In the meantime I must always strive to be gentle with myself.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche says that "Mindfulness practice is simple and completely feasible. Just by sitting and doing nothing, we are doing a tremendous amount." I consider this both a part of breathing meditation, and an integral part of daily life. (The latter a constant struggle, but a good one. ^_^) I understand, though, that this is not all there is to meditation, that beyond deepening my practice of samatha I must grow to understand and successfully practice vipassana.

I could wish for an easier journey on the Path, but wouldn't want one. Finding joy and practicing mindfulness in my current life is a delightful challenge.

Everyday Dharma

More from Tenzin Palmo:

We have to transform those ordinary actions of our day into dharma practice because otherwise nothing is going to move. And it’s very important to realize that every person that you meet, everything that you do, with the right attitude and a little awareness and skillful means — we can transform everything — all our joys and sorrows. Where else is the dharma? Obviously the dharma is every breath we take, every thought we think, every word we speak, if we do it with awareness and an open, caring heart.

Concerning Practice ...

"...practice should not be an ordeal."

From a Tenzin Palmo Interview ...

Obviously being relaxed doesn’t mean that you make no effort. To become effortless takes a lot of effort. It’s good to compare it to learning an instrument or learning a sport. When you learn an instrument, it takes an awful lot of time to just learn the scales, and then eventually when you have completely mastered the instrument, the music plays for you. But you still have to keep practicing. And it takes an awful lot of practice. Nonetheless, if you diligently practice, hours and hours and hours and hours, you probably won’t get it. You’ll probably just end up hurting your fingers. The very best players, when they are practicing, put everything they’ve got into it. But then they leave it for a while. And it’s the same in dharma practice. One has to find a balance. I don’t say that when you leave it you forget all about the dharma or practice, but there have to be times when you throw yourself into it, and then there are times when you just relax and realize that wherever you go, you cannot get out of the dharma. The dharma is here. And the dharma is in your heart. Where else would it be?