We Have Arrived May 19, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: ancestors, bodhisattva, Buddha, happiness, interbeing, Mara, present moment, Thich Nhat Hanh, walking meditation
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Today’s dharma reading was chapter four from Thich Nhat Hanh’s Touching Peace. Here’s a summary. Please share any thoughts.
Thich Nhat Hanh relates a story about a friend who helped him organize a visit to India. He describes the friend’s discomfort and inability to relax due to the discrimination he has endured throughout his life as a member of India’s lowest social caste. We all struggle in a similar manner, forgetting that “we have arrived;” conditions for our happiness are already here in the present moment, not waiting for us sometime in the future.
The practice of stopping now and looking deeply halts the habit energy of the negative seeds we have inherited from our ancestors and our society, liberating both ancestors and future generations. This is the teaching of interbeing. If we do not liberate our ancestors, we remain in bondage and we will transmit that to our children and grandchildren. Touching the earth, stepping mindfully, we all arrive and find peace at the same moment.
Thay includes several other images to illustrate interbeing: a meeting between Sudhana and Mahamaya, the mother of the Buddha, sitting on lotus flowers of hundreds of millions of petals; millions of Diamond Matrix bodhisattvas giving exactly the same discourse at the same time all over the universe; all of us taking care of the baby inside us, thus taking care of everything. “The moon is in me. My beloved is in me. Those who make me suffer are also in me…there is no hatred or blaming…No one is afraid to die, because dying means being born as something else at the same time.”
Thay goes on to describe the appearances of Mara – anger, darkness, jealousy, craving, despair; skepticism; worldly ambition – to the Buddha. Siddhartha greets Mara with quiet gentleness, touching the Earth, calling on the Earth to testify for him. The Earth trembles and appears as a goddess, offering flowers, fruits, perfumes. Mara just disappears. Similarly, when we recognize Mara, and respond by touching the Earth and walking upon the Earth mindfully and joyfully, Mara goes away. Earth is our nourishment, our refuge, our healer.
Thay continues with a full description of walking meditation. He then concludes by telling us we need not struggle, nor hurry. When we smile, countless bodhisattvas smile with us, and our peace affects our ancestors and all future generations. “Peace is every step. We have already arrived.” (Touching Peace, 35-45)
The practice, for me, of stopping and looking deeply, has made me much more aware of the habit energy I have in my daily life. This feels like an important step. This teaching by Thay is at the heart of my practice.
I find this practice essential as a parent, so that I can transform this habit energy. This will benefit my entire family, including my son.
Hi, Laurie
This is primarily just a test comment.
I think there’s a broad spectrum of things that can fit under the “habit energy” moniker – virtually anything that’s a habit that allows you to waste energy. In my case, for example, procrastination. I put a lot of energy into putting certain things off. Is it always bad though – for example, meditating when I should be cleaning the house? Hmmm…
I made note of the following although I’m not sure where I read it. I’m finding this expression very helpful in my practice.
“Not enough Presence”
“unease, anxiety, tension,stress & worry—-too much future”
“quilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness,
bitterness, non-forgiveness—too much past”
Be at ease, Linda:)
Meditations on a tangerine: Khaled Hosseini’s incredible and powerful book, A Thousand Slendid Suns, the story of two women caught in the violence and oppression of Afganistan through the last fifty years, has the following scene. Mariam, is waiting possible execution for killing her brutal husband in the act of murdering his younger wife. In prison she is befirended by a young woman, Naghma, who is in prison for eloping with a mullah’s son who when caught blames Naghma for seducing him and whose father says he will cut her throat when she gets out. “On Miriam’s last day at Walayat, Naghma gave her a tangerine. She put it in Mariam’s palm and closed her fingers around it. Then she burst into tears. ‘You’re the best friend I ever had,’ she said.” Mariam is described by a friend who remembers her as”…a rock in a riverbed, enduring without complaint, her grace not sullied but shaped by the turbulence that washes over her.” If a bodhisatva is one who gives her life for another, Mariam, and thousands like her are bodhisatvas in unspeakable situations.
Thay, in one of his books, describes the various religious pilgrimages as sections of a tangerine covered by a by a skin that binds us together. Each tradition has its own rituals, precepts, traditions, literature but there is a skin of interbeing that binds even these different pilgrimages together and points us in a collaborative way of acting to benefit others and the world. Protestant theologian, Richard Neibuhr in his book Radical Monotheism says it another way. There is a God beyond all gods.
My meditation this morning speaks to interbeing also. Shantideva’s “The Way of the Bodhisattva” provides meditations for dissolving the barriers between us.
Strive at first to meditate
Upon the sameness of yourself and others.
In joy and sorrow all are equal.
Thus be guardian of all, as of yourself.
The hand and other limbs are many and distinct,
But all are one – one body to be kept and guarded.
Likewise, different beings in their joys and sorrows,
Are, like me, all one in wanting happiness.
My pain does not in fact affict
Or cause discomfort to another’s body.
Through clinging to my “I”, this suffering is mine.
And, being mine, is very hard to bear.
And other beings’ pain
I do not feel, and yet
Because I take them for my own
Their suffering is likewise hard to bear.
And therfore I’ll dispel the pain of others,
For it is simply pain, just like my own.
And others I will aid and benefit,
For they are living beings, just like me.
“In joy and sorrow all are equal…It is simply pain, just like my own.” This understanding is so crucial. “It helps to realize,” says Pema Chodron (from my own meditation this morning), “that the Nelson Mandelas and Mother Teresas of the world also know how it feels to be in a small room with the windows and doors closed. They also know anger and jealousy and loneliness. They’re people who made friends with themselves and therefore made friends with the world. They’re people who developed the bravery to be able to relate to the shaky, tender, fearful feelings in their own hearts and therefore are no longer afraid of those feelings when they are triggered by the outside world.”
So it is the pain and suffering that unites us, all of us; understanding, acknowledging, and then working with this dissolves the barriers. Hard as it is, it is “simply” pain, “just like my own.” We need to remember this always.
Great stuff on the tangerine, Ted! Thanks!