Overcoming Fear, Part 2 February 22, 2009
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: civilization, death, fear, Five Remembrances, impermanence, meditation, no-birth, no-death, old age, peace, sickness
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This week we finished reading Chapter 5, “Overcoming Fear,” of Thich Nhat Hanh’s The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology. A summary follows.
A drop of rain falling on the ground disappears, but is still there in another form, in the soil or as vapor. A cloud can become rain or snow or ice, but it cannot die. Meditation helps us understand our true nature of no-birth and no-death. Birth and death are just notions. This insight removes fear. Understanding that we cannot be annihilated releases us from fear, gives us peace, and helps our civilization find peace.
We are afraid of dying, of being abandoned, of getting sick. One day we will die; our attempts to forget will not change this fact. The Buddha has taught us to practice recognizing these seeds of fear instead of running away from them by meditating mindfully with the Five Remembrances:
- I am of the nature to grow old.
There is no way to escape growing old. - I am of the nature to have ill health.
There is no way to escape having ill health. - I am of the nature to die.
There is no way to escape death. - All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change.
There is no way to escape being separated from them. - I inherit the results of my actions of body, speech and mind.
My actions are my continuation.
We bring up these seeds and face them with mindfulness and courage. The strength of the fear is reduced and the seed becomes weaker. We feel better after facing these realities, accepting them rather than denying them. By accepting, we find peace, can relax, and can possibly overcome sickness. Though we have the technology to save the planet, we cannot use it in fear and despair. Touching the truth of impermanence, we have peace and can then use technology to save our planet. With the insight of interbeing, we can touch our true being of no-birth no-death, and can die peacefully, with love.
We may also practice these as a breathing exercise, following this pattern:
Breathing in, I know I am of the nature to grow old.
Breathing out, I know I cannot escape old age.
Accepting these essential truths in this way helps us live healthfully and compassionately without bringing suffering to ourselves and others.
Many civilizations have come and gone. Our current one will have to die in order to make room for the next one. Global warming may be an early symptom, and our overconsumption will bring the end more quickly. If we can accept our death in this human form, we can accept the inevitable end of our civilization. When we accept that our own true nature is no-birth no-death, we will no longer act with anger, denial and despair. Acceptance brings peace, and with peace civilization might have a chance. We can make a genuine contribution when we have found this real insight – not just a verbal expression of it – in looking deeply during sitting, walking and reflecting.
We have the technology to save the planet: renewable energy sources and hybrid, electric and vegetable oil-powered vehicles. But our despair, anger, division, discrimination, busyness, and lack of peacefulness and collaboration prevent us from taking advantage of it. Saving the planet requires us to combine the technological with the spiritual. Meditation is not an escape. It provides the courage, wisdom and insight we need to look at reality and throw away our wrong views and misperceptions. We can use our skills and insights to wake up people, nurturing non-fear, brotherhood and sisterhood. We don’t have to go outside daily life. The Buddha proposes we help ourselves and those immediately around us; this will bring about the collective change of consciousness.
Realizing Ultimate Reality August 17, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: birth, bodhisattva, children, death, historical dimension, meditation, nirvana, suffering, Thich Nhat Hanh, ultimate dimension, water, wave
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Our dharma reading for this and last week was “Realizing Ultimate Reality” from Thich Nhat Hanh’s Touching Peace: Practicing the Art of Mindful Living, (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1992, pp. 117-128). Here’s a summary.
Life has two dimensions: the historical dimension, which is like a wave, and the ultimate dimension, which is like the water beneath. Learning how to touch the water beneath the wave brings us the greatest fruit meditation offers. The historical dimension, the world of waves, is characterized by birth and death, ups and downs, being and non-being. Water, representing the ultimate dimension, does not have these characteristics. Touching it, we are liberated from these concepts.
As 2nd-century philospher Nagarjuna says, nothing can be born from nothing. There is no birth, no death; only continuation. “Instead of singing ‘Happy Birthday,’ we can sing ‘Happy Continuation.’” (p. 118) We are all continuations of our parents and ancestors, and our children continuations of us. We can give solace to others, and take solace ourselves, that we all pass on the good things we have learned, and that when our body departs, we will continue in many other forms.
Who can say that your mother has “passed away?” The notions of being and non-being, alive and dead, belong to the historical dimension. In the ultimate dimension, she is still with you. The same would be true of a flower or a leaf. They are playing hide-and-seek; we can touch them anytime we want. Perhaps this is their game, to teach us to practice peace and happiness. The Buddha said, “When conditions are sufficient, the body reveals itself, and we say the body is. When conditions are not sufficient, the body cannot be perceived by us, and we say the body is not.” (p. 120) If you know how to touch your mother in the ultimate dimension, you can see that she is in you, smiling.
Nirvana, the extinction of all notions and concepts, including birth and death, being and non-being, coming and going, is available right now when you breathe, walk, or drink your tea mindfully. “You have been ‘nirvanized’ since the very non-beginning.” (p. 121) We are capable of touching the ultimate dimension; we just need to learn how to do it more deeply and more frequently. “Thinking globally” is an example of touching the ultimate dimension.
Dwelling in the historical dimension, we will be tossed about on the waves of daily events: a bad day at work, waiting in a long line, a bad phone connection. But in the ultimate dimension, visualizing these events, say, a hundred years from now, they lose their significance entirely. We are capable of touching the ultimate dimension. Thay says that when he is aware of his feet on the ground in Plum Village, he is also aware that he is touching France, Russia, India, China, the whole Eurasian continent, the whole Earth. When practicing walking meditation, you see that you are touching the whole beautiful planet Earth with each step.
Touching the ultimate dimension gives us the deepest kind of relief, deeper than other practices. When you touch one thing or one moment with deep awareness, you touch all things in all the past and all the future. According to the Avatamsaka Sutra, “The one contains the all.” (p. 123) We suffer if we touch the waves (the historical dimension), but feel relief when we learn to stay in touch with the water (the ultimate dimension). Meditation helps us learn that the two, the waves and the water, the historical and ultimate dimensions, are one.
Thay tells of a dream in which he and his brother were in a marketplace where all the items represented events from his life or experiences of suffering. As he touched each, feelings of sorrow and compassion arose. Also on display were childhood notebooks containing accounts of many experiences which he had forgotten, or which he had dreamed, or which were from previous lives. Now, the man who had brought them to the marketplace, sounding like God or Destiny, told him, “You will have to go through all of this again!” He felt like he had experienced all this suffering, racial discrimination, ignorance, despair, sorrow, political oppression, war and death through many lifetimes already. Now that they had reached a place of space and freedom, did they have to go through it again? But he faced the man with determination and said, “I will do it thousands of times more if necessary. All of us will do it together!”
Upon awaking from the dream, he thought he had to die soon in order to begin the journey anew. But looking more deeply, he discovered the man represented the seed of fear or laziness arising from his own store consciousness. His first reaction had been in the historical dimension, but his second was in the ultimate dimension, of no birth and no death, and, feeling solidarity with the children everywhere, he became willing to undergo all the hardships with them countless times. He also saw that all of us are ready to join him, bringing along all our collective wisdom and freedom.
In addition to the historical dimension and the ultimate dimension, there is the action dimension of all the bodhisattvas practicing engaged Buddhism, helping in whatever ways they can to transform suffering and offer relief. All of us, Thay’s brothers and sisters, are those bodhisattvas riding the waves of birth and death, ready to join the children in facing the challenges before us.
Sangha Building July 28, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: ancestors, community, compassion, family, family traditions, hungry ghost, interbeing, meditation, mindfulness, pain, parenting, present moment, roots, sangha, sangha family, seeds of mindfulness, single parent, suffering, Thich Nhat Hanh
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The dharma reading for this week and last week was Chapter Nine, “Sangha Building,” from Thich Nhat Hanh’s Touching Peace: Practicing the Art of Mindful Living, pp. 99-115. Here’s a summary.
Thay says he sees people without roots as hungry ghosts. A “hungry ghost” is “a wandering soul who is extremely hungry and thirsty but whose throat is too narrow for food or drink to pass through.” (p. 99) A hungry ghost longs for love and beauty, but is unable to receive or touch them, turning instead, in their search for meaning, to alcohol, drugs, or sex.
The main sickness of our time is the production by society of millions of persons with no roots, no happiness at home, nothing to believe in or belong to. How can a person survive with nothing to believe in, with no energy to smile or touch beauty? Drugs are not the cause of these problems, so attempts to control drugs will have only limited success. Rather, we need to rebuild the foundations of our communities to offer people something to believe in. Science, Marxism, even the God President Bush invoked against Iraq, are all too small. Many people are turned off by others who claim to represent traditions the deepest values of which they have not experienced for themselves.
Mindfulness, on the other hand, the awareness of what is going on in the present moment, is something we can believe in. Mindfulness is not an abstraction. When we drink a glass of water, when we sit, walk, stand or breathe, we know we are drinking a glass of water, sitting, walking, standing or breathing. Mindfulness is the living buddha inside us, “giving birth to insight, awakening, compassion, and love.” All people, not just Buddhists, have these seeds of mindfulness in them, and watering these seeds can restore families.
The “five powers” taught by the Buddha are faith, energy, mindfulness, and understanding. Faith brings about energy, and a good friend can inspire faith. (p. 102) We must put our trust in what is stable; “I take refuge in the sangha” means I trust a stable community. Friends in sangha are the most essential element of the practice.
Looking deeply, we discover that what we call our “self” is made entirely of non-self bits from society, nature, ancestors, and those we love. We may resist acknowledging roots that have made us suffer, but when we connect with them, our pain begins to melt away. We see our place in the continuation from our ancestors to future generations. Rather than throw away our traditions, we must find the best elements among them, living in a way that allows joy, peace, and liberation for our ancestors, ourselves, our children, and their children.
For those abused, beaten, rejected, or severely criticized by their parents, the meditation on the five-year-old child may be helpful. “Breathing in, I see myself as a five-year-old child. Breathing out, I smile at the five-year-old child in me.” You can acknowledge your vulnerability and the pain you received as a child. Next you can visualize your parent as a five-year-old child, acknowledging his or her vulnerability, even though he or she may have been very different later as a parent, possibly victims of their own ancestors. A parent who suffered much at the hands of his own parents may not have learned how to treat his own child well. In this way, the suffering, the circle of samsara, continues. With compassionate and mindful practice, your anger may dissolve, allowing you to smile and hug your parent, saying, “I understand you, Dad [or Mom]. You suffered very much during your childhood.” (p. 105)
Meditation helps us discover the value of our families’ traditions. Divisions between people based on religious traditions have added much to suffering over the centuries. This should not occur; any insight gained into interbeing, regardless of the religious tradition, is true meditation. We cannot ask hungry ghosts to go back to their own roots; they cannot absorb any nourishment there. We must offer them a new environment where they can take root. The sangha can be modeled after the family, with dharma brothers, dharma sisters, dharma aunts, uncles, mothers and fathers. In Plum Village, Thay is “Grandpa Teacher.” The sangha family offers a new opportunity to get rooted.
Intimate, deep relationships, first with one person, then with another, and gradually with others, bring peace and harmony to everyone in the sangha. A deep desire of Thay’s is that communities organized like large families, with all the brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents, not like isolated, non-communicative islands, will help people succeed in their practice. The small nuclear family is not such a good model: there is not enough air to breathe, nowhere to escape to. Seeds of suffering are too easily transmitted when the family is too constrictive. The large traditional family provides many avenues for help.
The single parent need not think he or she must remarry; he or she may be more stable without a partner. You can transform yourself into a hermitage with air, light, and order inside, a peaceful and joyful refuge for your child and friends, your dharma brothers and sisters in the practice community. Return to your hermitage and arrange things within, opening the windows to let healthy elements in, closing the windows to keep unhealthy elements out. The single parent can learn to be both father and mother, both disciplinarian and nurturer, and can succeed with the help of friends and the community. Other adults in the sangha can serve as aunts and uncles for the child. And the practice center will benefit from the presence of children. “Children are jewels who can help the practice. If the children are happy, all the parents and non-parents will enjoy the practice.” (p. 111)
Practicing together can bring real transformation, in a good sangha where people are happy and communication is open. Time, energy, and concentration are required to build a sangha; “we have to take care of each person, staying aware of his pain, her difficulties, his aspirations, her fears and hopes.” Each of us needs this. Without a sangha, burn-out will come quickly. (p.112)
To build a sangha, find one person to join in your practice. Eventually others will join, and the sangha will include “the trees, the birds, the meditation cushion, the bell, and even the air you breathe.” The sangha where all practice deeply together is a gem. Organize in a way that is enjoyable for everyone. It will never be perfect, but imperfect is good enough. When you practice together mindfully, resisting the speed, violence, and unwholesome ways of society, you are a sangha. Substance is most important; forms, such as those of churches or other religious traditions, can be adapted. Just do everything in mindfulness. The value will be evident, not in what you say, “but through your being.”
Transforming Our Compost May 11, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: healing, meditation, mindfulness, suffering, Thich Nhat Hanh
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Here’s a summary of today’s dharma reading from Thich Nhat Hanh’s Touching Peace. Please share any thoughts.
Deep within us are both flowers and garbage. Like a gardener with compost, we can learn how to use meditation to transform anger, fear, and despair into love and understanding.
Everything we’ve experienced or perceived is stored in us, like videos in the basement. We relive our negative experiences over and over as the videos repeatedly invade our living rooms and pop themselves into our video players.
Positive and negative experiences are also like seeds, filling our internal storehouses. The quality of our life depends on the quality of our seeds, and we choose which seeds to water and care for. We can heal anger and despair in us by watering the seeds of joy and peace, by touching what is beautiful and wholesome. We let ourselves be healed by the trees and birds, by the moon, by children; otherwise we perpetuate our suffering.
Mindfulness is the seed of understanding, care, compassion, liberation and healing. It keeps us aware of what is happening now, in the present moment. If we water this seed frequently, we remember that we have healthy eyes, heart and liver, and a non-toothache; we remember that happiness is already in us and around us. After watering the seed of mindfulness for some time, we can invite the videos of fear and despair up from the basement and greet them with a smile. As our pain is repeatedly immersed in mindfulness, it will gradually lose its strength. Meditation and mindful living help us know how to water the seeds of joy, transforming the seeds of suffering, so that compassion and lovingkindness may flower. (Touching Peace, 23-33)
