January 31 – Gratitude
Dear Friends, As another January draws to a close, I want to thank you for your words of encouragement, your comments and emails, and your dedication to your practice. It’s so much easier to sit on the cushion each day, knowing that many of you are joining me in that practice. A practice of gratitude is a support towards cultivating joy. Jack Kornfield writes, Gratitude is a gracious acknowledgment of all that sustains us, a bow to our blessings, great and small. Gratitude is the confidence in life itself. In it, we feel how the same force that pushes grass through cracks in the sidewalk invigorates our own life. In Tibet, the monks and nuns even offer prayers of gratitude for the suffering they have been given: “Grant that I might have enough suffering to awaken in me the deepest possible compassion and wisdom.” Gratitude does not envy or compare.…
January 30 – Eight steps
Dear Friends, I’m on retreat until Tuesday afternoon, but I’ve queued up some emails to keep you inspired while I’m away. Continuing with Bhante Gunaratana’s discussion in Chapter 13, now on the eightfold path. The eightfold path lists steps we can follow to realize the release from suffering caused by craving. In brief, they are: Skillful understanding – we understand that our actions lead to effects Skillful thinking – we cultivate positive thoughts, like generosity and kindness Skillful speech – we tell the truth and avoid harsh talk or gossip Skillful action – we try to live our lives in a way that won’t harm others or ourselves Skillful livelihood – we conduct ourselves in our work with integrity and honesty Skillful effort – we work to release and prevent unskillful states of mind, and foster and continue skillful states of mind Skillful mindfulness – for example, by having a…
January 29 – Four truths
Dear Friends, I’m on retreat until Tuesday afternoon, but I’ve queued up some emails to keep you inspired while I’m away. Today and tomorrow will be brief… I think there is plenty of material, especially from Friday and Saturday, to keep you engaged! Chapter 13 in The Four Foundations of Mindfulness in Plain English visit the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. I’ll give a quick summary of the four truths today. The four truths are statements about how life is. You don’t have to take these as dogma – instead, turn your mindfulness to investigate your own experience, and see how they measure up. The first truth acknowledges that there is suffering in life. “Suffering” is a heavy word. Some teachers use “stress” or “dissatisfaction” or words like that. The Pali word is dukkha, and I’ve heard it describes that feeling when you’re riding in a cart where the axle…
January 28 – Equanimity
Dear Friends, I’m on retreat until Tuesday afternoon, but I’ve queued up some emails to keep you inspired while I’m away. The seventh factor of awakening and the fourth quality of the heart are both called “equanimity”. I’m not sure if the two are the same thing. I get the sense that they are, but that we are looking at this quality from two different angles – from the angle of mindfulness/wisdom (equanimity as a factor of awakening), and from the angle of love, compassion, and joy (equanimity as a quality of the heart). When in deep states of concentration, equanimity is a skill to help us keep our focus balanced. Bhante Gunaratana writes, If we find that the mind is sluggish, we intensify our mindfulness and investigation in order to rouse our energy and restore balance. If the mind is overexcited, we focus on increasing our joy, tranquility, and…
January 27 – Seven positive qualities (part 2)
Dear Friends, I’m on retreat until Tuesday afternoon, but I’ve queued up some emails to keep you inspired while I’m away. Yesterday, we looked at the first three of the seven factors: mindfulness, investigation, and energy. Today, we’ll look at the next three: joy, tranquility, and concentration. Joy As our mindfulness deepens, we investigate, and then that rouses energy. When the energy is strong, joy arises. Bhante Gunaratana describes five types of feelings of joy: minor joy – makes our body hair stand on end momentary joy – like lightning flashing moment after moment showering joy – descends on the body and then disappears, like waves breaking on a seashore uplifting joy – lifts the body (perhaps even literally) all-pervading joy – suffuses every part of the body He says this joy is not the same as pleasurable feelings of everyday life. You may have experienced moments like this type…
January 26 – Seven positive qualities
Dear Friends, I’m on retreat until Tuesday afternoon, but I’ve queued up some emails to keep you inspired while I’m away. Bhante Gunaratana starts chapter 12 of The Four Foundations of Mindfulness in Plain English with the Gilana Discourse. One of the Buddha’s senior pupils was very ill, so the Buddha went to visit him and asked how he was doing. Mahakassapa said “I am not bearing my illness well. My pain is very great, and it shows no signs of decreasing.” The Buddha then said, I have taught seven factors of enlightenment. When they are carefully developed, they lead to realization and perfect wisdom … What seven? Mindfulness, Investigation into phenomena, Energy, Joy, Tranquility, Concentration, and Equanimity. The story continues: Hearing these words, Kassapa rejoiced… Then and there, Mahakassapa rose from his sickness and his ailment vanished. I read this part of the chapter earlier in the week, when I was…
January 25 – Perception and the breath
Dear Friends, Body, feelings, thoughts, hindrances, aggregates… That’s a lot of things to think about. But it all starts simply. Bhante Gunaratana has this simple reminder about perception of breathing: When you breathe mindfully, you see the arising, existing, and passing away of the form of the breath, or breath-body, immediately as it happens. In the same way, as you breathe in and breathe out, your perceive that feeling, perception, thought, and consciousness are arising, existing, and passing away. When the mind if fully engaged with this “participatory observation,” there is no room in the mind for clinging to the aggregate. I invite you to let all the words settle, and go back to the basics – mindfulness of breathing. Let’s start with a poem from Danna Faulds, from Go In and In: Poems From the Heart of Yoga: Breath of Life I breathe in All That Is – Awareness…
January 24 – Noticing the about-to moment
Dear Friends, The next aspect of phenomena we are invited to investigate are what are called the “aggregates” – a way of describing the kinds of “stuff” that make up our experience. The list of aggregates is: material form – like your body and the things your body senses (sights, sounds, etc.) feeling tone – as we already discussed, the pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral flavor of a moment of contact perceptions – the process that attaches a name to an experience (this sound = bird) formations – mental factors that arise, including the factor of volition consciousness – the cognizing function of the mind – that which simply knows Just to suss out some of these other items: Perceptions As we’re all aware, perception isn’t always accurate – the mirage of a lake shimmering on the highway on a hot summer day, or a faint hum that sounds like people…
January 23 – Unhindered attention is a treasure
Dear Friends, Gil Fronsdal wrote: Because we tend not to see clearly when the hindrances are present, the Buddhist teachings strongly encourage people not to make decisions while under their influence. If possible, wait to make a decision when the mind is more settled or clear. So if you have something big on your to do list today, see if you can check in first – what’s the state of the mind? Gil’s article included this metaphor for the hindrances (based on the Sangaravo Sutta): An ancient metaphor for how the hindrances obscure clarity of mind is a pond. When the pond is clean and the surface still, the water reflects our image. The effect of sensual desire is like looking into a pond that has been dyed; we are predisposed to see unrealistically—that is, “seeing with rose-colored glasses.” When the heat of ill will is present, it is as…
January 22 – Your meditation is always successful
Dear Friends, As we enter into the fourth week of our daily emails, our focus now moves to the fourth way of establishing mindfulness, mindfulness of dhammas, which can be translated as mindfulness of phenomena or “stuff”. As Mark Coleman explains in a lecture from Essential Buddhist Teachings, The other three [ways of establishing mindfulness] – we were cultivating mindfulness of the body, awareness of the body in the body; awareness of the feeling tone – the qualitative tone of our experience; and … cultivating awareness of mind, mind states, things that are coloring our mind. Mindfulness of dhammas is more of a wisdom element, and a reflective element in the practice. This doesn’t mean thinking about our experience. We’re in particular paying attention to the causal nature of our experience. How things arise and how things cease to be. … Understanding that, we understand a lot about our experience,…
January 21 – Appreciative joy
Dear Friends, When the Buddha was giving instructions to his son, Rahula, one of the teachings was “Develop the meditation of appreciation. For when you are developing the meditation of appreciation, resentment will be abandoned.” This is the heart quality of muditā. In her book, Lovingkindness, Sharon Salzberg tells us that this practice of muditā is a way of eliminating boredom: Boredom is based on a sense of separateness and a turning away that we feel when we experience certain degrees of aversion. When we stop paying attention to the little things in life, and the little things in our meditation practice as well, we find ourselves in a state of boredom. By reconnecting to the little things, we awaken again to a delightful kind of openness. Taking the time to marvel at a little flower as it creeps up through a crack in the pavement, we can feel joy,…
January 20 – Working with mental states
Dear Friends, Joseph Goldstein has said, “For the purpose of meditation, nothing is particularly worth thinking about.” This means thoughts can come and go as they wish, but we don’t need to become involved with them. (Joseph also says, “it’s simple, but it’s not easy.”) Bhante Gunaratana lists five ways to work with mental states, based on the instructions in the discourse on Removal of Distracting Thoughts. Josh Korda of Dharma Punx NYC wrote an adapted translation, which I find easy to read and understand. I found a blog post that summarizes these five as: Replace it Reflect on the disadvantages of the unskillful thought Reject (or ignore) the thought Remove the source of the thought Restrain the thought To elucidate on each of these and to list the simile used for each: Replace it – Cultivate a skillful thought to take the place of the unskillful thought. Like when…
January 19 – Recognition without self-deception
Dear Friends, Chapter 9 of The Four Foundations of Mindfulness in Plain English is titled “Mental States”, and it delves into the specifics from the discourse, where we are instructed to know whether the mind is greedy or not greedy hate or not hateful deluded or not deluded contracted or distracted (or not) great or narrow surpassable or not surpassable concentrated or not concentrated liberated or not liberated The Entering the Path class describes this section as “recognition without self-deception”. Bhikkhu Anālayo it’s just about recognizing – we don’t have to do anything about it at this point. We need to first recognize it. He says, If as soon as I recognize that I’m angry, I immediately bash it out, and next time I recognize, I immediately bash it out, next time, I won’t recognize it anymore, because I have trained myself in the fact that recognizing any defilement in myself, I’m…
January 18 – Two kinds of thought
Dear Friends, Bhante Gunaratana started chapter 8 with a recounting of the Two Kinds of Thought discourse, where the Buddha described a way we can classify and reflect on thoughts: Suppose I divide my thoughts into two classes. On one side, I set thoughts of sensual desire, ill will, and cruelty. On the other side, I set thoughts of renunciation, loving-friendliness, and compassion. … A thought of sensual desire arose in me. When I considered that this thought leads to my own affliction and the affliction of others, it subsided in me. … Whatever a [meditator] frequently thinks upon, that will become the inclination of his mind. As Joseph mentions in a podcast on right thought, “the more we repeat certain patterns of thoughts, the more probable it is that they will arise again.” He continues, “thoughts condition actions, and different thoughts and motivations in the mind bring about results.”…
January 17 – Luminous is this mind
Dear Friends, We will spend the next few days looking at the third way of establishing mindfulness – mindfulness of mind. In Chapter 8 of The Four Foundations of Mindfulness in Plain English, Bhante Gunaratana first explores the nature of mind and consciousness. First a side-note: “mind” in this context is a translation of the Pali word citta, and it has a broader sense than what we might mean in English. It is sometimes translated as “heart/mind”, as there’s an emotional as well as intellectual element to it. Consciousness is what arises when a sense organ (e.g. ear) meets a sense object (e.g. sound) – then there is basic awareness of hearing. Mind can be considered a sense organ, which meets internal objects, like thoughts and memories, and then mind-consciousness arises. Bhante says, “The mind wants to shine by itself, but its mental contents don’t allow it. They conceal the mind’s luminosity…