mindfulness: the budding and the bloom

The Buddha taught that mindfulness is the direct antidote to suffering because it leads to wisdom. I like to think of mindfulness practice as a way of becoming wise and being wise at the same time.

The becoming part is a gradual process. By paying attention calmly, in all situations, we begin to see clearly the truth of life experience. We realize that pain and joy are both inevitable and that they are also both temporary. We remember, more and more often, that struggling cause suffering and that compassionate, considered responses make life manageable. Sometimes we forget. The long term goal of practice is to never forget.

The being wise part of mindfulness practice happens as we act now, in this very moment, on the way to never forgetting. Mindfulness practice cultivates the habit of not getting angry with life because it isn’t happening the way we’d like. Unpleasant situations call for balanced responses. Anger is extra. Mindfulness practice also cultivates the habit of enjoying pleasant experiences while they last without lamenting their passing. Camera film ads notwithstanding, we cannot capture the moment.

Mindfulness practice means acting as if we are already enlightened.


Sylvia Boorstein, Don't Just Do Something, Sit There.

in meditation

"I'll Lead. You Listen."

-God

Sitting Tonight

Last week's sitting was beautiful and illuminating. Join us tonight. We would love to have you as our guest.

When: Friday, October 5, 2007
Time: 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Location: Revive Studios in Chatsworth

Cost: This event is offered for dana. Space is limited. BMP hosts this event and donations support the continued effort in and around the Los Angeles Area.

Dana: Dana is the Pali word for Generosity. Cultures that support the practice of meditation and the teaching of the Dharma understand that the practice of giving dana is both a training of one’s heart to be open and generous, as well as the means through which teachers receive support for their material needs.

Description: First there will be a 30 minute guided meditation, followed by 35 minutes of dialogue, ending with a 10 minute sit. This is a kalyanamitta (Pali for spiritual friend) group that is just forming; all are welcome. It takes place every Friday evening in the beautiful Revive Yoga Studio in hills of Chatsworth. Jasai Madden will lead the group weekly.

This week’s
Discussion
Topic: Exit Strategies 101

Items to
Bring: Sitting cushion (or pillow), mat and comfortable clothes. Some meditators like to wear a shawl or blanket while sitting. Please do not wear any scented perfumes, and turn-off beepers, cell phones and digital watch alarms. Tea and cookies will be provided.

Have
Questions: Contact by email brahmaviharaproject@yahoo.com

Song of Mahamudra

Do naught with the body but relax;
Shut firm the mouth and silent remain;
Empty you mind and think of naught.
Like a hollow bamboo rest at ease your body.
Give not nor taking, put your mind at rest.
Mahamudra* is like a mind that clings to naught.
Thus practicing, in time you will reach Buddhahood.
The practice of Mantra and Perfections, instructions in the
Sutras and Precepts, and teaching from the Schools and
Scriptures will not bring realization of the Innate Truth
For if the mind, when filled with some desire should seek a goal
It only hides the light.

*Mahamudra is the practice and teaching that leads to realization of One Mind
which occurs when the human conscience and the God conscience become one.

awake

Though we seem to be sleeping, there is inner wakefulness that directs the dream, and that will eventually startle us back to the truth of who we are.
-Rumi

on the "monkey mind"

Elizabeth Gilbert, in her hilarious and gaspingly honest memoir, Eat. Pray. Love., talks about the “monkey mind” and how by practicing to calm it through meditation, we gain the ability to be present. Presence, being the thing we most need, to first recognize and then change the conditions of our lives.

Like most humanoids I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the Monkey Mind – the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl. From the distant past to the unknown future, my mind swings wildly thorough time, touching on dozens of ideas a minute, unharnessed and undisciplined. This in itself is not necessarily a problem; the problem is the emotional attachment that goes along with the thinking. Happy thoughts make me happy, but – whoop! – how quickly I swing into obsessive worry, blowing the mood; and then it’s the remembrance of an angry moment and I start to get hot and pissed off all over again; and then my mind decides it might be a good time to start feeling sorry for itself, and loneliness follows promptly. You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts and you are the slave to your emotions.

The other problem with all this swinging through the vines of thought is that you are never where you are. You are always digging in the past or poking at the future, but rarely do you rest in the moment. It’s something like the habit my dear friend Susan, who – whenever she sees a beautiful place – exclaims in near panic, “It’s so beautiful here! I want to come back here some day!” and it takes all of my persuasive powers to try to convince her that she is already here. If you are looking for union with the divine, this kind of forward/backward whirling is a problem. There’s a reason they call god a presence – because God is right here right now. In the present is the only place to find him, and now is the only time.

coming home to an open heart

The practice of mindfulness, the practice of meditation consists of coming back to ourselves in order to restore peace and harmony. If we come back to ourselves to restore peace and harmony, then helping another person will be a much easier thing. Caring for yourself, re-establishing peace in yourself, is the basic condition for helping someone else.

-Thich Nhat Hanh, True Love

Profiles in Practice: Angel Kyodo Williams

Angel Kyodo Williams, is a spiritual teacher, activist, artist and founder of New Dharma Meditation Center for Urban Peace in Oakland, CA, a training center for engaging individual, community and social transformation as spiritual practice. She is the author of Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace.
Below is an excerpt from her book:


When I got to the retreat, I kept to myself and didn't look at anyone. I could barely see anyway. My eyes stayed heavy with tears that wouldn't fall. I was determined not to draw attention to myself, and I didn't want anyone to try to "fix it" for me. What was broken inside me was mine alone to deal with. Before I knew it, four days had passed.

When you are very, very sad, wounded in a deep place, it is not only impossible but futile to keep your suffering hidden. If trapped, pain eats away at your insides and destroys your spirit from there. So while I didn't run around looking for a shoulder to cry on, I didn't stuff my sadness or bite down on it to keep it in check, either. I was grateful that no one said a word to me. Even though my deep sadness was apparent, they did not try to comfort me. Once, during a break, I stood looking across the big lawn. I was completely engulfed by my sadness. Julia, a warm English woman who always managed to be taking care of our group, handed me a tissue. I hadn't even realized I was crying. She handed me the tissue without a shred of judgment and just as quickly left me to my own space.

That same day, I finally went to the private interview to talk with my teacher face-to-face. As soon as I sat down, I blurted out how screwed up I felt my life was, how I had failed miserably in so many ways and couldn't stand my own self anymore. I beat myself up for a few more minutes before she looked at me and said, "You have to be gentle with Angel."

Pat Enkyo O'Hara Sensei is a middle-aged Irish-American woman. Sensei is what Zen teachers are called. At the time, she was a professor of new media at New York University. In some ways, we couldn't have come from more different places. But she looked at me so knowingly, it was instantly clear that all the categories, labels, and differences were unimportant.

She wasn't just looking at the young black woman sitting there with her face contorted in pain. We were not black and white or even teacher and student. We were just two human beings acknowledging suffering. Pat was seeing me and my pain. She was sharing my pain with me. In that moment and for the first time in weeks, I felt my despair lighten. I left the room noticing that I was finally breathing again.

That retreat was the beginning of not just healing the pain I was dealing with in that moment, but of opening my heart wider, expanding my vision farther than I had ever realized was possible. I had taken refuge in my teacher and my sangha. Through the simple acts of giving me just what I needed without asking for anything in return, Julia had pointed out to me that my dignity was still there. Pat, of course, taught me without teaching that I had to have compassion for myself in order to have compassion for others. Gentleness toward ourselves and others is too hard to come by.

As for the rest of the people to whom I never said a word and who never spoke to me, by being silently supportive and allowing me the space I needed to both acknowledge my sadness and not be isolated, they collectively taught me that healing begins at home, and that home is wherever you make it. For the first time, I understood Community. Our strange group had become a family and a home for me without my ever noticing it. While I was the only black person in the group, I directly understood that it was not about people looking the same, doing the same things with their lives, or being the same at all. It was an agreement to be mutually respectful and supportive no matter who you were. Everyone agreed to serve the community in this way. And we all benefited.

Taking refuge was not hiding after all. It wasn't weak or even passive. It was placing my trust in my teacher, in the lessons I gain from my own experience, and in my community. When I needed them the most, they all became a place in which I could begin to heal. When you are aware of what you are doing, placing your trust in someone or something takes a lot of courage. It's an act of bravery. It acknowledges that you are not alone in the world and that there is a connection between you and all things. It's like money in the bank. When we honor our community, maintain it, treat it like the precious treasure that it is, it returns our investment a thousandfold. Where can you get better results than that?

the power of new eyes

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

-Marcel Proust

why meditation?

Wisdom springs from meditation;
without meditation wisdom wanes.
Having known these two paths of progress and decline,
let a man so conduct himself that his wisdom may increase.

Dhammapada: 282

The Shelter of Silence

As very young children, not having words at our disposal, we sense and communicate with our feelings; physical and emotional. As we grow, so many words, ideas and projections run roughshod onto us until we don’t know what or how we feel. But beneath the shelter of silence it all comes back. We arrive back at the beginning.

True Happiness

"True happiness is not having to have things any certain way in order to be happy."
-author in question

(I honesty do not know if it is “my” quote or an incarnation of something I read somewhere; but nevertheless....)

How does one achieve such a far-fetched, Disney-esque disposition?

This notion came to me while driving to Golden Bridge on the 101 freeway in a slow-going Thursday evening commute. The traffic was unusually thick and the distance generous, but I sailed along even when the car could do no more than nudge. I can recall however, occasions when I had more time to spare, less distance to travel and more elbow room in which to do it, yet routinely found myself knotted up; ready to plow through two cars at a time, to end it already!

I am sure my angst in those moments had more to do with whatever circumstances the day had gifted rather than the actual travel situation. But that seems to be the way it works with us mere mortals; when we are not paying close attention to the individual moments that make up our lives - experiencing them as they arise and then letting them go as they inevitably do - they all mange to run together and crash land onto each other when we least expect, or can handle it.

Eventually an early morning square-off around what a sixth grader is and is not allowed to wear to school, on top of the afternoon finger-pointing extravaganza at the office, bleeds into a minor maneuvering on the highway, ending in dented front and rear bumpers, threatening “mean mug” expressions and rising insurance premiums.

Having each moment be its own experience so that the next moment can take its rightful place, is the gift that meditation can give. It allows us to “Be Here Now” as Ram Dass so artfully put it.

When we practice sitting, we do so moment to moment. Each breath we take is it’s own and never carries over into, or bundles itself up with the next breath. In the practice of meditation we learn to be here now so we don’t have to be there later, wondering how it all got so out of control.

I think you will find that this approach can make you, your life, and your commutes (physical, emotional and spiritual) much, much happier.

On Physical and Emotional Wellbeing

The body holds the mind just as the mind contains the body. Deep feelings of loss and pain are recorded in the tissues of the body as well as in the mind. In deep quietude the mind can free the body of its holding, just as in deep grounding and surrender the body can unlock the deepest secrets of the mind.

-Stephen Levine, A Gradual Awakening

What are the Brahmavihāras?

Brahmavihāra (Pali and Sanskrit) "Brahma" means great, holy, supreme, sublime, exalted, and divine. "Vihara" is a place, an abode, and also an attitude of mind. When put together, "Brahmaviharā" means the psychological abiding place of the spiritually developed, of those who are exemplary.

A loose translation of the word that spoke directly to my heart upon hearing it at a recent meditation retreat was “Best Home”

The Brahmaviharā are also called the "Four Immeasurables," or "the four sublime attitudes (loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity)" and are Buddhist virtues that anyone can cultivate endlessly - that is, without limits - as good qualities to possess in good measure. These virtues are also highly regarded as powerful antidotes to those negative mental states (non-virtues) like avarice, anger, pride and so on.

Metta: loving-kindness towards all; the hope that a person will be well; loving kindness is "the wish that all sentient beings, without any exception, be happy."

Karuna: compassion; the hope that a person's sufferings will diminish; compassion is the "wish for all sentient beings to be free from suffering."

Mudita: altruistic joy in the accomplishments of a person, oneself or other; sympathetic joy, "is the wholesome attitude of rejoicing in the happiness and virtues of all sentient beings."

Upekkha: equanimity, or learning to accept both loss and gain, praise and blame, success and failure with detachment, equally, for oneself and for others; equanimity means "not to distinguish between friend, enemy or stranger, but regard every sentient being as equal. It is a clear-minded tranquil state of mind - not being overpowered by delusions, mental dullness or agitation."

Metta and Karuna are both hopes for the future (leading, where possible, to action aimed at realizing those hopes), while Mudita and Upekkha are attitudes to what has already happened, but also having consequences for future action.

The Brahmaviharā are an ancient fourfold Buddhist meditational practice, the cultivation of which is said to have many beneficial effects on the practitioner as well as all beings to whom this good will is directed. The meditator is instructed to radiate out to all beings in all directions the mental states of 1) loving-kindness or benevolence; 2) compassion; 3) sympathetic joy; and 4) equanimity. Because the "beaming out" of these four positive attitudes proceeds in absolutely all directions, leaving no part of the world untouched by them, it is impossible to measure the universal extent of their reach.