my time?

From stories that have been passed down through the Buddhist tradition, we know that the Buddha had to face many threats and hardships during his lifetime: his experimentation with extreme asceticism during his quest for enlightenment, assassination attempts, charging elephants, accusations of fathering an illegitimate child, unruly and undisciplined monks, and encounters with thieves and murderers along the roads he traveled during his ministry, just to name a few. But nowhere in the Buddhist canon have I found an example of the Buddha having to deal with a screaming five-year-old child who isn’t getting his way. Trying to be a Buddhist and a parent at the same time seems irreconcilable most days. One trick I use is to divide the day up into little chunks of time that for simplicity’s sake I’ll call my time and everyone else’s time. I keep an imaginary balance sheet in my head. When my inner accountant informs me that I haven’t had enough me time for one day, I immediately get grumpy. But what if all time could be viewed the same way? I have been rereading The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh, a book I haven’t looked at in many, many years, and probably the book that comes the closest, in my opinion, to The Only Book on Buddhism That You’ll Ever Need. Listen to this passage from a student of Hanh’s who is also a parent:  “I’ve discovered a way to have a lot more time. In the past, I used to look at my time as if it were divided into several parts. One part I reserved for my son, another part was for my wife, another part to help with my new baby girl, another part for household work. The time left over I considered my own. I could read, write, do research, go for walks. But now I try not to divide time into parts anymore. I consider my time with my son and my wife my own time. When I help my son with his homework, I try to find ways of seeing his time as my own time. I go through his lesson with him, sharing his presence and finding ways to be interested in what we do during that time. The remarkable thing is that now I have unlimited time for myself!” I noticed this feeling last night when I spent time with my five-year-old son as he practiced writing his letters. Bathed in the light coming from the desk lamp, my head was bowed towards him as we both worked together, at one with the letters and sentences we were creating on the page. And my time became his time became our time became just time.

empty-handed zen

Coming empty-handed, going empty-handed — that is human.
When you are born, where do you come from?
When you die, where do you go?
Life is like a floating cloud which appears.
Death is like a floating cloud which disappears.
The floating cloud itself originally does not exist.
Life and death, coming and going, are also like that.
But there is one thing which always remains clear.
It is pure and clear, not depending on life and death.
Then what is the one pure and clear thing?

I’m not sure who wrote this, but I reread it from time to time. That one pure and clear thing, not dependent on birth and death, is what I have been searching for all my life. Can we find this pure and clear thing in the midst of our daily lives? That is the real challenge.

monday zen

Imagine this situation: The alarm goes off at 4:30 am. It’s still pitch black outside, and cold. You’re under three layers of blankets, warm in your cocoon. You should get up and go to the gym, that’s why you set your alarm, but today it’s Monday and that means it’s just too difficult. Why not just stay in bed awhile? Sound familiar? This is our daily dilemma. Not just whether or not to go to the gym, but whether to abide in inertia, or keep going. A Zen teaching I read years ago said that we should get out of bed in the morning as if our bed is on fire, and go to sleep at night as if it’s our final rest. The underlying message is that whatever we do, we do it fully and mindfully. To continue: So you manage to get out bed (at 6:00 am) but then you are presented with the fact that you have to perform about fifty small tasks just to get out the door in order to arrive at work on time. Then your car doesn’t start and while you are fiddling with some engine cables under the hood, you step in a pile of dog shit. Now you really wish you hadn’t gotten up that day. But what can you do? Just live and breathe right into that moment with dog shit on your shoe and keep going. Dainin Katagiri Roshi, in his book Returning to Silence, says, “In everyday life there is no excuse. One day you like your life, the next morning you don’t. Finally, all you have to do is just live. This is pretty hard and very painful because from day to day, you have to do something in this situation where you feel as though you cannot move an inch at all. You have to get up in the morning when you have to get up, wash your face when it’s time to wash your face, have breakfast even though you don’t like it, go to work and take care of your life…Nevertheless, right in the middle of this situation we have to be refreshed constantly.  In sickness, in despair, in hard work, in easy work, whatever it is, happy or not happy, you must be constantly refreshed. To be refreshed is to digest your life completely. This is Zen teaching.” So I ask you: Can you be refreshed with dog shit on your shoe, late for work with a car that won’t start? If you can, you see the Dharma clearly and are close to Buddhahood.

upon awakening

This from Bhante Bodhidhamma, in his latest email from the Satipanya Buddhist Trust in the UK. Another of his witty, insightful Tips O’ the Day:

“An alarm clock is all well and good, but it is often a rude awakening. Consider how you wake up when, on holiday perhaps, you don’t put the alarm on. One wakes into a presenting mood. But the jolt of the alarm creates a shock wave in the mind and heart, and we wake into that reaction. This is hardly a good start for the day. If you can quieten the waking alarm by smothering the clock a little or go to the expense of one with a rising alarm that is the better way to waken oneself. You can always put on a second alarm clock which, should you fail to wake, is guaranteed to blast you out of bed. So we awake into a presenting mood. It may be pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Should it be neutral, that is a peaceful start to the day. Should it be pleasant, the mood will grab an idea from the mind’s library and create a reverie. It will do the same should the mood be unpleasant. These opening moments to the day offer us an immediate practice. To turn these opening gambits to our advantage, we have to be wide awake upon awakening. We will do this if we have made that resolute resolution to wake with the bell. It may take a little practice, but it is not so difficult to develop. We center that immediate wakefulness into the body, especially attentive to that area in the mid-chest where we distinguish our emotional life. As soon as we recognize the mood, we acknowledge it and practice vipassana. Should we wake into a peaceful state, rest there and acknowledge it, grateful for this gift. Develop a taste for it. See it as a default position and make a resolution to return to this peacefulness as often as we can throughout the day. Should it be pleasant, from excitement as to what the day beholds, to a flowering romance, to a joyful memory, whatever the cause of the happy mood, be wakeful enough not to be transported into the dream world. But again we acknowledge the state. We see the danger of a make-believe world and we practice, if possible, until it quietens, hopefully into an inner glow. This is to take the attachment out of happiness. And we make a resolution to maintain this quiet joy. Should the mood be unpleasant, from depression, to anxiety, to anger, whatever the cause of the unhappy mood, we prevent it from hurling us into a mental maelstrom. So again we acknowledge the state. We see the danger – how the mood uses the mind to wind itself up. Bury the attention into the feeling, the sensation, of the mood and practice at least until it begins to subside. In this way we take the sting out of these unpleasant states. And we make a resolution not to allow negativity to hold sway. I have to say this is where the snooze button comes into its own. Here, not simply for the purpose of reminding us of time passing, nor to appease the base desire to exercise one’s sloth (heaven forbid!), but the very opposite, to be sure our enthusiasm for this wakening practice doesn’t make us late for work! The Buddha admonishes us, ‘Don’t be lazy now and remorseful later’

the bush money

That’s what we call it in my house. As in, “When the Bush money gets here, we can do (fill in the blank).” When I first heard that Congress passed legislation authorizing the rebate checks, I was ecstatic. Dreams of a sunny beach vacation for my family or a few new shirts from the Patagonia outlet danced in my head. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this money would be spent almost before it made it into my bank account. Unless I can somehow convert my ancient Accord’s engine to burn old socks for propulsion, I’ll be spending it on $4-a-gallon gas, and all the other bills that stem from this fact (food, electricity, water, heating oil, etc) The President has said that he’s simply giving Americans back “their own money,” but how can that be, when we are borrowing the money, probably from China, in the first place? There are some Buddhist organizations that I am fond of, and I would love to give a chunk of that money to them to help them build a stupa or make an addition to their meditation hall. I may still give $50 or $100 of “my own money” to these worthy causes. But the truth is that even though this is borrowed money, my family needs it too desperately to be able to give much of it away. We’ll use some of it to pay for our rather modest weekly vacation rental cottage on an island off the coast of Maine this summer, but other than that, we’ll pay bills, which is probably what most Americans will end up doing. Sorry, Ocean Palm Motel and Patagonia; I need to eat.

spilled wine

This past week, I had the occasion to come across a small book that I found in a used book shop while on holiday with my family in Portsmouth, NH . It is entitled A Record of Awakening by David Smith. The subtitle is Practice and Insight on the Buddhist Path. Written in his own hand, this self-described “ordinary chap”, a gardener from England, tells of his deep awakening while practicing the Way at a Threravada Buddhist monastery in Sri Lanka. I won’t be a plot-spoiler, but suffice to say that if you are sincerely interested in the Dharma, this may be quite an eye-opening book for you. It was extremely inspirational to me, an ordinary chap myself, to read the story of the enlightenment experience of someone who had no advanced education or special knowledge, just a sincere desire to awaken. At the end of his account, he gives a few words of final advice, and one of his phrases resounded very deeply with me. He says, “Immerse yourself in the Dharma, dive into it like you would a pool of cool water on a hot summer’s day, but never get out!” This past weekend I also had the occasion to experience a brief illustration of why it is so important to practice. I was at my in-laws’ house and as I was pouring red wine into a glass, it spilled all over the countertop. As I attempted to clean up the mess, I knocked over the wine glass and it almost shattered. I swore out loud, anger flashing. My daughter was right behind me, and heard me. She wanted to know what the matter was. In that instant I realized how foolish I must have looked, getting so upset over some spilled wine. That ever-present Me was wronged once again, by these mindless, inanimate objects. Upon reflecction, I saw the folly of thinking that we can somehow control every situation we find ourselves in. Shouldn’t we expect that if we open the bottle carefully, and slowly tip it towards the glass, that the wine will flow smoothly? But no. Despite our best plans, the wine spills or our car refuses to start or we lock ourselves out of our house or we lose our eyeglasses. But just who is it that gets so angry? I think practicing the Dharma can show us that there’s no one here to even get upset. Or maybe that I shouldn’t be drinking wine.

day four – one thing

Multigrain pancakes for breakfast, then a 20-mile bike ride. Bright, sunny day. My Soen Roshi diet is pretty much out the window. I was going to attend a sitting group this morning, but I realize I have a greater affinity for solitary meditation. I’m more of a Bodhidharma kind of guy. I checked out a copy of the Mirror of Zen by Korean Zen Master So Sahn. I started reading it, and page one stopped me in my tracks:

“There is only one thing, from the very beginning, infinitely bright and mysterious by nature. It was never born, and it never dies. It cannot be described or given a name. What is this “one thing”?

Like Joshu’s “Mu!”, this question is like a hot ball of iron in my gut that I can’t get rid of.

day three – bright dharma

Toast, yogurt, and eggs for breakfast. A medium Dunkin’ Donuts coffee with cream and sugar. So much for rice gruel. Still, I feel like I’m making progress. This morning, Saturday, I had no schedule, no timetable. I walked downtown with my three-year old son on my shoulders and realized that everything is the perfect, bright Buddhadharma. The sun was shining in the blue cloudless sky. We did errands together. Returning bottles at the grocery store, saying hello to neighbors, going to the sporting goods store to buy a pouch of “baseball gum,” even the dirty dishes in the sink, the messy house, the unraked yard, and the unmade bed all perfect in themselves, asking nothing, desiring nothing. Lately, I was getting depressed again, feeling like Tanzan, sending out my thoughts into the great silence of the internet. But today, even that silence echoing back to me was perfect. No mirror, no dust alighting. Today, I was filled with happiness for about three hours straight. I tried to think of a reason for why I should be so happy. Did I need a reason? I almost felt guilty for my happiness. Shouldn’t something be wrong, shouldn’t I be troubled? But no, no reasons came for my joy. It was just there, just so, with no restrictions. So now I say to you: Put down your questions, put down your striving, put down your doubt, put down your worry. As it says in the Heart Sutra, “There is no wisdom and no attainment. There is nothing to be attained.” Everything is perfect exactly as it is right now.

day two

Rice porridge this morning with milk and honey, using a recipe from the Three Bowls cookbook I mentioned a few posts ago. In his advice to the Zen cook, or tenzo, Master Dogen says we should prepare the rice today for tomorrow’s gruel. In his journal Soen Roshi, commenting on the preparation of his monastery for winter, says, “Everything that needs to be attended to is done, yet no trace of effort is apparent.” These thoughts express the Zen spirt perfectly. When you do something, burn yourself up so there’s nothing left. After breakfast, I started to cheat a little. I had one cup of coffee because my PG Tips wasn’t cutting it and I was in such a foul mood. I could sense that I was giving off angry vibes. For someone who has caffeine every day, it’s startling to see your true nature without the drug. I swam 30 lengths on my lunch break today. So far, so good. Hoping to resist the temptation to stop after work and buy beer. Am I breaking the Fifth Precept if I have three beers tonight while sitting on the couch watching baseball? Does that count as “misuse of alcohol?” Friday night, Red Sox/Rangers at 7:05 pm: for me this is what Mara, or temptation, looks like.

non-working lunch

I just came back from a “working lunch” where we listened to a speaker as we ate. This is a pretty common practice in business, where we eat but we can’t really pay attention to the meal that is nourishing us. The food was free and the speaker was engaging, but something was missing. During events like these, because our attention is split between eating and listening, we can’t bring mindfulness to either. I would like to institute a policy at my workplace where we eat in silence, much like the formal meals given at Buddhist monasteries called oryoki, then once we have given proper attention to our nourishment, we can shift our full attention to other matters. And yet, can you imagine the reaction if I suggested this? It goes against the cult of multitasking that we’ve all had to adopt. Somehow we’ve come to believe that if you can’t do two or three things well, and all at once, that there must be something wrong with you. But what really ends up happening is that we don’t do any of these mutiple tasks well, and because our attention was somewhere else, we weren’t present for any of them. So that time has slipped away, and we’ve spent it unskillfully. I say we all eat in silence, really take the time to taste, appreciate and enjoy our food, and then we can talk all we want. That way, we don’t lose time, or our lunch.