Mindful Speech, Part One: Idle Chatter

This is Part One of a series of articles on Mindful Speech. This piece focuses primarily on Idle Chatter, one of the unskillful or unvirtuous forms of speech according to Buddhism. Forthcoming articles in this series will focus on the role of Listening and Emotional Intelligence, and the Six Points of Mindful Speech taught by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.


Foot in Mouth

In my life, many of my most painful and confusing moments, my biggest embarrassments and regrets, have come about because of my own mouth: either I said something I shouldn't have, or I didn't say something I should have, or I said something but didn't say it the right way and so it was misunderstood. Of the remaining painful moments and embarrassments -- the ones that didn't come about because of my mouth -- most of them probably came about because of my ears: something significant was said to me but I wasn't really listening, or I flat out refused to hear it, or I heard only what I wanted to hear, distorting what the other person was saying to make it match what I thought they should be saying or what I wanted them to say. Recognizing this, I try to take the Buddhist teachings on Right Speech to heart. I don't always succeed: speech is still the area where it's easiest for me to fall flat on my face -- which I do, and frequently -- but it's a practice. In fact, it's my main practice, according to some of my teachers.

When the Buddha taught about the Ten Unvirtuous Actions, he was well aware of how much trouble our speech habits get us into. Four of the ten items on his list relate to various kinds of speech:

• Lying or false speech
• Harsh speech
• Malicious or slanderous speech
• Idle chatter and gossip

In Buddhism, an action is considered virtuous or unvirtuous not because there's a tablet of commandments somewhere that lays down the law, or an external deity who passes judgment on us based on how well we play by his rules. Rather, a virtuous act is one that leads to greater happiness and well-being for oneself and others, while an unvirtuous act is one that leads to greater harm and suffering. It's an ethical outlook based on an understanding of what actions are generally skillful and unskillful, rather than a moralistic outlook based on a concept of right and wrong or good and evil. In fact, from the Buddhist point of view, an act that is generally considered unvirtuous could be considered virtuous in certain cases -- it depends most of all upon one's motivation for doing it.

If we forget this, and interpret the concept of unvirtuous actions in a moralistic way -- like a parental figure wagging their finger at us, telling us not to misbehave or disobey the rules -- then we've missed the point of Buddhist ethics altogether.

It's not difficult to see why lying is considered unskillful speech: when we deceive other people we betray their trust, and we burden our own minds with trying to keep track of the lies we've told and the fear of getting caught. It's also not difficult to see how harsh speech and malicious speech are unskillful: when we yell at someone or insult them, their feelings are hurt; and when we slander another person behind their back, we create or reinforce divisions and conflicts between people. All of these forms of speech harm other people, and harm the one who engages in them.

But idle chatter and gossip -- we might wonder, what's so wrong with that? It's fun. Small-talk and chit-chat are part of how we build relationships and establish trust. And who does it really harm? If anything, it's like a victimless crime, isn't it?

Here's the probem: we resist recognizing the downside of idle chatter precisely because we're so addicted to it. If we were to acknowledge the extent of the problem, then we might feel compelled to change our habits -- and what would we talk about if we threw out perhaps 80% or 90% of our everyday speech?


The Search for Meaning

Everyone longs for greater meaning in their lives. Our connections and conversations with other people, and the intimacy we share with them, can be one of the channels through which we find meaning and fulfillment. But if the speech we share with one another is habitually devoid of meaningful content and unfulfilling, then it becomes little more than a distraction and a burden upon our awareness.

"What primarily keeps us feeling lonely and misunderstood -- and fuels our hatreds and prejudices -- is simply a lack of conversation. We all talk most of the day. We talk at work, at school, at home. But how much do we really say, and how often do our words get at what really matters to us?"

-- Zoketsu Norman Fischer, "Taking Our Places: The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up"

The issue of idle chatter and meaningful speech came up in two community meetings here at the Abbey within the past few months. In the first meeting, about 35 of us came together to address the topic of silence, a practice we work with quite a bit in the monastery. We talked about the various things that support our practice of silence and the things that hinder it, as well as the reasons why we practice silence in the first place. At one point in the meeting, I suggested that one of the most compelling reasons to practice silence is because most of what we say when we're talking isn't meaningful in the first place. This comment seemed to touch a nerve, because there was an audible murmur of dissent among several people in the room. One or two people in particular seemed to react quite strongly against it. (It's possible their reactions arose from the thorny, relativistic question of how to define what's meaningful -- one man's garbage being another man's treasure, and so on. But that's a whole other ball of wax that I'm not particularly interested in dissecting here.)

At the second meeting, we addressed the topic of friendship and how we can build more meaningful connections and real bonds with people in the community. Towards the end of the meeting, I raised my hand and said that since I've been living at the Abbey, I've frequently felt a bit put off by the superficiality of the conversations I typically hear -- and engage in -- in the dining room. Sometimes when we break a long period of silence, I find myself really looking forward to connecting with people again and engaging in good conversation -- but then when I get to the dining room and sit down with others, I discover that people are talking about the same useless trivia they were talking about the day before, and the day before, and the day before. Dismayed, I've found myself on more than one occasion wishing we could go back into silence again.

And this is not to let myself off the hook or to look down condescendingly on others' speech habits: very often, I jump right into less-than-meaningful conversations, and sometimes I too am the one who instigates them. But in a spiritual community of people committed to living a meaningful life, one might reasonably expect that the level of discourse at the dining table would be somewhat more elevated than what one might find among the people dining in, say, the average McDonald's or Burger King. Like anyone, I yearn for more meaningful connections, but I, too, have a hand in creating the situation; I don't always practice what I preach, and I don't always have the skills or even the self-awareness necessary to steer a conversation away from idle chatter and towards something more meaningful.

When I made this observation in the community meeting, it met with a mixed reaction. A few people nodded their heads in agreement; I got the sense that numerous people in the community were aware of this habitual pattern of idle chatter at the dining table and felt that something essential was missing in our conversational habits. But I also sensed that some people in the room heard my plea for more meaningful conversation as a request for more talk about Dharma -- which would be a good thing in itself, but is not necessarily what I meant.

Remember that in Buddhism, an action is considered virtuous or unvirtuous based not so much on the outward action, but on the intention and the state of mind behind it. So it's not only about what we say, but also about how we say it, and why. We can talk about random trivia from pop culture, and it can still be meaningful if we're really communicating from the heart. By the same token, we can talk about meaningful, spiritual topics like the Dharma and it can still be idle chatter if we're just trying to assert our point of view or make ourselves sound smart to the other person.


The Chatterbox Inside

As meditation practitioners, we also realize -- to our great dismay -- that idle chatter is taking place almost all the time, in our own minds. The distracting chit-chat we encounter in the outside world is usually proportionate to the distracting chit-chat in our heads. And there is a feedback loop between the two. The more discursive we are internally, the more compelled we might feel to ventilate our discursiveness in conversation with other people; and the more we do that, the more discursive we tend to become. We egg each other on towards higher and higher levels of internal and external chatter. At the end of the day, we might have been running our mouths off from sunrise to sunset without saying anything significant whatsoever.

Practicing what the Buddha called Right Speech or Mindful Speech is not easy -- it requires a tremendous degree of self-awareness and mindfulness, and a commitment to staying open and present with other people in a state of uncertainty and vulnerability. Often we chatter because we're uncomfortable with silence, and we feel compelled to fill up the empty space. Mindful Speech also means applying the crucial but uncommon skill of listening -- which is, or should be, the better part of conversation -- rather than just talking.

Refraining from idle chatter may be the most difficult part of Mindful Speech, for most of us. We've all engaged in lying, slander and bullying speech at some point, but chances are we don't practice those things most of the time, and we find them relatively easy to avoid if we even try. But idle chatter often gets the better of us. It can, and frequently does, occupy massive sections of our mental bandwidth, and it can, and frequently does, dominate our conversations with other people -- so much so that we may be blind and deaf to it, and unaware that we're even doing it.

Make a commitment to watch yourself for one whole day, and try to notice all your verbal interactions with other people. Pay attention to the content of your conversations, but also to the tone and the context, and also try to see how much you really listen. Pay attention to what is really being communicated -- and what isn't.

How much of your speech is truly meaningful?


-- Read Part Two: Listening --

Diligence, Part Three: Put Your Heart into It

This is Part Three of a three-part article, a commentary on the seventh chapter of Shantideva's 8th-century text called the Bodhicharyavatara or Bodhisattvacharyavatara ("The Way of the Bodhisattva"). The seventh chapter deals with the topic of Diligence (or Joyful Exertion) on the spiritual path. Diligence is one of the Six Paramitas (Generosity, Ethical Conduct, Patience, Diligence, Meditation, and Wisdom), which are regarded in the Mahayana school of Buddhism as the six factors that develop the mind of awakening (or Bodhicitta) and ultimately bring it to its fruition of full enlightenment or Buddhahood.

To listen to the original talk in audio format, use the controls embedded below. (If you're reading this via email subscription and the controls do not show up in your email client, click on the title above to view the page online. Or, to download the talk, click here (and pardon the advertising on the download page).





Aspiration: The Power of the Mind

Aspiration has to do with how we hold our minds and where we direct our intentions. The human mind, in its concentrated form, is tremendously powerful, and wherever we direct our minds our actions usually follow, exerting a force that creates positive or negative effects. The root of the power of aspiration is really understanding, at a deep and personal level, how the law of cause and effect -- which we call karma -- really works. In Buddhist terminology, it means knowing what to adopt and what to reject, really understanding what brings happiness and what brings suffering. When we understand this in our bones, then we can put the full force of our minds behind the intention to adopt what is beneficial and to reject what is harmful.

Sometimes cause and effect is difficult to see at work in our own lives, because it's hard for us to be objective about ourselves. If our state of mind is negative and we're suffering, we feel like the victim of circumstances and we tend to look outside ourselves for the reasons why we feel the way we do. But it can be easy, at times, to see the law of karma at work in other people's lives -- we're on the outside looking in, and it's easier to be objective and to see clearly which causes are leading to which effects. Sometimes we look at other people and think, "Well, it's so obvious that what he's doing is causing him to experience this suffering he's experiencing. I wonder why he can't see it. If only he could see what I see, he wouldn't continue doing what he's doing." But we should try to apply the same, objective scrutiny to ourselves and our own actions. Once we really, deeply understand how cause and effect operate in our lives and what leads to happiness, then the strength of Aspiration to practice virtue naturally begins to grow in us. Once we've burned our hands on the stove a few times, we begin to develop strong awareness, and a strong motivation to stop doing that.


Steadfastness: Stand By Your Mind

Once we know what to do and we've made up our minds to do it, then it's a matter of sticking by our intention and not giving up when the first little challenge comes along. Shantideva says that it might be better not to begin, than to begin but give up when we're only halfway through. Doing that only creates the karma of being wishy-washy and half-hearted about the path of awakening, which isn't going to get us there. Before we set out on the road, he says, we should honestly consider our resources and accurately judge what we're capable of doing, and not bite off more than we can chew. Being open-minded but realistic about what we can do helps us develop steadfastness in our practice.

At the point where we've made a realistic assessment of what we can do and we've decided to do it, then we should rouse all our confidence and devote ourselves to it wholeheartedly. With great determination and courage, we should fearlessly meet whatever negativity arises in our minds or in the external situation, and remember that it's workable. Nothing is as solid and monolithic as we think it is.

Being realistic about our limitations sometimes involves an action that many of us on this path seem to find rather difficult, which is saying "No" when it's appropriate. Among aspiring Bodhisattvas I've met in the American Buddhist community, there seems to be an unspoken belief that to train as a Bodhisattva means to say "Yes" to whatever you're asked to do, particularly within the sangha. This can lead to people taking on more responsibility or more roles than they can reasonably handle, and to mental or physical burnout. Sometimes saying "No" is actually more beneficial in the long run; learning when to say "Yes" and when to say "No" is one of the Bodhisattva's skillful means.

Steadfastness also means setting appropriate boundaries for ourselves and others; we should not let ourselves get distracted from our intentions by people who might be pursuing less wholesome ones. Just as a drug addict in recovery cannot reasonably expect to be able to stay clean if he's hanging around with the same old crowd of drug users, so each one of us has certain people who trigger our less wholesome qualities and we can't help getting dragged down into a pit of neurosis. There's a saying in the 12-Step world: "If you hang around the barber shop, sooner or later you're gonna get a haircut." But Shantideva also points out that, while we would do better to avoid those kinds of people, we shouldn't be arrogant or condescending about it; recognizing the equality of self and other, we shouldn't cop an attitude of moral superiority to others just because they're confused and suffering.

Arrogance is a dangerous poison for anyone, but it's especially poisonous for the spiritual practitioner. If we use our practices and our experiences on the spiritual path to inflate our egos or hold ourselves as being superior to those who are not practicing as we do, then we are completely misguided. Chogyam Trungpa was once asked, along with several other Tibetan teachers, how a student could measure the success of his or her own practice. All of the other teachers gave long, somewhat formulaic answers, but Chogyam Trungpa went right to the point: basically, he said, you know your practice is successful if you're becoming less arrogant and less opinionated.


Joy: Put Your Heart into It

We devote ourselves wholeheartedly and joyfully to the acquisition of external things that promise to make us comfortable and happy: money, possessions, relationships, careers, hobbies, and so on. Yet we know how hollow those promises are; we've studied the Buddha's teachings on the suffering of impermanence. So why do we not pursue the causes of true and lasting happiness -- enlightenment itself -- with the same joy and zeal?

Pema Chodron puts it like this: Imagine what might happen if we pursued enlightenment, and engaged in all our spiritual practices, with the same enthusiasm as we feel for, say, going swimming, or for eating popcorn and watching a good movie. We would probably be there already!

The problem is that we apply our joy and enthusiasm to the wrong things. There's nothing wrong with the things themselves, or with having them and enjoying them -- but when we believe that they contain real and lasting happiness and we spend too much of our time and energy in pursuing them, then we have led ourselves astray. We're putting our faith in temporary, fleeting pleasures, and in things that will only abandon us in the long run. Our priorities have become mixed up.

Shantideva says it's like we're licking honey from a razor blade. We're so drawn to the honey because it tastes so good; yet we don't realize that our attachment to the pleasure of tasting the honey is leading us to shred our own tongues on the razor blade.

Once we sort out our confusion and realize where our true priorities lie, we can't help but take great joy in pursuing the ultimate goal, because we know where it will lead us.


Letting Go: Knowing When to Walk Away

The fourth strength that supports our practice of Joyful Exertion is "mukti" (or "moksha"), a loaded word in Sanskrit that is a bit difficult to render in English. It has been translated as "relinquishment" and as "moderation," among other things, and it means releasing or letting go, or a spirit of sacrifice. In ancient India, "mukti" and "moksha" (from the root "muc" meaning "to let loose, let go") also referred to the state of Nirvana or transcendent liberation itself, and a "mukta" was a renunciant, someone who had let go of worldly pursuits in favor of the spiritual life and ultimate freedom.

Shantideva explains the power of letting go in terms of knowing when we need to set aside our work and our practices and simply get some rest, so that we can come back to it refreshed and ready to continue. Knowing when to call it a day and how to avoid burning ourselves out is a skillful means that we sometimes have to learn through trial and error.

Letting go could also mean something like the notion that is often expressed in 12-Step literature, of taking the right action and then letting go of the results. We can simply do what we know is the right thing to do in a situation, then turn over the results to forces that are larger than ourselves. When we take an action but don't let go -- when we continue trying to micro-manage the situation and control the results even after it's out of our hands -- then we are playing God. This usually undermines the beneficial effects of our actions.

Finally, applying the power of letting go could also be knowing when to walk away from a situation altogether -- knowing when remaining in a situation is no longer beneficial to you or to the other person, and will only be harmful. If you're in an abusive relationship, or involved with someone who's stealing from you or manipulating you, or if you're part of a community where one individual consistently causes trouble for the whole community and you know the situation isn't going to improve despite your best efforts to work with it, then the most beneficial thing to do is perhaps to cut your losses and walk away. You can still hold the aspiration that at some point in the future -- in this lifetime or a future one -- circumstances will change enough so that you could once again work with and benefit this person and resolve the negative karma between you, but wisdom in this case means knowing that, right now, that isn't possible.

As the great sage Kenny Rogers put it:

"You gotta know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run."

This is another skillful means that is potentially difficult for us to learn, as aspiring Bodhisattvas. We sometimes don't know where to draw healthy boundaries. We might think that our commitment to work with the neurosis of other sentient beings means that we have to just take whatever abuse the other person may inflict upon us. Slogans such as "All victory and gain to others, all loss and defeat to myself" might reinforce this idea. But the Bodhisattva ideal is not about making ourselves into a doormat; if someone is trampling all over us, they're really creating negative karma for themselves, and we're reinforcing the karma of being a doormat -- and to allow that kind of situation to continue past a certain point is what we call "idiot compassion."


Alert! Alert! Yet, relax! Relax!

To close chapter seven, Shantideva presents a series of pith reminders about how to practice Joyful Exertion or Diligence. Like Suzuki Roshi, he reminds us that although what we are doing is very important, we should also not take it -- or ourselves -- too seriously. Our path will be more successful and more enjoyable if we can be a bit more light-hearted about the whole thing and maintain a sense of humor. And when we realize that we've totally lost it, which is inevitable -- when we've dropped our sword in the middle of battle -- the only thing to do is to pick it up as quickly as possible and continue. It's no use (to mix metaphors) crying over spilt milk. When we rise to meet whatever challenges present themselves with this spirit of lightness and joy and delight in virtue, then it's like a cool breeze that enlivens all our actions and makes every situation we encounter much more workable and relaxed.

But not too relaxed! To sustain our path over the long haul, we need to apply constant mindfulness and guard against sneak attacks from the enemy within, who is always waiting in ambush. If we give our lesser nature an opening and allow our kleshas to go unchecked, they will quickly overwhelm us, and even small, petty emotions will get the better of us. Shantideva says that we should watch our minds with the same urgency and one-pointedness as someone would watch a snake that had crawled into their lap. Through maintaining this mindfulness in every situation and never wavering in our commitment to benefit all sentient beings, we can travel the path to enlightenment without unnecessary detours and swiftly arrive at the mind of absolute Bodhicitta -- mind that is absolutely, 100% awakened, fully manifesting all its positive qualities of wisdom and compassion, with no further obscurations to hinder it.

That's what they say, anyway...the ones who've been there. Frankly, it sounds like a better game plan to me than anything I've been able to come up with. What about you?


Dedication of Merit

By whatever boundless merit we have attained
Through hearing, studying and communicating the Dharma,
May beings everywhere who suffer from addiction and attachment
Be liberated into great bliss wisdom.
May beings tormented by anger and aggression
Be liberated through love and equanimity.
May beings trapped in ignorance and denial
Be liberated into transcendent knowledge and see true reality.
And as beings travel the path to enlightenment,
May all forms of laziness be swept away by the great wind of Joyful Exertion.

Diligence, Part Two: The Enemy Within

This is Part Two of a three-part article, a commentary on the seventh chapter of Shantideva's 8th-century text called the Bodhicharyavatara or Bodhisattvacharyavatara ("The Way of the Bodhisattva"). The seventh chapter deals with the topic of Diligence (or Joyful Exertion) on the spiritual path. Diligence is one of the Six Paramitas (Generosity, Ethical Conduct, Patience, Diligence, Meditation, and Wisdom), which are regarded in the Mahayana school of Buddhism as the six factors that develop the mind of awakening (or Bodhicitta) and ultimately bring it to its fruition of full enlightenment or Buddhahood.

To listen to the original talk in audio format, use the controls embedded below. (If you're reading this via email subscription and the controls do not show up in your email client, click on the title above to view the page online. Or, to download the talk, click here (and pardon the advertising on the download page).




Laziness: The Enemy of Diligence

In the opening verses of chapter seven, Shantideva defines Diligence as "joy in virtuous ways," or "delight in virtue." What this means is that, because we really understand the Dharma, we know what's going to add up to real happiness and what isn't. We have a sense of delight or joy in doing what we know will lead to ultimate happiness -- not only for ourselves, but for everyone we may encounter. This is like a patient who trusts the doctor's instructions, and diligently but happily takes the medicine because she knows it will help her get better.

The opposite of Diligence or Joyful Exertion is laziness, which comes in several flavors. The most obvious is what Shantideva calls "an inclination for unwholesomeness," which includes things like being attached to sleep and laying around all the time. Pema Chodron calls this kind of laziness "comfort orientation," which is basically the philosophy of life that posits "bobbing in the hot tub" as the solution to suffering.

Another kind of laziness Shantideva describes is despondency and self-contempt. Despondency is a loss of heart, like giving up on ourselves -- feeling we're not capable of meeting the circumstances of our lives or the challenges that come up on the spiritual path. Self-contempt is like despondency that has hardened into an intractable, "I don't care anymore" kind of attitude -- a feeling that none of it matters, it's not worth trying. Ani Pema says this attitude is like giving the world the finger.

And then there's our favorite modern form of laziness, which is just being too busy. When we get caught in the rat race of life and are just running from one activity to the next and never pausing to make time for our practice of the Paramitas, then we can't gain much traction on our Bodhisattva path. This kind of laziness doesn't happen only in big cities where people are overstimulated by their environments -- it can happen even in the countryside, or in a monastery.

Shantideva reminds us again and again in this chapter that life is short, and there's really no time for laziness if we hope to make any headway on our Bodhisattva journey in this lifetime. Death certainly lurks for each one of us somewhere up ahead, inescapably, and we don't know where -- for all we know it may be lurking around the next corner. When we really absorb this knowledge and let it sink in, it becomes more difficult for us to justify wallowing in any form of laziness.


Hellfire and Brimstone

Shantideva uses a lot of evangelical "fire and brimstone" language and fear tactics to try to scare us into realizing this, but his basic point here is very simple: Don't waste time. We need to get to the real point and take full advantage of this human life while it lasts. And what this really means is working with our minds, and using our own thoughts and emotions as the very vehicle of awakening. Otherwise, if we're not doing that, our practice is pointless. If we think we're going to get enlightened because we're walking in circles around a stupa or doing prostrations or ringing our little bell and drum and mouthing words from a chant book or raising our kundalini and getting in touch with our chakras, but we're not working with our minds and our own afflictive emotions, then I think Shantideva would say that our practice is a joke. He might even say, "See you in the next eon, after you get released from hell."

The problem is that we want something for nothing. We want enlightenment, but we want it handed to us in the form of an ice cream sundae with a cherry on top, or zapped into our innermost being through a kind of Vulcan Mind-Meld with our guru, or maybe we're holding out for the day when enlightenment finally comes in pharmaceutical form. The idea of working for it really doesn't appeal to us very much.

I have often listened to a talk I have on CD by Tenzin Palmo -- someone who knows a thing or two about Diligence. After becoming one of the first Westerners ever to ordain as a Buddhist nun in the Tibetan tradition, in the early 1960s, Tenzin Palmo spent 12 years in solitary retreat, living and practicing night and day in an isolated cave high up in the snow-covered Himalaya mountains. In this particular talk, she was addressing an audience in Sydney, Australia at the time of the Olympic Games there; she was talking about the athletes who were competing in the games, and what great role models of Diligence they are. They wake up in the wee hours of the night to start training, and they train all day long; they change their diets; they give up relationships and leave their families and move to strange cities to train with the best coaches; they work tirelessly night and day toward their goal. Which is what? A medal -- if they're lucky. And here *we* are, Tenzin Palmo pointed out, aiming for the greatest prize in the whole universe -- enlightenment itself, not only for ourselves but for all beings everywhere -- and if you suggest to us that we wake up half an hour earlier to practice, suddenly we hem and haw and offer all kinds of excuses why we can't do that. Basically, she says, the problem is very simple: we're lazy.

So, for the kinds of laziness that show up as a habitual pattern of sleeping or lying around idly, or as being too busy all the time (which masquerades as the opposite of laziness, but it's really the same in terms of how it affects our spiritual path), the antidote is to reflect on impermanence and remember that we have no idea how much time we have left -- and, even in the best-case scenario, it's not very much. We should utilize whatever time we do have wisely.

For the kinds of laziness that manifest as despondency and self-contempt, Shantideva says that we should simply marshal our strength and invoke a feeling of confidence: remind yourself about the Dharma and remember that whatever situation or frame of mind in which you find yourself, it's workable. We should also take responsibility for our own actions and our state of mind, and stop giving away our power by blaming other people or circumstances for the way we feel or act. And we should practice putting ourselves in other people's shoes: seeing the equality of self and other, and then doing as much as we can to exchange self and other -- which cuts right through our self-absorption. Shantideva reminds us that the little hardships we face on the spiritual path are temporary and minor compared to the alternative -- which is continuing to flail about for years (or a lifetime, or multiple lifetimes) in a spider's web of confusion and suffering from which we can't seem to escape.


Extreme Tenderness

Shantideva makes the point several times in this chapter that, while we should always strive to overcome our laziness, we should also be realistic and know where our limitations are. He reminds us that the Buddha teaches not through austerity but through ways of "extreme tenderness." While there is, of course, much work to be done on the spiritual path, we need to remain gentle and friendly to ourselves. One of the keys to this is finding the level at which we can practice with enthusiasm and joy, rather than feeling like practice is an austerity. Pema Chodron says in her commentary that if your practice feels like an austerity, then something is wrong -- it's too tight -- and you should look at what you're doing. As Suzuki Roshi reminds us, when we find that our practice as aspiring Bodhisattvas is getting just a little too heavy and we're taking things "too seriously," we should look at how to bring some relaxation and tenderness and humor back into the situation.

Our Bodhisattva activities really only become the transcendent practice of the Six Paramitas when we can engage in them with this attitude of openness and letting go. Giving, for example, becomes Generosity only when accompanied by a genuine attitude of Generosity. If you're giving someone a dollar but mumbling to yourself about what an ungrateful slob he is, or copping a resentment about it, that's not the Paramita of Generosity.

When we find ourselves getting "too serious" about things, it might be helpful to turn the flame down a little bit on the stove, and let our practice simmer at a more reasonable pace rather than boiling over. The challenge for us as baby Bodhisattvas, or the balancing act, is in really honestly knowing our own limits, and working at the level where we can have enthusiasm -- and then knowing when we can really push ourselves beyond what's comfortable, and go a little further. "We can never underestimate our aversion to discomfort," says Pema Chodron. "Often, it's only life itself that pulls the rug out, and you find yourself thrown into the next level."


Styles of Imprisonment

The see-saw of happiness and suffering pivots around the way in which we work with our minds. Shantideva goes to great lengths in this chapter to explain how our motivation and attitude shape our actions, speech and thoughts -- and how these things, in turn, shape our experience in the world. When we create habitual ways of thinking, speaking and behaving, then over time these habits tend to harden into what Chogyam Trungpa called "styles of imprisonment": we find ourselves trapped in a world that is a mirror of our own minds and our actions. If we habitually act with aggression and anger, we find ourselves living in a hell realm, where everything seems to be against us and life itself becomes warfare. If we habitually act with craving and attachment, we find ourselves living in a hungry ghost realm, where we never seem to be able to get enough of what we desire and we're constantly starving for more, locked in poverty mentality. If we constantly dull out or space out, we find ourselves living in an animal realm, where existence is just about getting through the day and meeting basic needs without getting eaten by someone else, and we tune out and lose interest in anything that might challenge us to go beyond our comfort zone.

When he taught in New York City in 2008, His Holiness the 17th Karmapa said:

"It is important for us to empower our positive mental tendencies. We always value empowerment and individual rights, but we should pay attention to the manner in which we are allocating freedoms and privileges within our own minds. Whether we're aware of it or not, we are continually empowering certain qualities and tendencies of the mind over others. Sometimes we empower and give greater privileges to our positive mental tendencies; sometimes we more greatly empower our negative tendencies. However, most of the time we are not mindful of this process, so this is something we would do well to consider."

-- His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje

The way Shantideva phrases it is that we should "abandon sin." The word "sin," when it appears in Buddhist texts, often provokes a strong negative reaction among those who come from a Judaeo-Christian background. But once we strip away the associations of Original Sin and Divine Judgment and so forth, we're left with a very basic sense of what the Karmapa seems to be referring to as "negative tendencies," and the harmful actions that spring from them and cause further suffering for ourselves and other beings.


The Enemy Within

Shantideva continually exhorts us not to be downcast or gloomy when things seem to be lined up against us, but to leap into our practice of virtue with a mind of great joy. Often we tend to think that our obstacles and enemies are on the outside, in the shape of people or circumstances that challenge us. For instance, we might get very worked up thinking about the George Bushes and the Dick Cheneys of the world, and the Wall Street manipulators and the overpaid and corrupt CEOs, and the lords of the military-industrial complex. We might get very enthusiastic about pointing the finger of blame at those people for many of the problems we see in the world today.

But in terms of what hinders our practice on the spiritual path, what stymies our awakening, it's not the George Bushes and the Dick Cheneys of the world, or any other external figure, no matter how misguided or corrupt or irritating they may be. In fact, no one outside of ourselves really has the slightest power to hinder our awakening. What hinders our awakening is the enemy within -- what Shantideva calls our "mournful weariness." This enemy shows up in our minds as laziness, discouragement, despair, depression and fatigue -- all the internal enemies that deprive us of joyful exertion and make us withdraw fearfully into our protective shell.

For Shantideva, the real enemy is always within. An external enemy might damage our bodies, but from Shantideva's point of view that's of little consequence. What does real damage, what causes us lifetime after lifetime of suffering -- and what usually gets us involved with external enemies in the first place -- is our own tangle of kleshas or afflictive emotions: our anger and jealousy and craving and denial, and so on. When we act and live under the spell of our kleshas, we become our own worst enemies.

So what helps us overcome the enemy within? Shantideva presents Four Strengths or four skillful means -- Aspiration, Steadfastness, Joy, and Letting Go -- that dispel our mournful weariness and empower our practice of Joyful Exertion.


-- Click here for Part Three, "Put Your Heart into It" --

Diligence, Part One: Learning to Swim

This is Part One of a three-part article, a commentary on the seventh chapter of Shantideva's 8th-century text called the Bodhicharyavatara or Bodhisattvacharyavatara ("The Way of the Bodhisattva"). The seventh chapter deals with the topic of Diligence (or Joyful Exertion) on the spiritual path. Diligence is one of the Six Paramitas (Generosity, Ethical Conduct, Patience, Diligence, Meditation, and Wisdom), which are regarded in the Mahayana school of Buddhism as the six factors that develop the mind of awakening (or Bodhicitta) and ultimately bring it to its fruition of full enlightenment or Buddhahood.

To listen to the original talk in audio format, use the controls embedded below. (If you're reading this via email subscription and the controls do not show up in your email client, click on the title above to view the page online. Or, to download the talk, click here (and pardon the advertising on the download page).




Disclaimer

First things first. I'd like to offer a disclaimer right up front, before I actually say anything about the topic at hand. The backstory here is that I was recently asked to give a talk as part of a course focusing on Shantideva's Bodhicharyavatara; this article is adapted from my notes for that talk. I was very happy to accept the invitation -- but, then, when I found out which chapter I was being asked to focus on, my next thought was: "Oh no! Not that one!" It's not simply that I find the topic of Diligence somewhat less inherently interesting than, say, Patience or Meditation (although I do); more significantly, it's that I don't really consider myself a very good example of Diligence, and I suspect that whatever I might have to say on the subject is largely second-hand knowledge and speculation on my part. In fact, I think I'm one of the least diligent Buddist practitioners I know, and if left to my own devices, I might have nothing at all to say about the subject. Fortunately, I'm not left to my own devices: lots of qualified teachers have given commentaries on this text, and I've studied a few of them and hopefully picked up something here and there that will be beneficial to others if I pass it along.


The Awakening Mind

So before diving into the seventh chapter, a bit of review of what leads up to that point in the text would be in order. I've been thinking about the structure of Shantideva's text in relation to a short verse that appears in the ngondro liturgy that was taught last year in Seattle by His Holiness the 17th Karmapa ("Brief Recitations for the Four Preliminary Practices"), which was translated by my friend Tyler Dewar:

May precious and supreme Bodhicitta
Arise where it has not arisen
Not diminish where it has arisen
And continually increase and increase.

The first line of this verse is what Shantideva's first chapter was all about: explaining the excellence and benefits of Bodhicitta, the mind of awakening, which is also sometimes called awakened heart (in Buddhism there's not really that much difference between "mind" and "heart"). I won't go into an explanation here of what Bodhicitta is, but if you don't have some familiarity with the concept then I doubt that the rest of this article will make much sense. But here's a basic definition, from Wikipedia:

In Buddhism, bodhicitta (Ch. 菩提心, pudixin, Jp. bodaishin, Tibetan jang chub sem, Mongolian бодь сэтгэл) is the wish to attain complete enlightenment (that is, Buddhahood) in order to be of benefit to all sentient beings trapped in cyclic existence (samsāra) who have not yet reached Buddhahood. One who has bodhicitta as the primary motivation for all of his or her activities is called a bodhisattva.

Shantideva's second and third chapters talk about how to clear the obstacles in one's mind to the generation of Bodhicitta, and how to actually give rise to that frame of mind -- which is like the second line of the verse, causing Bodhicitta to "arise where it has not arisen." The third chapter deals a lot with the first of the Six Paramitas, which is Generosity, and subsequent chapters in the text deal with the rest of the Paramitas, in sequence.

The Six Paramitas always appear in a particular order -- Generosity, Ethical Conduct, Patience, Diligence, Meditation, and Wisdom -- and this order is not accidental. They proceed from gross to subtle, or from easy to difficult, and each one builds a foundation for the next. We start with Generosity because it's the easiest and the most accessible: anyone can practice generosity. It doesn't require any degree of learning or discernment, it only takes an open heart. Even animals practice generosity at times. As you progress through the Paramitas, though, they become more and more subtle, until you reach the Prajna-Paramita, the Paramita of Transcendent Wisdom, which sees emptiness -- the true nature of reality. I don't think there are animals practicing the Prajna-Paramita, but who knows? Often, to judge by external appearances, cats do look like they're absorbed in deep meditation -- which may be why so many Buddhists love cats.

The third line of the verse is what Shantideva's fourth, fifth and sixth chapters are concerned with: preventing Bodhicitta from diminishing where it has arisen. This means developing strong mindfulness and vigilant introspection, so that we bring out minds and our conduct into line with what is ethical and conducive to true happiness, and learning to apply the antidote of patience when anger strikes so that we don't blow it all in a moment of aggression. Of all the afflictive emotions, anger is the most destructive to our Bodhisattva intentions, which is why Patience gets its own Paramita. It is said in one of the Sutras that we could spend years or lifetimes indulging in passion and desire, and this still wouldn't be as destructive as a single act of anger and aggression. This is because even when we're lustful we can still hold the welfare of other beings in mind -- we can wish someone happiness and well-being even as we're mentally undressing them and drooling over them. Now, don't get confused: this is not advocating that we get carried away in lust or attachment, and it's not praising the mind of craving -- it's just saying it's not as bad as anger. Because when we mindlessly express anger and aggression towards other beings, we are directly going against their welfare and bringing suffering upon them -- which runs counter to everything the Bodhisattva stands for.

Shantideva's seventh chapter begins the third section of the text, which corresponds to the fourth line of the verse: what to do in order to make Bodhicitta increase and increase. This means conducting one's Bodhisattva business with a joyful and determined mind (Diligence), practicing Meditative Concentration, and finally opening into the Transcendent Knowledge or Wisdom that realizes emptiness as the true nature of reality.


Learning to Swim

So in order for Bodhicitta, or the mind of awakening, to increase and increase, we need to apply a certain effort and perseverance. To borrow an analogy from Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, we've gotten in the water, now we have to learn to swim -- we can't just float there forever. But I think the other side of this analogy is that, in order to swim, you also have to be somewhat relaxed, somewhat open to the joy of being in the water. You can't just be flapping about wildly, in a panic -- you'll only drown yourself that way. So this element of joy and relaxation, in the midst of effort and perseverance, is the key.

This key point comes out pretty clearly in the course of Shantideva's seventh chapter, but the fact that it takes a whole chapter to really get it across illustrates the difficulty of finding in the English language one word, or even two words, that accurately and satisfyingly communicate the fullness of what this Paramita that we usually call "Diligence" is really about. The Sanskrit word, Virya (and Virya-Paramita) -- the root of our English words "virile" and "vigor" and "virtue," among others -- implies a mind that is strong and determined and won't give up in the face of adversity. But explanations of the Virya-Paramita's meaning almost always emphasize this other aspect of joy or delight in the practice of virtue. This has led to our present situation, in which we have seen translators use literally dozens of different words and word combinations in their efforts to get at the essence of the Virya-Paramita. Here are a few examples I've seen in different texts:

1. Diligence
2. Exertion
3. Joyful Exertion
4. Energy
5. Enthusiasm
6. Perseverance
7. Heroic Perseverance
8. Enthusiastic Perseverance
9. Effort
10. Intelligent Effort
11. Balanced Effort
12. Cheerful Effort
13. Joyful Effort
14. Vigor
15. Zeal
16. Energetic Zeal
17. Endurance
18. Courage
19. Endeavor
20. Exuberance
21. Boldness
22. Fearlessness
23. Vitality
24. Heroism
25. Bravery

Imagine if we had 25 different ways of saying "Patience" or "Generosity." Given such a wide range of translations for the Virya-Paramita in English, you would not be alone if you find yourself wondering: what exactly *are* we talking about? To get some clarity, let's go back to our good friend, Wikipedia, which offers the following definition of Virya:

In Buddhism, vīrya is one of the five controlling faculties (indriya), one of the five powers (bala), one of the six or ten paramitas, one of the seven factors of enlightenment (bodhyaṅga) and is identical with right effort of the Noble Eightfold Path (Pali: aṭṭhaṅgiko maggo; Skt.: aṣṭāṅga mārga). It stands for strenuous and sustained effort to overcome unskillful ways (akusala dhamma), such as indulging in sensuality, ill will and harmfulness (see, e.g., ahimsa, nekkhamma). It stands for the right endeavour to attain meditative concentration (dhyāna). Vīrya does not stand for physical strength. It signifies strength of character and the persistent effort for the well-being of others. In the absence of sustained efforts in practicing meditation, craving creeps in and the meditator comes under its influence. Right effort known as vīryabala is, thus, required to overcome unskillful mental factors and deviation from dhyāna.

Joyful Exertion

One of the aspects of Virya that's most emphasized in Shantideva's seventh chapter is having a sense of joy or delight in one's Bodhisattva activities. This is why I prefer translations of Virya such as Joyful Exertion, or Cheerful Effort.

I'll just say it: I don't like "Diligence." It's a dry word devoid of feeling, and for me it evokes a picture of a classroom or a study hall full of good little boys and girls diligently studying for their exams. Words like "exertion" or "perseverance" or "endurance," by themselves, are equally flat and disappointing. "Endurance" even sounds like you're white-knuckling your way through something unpleasant, a "grin and bear it" type of outlook. But I think that conjoined terms like Joyful Exertion or Enthusiastic Perseverance begin to get closer to the real meaning of this Paramita.

When you look at the living Bodhisattvas (with a capital "B") that we have among us -- I'm thinking of the Karmapa, the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, and others like them -- you don't see people who are gritting their teeth and "enduring" or just flatly "persevering" through the hardships and challenges that come their way. You certainly don't see people who slog through their work with a sense of weariness or a chip on their shoulders, or who end up copping a resentment about the burdens they have to carry and the things they're asked to do for others -- which is what I often do. Instead, you see people who embody so much cheerfulness and joy and relaxation, even in the midst of very difficult circumstances. When you look at them, they're always smiling and laughing -- and not in a Pollyannish or frivolous way, but in a way that is united with their tremendous heart of compassion and this sense of joy in practicing virtue to benefit others. The Dalai Lama is the spiritual head of a people that has been so brutalized, for so long, and every single day people wait in line to come and lay their troubles and their sorrows at his feet. He carries so much responsibility, and almost never has time to do anything that could be even vaguely construed as being just for himself. And yet, when you look at him, he's always finding humor all around him. Once, in New York City, I saw him stop in the middle of a teaching (perhaps even mid-sentence, although I didn't understand the Tibetan) and he cried for several minutes, apparently overwhelmed by compassion for suffering beings. Then, just as suddenly, with no additional comment, he recovered himself and continued teaching, and then he was laughing and joking again.

So I think that words like "Joyful Exertion" do a much better job of conveying the true spirit of awakening mind than "Diligence" or "Perseverance." But I'll use all of these terms somewhat interchangeably here.


Don't Take the Whole Thing Too Seriously

Ani Pema Chodron, in her commentary on Shantideva's seventh chapter, offers a quote from Suzuki Roshi that I think serves as a sort of key to interpreting this whole chapter on Diligence:

"What we're doing here is so important -- so important that we might as well not take it too seriously."

This is classic Suzuki Roshi: it stops your mind and makes you do a double-take to ensure that you didn't mis-read what he said. And then it makes you think, and wonder what exactly he could have meant by such a strange statement.

If you think of this statement in terms of Joyful Exertion, you can see how the first half of the quote gets at the Exertion part: the work in which we're engaged as Bodhisattvas -- the process of waking up from our own delusion and manifesting complete wisdom and compassion for the benefit of all sentient beings -- is (perhaps it's an understatement) so important. And the second half of the quote gets at the Joyful part: we won't get very far on this path if we take ourselves or the situations we encounter too seriously or try to make things too solid. Our habit, of course, is to get very locked into a heavy, oppressive sense of how fixed and stuck things are -- whether it's other people and their neurotic behavior, or just our own minds. But when we bring in this feeling of lightness and joy and not taking things too seriously, then it transforms our experience. Everything becomes much more workable, and we're able to relax right in the midst of chaos.

Sometimes when I catch myself getting very stuck in a solid, heavy sense of things being a certain way -- and usually it's the *wrong* way, and something needs to be done about it -- then, if I can remember, I try to do what I call the "100 Years from Now" practice. This is simply to remind myself that, however big of a deal this situation -- and my role in it -- seems to me right now, 100 years from now there won't be a single human being left on planet Earth who remembers it. So does it really matter *that* much, in the grand scheme of things? Should I really be taking it *that* seriously? This perspective might sound bleak or lonely, but it serves its purpose well, which is to puncture the outer membrane of the "big-deal" mind that is painfully fixated on its concepts of how things are or how they should be, and takes things too seriously.


-- Click here for Part Two, "The Enemy Within" --

Dumb and Dumber

Pigs get a bad rap in Buddhism. We know today, from laboratory studies and barnyard anecdotes, that pigs are among the most intelligent animals -- more intelligent, scientists say, than dogs. But in traditional Tibetan Buddhist iconography, pigs are vilified as the symbol of ignorance. The famous depiction of the Wheel of Life illustrates how we get stuck in the cycle of suffering and in various hardened mind-states as a result of habitually indulging and acting out on our own afflictive emotions (kleshas, in Sanskrit). At the spinning hub of the Wheel itself we see the three main causes of our suffering, known as the Three Poisons -- ignorance, aggression and craving -- symbolized, respectively, by a pig, a snake, and a rooster.



Ignorance, or delusion, is regarded in Buddhism as the primary or root affliction, the one that underlies all the others: because we are deluded about the true nature of things, we fumble our way through life, making fatal mistakes and bringing all kinds of ruin and suffering upon ourselves and others.

As Westerners, it may seem strange to us that Buddhist psychology regards ignorance as a klesha, or an afflictive emotion, in the first place. A state of ignorance, or not knowing, does not correspond to what we think of as an emotion, which involves a state of feeling. The confusion here stems from a dissonance between the way we use both words -- ignorance and emotion -- in a traditional Buddhist context versus a contemporary Western psychological context.

In Buddhism, the term "emotion" or "afflictive emotion" (klesha) refers to any mental state that disturbs and agitates the mind, obscuring our ability to see reality clearly and leading us (most often) to act unskillfully. This includes states that are obviously charged with what we think of as "emotive" content, such as jealousy and craving and hate; but it also includes states such as pride and ignorance, which may seem to us to be less "emotive" but which nevertheless disturb and agitate the mind's natural clarity and openness.

The term "ignorance" also has to carry part of the blame. In English, "ignorance" seems to imply a state of being simply dumb about things: a mere lack of knowledge that could stem either from an innate stupidity that prevents one from understanding the nature of reality, or from the fact that no one who *does* understand the nature of reality has ever bothered to explain it to you and, therefore, how could you know? This kind of ignorance is a passive state.

But there is another kind of ignorance that is not a passive state, but a very active one -- and this is willfully ignoring the truth because the truth is not convenient or comfortable. This kind of ignorance is a basic state of denial or resistance towards the way things are that is rooted in our aversion to discomfort. We see only what we want to see, and hear only what we want to hear, in order to avoid the feeling of groundlessness or uncertainty that would arise if we allowed ourselves to take in the full truth of how things really are.

This meaning may actually come closer, in many cases, to the meaning of the Sanskrit term "avidya" (which we usually translate as "ignorance"), and it helps us better understand how the state of ignorance may, in fact, be charged with "emotive" content just as much as the other kleshas. "Avidya" comes from the Proto-Indo-European root "*weid-" meaning "to see" or "to know," and brings us our English word "wit." When we choose to ignore some aspect of reality -- to not-see it, to not-know it -- because reality is inconvenient, we dim our own wits, proceeding from dumb to dumber. From this perspective, "ignoring" or "denial" might often be a better translation for "avidya" than "ignorance," because they point to a state of mind which is actively tuning out some aspect of reality that provokes discomfort.

Consider, for example, the way we live in denial and fear of death. In modern Western society, we squirm at the very mention of death (we feel that to talk about such things is "morbid"), and we go to great lengths to keep it out of sight and out of mind as much as possible. Intellectually we all know we're going to die at some point, and that death could come at any time from any number of unforeseen causes, but emotionally we don't behave as if we really believed in these facts. When death does come, for us or for our loved ones, we often act so surprised. At the same time, because our general awareness of death is being suppressed, we are secretly fascinated by it. We devour murder mysteries and slasher films and vampire and zombie novels, because they give us a "safe" way to engage with the images of death without really letting in the knowledge that it's going to happen to us.

But "denial," as they say in 12-Step groups, "is not a river in Egypt." Our ongoing, willful act of ignoring the fact of our own inevitable death and the uncertainty of when it will happen -- the effort to keep this threatening knowledge out of sight and out of mind as much as possible -- does nothing to change the reality. All it accomplishes is to keep us in a state of ignorance, which botches our attempts to live authentically and happily in this turbulent realm. And it isn't because we're too dumb to realize the truth or because no one has bothered to explain it to us, but simply because we don't want to see it.

Rock and Role

It occurred to me yesterday, as I was doing a meditation practice that involves holding one's attention on an external visual object -- in this case, a simple stone I picked up on the beach -- that many people in the world would probably consider the act of sitting and staring at a rock for 30 minutes to be evidence, if not of actual insanity, at least of great stupidity and dullness and a tremendous failure of imagination. If you're going to stare at something, they might ask, why not stare at the TV screen and at least be entertained while you're sitting there?

In fact, using an external object (such as a stone) as an object of meditation is an ancient practice handed down in the Buddhist tradition, and is particularly emphasized in the Mahamudra meditation lineage of Tibet. But, at least in the Westernized forms of Buddhist practice that I've been exposed to, this technique does not seem to be as widely practiced as the more common forms of shamatha (or "calm abiding") meditation that involve resting the attention on the breath and bodily sensations, or on visualizations or mantras and other mental fabrications. (See my article "Meditation 101" for a basic introduction to shamatha practice with the breath.)

In fact, I've known long-time shamatha practitioners who have only ever done the practice using the breath, and have apparently never been told that shamatha comes in other flavors. Now, don't get me wrong -- the breath is a wonderful and profound object of meditation, for reasons that are too many to go into here -- and I have no doubt that these single-minded practitioners have gained a great deal from having such a narrowly defined practice. But I can't help but wonder if they could go deeper and wider if they were to train, as well, in other varieties of the practice. That has been my own experience.

The basic principle of all forms of shamatha meditation is to place the attention on a simple object, something that isn't complicated and doesn't require much thought, and rest the mind there. When the mind wanders, as it inevitably does, bring it back to the object, gently and without melodrama, and continue as before. As Ken McLeod puts it, "Return to what is already there and rest." That, in a nutshell, is shamatha. Deceptive in its simplicity, this practice, if done with sincerity and dedication, gradually calms and steadies the agitated and hyperactive mind, resulting in a heightened sense of well-being and greater presence. Shamatha goes right to the heart of the general ADHD that seems to be built into our human DNA, and continually places speed bumps in our way so that we have to slow down and come more and more into the present moment.

Different varieties of shamatha work with the different sense consciousnesses. Meditating on the breath centers the attention on the body consciousness and the sense of touch, the sensations of the body breathing. Meditating on an external object centers the attention on the visual consciousness and the perception of an object with external form. There are also meditations on sound, taste, and smell, but these sense objects are somewhat more intangible and elusive, and are therefore more difficult objects of meditation, at least for beginners.

As human beings, our eyes may not be as sharp as those of some animals, but our minds are nonetheless dominated by our visual perception of the world. Perhaps, from an evolutionary point of view, we've learned to rely so heavily on our vision because our powers of smell and hearing -- the other senses that would help us stay alive in a world of predators -- are completely pathetic by the standards of the animal kingdom. In the West, in this scientific age, we tend to think that the mind or the "self" is located in the brain, directly behind the eyeballs, and we are so strongly identified with our visual consciousness that it is difficult for us to imagine the existence of a mind without it.

This is what makes shamatha with an external object interesting -- it picks up on this dominant visual mind and uses the visual faculty itself as the conduit for meditation. Because we spend so much of our lives relating to visual forms, training in this way helps us carry the mind of meditation into our everyday experience -- which is, by the way (lest we forget), the whole point of meditation.

The external object could be any simple item: a pebble, a stick, a ballpoint pen cap. Personally, I recommend doing the practice with a stone. I find there's something appealing about the way a stone just sits there, so solid and unmoving, so very stony.

Place the stone on the floor or on a table in front of you, in a place where you can comfortably see it while maintaining good meditation posture. Place your attention on the stone, on the visual perception of it; look at yourself looking at the stone, and really *see* it. If the stone is large, you may find it helpful to direct your attention to one particular detail and hold it there. Try to look at the stone with a relaxed gaze; you're not trying to bore a hole in the poor rock with your laser vision, but you're also not letting your eyes wander away from the object. You're also not particularly thinking about the stone, but merely perceiving it, and holding your attention in that simple experience. When your mind goes off into a train of thought about something, and you become aware of it, simply return to perceiving the stone nakedly, without additional commentary. Notice how your eyes are always looking right at the stone but sometimes you don't even see it because your mind is somewhere else. How is that possible?

If you find that your mind is very discursive and drifting away from the stone a great deal, try the following thought experiment. Imagine that this stone sitting in front of you is not merely inert matter, but that it possesses tremendous intelligence and awareness. It knows when you're looking at it with your mind and when you're not. In fact, this stone gets very angry and wrathful when you are not paying attention to it, and it will rise up and strike you right in the forehead if your attention wanders from it for even a second. Imagining this, look again at the stone and see if your experience is the same. If not, what is it that makes the difference?

Put Away Childish Things

Lately I've been reflecting on maturity, and what it really means -- and especially what it means on the spiritual path. So much of what we strive to accomplish and to become through spiritual practice is, in essence, about simply and fundamentally and properly growing up, becoming genuinely mature human beings. And, by the same token, so much of what causes us anguish in life, what keeps us trapped in cycles of suffering, is overwhelmingly about childish concerns and about refusing to grow up.

In contemplating this, I was reminded of Zen teacher Norman Fischer's book, "Taking Our Places: The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up," which I read several years ago. At the time I read it, I don't think I was quite ready to receive its message, and for the most part it went in one eye and out the other. But I went back to look at Fischer's book, and found that it's a rich and meaningful dive into this seldom-explored topic of spiritual maturity. Fischer states the basic problem very concisely:

"[Most] of us are terrified by the idea of growing up -- or would be if we ever considered the idea seriously. Mostly we don't. We usually take maturity for granted, as one of life's givens. You reach a certain age, you get out of school, you get a job, maybe you marry or settle down, maybe not, but time goes by and you're a grown-up. You get a diploma, a credit card, a job, a car, a house or apartment. After you acquire these emblematic prizes, each of which feels like a milestone, you are there. You are an adult. What more is there to it than that? We think growing up, becoming a mature human being, is natural, almost biological, something we all do automatically simply by virtue of the passage of years and the natural course of things. Life happens to us and we go along with it, and there we are, grown up, developed, wise people.

[But] when we...contemplate the question of what it really means to be an adult, fear sets in. We recognize that despite our social position or accomplishments, despite our relationships, our education, and our psychological astuteness, we really don't know what we're doing with our lives. Where is our life going? What is the purpose for which we were born, the fulfillment we deeply seek? We look like grown-ups, we talk like grown-ups, maybe we have grown-up bank accounts and grown-up responsibilities -- but do we really have any idea what we are about?

And if, after much struggle, we think we know the answers to such questions, we are forced to ask another, more agonizing question: Are we living those answers? Or do our lives, in the light of those answers, seem like afterthoughts, like still unformed story lines?"

-- Norman Fischer, "Taking Our Places: The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up"

"The spiritual path," says Fischer, "leads us to the places we are meant to occupy in this world." And all the practices and forms with which we engage on the path -- meditation and the rest -- are tools that help us develop the maturity to truly become ourselves, to fully inhabit our own lives and to understand what on earth we are here to do.

Most so-called adults, most of the time, live more or less like children, thinking and acting from the perspective of what Buddhists call the ego: the brattish, child-like "me" that thinks primarily about its own happiness, about how it could acquire more of the things it believes will make it happy and how it could further repel or destroy the things it believes will make it unhappy. The childish ego thinks nothing of pushing others out of the way to get what it wants.

By contrast, the great spiritual masters and enlightened beings -- I'm thinking here of the Buddha, Jesus, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, the Karmapa, and others like them -- are perhaps the only human beings on this earth who have consistently and completely lived as genuine adults. Such beings have completely let go of the childish ego's petty concerns, and have understood the world, and their salvific roles in it, in a way that children cannot possibly do; they have become like parents to the whole human race, caring for us when we are -- isn't it obvious? -- incapable of properly caring for ourselves without grown-up assistance. Like loving parents, these great beings care more about the happiness of their children than they do about their own, and in this sense they are like the ultimate adults and we are like the ultimate children. But they are also representatives of what each of us miserable, selfish brats has the potential to become, if we apply ourselves.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

-- First letter of Paul, Chapter 13, verse 11


"I don't want to grow up! I'm a Toys R Us kid!"

-- Popular advertising jingle for Toys R Us brand

Lately it has struck me that our ability to progress along the spiritual path is wholly dependent on our commitment to the basic principles of maturity, to the process of growing up. To the degree that we lack such a commitment, our opportunities for achieving enlightenment -- or even for achieving a greater degree of sanity and well-being in our lives -- are slim.

Obviously, the kind of maturity I'm talking about here is not the kind that comes when we reach a certain age; it's not something that happens when we are old enough to drink booze or to vote or to trade in our toy guns for actual guns and go off to fight real wars instead of imaginary ones. The kind of maturity we need on the spiritual path is something that develops on the inside, and its growth is entirely dependent on our full, willing participation in the process. There are quite a few young people who have this kind of spiritual maturity, and (unfortunately) there are lots and lots of old people who don't.

When we break it down, I think spiritual maturity has several key components:

• Responsibility: Mature beings have a highly developed moral sense, and they act accordingly. This built-in moral compass comes not from following a book of rules or a code of behavior that some parental figure gave them -- it comes from following the dictates of their conscience, which is rooted in a clear understanding of what kind of action is skillful and what kind is harmful. They see what needs to be done and they do it. And they see what is better left undone and they avoid it.
  
  
• Relaxation: Mature beings have let go of childish, petty resentments and grudges, and they do not indulge in temper tantrums when they don't get things their way. They are open-minded and have no axes to grind and no chips on their shoulders about anything at all.
  
  
• Confidence: Mature beings have worked through their childhood insecurities and emotional hangups, and are at peace with themselves as they are; they are comfortable in their own skin. But they never boast; their confidence is rooted in humility, and has nothing to do with arrogance. They are okay with admitting how little they actually know.
  
  
• Joyfulness: Mature beings are able to bring joy to their lives and the lives of people they meet, even amidst difficult circumstances.
  
  
• Altruism: Mature beings downplay self-centered concerns and place greater emphasis on the welfare of others.
  
  
• Realism: Mature beings have left behind the pretensions and make-believe of childhood, and have shifted their allegiance to holding a realistic, well-informed view of the world and how it actually works. They are committed to cultivating knowledge and deepening wisdom, and to dispelling illusion.
  
  
• Perseverance: Mature beings dedicate themselves fully to the process of growing up and waking up. They know it takes work, and they are determined not to fall back into the selfish habitual patterns of childhood.

We can use these qualities as measuring sticks to see where we've made progress on our spiritual path, and where we've still got some growing up to do. When I think of someone like the Buddha, or Jesus, or the Karmapa, I think of someone who fully embodies all of these essential aspects of spiritual maturity, and has brought each of these qualities to full ripening. Many people are in awe of such spiritually advanced beings because they are said to be able to display miracles, but perhaps the greatest miracle they display is the simple yet shocking fact of their utter maturity, their complete lack of childishness -- which is shocking precisely because it is so uncommon.

(To be continued....)

The Indisputable Truth

Lately I've been chewing on a paradox, wrestling with two seemingly opposing points of view about how one should progress along the spiritual path. On the one hand is the view that through our study and practice we should be developing certainty about the way things really are. Tibetan teachers, especially, emphasize the importance of developing certainty; without certainty, they say, we are bound to continue wandering aimlessly in habitual patterns and confusion. On the other hand is the view, particularly strong in the Zen tradition, that the further we progress along the spiritual path, the more we are obliged to admit to ourselves how little we actually know. "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities," wrote Suzuki Roshi in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind. "In the expert's, there are few." There is even a name for this view, which is held up as an ideal for the spiritual seeker: Don't-Know Mind.



What I am experiencing these days, by way of the particular practices I am doing, is not the growth of certainty, but its opposite -- the dissolution of old certainties that were based on mistaken assumptions, the crumbling of old, familiar ways of looking at mind and experience and life. I'm left not with the newfound certainty of understanding that I would expect to find when the cobwebs of delusion are being swept away, but with a sense of groundlessness that seems to disallow for any certainty at all -- casting a shadow of doubt upon any edifice of conceptual certainty the ego may try to construct around itself. Although my teachers and mentors tell me that what I should be developing is certainty, what I'm actually experiencing at the moment is the growth of Don't-Know Mind.

The possibility has not been lost on me that there is a phase one must pass through, before reality can be seen with genuine certainty, when the old mistaken certainties have been taken away but there is not yet anything to replace them, and that this might be the space into which I am beginning -- tentatively, half-heartedly -- to stick one of my feet. But I'm actually wondering if there is not something suspect, to begin with, about our human quest for certainty and our fixation on finding answers.

But maybe that's too abstract. Here's what I know: There's a mind here (whatever that is, and wherever here is) that is experiencing stuff (whatever that is), and when I look at it closely there doesn't seem to be any visible dividing line (that I can find, anyway, with my admittedly feeble powers of discernment) between the mind and the experiencing and the stuff. Beyond that, there isn't much that I feel I can say, at the moment, that couldn't be easily challenged. (And even that much, which seems to be hardly anything, remains open to some disputation in my own mind. The apparent separateness of experienced stuff from the experiencing mind is a deeply entrenched habit of perspective, like a pair of glasses that perhaps distort one's vision rather than clarifying it, but which it is nevertheless uncomfortable to remove because one has grown very used to them. Although direct investigation suggests that this dualistic perspective may in fact be quite mistaken, it nevertheless reasserts itself very quickly and automatically, producing a sense of mental static that interferes with the clear reception of certainty obtained in meditation.)

What I'm beginning to suspect is that, on the spiritual path as a whole, the questions might be more important than the answers. Maybe awakening comes not through piling up more and more knowledge and certainty about things, but through asking more and more profound and juicy questions -- and, when asking them, being more and more willing to step into the ocean of Don't-Know Mind rather than clutching at answers in an attempt to keep the ground under our feet.

And so, in that spirit, I leave you not with a statement but with a question, which I ask you in all seriousness, and I hope you will answer. (You're invited to post your answer here in the comments section.) I offer several ways of phrasing it, but it's really just one question, and the question is this:

What do you know? What, in your own experience, are you certain of? What, in your view, is the indisputable truth, and why?

Discuss.

The Heart of the Matter

Buddhism, like most forms of spiritual practice, is not rocket science. It doesn't take a genius to grasp its basic truths and to see how they apply to everyday life. But we are liable to miss the point entirely if rocket science is what we're looking for. We might expect spirituality to be sophisticated, because we see ourselves as sophisticated creatures. In our search for sophisticated answers to our sophisticated questions, we overlook the simple truth that's already present. One Tibetan teacher, in speaking of his realization of the true nature of mind, said: "Because it is so close, no one sees it. Because it is so simple, no one trusts it."

The intellect and the logical, reasoning mind is one of our greatest strengths as human beings -- but, paradoxically, it can also be a weakness for us on the spiritual path if we rely upon it too heavily. At its best, an intellectual understanding of the truth shows which direction to go in and helps us see through our delusions -- but, at its worst, it masquerades as authentic experience, which is something it can never really be. If we read about a spiritual truth in a book or have a stimulating conversation about it, it might produce some good ideas and intellectual insights. These ideas and insights are fine as long as we do not mistake them for authentic realization, which can only come from direct experience -- beyond intellect and conceptual mind.

When we study seemingly esoteric topics such as the Buddhist teachings on emptiness and selflessness, we engage the intellect to a very high degree, and this exercise can sometimes be misleading. The point is always to leave intellectual speculation and theories behind and go directly into our own mind and experience, where we can discover the truth for ourselves, in a non-theoretical way.

Beyond intellect and reasoning, there is another important dimension to our human experience, a side that too often lies in the shadows, begging for further investigation and understanding: the emotional mind. Emotions are the mind's raw, energetic expression, and their powerful currents often contort our experience into painful shapes and colors. To the degree that Buddhists are concerned with alleviating and transcending suffering (and from the very first teaching the Buddha ever gave, this has always been the stated intention of the Buddhist spiritual path), we need to direct our attention to where the bulk of our suffering comes from. And if we're honest with ourselves, we'll see that most of it comes from our emotions.

There are painful experiences in life that cannot be avoided: sickness and injury, heartbreak, loss, and, sooner or later, death. Most of our suffering, however, comes not from those mere, choiceless experiences, but from our emotional reactions -- the added layers of pain and suffering we glom onto our experience. It comes from our anger, our impatience and aggression, our greed and attachment and obsession and addiction, our jealousy and envy, our pride and arrogance, our willful blindness and ignorance -- in other words, the bulk of our suffering is what we bring upon ourselves, through all our nefarious and destructive emotions.

When Buddhists speak about a philosophical idea like emptiness, we often speak abstractly, using examples that are emotionally neutral: a table, a chair, a rock. Although the table appears in front of us, we say, it has no inherent existence, no fundamental essence that can be located, and we list all the intellectual reasons why this is so. But tables and chairs and rocks don't generally cause us much suffering in life -- and whether they have any true existence or not doesn't really seem to make a whit of difference to me, when I get right down to it. But to see, in the midst of an emotional upheaval, the emptiness of the emotion that has me in its grip -- now that, it seems to me, is getting to the point, the real heart of the matter.

Seeing the emptiness of emotions means seeing their illusory, dreamlike quality and their transient, fluid nature -- which is the opposite of how we typically experience them. It means seeing that the qualities we project onto the objects of our emotions -- the enchanting desirability of the person for whom we lust, the extremely irritating nature of the person towards whom we feel anger, and so on -- emanate, above all, from our own minds; these qualities do not truly exist "out there" in the objects themselves. And it means seeing that our emotions, beneath all the storylines and projections and distortions we try to attach to them, are nothing other than the vivid and natural expression of mind's basic aliveness. Seeing this, we begin to let go of our clinging towards pleasant feelings and our fear and aversion towards unpleasant feelings, and we develop the equanimity of relating to the full range of our experience with a more open, curious mind. We begin to discover the wisdom and richness that is present right within our most glorious moments and our most wretched ones -- and all the moments in-between.

The jewel, after all, is in the lotus, as a famous Buddhist chant somewhat cryptically says. And the lotus grows -- where else? -- in the mud.

Everything Is Mind

A friend of mine on Facebook said recently, citing the conventional wisdom, that we shouldn't conceptualize our meditation experience. I had to chuckle, because it seems like that's all I do -- especially in these blog posts. Maybe I should refrain from trying to make sense of my experience and teasing out its meaning, but I can't stop myself. I often find that my most meaningful experiences on the spiritual path come about when I ignore conventional wisdom and do what feels authentic to me. This process of writing -- which, by definition, involves conceptualizing my experience -- has lately become integral to the way I practice contemplation. On the selfish side, it helps me flesh out my own understanding in a way that I'm not able to do on the cushion; and on the altruistic side, friends and even total strangers sometimes write to me saying that reading these contemplations benefits them, which motivates me to keep writing.

Nothing that we study or practice on the spiritual path is useful if we can't find ways to make it relevant to our personal experience. Even the most esoteric, mystical teachings are pointing to something that is alive in our own experience and our own mind -- but it's up to each of us to discover that for ourselves. No one else can do it for us. "Buddhas only point the way," it is often said -- but we each have to walk the path ourselves, in our own way, and join the teachings with our own understanding. This is the importance of contemplation, and it's what the Buddha instructed us to do when he talked about testing and chewing on the teachings before accepting them, the way people in those days would chew on a piece of gold to verify its authenticity.

In ancient India there was a school of Buddhist philosophy called Yogachara, which is usually translated as the "Mind Only" school. More literally, "yoga" means "union" or "inseparability" and "chara" means "practice" or "training." The Yogacharins practiced or trained in seeing the union or inseparability of subject and object -- in other words, the absence of apparent duality between perceiver and perceived.

Wait a minute! What the hell does *that* mean? Nary a paragraph ventured, and we've strayed into high-fallutin' theory and abstract philosophy. Let's look at it in terms of ordinary experience.

The perception of duality pervades everything we experience. We look at a rock, and we think "I'm over here" and "that rock is over there." Ordinarily, we think this is a perfectly acceptable and useful way of looking at our reality -- it's just the way it is, and there is no need to investigate further. But holding this assumption tightly, as we do, creates all sorts of misunderstandings and confusion. Because we think there is some kind of substantially, objectively existing rock out there, we assume that everyone else who sees it must be experiencing the same rock. We are flabbergasted when they describe seeing it differently.

The Yogacharins, however, challenged this very fundamental assumption about reality. They said that the apparent separation between perceiving subject and perceived object, and the supposedly solid, objective existence of something "out there" that's separate from the mind "in here," is actually an illusion. Their claim to fame was for holding the radical view that "Everything is mind."

The Yogacharins were able to get away with making this seemingly ludicrous assertion because they pointed out, and not incorrectly, that all we can ever really know about an object is our own experience of it. In cognitive terms (what we know), we can never really cognize the rock itself -- in other words, the rock can't get up and come into our minds, and we can't go down and put our minds inside the rock. What we actually experience, say the Yogacharins, is a perception of the rock that takes place entirely within the mind. We can never truly experience anything that isn't experienced within the mind.

What we experience within the mind is utterly unique to each of us -- even the person sitting next to us does not see the same rock as we do. Moreover, the rock and the consciousness that perceives it may appear to be more or less constant from one moment to the next, but this is also a misperception. The rock -- conventional wisdom be damned -- is never the same from one instant to the next (we know this to be the case even scientifically, on a sub-molecular level) and the same could be said ten times over of the consciousness that perceives it. Our mind is constantly shifting and changing, and when we try to pinpoint it and solidify it into any one shape in order to look at it, we find it always seems to be hiding just behind our awareness -- in the same way that our eyeballs cannot see themselves.

Please don't bother trying to find her.
She's not there.

-- The Zombies

Now, rocks don't seem to mind much if we see them incorrectly and make false assumptions about their nature. But when we bring this same reifying mindset into our human relationships, it creates total chaos. We see Joe Schmidt as a completely separate entity who is trapped in some kind of fixed, solid existence, stuck forever in his basic and irrevocable Joeness -- and, depending on our outlook, we either love him for being Joe, or hate him for being Joe. (As I know too well from my history of intimate relationships, we can also start out with the former and, before long, end up with the latter.) But our perception of Joe takes place entirely within our own minds, and is clouded by the filters of our own emotional reactions and cognitive distortions. Because we don't see this, we believe that what we perceive about Joe is the way Joe really is, and that everyone -- including Joe himself -- must perceive Joe the same way as we do. It's not difficult to imagine how this assumption gets us in trouble.

Our habitual tendency to perceive our experience in dualistic terms extends even to what unfolds "internally," in our mind and body. When a thought or an emotion arises in the mind, we relate to it as if we -- the perceiving consciousness -- are "over here," and the thought or the emotion -- the perceived object -- is "over there" somewhere, a kind of quasi-external phenomenon that is happening to us. Similarly, when a physical sensation -- pain, for example -- arises in the body, we relate to it as if our experiencing mind, which is naturally "over here," is quite distinct and separate from that spot in our lower back, "down there," that is producing pain. Because we see these objects as separate from the mind that perceives them, we grant them a kind of phantom-like power over us. The emotion becomes a boogeyman that keeps coming back to haunt us, and won't leave us alone; the pain in our back while we're practicing meditation becomes excruciating, and we feel we have to do something about it.

But when we look more closely, in meditation, at the nature of these experiences, our assumptions of duality begin to crumble. When we look directly at the experience of pain in our back, for example, and investigate whether this experience is truly separate from the mind that perceives it, something altogether surprising may happen. The experience itself opens up into something much more relaxed, and the conceptual label of "pain" dissolves, leaving only pure sensation. The baggage of our habitual reactions -- "Oh! This feeling is painful! It's terrible! I've got to do something about it!" -- falls away and we are able, at least for a moment, to relate to our basic human experience in a way that is shockingly free of our ordinary bullshit.

When the current of thoughts is self-liberated
And the essence of Dharma is known
Everything is understood
And apparent phenomena
Are all the books one needs.

-- Sadhana of Mahamudra