On Being Mindful

 

The habit of ignoring our present moments in favor of others yet to come leads directly to a pervasive lack of awareness of the web of life in which we are embedded. 

 

This includes a lack of awareness and understanding of our own mind and how it influences our perceptions and our actions. It severely limits our perspective on what it means to be a person and how we are connected to each other and the world around us. 

 

Religion has traditionally been the domain of such fundamental inquiries within a spiritual framework, but mindfulness has little to do with religion, except in the most fundamental meaning of the word, as an attempt to appreciate the deep mystery of being alive and to acknowledge being vitally connected to all that exists. 

 

By Jon Kabat-Zinn

The Bowl

By John Hutchinson

I

In The Crest Jewel of Wisdom, the Indian philosopher Shankara tells us that just as stone, wood, grass, grain and straw are all in time reduced to dust, so the body, the senses, the mind and the life-breath return to the nature of the higher Self. Darkness is dissolved in the radiance of the sun, and all that is manifest melts away in the Eternal. And just as space remains untouched when a clay pot is destroyed, so the Eternal remains Eternal.

The first bowl was probably intended to contain water or food: its form is therefore dependent on one of the most basic of human activities, that of eating and drinking. On another, more metaphorical level, it can also be said that a full and open bowl both withholds and offers in a single measure and in the same gesture. An empty bowl is different, as it holds the potential for either giving or receiving. This coincidence is a reflection of the state of contemplative consciousness, in which all things are born and to which they all return.

When a potter throws a bowl, a plane of clay is extended into three dimensions. As it expands, the clay both contains and is contained by space. This ordinary and wonderful characteristic, which is shared by all objects in the world, is emphasized by the process of making; the potter causes the clay to move upwards, defying the law of gravity, and then counters that action by using centrifugal force to open out the rising mass into the shape of a bowl.

The interplay of these movements, one vertical, the other horizontal, is revealed as a balance of opposing energies. This relationship is individualized by the film of clay, which has the capacity to retain, in three-dimensional form, every trace of the potter's touch. This form, perhaps glazed or otherwise decorated, is then sensed and interpreted in relation to other things, both found and made. A 'good' bowl is brought to a point where all these qualities cohere and coincide. There it rests, suggesting the possibility of further growth, but restrained by poise and balance. 

II

In the Daodejing, Laozi speaks about the importance of 'what is not'. Although the spokes are indispensable, he says, they are not the hub of the wheel. Cut doors and windows into the walls of a house, using their nothingness to make a room. Mold clay to make a vessel. Adapt its nothingness for the purpose in hand.

Is the bowl a specific form of spatial articulation, or is it that with which the space is articulated? It is both these things, and neither. A bowl, in its totality, is beyond definition. A truly beautiful bowl is suggestive of infinity; it is perched on the boundary between fullness and emptiness, revealing their inseparable identity.

Such bowls have the capacity to lead us back from the physicality of an object to the state of pure consciousness in which it was conceived and manifested. When this happens, the bowl, as a material object, seems barely to be present. It challenges and plays with our understanding of reality; it defies conventional notions of substantiality. Something that is beautiful, according to this definition, holds our attention without allowing it to become static, leading us effortlessly to that which is present but non-objective. In that respect, the beautiful thing could be said to 'vanish'. It follows that there is little that can helpfully be said about a bowl of this nature; it leaves little trace of itself and yet transforms the viewer or user - not dramatically, but with subtlety and gentleness. Such a bowl is both impersonal and intimate.

The making of this kind of impersonal object, perhaps paradoxically, demands extraordinary attention to detail. Every aspect of the creation of a beautiful bowl must be considered with great clarity and affection, and it may take many years of mastery of all the physical and technical aspects of making pots before the prerequisite skills are internalized and become instinctive. Even then, this special element of selflessness cannot deliberately be attained; it chooses, in a sense, to be manifested. Consequently, the artist or craftsman cannot directly aspire to the accomplishment of beauty, but if the potter's work is going to be anything other than physically functional or superficially attractive, this ideal must be embraced and given the opportunity to realize itself.

III 

The quality of selflessness cannot be understood, much less attained, without a degree of transformation, or clarification, of individual consciousness. This clarification involves the unfolding realization that all activity (be it thinking, feeling, sensing, perceiving, or acting) is fundamentally spoiled and reduced by the belief or feeling that what we are is limited, finite, or separate. The dawning of the understanding that real being is, in fact, infinite, is not a great or extraordinary experience; it is, rather, thoroughly intimate and familiar, precisely because it is always before and within us, even though it may be temporarily veiled by the conviction that the opposite is true.

A consequence of this understanding is the perception that beauty is not the property of an object, and that it is inherent in the true substance of all things. Substance, pure consciousness, is externalized as loving awareness and action. The more clearly that this is seen, the less certainty there can be about anything other than the presence of selfless being. A condition of fearless uncertainty, open and unknowing from moment to moment, that is both vulnerable and indestructible, then makes itself felt.

From such a perspective it might be proposed that a bowl embodies a form of consciousness. In that respect, the maker of bowls is involved in an outward activity that is the reflection of an inner openness, a state of absence that must, with all possible dedication and commitment, be maintained. It is a task that is difficult and demanding, offering the ego's sense of permanence little hope or consolation. In a certain sense it is the lifelong remaking of a single, and utterly unique, bowl - a bowl, what is more, that is ultimately invisible. It is, and contains, no thing.

John Hutchinson is an art historian

 

Air Travel, Lack of Civility and The Good Thing About Getting Old

The good thing about getting old is that your short term memory does not work very well anymore. You quickly forget the bad things that happen to you. - Mr. Monheim  

 

Everyone who travels by air has at least one story to tell. Most of the time these are the stories of lost luggage, delays, flight cancellations, obnoxious fellow passengers, or the impertinent cabin staff. We tell the stories because they happened to us. We want to warn our friends to spare them the indignity of spending five days without luggage in Cairo or being stranded for a day in "Timbuktu" only to miss our connecting flight that would have taken us back to civilization if we were lucky enough not to be tricked by our travel agent back home. Most of the stories, though, are less dramatic, but still worth telling and some of them do not even happen to us.

The story I am about to tell happened only a few days before Christmas in the Business Class of an European airline during the Atlantic crossing. After a meal that wasn't too horrible, most of my fellow passengers went to sleep. Those who sat at the window pulled dawn the window blinds, but a few of us remained awake. Some were reading, others watched movies.  Just across the aisle a gentleman in his 70s had his window blind open. He was reading a newspaper. He did not even wear reading glasses. I found this quite remarkable. Most of us would probably be able to retain a fairly good vision until old age if we had the discipline to read with natural daylight and tried to stay away from artificial light sources and reading glasses. 

My thoughts about aging, perfect vision and reading were interrupted by a rude remark that came from a woman in her 40s who was traveling with her husband and two teenage children. "Hey you! Pull down the blind! I want to sleep!" As it happened, a steward was passing by. The frantic woman asked him, in a voice laud enough, to "tell the senile idiot to pull down the blind." The young man was certainly in shock. He probably was just as shocked as I and the elderly gentleman on the other side of the aisle. What happened next was like a short movie on civility and human misery. 

The steward asked the elderly gentleman if it was all right to pull down the shade, but before the man could even utter a word, the husband of the frantic woman woke up and shouted even louder: "Tell the old, senile imbecile to pull down the shade! Tell him to turn on the reading light."  The steward wanted to be diplomatic. He told the couple that this was a daylight flight and no one could be forced to shut the window blind if he did not want to. He offered them sleeping masks.  

One would think that this should have been enough, but no, the couple became even more agitated and wanted to talk to the chief steward. When an uniformed man in his mid-50s arrived, the couple complained very loudly that they could not sleep because "that old senile imbecile kept the window shade open." This, apparently, was scandalous since they paid so much money to travel in the business class and believed they deserved a better treatment. 

The couple "spoke" very loud and did not care that they might wake up other passengers. They spoke loud enough so that the elderly gentleman by the window could hear every single abusive word that was addressed at him. He was neither senile nor deaf. He heard everything.  The couple was indignant. They refused to wear the sleeping masks and demanded that the window blind was shut. The elderly gentleman eventually pulled down the blind. He tried to read for a few minutes with the help of the reading light, but gave up after a short while. His eyes got very tired, I learned later. 

The nasty couple went to sleep and woke a few hours later as if nothing ever happened.  

The flight was uneventful until landing, but the lack of civility and the verbal brutality of my fellow passengers left me shocked and somehow frustrated. I felt that I needed to talk to that elderly gentleman who was so unjustly abused on the plane. When I caught up with him at the conveyor belt I told him that I was very sorry for what happened to him during the flight. He smiled and said that this experience was indeed very painful, but was happy to be that old since the old age was a real blessing. His short term memory didn't work very well anymore and he had already forgotten that unpleasant incident.  

So much wisdom! And such a detachment form things that are hurtful or unpleasant. A real Zen mind!  

I am not sure, and there was no time to ask, whether he developed this attitude with growing age, or was that the motto he lived by for the most part of his life. It doesn't matter. What matters is that all of us would be so much happier if only we learned how to detach ourselves from bad experiences and forget them quickly.  However, if letting go cannot be learned, age will do it for us. And that's the good thing. 

By Dominique Allmon

Dominique Allmon©2015

Stop the Train

Bernina Express, Switzerland

 

The story is told of a man who, being late for a trip, arrived at a railroad station and jumped onto the first available train. 

 

Extenuated, he dozed off for a while and then upon waking up, saw the train rumbling along at full speed toward an unknown destination. He began querying everyone, complaining aloud and finally crying and shouting. He demanded that the train stop to let him off. 

 

The more excited he became, the more the other passengers, eerily silent and downcast, seemed puzzled by his behavior. 

 

Finally a kind old man told him, "don't you know, this train has only one destination, the ocean depths from which no one ever returns." 

 

Once we are born, our final destination is death - the deep ocean. Why fret and fuss? All we can do is to use our time on earth to develop the Bodhi-mind, seeking Enlightenment for ourselves and others. 

 

So, instead of fighting the inevitable we should accept the highest reality of human existence. When we stop wasting our energy and accept what is, we might even enjoy the ride with all its intricacies. 

 

Parable source unknown, but greatly appreciated

 

Image source here

Everything Is An Illusion - The Rope and Snake Zen Parable

~ The Rope and the Snake Zen Parable ~

There is an old Buddhist parable that tells of a man walking home one evening. In the half-light he sees on the path a snake apparently crossing in front of him. He starts and jerks himself away, heart beating fast, wide-eyed and alert. Peering closely he suddenly realizes that he was mistaken, in fact it is an old piece of rope! Relieved and laughing to himself at his foolishness he goes to step over it and glancing down suddenly realizes the rope is a string of jewels. He gasps in awe!

A simple story and we nod and ‘get the point’. But do we realize how often each day opportunities arise for such mistaken identities?

The playwright Alan Bennett tells the story of a holiday at a hotel in Harrogate with his mother. They were taking tea, one afternoon, when a smartly dressed middle-aged woman entered the room with a younger man in tow. Alan’s mother turned to her son and said, “She’s here with her boyfriend, I see!” The next day, while taking tea again, the woman enters alone. Alan’s mother says “I see they’ve had a row then!”

It’s not just that I continually commentate and interpret what goes on around me, but that this ‘story’ - of thoughts and feelings I weave filters my perception of what is real. If I think you are a great person then I see you as one. If I feel the world is a hostile place then I see other people out to get me everywhere I go. Once I think something, it is as if it becomes real and I cannot distinguish between what the situation is and what I think and feel about it.

Walking home at twilight in India it would not be unrealistic to see a cobra slithering across the path. An expectation, a flutter of fear, the half-light, an ambiguous object across the path, imagination can supply the rest. It might be worth remembering that next time you meet with someone you have a bad feeling about and they seem to be antagonizing you.

Story as told by the Venerable Sochu

Story source here
Image source here

Wabi Sabi

Old umbrella

Wabi sabi describes a traditional Japanese aesthetic sensibility based on an appreciation of the transient beauty of the natural world. It embodies the melancholic appeal of the impermanence of all things, especially the modest, the rustic, the imperfect, and even the decayed. Wabi sabi represents the passage of time and what remains. - Donna Watson

Image source here 
Quote source here

Quote of the Day

A corner of the Regency sofa in the 
Drawing Room at Felbrigg Hall - Norfolk, England

Although gold dust 
is precious, 
when it gets in your eyes 
it obstructs your 
vision. 

Hsi-Tang Chih Tsang (735-814)
Chinese Zen Master

Image by David Kirkham

Image source here

On Vision

Both, what and how we see, are intricately interwoven with our conditioning. We see what we have learned to see. If we come out of our house in midday and see a yellow barn surrounded by a forest, that image becomes a part of our memory. Later, at the end of the day, when the evening sun is sinking over the horizon and the once yellow barn and green trees have been transformed by the fiery orange hue, we may miss that change. Our tendency will be to remember the yellow and green unless a deliberate effort is made to see things as they are. In the glow of twilight the house maybe have a pinkish tone. Trees will turn purple. Yet our mind, if we let it be controlled and fixed by our memory, will only see the afterimages of the past.

I sit here each evening and look at the same things and each evening find that I see different things. The renown Japanese Zen teacher and mystic, Eihei Dogen once asked, “Is it that there are various ways of seeing one object? Or is it that we have mistaken various images for one object?” His words come back to me again and again; ripples on the water expanding in widening circles, reaching out endlessly.

John Daido Loori Roshi

Image source here

Natural Beauty

A young monk was in charge of the garden within a famous Zen temple. He had been given the job because he loved the flowers, shrubs, and trees. Next to his temple there was another, a much smaller temple where a very old Zen master lived. 

One day, when the temple was expecting some special guests, the young monk took extra care in tending to the garden. He pulled the weeds, trimmed the shrubs, combed the moss, and spent a long time meticulously raking up and carefully arranging all the dry autumn leaves. As he worked, the old master watched him with interest from across the wall that separated the two temples.

When the young man had finished his work in the garden, he stood back to admire his work. "Isn't it beautiful," he called out to the old master. "Yes," replied the old man, "but there is something missing. Help me over this wall and I'll put it right for you."

After hesitating, the young monk lifted the old master over and set him down. Slowly, the master walked to the tree near the center of the garden, grabbed it by the trunk, and shook it. Leaves showered down all over the garden. "There," said the old man, "you can put me back now."

 

Image source unknown but greatly appreciated

Quote of the Day

In myriad forms 

there is a single body 

revealed. 

 

 Dogen-Zenji (1200-53)

Image source here

Taming the Monkey Mind

 Monkeys and the Buddha at Phra Prang Sam Yot, 
Lop Buri, Thailand

The Five Minutes Cure for Your Monkey Mind by Ron Atchison 

We're all looking for the right answers, aren't we? We look in self-help books and churches and seek out teachers and therapists and gurus and astrologists and some folks even hire fortune tellers. But what if I told you the best way to find what you're looking for is to stop looking?

Seriously.

Sometimes we look and search too much. Our minds are filled with knowledge, facts and philosophies but we never find peace because we can't stop thinking!

Many Buddhist teachers refer to this phenomenon as 'monkey-mind' because it's similar to the way a monkey will swing from tree to tree tasting a banana from each one before dropping it and moving to the next tree. Like these monkeys, we often jump from thought to thought without ever really being in the present moment.

The cure for this is to make a conscious effort to quiet the mind. Or take what I like to refer to as a 'mental vacation.'

There are many different techniques for this but the easiest way is to find a quiet place, close your eyes and simply concentrate on your breathing. That's it. You don't have to be a yogi or a meditation master and you don't need any special equipment. If you have eyelids and a pair of lungs you are properly equipped!

Now, when your mind starts to wander (and it will!) do not be overly-concerned. Let that thought float away like a cloud in the sky and bring your attention back to your breathing.

The goal is to quiet your mind as much as possible... to be totally aware of your thoughts as they come in and go out, understanding that they are just thoughts... just clouds passing through on an otherwise sunny day.

Buddha's Monkey by Frédéric Blais-Bélange

With a little bit of practice you'll get good at this! When you first start out try it for five or ten minutes. Even in this short amount of time you'll notice a difference in the way you think and feel. But with extended and daily practice you'll see major improvements in your health and overall well-being.

There are many reasons for this but all we really need to know is that a calm and uncluttered mind is a vibrant mind. It is fertile and alive with creative energy. It has the ability to perfectly regulate millions of simultaneous activities without any conscious effort and in this same way can bring us everything else we desire.

So the next time you feel overwhelmed or you just can't find the answer you're looking for, remember to stop swinging from tree to tree. Take a deep breath, quiet your mind and enjoy every precious minute of your mental vacation. 

For more inspiration, please visit Ron's fabulous website

Image source here & here

Life Is But a Dream

An elderly Zen Master, feeling that his time would soon come, devised a clever strategy to help his chief disciple achieve Great Awakening. He decided to drive the younger monk out of his complacency through an elaborate plan to "frame" him as a thief in disguise.

In the middle of the night, the Zen master would hide one of his valuable Buddha images and then cry "Thief, thief." The younger monks would all rush in, but there was no thief to be seen. Finally, after the third time, as the chief disciple ran into his room, the old master grabbed him and threw him on the floor, "Here is the thief. At last I have caught you red-handed!" The chief disciple was then denounced to one and all throughout the land.

The accused monk, once a teacher of a huge congregation, now completely disgraced and with nowhere to turn, his ego totally shattered, mulled over this flagrant injustice and at times even contemplated suicide. After several weeks of utter desperation, he suddenly experienced a Great Awakening: life is a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow. This is the very teaching he had been trying to impart to the novices for so many years! He then rushed back to the Master, who upon seeing him, stood up, greeted him warmly and conferred the succession upon him.

Source of the article unknown but greatly appreciated

 

Image: Light into darkness by Dominique Allmon©2012

Arriving at Your Own Door

All thoughts are events they arise and pass away in the field of awareness itself, without our effort, without our intention, just as waves on the ocean rise up for a moment, then fall back into the ocean itself, losing their identity, their momentary relative self-hood, returning to their undifferentiated water nature.

Awareness does all the work. We have done nothing, other than desist from feeding the thought in any way, which would only make it proliferate into another thought, another wave, another bubble. - Jon Kabat-Zinn in Arriving at Your Own Door

Book review by John Chancellor

"Arriving at Your Own Door" is a collection of very short lessons in mindfulness. There are 108 lessons and it is easy to read the entire book in less than an hour. However that will be doing yourself and the book a disservice.

Mindfulness is not our normal way of thinking and acting. Therefore the lessons and their potential impact on our lives is not obvious in many of the lessons. You need to give the lessons some thought. I have read the book three times and each time I gain a little more insight into the value of the lessons.

Mindfulness is about becoming aware. The most common route to mindfulness is through meditation. However, you do not need to be involved in meditation to benefit from this book. You will need an open mind. You must be willing to look at things from a different perspective.

There is one quote in the book that goes to the heart of mindfulness. "We take care of the future best by taking care of the present now." As Jon Kabat-Zinn points out, we are often trying to live in the future. There is no future. There is only now and trying to live in the future robs us of the present. "Arriving someplace more desirable at some future time is an illusion. This is it."

Do not expect long explanations of the lessons. The lessons are extremely brief. If you have not read or studied mindfulness, this might not be a good start because the ideas or thoughts might need further explanation. However if you are a student of meditation, of how the mind works, of mindfulness, then this is a very handy little reminder that will give you guidance in right thinking with lots of ideas to contemplate.

Just Two Words

There once was a monastery that was very strict. Following a vow of silence, no one was allowed to speak at all. But there was one exception to this rule. Every ten years, the monks were permitted to speak just two words. 

After spending his first ten years at the monastery, one monk went to see the master. "It has been ten years," said the master. "What are the two words you would like to utter?"

"Bed... hard..." said the monk. "I see," replied the master.

Ten years later, the monk returned to the master's office. "It has been ten more years," said the master. "What are the two words you would like to speak?"

"Food... stinks..." said the monk. "I see," replied the master.

Yet another ten years passed and the monk once again met with the master who asked, "What are your two words now, after these ten years?"

"I... quit!" said the monk. "Well, I can see why," replied the master. "All you ever do is complain."

Some people drift through life never learning anything at all. At times life may seem to be a difficult journey and some people master it better than others. One may wonder if they have particular talents, or more luck than others, but their secret is quite simple. One's circumstances are only a frame that holds the canvas, but each of us makes a more or less conscious decision about the painting that appears before us.

Many people live in a state of denial and self-deception. They either refuse to accept what is, or create a distorted vision of their own situation.

The very first step to happiness, however, is to accept what is. This does not mean that one has to resign oneself to one's circumstances. But by simply accepting the reality for what it is, we are able to make some changes.

By accepting that things are the way they are we simply open our minds to new possibilities. Acceptance helps reduce resistance to change and liberates inner potential for growth.

We might not always like where we are or even hate everything that our lives may have become. But acceptance is necessary if we want to change our condition: I am in a mess and unless I do something about it, I am destined to fall even deeper. Unless this shift in our minds happens, nothing will ever change.

This is a good starting point. The bed is hard and one may not like it at all and not even be able to do much about it at this very moment, but instead of wasting time on contemplating how bad things are, one should shift the attention to one's own potential.

Instead of repeating over and over that "Life sucks" one should say "I accept". But waiting for another ten years makes no sense at all. So why not say "Change now" and work towards a better, more fulfilled life.

By Dominique Allmon

 

Dominique Allmon©2011 

Image source unknown but greatly appreciated

Missed the Train?

 Santa Fe Railway train at the turn of the 20th century

If we miss our train, it makes no sense to keep kicking ourselves for missing it as it moves further away from the station. We simply have to make arrangements to catch another. The train is long gone and there is nothing we can do about it now. It is over and done with. The same applies to many other things. We perhaps carry around regrets, rue about mistakes, tote grudges like heavy suitcases. But to what end? We should learn from these situations and move on. Things are over and done with. The old train has passed and a new one is on the way. Live for today’s train. - Roshi Hogan

Image source here

Mindfulness

Once upon a time there was once a man who wandered through the wilderness. He was unfortunate enough to stumble upon a ferocious tiger. Not giving much thought to the situation the terrified man began to run until he came to the edge of a cliff. There was nowhere else to run. Desperate to escape the jaws of the tiger, the man caught hold of a vine and swung himself over the edge of the cliff. Dangling down, he saw, to his dismay, there was a tigers' liar below him with even more tigers waiting for him to fall. Worse even, two little mice began to gnaw on the vine to which he was clinging. He knew that there was no way out. Any moment he would fall to a certain death. And that was when he noticed a wild strawberry growing on the cliff wall. Clutching the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other and put it in his mouth. He savored the fruit and realized that he never knew a strawberry could be as sweet as this one. 

The Zen parable of a cliffhanger is probably one of the most eye opening Buddhist parables. It teaches mindfulness. It teaches us to be present in the "here and now" and to savor the moment.

The vine in the parable represents our reality, the present moment that often goes unnoticed unless we are forced by some unusual circumstances to face it. The tiger symbolizes our fears and worries that make it impossible for us to enjoy our walk through life that is represented here by the wilderness. The tigers at the bottom of the precipice are the fears of the future, the disasters yet to come. The mice may be interpreted as symbols of our doubt and indecision constantly gnawing at the fabric of our being. The sweet taste of the wild strawberry symbolizes our awakening, a spontaneous realization of the true nature of existence.

A constant distraction and the unnecessary preoccupation with the past or the future makes it impossible for most people to stay really centered and "conscious". As their minds wander, they appear to be doing things almost unconsciously as if they were on an auto-pilot. They experience their reality as a projection from the past or the vision of the future and neither view allows them to enjoy the life for what it really is.

Fear and anxiety are strong emotions that prevent us from experiencing joy. We may think that this is an affliction of the modern mind, but it seems that people have always spent a lot of time wandering around with their minds. They wandered everywhere but seldom spent a moment in the now never really living their lives.

Nothing will change unless we consciously stop in our tracks and decide to stay in the present without wasting our time and energy on things that happened in the past and cannot ever be undone; without wasting our time speculating about the future that might never come the way we feared or hoped for. Some of us even manage to "write" a whole book about things that may never occur without realizing that our personal fiction not only prevents us from living consciously in the present, but that it stops us from taking any necessary action out of our imagined fear.

But just like in the parable, life sometimes forces us to face our worse fears. I moments of real or assumed danger we sometimes manage to open our eyes and see the things for what they really are. When we are desperate and think that there is absolutely nowhere else to go, we may unexpectedly gain a deeper understanding. Suddenly we are able to "see" for the first time and enjoy the beauty and value of small, insignificant things - a value that is not appreciated until we are forced out of our habitual blindness. This blindness, however, is acquired characteristic. As children, most of us were able to get completely lost in the the moment and forget the world around us. We could see magical things and were curious to explore exotic places even if they were only the backyards of our homes.

This childlike mind withers as soon as we grow older. Suddenly we are overburdened with our duties and there are things to be done and responsibilities to be taken. We become distracted and life is passing us by. Very often we are unconsciously busy, distracted, unaware of the beauty that surrounds us, unaware of the deeper sense that a single moment can carry. And unless we confront ourselves we will never be able to appreciate what the reality has to offer.

As someone once said: Enlightenment can be found in distraction from our daily distractions. Life happens now. And wild strawberries are delicious...

By Dominique Allmon

 

Dominique Allmon©2011

Image by Gregory Colbert

The Master and the Thief

One evening, Zen master Shichiri Kojun was reciting sutras when a thief entered his house with a sharp sword, demanding "money or life". Without any fear, Shichiri said, "Don't disturb me! Help yourself with the money, it's in that drawer". And then, without paying any attention to the thief,  he resumed his recitation.

The thief was startled by this unexpected reaction, but he proceeded with his business anyway. While he was helping himself to the money, the master stopped and called, "Don't take all of it. Leave some for me to pay my taxes tomorrow". The thief left some money behind and prepared to leave. Just before he left, the master suddenly shouted at him, "You took my money and you didn't even thank me?! That's not polite!". This time, the thief was really shocked at such fearlessness. He thanked the master and ran away. The thief later told his friends that he had never been so frightened in his life.

A few days later, the thief was caught and confessed, among many others, his theft at Shichiri's house. When the master was called as a witness, he said, "No, this man did not steal anything from me. I gave him the money. He even thanked me for it."

The thief was so touched that he decided to change his ways. He repented. Upon his release from prison, he became a disciple of the master and studied the dharma with unsurpassed diligence. Many years later, he attained Enlightenment.

Image source unknown, but greatly appreciated

Enlightenment

Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment - chop wood, carry water.

Zen koan

Image source here

Best Season of Your Life

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn

A cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.

If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,

This is the best season of your life.

Wu-Men

Image source here

Two Traveling Monks

 

Can we put an end to our own suffering?

 

One of my favorite Zen parables wisely talks about letting go of things. For many of us this is a very difficult task. Our minds crave permanence and we try to hold on to things without even realizing that our attachments are the main cause of our suffering. We define ourselves through our experience and through our memories. Without them we feel invisible, insignificant. For as long as we can hold on to something we feel we exist. Even if it is pain of a past experience, a disease, or a loss of a loved one. We seem to know who we are and which way we are going, even if the pain is tearing us apart.

Two traveling monks reached a river where they met a young and very attractive woman. She was in despair. She had to cross the river, but was afraid to do so. The current was too strong and she was afraid of drowning. Without hesitation, the older monk picked her up onto his shoulders and carried her across the river. Arriving safely on the other bank he sat her down and bowed. She expressed her gratitude and departed. 

The monks continued their journey in silence. Unable to hold his silence any longer, the younger monk spoke with reproach "Master, of all people you should have known that our spiritual teaching forbids us contact with women, but you have picked that one and carried her on your shoulders! How can that be!?" 

 

"Brother," replied the master, "I set her down on the other side hours ago, but you are still carrying her."

Letting go of pain

This simple and amazing story describes the state of mind of most people. Long after the original experience, we are still carrying it around. This is especially true when the experience was painful. The First Noble Truth teaches us that there is suffering. The human existence in itself is painful and filled with suffering. We experience physical, emotional, and existential pain.

According to the Second Noble Truth, this pain is amplified by our own attitude towards our experience and our attachment to it. We "own" our experience. We "own" our pain. When pain becomes our identity, we are not willing to let go of it easily. We hold on to everything that was done to us. We hold on to every mistake we have made if only out of fear that we could make the same mistake again. We hold on to every false belief that only perpetuates our suffering because letting go of it feels like losing ourselves without a trace. Sometimes we would deny ourselves the right to joyful existence and chose to suffer holding on to the injuries of the past. We never forget. If the memories are not present in our conscious minds, they are deeply embedded in our subconscious.

Although the psychology of suffering is very complex, it is possible to break the attachment to pain. The Third Noble Truth postulates that it is possible to end suffering. Meditation calms the mind and allows profound introspection and self-analysis. In severe cases psychotherapy may be necessary. The success of any of these approaches lies in our ability to understand that the only way to end suffering is to detach ourselves from it. Letting go of pain takes courage, but it is absolutely necessary if we want to live happy, fearless, and fulfilled lives. Letting go of pain takes discipline. Only when we consciously focus our minds on the present, are we able to experience our lives to the full. 

The Fourth Noble Truth teaches us that there is a way to end suffering. There is no promise that we would never suffer again, but our existence in the present allows us to sort through our emotions in the instant, when they arise, and to acknowledge the situation for what it really is. We do not have to carry the experience around for the rest of our lives. We could leave it right there and move on. Detachment from pain is by no means a loss of identity. The memory of our experience does not go away. We do not deny its existence. It only assumes a different role in our personal history. We need courage and discipline to go through this process. We just have to convince ourselves that we are worth it and that there is a life after the pain is gone. Every single day new perspectives open before us. We just have to allow them in. And remember, we all have to cross a river, sometimes with a very heavy load. Do not forget to leave your load as soon as you crossed your river.

By Dominique Allmon

Dominique Allmon©2010

Image source unknown but greatly appreciated