Suvarnaprabha's blog

I Love This Poem So Much

2012-01-03T00:22:00.000-08:00

It's "For Love" by Robert Creeley.

You can read it, or listen to it.

Embracing Suffering

2011-07-29T21:23:00.000-07:00

“The human body at peace with itself is more precious than the rarest gem.”

So says the great 14th century sage Tsong Khapa.

Even if you know this, even if you know this with a large part of your heart, life is still difficult, at minimum, sometimes. It seems that we often don't want to be at peace, or we can't, either because our inside world or the outside world will not let us. ...however if you look at the 'outside obstacles' for long enough, you might find internal ones behind them.

So one problem is being tricked into thinking a problem is coming from outside. For example, my partner drives me bonkers. (Or dating. Or not dating.) Or something like what happened recently, a waiter spilled (a lot of) salad dressing on my leg. It's another kind of suffering to know that the primary cause cannot be outside, to see that and to lack the drive or discipline to act on that knowledge.

Sometimes knowledge is unable to serve it's function, it just tortures you, you cannot align with it, it cannot link with the core of your life, your soul says no. Then knowledge stays on the surface, making some experiences seem right and others wrong. It makes you want to do something with your life, improve things, be busy, tackle problems, gain insight. Or feel like you should. We build a castle of our desires - even spiritual ones - then lock ourselves inside it.

So there's the suffering of, say, my 78 year old mom, who is angry that her brain is shutting down. There's the suffering of witnessing seeing someone you love deny reality. There's the suffering of having the life that you want but being somehow or at least occasionally unable to move within it. There's the suffering of thinking there's something wrong. There's the suffering of looking around and feeling that you should be happy, or happier. The suffering of trying to compulsively think our way out of pain.

The most basic suffering perhaps is that, again and again and again, things are not how we think they are supposed to be. There aren't supposed to be long lines, people aren't supposed to disappoint us, death, cancer, depression definitely shouldn't happen. We get buyer's remorse, we rationalize, we do things we think we shouldn't and then explain to ourselves or others why...focused internally or externally. We tell ourselves why things don't match up. "I'll start tomorrow." "Traffic is bad - maybe there's a football game." "I could never do that." We explain to our friend why it's OK to lie in this case. We justify, blame, or deny. Not accepting the continuous reality of life is the ultimate addiction, the ultimate cognitive dissonance.

The thing I come back to over and over again: Whatever is happening now is how things are. It might be painful, but it is not a mistake, not an accident. It's life. The only appropriate response to how things are is an embrace.

It's appropriate because it means we will stop fighting. Rather, that we will accept and then in some way move toward positive change, but we put down the sword, we take off the blinders and the any-colored glasses and the veils. We shift the balance a little more toward what things are, what we are, and a little less toward what we simply wish them and ourselves to be.

Because we want to relieve suffering, because we want to progress - doesn't mean there is anything wrong. We must act and change things from the foundation of 'nothing is wrong'. And from that place we find - for at least that moment - the human body at peace with itself.

“A flower falls, though we love it; and a weed grows, though we do not love it.”
Dogen

Buddhafield Monthlong Retreat 2011

2011-07-05T15:40:00.001-07:00

I returned from England last night. I spent some time in London, but mostly I was in Devon in a beautiful large field of long grass and buttercups, meditating with my friend Paramananda and about 30 other people, for a month. It was a wonderful experience.

Here are some beautiful mantras from the retreat. They are:

Amitabha (2)
Vajrasattva
Shakyamuni Buddha (Tibetan)
Invocation to Prajnaparamita or Perfect Wisdom (from the Heart Sutra)
Yeshe Tsogyel (said to be incarnation of Prajnaparamita)

The words to the last mantra, some of which is in Tibetan, are:

Om Ah Hum Benzra Guru Jnana Saghara Beim Hari Nisa Siddhi Hum

See Also

Buddhafield.com (Buddhist camping retreats)

Paramananda's blog

Photo is an outdoor Vajrasattva puja toward the end of the retreat.

Shame, Craving, Intoxication: Little Picture, Big Picture

2011-03-06T11:12:00.000-08:00

Secrets

Lying in bed last night kind of late I started watching The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo on Netflix. And I kept watching it. I wanted to see what happened, how the mystery was solved. Still, I wondered why no one had told me it was so much about sadism, rape and murder. Lots of photographs of mutilated dead women. Some friends I talked to about it didn't even remember this. Maybe the effect was amplified because I was alone.

At some point the main character, Lisbeth, is asked if a particular person has secrets. She replies, "Everyone has secrets, it's just a matter of finding out what they are." In the past I might not have paid much notice to this statement. But this time the thought spontaneously surfaced...that I don't really have any secrets. I do have life details that I would not necessarily tell the stranger sitting next to me on an airplane. (Apparently Americans have something of a reputation for doing this.)

But secrets? Actual facts about me or my life or my past that I do not want anyone to know? I'm thinking of something kind of weird I did on the recent monthlong retreat that I told a few friends about, and we all laughed and laughed. Unfortunately sharing it here is out of the question! But the point is that I experience very little shame, at least of the debilitating variety. This is probably mostly to do with my childhood, and temperament. And also, currently, that I am part of an intimate, mostly sane community that understands me, shares my values, and is realistic about the activity of the human mind.

Drugs and Suffering

Speaking of things a normal person wouldn't necessarily want to post for any Random Sam to read...I discovered what you might think is kind of a basic thing recently. I found out that I can't in good conscience take LSD any more. I found out that acid is like a person, a person I used to know intimately and love very much but had forgotten about. A person who, though I hadn't seen them in a long time, never let me get too distant from my own love of life. I was reminded of this person recently and started plotting a reunion, but unfortunately I've been chanting precepts about not taking intoxicants for who knows how long, and there have been too many alcoholics and junkies in my bloodline to think of drugs as solely recreational anymore.

It might seem kind of an obvious conclusion, especially for a meditator, but I assure you it wasn't. Alternatively you may think it's stupid to bother about it. My preference would be for you not to have an opinion either way, but I know that's something I don't get to decide. In any case I have not taken it in a long time and as far as I know I am not addicted to it...but neither can I detach myself from the responsibility and suffering to which it seems to be inexorably linked.

The suffering caused by drugs and alcohol is astronomical. It's one of those things that we all know but is so easy to ignore. Like knowing that if we saw where the hamburgers or chicken we eat came from, it would not be physically possible for us to eat them. But sometimes certain facts come into focus, it would seem in their own time. It is hard for me, at least now, to ignore the dangers, the suffering of drugs, even when that particular brand of suffering doesn't even seem to be mine. But it is in my blood. The suffering, death and distress, so many people with access to drugs and alcohol inflict on themselves, and on other people. All the suffering.

I know that this is not a total picture. I have had spiritual experiences on drugs for which I am grateful, because they gave me an experience of something like a free mind. For some people this is therapeutic. Alcohol makes relaxing much easier sometimes. In some traditional cultures, plant-based, mind altering drugs provide the basis for spiritual experience, as they do for some people in western society today.

For me, at the moment, it's simply a gut feeling - a gut feeling of dread - not something it would be possible to talk me into or out of, even if I myself tried.

Human Addiction

Delving into my reflections on LSD seems to have sent other questions, other perspectives, other cravings, into relief. I've noticed that sometimes I feel a deep disturbance or imbalance on an energetic level that I want to - or must - get rid of, smother, cover. It's like being occasionally but regularly overcome, from inside, with a need to blunt experience. I'm wondering if these kinds of cravings for some kind of dullness or oblivion are happening much more often than I am noticing them. They reach toward stultifying computer games, red wine, cookies - variations on distraction or escape.

All the Buddhist precepts are variations on the theme of non-harm or, stated positively, loving kindness. The Fifth Precept of Buddhism encourages us to cultivate mindfulness, and cautions us against taking 'intoxicants that dull the mind'. The word intoxicant of course means poison (as in toxic.) The precept encourages us not to poison ourselves on a mental level, which is what we are doing every time we drift out of awareness, every time we set up conditions for ourselves that make being skifull more difficult and challenging. The Dhammapada says "Those who are not mindful are as if already dead." ...What's your poison?

It's useful for some of us anyway to look into our relationship to intoxicants such as alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs. We can also work out for ourselves on more subtle levels what is toxic. To do this we need to know ourselves to some degree. We need to be honest with ourselves. We need a clear heart and mind, unclouded by craving. What are the things we do, the things we crave even, that make us less aware? What is the craving to not be aware? We have addictive habitual patterns on the levels of body, speech and mind and we need to acknowledge them on all these levels. And we need patience and compassion for the inevitable suffering we cause ourselves and other people.

Using the example of a drink, Buddhist teacher Joan Tollifson suggests:

Pay attention to the first impulse for a drink -- what triggers it, how does it happen, what does it feel like, what goes on -- what is this urge itself actually like – what thoughts are showing up, what mental images, how does it feel in the body -- and then the whole process of "deciding" whether to give in and indulge, how does that unfold, what are your thoughts telling you -- and then buying the bottle, opening it up, pouring the drink -- what does each moment in this process feel like in the body – and then the first sip, what is that like – and how do you feel after one drink -- what is pleasurable about it, what isn't – what moves you to have a second drink, what is this urge, do you really want another drink or is something else going on – how do you feel after that second drink -- simply paying attention and observing. You'll learn a lot.

We can take this advice and apply it to every aspect our our momentary life. And we really need to, because our American world is full of intoxicants. It is engineered to make us want, to envy. We fill up our lives with things, with tasks, with modes of escape and denial. We crave the devices we carry with us that do not allow our minds to rest, or do just one thing. Our craving and restlessness increase as the world moves faster and faster. For me the biggest challenges are food and the internet, the two main things these days I have a hard time being moderate about. Others of us are clinging to...our iPhone, buying things, work, online sex, television, money, Facebook, gambling...we have to look at the unfolding of our relationship to these things. To know ourselves is to know our craving self, and it is very important knowledge indeed.

In Bare Bones Meditation, Joan Tollifson says:

"...there is the conflict, the battle between the desire to indulge, which is an escape from what is, and the desire to stop, which is also a movement away from what is."

However we conceive of addiction, we probably see it as a problem. And to some degree seeing it as a problem is also a problem. Which is to say, our poison is not really the booze or the hard on or the artisan bread. We poison ourselves by our unwillingness to be aware, by wanting to cover up, by not wanting to know what is real for us in each moment.

These are the layers of onion I continue to peel.

See Also

Here's a blog post about addiction to technology.

More excellent writing by Joan Tollifson on addiction.

The Twelve Step Buddhist

Photos:

Frog photo by Kulaprabha.

Plumeria flower from
http://www.desktopwallpaper.org/wallpaper/Plumeria-Flower/

Chimp photo not sure.

Softening: Live Meditation

2011-01-24T09:41:00.001-08:00

Thirty-two people from the San Francisco Buddhist Center and the wider Buddhist community spent a couple of weekends this month meditating around the corner from the SFBC -- in a display window facing a bustling part of Valencia street. And there was a bench for people to sit on, across from window. According to an observer who sat outside one day, in a couple of hours 30-40 of the people walking by took photographs. (Apparently one of them was Citisven, a writer for the Daily Kos - check out the article he wrote, How sitting in windows is making the planet cooler.)

For me, the experience of sitting was completely different than I thought it would be. That is, I thought the 'being looked at' part would be more prominent. I became deeply absorbed, just hearing the sounds of the city--cars passing, high heels clicking, dogs barking, conversations... and noticing the response in my body. There was incredible peace sitting in that window, somehow interspersed with moments of fear and wonder.

Another surprising thing was how many people walking by seemed to think we were statues or some kind of realistic art! True, as far as I know there has never been living beings in this window before. (It is the art display window at Artists Television Access or ATA.) There was a huge range of reactions, from awe, respect or curiosity, to disbelief, to suspicion or scorn. A lot of misunderstandings about meditation were expressed, too...and some seemed not to realize that we can hear, even if our eyes are closed!

The event included a screening of Matthew Flickstein's ecumenical documentary about mysticism called "With One Voice". Even though some sector of our culture seems to be rather attached to the idea that 'all religions are the same'...the approach of this film isn't like that. It simply documents the intersections of human spiritual experience through the voices of the people who are devoted to it in apparently very different ways--sufis, Buddhists, Hindus, Quakers, lay people, monastics... The screening was well attended and well enjoyed. By the way at the moment this excellent film is not available from Netflix or video stores. You can buy it at withonevoicedocumentary.org.

How Was It--Sitting in the Window?

"I had the experience of noticing my thoughts arise, then they would dissolve, even if I wanted to hold onto them! Usually there is the constant struggle to stay in the present but yesterday I was anchored to a larger, more still space. It was amazing. I was in a blissful state for the rest of the day."

"A couple of dudes passed by and I heard one tell the other, 'Hey, bang on the window!' I prepared myself for the thud, but I didn't hear anything. I wondered if they were cute."

"Many people wondered if we were real. In the second sit I sent loving-kindness to the people walking by on Valencia Street. At the end of the two sits I felt really energized and excited. I think the energy of Valencia Street affected my meditation a lot. I was glad to be part of it."

"I'm so glad we did this event!...It was impossible for me to feel anything but kindness and solidarity--different than what I thought it would be--this was a strong practice situation! Being visible while practicing is a wonderful thing to do for oneself and everyone who comes by, strangely intimate."

"It was pretty amazing. Where I thought I'd be all fidgety, worrying about losing my concentration I was actually quite still. Even when someone banged on the window I barely moved."

"It was a wonderful experience."

What Did You Hear?

"Holey f---, that's my cousin!"

"Wow."

"Are they real?"

"How long have they been there?"
"A long time."

"Cooooool."

"Estan meditando." [They are meditating.]

"I don't see anyone sitting in lotus position!"

"They look so real."

"Daddy, why are they sleeping?" (repeat a few times)
"They're not sleeping, they're concentrating."
"Why are they concentrating?" (repeat a few times)
"Let's let them concentrate."

"I wish I could do that."

"Passive aggressive, sitting in the window meditating."

"That's not a real person, is it?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it is."

"Wow, that freaks me out."

"Oh my god."

"See look, there they are."

"Is she breathing?"
"No, people don't breathe when they meditate."
"Really? Are you sure she's not breathing?...See, that's why I can't meditate."

"Oh my god. Are those real people?"

"Is it art or is it meditation?"

More Info and Related Projects

Article about this project -and Obama's State of the Union Speech - from Citisven on the Daily Kos.

Window photos by Suvarnaprabha, IdentityTBD (Flickr), Acarasiddhi, and Ethan's cousin.

Softening (SFBC website)

Artists Television Access (992 Valencia Street @ 21st)

Marina Abramović at NY MOMA: "The artist is present."

New Blog -- for Prajnaparamita

2010-12-25T03:22:00.000-08:00

motherofthebuddhas.blogspot.com

Money

2010-12-07T14:49:00.000-08:00

Here are some articles and such about income distribution changes in the US.

Sen. Bernie Sanders'speech December 4, 2010

"...the most unequal distribution of wealth since the Great Depression."

Federal taxes as a percentage of GDP from Reuters' blog.

Of the 1%, By the 1%, and For the 1% from Vanity Fair

Hibernation (poem)

2010-10-29T20:38:00.000-07:00

I wake up in

Blackness.

I have fallen

out with the world.

My body swaddled

In caves.

Yet the pace

Does not slacken.

Yet I'm starting to

freeze.

Light shocks

My face,

Heats the liquid

Of my eyes,

All this is overdone,

Overwrought.

Full of moves.

All I need is

A source of water,

High-roofed caverns,

Light reflected off

Marigolds.

No reaching.

No digging.

No linking.

No rumbling machines.

There is no need.

It's all here.

Sweet & Spicy Roasted Kabocha Squash and Tofu recipe

2010-10-16T22:06:00.003-07:00

According to Wikipedia, the kabocha squash was introduced to Japan by Portuguese sailors in 1541, who brought it with them from Cambodia. The Portuguese name for the squash, Cambodia abóbora, was shortened by the Japanese to kabocha.

Sorry I didn't take a picture of the finished dish, on the other hand it wasn't super attractive, though tasty.

T=Tablespoon

t=teaspoon

1 small kabocha squash

medium or firm tofu cut into slabs at least 1/2" thick

3 T brown sugar

1/2 t ground cumin

1/4-1/2 t ground cayenne pepper

1/4 t cinnamon

1/4 t nutmeg

1/4 t salt

1-2 T soy sauce

Oil for drizzling

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

De-seed and cut the squash into slices about 1/4-1/2 inch thick. (After cutting the squash in half, it's easier to cut from the inside, on a stable surface, and be careful!)

Combine the dry ingredients in a big bowl. Toss the squash slices in this until coated thoroughly. Add the soy sauce and toss well again. Toss the tofu separately.

Spread the slices in a single layer on the baking sheet and drizzle with oil. Bake for 15 minutes, then turn over, drizzle again and bake for 10-15 more minutes.

Serve hot or at room temperature. You can eat the squash peel.

This is my version of this recipe:

http://www.justhungry.com/sweet-and-spicy-roasted-kabocha-squash

With leftovers, make pancakes:

These pancakes are yummy.

put in a blender:

1 c chopped roasted kabocha squash

2 eggs

1/2 tsp baking soda or powder

dash cinnamon

1 T milk

This recipe modified from

http://www.comfytummy.com/2009/08/05/kabocha-squash-pancakes/

The Bodhisattva's New Shoes (poem)

2010-10-11T11:54:00.000-07:00

We had a great spoken word event the other night--Lit Crawl in a packed out meditation hall in the SF Buddhist Center. In one hour, six of us read poems and short fiction. If you're a Buddhist and would like to apply for next year, get on the email list of the Buddhist Center and we'll send you the call for entries when the time comes.

This is the last poem I read. Song was the second.

The Bodhisattva's New Shoes

Mark these words cabrones:

I will come back again and again

and loving dogs will chase me

yapping and jumping.

I’ll come not in a saffron robe

but in boots made from

car tires, recycled titanium

and a cowboy hat when

it’s raining.

Not clinging but singing

(a virtual Julie Andrews twirling on a hill)

straddling

a bike with leaking fork seals

(Europe and Asia’s waited-for

beginner mind)

(and loving dogs will chase me)

The occupants of this this this

world however it is will be my

lovers the pigs the birds

hedgehogs foxes bald

people in hospitals devas

Anonymous Sex and Love Addicts

whispering behind walls

Todo el mundo sera mi amante, señores

and I won’t try to teach it anything, ever,

(I will only love it)

(a howler monkey in Dolby)

(the vibrations of joy from my laughter

will soothe the psychoanalysts in the hell realms)

A gentle kiss

pure love steaming out the front end

of a vehicle

which is the unadorned body

the soft strong body

(think of loving dogs)

like this

like steam, like the sweet smoke of a

Cuban cigar, radiating up, sinking down,

in this this this world

returning again

coming back

forever

Women and confidence

2010-06-15T09:25:00.001-07:00

"With the realization of one's own potential and self-confidence in one's ability, one can build a better world." - Dalai Lama

I hosted a little workshop last night for women, so we could talk about confidence and self doubt. The idea for it came during a recent meeting of people involved in teaching and supporting introduction to Buddhism courses. I was struck at the many issues of confidence that arose for the women. They said things like, "If I'm teaching and I feel afraid or I'm thinking how stupid I am...' I asked the men if they tended to have thoughts like that. For most of them, over-confidence seemed to be more of an issue.

Then the other day in a cafe, a woman asked if she could plug her laptop into the outlet near our table. She apologized profusely, around three times! It seems sometimes that women have a tendency to doubt ourselves and doubt our worth, our right even to be alive, to inhabit the space that we take up, to ask for anything.

In Buddhism we can talk about the 'progress of the self'' in terms of moving from a negative self view to a positive self view, then into no self view. The same could be said about self confidence, that as we practice we move from self doubt to self confidence to no need for either.

Here are the questions we reflected on:

Think of a time you felt confident. What did it feel like? What were the conditions?
Think of a time you felt fear or self doubt. What did it feel like? What were the conditions?
What are the particular areas you feel confident in? In which ones does self doubt tend to creep in?
Does your 'inside' level of confidence match the appearance on the outside?
What habits do you have that support confidence? What habits do you have that erode your confidence?
Are there steps you could take to work more effectively with your self doubt or fear?
Are there specific ways we, your friends here, could be more supportive or encouraging to you and help you develop confidence?
Do you support or encourage other women in the sangha? Are there specific things you could do to be more supportive?

Here are some notes I jotted down during the meeting listing a few conditions around self doubt and confidence.

Self doubt arises...

fear of groups/groups of women

lack of communication skills in conflict

disembodied

negative feedback from others

fear of failure

comparing self to others

going for refuge to others

hormones

inner critic

doubting own perceptions

Confidence arises...

sharing inner process with another person

acknowledge different parts of me

confession (with trust)

not believing self critical thoughts

being more open-hearted

self-love

re-read nice things people have said in emails

tonglen practice

feeling embodied

feeling connected to others

working in first stage of metta bhavana

acknowledge my own perception

image by banksy

Response to recent PBS film, The Buddha

2010-06-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

Amazing that David Grubin, who is not a Buddhist, could have presented such an accurate yet inspiring film on the Buddha's teachings, without falling into the usual traps and misunderstandings. Part 2 did an excellent job focusing on the teachings. Much of the first half was animated and seemed more like a children's story, focused as it was on folklore (how the Buddha was born out of his mother's side, etc.)

The only thing in the film that really bothered me was the scene in which the Buddha, leaving the palace, doesn't say goodbye to his wife because it would be too painful, which of course makes him seem not like an important spiritual hero, but rather, like a coward.

Stories of the Buddha's life are mostly fiction. For example, it is unknown whether he even had a wife and child, whether that was added on later to add to give him credibility. Just goes to show that 'credible' in one culture can be 'dead beat dad' in another.

Anyway I prefer this version of the leaving of the palace:

When the prince awoke in the night he was shocked to see these sleeping people. What a sight! All the prettiest, most charming dancing girls, the finest singers, best musicians and cleverest performers in the country, who, hours ago, were trying to make the prince so happy, were now all over the floor of the room in the most ugly, shameful and loathsome positions. Some people were snoring like pigs, with their mouths wide open, some grinding and chewing their teeth like hungry devils. This alteration in their appearance made the prince even more disgusted and unhappy. "How oppressive and stifling this all is," he thought, and his mind turned again towards leaving the palace.

Links

http://www.pbs.org/thebuddha

On conflict with friends

2010-05-25T22:51:00.001-07:00

"There are those who do not realize that one day we all must die.
But those who do realize this settle their quarrels."
(The Dhammapada, transl. by Buddharakkhita)

Having lived within a community of people over a long period of time, I occasionally notice a feeling of resentment and have been pondering how to deal with it. It's as if suddenly resentment and certain other habits I have are weighing me down, like I'm carrying stones in my pockets.

I'm sure that honesty is part of the answer. Honesty--how difficult and misunderstood it is!

What I consider to be honesty includes a willingness and a wish to take responsibility for the state of one's own mind. Kindness and an unguarded leaning toward harmony are intrinsic to honesty.

Honesty doesn't mean expressing irritation, but living and expressing oneself in a more balanced way...which then gives less fuel to irritation. Being honest means not sharing our assessments of other people's actions or character, but sharing, when appropriate, how things effect us.

Is that so difficult? Well, yes. As evidenced by those of us who think of ourselves as honest -- but are just blunt or rude or mean, or those of us who are helpful or polite or softspoken and think of ourselves that way -- but tend to talk behind someone's back rather than respond honestly.

Many of us have virtually no experience of honest communication in response to disharmony. We have known too much criticism and blame. We have no training, no models. If we manage to say anything, we speak in sweeping generalities, or inadvertently assassinate someone's character, or seem to just want to be right. We are afraid to share clear and kind information about how things effect us. We fear losing love.

Sometimes irritations fade away on their own. And sometimes we rationalize failing to respond honestly to a repeating situation. Maybe we think we should be able to resolve it on our own (a near enemy to 'taking responsibility for one's mental states'), or we have the excuse that the other person can't handle honesty, or we are sure they won't change so there's no point, or our of fear we decide to avoid the person...or we just try to say something and can't. Any of these sound familiar?

And so it builds into a burden. Each time the thing happens, the situation becomes more entrenched. We're too annoyed or exasperated to bring it up. And when things are good, bringing it up appears to be totally unnecessary.

What can be done? We can learn the basics of Nonviolent Communication and practice it, especially when we are having difficulty with someone. If we don't want to do formal NVC, we can keep in mind the basic principles. One of the most useful ones for me has been using very specific examples. Consider potential responses to "When you closed the door last night, it woke me up." vs. "Why are you so inconsiderate and always slamming doors?" If we say nothing and resentment builds, we will hopefully experience it as a burden and try in some way to restore harmony and connection with our friend.

Here are a some principles I came up with for myself. If, like me, you tend to "let things slide," it may be good advice for you, too.

My advice to myself is:

If there is some issue or resentment that keeps coming up, make a point of bringing it up with the person when things are harmonious.
Look deeply at your motivation for bringing it up.
Though it may end up helping the other person, do not think of that as the purpose. Think of it as a way for you to practice engaging more honestly and effectively with friends.
If you think it will be hard for you to articulate it skilfully, practice with someone else first until you are more comfortable.
State the reason for bringing it up. Example: "I have noticed I have some resentment toward you, which I feel is kind of a barrier between us. I was wondering if it would be ok with you for me to try to talk it through."
Don't speak in generalities; use concrete examples.
Remember it is not the other person's fault that you feel how you feel. However they were an influence, and you are trying perhaps awkwardly at first to share with them how things are for you.
Is there a specific request? If so, be clear about what it is. Don't ask someone to overhaul their personality. They can't. Let them know how something specific effects you and ask if they are willing to do something specific related to it. They are free to say no.
Remember that even if the person has a bad reaction, the conversation still may have some benefit. If it doesn't, at least you tried!
If misunderstanding increases, re-state that the reason for bringing it up was to connect more deeply, and apologize for any unskillfulness on your part.

Most of these are areas I need to work on; some of them are things I have noticed more in the troubles other people have. What are the areas in your communication that need attention? How can you work through them?

Here's some more wisdom from Tiny Buddha about conflicts with friends:

http://tinybuddha.com/blog/conflicts-with-friends-13-ways-to-communicate-without-drama/

Photo by Julie Bennett (Tanzania).

Things I Notice When the Talk Is About Money

2010-04-26T17:38:00.000-07:00

While in India in 1990, I remember various conversations I had with a someone on a train or whatever, and being asked how much money I make. This happened more than once. I remember being shocked by the question, one which I possibly had never been asked before in casual conversation. No doubt I stammered out some kind of evasive response. So I had discovered that this kind of question isn't taboo everywhere. Whereas, here....

After talking to an old friend on the phone the other day, I pondered that even though he was talking about money, he never actually said an amount. He said he got a raise, which was more than what he thought he was going to get. He said more than once, emphatically, that it was much more, like twice as much as he thought it would be.

People say, "Man, I lost my shirt in the stock market, now I can't retire when I'm 55." They never say, "I lost $200,000 in the stock market. Now I only have $300,000." I feels risky even to write it.

It seems that any details that might indicate how much money you have or make are verboten. Not that I have a need to know how much money someone makes. It's just something I notice--a common omission. I wonder if the more you make, the less likely you are to use an amount when referring to your money. Or maybe it's not incremental. Maybe there's a genetic switch of some kind, such that once you make over a certain amount of money, your jaw snaps shut like a clam.

At a show the other night, the performer talked a little about her mortgage -- she couldn't afford it but got talked into it. She didn't say how much it was, just that she was poor, and it was difficult. She talked about tenants and window sills and storage units, and how difficult it all was. I think this is only understandable to someone who has those kinds of problems. To me, they don't seem like problems.

A couple of times I've unwittingly referred to monetary amounts in groups of people who by my standards have rather a lot of it. I think once I actually said how much money I make (not that I'm saying it now!) To make less money working for the Dharma (a corny phrase) was a choice I made some years ago, and 99% of the time I am happy with it, and feel that I have a fairly high standard of living (by my standard anyway, which has to do with love and meaning.) Anyway the effect of saying that I make $xx,000 per year was as if had dropped an ice cube dropped inside the back of their shirt and they were trying to pretend it wasn't there.

Based on this very large sampling of statistically valid data, I have created...

Maxims For How We Feel and Talk About Money

Even if billions of people would consider us wealthy, we feel poor. No matter how much you have, there is not enough.
We speak in specific amounts when talking about outgoing money. Example: "They charged me $1,100 fix a tiny dent in my car!"
We speak in generalities about money coming in. Example:"My tax refund this year is somewhat less than last year."
We have actually told one or possibly two people on earth how much money we actually make or have.
We are more likely to talk in detail about our sex life than our financial life.

Or is it a middle class thing? ...What are your money maxims?

image is Laxmi, Hindu god of wealth and prosperity
from http://holidays.vgreets.com/Diwali/Lakshmi_Puja

memoirs of observer and observed: retreat

2010-03-25T11:15:00.000-07:00

The song I have come to sing
remains unsung to this day.
I have spent my life
stringing and unstringing
my instrument.
– Rabindranath Tagore

Sitting here together, we are each watching the mind, feeling the body, living the senses. These aspects of me respond in various ways to this situation, in which we go against aeons of evolution.

When you first start, and later too, you're mostly as-if. Everything is buzzy. That's why you don't want to do it, to go against. There are disturbing creaking sounds. The body cries out to be heard, like a baby that keeps pretending to be hurt.

But everything's set up for this now. You go against—which means you just stand there, you get swept away, you recover and stand some more—then the river gives up and starts flowing the other direction. The senses lose their hunger and become a very large orchid that flourishes and dies, flourishes and dies. Hours pass.

Still, my knees send their pain message...but why am I separate from my knees? Why so far away? It creates opposition. Are my knees trying to pick a fight? Why is the situation like this? Not much happening in the way of answers.

* * *

A bright afternoon, outside, loving the tree stumps.

Things aren't more colorful or happy or what you might think of as spiritual, in fact there is a trim of sadness to all. But they are nonetheless quietly fascinating, and my mind is a sea sponge, completely drenched with lucid clarity.

When we observe something, especially something about ourself, there is usually a sense of an observer as well as what is observed. Sometimes what is observed seems to be the more 'real', sometimes it's the other way around. Say you notice there is thinking. Where is the energy, where is the life force as it were? Maybe the muscle is in the thinking process, and whatever is noticing the thoughts seems relatively weak. Or maybe what notices is vast, and the thoughts are just tiny blips in the spaciousness.

Now, here, the observer is so large and lucid and absorbent that it sort of envelopes what is being observed. Both are in a way exactly the same; they are both smaller, and more huge, than we think.

I see a motion picture of myself doing the next potential thing: climbing up that tree. My next move is projected before me, as if I am living a movie that shows short clips of my thoughts about what to do next. I can hear electricity. It's like being a child again, or an acid trip...but really it isn't like either. It's further inside, and it's the result of conscious effort, trying to stay upright in the stream, which makes it essentially different, subtler and deeper.

I begin walking and notice how soft the ground is. I think, I'm killing things here. Jains sweep their path before walking to remove insects, to reduce death. I walk a short distance; there isn't really a trail. When I turn around and stop, I hear leaves rustling. There is a small skink thrashing from side to side. I must have stepped on it under the leaves.

It's sad. I watch her thrashing. I wonder about staying with her 'til she dies. But what if she doesn't die? What if she takes a long time to die? I'm not going to squat there for 12 hours. Or even 1. Am I heartless or...sentimental? Or both, or neither? I send loving kindness to the lizard.

I contain the spectrum of responses and points of view. Each moment is very clearly either tragic, or insignificant. I cannot tell which.

* * *

Now I am drinking beer with an old friend and it is nice. I start to get a minor version of the spins, which adds another point of view. I realize everything that I want is to be aware in every moment. But caught in the habits and complexities of daily life, the moments are lost, in movement mistaken for meaning, in production, in resistances that rise and fall, noticed and unnoticed, in the idea of time that rules my days, in trying to put a patch over the vacuum, in the essentially painful chore of being someone, needing.

I guess I’m still seeing some things, seeing that this is the way it usually is. But now, it hurts. The observer is a shrunken head. The observer is no longer the world's largest sea sponge. Habits are a blue whale with a barnacle on it that observes.

I notice that when I am reading emails, emotions pass in waves, and I usually do not take time to acknowledge them. Things get tangled up. People shrink to fit inside my screen. My affection for them shrinks as well, unless I pause.

I do not like the idea, the certainty, that I will subsume myself again in the world of habits, and wait for the next retreat to release myself. But that is how it is. Not so black and white, but rather, dark gray, off-white.

Photo of the meditation yurt with madrone trees. It's not a great photo actually, but seeing it in person is lovely. The upper bark of the trees is very smooth with a beautiful mustard color.

A Buddhist thinking about the Bible...and The Dude

2010-03-07T16:32:00.000-08:00

As for man, his days are like grass; He flourishes as a flower of the field,
When the wind has passed over it, it is no more. (Psalms 103:15)

This morning, Sunday morning, I watched that king of Coen brothers movies, The Big Lebowsky. Toward the end, Walter and The Dude briefly sit facing a wall in a funeral parlor on which is inscribed the above quote from Psalms. Thankfully I could rewind the movie (as it were) so that I could read it.

Some parts of the Bible are very beautiful. A lot of this kind of stuff jives with Buddhism--in this case poetically expressing the principle of impermanence--so long as you cherry pick the lines you're quoting. The ones about a being who loves only those who fear him don't fit in so much in a Buddhist context. While the Buddha became deified to some degree over the millenia, what makes Buddhism interesting and relevant is the fact that 1) he was a mortal who used his mind to transform himself into something of ultimate and indescribable beauty, and 2) he taught others how to do the same; this is in distinction from 1) claiming to be God and/or the Son of God, and, 2) pretty much demanding to be worshiped. It's a big difference. Buddhism is entirely practical but does involve elements of ritual and nonmaterial components (because these are also practical.)

Last week I was in Orange County where finding a radio station involves listening to some evangelical tutelage, Bible study, etc. At my dad's 80th birthday party, I was talking to a couple of Mormons who are old friends of my dad's. They asked where I live, thinking I might live so far away as Tustin or Encino. But when I said San Francisco, the wife audibly gasped. It was kind of funny but I thought it best to act like I didn't notice. A close friend when I was growing up there has been long lost to the Evangelicals.

I took a Bible as Literature class in college, which was also my first introduction to the Bible. Much of it, yes, is beautiful. Here is another doozy. This is particularly interesting to me, being a devotee of the female golden Buddha Prajnaparamita (PRAG-nya-PAra-meet-AH), which means something like Perfect Wisdom. She is one of the archetypes of wisdom from Northern Buddhism.

She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared to her.
Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honor.
Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.
She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her. (Proverbs 3.13-18)

It seems to me that there are two approaches to Christianity. By way of warning, this may be grossly over-simplified and irrelevant to someone who actually knows something about theology, which I do not. At any rate, God seems to personify either Love or Judgement, a nurturing mother or an angry father. I suppose there is a third option which is a confusing mixture of love and irrational guilt/intolerance. A Christianity that truly conceives of God as Love will focus on living in alignment with that love, working through barriers to that love, and helping people who need help regardless of their beliefs. Even though Buddhism is not a theistic system, it has much more in common with what I would consider to be truly Christian attitude, which is concerned with being loving rather than being right.

The Truth About Coexistence

2010-02-11T17:15:00.000-08:00

I am writing this post as an individual and longtime resident of San Francisco's Mission district. Though I am a member of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Buddhist Center (SFBC), this post in no way represents the opinions or views of the SFBC.

So the story goes. At one time a wealthy businessman ran an illegal open air bar which was popular with a certain crowd and very, very loud late at night, driving lots of neighbors bonkers. Almost a year ago, the Planning Dept served him a Notice of Violation (called an N.O.V. by those in the know), which he appealed. A Board of Appeals hearing last night pondered whether to uphold the N.O.V., which would cause wealthy law breaking dude to have to pay a fine (just like, for example, I have to pay a fine if I park my car on the sidewalk.) Even though the amount of his daily fine would probably be lower than what he ordinarily spends in any given hour, he was given an extension of indefinite length, by a vote of 3-2, to get on the righteous path. By which I mean that the Board gave him time (even though he has already had 5 years!) to make the rooftop bar legal without having to pay fines. So it, and we, will have to come back to the Board of Appeals for a third time at some point in the future, then to the Planning Department.

On the one hand, I appreciate the democratic process, that we have a say in what is going on with the bar. But what kills me is that we have actual facts, and what dude has is buzz words and innuendos. For example, one speaker claimed that 'some people' don't like Carnaval, but Mission people have liked Carnaval for 40 years. Another claimed that sound from the bar should not have to be 'lower than normal'. These are both implied accusations that have nothing to do with anything that we have ever said. Plus, they imply that the bar is a watering hole for Mission yokels rather than a magnet for Bridge and Tunnel, puking, pissing, woo-hooing, Rough Guide San Francisco partiers and Euro Trash. The bar's public comment was like a stuffed peacock, flashy on the outside, hollow on the inside. It had no substance, but caused a lot of affectionate squawking.

Rafael Mandelman and Kendall Goh were the most reasonable people on the Board. Mandelman said, “What is so upsetting to me about this case is the prolonged operation of an establishment that is having impacts on neighbors where those neighbors have no forum in which to have those concerns heard.”

So we bust our asses to let neighbors know what is going on, get 350 signatures on a petition and many beautiful letters of support, draw an impact map with impressive dots on it, create an informational blog, have intelligent, to-the-point speakers at the hearing, etc., and one word from the cronies about 'recession' and a Commissioner/Tennessee Williams' character waxes poetic. He tells us in private that we did a good presentation but what does he say at the meeting? "Not that the noise and discomfort suffered by the Buddhist Center and other neighbors is not important, but if I were to have to make one more important than the other, I would have to make unemployment more important." Right. The choice is not between neighbors being able to sleep at night, and Unemployment. It's about people, even business people who are pals with the mayor, being held responsible for the effect their business has on people who live nearby.

But my main point, really, is that this is a lot of work. Even though it may turn out OK, I have lived in this building for 16 years and am part of a small nonprofit band of volunteers having to work our asses off and spend thousands of dollars because of a murder of PR people, lawyers, fixers, and consultants hired by a wealthy law breaking dude.

More info

This Mission Local article about the hearing explains it better than I do:
The Bar at Medjool Survives to Serve Another Round

The Feb 10 hearing on SFGTV:

http://sanfrancisco.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=6&clip_id=9411

The San Francisco Buddhist Center's position on this topic:
Mission Coexistence (blog for neighbors of the rooftop bar)

Rafael Mandelman for Supervisor 2010:
http://rafael2010.com

Photo from wxyc.com

Creativity

2010-02-03T22:46:00.000-08:00

No time for blogging in the last 6 weeks or so...so I thought I would post the talk I gave on Creativity tonight at the San Francisco Buddhist Center.

What is creativity?
What is creative mind?
And...how do I get one??

We're going to be exploring creativity this evening, especially creativity of the mind. Part of this is going to be interactive. First of all I’m going to be conveying several quotations from people other than myself. And also some of the questions I will ask I would like you to answer, if you are moved to do so, which will be maybe more engaging for all of us. Also I think the model of one person getting up here and talking and everyone else listening…can be a bit limited so I’d like to try something a little bit more dynamic.

I have a cold right now so hopefully my gravelly voice will help move things along as well.

'Creativity' or 'create' is a very old word, possibly going as far back as the proto Indo-European language 4,000 years ago. It's related to the word 'crescent' which means to grow and originally referred to a waxing moon.

So that is one of the meanings of create, to grow or produce something. The other meaning which I sort of made up derived from various sources, is creativity as a mode of operating that is totally open, unburdened by cyclic habitual patterns. True creativity is fueled by insight, by understanding, though not necessarily intellectual understanding, something deeper than that.

William James said, "Genius...means little more than the faculty of perceiving in a non-habitual way."

Essentially what he's talking about is a creative mind. Here I will confess that I’m pretty sure that's all there is to say, but unfortunately I'm going to be talking about it for 45 more minutes anyway!

Much of the material I will present tonight comes from a talk given by Sangharakshita, founder of our Order, at the London Buddhist Center in 2002. Also from an essay by the same author called Mind Reactive and Creative, in which he's distinguishes between two modes of operation of the mind. Which is where I will start.

Apects of the Reactive Mind

The Reactive mind is conditioned, mechanical, repetitive, and unaware. And all these characteristics are pretty much the same thing.

First of all, reactive means re-active. It means acting again in the same way. Re-acting. It does not really act, but only re-acts. There is no spontaneity, out of its own inner abundance, it needs an external cause to set it in motion.

Would someone like to offer an example of this kind of mind, a re-acting mind? I have examples if you don't, but I thought it would be more interesting, at least for me, to hear examples from you.

For me, let's say I get up in the morning and say, ok, I don't need to check my email, I'm just going to eat a mindful breakfast. 10 minutes later I'm checking my email. In the Dhammapada this is spoken about in terms of channeling water. We have these channels. We don't know we're in them. The current is taking us in a particular direction. That is the current of what we have made of our own mind. I'm sure we can all come up with examples of this in our own lives. Things we do over and over again that we are only vaguely aware of.

In that movie Requiem for a Dream this process gets personified as a refrigerator--the woman's refrigerator talks to her, tells her what to do. Which is a very creative way of illustrating an essentially uncreative or reactive mode of operation of the mind.

As is implied by the term re-active, this kind of mind is also very repetitive. You see this very much in certain relationships. You say A, I say B, you say C, I say D. It's very repetitive and predictable.

Like a machine, the reactive mind goes on doing the same thing with no or little awareness over and over again. This is the realm of habit or habitual as William James referred to it. This is associated with what we call cyclic existence and the Wheel of Life. Traveling on a certain track, making the groove of the track deeper and harder to get off of.

Most of all, the reactive mind is the unaware mind. Whatever it does, it does not really know it. It does not have any real knowledge or perspective on what it is doing. When we're in this mode, we can describe ourselves as asleep rather than awake.

Sangharakshita: "It is with this realization — when we become aware of our own unawareness, when we wake up and know we have been asleep — that spiritual life begins."

Which brings us to the main subject at hand, the creative mind.

Aspects of the Creative Mind

As you might guess, the characteristics of the creative mind are the opposite of those of the reactive mind. The creative mind does not re-act. It is not dependent on, or determined by, external events. It functions spontaneously, out of the depths of its own intrinsic nature. It does not see things including itself as isolated or ultimately separate.

The creative mind can be said to respond rather than to react. Most of us are probably familiar with this distinction. One way is awake, one way is asleep. And maybe sometimes there are elements of both present.

And the Creative mind is optimistic in a particular way.

Here is a slightly paraphrased quote from Mind Reactive and Creative:

"Hence it can also be said that whereas the reactive mind is essentially pessimistic, being confined to ...immediate experience, the creative mind is profoundly and radically optimistic. Its optimism is not, however...superficial optimism...a mere unthinking reaction to pleasure...the optimism of the creative mind persists despite unpleasant stimuli, despite conditions unfavourable for optimism, or even when there are no conditions for it at all. The creative mind loves where there is no reason to love, is happy where there is no reason for happiness, creates where there is no possibility of creativity, and in this way 'builds a heaven in hell’s despair.'"
[last part is from Blake]

So in this very inspiring passage we discover that Creative mind is loving and it is happy. No matter what influences it is surrounded by. As we know, it doesn't have a mechanical repetitive response to things, say unhappiness. It's independent in some way, or at least not linked, not bound to external events. I’ll say more about love and happiness in other sections of this talk.

Also spontaneous and free. Sangharakshita says, Indeed, it is Freedom itself.

The Creative mind is also characterized by ceaseless productivity. This is interesting. I think some of us have a sense that we are only worthy human beings if we are productive. But this is a different thing. This is productivity that has absolutely nothing to prove. Because if we feel we always need to prove ourselves, where is the kindness in that?

For myself, I think it’s good to waste some time. If this sounds really hard, probably all the better as something to try. Sangharakshita says, "You don't have to justify your existence by being useful. You yourself are the justification for your existence." What compels the creative mind is of course not justifying existence, or proving or avoidung anything, but simple and pure and free and spontaneous energy.

The creative mind does not necessarily find expression in ‘works of art’. You might think, Well what is it doing then? Later on I'm going to say a bit about four areas of our lives where creativity can manifest itself.

But a general point I want to make first is that creativity is playing. It's a playful attitude, bringing a playful attitude. We don't need to be martyrs. Bodhisattvas joyfully play at everything they do. Sangharakshita says, “One can regard this as a spontaneous overflowing of [their] inner realization, which transcends the immediate situation." So I think this is very interesting this idea of play, as a way of living, and I will come back to it later on.

So, the creative mind is above all an aware mind. Being aware, or rather, being Awareness itself, the creative mind is also intensely and radiantly alive.

So a person who's mind is operating in creative mode, is

happy
loving
spontaneous
free
aware
intensely and radiantly alive

Elsewhere Sangharakshita has defined nirvana, the goal of Buddhist practice, as "irreversible spiritual creativity." I find this a very beautiful description. Irreversible creativity. Makes it seem more like a process, like a very attractive way of being, rather than a 'thing', which is what it sounds like when we talk about Enlightenment.

What would the effect be if we started thinking of our practice in terms of endless creativity? Would that change anything?

The goal of Buddhism is irreversible creativity. I wonder if that’s all I really need to remember.

Preciousness of Life

Part of that irreversible creativity consists in appreciating things, being in touch with the preciousness of life. Nietzsche said that “art is essentially the affirmation, the blessing, and the deification of existence.”

This is very interesting to me personally. I think I naturally have a great love and appreciation of the preciousness of life. I also have this deep kind of hatred of life. I don't know what is underneath what. I would like to think that the love is underneath the hate, and I think the odds of that are pretty good, but just based on my experience, I do not know for certain. I just know that I get overcome occasionally, sometimes only for a few seconds, with a very bodily sense of I do not care, there is no point, everything is, if you'll pardon the expression, completely fucked.

Part of my process is accepting this aspect of myself, not trying to change it because I can't, although it may well change. I don't need to make it into a problem, just know that this is part of what informs the way I experience or interpret life. And appreciation is also part of that.

To see the preciousness of life, we have to stop focusing on what we think is wrong, and obsessing over how to overcome what is wrong and get our needs and standards met. We have to see suffering for what it is, see into the heart of suffering, see it even if it is covered over or cloaked by an angry or indifferent face. This is part of the reason our life is so precious, because of all the difficulties, and the fact that whatever good conditions we may have today may not be here tomorrow.

Seeing the suffering in life and not turning away from it. From our own suffering and the suffering all around us. Seeing the suffering in our entrenched relationships and working on them. Which are possibly some of the most 're-active' connections we have, perhaps with people in our family.

This is one way that we free up creative energy, by engaging with and untangling our tangled up human relationships. I think we all have them. (If you don't have them, then you perhaps have a lot of energy available!)

Wallace Stevens: "The way through the world is more difficult to find than the way beyond it."

Very true, very beautiful. So as we go through the world we see how much difficulty there is, we see deeply how precious this opportunity is, how precious this life is. We feel it every day. How lucky we are, and our pain, and what is made by the combination of the two.

Trungpa agrees, "Genuine inspiration is not particularly dramatic....It comes from settling down in your environment and accepting situations as natural. Out of that you realize you can dance with them."

Nonaggression

Another angle on this from Trungpa:
"Genuine art—Dharma Art—is simply the activity of nonaggression."

Fascinating. What is meant here by aggression? Aggression is re-activity. Aggression is unaware stress, confusion, suffering, shutting down toward life, not seeing life, not appreciating life.

Trungpa also says, "We have to be honest, real, and very earthy, and we need to really appreciate things as they are."

I felt a small shift along these lines the other day when I felt locked in stress and went for a walk up the hill and saw three beautiful Siberian huskies. There was a lot to appreciate before I saw them but after I saw them I was more able to appreciate everything else.

Non-aggression means whatever is not aggression, which suggests love. Which brings us back to what we were saying before, "The creative mind loves where there is no reason to love." The creative mind takes Rumi's advice, who tells us that "our task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within ourselves that we have built against it." So this is part of the work, the play of the creative mind.

We don't ordinarily think of associating Buddhism with love. It has kind of a rational, mental connotation in the west, where many of us fear hocus pocus. I think we need to start associating Buddhism with love. Ideally people who meet us would automatically start to associate Buddhism with love just by how we are.

Freedom From Self

We can use creativity as a skillful way of working with the energy of the eternally hungry or dissatisfied ego centrism or egoism that we all live to some degree.

Duke Ellington said of his art, "I merely took the energy it took to pout and wrote some blues." Which echoes very much what I was saying before about channeling habits. He is showing us how we can divert egoistic energies into more creative channels, and find ways to do that.

Suzuki Roshi said, "Our delusion is a step ladder." Our delusion is essentially egotism, or a failure to imagine or deeply experience our intrinsic connectedness with the world. So creativity is very much about using, celebrating even, all the energy that we have.

From an essay called The Path of the Inner Life:
"It has been recognized even in the West that all great Art contains an element of self-transcendence akin to that which constitutes the quintessence of religion. When this element of self transcendence is consciously cultivated in poetry, in music or in painting and sculpture instead of the element of mere sensual appeal, art ceases to be a form of sensuous indulgence, and becomes a kind of spiritual discipline, and the highest stages of spiritual contemplation become spiritual experiences."

Another quote, this one from Adrienne Rich who said, "Change is the only poem." So we can use the spiritual discipline of creativity to work with the entrenched self, and use it to help there be movement beyond the self all together, and enter into the freer, more open realm of the play and spontaneity and spaciousness and color.

What Conditions Make us Feel Creative?

These five things are mostly from my own thinking about what makes creativity more accessible.

Spaciousness

To become more creative we can cultivate spaciousness: expansive rather than contracted point of view. Suzuki: "To give your cow or sheep a large meadow is the way to control him."

It's hard to keep up this kind of spacious perspective in a city. I really can't do it, although I'm getting a bit better, and I rely a great deal on retreats for this, for a little infusion of perspective, a little space around my life. Spaciousness also means creating space in our lives for what is important. For example, just meditating in the morning can be like a little holiday from practical demands.

Receptivity

Cultivate receptivity to spiritual friends, to the dharma, to art, to ritual, to other points of view.
As Jean Cocteau said, "The poet doesn't invent. He listens."

We can be aware where our views are rigid and seeing the suffering of that, trying to loosen up a bit around that. Even though we're right. Rightness isn't defensive. Creative rightness expresses the non-aggression referred to before by Trungpa.

Be more pagan

So bringing the emotional life, the body, physicality, our animal nature, more into spiritual practice.

I just feel sometimes like there's kind of a WASPY bourgeois aesthetic. So trying loosen up around cultural conditioning and be more open. I don't want to assume anything about other cultures and backgrounds. I just know that some aspects of my mind are derived from a certain Scandanavian reserve combined with the classic suburban obsession with convincing others that everything is ok.

So by being more pagan, I mean, everything is not necessarily ok. Things are sometimes wild and chaotic. We don't have to put on a show, or at least not all the time, at least not, hopefully, here.

Anyway. I would like to be more in touch with the earth.

Humor

Embrace the insight of skilful humor, which sees through life, sees the irony of life. Lenny Bruce said that the only honest art form is laughter.

Sarvananda, a member of our Order and a playwright says: "The comic spirit delights in the new, in the dynamic, in energy. The comic spirit detests the habitual, the repetitive, the familiar. The comic spirit seeks to liberate energy. That’s what a laugh is - liberated energy. In the Vajrasattva mantra, there’s that explosion of energy - Ha ha ha ha ho. It’s the cosmic joke.
I thought I was a ball and chain and basically I’m a dynamic, free flowing bundle of energy. And that’s funny."

Remembering that one of the characteristics of irreversible creativity is happiness. And with happiness comes playfulness and laughter.

Explicit creative activity

Engaging in explicit Creative activity makes us feel more creative. This is in the realm of what Sangharakshita calls the Imaginal faculty—I think he got it from Shelley—that is, imagination as the creative power, the creative force, in the human mind. The ability to operate in other modes besides the strictly rational. In the realm of myth and symbol. Not going to say much about that in this talk but perhaps more will be said about creativity in regards to myth and symbol on some other occasion.

So engaging with fine arts is a way to be more creative.

[A brief interlude: can we just not let our lives get sucked away by the internet? Or letting it be involved to the degree that it gets our work done and supports creativity, and no more.]

Singing and dancing. We often leave these things to children. We often leave creativity to children, because they are so naturally imaginative.
Is there some kind of creative endeavor that you love that you have left behind in your childhood?

So I recommend singing and dancing, especially if the idea horrifies you. Maybe we'll be able to offer something here this year that will help.

In a way what this is about is finding different modes of expression. For example, here we communicate through speech, sometimes one person speaking and others listening. But there are other ways to communicate. For example, throwing or catching a ball.

Four Arenas for Creativity

What are the areas of your life where creativity is operating, or could operate?

Arts

The first is of course the rather obvious one of the arts — music, poetry, literature in general, film, the visual arts, painting, sculpture — these are all, at their best, manifestations of creativity.

Meditation

Maybe this is obvious. The second area or field of creativity is meditation. So when you meditate what are you creating? Sangharakshita says, we're creating skillful mental states or mental events. We are bringing them into existence.

It's funny that to say I'm creating positive mental states when I meditate doesn't really mean that much to me, although the way I would put it probably amounts to about the same thing. I see meditation as helping me see how my mind works, and that process, even if what I'm seeing is unskillful, seems to facilitate a more positive and creative mind and of course is itself a more positive and creative mind.

So it’s important that we think of meditation as a creative activity, as one of the most creative activities in which we can possibly engage, whether we are on our cushion or whether we are moving about in the world.

Friendship

The third area where creativity manifests itself, the area of friendship.

A lot can happen within the context of a friendship as I hope many of us know. Friendship can become what Sangharakshita has called "a sort of mutual transcendence of egoism". This goes back to the freedom from self we talked about earlier. And if of course you get a number of people, in a relationship of mutual friendship, as we have here, something very great and very precious can be produced.

In the context of Buddhism, spiritual friendship is based essentially on the fact that both people are committed to the Dharma, are dedicated to the Dharma — that is an important basis on which the friendship is founded. So as spiritual friends we are helping each other to engage more deeply with that common Dharma to which both of us are dedicated. So in this way there comes about that mutual transcendence of self, of separateness.

Friendship is something unique. If you have a real friendship with someone you get from that friendship something you don’t get from your relationship with your parents or from your relationship with your employer or your relationship, say with your children, or your relationship with your sexual partner. You get something completely different, something unique.

So this is the third area, the third arena, in a way, within which creativity manifests itself — within that of friendship. I'm curious as to whether people relate to this or not, whether or not you feel that your friendships have this element of creativity.

Institutions

The fourth one is institutions, a word that instantly makes me think of prisons. But if we think about it institutions are very important. Without institutions there’s no civilization, there’s no culture.

Sangharakshita makes the point that everything that is alive is organized. If you look at a plant, it’s organized, it has a structure, and when the plant dies, when it’s deprived of water, what happens? — it disintegrates. So long as it has life it has structure, it has organization, its elements are cooperative. It’s the same obviously with the human being. Whatever is alive is organized. So the organization within the context of civilization and culture is a very important development, a very important manifestation of creativity. It usually takes a lot of people to bring an institution into existence, and it takes a long time for them to do it.

We see in the world all sorts of organizations, and among them of course is what used to be called FWBO which is now called the Triratna Buddhist Community, of which this Center is a part. FYI Triratna means three jewels. It has been built up, created, over the last 40 odd years. The San Francisco Buddhist Center is also an institution. So much energy went into its creation and continues to go into it, some people are very committed to this place and many people over the years have benefited from it.

So this place represents the creation of something valuable, which is of benefit to people. We have the Triratna Buddhist Community also as an institution. We have the SFBC as an institution. I mean, it's a small one. I guess if we have a negative view of institutions, we can at least see the positive aspects as well. American culture very much emphasizes individual will, but what an individual can do is very limited. We are cooperative creatures.

So these are some of the areas, within which creativity manifests. There’s the arts; meditation; friendship, especially spiritual friendship; and finally institutions that are established for people's benefit.

Conclusion

Above all the creative mind is a nondual mind, without limitation. The creative mind breaks through appearances, moving toward a free and unknown reality.

So let's work together on being more creative, on being more

happy
loving
spontaneous
free
aware
intensely and radiantly alive

And let's think about how we can approach our practice of irreversible creativity. If you have ideas about ways you would like to explore this at this Center, I would like to hear them.

I hope that coming here especially over this year will help us all to get more in touch with our creative, playful mind. May we find it together.

So that maybe at the end of our life, we can say as Oscar Wilde suggested that our life has been our art. Maybe then we will be able to say that our days were our sonnets, that we have set ourselves to music.

References

Sangharakshita, Mind Reactive and Creative
Sangharakshita, Fields of Creativity
Chogyam Trungpa, Dharma Art [on Amazon]
Sarvananda's website
San Francisco Buddhist Center

Brief Thoughts About 2 TV Shows

2009-12-15T09:55:00.000-08:00

I watched two episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show last night on Hulu. It's a good show--funny and sweet--that I think holds up over time.

I was struck by how similar it is to 30Rock:

TV show about a TV show.
Female lead is a funny brunette who works mostly with men and who would like to get married and have a family.
She has a very affectionate friendship with toughguy male boss.
She is also good pals with a funny, married, bald guy.
Stars of TV show (people who are on the air) are hopelessly dumb.

OK. These are my deep thoughts for the day...

The Fear and Ethics of Selling

2009-11-20T10:35:00.000-08:00

Bill Scheinman and I have a business, Stress Reduction at Work, offering workplace courses in stress reduction/mindfulness meditation. Meditation has been incredibly beneficial and helpful for me, is in fact pretty much the center of my life. So I'm finding a way to a wider array of people, and, especially while they're at work, helping them learn to lessen their own suffering by changing the relationship to their own minds. Since I've been working on this in earnest a few things have occurred to me. The first one wasn't exactly horrible but did have an edge. I thought: Oh dear, I'm selling meditation.

The next thing occurred to me when I was at a class, "How to Quickly Attract your Prospect's Attention," offered by the Small Business Administration. I was the only person in the room who hadn't brought a business card. It hadn't occurred to me to bring a business card to a class. But to the business-minded, a class - in fact, life - appears to be just a very large collection of networking opportunities! So when the woman sitting sitting behind me stood up and said, "Hello! My name is ---. I can help you...[blah blah blah]," I felt a wave of aversion in my gut. I thought: Wow. I really hate marketing people. Which is of course not entirely accurate. But there is a particular style - a style that seems completely disingenuous - that grates.

There are at least two ways of looking at marketing. The first is that one finds a way to ignite craving in someone for something that will eventually be bad for them, or that they don't really need. Then there is a style that amounts to badgering or verbal manipulation. Many people are afraid of this, especially afraid of the 'hard sell,' and even more nervous about personally appearing to sell anything or ask for money. Wage earners, artists, writers, meditators, actors, healers, most people it seems hate any kind of marketing. Everyone except salespeople (and fundraisers...and extroverts!)

But there is another kind of marketing. If you have a thing or a service that could be truly or even deeply useful and helpful to someone - you find a way to communicate that in the best way possible, a way that means something to them. For example, most Americans seem to think that you need to be calm in order to meditate, which of course means that those who could benefit the most are convinced they can't do it. How does one communicate the fact that (short of a few contraindicated mental disorders) it is possible for everyone to practice and benefit from meditation if they so desire? Enormous health benefits have been documented in clinical studies. What do people need to know? This is what I am continuing to work out.

A big part of the learning curve for me has involved a change of self view, and refining an informational style. My main motivation is to help people, and to widen the scope of people I can reach. Selling - with the purpose of helping people get to know themselves, calm down, and at the same time become more fully alive - is a way of communicating that I want to continue to develop. Something clear, responsive, ethical - something that connects.

More info

Stress Reduction at Work - Mindfulness Tools for Employee Wellness

(image still from opening sequence of t.v. series Mad Men, imaginaryforces.com)

Protecting Dr. Death

2009-11-11T06:40:00.000-08:00

This photo was taken yesterday at the SFBC during an event put on by a renter, a group based in Australia, Exit International. The rental was scheduled while I was on sabbatical this year.

A few days before the rental date, there was an article in the San Francisco Chronicle entitled "Australia's Dr. Death comes to San Francisco", stating that "On Sunday, Nitschke will bring his suicide seminar to the Buddhist Center in San Francisco, where he will teach attendees how to kill themselves."

Of course, first of all this sounds like the Center is sponsoring his visit. Second, the rental was scheduled for Tuesday, not Sunday. Thirdly, is the point of the meeting really just to teach people to kill themselves? We were inundated with calls that we had neither the information nor the resources to deal with.

Often, renters of the Center never even see me. This time, I thought I should be there to keep an eye on things, and I was also curious. So Tuesday morning two rather nervous Australians showed up, Philip and Fiona. One got the impression that this was their first visit to America and that they half expected everyone to to have a gun.

Things started out calmly enough (the main snag was having to ask a lot of old people, some with crutches, to take off their shoes!) A guy from Associated Press arrived with a big camera and tripod. There were two or three people outside who were handing out literature opposed to what Dr. Nitschke does - they didn't seem too obnoxious.

After the meeting started, Fiona was at the front door telling two people she didn't want them to come in. She was distraught. Elaine and I went over to try to help. A woman in a wheelchair was trying to push her way through the door. Fiona was trying to shut it. The woman was saying, I'm not doing anything, I am not a security risk, you have to let me in, why won't you let me in? Etc. I made a few fairly inarticulate statements - while being filmed by her friend - which at any rate caused her to withdraw, and we were able to shut the door.

But more people were arriving and couldn't get in because she was blocking the door with her wheelchair. We started letting people in a side door, which happened to have a stair so the woman couldn't block it. She started talking about us not letting her in because she is handicapped. It was all very upsetting so I put on my shoes and went out there to talk to her and her friend. One big issue for her was being called a security risk. I told her that they were Australian and for some reason think everyone in this country has a gun, to which her friend replied, Well this is the Mission so they probably do.

Her friend's angle was that I had made a big legal mistake not letting them in, that I was legally obliged to do so. I am pretty certain this isn't true. He had an intimidating way of speaking that sounded legally authoritative. Anyway at the end they thanked me for talking to them, and were late for something else anyway. Then the API guy walked out and assured them their point of view would be represented and seemed interested in their video of the head of Zen Center (sic) (AKA me) refusing them entry. (It's the only time in my life I haven't corrected someone who referred to us as Zen Center!) The man told the API reporter he'd send the video...if only he could figure out how to get it off his phone...(Looking good, from my point of view!) Then they left. I wasn't sure how to say goodbye. Have a good day? Nice meeting you? Thanks? I said nothing. (I don't know why I didn't just say goodbye.)

When not functioning as the de facto bouncer at the meeting, I listened to some of Dr. Nitschke's presentation. He has rather a more 'liberal' policy of suicide assistance than I expected. For example, an 80 year old woman who was not sick or depressed. An old couple who also are not ill commit double suicide. And the second half of the meeting actually was a workshop restricted to people over 50, in which he did in fact give instructions for committing suicide.

At least some - okay, all - of what Dr. Nitschke does, from a traditional Buddhist point of view, is unethical, although I would guess that his motivation is to relieve suffering. Other than being disturbed by his presentation, I'm not sure how I feel about what he does. I do think it's absurd that committing or attempting suicide is illegal. I was also reflecting that modern medicine has been so fantastically successful that we now live longer than we want to. So modern medicine steps in again and allows people to decide when they're going to die, without pain.

The Buddha - and he was of course not alone in this - taught that the resolve not to take life or cause harm is of primary importance. In what way is this still relevant considering the conditions of modern life? How do we apply it? Our societies have become so incredibly organized about, and skilled at, both preserving life, and crushing it. Abortion? Vegetarianism? Euthanasia? Death penalty? I just know that I don't want to fight about it, and I don't think that the State has proved itself to be compassionate and sane enough to decide for someone whether they will live or die.

At any rate, during the event at the Center, I felt that I had to somehow make sure the two nervous Australians could carry on with their event. Thinking about it now I am kind of surprised at how protective of them I felt, and also of the woman in the wheelchair outside.

At the same time, it was incredibly stressful, and I hope I never see any of them again!

Postscript

Here is the video on youtube done by Associated Press. (Post-postscript: This video was on youtube for about one day - it's gone now "Removed by user.")

I found out that the woman who was outside is called Marilyn Golden, and she is a well known local activist from various organizations, including one called Not Dead Yet. The man with the legal jargon was Walter Park. Here is Marilyn's blog post about the event.

I am happy with both the video and Marilyn's blog post in terms of the way the Center was represented.

Miss Manners Talks About California Weather

2009-10-29T15:11:00.000-07:00

Growing up in California - a land of mostly immigrants tacked onto the left edge of an even more enormous land of mostly immigrants - you notice that certain migrants from the east coast are sometimes opinionated. It's hard to get affirmation from an east coast person, especially when it comes to evaluating the weather.

For example, if you say, It's cold today. They will reply, No it's not. They say these three words as if they were one syllable. So say it as fast as you can: Noitsnot. That's how they say it. Similarly, if you say, Gee, it's hot today, guess what they say? Noitsnot.

So it seems that because we lack humidity in the form of snow, and in the form of ...steam, we are not entitled to make any claims of extreme weather. Things are just too dry here, except when they're foggy, but fog, for some reason, doesn't count as snow. Mark Twain did say that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco, but he was prone to hyperbole, and from the midwest.

I learned recently that when referring to trees on the east coast, you can't say trees, you have to say foliage. Which is just flashy. Sure, I remember years ago coming in for landing in Charlotte, North Carolina, looking down at the landscape and seeing that it looked really bizarre down there and asking what those things were. (I'm not making this up.) My husband took a quick peek out the airplane window, replied, "trees" and went back to sleep. He should have said foliage but perhaps thought I might not understand.

If someone put a blindfold on you for say several months, then gave you a California tree to look at, you would have no idea what the date was. California perennials are just too subtle, they're all bark, they can't say anything about the calendar. So even though you're in California, and you feel autumn in your bones, in your skin (dry), you see it in the bright thin light, you feel the crisp, cool air, just remember that it doesn't count for jack unless there's a lot of leafy east coast bling.

Miss Manners hopes you will keep all this in mind when you talk about the weather and the...plant life, in mixed company, in California.

(photo of redwood trees from Brooklyn Token's photostream on flickr)

A Very Special Pill

2009-10-08T17:30:00.000-07:00

From ‘The Happiness Hypothesis’ by Jonathan Haidt:

Suppose you read about a pill that you could take once a day to reduce anxiety and increase your contentment. Would you take it? Suppose further that the pill has a great variety of side-effects, all of them good: increased self-esteem, empathy, and trust; it even improves memory. Suppose, finally, that the pill is all natural and costs nothing. Now would you take it?

The pill exists. It is meditation.

This excerpt from Haidt's interesting book is fascinating. I love it because everything it says is true - medically documented even - and yet, practically speaking, it gives an entirely wrong impression. Why? Because the actual experience of taking a pill - which is how most Americans want to deal with life's problems - takes no effort at all, and no time. No time and no effort: this is almost a secret motto for Americans. This is our approach to vacations, to preparing and eating food, and to dealing with challenges, physical and mental - we like it fast and easy, as in, swallowing a hopefully not too large or bad-tasting pill. Don't get me wrong, pills can of course solve some problems! But Haidt seems to be suggesting here, if you want all these benefits, all you need to do is meditate, which takes no effort at all, and no time, just like taking a pill! Which is just bonkers, as the English say.

Of course this isn't what he is actually saying. He is saying that the benefits of the mythical pill match the benefits of meditation. He's saying, if you want these benefits, meditate and you will have them, that simple. But it's not that simple, at all, or not for most of us. There is a major difference practically speaking between taking a pill and meditating, that is, meditating generally involves a lot of time, and more than anything, persistent effort. Meditation means engaging our energy and interest, it means working with our own mind and body through direct experience, cultivating patience...it means taking time - to be corny for a moment - for peace. Meditation is a slow (and often very enjoyable) manual reorientation of oneself.

Whereas when we take a pill, in a way, we aren't doing anything at all.

CrackBerry

2009-10-01T10:45:00.000-07:00

"Ever find yourself sitting down at the computer just for a second to find out what other movie you saw that actress in, only to look up and realize the search has led to an hour of Googling?"

"...our brains are designed to more easily be stimulated than satisfied."

The articles below are fascinating. They attempt to show the effects of technology - basically the internet - on our ability to read books and generally sustain attention; on our brains, especially pleasure centers; and on quality of life from a Buddhist perspective.

I got completely 'unwired' on a three month retreat this year, and life was just unbelievably long during that time. Each day seemed endlessly spacious - even though we had a full program. But what we were doing was simple, and slow. We meditated, did rituals, cooked food, looked at the sky, talked about the Dhamma, handwashed our clothes, and all nestled in the beautiful rocky mountains near Peñarroya.

It didn't seem like we were on a retreat. It seemed like we had moved in together to a situation where we lived communally and did a lot of practice. We were 22 women doing almost everything together.

I returned to San Francisco in mid-August, and during that time I've been slowly building up and reinforcing my addiction to stimulation. The last few days I've been watching several episodes of 30Rock on my laptop at night before I go to bed. I can feel my experience of life becoming more and more superficial, a bit number, a bit more of a kind of electric buzz with no content always humming on the surface. As the first quote above notes, I look up actors on imdb. I interact with people a lot through email. It is a completely different life, often unpleasantly composed only of streams of bits and bytes, but somehow very hard to resist...

Is Google Making Us Stupid?
[the atlantic]

Seeking
How the brain hard-wires us to love Google, Twitter, and texting. And why that's dangerous.
[slate]

Awareness in our Technological World
...a look at the double-edged sword of our hyper-connected world.
[wildmind]

Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime

[NY Times]

Why Multitasking Will Make You a Scatterbrain

[Psychology Today]

See also my other post:

Addiction to Computers and Other Screens

(image by andy goldsworthy)

Craving According to David Sedaris

2009-09-02T07:48:00.000-07:00

This quote from Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim neatly summarizes the Buddha's Four Noble Truths:

...That's the problem with wishes, they ensnare you. In Fairy Tales they're nothing but trouble, magnifying the greed and vanity of the person for whom they are granted. One's best bet - and the moral to all those stories - is to be unselfish and make your wish for the benefit of others, trusting that their happiness will make you happy as well. It's a nice idea but would definitely take some getting used to.

[photo by me, hollywood, 2008]

Time Really Long

2009-08-30T13:59:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to find a way to write about being on retreat for four months. It's not easy, or not possible, to explain, because the conditions there are such as I have never experienced before, and may not experience agan. I remember thinking, every day feels like a year. Part of the reason was how low-tech we lived.

I had no computer, no phone, no washing machine, no shower (at least in the sense that we usually mean that word.) I had to write talks with my hand holding a pen, which was probably a lot harder (for me) than it sounds. When it was cold, some heat came from a wood burning stoves or the furnace; we used composting toilets outside; daily burning of toilet paper. We made (well I didn't make them, but anyway we did not buy) yogurt and bread and sprouts. I was not able to go into a store or even see a store or things for sale for the three long months. I forgot about money, and keys, which I am usually carrying every day of my life.

Another aspect of the greatly simplified surroundings were the people. We were the same people, the same faces, the same clothes, day in and day out. I got to where I could just see half a forearm in my periperal vision and be able to tell who it was. Often I didn't have to see people at all. I would think of someone, then a moment later they would come into the room.

These conditions make one's mental processes simpler, more raw, and at the same time, kinder; they make time really long. They eliminate the friction that lives on a surface we are so accustomed to we really don't have the slightest idea that it is there. Much if not most of the time on the retreat I would not have described my mental state as 'calm'. The difference between there and here is more like the difference between a primary color and a secondary color. The secondary color isn't wrong, it's just not as basic, not as elemental.

I felt so much love, so much completely natural and spontaneous love. I felt that I was with my family in the most positive sense of that word. Of course, you don't really know what's going to go down once you're somewhere else. For example, from almost the moment the retreat was over, I was assailed by craving.

More later.

[photo by and of me, taken at akashavana, june 2009]

My Spanish Donkey Friend

2009-07-23T06:10:00.000-07:00

Here I am outside La Torre, a 1,000 year old building in Valderrobres, Spain, where a few of us stayed after a 3-month retreat. The top floor of La Torre is a modern apartment.

I became terribly fond of this donkey in the two or three days we stayed there. We would walk by in the scorching heat and give him some grass or a few chunks of bread. On the last day we gave him two apples, about which he was very enthusiastic. I was very sad to leave him. He seemed lonely in his little pen.

More about the retreat later - perhaps.

More info
Photo by Dhivajri, taken in Valderrobres, Spain, July 2009
What is an Order Member?
Akashavana
Donkey: wikipedia

Going on Retreat, Procrastination...and a Massage website

2009-04-05T15:41:00.000-07:00

Last night instead of doing needful things, I created a "Thai Massage by Suvanna" website, which will hopefully be useful when I return:

http://sites.google.com/site/thaimassagesf

I'll be on retreat until mid-July, and back in town mid-August.

See also:
Cultivating the Inner Retreat

Be well my friends. xo Suvarnaprabha

Some Quotations

2009-04-03T22:34:00.000-07:00

The point of Buddhist meditation is not to stop thinking, for cultivation of insight clearly requires intelligent use of thought and discrimination. What needs to be stopped is conceptualization that is compulsive, mechanical and unintelligent, that is, activity that is always fatiguing, usually pointless, and at times seriously harmful
Allan Wallace

As soon as you get any success you disappear up your own arse.
Thom Yorke (Radiohead)

...human emotions are the sparks that fly when 'truth' and 'fiction' collide.
Hirokazu Korieda (film maker)

For the truth is, however admirable mindfulness may be, however much peace, grounding, stability and self-acceptance it can bring, as an experience to be shared, it’s stultifyingly boring.
Judith Warner, New York Times opinion

Leisure is a form of stillness that is the necessary preparation for accepting reality. Only the person who is still can hear, and whoever is not still cannot hear. Leisure is the disposition of receptive understanding, of contemplative beholding, and immersion in the real.
Josef Pieper, "Leisure, the Basis of Culture" (1947)

...Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. John Keats, 1817

Thus to identify with a self is to be susceptible to the arising of hatred. If we think in terms of karma and rebirth, we have been prone to hatred for as long as we have been embodied human beings...Since our first human birth we have reacted with hatred to all those situations that threatened our continued existence. When a human being experiences this sense of being threatened, there is more at stake than territory or physical safety. We are afraid for our personal identity, our very sense of self, the sense of "I" that enables a human being to interact the form relationships...
Sangharakshita, Living with Kindness

The enlightenment experience is therefore not only one of illumination and freedom but also one of infinite and inexhaustible love, a love which has for object all sentient beings, and which manifests as uninterrupted activity in pursuit of their temporal and spiritual welfare.
Sangharakshita, The Three Jewels

Patience is bitter but the fruit is sweet.
Arabic saying

If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you what to do, then YOU DESERVE IT.
Frank Zappa

Some Visuals

2009-03-19T15:21:00.001-07:00

A black and white acrylic painting I did in a design class during my "Crow Period." It is derived from a photograph taken at City College.

I hope you recognize this structure. It is black, white and yellow acrylic; view is from Marin toward San Francisco.

Separated (poem)

2009-03-18T12:15:00.000-07:00

Separated from love,
I access only
Other people’s words.
Mine are locked up

Perhaps in imagined agency
As if to open, and to say
The word “opening”
Were the same.

Deepest longing
Cannot be uttered, but
Only painted
As a window shutting
Out rain.

Like others divided
I stare mutely skyward,
The wish sticks to my tongue.
Water slides over my eyes.

I would like to say
But won’t, that
It’s unbearable,
This centrifuge,
This disease.

Yet I remain.
Seeking what is essentially
Gravel.
Painting it.
Raining.

Rising and falling
From this canopy
Of fictions,

Landing
Safe and unsound
On the ground.

song 2 (my animals) (poem)

2009-03-18T11:31:00.000-07:00

we are each a zoo
perimeter of cages
full of moving,
fur

these days my animals,
edgy,
restless,
realize where they are

rubbing
against the absence
of bars
they resound

still looks
like the same
zoo charging
the same prices,
the same morning,
still looks like
visitors, are staying
on the pathways mostly
trying to reach through,
leaving behind more or less
trash

the morning
looks the same

but here
surrounded by
blue night

without audience
my animals
sing

The Kind of Shenanigans We Get Up To

2009-03-09T14:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had our send-off for our two friends Rachel and Sharon who are heading to Spain soon for their 3 month ordination retreat. (I will be on the retreat also.)

We sang some silly songs which have now been immortalized on youtube:

Across the Universe for Sharon

Hallelujah for Rachel

ode to jacques cousteau (poem)

2009-02-16T22:07:00.000-08:00

it's hard to imagine

how we survived the dark days

before the internet.

but we had jacques cousteau

who brought us, just children,

with him on his adventures

who spoke english to us

though it clearly tortured his throat.

jacques cousteau was my pied piper.

i am sinking with him

down & down & down

into a dark world

where we will shine our lights.

Song (poem)

2009-02-10T21:56:00.001-08:00

I marked the moments of being lost
and being lost was a longing
a song

left on my lips traces of rind
as one hears train sounds
but no train

I marked the moments of the song
by being lost
my compass

as if, before entering a lake
I took the clothes off my clothes
marked the moments on trees

I followed until I couldn’t see
not even rabbits,

not even loss,

there was no trail,
only longing and a song

I marked the moments

being lost was my
song

Me and other people: Love

2009-02-04T21:29:00.000-08:00

There is a path from me to you that I am constantly looking for, so I try to keep clear & still as water does with the moon. -Rumi.

My relationship of the last 7 years ended in October, and my life has changed drastically since then. Not how it looks or operates on the outside so much, but how it feels, how it looks, how it tastes. The main area that has changed is my experience of myself in relation to other people.

Of course I felt sad at the ending of the relationship. But I think in general, I feel more loving & open. More vulnerable even. It feels really good. I feel a lot of love for people. I wish it were more; I wish it were all the time. (Being loving all the time toward everyone including myself is the essence of my interest in Buddhist practice.)

Recently when my friend Mike left for a long trip we said "I love you" to each other many times. It was very sweet. I've become very attached to Padmatara (who I live with) as my advisor and person to hash things out with and emerge with greater clarity. Also very recently I resolved to let go of resentment from the distant past with a few different people in the sangha. I would experience a disharmony with someone, ask myself where it was coming from, realize it was coming from me, and resolve to stop creating it (around things that are presently irrelevent). Letting go in this way also feels great.

But with men, it's different now...I experience them as men. Before they were people first, and they were men somewhere in the second or third degree of observation. Now through the emergence of some dark and dusky neediness, they're men and in an entirely non-willed kind of way, I somehow want their love. The only requirement is that the man is single. I do not even have to be attracted to him, though the dynamic will be very subtle if I'm not. So this is the new and most salient expression of thirst, in the Buddhist sense, in my life.

A further irony is that along with this thirst is the conviction - yes I think I can call it a conviction - that the nature of sexual relationships (in fact probably any relationship, but much more for the romantic ones), at least for me, is dukkha, suffering. This means that even if I feel very happy, this way of relating to men, to whatever degree it is happening gives a corresponding sense that I am embarking upon a path of pain. So there's this slight movement inside me toward the thing I harbor the deepest suspicion of. I can do nothing about all the ironies really but watch and be amused.

For years I've sometimes thought about taking the anagarika precept (more info about what that is in the notes below.) But then there's the question, if I did, would it be simply because I have such ultimately incompetent taste in men and figure, what is the point of carrying on? (Not that all my partners haven’t been lovely, just that I could not be happy with them for long.) Obviously I will need to resolve this question to some degree, regardless of whether or not I decide to become an anagarika.

I am determined not to keep doing the same thing, falling into a situation not knowing what it is, really, or who it is with, guided by unknown samskaric trash. A book I read recently (The Brain that Changes Itself) said research has revealed that 'falling in love' and cocaine effect the brain in very similar ways. Also in certain ways the ending of love is neurally indistinguishable from drug withdrawal. So I know all this, and I think I'm going to be sensible about it all but then the hormones or whatever they are (endorphins?) kick in, and I wake up at some point having dug another hole for myself that I'm trying to claw my way out of. The conviction not to do this again seems stronger now than it has in the past. But one never knows. In the face of some things I am quite helpless.

All of which might sound bleak. I am enjoying these realizations. I know that pain cannot be avoided, and that much of the time our attempts to avoid pain simply cause more of it. I am just noticing what's going on, which is to a large degree about my own tangled-upness in regards to sexual relationships, and noticing my subtle (I hope) neediness around some men.

I am noticing how much notions of self-view and self-worth are tied up with sexual relationships. I am noticing that these aren't things I'm deciding to do. Seems more like they are being done on me. They are just happening, and I am trying to be aware and loving as they twirl around and inside me.

More info

What is an anagarika? (another post on this blog)
Breaking Up - 3 Acts (also on this blog, from October 2008)
Image is Hockney's "A Bigger Splash" from Mark Harden's Artchive.

What is an anagarika? (in the FWBO)

2009-02-02T10:58:00.000-08:00

From Wikipedia:

Unlike some Buddhist sangha, the FWBO does not propagate a monastic lineage. Sangharakshita devised a non-monastic ordination system, whilst also allowing the undertaking of the "anagarika" precept which enjoins celibacy.

From Marriage in the Western Buddhist Order by Subhuti:

We...have a ceremony for those who wish to undertake life-long celibacy as Anagarikas, in recognition of the prime importance of celibacy for spiritual life. Anyone who is seriously pursuing the path will be working to overcome craving and attachment, and perhaps our strongest and most abiding longing is the sexual. Indeed, the Buddha says:

I know of no other single form, sound, scent, savour, and touch by which a man’s heart is so enslaved as it is by the form, voice, scent, savour, and touch of a woman. A man’s heart is obsessed by these things. And so is a woman’s heart enslaved and obsessed by those of a man. (Condensed from Anguttara Nikaya, 1, i.) [Please replace "men" and "woman" with "object of your desire."]

Sangharakshita teaches that brahmacharya or chastity is an aspect of going for Refuge, and all who are committed to the Three Jewels should be developing brahmacharya to some extent, whether or not they are sexually active, by diligently deepening their sources of fulfillment and cultivating contentment. Anagarikas have reached the point of being able to maintain physical chastity quite happily, and are working to further diminish their reliance on the senses as means of emotional satisfaction. Whilst Anagarikas have no superior status in the Order and movement, we have marked out the importance of celibacy by instituting a ceremony for those who are able to take on the precept of brahmacharya, and aspire to do so for the remainder of their lives.

From Sexual Evolution by Dhammadinna:

...He [Sangharakshita] also expressed pleasure that more people were taking the Anagarika precept, which enjoins chastity. He never urges anyone to take this precept and Order members need not be celibate. 'One is only asked to keep one’s sex life at the periphery, or towards the periphery. But if one can be celibate in a positive and healthy way, I’m sure that will enable one - other factors being equal - to develop spiritually more rapidly.'

During the late 1980s and early ′90s more men and women Order members took the Anagarika precept. Becoming an Anagarika does not constitute a higher ordination but it involves the precept of abstention from sexual activity (abrahmacarya). Some Anagarikas have maintained this precept while others have ceased to be chaste and reverted to their previous status. It seems that being celibate is not easy in the West, as the culture that surrounds us is so concerned with sex.

Sangharakshita maintains, however, that the extent to which we are caught up in sexual activity and craving is a matter of degree. In this sense we are all celibate or non-celibate to some extent..."

Notes

Image is Thiebaud's "Girl with Ice Cream Cone" from Mark Harden's Artchive.

FWBO stands for Fickle World Boxing Organization. Also, Friends of the Western Buddhist Order at fwbo.org.

Does Facebook Help?

2009-01-10T16:50:00.000-08:00

Introduction

More and more invitations to join political causes (Groups) appear in my Facebook inbox. I wonder: Does joining a political cause on Facebook do anything? And if not, why do we join them?

I decided to look into three of the Groups friends have joined and invited me to join, and see if any change might happen because of them.

Three Groups

Let's collect 500,000 signatures to support the Palestinians in Gaza currently has under 500,000 members. This site promises "In the upcoming days, we will provide more information about how YOU can make a real difference."So I don't have a lot to go on here but it seems a valid site with officers from all over the (mostly Arab) world, for example, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Indonesia.

I read the most recently posted 3 bulletin board posts: The first one was a guy called John pointing out what pussies the people are who care about this war, and then people calling him names. One response began, "Actually you worthless little piece of shit..."

The second one was a very long post by an Israeli claiming many things including that the Palestinians joining Hamas is what caused the war.

The third one is called I AM WILLING TO GO AND FIGHT FOR MY MUSLIM BROTHER IN GAZA....ARE YOU READY// and is an interesting conversation between Muslims all over the world for and against violence.

Support the Monks' protest in Burma currently has around 400,000 members. They have a "Five Things you can do to help free Burma" list, a way to donate, sign up, get the latest articles, post links and photos, look at a BBC video, and get more information.

On the discussion board, the usual cocktail of intelligent questions, answers, discussion, obnoxious name-calling, and random unrelated or tangentially related posts.

Wow, My Middle Name is Hussein, also! currently has under 200 members. I imagine memberships in this group has dropped off considerably since Obama won. On the other hand you could change your Facebook middle name without joining the group. I don't know of a way to tell whether this group was useful...perhaps it is the reason Obama got elected...

Conclusion (not really)

An obvious benefit of inviting friends to Groups and joining them, even if there is no other, is educational. Assuming that knowing about things, even if you're doing nothing about them, is better than not knowing.

But my main conclusion is that Facebook Groups are helpful as long as you do more than just click "Join." You have to go back to the Group and see what's what, and do something. They hopefully send out calls to action to their members, at least some of whom act on them. Otherwise, being a member of a Group is a hollow gesture (unless just a Group's size somehow affects things, which is unlikely.)

Is clicking "Join" the new "I care, but not so much"?

If you have any thoughts on this, please comment on this post.

More on This Subject

2008 Facebook Statistics on American Politics (InsideFacebook.com, January 2009)

Party Crashing: How the Facebook Generation Does Politics(Alternet.org, June 2008)

Will Facebook Change Politics? (PickledPolitics.com, July 2007)

'Open-Source Politics' Taps Facebook for Myanmar Protests (Wired Magazine, June 2007)

Mushrooms and Meditation

2009-01-05T19:21:00.000-08:00

Not an obvious connection you might say. But being on a nine day meditation retreat in a rainy redwood and madrone forest with some sunny weather for venturing outside, these became a few of my favorite things.

I think I paid more attention and saw more things--on the ground anyway--because I was looking for mushrooms. It was really fun. There weren't many animals about but saw a couple of salamanders and a banana slug.

I really wanted to cook and eat some of the mushrooms--some of which look like baked bread, waffles, or just the kind of mushroom you buy in the grocery store--but of course I refrained. Because like most Americans the first thing I think of when I think of wild mushrooms is dead people. The story we hear is of Sam or Sally from Mexico or Vietnam who ate something that seemed identical to an edible mushroom where they came from - and died.

So I'm not going to go around popping every attractive mushroom into my mouth, even I think it may be a chanterelle. I did order a guide, listed below, and want to go out with people who know. My friend Trebor said Germans go out in droves looking for mushrooms, it's practically a national past time.

References

My mushroom slideshow

I just ordered: All That the Rain Promises, and More: A Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms

Edible California Mushrooms from mykoweb.com

Mycological Society of San Francisco

Addiction to Computers and Other Screens

2009-01-01T08:00:00.000-08:00

A quotation from The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge:

"To say that a cultural medium, such as television, radio, or the internet, alters the balance of senses does not prove it is harmful. Much of the harm from television and other electronic media, such as music videos and computer games, comes from their effect on attention. Children and teenagers who sit in front of fighting games are engaged in massed practice and are incrementally rewarded. Video games, like Internet porm, meet all the conditions for plastic brain map changes. A team at the Hammersmith Hospital in London designed a typical video game in which a tank commander shoots the enemy and dodges enemy fire. The experiment showed that dopamine--the reward neurotransmitter, also triggered by addictive drugs--is released in the brain during these games. People who are addicted to computer games show all the signs of other addictions: cravings when they stop, neglect of other activities, euphoria when on the computer, and a tendency to deny or minimize their actual involvement.

"Television, music videos, and video games, all of which use television techniques, unfold at a much faster pace than real life, and they are getting faster, which causes people to develop an increased appetite for high-speed transitions in those media. It is the form of the television medium--cuts, edits, zoons, pans, and sudden noises--that alters the brain, by activating what Pavlov called the "orienting response," which occurs whenever we sense a sudden change in the world around us, especially a sudden movement. We instinctively interrupt whatever we are doing to turn, pay attention, and get our bearings. The orientation response evolved, no doubt, because our forebears were both predators and prey and needed to react to situations that could be dangerous or could provide sudden opportunities for such things as food or sex, or simply to novel situations. The response is physiological: the heart rate decreases for four to six seconds. Television triggers this response at a far more rapid rate than we experience it in life, which is why we can't keep our eyes off the TV screen, even in the middle of an intimate conversation, and why people watch TV a lot longer than they intend. Because typical music videos, action sequences, and commercials trigger orientation responses at a rate of one per second, watching them puts us into continuous orienting response with no recovery. No wonder people report feeling drained from watching TV. Yet we acquire a taste for it and find slower changes boring. The cost is that such activities as reading, complex conversation, and listening to lectures become more difficult."

Boob Smashers

2008-12-13T00:59:00.000-08:00

Talking about getting older, of course, is not so interesting, especially for those who don't feel they are doing it. In our American culture, in our time, old people and their knowledge aren't exactly irresistible. Old people tend to be slow, conservative, unproductive, grumpy, even. At any rate they are likely to circuit in reference to memories rather than foment around plans. In this culture we seem to "feel old" at all ages, and it never feels good.

The result is that some things about getting older can come as a complete shock. Or maybe some specific things about aging are just different for everyone. Or, more likely, we do hear specifics about getting older, but for whatever reason it just doesn't sink in, it's too abstract, it seems impossible. As a random example, there is the subject of boobs and what they are eventually subjected to. This is something I am certain I didn't get any warning about.

One thing that you may know is that after forty you're supposed to get a mammogram every year or two. What you won't realize is that when someone says (but no one ever actually says this for some reason), "I'm getting a mammogram today," what they really mean is, "Today I will stand beside a mean Russian technician who will squash each of my breasts between two shelves."

This poem from someone's blog further illustrates this point:

She stepped upon a pedal,
I could not believe my eyes!
A plastic plate came slamming down,
My hooters in a vise!...

Excruciating pain I felt,
Within it’s viselike grip.
A prisoner in this vicious thing,
My poor defenseless tit!...

“There, that’s good,” I heard her say,
(The room was slowly swaying.)
“Now, let’s have a go at the other one.”
Have mercy, I was praying. (whole poem)

So that pretty much explains it. In my head, I know that breast cancer is a leading cause of death among women, and that thousands of years of medical wisdom have crystallized into this hooter-crushing yet benevolent wonder of modern science. Truly, it is a privilege to be subjected to it. I just wish I could appreciate it more.

I was going to write about getting older

2008-12-08T18:53:00.001-08:00

I wrote a blog about being 45 and getting older in general, but it was sort of depressed, so I am instead posting this odd picture of me and my mom.

"I feel like a pig shat in my head."

2008-12-03T23:19:00.001-08:00

This image is from the Mayo Clinic website. It's a microscopic creature that's related to spiders, the common dust mite, magnified several thousand times.

And what is the nature of human interaction with this creature? Well, each of us sheds hundreds of thousands of particles of dead skin every hour - about 1.5 pounds a year - and these creatures gain sustenance by eating it. Then, they do what all creatures do: shit occasionally, and die eventually.

So if you're allergic to dust like I am, you are actually allergic to the shit and dead bodies of dust mites, which we call "dust." We are surrounded by and permeated with forms of life too small for us to see.

I seem to be on a roll in terms of writing about health. This time it's because I accomplished the dreaded task the other night of sorting through my books, organizing them, and getting rid of 3 big boxes of them. But they were very dusty, and by the time I finished the job I had been feeling ill for some time. When I woke up, I suddenly heard in my pressurized head a voice from the movie Withnail and I, saying, "I feel like a pig shat in my head."

Strangely, feeling this way reminds me of my 7-week ordination retreat in 2001. The retreat was in an old monastery in Tuscany, Italy. I felt this way much of that time, but worse. It's not really the runny nosed type of thing that most people associate with allergies, but more like environmental illness. Thankfully it doesn't happen very often (7 years since last time), and it's not like I'm in a lot of pain or anything, just somewhat nonfunctional. But it does seem kind of crazy, because dust is pretty much everywhere, it's almost like being allergic to air...

References

Withnail and I on Wikipedia
Il Convento di Santa Croce in Batignano, Tuscany, where I was ordained.
More ominous pictures

Happiness & Its Causes

2008-11-25T19:38:00.000-08:00

Today through the generosity of its hosts, I attended part of the super swank, professional and impressive conference, Happiness & Its Causes. The sessions I attended were made up of several short talks and then a panel discussion with a moderator. These notes are a bit more sketchy than I thought they were, but hopefully they will be of some use.

In the first session, The Psychology of Happiness, Professor David Feldman talked about hope. Years of research have apparently identified the conditions for feeling hope:

goals
pathways (and alternate pathways when first choice or idea is blocked)
agency, meaning energy and motivation

Dr. Feldman also said something like, Whenever people have a sense of what is important in life and feel that they are working toward this, hope thrives.

Neurosurgeon James Doty, who started the Center for the Study of Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford. talked about compassion. He was interesting but there was too much to write down. He said that happiness without compassion is not happiness - it is just pleasure. He referred to "gamma synchrony," whatever that might be (but I really liked the phrase for some reason), and in general to the dramatic and permanent changes that can occur in the brain, called neural plasticity.

Scientists and researchers have lots of lists, especially perhaps when they've got PowerPoint and only about 15 minutes to present findings from decades of research. These lists, at least the ones at this conference, can serve us as reminders of what's important. There is a lot of crossover with what Buddhism says. For example, the conditions for hope listed above could correspond to nirvana, the Dharma, and viriya (energy or enthusiasm, of the 6 Perfections or paramitas.)

I was thinking of what my list would be, of things I would like to remember every day, things I am grateful to be reminded of. My precepts...in no particular order...

not resisting
being of service
awareness of thoughts and the trajectory of thoughts
orienting toward meaning/the goal
slowing down/meditation
kindly, engaged communication
self/bodily care
"When the environment and its inhabitants are enslaved by evil, turn unfavorable circumstances into the path of awakening."

This is a preliminary list but at some point I would like to concretize as it were a list of personal precepts.

Beginning the second morning session, How to Make Relationships Work, Wiveka Ramel spoke about relationships and depression. She named four factors strongly predictive of major depression:

Negative feedback seeking - seeking external views that match his or her own negative self view. Preferentially solicit, recall, and believe negative feedback.
Excessive reassurance seeking - about self worth, lovability.
Conflict avoidance - less assertiveness and many other behaviors in order to avoid conflict.
Blame maintenance - partner or friend has fixed, negative view of depressed person.

Some antidotes to depression (I didn't get them all down but here are a few.)

Distancing self (though whatever methods) from rigidly held conceptions.
Inducing spaciousness
Not believing thoughts and interpretations as truth.

She also mentioned a new kind of therapy called Acceptance and Committment Therapy (ACT) whose goal is to induce psychological flexibility.

Eponymous Margaret Cullen talked about Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. She used the phrase 'gentle or even affectionate mindfulness,' which I appreciated very much.

Dan Bryant talked about expectations and said, 'our rules for other people are universally unenforceable." He recommended these books and authors:

Forgive for Good by Frederic Luskin
If the Buddha Dated by Charlotte Kasl (I do find the title of this book a bit silly!)
Ellen Langer
Carol Dweck
Grateful Thinking by Robert Emmons
James Pennebaker
Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman. Also see AuthenticHappiness.org
Forgiveness by Robin Casarjian

References

Here is an article about the conference in the New York Times, which sniffed out and amplified all that qualified as California cheese-ball, referring to San Francisco as "dopamine-laden" (you need to have/create an NYT account to read it.)
Another NYT article about happiness (and t.v. watching.)