Metta for the Junta?

The reports of the devastation in Burma this past week have been heart-rending; the scale of human suffering is incomprehensible to me.

It is one thing to accept this disaster — even on such a massive scale — as being in line with our precarious position on this planet. What is less easy to accept is the intransigent behavior of the Burmese military government in response to the natural catastrophe. One would think that even the junta could recognize the plight of the Burmese people, yet the government’s distrust of outsiders is deeply entrenched, and the magnitude of the disaster will be exponentially exacerbated by human ignorance.

Awakening and 3-D pictures

Since I started reading more about Buddhism and practicing meditation in the last 2 years, I’ve wondered about the nature of ‘enlightenment’ and ‘awakening’.  Is it something rare?  esoteric?  available? sudden? gradual?   Am I getting closer?  Am I making progress?  Can it happen to me in this body, in this lifetime?  Are my teachers ‘enlightened’?  Are some more enlightened than others?

   The old stories feature a lot of sudden, abrupt,  what I call ‘light-switch’ awakenings, where suddenly the practitioner ‘gets’ it.   More modern teachers that I’ve heard, talk about each moment of remembering, or returning your concentration to the  breath or other object of concentration as a small awakening.  Which is it, I’ve wondered…

   When I’ve asked, the answer has always been — both — not the answer I was looking for.   Now I’ve found an analogy that helps that answer make more sense to me.  The analogy  is a 3-D picture — you remember — those blobby pictures that were around a few years ago, that if you stared at long enough, and in the right way — suddenly revealed themselves to be images with a very 3-D quality to them.  So — to the analogy part –

   -some people see the hidden images easily, some have more difficulty
   -you have to relax to see the image, not strain, or squint
   -in my experience, most people can see it if they keep at it
   -you can’t see it by looking closely
   -seeing a picture  or hearing a description of what you’re supposed to see doesn’t help very much
   -you sometimes get a glimpse before you ‘get’ the full image
   -some people aren’t very interested and give up right away
   -it’s very clear when you see it — the seeing is unambiguous
   -the seeing is a sudden shift
   -once you’ve seen the hidden picture, you can see it more easily the 2nd and 3rd time
   -you can see them more easily with practice
   -there are lots of pictures to see with the shifted vision

Curious?   Try it out at this website — it’s fun!

http://www.magiceye.com

Earth Day, April 22, 2008: A Dedication

May you too take refuge in the Earth and give back to it all that it has given you and more. We owe it homage. We owe it reparations.  We owe it humble gratitude. With hands held together in Gasho, I bow to Earth. And from the depths of my being, I shout Oh!, the ancient Miwok expression of approval.

– Stephen Altschuler, from his Mindful Hiker newsletter, April 23, 2008.

A Stroke of Insight

I found this speech by neurologist Jill Bolte Taylor moving — it’s about 20 minutes.  It’s an account of her stroke after which she lost left brain function for a while — sounds dry — but it’s gripping, and speaks so directly to me about why I meditate. And why it matters, and how it relates to peace in the world.
 
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

The “Other” Brahma-Viharas

The topic came up in the meditation group the other night, and it was requested that I try to dig up the phrases for the “other” Brahma-Viharas: compassion (karuna), sympathetic joy (mudita), and equanimity (upekkha).

It did take some poking around via Google, but I finally did find the phrases more or less as I remember Abhaya once introducing them to us:

Tibet and China: A Clash of National Egos

So much has been written recently over the turmoil surrounding the Olympic torch relay, China’s human rights record (or lack thereof), and the ongoing situation in Tibet. It’s not at all surprising to me to see how quickly long-simmering tensions have boiled over into open conflict, especially between Tibetans (both inside and outside their homeland) and the Chinese.

The frustration of the Tibetans is certainly understandable; their homeland has been occupied by the China for half a century, and their culture is truly on the brink of annihilation at the hands of hundreds of thousands of Han Chinese immigrants seeking better lives on the western frontier. Indeed, one may compare the Chinese expansion into Tibet and Xinjiang to the United States’ own westward expansion during the 19th century. In each case an indigenous population has seen its traditional way of life decimated by an unstoppable outside force in the name of progress and civilization.

However Tibetans by-and-large have not reaped the benefits promised by the Chinese, and their fear and frustration is understandable — even if I, as I sit here in a comfortablly climate-controlled office in Boston, can never truly understand the full extent of their suffering.

Our day-long retreat at in Newburyport

Carrie and I spent a fine spring day on retreat at the Insight Meditation Center of Newburyport yesterday. Technically in West Newbury, IMCN is located in some beautiful countryside, although it’s only about an hour’s drive from Lowell. 

In fact, we almost had a private retreat, as we were joined for each of the morning and afternoon sessions by only one other yogi. IMCN is situated in an old, rambling farmhouse, so it felt a bit like being on retreat in someone’s home (which it is, in part) — comfortable, but without all the distractions of actually being at home.

The guiding teacher, Matthew Daniell, has an extensive background in meditation, in both the Japanese Zen and Thai traditions. A student of Larry Rosenberg at CIMC, Matthew is currently furthering his teacher training under the mentorship of Jack Kornfield.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu at CIMC

I went to see Thanissaro Bhikkhu at CIMC in Cambridge last Wednesday with some trepidation.  As Tim said, he is a scholar monk, and I’ve found some of his writing a little dense — but he’s visiting from the west coast.  It seemed like an opportunity, so I went.

  I was pleasantly surprised. Ajahn Geoff (as he was introduced) was warm and sweet, and funny!  He had a wonderful deep and soothing voice and presence.  And spoke very simply on the subject of ‘Becoming’ — ‘Maha’ in Pali. So even though he is grounded in a deep study of Pali (and Thai for translating the teachings of Ajahn Chah and his teacher Ajahn Lee Dhammadaro and others), when he was speaking to us, he was speaking of quite ordinary struggles of practice.  He had the same kind of quiet luminosity in his face that I saw in Larry Rosenberg.   He talked about clinging being part of the path.  That it’s not bad to cling to good habits, and to blissful experiences you may have along the path — because it motivates us to stay on the path.  In the end, he said, even that clinging just naturally lets go, but it is a not a bad part of the path. 

  Just a side note. ‘Maha’ is sometimes translated as Existence. As I’m writing this, I’m wondering if that’s related to the name of the Cambodian monk Maha Ghosananda, who died last year in Massachusetts.

  So there you go — things are often not what you expect.  I was expecting an ‘eat-your-peas’ kind of dharma talk  — I’m not sure why — I don’t think I’ve ever heard a dharma talk I would call an eat-your-peas kind of dharma talk!   But instead I heard a great talk by a great teacher.  I’ll never read his writing or translations the same way again….

Quote of Note: On Serving the “I” and the “We”

We need to serve both the I and the WE. We serve the I when we place ourselves in situations that force us to grow. We serve the WE when we view life from other people’s perspectives, step into other people’s shoes, and learn to be more compassionate human beings. By flexing these muscles, we get closer to becoming the shining diamond we have been placed on this earth to become.

— Andrea Adler, The Science of Spiritual Marketing: Initiation into Magnetism (as seen on Spirituality and Health website)

Quote of Note: Dr. Carl Jung

The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.
– Carl Jung 
[Source: UUA Advocacy News, Feb. 12, 2008]