Gaining Perspective
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 at 12:13PM
When you’re caught in your habitual patterns,
says Joan Sutherland, try not to fixate on your reactions. Instead
cultivate awareness of everything that is happening in the moment.
Sometimes it can seem as though being human is a problem that spiritual practice is meant to solve. But Buddhist meditative and related practices actually have a different focus: developing our human faculties to see more clearly the true nature of things, so that we can participate in and respond to how things are in a more generous and helpful way. Our individual awakenings become part of the world’s awakening. This means leaning into life, and to do that we have to recognize what gets in the way. For each of us, this is likely to include certain habitual patterns of thinking and feeling in reaction to what we encounter.
Meditation and inquiry are methods, ways to have direct experiences of the deepest insights of our tradition—of the interpermeation of all things and the way things, including our habitual reactions, rise into existence for awhile and then fall away again. Everything is provisional, and everything influences everything else.
Sometimes it can seem as though being human is a problem that spiritual practice is meant to solve. But Buddhist meditative and related practices actually have a different focus: developing our human faculties to see more clearly the true nature of things, so that we can participate in and respond to how things are in a more generous and helpful way. Our individual awakenings become part of the world’s awakening. This means leaning into life, and to do that we have to recognize what gets in the way. For each of us, this is likely to include certain habitual patterns of thinking and feeling in reaction to what we encounter.
Meditation and inquiry are methods, ways to have direct experiences of the deepest insights of our tradition—of the interpermeation of all things and the way things, including our habitual reactions, rise into existence for awhile and then fall away again. Everything is provisional, and everything influences everything else.
Getting to Know Your Inner Critic
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 at 12:09PM
Jan Chozen Bays explains how to recognize and tame the critical commentary we replay in our minds.
Once when the Buddha was injured by an enemy,
he spent hours meditating on the physical sensations of pain, without
giving in to mental or emotional distress. Finally he lay down to rest.
Mara the Evil One appeared and berated him. “Why are you lying down? Are
you in a daze or drunk? Don’t you have any goals to accomplish?” The
Buddha recognized Mara and said, “I’m not drunk or in a daze. I’ve
reached the goal and am free of sorrow. I lie down full of compassion
for living beings.” Then Mara, sad and disappointed, disappeared.
On Your Mark, Get Set… Don’t Go
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 at 12:07PM
Chönyi Taylor presents a meditation to familiarize yourself with the triggers that set off addictive behaviors.
The triggers for our addictions are those
things or thoughts that set off an automatic reaction in such a way that
we find ourselves in our addictive pattern without knowing how we got
there.
Reconnecting With Ourselves
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 at 11:59AM
In order to heal our painful
habits, says Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, we need to turn our attention
inward and reconnect with our experience through stillness, silence, and
spaciousness.
Through the negative, habitual patterns of
distraction and restlessness, we frequently disconnect from ourselves.
As a result, we are often depleted, for we do not fully receive what
life offers, what nature offers, or what other people offer, and we
don’t recognize opportunities to benefit others.
Let’s Be Realistic
Monday, May 16, 2011 at 1:06PM
Chan Master Sheng Yen reminds us not to be discouraged that we haven’t attained enlightenment. After all, we’re only human.
After practicing buddhadharma for a while and
listening to lectures about liberation and freedom, some people feel
very frustrated if they have not gained realization. They forget that it
takes a very long time to evolve from being an ordinary person to being
a buddha.
in 
Summer 2011
Summer 2011 Inside the Shamatha Project
Monday, May 16, 2011 at 1:04PM
Adeline Van Waning, a psychiatrist and
Buddhist practitioner, takes us inside a groundbreaking study that
explores the effects of meditation on the brain and one’s overall
well-being.
When I first heard of the Shamatha Project, I
felt like some of my deep longings were coming together. For quite some
time I had wanted to participate in a meditation retreat that lasted
several months. Combining this with cognitive and affective neuroscience
and psychological research offered an extra dimension for me as a
psychiatrist, and an opportunity to participate in contemplative history
in the making. The ad said, “Meditate to advance science—be part of
this groundbreaking neuroscience research project exploring the
relationship between meditation and well-being.”
in Summer 2011
Summer 2011 Beyond All Attachment
Monday, May 16, 2011 at 12:47PM
It’s not enough just to
renounce attachment to this life, says the Sakya Trizin. To be truly
liberated we must transcend the idea of a solid reality altogether.
If you have attachment to this life, you are not a religious person.
If you have attachment to the world of existence, you do not have renunciation.
If you have attachment to your own purpose, you do not have enlightenment mind.
If grasping arises, you do not have the view.
—Root verses of Parting from the Four AttachmentsIf you have attachment to the world of existence, you do not have renunciation.
If you have attachment to your own purpose, you do not have enlightenment mind.
If grasping arises, you do not have the view.
Sachen Kunga Nyingpo (1092–1158)
This teaching is from the category known as mind training (lojong).
It was given directly by the great bodhisattva Manjushri to the great
Lama Sakyapa, Sachen Kunga Nyingpo, who was the first of the five great
founders of the Sakya order.
Welcoming the Homeless
Monday, May 16, 2011 at 12:46PM
Kiley Jon Clark had drunk himself out of a
job, a marriage, and the trust of his children when he happened upon a
Buddhist book that changed his life. Now he’s bringing the dharma to
others who have fallen on hard times.
The chapel was empty except for me and the
Buddha. It was Saturday night, and the Homeless Meditation Practitioners
group had already finished meeting, but Tami had seen our makeshift
shrine from outside and wanted to take a closer look.
Make Me One With Everything
Monday, May 16, 2011 at 12:21PM
The Role of Humor in Buddhism
Bernie Glassman, Carolyn Rose Gimian, and
Norman Fischer look at how humor not only lightens our load but deepens
our practice. Introduction by Elaine Smookler.
Introduction by Elaine Smookler
Recently I went to a funeral home with my
parents because they wanted to plan their funerals. I was not picturing a
day of hilarity, but after we got there we couldn’t stop laughing. And
it wasn’t merely from nervousness; it was partly because we felt like we
were producing a show. We were offered a choice between a video or
slide “retrospective” of my parents’ life; we sized up coffins with an
eye to what the “audience” might think; we even planned the catering,
noting that the mall across the street offered an excellent price on
cold cuts. Finally, when my father said, in all seriousness, that he’d
like “Dancing Queen” by Abba played at his funeral, even the funeral
director laughed. It was such a wonderfully uplifting, unselfconscious
moment.
The Roshi and the Poet
Monday, May 16, 2011 at 12:02PM
Logan Beaudry muses about love,
illusions, and Leonard Cohen during a sesshin with Sasaki Roshi—and
ponders why Oliver Stone was there too.
Joshu Sasaki Roshi, with his short, stout, body sitting high on a throne-like chair, is giving a Zen teisho.
Haruyo, his wife, acts as translator. They argue over her choice of
words, like husband and wife argue, periodically forgetting their
audience, and I find this amusing. The teisho, or teaching, has taken on a new dimension. Zen master one moment, quarreling husband the next.