Later sessions are farther down the list.  Enjoy!

Conscious Living Conscious Dying see:

http://web.me.com/levey1/Meditation/Meditation_for_Death_%26_Dying.html

http://web.me.com/levey1/Meditation/Sublime_Continuum.html

 

Prayer, Awareness, and Choosing Enlightenment
An Interview with ANAM THUBTEN from No Self, No Problem

http://www.snowlionpub.com/pages/N91.html

Jeff Cox: Sometimes when I’m troubled, I’m moved to pray. But as a Buddhist I don’t think of it as ask- ing God for something. What is your view on the purpose of prayer?

Anam Thubten: There are many ways to understand prayer. It means something different from person to person—and even for the same person, it might be different at different times.

To me, prayer is an act of devotion, and a non-conceptual, powerful method of dropping the ego mind of control, fear, doubt, and anger—right in the moment— and realizing the Buddhamind or bodhicitta. It is an act of surrendering everything to that great work of the universe—beyond anyone’s control—and trusting in the grand play of the universe. When you trust in it, you feel re- leased from the fear and insecurity and accept—not acceptance like we are trying painfully to accept something we don’t ap- preciate, but true acceptance with trust. The object of prayer is not so important in Buddhism, even though there are lots of deities and benevolent spirits. Buddhism teaches that deities such as Avalokiteshvara or Tara are not outside of oneself—they are an expression of one’s true nature, the emptiness, the source of all things, the absolute truth.

JC: So praying to Chenrezig is a way of calling on your own inner strength to help make circumstances go in a better way?

AT: Absolutely. In the Tibetan tradition, we have these three buddhas (or bodhisattvas), Manjushri, Avalokitesvara, and Vajrapani. Manjushri symbolizes intelligence and wisdom, Avalokiteshvara symbolizes love and compassion, and Vajrapani symbolizes strength, courage and power. They are all expressions of what we truly are; each of these principles is an inherent property of our basic nature. So when we pray to them, it is an act of invoking those inherent enlightened qualities present in all of us. In the ultimate sense, there is no ob- ject that is being prayed to—there is no separation between the object being prayed to and the per- son praying.

JC: In your book No Self, No Problem you discuss how acceptance is a key to waking up to your true nature. Does this mean that one should go along with whatever is happening?

AT: Part of Mahayana teaching is about bringing all things onto the path to enlightenment. This means that whatever happens, you accept it as a way to develop the enlightened qualities inside you—courage, love, forgiveness, compassion. From another perspective, the concept of acceptance is tricky because it has a connotation that you have to deliberately try to convince your- self to accept everything. The big question is who is it that is trying to accept and reject in the first place—the ego is present as the one trying to accept. The ego is running this whole game.

JC: So the acceptance you are speaking of is not the opposite of rejection?

AT: No, it is not the opposite. The enlightened mind (Rigpa or Buddhamind) goes beyond both accepting and rejecting—there is nothing to accept or reject— because Buddhamind is in perfect relation with the nature of all things. In this realm there is no conflict. So the idea of accepting and rejecting is really transcended. It doesn’t exist there; it only exists in the ego’s mind. In the Dzogchen tradition, the notion of accepting is regarded as a subtle effort of ego that has to be dropped in order realize the great peace or nature of all things.

Each moment is a tipping point—each moment we decide whether or not to be enlightened and free!

JC: In your book, you use the term “non-doing awareness.” Can a per- son maintain non-doing awareness even while action is going on?

AT: Absolutely. Non-doing awareness is not about whether you are doing something or not. The art of maintaining non-doing awareness is a rich practice.

JC: Is the opposite of non-doing awareness the thinking of oneself as the doer?

AT:The non-doing awareness can have different meanings. On one level we can speak of awareness as not doing anything. Awareness transcends all notions of ef- fort. It doesn’t try to reject or ac- quire. It is already enlightened, so there is nothing to purify, nothing to abandon, nothing to achieve. It itself is non-doing, it doesn’t involve any effort or strategies in itself.

JC: It is aware of the content of experience.

AT: Absolutely. When one re- sides in that, it is totally different from any ordinary state of mind. It is different from trance states or samadhi which many people regard as spiritual. When one experiences pure awareness, there is no doing because there is nothing to be done. There is no act of trying to purify. There is nothing to acquire. It is in perfect harmony and relation with ultimate truth. The ordinary mind is very engaged in some kind of effort to dismantle the empire of the ego delusion and in trying to acquire something. It is very involved with doing.

JC: Awareness is present in all states but we don’t notice it.

AT: Exactly. It is insight, knowing the nature of all things, the pro- found absolute truth of all things. In Tibetan, awareness is called Rigpa or Yeshe. “Ye” means primordial—it is already in each of us—that innate wisdom is not some conception or knowledge that we can acquire from reading, thinking or lectures. It is inherent in each of us. “She” means knowing the inconceivable, transcendent, and yet simple truth of all things. We can call it emptiness, dharmata. The rational mind can- not comprehend it. Awareness in this sense is insight (prajna). It is not that we are just enjoying some kind of stillness or some beautiful state of mind. Whenever we can reside in this—this is the highest form of practice—in that moment our mind is no longer different than the mind of Bud- dha Shakyamuni.

JC: Does this awareness have the three qualities of the three buddhas you spoke of earlier?

AT: Absolutely. This awareness doesn’t happen with a big pro- cession. It happens in a quiet and subtle manner. It is unfathomable like the ocean whose depth we cannot see. Awareness is the Buddhamind, a reservoir of enlightened radiance of wisdom, joy, compassion, love—they just hap- pen on their own. Like the brilliant sun in the sky, it is the source of all the enlightened qualities that radiate from it. They are innate and are an expression of that awareness.

JC: So for someone with this awareness the qualities of intelligence, love, compassion naturally radiate into their environment and spontaneously change things.

AT: Yes. There are stories of the Buddha traveling into towns and cities; he brought his amazing benevolent presence. When someone is fully immersed in this awareness, what he or she naturally does is express that enlightened nature. There was a lama named Mani Lama from Golok. When he was a young boy, he had a sudden awakening. He left his ordinary life, and traveled around eastern Tibet. Because he was not educated in a monastery, he didn’t know how to teach in a traditional way, but people felt a tremendous peace around him. So wherever he went, people would gather around him. Be- cause he didn’t know what to teach, his teachings were short. People would come and sit with him. Sometimes he gave spontaneous talks or would sing with them. Often he would sing the Mani or six-syllable mantra, and so people called him the Mani Lama. This is a great example of how, when someone lives in awareness, then his or her being becomes a radiance of compassion and love.

JC: Since awareness is present in each of us, what does it mean to practice being aware?

AT: Awareness is the nature of our mind and is not deceived by the world of illusion or display. When mind is deceived, we are deluded, ignorant of our true nature; this is the foundation of samsara, of conflict and suffer- ing. The other side is the awareness or enlightened mind which sounds very grand but is very simple. Each moment is a tipping point—each moment we decide whether or not to be enlightened and free! There is a verse in one of the spiritual songs: “There is only one ground (the dharmadhatu or source or underlying truth of all things), only two paths and only two fruitions.” This is one of my favorite verses, because it says there are not three paths, only two paths, the path of awareness and the path of unawareness. Ev- ery moment we either choose to be on the path of awareness or on the path of non-awareness. So in each moment we are enlightened or not. When we really contemplate this verse, it shocks our minds. It is easy for many practitioners to think that even though they are not actually residing in awareness that somehow so long as they are doing the various practices they are making some kind of progress according to some in- visible scale or record—because they are doing all the right practices they are going in the right direction. When you contemplate this teaching, it shocks your mind because you realize you are making the enlightenment choice in every moment.

Basically two things are happening, everything else is irrelevant— either you are enlightened in this moment or not. It is possible that I could be sitting on a beautiful meditation seat and doing all sorts of spiritual practices but I am completely unawakened. On the other hand, I might be cleaning my toilet and wearing blue jeans, but I could be residing in the awareness—this is what matters.

In the end, there is only one practice, that of maintaining awareness. And because it is uncontrived, it is not the effect of a cause—you cannot produce awareness. Whatever you can produce is “nyam,” an altered state of consciousness—it can be enticing, seductive, whatever. People can get lost in nyams and think this is rigpa, bodhicitta, or samadhi. But mind is deceiving itself. Awareness cannot be produced. Buddha was asked “What causes mindfulness?” and he said, “Mindfulness itself.” This answer is perfect—and can be non-satisfying.

There is a lama from Kham who said that the only way that you can have genuine realization is by holding 108 sessions a day. What he means is not that we must have literally 108 sessions a day but rather that we should re- member periodically throughout the day to pause. Pause and stop talking, wherever you are, as a way to get back to awareness.

JC: Getting lost in thought seems to me to be a big obstacle to being aware.

AT: Buddha spoke of attention as one of the most powerful methods to become free. Instead of going along with the mind and believing its stories—living the dream-like life—Buddha was suggesting to pause, to stop and look deeply into the nature of all things. Instead of wandering and dreaming, pause and look carefully and pay attention to everything carefully. When we do that, sometimes the perfect understanding or prajna reveals itself to us—we have the direct insight into all things, simply by paying attention to the depth of all things. We stop and pause as a way of questioning what the truth is, what freedom is.

This is an effective method for waking up. Right now in this moment. When we practice the traditional Buddhist methods we talk about mindfulness, we talk about paying attention to the breath and one’s activities. The true meaning of paying attention is more than about paying attention to the body or breath—it is a way of stopping the work of the deluded mind, stopping the wheel of suffering that the ego is spinning. Look into the depth with a sharp, keen observation so that we can see the truth right there. You will stop spinning the wheel of delusion and see that the truth of all things or emptiness is not so far from us—it is everywhere.

JC: It is empowering, and humbling, to think that each moment we make a choice to be awake or not.

AT: In that sense it is very simple but it requires a lot of dedication and discipline to break down all the habits that distract us from awareness. It takes lots of meditation practice.

JC: Thank you Rinpoche for this teaching—I really appreciate your time for this. ■

No Self, No Problem, by Anam Thubten, edited by Sharon Roe. Paper, 144 pp.

 

The Excellence of Bodhichitta
By Pema Chodron, excerpted from her book, The Places That Scare You.

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

When I was about six years old I received the essential bodhichitta teaching from an old woman sitting in the sun. I was walking by her house one day feeling lonely, unloved, and mad, kicking anything I could find. Laughing, she said to me, “Little girl, don’t you go letting life harden your heart.”

Right there, I received this pith instruction: we can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.

If we were to ask the Buddha, “What is bodhichitta?” he might tell us that this word is easier to understand than to translate. He might encourage us to seek out ways to find its meaning in our own lives. He might tantalize us by adding that it is only bodhichitta that heals, that bodhichitta is capable of transforming the hardest of hearts and the most prejudiced and fearful of minds.

Chitta means “mind” and also “heart” or “attitude.” Bodhi means “awake,” “enlightened,” or “completely open.” Sometimes the completely open heart and mind of bodhichitta is called the soft spot, a place as vulnerable and tender as an open wound. It is equated, in part, with our ability to love. Even the cruelest people have this soft spot. Even the most vicious animals love their off-spring. As Trungpa Rinpoche put it, “Everybody loves something, even if it’s only tortillas.”

Bodhichitta is also equated, in part, with compassion—our ability to feel the pain that we share with others. Without realizing it we continually shield ourselves from this pain because it scares us. We put up protective walls made of opinions, prejudices, and strategies, barriers that are built on a deep fear of being hurt. These walls are further fortified by emotions of all kinds: anger, craving, indifference, jealousy and envy, arrogance and pride. But fortunately for us, the soft spot—our innate ability to love and to care about things—is like a crack in these walls we erect. It’s a natural opening in the barriers we create when we’re afraid. With practice we can learn to find this opening. We can learn to seize that vulnerable moment—love, gratitude, loneliness, embarrassment, inadequacy—to awaken bodhichitta.

An analogy for bodhichitta is the rawness of a broken heart. Sometimes this broken heart gives birth to anxiety and panic, sometimes to anger, resentment, and blame. But under the hardness of that armor there is the tenderness of genuine sadness. This is our link with all those who have ever loved. This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we’re arrogant and soften us when we are unkind. It awakens us when we prefer to sleep and pierces through our indifference. This continual ache of the heart is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all.

The Buddha said that we are never separated from enlightenment. Even at the times we feel most stuck, we are never alienated from the awakened state. This is a revolutionary assertion. Even ordinary people like us with hang-ups and confusion have this mind of enlightenment called bodhichitta. The openness and warmth of bodhichitta is in fact our true nature and condition. Even when our neurosis feels far more basic than our wisdom, even when we’re feeling most confused and hopeless, bodhichitta—like the open sky—is always here, undiminished by the clouds that temporarily cover it.

Given that we are so familiar with the clouds, of course, we may find the Buddha’s teaching hard to believe. Yet the truth is that in the midst of our suffering, in the hardest of times, we can contact this noble heart of bodhichitta. It is always available, in pain as well as in joy.

A young woman wrote to me about finding herself in a small town in the Middle East surrounded by people jeering, yelling, and threatening to throw stones at her and her friends because they were Americans. Of course, she was terrified, and what happened to her is interesting. Suddenly she identified with every person throughout history who had ever been scorned and hated. She understood what it was like to be despised for any reason: ethnic group, racial background, sexual preference, gender. Something cracked wide open and she stood in the shoes of millions of oppressed people and saw with a new perspective. She even understood her shared humanity with those who hated her. This sense of deep connection, of belonging to the same family, is bodhichitta.

Bodhichitta exists on two levels. First there is unconditional bodhichitta, an immediate experience that is refreshingly free of concept, opinion, and our usual all-caught-upness. It’s something hugely good that we are not able to pin down even slightly, like knowing at gut level that there’s absolutely nothing to lose. Second there is relative bodhichitta, our ability to keep our hearts and minds open to suffering without shutting down.

Those who train wholeheartedly in awakening unconditional and relative bodhichitta are called bodhisattvas or warriors—not warriors who kill and harm but warriors of nonaggression who hear the cries of the world. These are men and women who are will- ing to train in the middle of the fire. Training in the middle of the fire can mean that warrior-bodhisattvas enter challenging situations in order to alleviate suffering. It also refers to their willingness to cut through personal reactivity and self-deception, to their dedication to uncovering the basic undistorted energy of bodhichitta. We have many examples of master warriors—people like Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King—who recognized that the greatest harm comes from our own aggressive minds. They devoted their lives to helping others understand this truth. There are also many ordinary people who spend their lives training in opening their hearts and minds in order to help others do the same. Like them, we could learn to relate to ourselves and our world as warriors. We could train in awakening our courage and love.

There are both formal and informal methods for helping us to cultivate this bravery and kindness. There are practices for nurturing our capacity to rejoice, to let go, to love, and to shed a tear. There are those that teach us to stay open to uncertainty. There are others that help us to stay present at the times that we habitually shut down.

Wherever we are, we can train as a warrior. The practices of meditation, loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity are our tools. With the help of these practices, we can uncover the soft spot of bodhichitta. We will find that tenderness in sorrow and in gratitude. We will find it behind the hardness of rage and in the shakiness of fear. It is available in loneliness as well as in kindness.

Many of us prefer practices that will not cause discomfort, yet at the same time we want to be healed. But bodhichitta training doesn’t work that way. A warrior accepts that we can never know what will happen to us next. We can try to control the uncontrollable by looking for security and predictability, always hoping to be comfortable and safe. But the truth is that we can never avoid uncertainty. This not knowing is part of the adventure, and it’s also what makes us afraid.

Bodhichitta training offers no promise of happy endings. Rather, this “I” who wants to find security—who wants something to hold on to—can finally learn to grow up. The central question of a warrior’s training is not how we avoid uncertainty and fear but how we relate to discomfort. How do we practice with difficulty, with our emotions, with the unpredictable encounters of an ordinary day?

All too frequently we relate like timid birds who don’t dare to leave the nest. Here we sit in a nest that’s getting pretty smelly and that hasn’t served its function for a very long time. No one is arriving to feed us. No one is protecting us and keeping us warm. And yet we keep hoping mother bird will arrive.

We could do ourselves the ultimate favor and finally get out of that nest. That this takes courage is obvious. That we could use some helpful hints is also clear. We may doubt that we’re up to being a warrior-in-training. But we can ask ourselves this question: “Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?”

All beings have the capacity to feel tenderness—to experience heartbreak, pain, and uncertainty. Therefore the enlightened heart of bodhichitta is available to us all. The insight meditation teacher Jack Kornfield tells of witnessing this in Cambodia during the time of the Khmer Rouge. Fifty thousand people had become communists at gunpoint, threatened with death if they continued their Buddhist practices. In spite of the danger, a temple was established in the refugee camp, and twenty thousand people attended the opening ceremony. There were no lectures or prayers but simply continuous chanting of one of the central teachings of the Buddha:

Hatred never ceases by hatred    But by love alone is healed.   This is an ancient and eternal law.

Thousands of people chanted and wept, knowing that the truth in these words was even greater than their suffering.

Bodhichitta has this kind of power. It will inspire and support us in good times and bad. It is like discovering a wisdom and courage we do not even know we have. Just as alchemy changes any metal into gold, bodhichitta can, if we let it, transform any activity, word, or thought into a vehicle for awakening our compassion.

From The Places That Scare You, by Pema Chodron, ©2001 by Pema Chödrön. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications Inc., Boston, MA.

“Full Acceptance of the Awakening Mind”: A Bodhicitta Prayer by Shantideva

May I be the doctor and the medicine

And may I be the nurse

For all sick beings in the world

Until everyone is healed.

May a rain of food and drink descend

To clear away the pain of thirst and hunger

And during the aeon of famine

May I myself change into food and drink.

May I become an inexhaustible treasure

For those who are poor and destitute;

May I turn into all things they could need,

And may these be placed close beside them.

Without any sense of loss

I shall give up my body and enjoyments

As well as my virtues of the three times

For the sake of benefiting all.

By giving up all, sorrow is transcended

And my mind will realize the sorrowless state.

It is best that I now give everything to all beings

In the same way as I shall at death . . .

When anyone encounters me

May it never be meaningless for him or her.

If in those who encounter us

A faithful or angry thought arises,

May that eternally become the source

for fulfilling all their wishes.

May all who say bad things to me

Or cause me any other harm,

And those who mock & insult me

Have the fortune to fully awaken.

May I be a protector for those without one,

A guide for all travelers on the way;

May I be a bridge, a boat & a ship

For all those who wish to cross.

May I be an island for those who seek one,

A lamp for those desiring light.

And may I be a bed for all who wish to rest.

May I be a wishing jewel, a magic vase,

Powerful mantras & great medicine,

May I become a wish-fulfilling tree

And a cow of plenty for the world.

Just like space

And all the great elements such as earth,

May I always support the life

Of all the boundless creatures.

And until they pass away from pain

May I also be the source of life

For all the realms of varied beings

That reach unto the ends of space.

Just as the previous Sugatas

Gave birth to an Awakening Mind,

And just as they successively dwelt

in the bodhisattva practices;

Likewise for the sake of all that lives

Do I give birth to an Awakening Mind

And likewise shall I too

Successively follow the practices.

In order to further increase it from now on,

Those with discernment who have lucidly seized

An Awakening Mind in this way,

Should highly praise it in the following manner:

Today my life has borne fruit:

Having well obtained this human existence,

I’ve been born in the family of Buddha

And now am one of Buddha’s children.

Thus whatever actions I do from now on

Must be in accord with the Family.

Never shall I disgrace or pollute

This noble & unsullied race.

Just like a blind person

Discovering a jewel in a heap of rubbish,

Likewise by some coincidence

An Awakening Mind has been born within me.

It is the supreme ambrosia

That overcomes the sovereignty of death,

It is the inexhaustible treasure

That eliminates all poverty in the world.

It is the supreme medicine

That quells the world’s disease.

It is the tree that shelters all beings

Wandering & tired on the path of conditioned existence.

It is the universal bridge

That leads to freedom from unhappy states of birth

It is the dawning moon of the mind

That dispels the torment of disturbing conceptions.

It is the great sun that finally removes

The misty ignorance of the world.

It is the quintessential butter

From the churning of the milk of Dharma.

For all those guests traveling on the path

of conditioned existence

who wish to experience the bounties of happiness,

this will satisfy them with joy

and actually place them in Supreme bliss.

Today in the presence of all the Protectors

We invite the world to be guests

At a festival of temporary and ultimate delight.

May gods, anti-gods & all be joyful.

The Four Foundations of Mindfulness
from the Satipatthana Sutta: D.22

I – Mindfulness of the Body

1 – Mindfulness of Breathing

There are many variations of this exercise. A very basic one is to focus on the sensation of the breath at the nose-tip and to be keenly aware of the entire breath; both in-breath and out-breath are to be watched from beginning through the middle to the very end. A simple two-syllable mantra like “bud-dho” may be used as an aid.

2 – Postures of the Body

The four basic postures are walking, standing, sitting and lying. The exercise here is simply to be aware at all times of the disposition of the body.

3 – Clear Comprehension (sampajañña)

¥Clear Comprehension of Purpose- Why are you undertaking this action ?

¥Clear Comprehension of Suitability- Is this action suitable under the circumstances? (skill-in-means)

¥Clear Comprehension of the Domain (of Meditation)- Can this action be incorporated into the practice? Take the meditation into the life.

¥Clear Comprehension of Reality- See the three characteristics in all activities. (i.e. impermanence, suffering and not-self)

4 – Reflection on the Reality of this Body

To see the body as a collection of parts; solid and liquid. The traditional list of thirty-two parts;

hair of the head, hair of the body, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, membranes, spleen, lungs, bowels, intestines, gorge, dung, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, grease, snot, spittle, oil-of-the-joints, urine (and brain is added from the commentary)

5 – Reflection on the Material Elements

To see the body as a physical process. The traditional physics is based on the four elements; earth (extension), water (cohesion), air (motility) and fire (energy). Alternatively, modern concepts may be used.

6 – the Cemetery Contemplations

These are used to become keenly aware of the impermanence of the body and to break the illusion of immortality. The list given by the Buddha can be taken as a visualization exercise which goes through repulsiveness to tranquillity.

¥the festering body (a few days old)

¥the corpse being devoured by birds, beasts and worms

¥a skeleton held together by tendons, with some flesh and blood remaining

¥a skeleton held together by tendons, fleshless, smeared with blood

¥a skeleton held together by tendons, fleshless and bloodless

¥loose bones scattered about

¥bones bleached white by the sun

¥bones a year old lying piled in a heap

¥rotted bones crumbling to dust.

 

II – Contemplation of the Feelings

The Feelings (Vedana) are not to be confused with the more complex mental functions called “emotions” . Feelings in the technical sense used here are much more basic. They can be classified in several ways;

¥pleasant, neutral, unpleasant

¥bodily, mental

¥worldly, unwordly

As examples of the last; a worldly pleasant feeling is sense pleasure of any kind (food, sex etc.) an unworldly pleasant feeling is rapture arising from jhana. A worldly unpleasant feeling is grief at loss of possessions, an unworldly unpleasant feeling is distress at slow progress in meditation.

An important note: unseen pleasant feelings lead to craving, unseen unpleasant feelings lead to ill-will (negative craving) and unseen neutral feelings lead to ignorance. The feelings -> cravings link is the key point in the cycle of dependent origination where the process can be transcended and liberation achieved.

III – Contemplation of the Mind (State of Consciousness)

What is the state of mind? Is it with lust or without? With hatred or without? With delusion or without? Is it shrunken? Is it distracted? Is it developed or undeveloped? Is it surpassable or unsurpassable? Is it Is it concentrated or scattered? Is it freed or bound?

This refers to the “background” of mind, the basic level or tone of conscious awareness that is present.

IV – Contemplation of Mind Objects (Dhammas)

1 – the Five Hindrances; mental states that lead one astray

sense-desire, anger, sloth-and-torpor, worry and flurry, skeptical doubt.

These to be countered as follows;

¥sense-desire -> body meditation (e.g.. 32 parts and/or corpse med.)

¥anger -> loving-kindness

¥sloth-and-torpor -> change of posture, perception of light

¥worry -> mindfulness of breathing

¥doubt -> study, asking questions, puja

 

2 – the Five Aggregates of Clinging

An analysis of all phenomena into five constituents to dispel the idea of a self-entity. The five:

¥form

¥feeling

¥perception

¥mental-formations

¥consciousness

 

3 – the Six External and Six Internal Sense- Bases

All consciousness arises through one or the other of these doors;

¥eye and form

¥ear and sound

¥nose and odour

¥tongue and flavour

¥body and touch

¥mind and idea.

 

4 – the Seven factors of Enlightenment

¥Investigation of Dhammas

¥Energy

¥Rapture (Joy)

¥Mindfulness

¥Tranquility

¥Concentration

¥Equanimity.

The first three are to be developed when the mind is dull; the last three when the mind is agitated. Mindfulness is to be developed in all circumstances.

5 – the Four Noble Truths

¥The Noble Truth of Suffering; birth, sickness, old age, death, not getting what you want, in brief, the Five Aggregates of Clinging

¥The Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering; craving

¥The Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering; extinction of craving, nibbana

¥The Noble Truth of the Path Leading to the Cessation of Suffering; the eightfold path; right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.

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Readings and Quotes related to our session on The Nature of Mind

Daniel Siegel, M.D. from UCLA  was head of a task force of 40 scientists for 5 years – as moderator – from different discipline – what is the relationship between the mind and brainStruggle to come to a shared working definition of the mind that everyone on the task force could agree upon.  This is what they came up with:

The mind is the embodied and relational process that regulates the flow of energy and information.

“…our freedom is never in question.  We’re born free.  The true nature of our mind is enlightened wisdom and compassion.  Our mind is always brilliant awake and aware.  Nevertheless, we’re often plagued by painful thoughts and the emotional unrest that goes with them.  We live in states of confusion and fear from which we see no escape.  Our problem is that we don’t see who we truly are at the deepest level.  We trust the reality we see before our eyes and accept its validity until something comes along-an illness, accident, or disappointment-to disillusion us.  Then we might be ready to question our beliefs and start searching for a more meaningful and lasting road to freedom.     On this road, what we free ourselves from is illusion, and what frees us from illusion is the discovery of truth.  To make that discovery, we need to enlist the powerful intelligence of our own awake mind and turn it toward our goal of exposing, opposing, and overcoming deception.  That is the essence and mission of ‘rebel Buddha;: to free us from the illusions we create by ourselves, about ourselves, and from those that masquerade as reality in our cultural and religious institutions.” — Punlop Rinpoche in his wonderful new book – Rebel Buddha

“At present, people create barriers between each other by their fragmentary thought. Each one operates separately. When these barriers have dissolved, then there arises one mind, where they are all one unit, but each person also retains his or her own individual awareness. That one mind will still exist even when they separate, and when they come together, it will be as if they hadn’t separated. It’s actually a single intelligence that works with people who are moving in relationship with one another. . . . If you had a number of people who really pulled together and worked together in this way, it would be remarkable. They would stand out so much that everyone would know they were different.”

~David Bohm (physicist, philosopher, & mystic)

Just imagine how you would live if you intuited the nature of mind as Bohm invite us.  Step into that mode of being today and explore the interphase of minds that weave our world together.

“What vistas might we see if we were to understand the full power of the human mind?  The human consciousness may prove the most inspiring frontier in our history, an endless wellspring of knowledge, and our means of liberation from all limitation.  .. If we can find ways to awaken the full power of awareness, we could enter a new phase of human evolution and revitalize ourselves and our world.”

— Tarthang Tulku

“The coarse of the gross aspect of the unimpeded dynamic manifestation of mind is conscious experience, which does not depart from emptiness and luminosity, but is the experience of, for example, seeing and recognizing form as form, hearing and recognizing sound as sound, and so forth. This is the ability of mind to experience the phenomenal world, to make distinctions, to make value judgments based upon that discrimination.

“We may utilize a metaphor here. The Emptiness of mind is the ocean; the luminosity of mind is the sunlit ocean; and the unimpeded dynamic quality of mind is the waves of the sunlit ocean. When we take the waves of the sunlit ocean as an event or situation, it is not as though we are trying to separate ocean from waves from sunlight; they are three aspects of a single experience. The unity of these three aspects forms the seed or potential for enlightenment. They are the pure nature of mind; the impurity of obscurations, ignorance and confusion overlays what is inherently the nature of mind itself.

“ There is second level of ignorance that we might distinguish which is termed labeling ignorance; it is a more conventional or relative ignorance. Not only do we lack direct experience of the essential emptiness of mind, for example, but we substitute the self or ego for that experience. The individual mind as something ultimately real is a distortion that has taken place, due to a lack of direct experience, and this is an example of labeling or relative ignorance. Likewise, due to a lack of direct experience of the clarity and luminosity of mind, there is a projection of something other than the mind, an object other than the subject. This is again a relative level of ignorance. Rather than being a simple lack of direct experience, there has been a distortion into some thing.”

-Kalu Rinpoche

 

In The Beginning…The First Verse of Genesis

“… In this spirit, we will end with a beginning–the first verse of Genesis. In the Hebrew language, each letter of the alphabet has a meaning in itself. Understanding this, Stan Tenen’s beautiful rendition of this verse translates the original Hebrew words one letter at a time to reveal an inner vision of wholeness. May the deep meaning of these uplifting words remind you of the ever present wellspring of balancing energies available deep within you and in the heart of all of Creation at all times.”

 

“Breaking Open, Inside Outside;

Rushing, Radiating, Reaching

All Life

Shining Source-Light

In Inner Being

Itself Recurring In Itself

Breaking Open, Inside Outside;

Rushing, Radiating, Reaching

All-Life

All-Life

Blooming, Kindling, Inside Lighting

Looking Open, In with Out

In Inner Being

Golden-Flowing, Moving Outward, In Itself

All-Life

Itself Recurring In Itself

Looking Open, In with Out

Shining Source-Light

Inside Dividing

In Inner Being

Golden-Flowing, Moving Outward, In Itself

Doing, Living, Co-Evolving

All-Life

Itself Recurring In Itself

Looking Open, In with Out

All-Life

Rushing, Radiating, Reaching

Treetop, Upright; Bearing Wholeness, Carrying Light”

 Excerpted from Joel & Michelle Levey’s book “Living in Balance” Used by permission from Stan Tenen, Geometric Metaphors of Life. Meru Foundation Sharon, MA 02067, Website:  www.meru.org

A Contemplative Science
Sam Harris

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/a-contemplative-science_b_15024.html

I recently spent a week with one hundred fellow scientists at a retreat center in rural Massachusetts. The meeting attracted a diverse group: physicists, neuroscientists, psychologists, clinicians, and a philosopher or two; all devoted to the study of the human mind. In many respects it was like any other scientific retreat: we gathered each day in a large hall; we took long walks in the snow; we ate communally. At this meeting, however, six days passed before anyone uttered a word.

Our silence was not a sign of scientific controversy or of the breakdown of social relations. We were on a silent meditation retreat at the Insight Meditation Society, engaged in a Buddhist practice known as vipassana (the Pali word for ‘seeing clearly’). Techniques like vipassana have been practiced by Buddhist contemplatives for millennia, and there is now a growing body of scientific research to suggest that they can promote mental and physical wellbeing. According to the teachings of Buddhism, meditation produces profound insights into the nature of human subjectivity; insights that can have a direct a bearing upon a person’s ethical life and level of happiness. The retreat at IMS, which was co-sponsored by the Mind and Life Institute, represents the first time a large group of scientists have sought to personally test such claims.

The initial instruction given on a vipassana retreat could not be more simple: when seated, pay attention to the sensation of breathing; when walking, notice the feeling of moving your feet; and whenever you find that your mind has wandered into thought, simply come back to the mere awareness of sensation. Once meditators have developed an ability to concentrate on the flow of physical sensations in this way, they are encouraged to pay attention to the entire range of their experience. The practice from then on is to be precisely aware, moment by moment, of the full tumult of consciousness and its contents: sights, sounds, sensations, thoughts, intentions, and emotions. Of critical importance for the purposes of science: there are no unjustified beliefs or metaphysics that need be adopted at all.

Many of the scientists found the experience grueling. Some said it was the hardest week of their lives. Indeed, many had not known that they would be consigned to total silence for the first six days of the retreat, and asked not to read, or to write, or to make eye-contact with the other retreatants. One neuroscientist reported that on the second day of the retreat he hit “a wall of grief,” in the face of which even the most trivial memories — of drinking a cup of tea, of shaving his face — precipitated profound feelings of sadness, simply because they testified to the inexorable passage of time. It is, of course, natural to brood about time when one suddenly has too much of it on hand. Heaven help the meditator who gets a song like “Cats in the Cradle and the Silver Spoon” stuck in his head. He will surely die by his own hand.

Many scientists have been drawn to Buddhism out of a sense that the Western tradition has delivered an impoverished conception of basic, human sanity. In the West, if you speak to yourself out loud all day long, you are considered crazy. But speaking to yourself silently — thinking incessantly — is considered perfectly normal. On the Buddhist view, the continuous identification with discursive thought is a kind of madness — albeit a madness that is very well-subscribed. As some of the retreatants discovered, when thoughts are seen to be mere phenomena arising and passing away in consciousness (along with sights, sounds, sensations, etc.), the feeling that there is a “self” who is the thinker of these thoughts can disappear. This experience of selflessness is interesting for two reasons: it makes perfect sense from a neurological perspective, as there is no privileged position for a self to occupy in the brain. The loss of self can also be deeply liberating. Several labs have begun to study meditators who claim to have ready access to this state. Richard Davidson and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin have detected marked differences in the brains of such adepts as measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and EEG. Research on the functional effects of meditation is still in its infancy, but there seems to be little question that the practice changes the brain.

Needless to say, any truths uncovered about the human mind through meditation cannot be “Buddhist”. And if meditation ever becomes widely adopted as a tool of science, it will be quickly stripped of its Buddhist roots. There are, after all, very good reasons we don’t talk about “Christian physics” or “Muslim algebra”. Physics and algebra are genuine domains of human inquiry, and as such, they transcend the cultural conditions out of which they arose. Today, anyone emphasizing the religious roots of these intellectual disciplines would stand convicted of not understanding them at all. In the same way, if we ever develop a scientific account of the contemplative path, speaking of “Buddhist” meditation will be synonymous with a failure to assimilate the changes that will have occurred in our understanding of the human mind.

The retreat might have been a significant event in the history of ideas. It could mark the beginning of a discourse on ethics and spiritual experience that is as unconstrained by dogma and cultural prejudice as the discourses of physics, biology, and chemistry are. Other retreats for scientists are now being planned. What effect this will have on our collective understanding of the human mind remains to be seen. But we could be witnessing the birth of a contemplative science.

 

Excerpt from Rebel Buddha by Dzogchen Punlop Rinpoche

Rebel Buddha is an exploration of what it means to be free and how it is that we can become free. Although we may vote for the head of our government, marry for love, and worship the divine or mundane powers of our choice, most of us don’t really feel free in our day-to-day lives. When we talk about freedom, we’re also talking about its opposite—bondage, lack of independence, being subject to the control of something or someone outside ourselves. No one likes it, and when we find ourselves in that situation, we quickly start trying to figure out a way around it. Any restriction on our “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” arouses fierce resistance. When our happiness and freedom are at stake, we become capable of transforming ourselves into rebels.

There’s something of a rebellious streak in all of us. Usually it’s dormant, but sometimes it’s provoked into expression. If nurtured and guided with wisdom and compassion, it can be a positive force that frees us from fear and ignorance. If it manifests neurotically, however, full of resentment, anger, and self-interest, then it can turn into a destructive force that harms oneself as much as it does others. When confronted with a threat to our freedom or independence and that rebellious streak surfaces, we can choose how to react and channel that energy. It can become part of a contemplative process that leads to insight. Sometimes that insight comes quickly, but it can also take years.

According to the Buddha, our freedom is never in question. We are born free. The true nature of the mind is enlightened wisdom and compassion. Our minds are always brilliantly awake and aware. Nevertheless, we’re often plagued by painful thoughts and the emotional unrest that goes with them. We live in states of confusion and fear from which we see no escape. Our problem is that we don’t see who we truly are at the deepest level. We don’t recognize the power of our enlightened nature. We trust the reality we see before our eyes and accept its validity until something comes along—an illness, accident, or disappointment—to disillusion us. Then we might be ready to question our beliefs and start searching for a more meaningful and lasting truth. Once we take that step, we’re starting off on the road to freedom.

On this road, what we free ourselves from is illusion, and what frees us from illusion is the discovery of truth. To make that discovery, we need to enlist the powerful intelligence of our own awake mind and turn it toward our goal of exposing, opposing, and overcoming deception. That is the essence and mission of “rebel buddha”: to free us from the illusions we create by ourselves, about ourselves, and those that masquerade as reality in our cultural and religious institutions.

We start by looking at the dramas in our life, not with our ordinary eyes, but with the eyes of dharma. What is drama and what is dharma? I guess you could say drama is illusion that acts like truth, and dharma is truth itself—the way things are, the basic state of reality that does not change from day to day according to fashion or one’s mood or agenda. To change dharma into drama, all you need are the elements of any good play: emotion, conflict, and action—a sense that something urgent and meaningful is happening to the characters involved. Our personal dramas may begin with the ‘facts’ about who we are and what we are doing, but, fueled by our emotions and concepts, they can quickly evolve into pure imagination and become as difficult to decipher as the storylines of our dreams. Then our sense of reality becomes further and further removed from basic reality itself. We lose track of who we really are. We have no means of telling fact from fiction, or developing the self-knowledge or wisdom that can free us from our illusions.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“A human being is part of the whole called by us ‘universe’, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings  as something separate from the rest –  a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.  Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. . . A problem cannot be solved at the same level of thinking that created it…We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humankind is to survive.”

Albert Einstein

All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but One Mind, beside which nothing exists.  This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible.  It is not green or yellow, and has neither form nor appearance, it does not belong to the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old.  It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measures, names, traces, and comparisons.  Only awake to the One Mind

-Zen master Huang Po

 

“This pure Mind, which is the source of all things,

shines forever with the radiance of its own perfection.

But most people are not aware of it

and think that the Mind is just the faculty

that sees, hears, feels, and knows.

Blinded by their own sight, hearing, feeling, and knowing

they do not perceive the radiance of the source.”

Zen Master Huang-po

 

 

The birds have vanished into the sky

And now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountain and me

Until only the mountain remains.

Li Po

See also:
http://web.me.com/levey1/Meditation/Lessons_of_The_Tao.html
http://web.me.com/levey1/Meditation/Zen_Inspirations_%26_Verses_on_the_Faith_Mind.html
http://web.me.com/levey1/Meditation/Sublime_Continuum.html

Research on Consciousness:
http://www.wisdomatwork.com/WisdomAtWork/MindFitness2_files/MindScienceWebsites2.7.pdf