#forest tradition

[panatmansam]

[panatmansam]

Sampajañña or Clear Comprehension/Bare Attention/Direct Experience:

“This exercise is the observation and awareness of the actions of the body. This is the fundamental practice of the monk. When I was first ordained as a novice forty-eight years ago, the first book my master gave me to learn by heart was a book of gathas to be practiced while washing your hands, brushing your teeth, washing your face, putting on your clothes, sweeping the courtyard, relieving yourself, having a bath, and so on.

If a novice applies himself to the practice of this exercise, he will see that his everyday actions become harmonious, graceful, and measured. Mindfulness becomes visible in his actions and speech. When any action is placed in the light of mindfulness, the body and mind become relaxed, peaceful, and joyful. This exercise is one to be used day and night throughout one's entire life.”

—Thich Nhat Hanh

[panatmansam]

The Buddha of Alcatraz

Steve Holt was a hard case. A petty thief turned depression era bank robber turned prison escape artist. A scuffle with a guard had ended badly for the guard after Holt stomped his spine and left him paralyzed. Holt was tried and given forty years added to his sentence and transferred to Alcatraz, the “Rock”.

While in Alcatraz Steve began to read. Alcatraz had surprisingly well stocked library with many books donated by wealthy patrons and University of California. He read books on philosophy, religion, science and history. 

One day Holt discovered a book on Buddhism. It was the Sutta Nipata the words of the Buddha. After this he devoured every book he could get his hands on about Eastern religion and Buddhism in particular. Once having read all the books in the library he began purchasing books by mail order. He learned to meditate. He became more serene. He no longer quarrelled with the other prisoners and the “bulls” as the guards were called. He practiced Tai Chi in his cell and sat cross legged on his bunk lost in meditation for hours.

Prisoners on the Rock were kept in single cells except when given an hour to walk the yard. A small flat paved surface with a view of the Pacific and the Bay.  One windy March day he was one of the few men who chose to go out to the yard. There was a scuffle. A man went down. Stabbed to death. Holt was not involved but when the bulls demanded that he identify the assailant he refused and for this he was tossed into “the hole” the infamous cell block 6. The cells in this block were pitch dark. They slanted downward from the door and had only an open hole for a toilet. This hole was a narrow pipe which opened up directly on the bay. The wind and chill salt air whistled upward through this pipe.

The door was clanged shut and Holt found himself in darkness so complete that he could not orient himself in space. In this Stygian darkness he seemed to float suspended in space and time. He had no bed just a woolen army blanket on the concrete of the cell floor. He could hear the sea below through the pipe and occasionally the cries of gulls. So he sat with his back to the corner and meditated. This went on for days upon days. Complete darkness, complete silence, damp and cold. Still he meditated and quieted his mind. Sometimes the images would come. Strange flickering images as in a dream. Swirling galaxies, faces, strange landscapes like none on this planet.

Then one night he heard a strange sound coming through the pipe. A kind of singing. He listened to the sound. He focused his entire mind on the sound until it filled his thoughts and he became the sound. It was whale song. A pod of orcas in the bay. Calling to each other. In an instant Holt was transported in spirit into the waters of the bay. He saw not with a man’s eyes but with a whale’s eye. He understood the songs of longing. Holt then moved his gaze to the City and he saw the restless people just waking to a new day. He turned his soul to the east and watched the sunrise with eyes which saw in all directions. He was a free man though his body remained imprisoned and a new day dawned.

๑ Samsaran ๑

[panatmansam]

Starting a Practice

I’m going to lay it out straight. I am a secular Buddhist. I am not associated with any Temple or organization. I don’t want any money from you or even any praise. I honestly cannot and do not care about any individual person’s path. I am not a guru. I am not enlightened.

As for meditation, some are ready and some just aren’t. I can’t make an unready person ready or turn off a ready person’s desire for refuge.

I am just part of the flow. That said here goes.

You can be a Buddhist without a practice you just aren’t a “practicing Buddhist”. Most of the almost billion Buddhists don’t practice. They were just born into a Buddhist culture.

A practice is specifically a meditation practice which is required for spiritual progress. Spiritual progress means progress toward the ending of suffering. Suffering from the loss of those we love, illness, aging, worry about money and our own deaths.

Meditation practice can be difficult because most people just try to sit and “not think” which is the stupidest and most failure prone method of “meditation” there has ever been.

Do this instead:

Get a candle and a mala with 108 beads. Five bucks on Amazon. If you are too poor then get a string and tie 108 knots in it.

Cleanse the body (face and hands at least). Toss a light blanket over your shoulders. Light the candle. Incense is optional. We are creating a “sacred space”. Read or recite a short passage of something inspiring. See The Udana: The Utterances of the Buddha if you don’t have anything handy. It is filled with short quotes perfect for this.

Then prepare to chant.

Use this mantra at first: lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu it simply means “may all beings be happy and free and may my life be dedicated to that happiness and freedom”. It places you at peace with the universe. It predates the Buddha by 1000 years and he no doubt chanted it himself in the forest.

Chant that saying 216 times. Two circuits of the mala. Breathe and watch the candle FLAME as you do it. It will flicker. Let thoughts come as they will but always go back to the chant, breath and the FLAME. Back straight!

Stop and do 10 FULL Yogic Three Part Breaths and you’re done! Twelve minutes tops.

Do this in the evening at the same time. Near bedtime. You need quiet and solitude. No kids, cats, pups, spouses or other distractions. They will survive without you for twelve minutes.

DON’T LEAVE OUT ANY PART OF THIS RITUAL!

This is intended for adults. Kids stare at an object like a crystal.

Here is a two-minute video explaining the SCIENCE of what we are doing.

[panatmansam]

The Five Principles: The Axial Age

by Saṃsāran

These five principles form the foundation of just about every major religion and philosophical system which emerged in that incredible span of years from the 8th to the 3rd century BCE called the Axial Age when Taoism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, Classic Greek Philosophy, and Christianity all flowered in the same time period. Why? Simple, it is because they are universal and when put into active practice in our daily lives they work. 

The practice of these principles will garb you in a suit of spiritual armor.  Even in the midst of chaos and in the face of evil your heart will be unsullied, calm and serene.

THE FIVE PRINCIPLES: WISDOM OF THE AXIAL AGE

1. Be compassionate. Compassionate in both thought and deed. Learn to recognize that the actions of others are often caused by spiritual pain. Avoid contempt. Avoid those mental judgments we always make of others. Compassion leads to harmony and harmony and balance is the key to inner peace.

2. Be kind.  Very simple. In every interaction, you have you have an opportunity to add to the sum total of good.  No act of kindness or charity is too small. It does not matter if you receive gratitude.  At times your acts of kindness will even cause resentment in others. That is their way.  Let yours be kindness.

3. Be Forgiving: Forgive others and mostly yourself.  Forgiveness is not easy.  It requires effort to let past harms and slights go.  You may be perfectly justified in your anger, sorrow or resentment but it does not matter.  Resentments do not harm the object of your resentment.  They harm only you.  Much of our spiritual disharmony is caused by our own self-contempt.  We magnify our failings.  We mull over our mistakes and shortcomings again and again.  We compare ourselves to an impossible ideal and then hate ourselves when we fail to measure up.  Forgive yourself. Let it go. There is so much that is good in you and tomorrow brings a new opportunity to achieve your dreams.

4. Be Loving. When you have been compassionate, kind and forgiving you will sense a flood of a unique form of love.  Love of all.  It will well up within you and influence your every action.  It will baffle and confuse others.  People who would confront you, engage you in argument or dispute and who would transmit their own anger to you will be astounded when they see that you are unruffled.  They will not know what to do.  Your calm and peace will affect them.  

5. Be Accepting:  You are not in control of the universe.  Stop taking everything so personally.  It is not all about you. Be humble before the majesty of the universe knowing that it is you and you are it. Things are often not going to go your way.  You may be treated unfairly by others, or be the target of hatred or cruelty.   You are not going to get everything you want. Accept this. Move on.  

[panatmansam]

The Suffering of the Buddha

In Buddhism, the Pali word dukkha is often translated as “suffering”. However, this is not really a satisfactory translation because the word is more nuanced than that. English speakers think of suffering as equivalent to “pain” either emotional or physical.

Now, dukkha does, in fact, have these connotations but there is more. Modern translations will sometimes translate dukkha as “dissatisfaction” yet, again, this word does not adequately express the idea. Dissatisfaction seems too light even frivolous. “I was dissatisfied with the way they made my latte this morning”. Not it really.

In my estimation, the true meaning of the word is closer to “anxiety”. It is not just any feeling of anxiousness but that deep bass rumble of fear which is always present in human beings and which is unique to human beings. Now, almost all creatures feel fear.

It is the oldest and most common emotion. A mouse may experience fear when you flip on the garage light. What human experiences that a mouse does not is fear based upon the mental projection of “what might be”. The mouse cannot project itself into the future because it lacks the brain hardware to run the software.

Humans experience not only that vague fear felt by all prey animals in the wild but also the fear which comes from the knowledge that all things change and that we will sicken, age and die. No matter how brave you are that fear is still there. Wealth cannot save you.

Power cannot save you. Nothing can save us. The only relief from this suffering, this fear, is enlightenment. Not some state of bliss known only to Buddhas and sages. In fact, it is not “something” so much as “nothing”. We do not gain courage so much as we lose fear.

We lose this fear by understanding the nature of suffering and then through ethical living and practice coupled with right thought strip away attachment to that which may be lost in time through the constant change which is our reality.

Anyone who has lost something they thought was theirs forever finally comes to realize that nothing really belongs to them.— Paulo Coelho

[panatmansam]

As I meditate upon my candle I take a moment to allow my thoughts free rein. I allow them to go where they may. I see the candlewick as potential, the unseen FUTURE, the flame is the NOW where all the action happens, the smoke is inert residue, black soot, it is the PAST drifting, dissolving into faded memory!

[panatmansam]

Is this true?