by Domyo Burk | Feb 7, 2012 | Samadhi Power: Stopping and Seeing
When the ability to be fully present in our life eludes us, it is usually because we cannot possibly believe the mundane or frustrating experience in front of us merits our attention. This bowl of cereal? This tax form? This stop-and-go traffic? This irritating co-worker? Surely these are just experiences we have to pass through on the way to what really matters.
This approach to life ends up feeling profoundly dissatisfying when a) we realize we are “just passing through” a majority of our experiences, and b) when it begins to seem like “what really matters” is beyond our grasp, impermanent, or not quite what it was cracked up to be.
Zen recommends that we remedy this situation by turning our attention toward every moment of our life, without discriminating about which moments are mundane or frustrating, and which ones really matter. Zen suggests they all matter. But what does this mean?
In Zen mindfulness practice we turn our attention toward our lives, trying to notice the sensations in our hands as we wash the dishes, the feeling of our breath as we wait in traffic, or the parade of emotions that goes through our minds as we have a difficult encounter with someone. At times it feels like we have been “given back” moments of our life that would otherwise have slipped away unappreciated. At other times we encounter resistance from our own mind as it relentlessly jumps away from our present experience to something that seems more exciting, rewarding or significant.
After all, what is the point of paying attention to this present moment, no matter what is going on? That’s fine with we’re gazing at a beautiful sunset, but when we’re waiting in line at the grocery store?
The point of paying attention to this present moment, no matter what is going on, is a radical reorientation of our entire way of being. When we are fully present in our life, we stop interpreting the present moment in terms of its utility in bringing us closer to our desires. Our dreams, goals, hopes and ambitions still exist, but for a moment they are not our frame of reference. We are not gazing past our present experience in anticipation of future pleasure or pain. In this sense mindfulness is not a skill we cultivate with our brains; rather, it is a surrender we make with our whole being.
And when we are able to be fully present for a few moments? What’s good about it?
Amazingly, life experienced without interpretation in terms of our desires is… precious beyond description. Sages have used all kinds of words to describe it: perfect, luminous, complete. But in most of our daily experience this preciousness is experienced as simultaneous with mundane or even frustrating or painful. Full presence doesn’t transform our experience into something “special” – as in different from the usual. It allows us to perceive the sacred in the mundane that is always there.
The ability to be fully present in our life is as much about what we don’t do as it is about what we do. As Zen Master Dogen says in Fukanzazengi, “Why leave behind the seat in your own home to wander in vain through the dusty realms of other lands? If you make one misstep you stumble past what is directly in front of you.”
Image courtesy of rakratchada torsap / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by Domyo Burk | Feb 2, 2012 | Understanding: Fundamental Teachings to Investigate
Last week our Sangha worked with the mindfulness task of watching our hands as if they belonged to a stranger. This reminded me of the Buddhist teaching of not-self.
As I did this task, I noticed that it was very easy to imagine my hands belonged to a stranger. They seemed to move on their own, or at least they were usually one step ahead of me. They performed their complicated maneuvers with amazing grace and precision, before I had even consciously formed any intention to complete the task they were undertaking.
When I say that my hands seemed to perform their tasks without “me,” I am describing an experience of not-self. As I observe them, my hands do not seem to be part of my self-identity. For most of us this begs the question, “Where or what is my true self, if it doesn’t (for example) include my hands?” Or, “Who directs the hands?” Or, “What is the nature of the self if so much of it is unconscious?” We might turn toward those actions of body, speech and mind that feel unambiguously self-generated and try to trace the intention back to locate our self.
This is a natural response when we endeavor to understand our true self-nature. It is probably impossible not to try and locate a self within us, just as it is nearly impossible not to flinch if something is headed for our face. Over the course of spiritual practice we will search for our self again and again, even when we try not to.
The tricky thing is that our self cannot be located. Our true self-nature is no-nature, to quote the Zen masters. Our life is a flow of dependently co-arisen phenomena that features a certain continuity due to the law of cause and effect. This continuity can be mistaken for an inherently-existing, independent, substantial self, and that mistake is the source of suffering. As long as there is a substantial “me,” that “me” needs to be protected and maintained against a universe that frequently seems to be against me.
To be liberated from the delusion of an inherently-existing self, we do not find our “true self,” because there isn’t one. Rather, we recognize in phenomena over and over again, “Not-self, not-self, not-self.” We turn the light of awareness on our experiences and recognize that none of them qualify as being part of the inherently-existing, independent, substantial self we so dearly hope exists.
Eventually, having failed to find a single thing that confirms the existence our inherently-existing self, the thought occurs to us, “What if there isn’t one? What if I made the whole thing up?” For a moment we dare to drop the paradigm of self, and the world appears to make a whole lot more sense. Many of the questions and issues that plague us when we are caught up in self-identity view simply drop away. Our attention turns toward the miraculous unfolding of this experience we call a human life.
It takes countless instances of recognizing not-self before we can loosen our grip on our conviction that the self inherently exists. A moment of noticing the fact that our hands seem to move without “us” becomes a moment of teaching.
by Domyo Burk | Jan 1, 2012 | Things to Understand About the Nature of Practice
If "koan" was a more widely used and understood word in English, I would have described this blog as "Essays on the Koan of Life." In Zen, a koan is a question, problem or situation that requires (sometimes demands) resolution, but cannot be resolved through reason. According to the Shambala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen, "a koan requires a leap to another level of comprehension."
I like the understanding of conundrum as "a logical postulation that evades resolution, an intricate and difficult problem," but feel ambivalent about the more classical definition of the word as a "riddle whose answer is or involves a pun or unexpected twist."1 I do not mean to imply that I think life is a joke. Life has its moments of lightness and humor, but to summarize it as a riddle with a pun for a punchline suggests a sad cynicism with spiritual desperation at its core.
Still, there is a sense in which "a riddle whose answer involves… [an] unexpected twist" is appropriate when we are talking about the Koan of Life. Life offers us countless koans. How do I live each day to the fullest? How do I avoid being paralyzed by fear of illness, loss and death? How do I deal with that co-worker that sets my teeth on edge? Who am I, really? Is there anything in this universe upon which I can rely? When we resolve these koans for ourselves (and yes, it is possible!), inevitably it requires a radical shift in perspective reminiscent of the one required to answer the conundrum, "When is a door not a door?" with "When it is ajar!"
One last note about koans, from E.F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful:
"G.N.M. Tyrell has put forward the terms 'divergent' and 'convergent' to distinguish problems which cannot be solved by logical reasoning from those that can. Life is being kept going by divergent problems which have to be 'lived'… Convergent problems on the other hand are man's most useful invention… When they are solved, the solution can be written down and passed on to others, who can apply it without needing to reproduce the mental effort necessary to find it. If this were the case with human relations – in family life, economics, politics, education, and so forth – well, I am at a loss how to finish the sentence."
A koan is a divergent problem as faced by an individual, who must live out the answer him or herself.
1 Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conundrum
