Three-legged stools everywhere!

Riding public transportation in a metropolitan area can be at times – how shall we describe it? – interesting, to say the least. In Chicago, my most frequent mode of public transportation is the Brown Line. The majority of my rides are exceedingly uninteresting. But there are occasions when even I, my dear reader, have to shake my head in dismay.

Recently I boarded the Brown Line at Rockwell on my way to Lakeview. As I was perusing some of the notifications on my iPhone, I became aware of the fresh scent of beer. I looked over to my left and sitting across the aisle from me was a middle-aged man slurping beer from a quart bottle. I glanced at the time on my iPhone and thought to myself, “Well, I guess it’s not that bad. He waited until after 11 a.m. to start drinking.”

Perhaps my beer-drinking fellow passenger had a poorly developed sense of virtue.

On another Brown Line ride a woman boarded while speaking on her cell phone. A plethora of expletives tumbled out of her mouth with an ease that would shame the feistiest drag queen dealing with a broken heel on her pump while traipsing through the rain in Uptown. As I eavesdropped on her conversation – she was speaking so loudly on the phone that it was difficult for anyone in that car to ignore her – I began to learn that she was speaking to her son, who apparently didn’t want to go back to school (I’m presuming back to college). As she cursed her “encouragement” for him to get off his lazy effing ass and go to school to “make something of himself,” I heard her then admonish her son for using the F-word with her. “How dare you talk like that to me,” she said with complete seriousness.

I couldn’t help but smile as I thought of the irony that such a fine role model of a mother would be offended by a son who used the F-word. Perhaps she had a poorly developed sense of discernment.

Last night was perhaps the best Brown Line ride in a while. After I had finished my workout at the gym (lost 12 pounds so far!) I boarded the Brown Line at Belmont for my return home. Oh joy, there was a nut case on the car I boarded waxing ineloquently as he admonished his captive audience, ridiculing them for ignoring him and being heartless during this most wonderful time of the year. With a heavy sigh I took my seat and with eyes cast down, pulled out my iPhone to do something, perhaps slip into the gay first jhana where I find rapture and withdrawal in directing my thought to who’s on Grindr right now.

He went on and on about how everyone on the car would be enjoying Christmas, opening presents, while some friend of his – who must have been hospitalized – was facing certain death because of the overwhelming lack of generosity of those of us on the train. He even had photographs.

I bit my tongue, because the Buddha said that even true speech should not be spoken if such truth will likely lead to a – how shall we say? – more uncomfortable situation. I wanted to tell this idiot that not everyone on the train was going to be opening Christmas gifts or was even buying Christmas gifts and that, oh, by the way, we all are going to die, and you know why? Because we were born.

Nonetheless, I remained silent, thinking about how this kook had a poorly developed mind.

My, aren’t I the queen of all that is perfect and good! Because here I am, dealing with my own poorly developed mind, my poorly developed sense of discernment, and my complete lack of virtue.

Well, maybe I don’t have a complete lack of virtue, but saying my virtue is poorly developed would be an understatement; it would be like saying the Pope was merely a confused man.

But I digress.

The point is that we face constant distraction in the world around us and everywhere we turn, we see ourselves as we are now, or how we might become, if we lose sight of the three basic goals of Buddhism: the development of virtue, wisdom, and concentration.

Some of us may get overwhelmed by all the lists, rules, gathas and discourses within the Buddhist canon and think, “Whoa girlfriend! This is bunching up my panties, I can’t deal with all this! I need to de-stress with a cosmo.” But as the Buddha suggested to monks who were becoming overwhelmed with all the rules in the Pātimokkha, everything can be boiled down to three essential trainings.

The Buddha explained it again to a group of Brahmans, saying that if we pay attention to how we act, how we speak, and how we think, we can avoid a lot of problems later on. Evaluating our selves under these three areas is really what Buddhism is all about. The key, however, is to develop our virtue, wisdom and concentration simultaneously so our practice is balanced.

Think of a three-legged stool, where each leg is wisdom, virtue or concentration. To develop concentration (focus in meditation) our mind needs to be free from distraction, which is accomplished by being virtuous. But to be virtuous, we need the wisdom to know what is skillful and unskillful. But to have wisdom, we need to have the concentration to investigate phenomenon to be able to discern how things really are. And on and on.

If we over-emphasize one of the legs of the stool, we will metaphorically fall off our perch, like a barely-legal Boystown newbie who slides off his barstool after trying out his first Long Island Tea at Sidetrack. Yet I see many practitioners go running off toward jhana like a dazed mo with his first credit card dashing across Michigan Avenue toward the shrine of Ermenegildo Zenga.

Not that I am the epitome of Buddhist practice. I am far from it. But isn’t Buddhism about living rather than thinking? Isn’t the practice about how we behave rather than what level of self-absorption we think we have achieved and brag to others as if it were a bhodi badge of spirituality?

Perhaps the path is like riding the Brown Line in Chicago, filled with opportunities for self-reflection.

Successful dating and Right Effort

The single life can be so dreary and stressful at the same time – alas, what is a poor gay boy to do? Striking the right balance can be so difficult. Endlessly checking Grindr or Jack’d for new cute faces more frequently than not leads to disappointing meetings and meaningless hookups that, when looking back, really weren’t very satisfying.

It’s enough to make you renounce the dating life altogether and retreat to the solitary life of, what? Perusing Internet porn? Watching episodes of Glee? Fantasizing that you’re in the Amazing Race? Maybe there’s a new Vietnamese restaurant I could check out. I got it, I’ll go buy something!

It’s like being on the dance floor between songs, during that period when there is no real melody and the back beat is transitioning. Do I just stand here and wait for the song to start? Do I dance a bit to the backbeat, uncertain of where it might go? Do I just go get a drink?

Actually, I think it’s more I am like a guitar with strings that are either too loose or too tight, never playable or in tune. Wait, that sounds so familiar, like something the Buddha would say.

Don’t faint or start thinking that I’ve lost my mind. I know what you’re thinking: What has the Buddha ever said about the gay dating scene? Nothing specific perhaps, but if you take a look at the Sona Sutta, the Buddha uses a very interesting metaphor.

Sona was a monk who exerted himself so intensely in his meditation practice that one time he had done walking meditation for so long that the soles of his feet were cracked and bleeding. He sat for some more meditation when the thought occurred to him something like this: “You know, I’m not getting much out of this monastic scene, there are still so many things I want. Why don’t I just chuck it all and go back home? I can still support the Sangha, plus enjoy a more comfortable life.”

Well, the Buddha became aware of this so he teleported himself to Sona’s side where he asked the monk, “Dude, what are you thinking?”

The Buddha then uses a metaphor involving a vina, a stringed instrument, to help Sona understand how to balance his efforts. If the strings are too tight, the instrument is unplayable. If the strings are too loose, the instrument is unplayable. Only when effort is exerted to find just the right string tension will the instrument be playable.

If you noticed, this sort of Goldilocks state of tension with the vina strings is right in the middle: not too tight, not too loose, but just right.

OK, I know what you’re thinking – what has this got to do with finding a boyfriend? Probably not much. Or maybe everything. But the real point is when our lives feel out of sorts, it may be from a lack of proper concentration, and to regain proper concentration, we must put forth the Right Effort.

Wow, aren’t I clever? I managed to turn the topic of gay dating into one about the Noble Eightfold Path!

But seriously, just about every time I feel like my life is a bit disconnected, I can trace the problem back to my meditation practice. While I seldom have gone to the extreme of meditating so much that my ass is sore, there are times when my practice becomes so lax that I go for days without even getting 10 minutes in. And what the Buddha was telling Soma was the right method, the Right Effort, was in the middle.

The notion of Right Effort is part of the concentration group in the Noble Eightfold Path. Among the key elements of Right Effort are the Four Right Efforts. These are:

1. Develop skillful actions that one does not already possess
2. Further develop skillful actions one already possesses so they become more refined
3. Abandon unskillful actions one already has
4. Prevent the development of unskillful actions that one does not have

In other words, strengthen whatever qualities you have that make you a decent person and a good date, work on developing other qualities that would make you an even better person and date, work on getting rid of those qualities that annoy people, and make sure you don’t develop any new negative qualities that limit your dating prospects.

Think of it this way: if you’re not aware of the things you do that bug people or make you less attractive to people, you’ll continue to lose on the dating front. And on a more serious note, if you’re always worried about what you do, how others perceive you, or continuously worry as to why people don’t want to date you, then you will be distracted and restless whenever you attempt to meditate.

Right Effort is required to develop disciplined concentration, and our most serious impediment to our efforts at concentration is all of the unskillful things we do that bring us regret or confusion, or just plain restlessness. It goes back to thinking about our practice as if it were a three-legged stool: each leg represents either Wisdom, Virtue, or Concentration. We need to refine our virtue to be able to concentrate during mediation without distraction by the things we’ve said or done, and when we achieve proper concentration, we start to develop wisdom that helps us further strengthen our virtue. Of course, before any of that is possible, we need at least wisdom enough to know what virtue is and how to get started.

So it’s back to the cushion for me with a bit more regularity. Remember, overdoing it can be just as bad as not doing it at all. And finding that balance in anything takes effort – the Right Effort.

A minor meditation challenge

I realize it is a bit late to get in at the start seeing how the Rains Retreat “officially” began a week ago, but a post I happened to see on the fancy new Google+ alerted me to an opportunity I thought I couldn’t pass up. It was an invitation to join Patrick Henry, who on Twitter goes by the handle @MishapPatricio and Tumbles here, and others in a commitment to meditate for 30 minutes daily for the duration of the Rains Retreat.

If you want a little background regarding the Rains Retreat, this article is a decent start. It also explains that if you decide to make a commitment to sitting for 30 minutes each day, you don’t have to do all 30 minutes at once. I break up my sessions into two 15-minute sits.

But I would also recommend that you read this about the Lay Buddhist Practice. It’s an excellent guide to a variety of activities you can add to your practice. Granted, these practices are mostly from the Thai Forest Tradition of Theravada. But several of the chants I recite every time I sit; it’s part of my practice just as much as breathing.

Some may balk at these activities because they appear ritualistic. And there’s been a lot of discussion about dumping the rituals and seeking a new Buddhism that is more focused on – well, I actually haven’t quite figured out what this “new Buddhism” is supposed to be. I’ve read several posts about this rebellion against traditionalism within Buddhism, both from the pro and con. I’m reserving judgment at the moment. But I will say this, as I have said it before.

Rites and rituals, in and of themselves, are empty behaviors that have no meaning and to attach meaning to them is to foster delusion. Having said that, these rites and rituals are excellent methods for developing mindfulness, without which Buddhism merely becomes a glamorous excursion into self-gratification – a supreme hand-job if you will.

Start slow, however, if you decide to add any of these activities to your practice. If you seek to develop mindfulness, you will fail if you try to add too many of these activities to your overall practice all at once.

Please let us know how you are doing with your 30 minutes a day for the next 90 days by leaving a comment here occasionally. And don’t forget to visit the My Buddha is Pink Facebook page!

Is it just a job or Right Livelihood?

So maybe you’re in a gay club admiring the twinky go-go boy gyrating on the bar and you’re just about to stuff a fiver into the guy’s aussieBums when suddenly your mind is penetrated with a keen thought: Is this Right Livelihood?

OK, so maybe you’re not thinking that. Maybe you’re focused on the likelihood you’ll get a chance to brush your hand against the supreme package and maybe even get a kiss out of it. Forget it, he’s got a boyfriend already. His kiss means nothing.

But what is Right Livelihood? Just some more oppressive rules to restrict us homos into a box of moralistic confinement? I mean sheesh, look what a lot of them try to do to us with the Third Precept!

Susan Elbaum Jootla writes that our serious consideration of what Right Livelihood means and how it applies to us is a natural step to take after one has been meditating for a while. It is so natural, in fact, that it may not be us who begins to take a closer look at this issue, but our own doubts about what we do may begin to bubble up in our minds as we become more aware of how our lives are interconnected with social fabrications that continually bind us in the state of samsara.

“OK, whoa dude! WTF are you talking about? Does this mean my job as a clerk in a sex toy shop doesn’t qualify as this Right Livelihood thing?”

You may laugh my fellow queerlings at my simplistic example, but consider this. Suppose you work for an online company that caters to the gay community that is filled with important information for that community about politics, social issues and self-help? And suppose it is also a site that actively seeks advertiser money from companies that sell sex toys, pornography and glorify, as well as promote, large circuit party activities that play upon the notion of free and easy sex, or takes money from clubs and bars whose primary source of revenue is through the sale of alcohol. All you do is edit content, or maybe you work in the billing department. The lines are blurred now, aren’t they?

It’s probably wise to start at the beginning – what did the Buddha say? And in the Anguttara Nikaya, there is a very short passage in the Book of Fives known as the Vanijja Sutta:

“Monks, a lay follower should not engage in five types of business. Which five? Business in weapons, business in human beings, business in meat, business in intoxicants, and business in poison.


“These are the five types of business that a lay follower should not engage in.”

What does this mean? Jootla explains that the activities “prohibited” to lay followers include “those in which the disciple would be directly, on his own responsibility, involved in breaking one or more of the Five Precepts, which are the very basic moral rules for the Buddhist layman.”

That appears simple enough, but Jootla goes on to inject a bit of specific morality into her explanation that may strike one as being absolutist. For example, does this statement go too far?

“Breeding animals for slaughter as meat or for other uses that may be made of the carcasses is not allowed because this obviously implies breaking the First Precept: I shall abstain from killing. Similarly, anyone trying to follow the teachings of the Buddha should avoid hunting and fishing, nor can he be an exterminator of animals.”

And what about it when Jootla says that, “to help others directly in breaking any of (the precepts) is certainly wrong livelihood.”

Well now, what of the earlier example of our modest gay boy who is an accountant with our fictitious website? He’s not directly involved in assisting others in breaking the precepts, but he also knows that if the website is not successful selling ads, and if the advertisers believe that visitors to the site aren’t clicking on those ads for their products or services, then revenue dries up and our modest gay boy might be laid off, and that’s not the good kind of being laid.

In general, we must acknowledge the world we live in and do our best to emulate the practice. Absolutist positions are seldom helpful. We might have been deeply involved in our careers before we began practicing Dhamma. And through our practice, doubts may begin to arise within us regarding our profession and our career path. If we begin to feel troubled about what we do to earn our living and other options are available, then we ought to pursue them. But that isn’t necessarily something that all of us can easily or readily do.

As Jootla writes, “… we have to keep a balanced perspective and not keep running after the perfect work — part of the dukkha of the householder's life is the necessity to function in an immoral society while keeping one's own mind clear.”

To see how confusing this can get, take a look at this collection of Dhamma excerpts regarding Right Livelihood. It includes one from the Samyutta Nikaya regarding the Buddha’s response to a warrior’s questions about the correctness of killing in battle. It would seem that soldiers and even police officers are not off the hook. This, of course, is clouded by some Mahayana teachings that suggest that warriors can “kill with compassion,” but this passage raises serious doubts about such a perspective. Does it mean if you are already a solider or police officer that you should abandon immediately your avocation?

And what of the Buddha’s description of acting as a form of intoxication? What do we take away from that? Richard Gere certainly hasn’t given up acting since becoming a follower of Tibetan Buddhism, and Tina Turner and Herbie Hancock haven’t given up their careers as entertainers since finding Soka Gakkai and Nichiren Buddhism.

To further complicate matters, Ajaan Suwat Suvaco strikes are rather absolutist chord in his explanation of how practicing Right Livelihood is critical to developing Right Concentration”

“As for Right Livelihood, you set your mind on providing for your livelihood exclusively in a right way. You're firm in not making a livelihood in ways that are wrong, not acting in ways that are wrong, not speaking in ways that are corrupt and wrong. You won't make any effort in ways that go off the path, you won't be mindful in ways that lie outside the path. You'll keep being mindful in ways that stay on the path. You make this vow to yourself as a firm determination. This is one level of establishing the mind rightly.”

What Ajaan Suwat Suvaco is saying is correct, but I don’t think he’s saying that one must completely and immediately abandon all forms of Wrong Livelihood with the snap of a finger. Buddhism is not, in my experience, a Big Bang; the Buddha was quite deliberate in describing it as a path. And as a path, as we follow it, we do change, we mature, we gain deeper understanding.

What of you and your career? Are there occasions in your job when you realize that maybe your actions or someone else’s actions in the company don’t quite comport with the practice, even though the action is completely legal and ethical from a business perspective? If you do have those moments of doubt, that is a good thing; it means you have been faithfully practicing. But it doesn’t mean you must immediately quit or look for other work. It does mean, however, you have something to contemplate during your next meditation session.

Don’t forget to visit my Facebook page and Like it. I could use some help initiating and sustaining conversations there as well as here.

Practice makes perfect

I recently asked folks on Twitter how they sustained their daily practice, what were the core elements that kept them active in their practice. I got some good responses and tips, because sharing what works for us can be helpful for others. Developing a routine within your practice is helpful, even if it does seem repetitious, even ritualistic. The Buddha generally didn’t have a lot of positive things to say about rites and rituals other than they can be important and useful tools for developing mindfulness.

Danny Wilson is a young man who lives in Sheffield, England, which is south of Leeds (on Twitter he’s @Danny_789). Danny says he recently starting waking up earlier to meditate and read. He’s been doing this for about a month. This may not sound like much to others, but what Danny has begun is very important. Establishing the simplest of routines provides us with structure and discipline. This is important for any practice, whether you are a musician, a doctor, a carpenter, a poet, a singer, or even someone’s lover. Heck, even being a good parent, son or daughter, brother or sister, or friend takes practice. And establishing a routine to develop that practice is critical.

It relates in many ways to what the Buddha identified as the Four Right Efforts: developing and nurturing good qualities that we currently do not posses but wish to; developing and nurturing good qualities we already posses to ensure they are sustained; removing negative qualities from our actions; preventing negative qualities we do not have from ever arising.

Adam, who goes by the moniker @flylikeacrow (he has a blog by the same name as well), said he sets aside time at work for short moments of meditating on the breath. That was an eye-opener for me, as this is something I really ought to add to my own practice. As the First Noble Truth tells us, life is often unsatisfactory because of all the stress that confronts us, and our work, our professional life, is often a prime source of this stress. And what a wonderful and simple thing to do to take just five minutes out of our work day to sit quietly, close our eyes and focus on our breath.

Adam also likes listening to chants, such as the Heart Sutra and the Faith in Mind poem. Listening to monks chant in Pali was something I really enjoyed. And there are some Pali chants that I regularly do as well. Again, some might view this as a ritual that makes Buddhism look like some archaic faith that requires people to pray to some mystical deity. But chanting can function just like silent meditation as it brings focus to our mind, targets our thinking into single-pointedness. In fact, if my mind is particularly rattled so that silent meditation is difficult for me, I will switch to chanting.

Jim Johnson, aka @pixelsrzen, gets his meditation in – “even a few minutes worth is important” – but he also recites the Bodhisattva vow daily, something he was gracious enough to share with me.

“With a wish to free all beings, I will always go for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha until I reach full enlightenment. Enthused by compassion and wisdom, today in the presence of the Buddha, I will generate the mind for full awakening for the benefit of all beings throughout limitless space. As long as space remains, as long as sentient beings remain, may I too remain to dispel the misery of this world.”

Reciting things is not quite the same as chanting, but it can yield similar results. It takes concentration when reciting something, focus to be sure that you are saying the words correctly as well as a sort of open awareness so that over time, the meaning of the words penetrate your mind to give you new understanding. For example, my understanding of the opening verses of the Dhammapada is very different today from when I first read them.

Having said that, droning on with chanting, or repetitiously reciting gathas or other verses, is a complete waste of time. These aren’t secret codes to a special cosmic cash machine of merit and good karma. Rather, these are techniques to build mindfulness.

Someone who has a very diverse practice is Marnie Louise Froberg, aka @NellaLou. Daily study and sitting meditation makes up the core of her practice, but she also adds variety with actions like walking meditation and making prostrations on an almost-daily basis. I love walking meditation, and I really should make the effort to do it more often.

Prostrations are one of those activities that some may view with disdain because it looks like obeisance. But just like chanting, making prostrations is another effective means for developing mindfulness. When bowing or making a prostration, you’re not just “doing it.” Again, it takes concentration on and awareness of your body while doing this, ensuring it is being done correctly and that your mind is fixed on the activity. It’s just another technique for honing single-pointedness of mind.

So here’s the core of my “routine.”

Daily morning seated meditation for 15 minutes. I precede the silent sitting by first chanting three times “Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma-sambuddhassa,” which translated from Pali is, “I wish to revere with body, speech and mind that Lord apportioning Dhamma, that one far from defilements, that One Perfectly Enlightened by himself.” I chant this primarily because the sound of my voice reciting the words is soothing, the tone eases my mind and makes it tranquil before I begin focusing on the breath. I also strike a chime bowl as I repeat each line. Again, the sound of the bell fading helps calm my mind.

When I’m finished with the silent meditation, I then recite both in Pali and English, a variation of the Loving Kindness chant: Aham avero homi (May I be free from hatred); Aham abyapajjho homi (May I be free from oppression); Aham anigho homi (May I be free from troubles); Sukkhi attanam Pariharami (May my happiness be protected); Aham sukhito homi (May I be happy) – Sabbe satta avera hontu (May all beings be free from hatred); Sabbe satta abyapajja hontu (May all beings be free from oppression); Sabbe satta anigha hontu (May all beings be free from troubles); Sabbe satta sabba dukkha pamuccantu (May all beings be free from suffering); Sabbe satta sukhita hontu (May all beings be happy).

Reciting the Loving Kindness chant is not praying. I’m not praying for these things to occur on their own. Rather, by reciting them I fill my mind with compassion, first by planting the seed into my consciousness, and through the daily recitation, nurture this compassion and empathy for others so that it begins to be reflected in how I interact with others. I will not behave with compassion and kindness toward myself and others unless I first develop a compassionate mind. And yes, we need to show compassion and kindness toward ourselves first if we ever hope to share this with others.

After this, I finish my session by reciting a variation of the Five Remembrances: I am of the nature to grow old, I have not gone beyond aging; I am of the nature to be sick, I have not gone beyond disease; I am of the nature to die, I have not gone beyond death; All that is mine, beloved and pleasing will change and vanish; I am the owner of my kamma, heir to my kamma, born of my kamma, related to my kamma, abide supported in my kamma – whatever kamma I create, skillful or unskillful, light or dark, to that I fall heir.

Once a week I spend time reading from the Tipitika. Lately this has involved reading a chapter from the Majjhima Nikaya, which I read prior to my sitting meditation. On weekends, I strive to sit for longer sessions. Also, I shake things up a bit on weekends by chanting the Daimoku (Nam myho renge kyo) for about 15 minutes, which I follow sometimes by reciting the Nichiren liturgy. Again, I do this to fix my mind and relax it. When I struggle with silent sitting, I will switch to chanting the Daimoku instead.

That’s the core of my practice. Please share with us some of the core parts to your practice as well.

Are you too sexy for your body?

Even though the Buddha renounced a lay person’s way of life, he remained a good father and did an outstanding job teaching his son, Rahula. We can conclude by the results that Rahula was probably an apt pupil, but that may only be because the Buddha was swift enough to re-focus his adolescent son’s mind on the proper topics for contemplation, or Rahula might have been a Brahmin-style Right Said Fred.

Rahula was hot, and he knew he was hot. Or at least that’s how the stories go. For example, in the notes to the Maharahulovada Sutta (MN 62), also known as The Greater Discourse of Advice to Rahula, we learn the reason why the Buddha directed his then-18-year-old son to perfect the meditation technique of contemplation of the body as body.

“According to (Majjhima Nikaya Atthakatha) … While Rahula was following the Buddha, he noted with admiration the physical perfection of the Master and reflected that he himself was of similar appearance, thinking: ‘I too am handsome like my father the Blessed One. The Buddha’s form is beautiful and so too is mine.’ The Buddha read Rahula’s thought and decided to admonish him at once, before such vain thoughts led him into greater difficulties. Hence the Buddha framed his advice in terms of contemplating the body as neither a self nor the possession of a self.” (Notes are from the hardbound text, not the online text)

So dang! Rahula was a hottie twink thinking he had it goin’ on, but the Buddha was wise to that nonsense and immediately re-directed his son before he started wearing Daisy Dukes and dancing on a box at a backwoods discotheque.

Contemplation of body as body is also a technique I use from time to time when I have difficultly remaining focused on my breath. It’s just a different focus point and it is very effective. Besides being a necessary step in meditation – if all you do is focus on your breath, you’re in a rut – when you learn to see body as just body, you come to realize that body isn’t so glamorous. As my teacher once said: “Isn’t it funny that the items we attribute beauty to on our body are dead – like the outside of our skin, our teeth, our hair – but the living parts of our body – internal organs and such – we describe as gross.”

Rahula learned well and became a significant member of the Sangha. A section of the Theragatha is attributed to him where Rahula explains how the root of sensuality has been cut out of him: “Cooled am I, unbound.”

I’ll say so.

Riding the bicycle of meditation

My understanding of what is really supposed to be going on during meditation has gone through many transformations. Initially, I interpreted the notion of “stilling” or “quieting” the mind to mean I was supposed to stop thinking at all, that I needed to turn off the internal chatter within my head. But that was only half right. The result of that was I would be so focused on my breathing in an effort to force out all other thoughts that meditation became such a chore; it was like trying to push a giant boulder up a mountainside. The endeavor was so exhausting that I often fell asleep during a sit.

Then I learned to quit fighting my thoughts, just let them pass by like a float in a parade. This helped immensely with the ever-present song or jingle that would pop into my head during meditation. In fact, I am seldom bothered any more by a song stuck in my mind while I sit. Staying focused on my breath is much easier.

But it just doesn’t seem like I’m getting anywhere. Some of my most satisfying sits involved some very specific thinking going on in my mind. It wasn’t when I was floating in the absorption of my breathing. In fact, this buoyant state of my mind remaining aloof from other mental activities was bringing on the sleepiness problem I had in the past. Rather, my most insightful moments in meditation actually involved me fixing my mind on a thought or concept and following that thought through in what seemed like logical increments. On the rare occasions when this occurred, I reached a level of understanding about whatever it was I had been thinking about that was very satisfying. I might even say it was euphoric.

Having said that, my mind does tend to grasp onto thinking paths that are self-indulgent and irrelevant. Yet, increasingly I have become intrigued by how the Buddha describes the first Jhana, as a state of “deliberate and sustained thought.”

And then I read this extraordinary post at the Theravadin. He uses two very vivid – for me – metaphors to describe the functioning of meditation.

In the first metaphor, the Theravadin uses a common behavior to describe how we develop the mindfulness necessary for effective meditation: learning how to ride a bike. When first learning to ride a bike, we are very focused on maintaining balance so we can move forward, so focused on this single element that often – at least I remember doing this – we aren’t looking ahead at what’s coming and we run into other objects, like curbs or trees. But with persistence, we develop the balance necessary to keep our bicycle upright. When that happens, we ride with ease, able to look around us at the scenery as we peddle along. We’re still riding the bike, we’re still doing everything we need to do to maintain balance, but we are no longer “aware” of that – it’s automatic now.

It’s such a brilliant metaphor because developing the balance necessary to ride a bicycle with ease is very much like developing a fixed mind in meditation. Finding the balance needed to ride a bicycle with east is just like remaining fixed on a meditation object, such as the breath.

“Developing the jhanas is like learning how to ride a (mental) bike. When learning how to ride a bike there are two important things involved: First of all, you see others on the bike and see how much fun they have. You want that too. Secondly, almost everyone you see did learn it, so you are thinking: I can do it too. Third, when you are up on the bike, you learn to intuitively avoid falling – but that takes lot of practice. You know now, that the falling was actually part of the game, and it taught you how NOT to fall. In order to develop the skill to keep your balance your mind had to learn to avoid extreme movements away from the center. You also realized that eventually, once you started to keep going, the balance was easy to hold and the fun bike ride started.”

And what do we do when we have learned how to balance ourselves on a bicycle? We ride along and enjoy the scenery, never “forgetting” what we need to sustain doing to keep our bicycle upright.

Then the Theravadin introduces another powerful metaphor that really got my mind alert. Imagine being carried along by the powerful currents of a wild river. Out of sheer luck, you are able to grasp onto a rock. What are you going to do? You are going to cling to that rock with every ounce of energy you can, and if you are able to, you will pull yourself out of the raging river onto the rock.

“The attainment of the jhana, according to this simile, is achieved by a “not-floating away” or “not-drifting-away”. This is similar to a person in a wild river pushed along by the current who would try to hold on to a stone – long enough to pull himself out of the water and step on that stone. Such a temporary break (because he has not yet crossed the river but is still caught in the middle) on the steady rock in the middle of a wild river means also that no effort is necessary to maintain that calm position and one feels calmness and aloofness while the river/stream of the senses retreats.”

Once up on that rock, what would you do? You have a moment of relative ease to collect your breath, re-focus your thoughts and contemplate your next move. You can’t stay on that rock forever. At any moment, the raging river could send you a wave that will knock you off your perch. But it is, temporarily at least, a safe haven that allows you to determine how to extract yourself from this predicament.

So developing concentration is vital to meditation, but it isn’t the end. Once you learn how to ride the bike, you need to learn how to enjoy the ride. And once you’ve pulled yourself out of the river onto the relative safety of a rock, you must contemplate your escape to complete safety. Standing on that rock forever is not the solution. It is merely the vantage point.

Buddhism 1-2-3

Expanding upon my previous post – on how we can overdo our practice, particularly when we’re a new convert – I began recalling something my original teacher said one time. Whenever I feel like my practice is losing focus, I return to his simile of the three-legged stool.

I’m sure my teacher hadn’t originated this simile. The essence of this image can be found in Bhikkhu Bodhi’s writings, and that of Thanissaro Bhikkhu as well. But its simplistic beauty is worth sharing, because it had a profound impact on my practice.

Because, you see, Buddhism in America tends to attract intellectual types, and intellectual types tend to over-think just about everything. And when it comes to Buddhism, well, their seemingly erotic fascination with esoteric passages and the nuances of the Pali language often comes off as if they were preparing a dissertation on what the Jhanas symbolize within 21st Century life for the North American heterosexual male.

Sheesh. It’s just Buddhism folks. Yes, it’s profound; yes, it can radically change your life; yes, it can lead you to a sense of happiness unlike anything you can think of or anticipate – but it doesn’t require you to stand on your head while chanting an archaic language from memorized texts in an effort to subtly dissect the mind into its components parts, if there are any component parts to begin with.

All Buddhism requires of you is to be fully aware of what you are doing right now, and understand the consequences of those actions, because out of what happens right now your future arises.

It’s your movie; it wasn’t written for you; you write it as you go along.

Enlightenment doesn’t just magically happen because you belong to the right temple and chant all the right words with all your heart until your voice feels raspy and weak. Enlightenment is not delivered by Santa Claus because you’ve been a good boy or girl and followed all the precepts by rote without a shred of comprehension about what the precepts mean. Shit, happiness doesn’t even come that way. Skip the enlightenment part – how many of us are really invested in achieving total release? Come on, anyone out there? If you are, then you are wasting your freaking time reading this blog or anyone else’s blog.

I want to be a good person. I want to be beneficial to others. I want to avoid actions that harm others. I want to be happy. And when I die, I want it to be without fear.

What about you?

What my practice has taught me is that over-intellectualizing hides the truth. Buddhism will reveal the truth – if you let it. But to have that happen, keep it simple; which brings me back to my teacher’s simile of the three-legged stool.

There are three parts to a successful Buddhist practice: Sila, or virtue; Samadhi, or concentration; and Panna, or wisdom. Now think of each of these three parts as a leg on a stool. If each leg is the same length, then the seat of the stool – that’s you – is level and useful for comfortable sitting. When you sit on such a stool, it is stable and you feel secure, comfortable; you are so comfortable that you can do other things while sitting on that stool without ever thinking about whether it might tip over or you might fall off.

In other words, you are safe to be around.

Given that image, imagine what that stool might look like if all you do is read the suttas. You’ll be able to quote the Buddha like some Bible thumping idiot on a city street corner, but you won’t have a clue as to why people don’t like you. Or if all you do is meditate. You’ll have one hell of a tranquil mind, but you won’t be using its potential; when people go to a dictionary and look up the word “boring,” your photo will be there as the definition. Or if all you do is follow the precepts. You’ll be one unhappy celibate sonofabitch with spiders and cockroaches and rats all over your house, wishing you could join your friends for a beer now and then (I will spare all your delicate sensibilities about the sex part, but let me assure you, it ain’t pretty).

Yet, I’ve met people who I can quickly tell either do nothing but meditate, or do nothing but read the suttas, or who do nothing but blindly follow the precepts and then criticize everyone else for not following them. In fact, that was one of my turn-offs about Zen Buddhism; almost every Zennie I met did nothing but meditate and enthusiastically proclaimed that they needn’t do anything else. I can happily say that my respect for Zen has been enhanced by many of the Zennies you can find in my blog roll.

To be able to develop wisdom, you need to know the Buddha’s teachings; but before you are able to really grasp the teachings, you must develop your concentration through meditation so that your mind is focused; but to effectively develop a focused mind, you must follow the precepts to develop the virtue necessary to have a mind filled with ease, knowing you haven’t done something to bring about bad kamma; but to properly follow the precepts, you must have the wisdom to understand what they mean and how to apply them in your life; but to have that wisdom, you need to know what the Buddha taught and ….

Wisdom is knowing what is worthy of your mind’s attention, not memorization; concentration is having the ability to use your mind to investigate the way things really are, not how you think they are; and virtue is having compassion toward others by developing the Right Actions that lead you to be harmless, not refraining from an action because someone said it is wrong.

When my teacher shared this, my brain was like – duh! This led me to attending the weekly guided meditation sessions he conducted, and to me setting aside 20 minutes every day for meditation at home. It led to me attending his weekly Dhamma class when we methodically went through the suttas and talked about what they meant in today’s world. I still read the suttas over and over. And it led me to come to the dhammasala to work. I helped build the new meditation hall, helped set up and clean up before and after special occasions, and I also started hosting Dhamma study sessions at the library in the town where I lived, because the dhammasala I was attending was a 90-minute drive away and I could only go once a week, sometimes twice if I was fortunate.

That was 10 years ago. And for the most part, that remains my practice today. Am I successful? Depends on your measure. Am I happy? You betcha, but that also depends on how you measure happiness. Am I happy that my partner Benny had to leave the country to go back to Hong Kong? No. Am I happy about the fact I don’t know when or if we’ll ever be together again? No.

But am I happy that today I know my actions were honorable, beneficial and compassionate?

You betcha.

Love you Benny.

You give me fever

There was a time in my practice when I wanted to do everything. I would meditate, chant, follow the eight precepts during an Uposatha day, design a very special shrine with all the proper objects, and read the Dhamma so I could have meaningful discussions with others about the Buddha’s teaching.

Yeah, I know. That lasted like maybe a month. And I almost gave this whole Buddhist thing up. After all, I like to drink and eat meat and I wasn’t too keen on giving those up. And sex? Even meaningless serial sex?

But I always came back to the fact that Buddhism saved me.

“Wait a minute, saved you? Isn’t that what Jesus freaks say? Born-again Christians? That’s what they say.”

You’re right, that’s what they say. But that’s not what I mean. Someday, I will go into the sordid details of what brought me to Buddhism, but not now. All that I need to say is that Buddhism did save me. It saved me because it showed me how I fucked up my own life, AND it showed me how I could fix it. It was my responsibility. And unlike the born-again Christian, there wasn’t a Santa Claus out there to fix things for me; I had to do it on my own.

Disclaimer alert! I’m still trying to fix things. But I digress.

I believe that many of us find something very special in Buddhism that immediately connects with us, and that is what draws us to the teachings. But I also understand how many get burned out by their practice. I was almost there. Because it’s easy to slip into this mode of doing everything Buddhist to the point that, by god, I’m gonna let everyone know I’m a goddamned Buddhist and they ain’t gonna give me any shit about it.

It’s very much like coming out. In my early out-of-the-closet years I wore a pink triangle lapel pin on my suits (there was a time when I dressed in a suit and tie every day for work, and let me tell you, I was very stylish!). On National Coming Out Day one year, I wore a T-shirt to work with my blazer that proclaimed “Nobody Knows I’m Gay.”

Nobody at work said anything about the shirt either.

But that didn’t stop me. I turned into a dancing circuit boy who bought all the right clothes (even if I couldn’t afford it – hey, that’s what credit cards are for) and who marched in all the right parades. I attended a vigil on the day it was revealed that Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten and left for dead tied to a split rail fence in the cold dark expanse of the Wyoming prairie. I gave the right speech. I spoke at an alternative school about being gay. And I wrote columns for a local newspaper advocating for gay rights. I decorated my apartment with all the right gay symbols and icons. And I finally accepted the fact that, yes, I really did like Barry Manilow.

I’m not saying any of those activities are bad or were a waste of time. All I’m saying is that I caught the fever. I caught the fever when I found Buddhism too, just like a lot of folks. And just as I mellowed in my gay world, I mellowed out in my Buddhist world too. And what happened was I began to practice in a manner the Buddha describes to Bhaddali in the Bhaddali Sutta (MN 65).

This sutta primarily is concerned with how the monastic code was developed, but within this text is the simile of the young thoroughbred colt. In general, this simile describes how a skilled horse trainer is very methodical when training a colt. The trainer takes very concrete and deliberate steps, and does not advance the colt until it has sufficiently adapted to the current step. For example, the trainer puts a bit into the colt’s mouth. The colt rebels against this initially, but eventually comes to accept the bit and calms down.

Our practice is like that. When we attempt something like meditation for the first time, our mind rebels; it doesn’t want to sit still. But with determined practice, eventually it does. And just like the unbroken colt, if we try too many things at once with our practice, we will fail, just as the colt will totally freak out and the horse trainer will be forced to give up.

So when I felt like I was being overwhelmed by my new practice, I selected a few very basic behaviors to focus on: A daily meditation practice in which the goal was just to sit for 20 minutes a day, and to do something for others. For the second part, I travelled to my new-found Sangha to help them build a new meditation hall. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

Now my meditation is more focused. I’m actually at a point where I can sustain a deliberate thought. And that is an interesting breakthrough, about which I will be blogging soon.

Walking the Walk

I have always been intrigued by walking meditation. I’ve tried it a few times in the past, but always felt like I wasn’t doing it properly. There are publications that describe it, provide some guidance, but this is for me a situation that reading a book doesn’t get it for me. I need someone to show me.

That someone appeared this weekend when I made my second visit to a Thai temple here in Chicago, Wat Phrasriratanamahadhatu, a Theravada Buddhist temple on Magnolia Avenue just south of Lawrence (no pictures yet, but I will have some eventually). The Sunday activities are mostly social with some food offerings made to the monks for the alms round, as well as offerings of personal supplies. There’s a big feast as well, a Sunday buffet of homemade Thai food. But that’s another topic.

After I had finished helping clean up in the kitchen, one of the monks caught me and asked if I wanted to join some of them for meditation. Of course! So we went to another building (the temple has three buildings now) where they conduct classes and meditation. The monk explained that they start with walking meditation: have I ever done that?

Despite a few feeble attempts at the practice in the past, I said no. The monk gave me some personal instruction then to get me started, which I must say was extraordinarily helpful. My experience this time with the practice was unlike any previous. Here’s what he taught me.

Step one: Adopt a standing posture with hands held in front or behind the back (I held mine in front). Close the eyes while standing still and be aware of your posture while standing, running the mind’s gaze on the body from the top of the head down to the feet, then back up, back down, back up, and back down. I did this with each pass timed with my breathing, fixing my awareness on the “object” of “standing.” Not “I am standing.” Just “standing.”

Step two: Open the eyes and begin taking a step to initiate walking, focusing the mind on awareness of each step, realizing the various stages of pressure and lack of pressure on the feet as each step is made. At first, the stride of my steps was too long. I found that the walking was not only easier, but my mind sustained focus more effectively when I took smaller steps, each foot landing only just in front of the other. I keep my gaze downward but ahead of me, not at me feet or the floor directly in front of me.

Step three: Know you are walking. My awareness of each step was really quite extraordinary; I was focused and aware of how the floor felt on the sole of the left foot as it rocked with the shifting body weight, as well as aware of what the right foot was doing as it moved forward. There were moments of wavering balance, as I have arthritis in my right ankle, so when lifting the left foot, sometimes I wobbled as the body’s weight shifted entirely to the right foot. But taking small, very deliberate steps took care of this.

Step four: When the other side of the room is reached, stand still, close the eyes, and bring awareness back to “standing.” Just like I did at the start. It kept the mind from anticipating what was going to happen next, as I always had a task.

Step five: Open the eyes and focus on “turning,” slowly turning the body around by taking small steps to the right, rotating the body in four “points;” so if my starting position was north, I first turn to the northeast, then east, then southeast, then south; all quite slowly and deliberately keeping my attention focused on “turning.”

Step six: Close the eyes and go through the process of focusing the mind once again on “standing.” Then resume the procedure by walking back to the other side of the room, repeating the process for the duration.

It was a wonderful experience, probably due to being a beginner. My attention was so well-focused that I really felt settled when we were through. I don’t think I could do this effectively at home because my floor creaks so much when I walk I would be concerned about all the noise I would be making for my neighbors in the apartment below me. But this is something I will definitely do again each week when I return to the temple.

Have you tried walking meditation? What is your practice like? Has it given your overall practice a big charge like it has to mine?

Seeking the sound of silence

Probably the most common hindrance to my meditation is my mind’s latching on to some damn song, endlessly looping just a snippet of the song through my head. I’ve tried many strategies to get beyond whatever song is playing in my head and sometimes it’s not such a struggle. But just about every time I go to sit, there’s some song in my head.

This morning it was “Jet,” from the McCartney album “Band on the Run.”

My mind is a manic menace. There are times when I easily let go of the bothersome tune that is trying to monopolize my meditation, but I’m never really aware of how that occurs. There are several strategies I employ, all of which can work from time to time, but none of which are universally successful. One, I focus stridently on my breath, really forcing my mind to let go of the tune and pay attention to my breathing. Another is silently chanting Buddho as I breathe, and when that becomes so monotonous that I sense I am drifting into sleep, I will count my breaths going from 1 to 5, then back down to 1, etc.

The counting tends to work the best, but there are other times when I will direct my mind to take a close look at the song in my head, asking it the question, “Where is this coming from?” This is occasionally successful because the mind usually responds with, “I have no idea,” and the song disappears.

Nonetheless, just about every time I sit for meditation, I have to initially struggle with some freaking song. Music playing in my head is so common that when I first wake in the morning, a song immediately starts playing. It’s the first thought of my mind each day!

Granted, I listen to a lot of music. I have a blog as well about Frank Zappa’s catalogue. I have probably more than 1,000 CDs. The thought that a solution to my problem is to turn off all the external music around me is so repugnant that I won’t even consider it. But there are times when I intentionally engage in activities to separate myself from music and the rest of the world, like when I go for a hike.

Any of you have similar recurring distractions to your meditation? How do you deal with them?

The Queerness of Dhamma

John over at Sweep the Dust, Push the Dirt has a post with a good list of some of the characteristics of Buddhism that demonstrate well the reasons I believe Buddhism is a much easier faith system for gays to immerse themselves in than other doctrines. John’s intention for the list, however, differs from mine (he compiled it as a suggested list of responses to an Evangelical Christian of how Buddhism differs from Christianity); my intention is to extrapolate and present those characteristics that ought to be considered by gays searching for a spiritual path.

1. “There is no Omniscient God in Buddhism.” I would add that there is also no omnipresent or omnipotent god in Buddhism. The point is there is no one single god for you to petition to save your ass. The Buddha acknowledged that various gods and spirits exist, some of whom can be helpful to you, and others who are bothersome. But rather than teach others to seek salvation and grace through any of these beings, the Buddha teaches us that the key to our happiness and redemption lies within us and within our control – not outside of us in the hands of someone or something else.
   
   
2. “Buddhists do not owe any allegiance to a supernatural being.” There is no angry, self-centered god in Buddhism that you must constantly appease to avoid spiritual retribution. There are two “gods” in particular that the Buddha spoke of frequently: Brahma and Mara. Brahma is the “chief” Hindu god with whom the Buddha debated at times. Brahma paid deference to the Buddha, not the other way around. And there is a passage in the Tipitika (Buddhist scriptures) in which Brahma admits that he does not know where the beginning or the end of the universe lies. Mara, for lack of a better term, is Satan, the devil. But Buddhism doesn’t require you to believe that Mara truly exists; because the Buddha uses Mara more often as a metaphor for the deluded mind rather than a real deity. So for us gays, we don’t have to justify or rationalize who we are to fit in.
   
   
3. “The Buddha is a guide and teacher. Not a savior or incarnation of a God.” We do not worship the Buddha. The Buddha is gone. When we bow to a Buddha statue or image, or burn incense and mutter unintelligible sayings in some cryptic language, we are not praying or making offerings to a god. We are paying respect to what the Buddha left behind after his passing, all his teachings about how to overcome our own suffering and help others to alleviate their suffering. There are sects of Buddhism that come closer to the notion that the Buddha as a god that you can petition, but they are a minority. Despite that, the Buddha did not tell people to not believe in a god or not pray; if doing so helps you to develop kindness for others and better awareness of your own actions and the consequences they bring, then go ahead and believe. It just isn’t required; you can still attain release from the cycle of suffering and not believe in any deity at all.
   
   
4. “We all have Buddha Nature and can realize that through striving to cut our delusions.” Just as Christians seek to be Christ-like, we Buddhists strive to emulate the Buddha. And despite what others may say or think, realizing our own Buddha nature is not some impossible or even improbable feat. The key is, rather, that successful realization of our Buddha nature is in our hands, not someone else’s. It means seeing things as they really are, rather than what we wish them to be. This does not mean we become doormats and let the larger society wipe their feet on us. It does mean, however, that we remain focused on the present and on what we are doing right now, because out of the present our future is shaped. And while we don’t dwell in the past, we recognize that all we’ve done in the past – good, bad, or indifferent – has consequences that will be eventually revealed, sometimes at inopportune times.
   
   
5. “Heavens (other realms of existence) may exist, who knows?” The Buddha taught that it is unnecessary to believe in a heaven; you can if you want. What is important is the clear understanding that you can reduce – even eliminate – the suffering you experience in this life right now by taking complete responsibility for all that you think, say or do. If there is no afterlife, you’re fine because by being responsible and living a moral life, you will be happy and content. If there is an afterlife, then by being responsible and living a moral life, you will have secured a happy existence in the afterlife. The point is to stop worrying about what happens next: focus on what is happening now and you don’t have to worry about what happens next. The same is true of a hell. If you live carelessly now, behaving badly toward others, your life right now will be filled with suffering. You don’t need a hell in an afterlife because you’re already responsible for creating one right now.
   
   
6. “I may or may not be reborn….this has nothing to do with reincarnation.” In Buddhism we talk about rebirth; it is not the same as reincarnation. In reincarnation, the same “person” or “soul” is reborn over and over. With rebirth, it is your actions and intentions that are reborn; what bodily form these actions and intentions – or kamma – take upon rebirth depends on their quality. But that’s all I’m going to say about this rather complex subject, because the fact is you don’t have to accept the concept of rebirth to live your life guided by the Buddha’s teachings. So don’t get hung up on this concept. It’s not important right now. A way to simplify this concept, however, is to think back on some basic science you learned in school: matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but only change in form.
   
   
7. “A balance of Metta, Wisdom and Compassion are the cornerstones of Buddhism.” Actually, compassion falls under metta; it should be metta, wisdom and concentration. Metta translates best as loving kindness or loving friendliness. Wisdom isn’t just smarts, it’s the quality of being able to see things as they really are. And concentration is the ability to control and direct the mind in appropriate directions so that we think, speak and act in skillful ways; it is developed through meditation. Now think of a three-legged stool. If each of the three legs is the same length, then the stool will be stable; you can sit on it without it wobbling, leading you to fall off. Now think of Buddhist practice as that three-legged stool, with each leg being metta, wisdom and concentration. A lot of people spend too much time on concentration and not enough on metta and wisdom, and as a result, their practice becomes lopsided. They get some of the benefits, but not all the benefits. The key is to develop all three simultaneously, as that creates a stable practice that brings good results. Buddhism is about action, not thinking.
   
   
8. “Suffering happens. Deal with it. This is not sin.” It is an easy trap to fall into, the idea of blaming others for our woes. It’s a trap because that type of thinking misleads us into a sense of powerlessness. Yes, there are forces – politics – that work against us gays. They will probably always be there because the world will always be filled with greed, hatred and delusion. But I am in charge of my own happiness, and I can be happy despite the presence of greed, hatred and delusion in others. I do that through cultivating the Noble Eightfold Path, a topic for another day.
   
   
9. No eternal Hell or eternal Heaven. No eternal anything except what is eternal.” And what is eternal? Impermanence; all phenomena have a beginning, middle, and end. Yet, many of us just don’t see this or refuse to accept it. Our refusal to see that nothing is permanent, including emotions, is at the root of most of our suffering. We fall in love with someone and we expect things to remain the same forever. They won’t. And surprise, surprise, we get disappointed about this. How does a couple find each other and remain together for the rest of their lives? By understanding and embracing the fact that their relationship will always be changing, that it will not remain static. That is the key to happiness.

This list is a good place to start with a personal investigation of Buddhism. I do not present this as representative of every school or branch of Buddhism that is out there. But I believe it is a good representation of Buddhism’s essence and why gay people – or anyone searching for a spiritual path – should consider Buddhism and its path to freedom.

I want again to acknowledge my friend Jimmy Huang for the photo used with this post.

Cittavagga: The Mind

I don’t know if members of the industrial metal band Ministry have ever read anything by the Buddha, but the title of their fourth album – “The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste” – goes to the heart of Buddhist doctrine. Virtually everything the Buddha taught, from his lessons to Rahula to the descriptions of Jhana, revolves around taming the mind, bringing focus to one’s mind so that discernment develops. Without discernment – the ability to tell the difference between what is skillful and unskillful, what brings good results and what brings negative results – I continue to create kamma that keeps me bound to the endless cycle of my mundane existence. I continue to feel restless and dissatisfied; I continue to experience dukha.

The third chapter of the Dhammapada quickly gets to the point with the opening verse to the Citttavaga.

“Quivering, wavering,
hard to guard,
to hold in check:
the mind.”

I particularly like the visual associated with this verse:

“Like a fish
pulled from its home in the water
& thrown on land:
this mind flips & flaps about
to escape Mara’s sway.”

Our experiences with meditation provide plenty of evidence of how difficult it is to keep our mind focused on something as simple as breathing. We’ve come up with plenty of ways to describe the mind, often using various animals to portray it: the monkey mind is a common metaphor in the Tipitika, and meditation is frequently compared with taming an elephant. Elephants and monkeys aren’t ubiquitous here in North America, which is why the notion of the “squirrel mind” is more meaningful, a moniker that Kyle uses along with photos of squirrels at Zen River.

However, there is a reason why taming an elephant was the dominant metaphor in the Buddha’s teaching on how to control the mind. While the antics of a monkey or a squirrel are excellent at portraying how fickle the mind can be, how it jumps about from one thing to another, the metaphor of taming an elephant gets to the heart of what the mind is, or rather, what it is not.

First, let’s look at verse 37 in the Cittavaga:

“Wandering far,
going alone,
bodiless,
lying in a cave:
the mind.
Those who restrain it:
from Mara’s bonds
they’ll be freed.”

The commentary explains that the cave is the body. The verse is describing the mind as being bodiless, yet it dwells within a cave. Just as the Buddha has instructed that I am not my body, I am also not my mind. Rather, I can use the mind like a tool to attain freedom.

This is why I prefer using the simile of a wild bronco to describe the mind, as it is more meaningful to my American way of thinking, and the wild bronco has the essential characteristics embodied in the elephant. When taming an elephant, the animal is often tied to a tree. Similarly, when a wild horse is to be “broken,” it is frequently tied to a post within a corral. Meditation is how we restrain the mind; like the wild horse tied to the post, we “tie” our mind to breath. But the horse rebels against this restraint, pulling violently at the rope in an effort to escape.

Eventually, the horse ceases its struggling and becomes calm. But it’s not over yet. The horse isn’t broken yet. Because the next step is to saddle and get on the horse to ride it. And if you’ve ever seen a Western movie, you know what happens then; the horse rebels against the saddle and rebels against having a rider on it. But if the rider is persistent, he or she eventually tames the horse and is then able to use the horse for many purposes; the horse gives in and allows itself to be directed by the rider.

And if you’ve seen as many Western movies as I have, you know something else about the horse/rider relationship. That the rider develops a strong personal relationship with the horse, and the horse develops devotion to the rider; each becomes mutually dependent on the other.

Having this type of relationship with one’s mind is essential, as revealed in the last verses:

“Whatever an enemy might do
to an enemy,
or a foe to a foe,
the ill-directed mind
can do to you
even worse.

Whatever a mother, father
or other kinsman
might do for you,
the well-directed mind
can do for you
even better.”

The above are beautiful verses; almost as sublime as the opening verses to The Pairs.

Home is where the struggle lies

I recall a time when my teacher, the Venerable Bhikkhu Khemasanto, said something that recently popped back into my mind. He said many people have this idea of how difficult daily life is for a monk; but the truth is, he said, it is much more difficult for a lay person to follow the path than it is for a monk.

Evidence of these difficulties has recently emerged in the iSangha within a couple blog posts. Over at Sweep the Dust, Push the Dirt, Jack Daw has from time to time touched on this issue, and recently Kyle at Zen River wrote about how daily habits can be a hindrance.

We lay practitioners face many obstacles to our practice every day, almost every moment. I live in an apartment where finding quiet moments to meditate is a lost cause. When my neighbors above me walk, their footsteps creak through the ceiling. Jets approaching O’Hare fly low over my neighborhood all day and all night. And then there are the delightful times during my sitting when my cats, who normally ignore me during my meditation, decide it’s time to test out their singing voices, or rub themselves against my knees. Maintaining a level emotional state while driving to work on the tollway is twice-daily challenge. There are the daily indulgences in sensual pleasure, whether it’s dining out with friends and enjoying some wine, watching movies, listening to music, watching television to keep up with current affairs, or the pursuit of other vigorous activities.

As lay practitioners, we have to interact with the world around us, and frequently that world is unkind. The world around us also offers us a plethora of distractions, many of which I willingly embrace.

Monks and nuns living within a Sangha have each other to lend support, as well as a fairly clear routine that allows them to practice mindfulness in a safe environment. Yes, there are rules and lots of hard work, but there is also the palpable sense of relief and ease one can feel when stepping into a temple or walking the grounds of a Wat during a retreat. It is, indeed, refuge.

Routine can be of assistance. Despite the challenges, I meditate every morning. I am beginning a new routine as well of some simple chants before I go to sleep. Persistence is part of Right Effort within the Noble Eightfold Path, as well as among the characteristics of the Four Right Efforts. And so I will be adding another routine that I hope will benefit my study of the Dhamma. I’m stealing the idea from “Julie&Julia.”

Just as Julie Powell challenged herself to blog daily about cooking a recipe from Julia Child’s groundbreaking “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” I am challenging myself to blog daily about something from within the Tipitika. It won’t be random, as I need to bring focus to this endeavor if I am going to be successful.

At first, I thought I would read one sutta a day from the Majjhima Nikaya and write a blog post about what I got out of that sutta. But there are 152 suttas in the Majjhima Nikaya, some of them quite long and difficult. That would take me five months. So I’ve opted for something a bit easier. I’m going to start with the Dhammapada. There are 26 chapters in the Dhammapada, which means I could get through the Dhammapada in less than a month. Plus, each series of verses is much easier to digest in a single blog post than an entire sutta. At some point, however, I do want to tackle the Majjhima Nikaya.

Why am I setting out to do this? I’m not exactly certain, but I guess it’s my way of attempting to overcome the Five Hindrances by stepping up my practice another notch. I hope you will continue to follow my blog; it’s not my intention with this to be pedantic. Rather, I hope you all will join the discussion by leaving comments. I don’t want to fall into the trap described in the Aerosmith song “Movin’ Out”: “Talk with yourself and you'll hear what you wanna know.”

I start tomorrow. Wish me luck!

In the beginning, there was sound

A few years back I was at a celebration at the first temple I attended when a group of visiting monks had arrived for the festivities. Part of the day included chanting. While I had heard chanting on television shows about Buddhism, I had not, until that day, experienced it “live.”

It was an awesome experience.

Interestingly, I also love Gregorian chant. And while I have not attempted to recite Latin chants, I have dabbled in Buddhist chanting. Listening to those monks – as well as the other temple members already familiar with chanting – reciting these ancient words in a beautiful, sonorous voice was almost transcending.

I can remember the Abbot explaining to the newcomers that they needn’t worry if they couldn’t follow the Pali text of the chant, copies of which were distributed among the group. Just sit back, he said, relax and meditate on the sound of the voices. Let your mind, he said, become calm while listening to the chanting. And it was true, just sitting there listening brought my mind to a stillness and focus that I seldom am able to attain during my regular sitting meditation.

I wanted to learn how to do this myself. I managed to pick up the easy parts, the phrases that were repeated plenty of times, such as, “Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma-sambuddhassa.” This is part of the Refuge chant that includes this repeated part that I was able to learn as well:

Buddhaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi.
I go to the Buddha for refuge.

Dhammaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi.
I go to the Dhamma for refuge.

Saṅghaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi.
I go to the Saṅgha for refuge.

Dutiyampi buddhaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi.
A second time, I go to the Buddha for refuge.

Dutiyampi dhammaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi.
A second time, I go to the Dhamma for refuge.

Dutiyampi saṅghaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi.
A second time, I go to the Saṅgha for refuge.

Tatiyampi buddhaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi.
A third time, I go to the Buddha for refuge.

Tatiyampi dhammaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi.
A third time, I go to the Dhamma for refuge.

Tatiyampi saṅghaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi.
A third time, I go to the Saṅgha for refuge.

Recently I learned a new chant from another Buddhist group that I have found equally as soothing. This group chants, Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. I had to laugh to myself when I first heard the words to this chant, because there are so many episodes from the British sit-com “Absolutely Fabulous” during which Edina Monsoon butchers this chant as she attempts to recite it in her uniquely hedonistic and totally self-centered way.

Interestingly, a member of this particular group, which is affiliated with Soka Gakkai International, gave a brief explanation of the chant, saying that a scientist had become interested in it because the sound created by the chant was something that could be found in nature, in space.

I know what some of you are probably thinking: “Yeah, right, I bet it is.” But that was not my reaction. I found nothing absurd about this man’s explanation, and here’s why.

Among the things I am passionate about, Buddhism being just one, is Frank Zappa. I have a blog about Frank Zappa’s recordings. What, you may ask, has Frank Zappa got to do with Buddhist chanting? Not much, to be honest with you, although among the many religions he studied and poured over as a teen in the 1950s was Buddhism. But that’s not where I’m going. In doing the background research for my blog entry on the album “Lumpy Gravy,” I found something very interesting.

Among the random conversations recorded for this album is a brief discourse when someone talks about the “big note.” Here’s the relevant portion of this seemingly inane soliloquy (picture this being said by a complete stoner, who most people would look at and think, “This guy’s an idiot.”):

“Everything in the universe is, is, is made of one element, which is a note, a single note. Atoms are really vibrations, you know. Which are extensions of the BIG NOTE, everything’s one note. Everything, even the ponies. The note, however, is the ultimate power, but, see, the pigs don’t know that, the ponies don’t know that.”

Hmmm, the Big Note, the universe was created by the Big Note. Hmmm, not sure about this, but wait, hold on! There has actually been scientific investigation into this by a man named Hans Jenny. Herr Jenny, a Swiss scientist, founded the scientific field known as cymantics, as opposed to semantics. And through this, he made what he perceived to be a very, very important discovery. He conducted experiments that showed that sound gave shape to matter, concluding that sound was the creative force in the universe.

So there you have it. You may have intuitively known or felt that chanting was awesome, amazing, significant, but you probably didn’t know why.

Sound really is an elemental part of the universe, and perhaps the mystics of the great religions knew this.

So the next time you think disparaging thoughts about someone who chants Nam myoho renge kyo, or who relishes in the Pali “Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma-sambuddhassa,” because you think this person is a bit touched or affected, think about Hans Jenny. Then think about Frank Zappa and THE BIG NOTE.

Death as a teacher

Jack Daw over at Sweep the Dust, Push the Dirt, always has great posts, but lately he’s written a couple that have really sparked my thoughts, prompting me to share my own experiences on these topics. His post regarding death really struck a chord with me. In particular, his mention of the Five Remembrances, which I know as the Five Recollections, prompted me to resume something that had been missing from my meditative practice for quite some time.

Contemplating death ought to be an important part of anyone’s Buddhist practice, but as Jack points out, it’s a subject often treated superficially, if it gets any attention at all. Yet our serious contemplation on this subject can be transformative, as indicated by this passage, taken from Ten Dhamma Talks by Sister Ayya Khema:

“If we really believe in our impending death, not just use the words, our attitude towards people and situations changes completely. We are no longer the same person then. The one we have been until now hasn’t brought us complete satisfaction, contentment and peacefulness … If we were to remember each morning that death is certain, but now have another day to live, gratitude and determination can arise to do something useful with that day.”

Let me take the risk of boring all of you with my personal journey with death. Fair warning, I’m afraid this is going to be a long post. But death has been one of my teachers for a long time, despite the fact I was, for the most part, completely oblivious to its lessons.

It was either Flag Day or Independence Day in 1968 when I awoke at home completely alone. It unnerved me a bit, as I was only 9 years old, that I could wake to an empty house like that. I don’t have a clear memory of how the news was eventually delivered to me, but I learned later that day that my father had a heart attack while he was putting the flag up on our front porch. He was in the hospital in something called intensive care. That was it, that’s all anyone told me. And for years I had no idea what a heart attack was, or that my father had a very close brush with death.

Fast forward to 1972 when I was 14. I was out riding my motorcycle around a lake where my parents were building their retirement home when I came upon a scene of people watching a rescue crew pull a body from the water. I watched and listened, gathering enough information to learn that a man was water skiing in an area of the lake that he shouldn’t have been, because when he fell, he struck his head on a stump in the water. It was the first dead body I had ever seen, yet my reaction to seeing the corpse was barely discernable. I didn’t know who this man was; but there it was – death.

I’m pretty sure it was that same summer when I begrudgingly helped my father and a brother-in-law dig trenches around what was to be our new home near the lake to bury Styrofoam around the foundation to increase the house’s energy efficiency. I hated doing this laborious work and wanted to be doing anything but that. My utter uselessness led to my father’s frustration and he angrily told me to get the hell out of there and do whatever I damn pleased. I did and went off riding my motorcycle. When I returned later in the afternoon, dad was lying in bed. Mom told me that he had angina; again, no real explanation of what that meant. But I remember quietly walking down the hall to peak into their bedroom to see him lying on the bed, resting. At that moment, I finally understood what a heart attack was.

An interesting aside: My father was born in 1910 when Halley’s Comet passed by the Earth. He died in 1986 when Halley’s Comet last passed by the Earth. It was a heart attack that killed him.
My father, I slowly learned, was a very compassionate man. We had Siamese cats, two of them. They both caught feline leukemia. When the first was so sick it was beyond help, he placed it into a large hat box, which he took out to the edge of the woods by our house where he would shoot it with my .22 rifle. But he couldn’t bear to see the animal as he shot it, so he left the lid on the box. Of course, he missed making a fatal shot. Up in the house as I watched out the window, I could hear the cat’s shrieking and reflexive thumping against the side of the hat box as my father fumbled with the rifle, a single-shot bolt action weapon, as he tried as quickly as possible to insert another bullet. When he successfully managed that, he pushed the lid off the box and fired point-blank.

When the next cat became so ill that death was inevitable, he and I together did things differently. He was a biology teacher. We went to his classroom and picked up a plastic funnel, a large wad of cotton, and a bottle of ether. We soaked the cotton with the ether, put the cotton into the funnel then placed the funnel over the cat’s head. It was so weak it just lied there. Slowly, quietly, it died.

I didn’t “come out” to my family until I was 35 years old, and the first person I told was my mother. I was quite fearful of her reaction as the Catholic Church was her life and we all know how accommodating the Catholic doctrine is of homosexuality. I had been away from home for a very long time and did not know that the priest in her parish at that time had brought a very positive message to the congregation about gays and, most importantly, AIDS. She showed me an article about the priest that mentioned another man named Mark who was living with AIDS. The writer quoted Mark as saying that he lived in a remote area and sometimes needed help with simple things like housekeeping or getting to the doctor. I decided to give Mark a call and offer my help.

I could tell Mark was suspicious of my intentions when I called him, but he agreed to meet me at his uncle’s house, as he did not want me to know where he lived yet. When we met, he revealed that he knew who I was, that he remembered me because we went to high school together. He was a year ahead of me, and we had never associated with each other, so I had no recollection of him. We became friends and I would visit him from time to time to watch movies and call him more frequently to chat.

One night I gave him a call to see how he was doing. When he answered, I could hear he was weak, his voice distant and faint. He told me he was having a bout of fever. I asked if he needed anything, but he didn’t reply. All I could hear was his wheezy, raspy breathing. I told him I was on my way over. It was about a 20 mile drive. When I arrived he appeared to feel better than he sounded on the phone. As long as I was there, he suggested, why don’t we watch a movie? During the movie the fever returned; I could hear his raspy and labored breathing. I moved from my chair to the couch where he lay, sat so he could lay against me and I put my arms around his chest. We sat like that and watched the rest of the movie.

It was very late when I left. He later told me that the following day he drove himself four hours to the V.A. hospital in Ann Arbor (he was ex-Navy, honorable discharge) where he was treated for PCP, a rare form of pneumonia that was a common killer among AIDS patients. A year later, he drove by himself from Michigan to San Francisco where he died a few months later.

At that time, I think every gay man thought about how he may die. We all, I think, wondered what we would do, how we would behave, when we received that information that many of us believed to be inevitable – that we have AIDS and were going to die. Getting the results for every HIV test I had was always a time when I had to face my mortality. And every time I wondered what I would do, how I would feel, should I learn I was positive. I’ve been fortunate when so many others have not.

And so when I came to Buddhism, my teacher impressed upon me how important recognizing the inevitability of death was, its utter certainty. And I realized how much I had already encountered death, and how I was continuing to encounter it. I just hadn’t always been paying attention.

My teacher talked about how monks would go to cemeteries in the middle of the night to meditate and contemplate death. I couldn’t do that, but interestingly, I had a book about homicide reporting – I was a police reporter for a newspaper at the time – that had all kinds of grisly photos of corpses in various states of decay. I didn’t like looking at those photos because my monkey mind always set an emotional trap for me, leading me to think about that “poor dead person,” how they “must have suffered at the hands of their killer.” But the point of meditating on death, my teacher emphasized, it to realize that our body is not who we are, it’s just a body. And the photos of decaying corpses and dismembered homicide victims in my book were not images of people – they’re just bodies.

I have a different attitude about death now than I did in the past. But there is still something very important for me to do that I haven’t done, and that is use death as an appropriate motivator. Death can be a useful tool to prompt us into action, to take the steps we know we ought to, but just haven’t gotten around to taking.

The notion that death waits for no one is a worthy one for contemplation.