Bid adieu to your ennui

It has been months since I posted something, and even before that last post, my contributions to this blog have been sporadic. And to some extent, uninspired. There was something creeping into my life. It's called ennui.

I knew it was there, but last night as I walked through Boys Town feeling morose and unwanted (I was totally channeling Linda Ronstadt), I overheard a couple gay boys at least half my age chatting behind me: "We're celebrating our six-year anniversary," said one.

Bitch.

Then I read a message from someone I've been texting with and whom I was planning to meet in a couple weeks: "I hope you aren't expecting anything more than conversation when we meet."

Double bitch.

And this all leads me to recall a conversation I had earlier in the evening. I was dining at a vegan restaurant in Old Town with a colleague from work. She and I had a wonderful time: the food was excellent, I brought a fabulous wine to share, and our conversation was bright and happy and thrilling. Being the social media fanatics she and I are, we both checked in on FourSquare and we got a special - free desert.

When dinner was over and we examined the desert menu, I suggested the blueberry cheesecake because I thought the blueberries would go well with the remaining wine. My mind was totally in the realm of cheesecake and all that word means to me. So when the cheesecake was delivered to our table, its appearance immediately struck me as odd. And when I tasted it, the texture was not at all what I expected.

I was disappointed. I said as much, noting that it was good, but it was not what I expected at all. My friend gently reminded me that we were dining in a vegan restaurant, so traditional cheesecake would not be served. I said to her, "You know, it's funny how it is most often our expectations about something that create our disappointment, not the thing itself. This cheesecake is really quite fine, but because I had expected something creamy and smooth and decidedly not vegan, I was unhappy."

Yes, our expectations. Not the thing itself. This is so basic Four Noble Truths kind of stuff that I feel like I should cancel my subscription to the Dhamma and quickly find a bed of nails to lie on. It's just as my friend Curt recently said: "We've got to get you out of this rut you're in, Richard."

And that word "rut" was so apropos. I had been in both a mental and sexual rut, honing in on deliciously young men whom I was successfully converting into a series of trysts. It was making me feel adequate because look at me! I'm a 54-year-old man and see this cute 20-something with me? But the trouble has been most 20-somethings aren't ready to settle down into anything long-term; they want to play just as much as I do. And the ones that say they do want something long term, well, have you ever tried having a conversation with someone who is less than half your age? I often can't even find any musical interests that we share in common.

So there it is - ennui staring me in the face. And it's because I've been spending a lot of time on the outside of me. I've been kicking my ass in a good way at the gym, losing weight and toning up. I've started attending a yoga class that has really helped my flexibility and my overall sense of health. And while I have been chanting and meditating, it's not as regular as I feel it should be. And frankly, I haven't read any Dhamma since ...

My friend Curt is right. I need to find a way out of this rut of endlessly pursuing younger men with whom I have nothing in common other than an overactive libido. Because that day will come when I no longer got it going on. Maybe it's because of my stroke earlier in the year. You'd never know just by looking at me that I had one. But there may be a thought nugget inside my mind that is telling me to live it up as much as I can because I may not be so lucky with the next one. It's as though I'm Jack Nicholson in "Five Easy Pieces" when he attempts to reconcile his relationship with his father who's been incapacitated by a devastating stroke.

So there it is. There it is, really, for all of us. Because in some manner, we are all creating our own disappointment with everything, our own dissatisfaction, and we're doing it via our expectations.

The day I knew Buddhism was right for me was…

I posed this question a few weeks back on Twitter and I got some great responses. He are some of them:

@MrsCapra: When I read the book “Buddhism is not what you think”

@Zenfant1969: When I saw what I already knew had been written down 2k yrs ago

@ZenDirtZenDust: The day the bottom fell out of my pail

@checkbak: The day I broke 20 years of resistance and walked into a meditation center

@ruralhybrid: When I saw Lama Yeshe say calmly on video, “check it out for yourself”

@bodhichittah: The day I lost everything around me but glimpsed (gained!) a new world within

@Bohicitta3000: When I knew I have to be the carrier of my own banner and not blindly follow one

@ShojinRJB: The day when I learned no discrimination on the zafu

@mindonly: I remember reading a little "basics" book & thinking 'wow, I've always thought that' & 'that makes perfect sense'.

I thought it would be an easy question for me to answer as well, but I found that I really struggled with defining a single day, a single moment or epiphany when I knew that Buddhism was right for me. I guess for me it was really a process that took approximately two years.

If I had to pick a single statement, however, I think I would go with @ZenDirtZenDust’s response: The day the bottom fell out of my pail.

Buddhism is a path, and like any other path, we decide to follow it because something about the path’s beginning appeals to us. Along the way we see and experience different things and at some point we make a decision, conscious or unconscious, that we chose the right path.

My first experience with Buddhism was going with a former boyfriend to a Buddha’s birthday celebration at a temple in the Lansing, Mich., area. During that visit, the monk’s Dhamma talk really struck home with me. It was welcoming, but also presented boundaries that made sense. A seed was planted. Because it was at least another 18 months before I found myself at that temple again, this time alone and feeling like I had lost control of everything, including myself.

The bottom had fallen out of my pail, and when it did, the first thing that came to mind was that evening Dhamma talk. Without hesitation, I got into my car and drove 90 minutes to the monastery where I began walking the path.

But when did I know, when did I become aware, that I had made the right decision? I’m not sure, but I know I did.

A fistful of happiness

Scott over at the buddha is my dj has a very provocative and excellent post you should check out.

There was a passage in Scott’s post that really got me thinking. First, here is the passage:

“… that at the end of the day we’re going to have to live with uncertainty, we’re going to have to live with inadequate, crappy answers that make one or two people, if not happy, at least less irritable, and leave the rest of us more or less in a bummed out state of resignation. A state of, ‘Well, I guess that’s just how it is. And how it is sort of sucks.’”

I commented on Scott’s blog that what he was describing sounded like the First Noble Truth to me, that life is unsatisfactory. All around us are situations and events that we see as being beyond our control, and yet have either a direct or tangential impact on us.

But shortly afterward, I started to think more about this, and this line of thinking came to me. If I feel unhappy because of events or situations over which I have no direct control, but about which I feel deeply and which to a degree impact my life, and if I own my unhappiness, is the alternative to become indifferent? Do I lose my unhappiness by simply resigning myself to the perspective that there is nothing I can do, the world will wag on, so don’t let it bother me? Is apathy the result of The Four Noble Truths?

The short answer is obviously no; the entire point of the Buddha’s teaching is to show the way to a lasting happiness, one that isn’t predicated on conditions over which we have no control. But still, there is this subtle notion that if my reactions are my own, isn’t there a danger of acquiescing into a state of indifference?

And what of the converse? Suppose I opt to become deeply involved in some issue I feel strongly about, whether it might be the war in Afghanistan or same-sex marriage. How do I know when my political activities – my activism, let’s say – turn into an extension of my grasping and clinging to outside events, throwing me back into the whirlpool of samsara?

When I first began to consider this line of thinking, the Clint Eastwood movie “A Fistful of Dollars” came to mind. In the movie, Clint’s character finds himself between two very powerful opposing forces, and in this environment, Clint sees an opportunity to profit. Now let me apply this to the situation of same-sex marriage. The parallel I see with this is I am in the middle of two very powerful opposing forces: one of complete acquiescence and indifference to the world’s activities, and the other, complete submersion into the dynamics of socio-political gambits that grapple with a political and religious hegemony that will very likely crush me.

Wow, that was a mouthful. But is there a way to play the middle? After all, isn’t that what the Buddha did? He experienced the extremes of human existence; he was a prince living a life complete luxury and indulgence, a life he abandoned to live in extreme austerity and self-deprivation. He found the answer in the middle by taking just enough comfort as necessary and abandoning all other pleasures as superfluous.

At this time, all I have are questions. And for the time being, all I can do is attend to what is relevant to me in the present moment. After all, not all questions are worthy of attention. This sounds very self-centered, I know that. But the prospect of joining some political movement does not appeal to me at all.

Are we stuck?

A slight diversion here from my normal posts, or at least what has recently turned into my normal routine of posting.

Last night just before bed I picked up my copy of the Majjhima Nikaya to continue my reading of all its suttas from beginning to end. I am up to MN 14, the Cula-dukkhakkhandha Sutta, or The Lesser Mass of Stress. I was struck – nay, stunned might be the more appropriate term – by a paragraph in the sutta, which I present now (the text below is from my hard copy of the Majjhima Nikaya, while the link I provide is to a different translation that has some minor differences).

The sutta describes Mahanama, a householder or layperson, approaching the Buddha with the question of why, despite understanding what the Buddha teaches, does he continue to experience greed, hatred and delusion. To this question, the Buddha replies with:

“Mahanama, there is still a state unabandoned by you internally, owing to which at times states of greed, hate, and delusion invade your mind and remain; for were that state already abandoned by you internally you would not be living the home life, you would not be enjoying sensual pleasures. It is because that state is unabandoned by you internally that you are living the home life and enjoying sensual pleasures.”

Is the Buddha saying that the only way to completely rid myself of greed, hate, and delusion is to abandon the householder life, to give up my “normal” life, and become a monastic? Because if I don’t, will I will always be tethered in some form or manner to feelings of sensuality and desire for sensual pleasure, and as long as that connection exists, will I always have greed, hatred and delusion?

In other words, because I choose to live my life as a layperson, I am stuck in this cycle of samsara? There’s no getting out of it?

I guess I already knew this. I have stated before that I have no real interest in becoming a monk because I do enjoy sex, I do enjoy traveling and seeing things, I do enjoy good food and good company, I do enjoy good music, a good book, and vigorous ride on my bike along the lakeshore – I enjoy all these things. But because I enjoy all these things, I will always feel greed, hate and delusion?

Am I stuck? Are we all stuck because we opt to live life as lay people?

Arahantavagga: Arahants

This is almost becoming onerous. I’m going to stick with this, but I have to admit that I am developing a sense that in blogging about the various chapters within the Dhammapada I am being very superficial. However, how can I be otherwise? Faced with chapter seven, I see the subject of the Arahantavagga is Arahants, which in the Theravada tradition is a term referring to an enlightened being. I’m not certain, but I believe in the Mahayana tradition, an Arhat is similar, but is someone who’s not quite there yet.

Regardless, I am not an Arahant. And I have no real desire to strive to attain enlightenment. And I’m sure that most lay practitioners have similar sentiments, even if they don’t outwardly express them. We just want to be decent people and avoid as many hassles inherent in samsara that we can. We want to have a pleasant abiding in the here and now. And we’d like a reasonable assurance that in our next lifetime we aren’t going to find ourselves in a Kafka novel reborn as a bug. So what relevance does the Arahantavagga have for folks like me?

“In one who
has gone the full distance,
is free from sorrow,
is fully released
in all respects,
has abandoned all bonds:
no fever is found.”

All right, I get it: Enlightenment is a pretty sweet deal. You have total release from all suffering because you have cut all the connections the mind creates to impermanent things. But it’s so far away for me it might as well be the moon. Hell, it might as well be a quasar on the edge of the known universe.

“The mindful keep active,
Don’t delight in settling back.
They renounce every home,
every home,
like swans taking off from a lake.”

This doesn’t help all that much either. It’s more descriptive, and the image called up by this simile is quite beautiful in a way; I can picture swans taking off from a lake, leaving the water behind. But what does this “renounce every home, every home,” mean? I admit that I’m stuck on that one.

“Not hoarding,
having comprehended food,
their pasture — emptiness
& freedom without sign:
their trail,
like that of birds through space,
can’t be traced.

Effluents ended,
independent of nutriment,
their pasture — emptiness
& freedom without sign:
their trail,
like that of birds through space,
can’t be traced.”

These verses have more meaning for me. I understand that the goal is to move through life without leaving a trail behind you, like a bird flying through the air. A snake leaves a tell-tale sign in the sand of its passing; deer leave deep impressions in the earth that allow a skillful hunter to locate and kill them. These footprints, the trails left behind represent kamma; everything we do, think or say creates kamma and the goal is to stop creating kamma, to be like a bird flying through the air that leaves no trace behind. It is kamma that holds us in the cycle or rebirth and death; eliminate kamma and we are free.

“He whose senses are steadied
like stallions
well-trained by the charioteer,
his conceit abandoned,
free of effluent,
Such:
even devas adore him.

Like the earth, he doesn’t react —
cultured,
Such,
like Indra’s pillar,
like a lake free of mud.
For him
— Such —
There’s no traveling on.

Calm is his mind,
calm his speech
& his deed:
one who’s released through right knowing,
pacified,
Such.”

These verses more clearly recall for me the literary mechanism that was employed in the Dhammapada, and the frustration I feel at times when faced with what I perceive to be impossible goals fades. For example, it’s worth revealing what the notes to the above verses say about Indra’s pillar: “Indra's pillar = a post set up at the gate of a city… there was an ancient custom of worshipping this post with flowers and offerings, although those who wanted to show their disrespect for this custom would urinate and defecate on the post. In either case, the post did not react.”

I may not be an Arahant, I may not be enlightened, but I can be more like an Arahant, I can at least strive for that. Because everyday I react to thins, to people, and events. Everyday I let some little thing send me into a frenzy of emotion. I’m not about to let people shit on me, but I can strive to be more like Indra’s pillar. And every day I have opportunities to practice that.

“The man
faithless / beyond conviction
ungrateful / knowing the Unmade
a burglar / who has severed connections
who’s destroyed
his chances / conditions
who eats vomit: / has disgorged expectations:
the ultimate person.”

This verse is pretty freaking graphic. I mean, eating vomit? But again, there is a literary mechanism going on here. On the left side of the slashes is a negative state or quality or action, while on the right side of the slash represent positive alternative. “The negative meanings are so extremely negative that they were probably intended to shock their listeners,” read the notes. Indeed, eating vomit is pretty shocking. But then knowing that, you read the left side of the slashes as a verse unto itself, and the right side similarly. Hence, the left side reads as:

“Faithless, ungrateful, a burglar who’s destroyed his chances, who eats vomit.”

And the right sides reads as:

“Beyond conviction, knowing the Unmade, who has severed connections, has disgorged expectations.”

Reading it like that, it becomes clear to me what the vomit sequence is getting at, and that is the Arahant has purged him or herself of all the toxic conditions of samsara, while the unskilled eats what the Arahant has purged through his or her ignorance. The Arahant knows that these kammic connections are toxic, but the unskilled doesn’t know that: despite it being like vomit, the unskilled – the ignorant – think it’s good, the essence of delusion.

“In village or wilds,
valley, plateau:
that place is delightful
where arahants dwell.

Delightful wilds
where the crowds don’t delight,
those free from passion
delight,
for they’re not searching
for sensual pleasures.”

These final verses now tie together how I can apply the lesson here. I begin to see that it doesn’t matter whether I live in a big city (which I do), or in the desert or in a rain forest or in a secluded valley or a high plateau or even a cave near a mountain top. Running away from the world to find seclusion to work on my squirrel mind isn’t going to help on its own. This is also made clear in the Bhaddekaratta Sutta (MN 131) when the Buddha instructs that “living alone” means being in the present moment.

There is also the Theranama Sutta (SN 21.10), which deals with a monk who lived in the forest alone, eschewing contact with everyone, including other monks. The Buddha instructs that “living alone” does not always literally mean physically separating oneself from the rest of the world. Rather, it can simply mean refining the mind to the point where one is fully present in the here and now, unconcerned with the past, unconcerned with the future, knowing that how goes the present moment, there goes the future. Achieving that focus of mind does not require isolation.

So maybe I’m not destined to be an Arahant. But clearly, there are some things I can learn from making a few meager attempts to emulate some of their characteristics.

Panditavagga: The Wise

After covering fools in the Balavagga, it makes sense that the Buddha would next bring up the wise, which he does with the Panditavagga, a word that is almost as fun to say as Balavagga. What I find nice in this chapter of the Dhammapada is how I am able to recognize within these verses facets of the Buddha’s teaching in other suttas, particularly the verses pertaining to friends and friendship.

The first pair of verses, while talking about a sage or teacher, can easily be applied to how one ought to select his or her friends.

“Regard him as one who
points out
treasure,
the wise one who
seeing your faults
rebukes you.
Stay with this sort of sage.
For the one who stays
with a sage of this sort,
things get better,
not worse.

Let him admonish, instruct,
deflect you
away from poor manners.
To the good, he’s endearing;
to the bad, he’s not.”

And the next verse is more explicit.

“Don’t associate with bad friends.
Don’t associate with the low.
Associate with admirable friends.
Associate with the best.”

What these verses call to mind for me is the Sigalovada Sutta (DN 31), also known as the Layperson’s Code of Discipline. In this sutta, the Buddha guides a young householder on how to identify the four types of harmful friends – “foes in the guise of friends” – and the four types of good friends – “warm-hearted friends.” The company we keep is critical to the level of skillfulness we are able to attain, and if you feel that something is holding back your progress, take a look first at the people you associate with; your hindrance just might be another person.

A sense of stoic resolve is also described in the Panditavagga as being a characteristic of the wise: the wise are like a deep and calm lake; like a rock that won’t budge in the wind. But this steadfastness is not apathy, or even descriptive of someone who doesn’t know how to have fun. Rather, it is a quality of consistency, of having a lack of caprice.

“Everywhere, truly,
those of integrity
stand apart.
They, the good,
don’t chatter in hopes
of favor or gains.
When touched
now by pleasure,
now pain,
the wise give no sign
of high
or low.”

So what this tells me is that it’s not that the wise don’t experience pain or pleasure – they do. It’s just when these experiences occur, the wise aren’t like a chatty Cathy, running around telling everyone about it and drumming up the intensity like a drama queen. It’s not always an easy thing to do, retaining that sense of equanimity in the face of any extreme. We are, after all, human beings filled with the capacity of experiencing emotion. And things happen that can overwhelm us. Of course, at the root of this are all our attachments.

“There he should wish for delight,
discarding sensuality —
he who has nothing.
He should cleanse himself — wise —
of what defiles the mind.

Whose minds are well-developed
in the factors of self-awakening,
who delight in non-clinging,
relinquishing grasping —
resplendent,
their effluents ended:
they, in the world,
are Unbound.”

In our mundane lives, this “relinquishing grasping” is no small feat. I am by no means a fool, but I am far from wise. It wasn’t easy for me to say goodbye to Benny at O’Hare, knowing he was leaving and not coming back. Attachments can be a positive in our life, provided that what we hook ourselves up to enhances our skillfulness, supports our happiness and leaves us a better person. But we must remember that even this will pass because all phenomena – people, places, things, events – are impermanent.

It does help a little bit when I recite each time after I meditate: “All that is mine, beloved and pleasing will change and vanish.” It helps prepare me for the eventual, but this thing called samsara can be a real bitch at times.