Guilty of simply being

Amelia is a blogger at Huffington Post and under this pseudonym she has been writing about her 7-year-old son. The kicker here is that her son self-identifies as gay.

"Huh? What? That's nuts! How can a 7-year-old self-identify as gay? He hasn't even hit puberty!"

o_O

I know. It's really amazing some of the things people say. Because I find it completely plausible that Amelia's son identifies as gay despite his age. I knew I was gay when I was 4 years old. I just didn't have a word for it. Being gay is not about sex. Our being gay is about who we are as a human being, it's a fundamental trait about ourselves that we intuitively know. We don't need anyone to tell us who we are, we just know.

The words come later. I knew I was a boy even before people labeled me as "boy." And when people started using that word, I began to use it. But I was a boy before I learned that word. Learning the word did not make me a boy.

And I did not become gay once I knew the word. I knew already who I was. Had I known what "gay" meant when I was 4 years old, I would have readily accepted it as a label for who I am, just as Amelia's son accepts the word. By the time, however, I did learn about words like "gay" and "homosexual," I was also learning about words like "fag" and "sissy." So even though I intuitively knew those words were about me, I did not "identify" as such. Rather, I became a ghost.

But enough of that. I want to get to Amelia's most recent post in which she talks about the conversations she knows she'll have to have with her son even though she dreads the moment when they will occur. Nothing very surprising here, these are the conversations we all know about. That yes, there are people who hate us even though they never met us. That we can't give blood, even to a family member. That we cannot marry the person we love. We might not be able to visit that person in the hospital too, and when they die, we might not have any say about what happens to them.

That's not what caught my eye in Amelia's post, however. It was this line:

"My child is guilty of nothing but simply being."

This is such a beautiful statement and its sentiment is at the heart of why Buddhism has been a lifesaver for me. Because unlike other religious doctrines, at least in my experience, Buddhism allowed me to simply be. It showed me how to be a human "being" rather than a human "doing." And it showed me how to escape the pain I was fettering myself with.

Life is unsatisfactory and events seldom go the way I want them to.

The angst I feel day to day about this is self-created because it's my choices that have brought me to where I am right now.

If I can learn to make better choices and become less attached to things and feelings that are merely temporary, I will be happier.

By following the Buddha's path I will free myself of this self-induced drudgery by accepting things as they really are and understand better how my actions now influence what happens next.

So simple, but as Amelia and the world show us every day, not so easy to implement. Dealing with the world around us is no easy task. And for children who identify as gay, it can be brutal. That's because the world is ruled by delusion. Most people are either incapable or simply refuse to see things as they really are. But once you start doing that in even the smallest ways, the transformation is incredible. And what is more astounding is as we begin to see things as they really are, something begins to bubble up from deep inside us, something that was always there, but was blocked and smothered by our deluded egos.

Compassion. And once we have compassion, it doesn't matter what the world throws at us. We become unflappable.

If you haven't read Amelia's blog on Huffington Post, you should. It's a delight.

Buddhist Warfare, chapter 5

Brian Daizen Victoria provides a refreshing counterpoint to the previous essays in his “Buddhological Critique of ‘Soldier-Zen’ in Wartime Japan,” in that he pulls no punches when he flatly states that nowhere in the basic tenets of the Buddha’s teachings is violence condoned or justified. In fact, he admits that he is attacking the concept that Buddhism is innately violent and that the teachings support violent actions under certain circumstances. His target – Japanese Zen.

“I come to the conclusion that, by virtue of its fervent if not fanatical support of Japanese militarism, the Zen school, both Rinzai and Sōtō, so grievously violated Buddhism’s fundamental tenets that the school was no longer an authentic expression of the Buddhadharma.”

Them’s fighting words coming from a self-identified Zennie himself: Victoria states that he is a Mahāyāna Buddhist in the Sōtō Zen tradition.

Victoria’s basic critique is that the dharma was corrupted by teachings that came to be known as “warrior Zen.” At the root of this is the idea that the warrior must extinguish the self completely and be totally devoted to the emperor. Victoria cites what Yamazaki Ekijū (chief abbot of the Buttsūji branch of the Rinzai Zen sect) wrote at the end of a book by Zen-trained Lt. Col. Sugimoto Gorō.

“Buddhists say that one should have faith in the Buddha, or Mahāvairocana, or Buddha Amita, but such faith is one that has been captured by religion. Japanese Buddhism must be centered on the emperor; for were it not, it would have no place in Japan, it would not be living Buddhism. Even Buddhism must conform to the national structure of Japan. The same holds true for Śākyamuni’s teachings.”

Victoria reveals that this line of reasoning is more than just ethnocentrism, because at the heart of this notion is that one group of living, sentient beings is superior to another group of living, sentient beings.

“To purposely inflict pain and suffering, let alone death, on one segment of beings under the guise of benefiting another part, however defined, can never be a part of a Buddhism rooted in the teachings of its founder.”

An important distinction ought to be noted here. What Victoria exposes is more than just a mere twisting of the Dharma to justify violent acts. The entire concept of warrior Zen, and other similar schools of thought, is a corruption of the Dharma so severe that it justifies identifying entire nations as enemies worthy of slaughter.

Victoria notes that this is based on a flawed interpretation of the Buddhist concept of no-self, which I hear often repeated by many others, to mean that there is no self at all. Victoria quotes scholar-priest Walpola Rahula to explain:

“According to the Buddha’s teaching, it is as wrong to hold the opinion ‘I have no self’ (which is annihilationist theory) as to hold the opinion ‘I have a self.’ Why? What we call ‘I’ or ‘being’ is only a combination of physical and mental aggregates, which are working together independently in a flux of momentary change within the law of cause and effect … there is nothing permanent, everlasting, unchanging and eternal in the whole of existence.”

A simple Buddhist concept – there is no permanent self – is corrupted into there is no self at all, and if there is no self at all, imagine what heinous acts can be justified? Not long, as Victoria reveals with an excerpt from the Rinzai Zen master Takuan addressing a patron, the highly accomplished swordsman Yagyū Tajima no Kami Munenori:

“The uplifted sword has no will of its own, it is all of emptiness. It is like a flash of lightning. The man who is about to be struck down is also of emptiness, and so is the one who wields the sword. None of them are possessed of a mind that has any substantiality. As each of them is of emptiness and has no ‘mind,’ the striking man is not a man, the sword in his hands not a sword, and the ‘I’ who is about to be struck down is like the splitting of the spring breeze in a flash of lightning.”

Gee, seems like a lot of people forgot about the Kalama Sutta, which guides us to test assertions to determine if they are true and comport with the Dharma. And as Victoria points out, it appears that many have forgotten the Buddha’s words in the Dhammapada:

“All men tremble at punishment, all men fear death; remembering that thou are like unto them, do not strike or slay.


“All men tremble at punishment, all men love life; remembering that thou are like unto them, do not strike or slay.”

But this didn’t happen specifically or uniquely to Japanese warrior Zen; this corruption of the Dharma began much earlier in China with the Ch’an school that preceded Zen, which Liang Su criticized in the eighth century:

“Nowadays, few men have true faith. Those who travel the path of Ch’an go so far as to teach the people that there is neither Buddha nor Dharma, and that neither good nor evil has any significance. When they preach these doctrines to the average man, or men below average, they are believed by all those who live their lives of worldly desires. Such ideas are accepted as great truths that sound so pleasing to the ear. And the people are attracted to them just as moths in the night are drawn to their burning death by the candle light (italics added by Victoria).”

Victoria also flatly denies that a bodhisattva could possibly kill any other living being and have that killing justified. Victoria acknowledges the Mahayana concept of expedient means which seems to create loopholes for “compassionate violence.” To portray this, he cites the Lotus Sutra and the story of the burning house in which a loving father deliberately lies to save his children’s lives. What is interesting about this parable is that instead of it being used to explain how telling a lie may be necessary to save a life, it is used to show that the Buddha was a liar! The “lesser” vehicle really wasn’t true at all, asserts the Lotus Sutra; the Buddha only taught it as an expedient mean to bring believers to the “greater” vehicle.

Victoria concludes this chapter with a dire warning to we Westerners as we adopt Buddhism into our culture.

“As Buddhism continues its spread in an easterly direction (i.e., to the ‘West’), one critically important question is, how much of Buddhism’s historic proclivity to condone warfare as a function of the Buddhadharma will spread with it?”

Oh, I get it – you think I’m white

While my three previous posts have been pointedly about race, it is not a “new” subject for me. I have been contemplating this topic for quite some time, not only looking at how others act on the concept of race, how others self-identify in terms of their own race, and how race remains a divisive issue, but also looking at how I internalize race in terms of my own identity and how I project these internalized notions onto others. It has been an uncomfortable journey.

All my scattered thoughts and bits of fleeting insight (if insight it can be called) began to coalesce when my attention was directed toward a post at Firehorse via Progressive Buddhism via (tangentially) Nathan at Dangerous Harvests. But then I encountered the “catalyst,” this time via Arun at Angry Asian Buddhist, when I read one of Brad Warner’s posts at Hardcore Zen.

Perhaps I am misstating things, but it seems to me the essential question is whether attachment to identity in terms of race, sex, ethnicity or sexual orientation are hindrances. That seems to be what Warner was trying to address. Here’s the question someone sent him:

“Have you ever considered that it may be easier for you to give up attachment to identity because your identities are not problematic, are in fact usually not considered identities at all?”

In other words - perhaps - was the questioner asking this because Warner is white, and being white is not normally considered a "problem?" Warner’s initial response.

“I believe that all of us, no matter what our race, sexual orientation, gender, etc., are socialized to cling tightly to individual identity and to believe in it very strongly. This goes far beyond matters of race, sexual orientation, gender, etc. Those aspects of identity are very superficial compared to the much deeper issues of seeing oneself as separate from the rest of humanity and from the Universe itself. So my guess is that maybe someone who has forged a strong identity based on his/her/zher race, culture, sexual orientation etc. might have a tiny fraction of a percent more attachment to identity than someone for whom the questioner says identity is not an issue. Maybe. Maybe. Just a teeeny, weeny, itty bitty bit.”

I believe Warner is being way too kind in his assessment of this issue. But here’s the trick as I see it.

I don’t think I can abandon my “self” without first having a firm understanding of who I am. I don’t think you can let go of something unless you know what it is you are letting go of. At the same time, however, I cannot ignore the Buddha’s consistent teaching on self, which was to largely ignore the issue. Thanisarro Bhikkhu explains in “Refuge: An Introduction to the Buddha, Dhamma & Sangha” that the Buddha avoided discussion about self or no-self (anata in Pali) because regardless of how one defines or views “self,” that view is a source of dukkha, a source of suffering.

“So, instead of answering ‘no’ to the question of whether or not there is a self — interconnected or separate, eternal or not — the Buddha felt that the question was misguided to begin with. Why? No matter how you define the line between ‘self’ and ‘other,’ the notion of self involves an element of self-identification and clinging, and thus suffering and stress. This holds as much for an interconnected self, which recognizes no ‘other,’ as it does for a separate self. If one identifies with all of nature, one is pained by every felled tree. It also holds for an entirely ‘other’ universe, in which the sense of alienation and futility would become so debilitating as to make the quest for happiness — one's own or that of others — impossible.”

Race is clearly a part of our self-identification. And I think it is pretty clear that race is also a significant part of our suffering because of how we cling to it as not only being a part of “self,” but also how we cling to it as a general fabrication we use to project identity on the groups “us” and “them.” It is from the development of these fabrications and our adoption of them – either willfully or unconsciously – that our troubles relating to race arise. It is my belief that before any of us, myself included, can let go of race as a source of interpersonal division and as a source of dukkha, we must recognize from where it arises, how it arises, what are its nutriments, and how it creates unhappiness.

“Haughtiness & contempt have been abandoned — rooted out — the conceit ‘I am’ is extracted, all forms of pride, destroyed.” From Jenta, the Royal Chaplain’s Son (Thag 6.9)

The temporary simile of self that I have come up with so far is that it is like a ball of Velcro. It starts with a basic identity, such as I am a boy. But then a lot of other stuff gets picked up along the way and clings to my basic self. And after a while, what started as a simple, single-dimension notion of self has become complicated with multiple layers and dimensions, some of which are buried and hidden. Despite that, I believe many people continue to view “self” in a very simplistic way; so simple, in fact, that many people ignore obvious connections to “self” that come from outside sources.

For example, think of the term “father.” In its simplest form, “father” is merely the male counterpart of a male-female couple that produces offspring: “father” is simply the source of sperm. But I would guess that most men who are fathers have a much more complex notion of what it means to be a father. And I would further guess that these fathers are unconscious of these more complex aspects of their identity. Yet, they behave, act, think and say things predicated on what that notion of father is.

Add to that additional concepts of identity such as a person’s age, ethnicity, race, geographic identity – all these things, and it quickly becomes evident that the simple identity we began with, “father”, has taken on many new dimensions beyond the base term. Yet, a group of fathers will initially identify with each other based solely on the notion that they are the male counterparts of a male-female couple that produce offspring. Given time, they will likely deliberately further compartmentalize themselves (we are good fathers, they are poor fathers), as well as unconsciously draw divisions (we are middle-class fathers, they are lower-class fathers).

I believe there are two primary reasons why most people don’t think about the complexity of their identity. One is a matter of convenience and acquiescence; it is much easier to just simply act within the behavioral norms associated with our identity without thinking about them or being aware of them. I believe the other reason, however, is that to seriously consider the complexity of our identity scares the shit out of most people. And fear, it is important to be aware of, often leads to unskillful – even irrational – behavior. It is much easier for me to think of myself as a “man” in simple terms based upon my genitalia and some other very vague concepts associated with the term “man,” than to seriously consider the collective concept of “men.” Because as soon as I attempt to understand the gestalt of “men,” I must recognize how others might perceive that concept, and that it may differ from mine, even among other men.

It would differ between rich men and poor men; between white men and black men. And it’s my assertion that many men, for example, are afraid to fully evaluate how their race and sex automatically combine to bring them either advantage or disadvantage, privilege or lack of privilege. Because there is this unwillingness to critically evaluate and understand how these notions operate and work together, many are left with this vague uneasiness. This tends to contribute to defensive reactions whenever someone comes along and challenges us to critically look at why we do what we do, instead of just doing it.

Right now I’m thinking of the Bob Dylan song “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).”

“While preachers preach of evil fates/Teachers teach that knowledge waits/Can lead to hundred-dollar plates/Goodness hides behind its gates/But even the president of the United States/Sometimes must have to stand naked.”

I was traveling with a companion through Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand during March, 2003. We had been staying in larger cities and had recently spent a night on the resort island of Langkawi. Our next stop was Phuket. We took a ferry from Langkawi to Satun in Thailand. Our taxi that was to take us to our bus turned out to be an old, red Datsun pickup with a canopy over the bed. We hopped in the back along with some locals. When we reached Satun, and the driver began dropping off people, we were going through narrow and crowded streets filled with people. I looked about and not a single sign anyway was familiar; everything was Thai script. There were no Coca-Cola signs, nothing in English, not even anything in Malay written with Roman letters. We drove slowly by a fish market that would make Pike’s Place look miniscule; people everywhere, none of them white. For a very brief moment, I felt anxiety. I suddenly felt for the first time, despite having already spent a week in Southeast Asia, that I was truly far away from home: it was my Dorothy in Oz moment when she says, “Toto, I've a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Then just as suddenly, I let go of the anxiety and took in the site. I brought myself into the moment, because by golly, I was there.

“A question in your nerves is lit/Yet you know there is no answer fit/To satisfy, insure you not to quit/To keep it in your mind and not forget/That it is not he or she or them or it/That you belong to.”

I vaguely remember a discussion about race that might have occurred in high school. I can’t remember if this was said by one of my teachers, or a comedian during some routine, or by a teacher recounting a comedian’s routine. But the comment, or rather suggestion, was on how to respond to someone I believe is speaking to me in either an overtly racist tone, or speaking to me because he or she is also white using words he or she probably would not use if speaking with someone of a different race. For example, someone telling me a racist or off-color joke. I would look at them with a puzzled expression, showing a confused response to what was just said. Then I show an expression of “Aha!” and respond with, “Oh, I get it, you think I’m white. That’s why you’re telling me this.”

“While one who sings with his tongue on fire/Gargles in the rat race choir/Bent out of shape from society’s pliers/Cares not to come up any higher/But rather get you down in the hole/That he’s in.”

I realize I may have rambled a bit at the end, but that's the way it is; the path of self-discovery is no simple feat. I hope I am stimulating your own thoughts and inward searching as I continue with mine.

Visiting the dead

Today I visited an unmarked piece of ground. The photo accompanying this post is of my daypack on the ground in Mt. Olive Cemetery on the west side of Chicago. The day pack is lying in about the spot I think where a great-uncle of mine was buried back in 1917. The grave is unmarked in one of the oldest areas of the cemetery, way in the back almost against a fence that separates the Mt. Olive Cemetery from another cemetery. I had to guess as to the location.

What sent me to this cemetery was a request from one of my sisters. She had some information on this great-uncle, Frank Harrold. I knew a little about Frank as well. I knew that he occasionally traveled as a hobo, hopping trains in the early 1900s. He fell off a train one time, and I believe a rail car ran over his arm. It had to be amputated. A journalist from the Chicago Tribune interviewed Frank at the hospital while he was recovering. That was 1905 when Frank, I think, was 19. That will be my next endeavor, to find a microfiche with that 1905 article.

My sister sent me a copy of the receipt for Frank’s grave, which included the plot number. It was $10 for the plot and another $2 for the interment. The total bill was for $40.50, paid on Aug. 31, 1917. I don’t know how Frank died. It might have been in the war, or it might have been from the flu. I went into the cemetery office where a man kindly looked up the plot number, found it on a cemetery map, gave me directions to the spot, plus listed the names of several of the graves to either side of the spot.

You see, he told me, it might not be marked. That’s one of the oldest areas of the cemetery. You ought to be able to find a few of these names, he said, so you can locate this grave.

I drove to the very edge of the cemetery, past a few other gatherings of folks who were there for burials, others there to visit graves. When I found the section the caretaker had directed me to, I saw mostly grass with just a few old headstones. None of the headstones had any of the names the caretaker had given me. I wandered about to make sure I was in the correct area; I seemed to be as the few headstones that were there had similar dates of 1915, 1916 and 1917. That’s when I found these round, concrete cylinders embedded in the earth, each with a number on them; the plot numbers. But alas, some of these were missing as well. Frank was buried in spot number 195. I found one of these cylinders with a 189, then a 190, a 191 – good, the numbers were going in the correct direction. I was in the right spot. Then 192, but that was it, just a broad expanse of open ground, no more cylinders.

I then paced off the distance between each cylinder, which was about one good stride. They packed them in close back there. And so I counted three more strides beyond number 192. That must be it, a bit of ground covered with leaves. I brushed the leaves away with my hand, looking for any sign of a number cylinder, but there was none. I laid my daypack on the ground in that spot, placed the copy of the plot receipt on my day pack, and took several photos in various directions.

And that’s when the thought occurred to me about what that piece of ground was all about. It’s just a piece of ground. And if my great-uncle’s remains were under that turf, it would just be bones. Not Frank, because he was gone. And this spot of land was just that, a bit of dirt with some spotty grass, covered with decaying leaves. Was there ever a headstone to mark this spot as the final resting place for Frank Harrold’s remains? Something told me, probably not. Did anyone come to his grave during those first years after his death? Was there a wreath ever laid across it? Again, something told me probably not.

Over against a fence I saw a pile of concrete cylinders. I looked at them, pulled some of them out of the dirt where they had laid for so long they were partially submerged in the turf. The numbers on the ends had almost completely eroded away; none of them had the number 195. But why were they so carelessly discarded against the fence? Were they ever properly placed in the ground to mark the correct plot, only to be removed later, perhaps because they damaged a lawnmower?

I looked upward at the leaves that were still in the trees and I thought about what the Buddha said about questions; that most are like the leaves in the trees above our heads, so many and most irrelevant. Just because a question is asked doesn’t mean it warrants a response.

Maggavagga: The Path

Anyone who desires to practice Buddhism needs to have conviction; a steadfast belief that what he or she is doing will bring the desired results. Thanissaro Bhikkhu in part three of “Wings to Awakening” says this about conviction, that it has three parts:

“(S)ocial (whom to trust), intellectual (what to believe), and practical (how to act as a result). Because conviction is focused not on a descriptive proposition but on a course of action — the skillful mastery of the processes of kamma in a social context — these aspects are inextricably intertwined. The social aspect comes from the need to associate with people who have already mastered these processes, learning from their words and emulating their actions. The intellectual aspect — belief in the principle of kamma — is necessary because the development of skillfulness within the mind requires that one understand the nature of kamma, take responsibility for one's actions, and have conviction in one's ability to benefit from developing one's skills. The practical aspect is necessary, for if one does not follow through in developing skill, it shows that one's conviction in the development of skillfulness is not genuine, and that one is not fully benefiting from one's beliefs.”

It is with this in mind that I approach Chapter 20 of the Dhammapada, the Maggavagga, or The Path. Because in the Maggavagga, we get a series of verses that repeat the basic concepts of the Buddha’s teaching: The Noble Eightfold Path; the Four Noble Truths; the doctrine of anatta, or not-self (here is a delightful cartoon that explains succinctly the doctrine of not-self or no-self); the nature of dukha and the deluded mind.

“Of paths, the eightfold is best.
Of truths, the four sayings.
Of qualities, dispassion.
Of two-footed beings,
the one with the eyes
to see.”

The Buddha acknowledges that there are other paths, other doctrines, other dhamma. But he determined that the Noble Eightfold Path was the best the follow, a path focused on developing skillful thought, action and speech. By following the Noble Eightfold Path, the Four Noble Truths are realized, which then leads to dispassion. With dispassion, one sees how things really are. (skipping verses again)

“When you see with discernment,
‘All fabrications are inconstant’ —
you grow disenchanted with stress.
This is the path
to purity.

When you see with discernment,
‘All fabrications are stressful’ —
you grow disenchanted with stress.
This is the path
to purity.

When you see with discernment,
‘All phenomena are not-self’ —
you grow disenchanted with stress.
This is the path
to purity.”

Just about everything we do every day is a fabrication. My job is a fabrication that is driven to create more fabrications. That does not mean my job is not real. It just means our economy only exists because as a societal group we agree to a large extent that it does exist. If our mass agreement stopped, it would be gone, it wouldn’t exist. In poker, equivalent straight flushes are ranked on the suit of each hand, so a straight flush of spades will beat an equivalent straight flush of diamonds. The concept that spades are superior to diamonds in poker is a fabrication. The concept of spades as a suit is a fabrication. A playing card is real because it's matter, but any attempt to qualify the playing card as valuable or worthless requires a fabrication of thought.

“There are no sons
to give shelter,
no father,
no family
for one seized by the Ender,
no shelter among kin.

Conscious
of this compelling reason,
the wise man, restrained by virtue,
should make the path pure
— right away —
that goes all the way to Unbinding.”

Death waits for no one, and no one is exempt from death. The Buddha commented on this frequently, instilling the notion that one can use death as a motivator and even as a teacher.

So I follow the path with conviction. And each step along the way, my conviction becomes stronger. It still wavers from time to time. Maybe I skip a day of meditation. Perhaps I stray from the path, misled by another. But eventually I return. It is a path that works.

Attavagga: Self

Self is one of those concepts in Buddhism that at times strikes me as a paradox. On the one hand, the Buddha taught that there is no real or true self, because we are constantly changing. So there is no static self you can point to and say, “That is me!”

Yet we all recognize, if perhaps unspoken, that we have something that can best be described as uniquely us, which we universally call “self.” There is an “I” identity, and for many of us and for a long time, it was a comfortable and automatic notion.

Then the Buddha shook my world. “I am not my body, I am not my mind, I am not my perceptions, I am not my consciousness, I am not my feelings: then what the hell am I?”

What really kills me is that other people have their own sense of who “I” am. And the Buddha recognized this, as many of his teachings are about how we are “defined” by our actions and by the company we keep. You see it in the Dhammapada as well, verses about how the wise behave and avoid association with fools, etc. And that’s partly what Chapter 12 is about.

With the Attavagga, the Buddha is treating the self as something real as well as something that needs protecting and nurturing. Because whatever the self is not, it does do things, and one of those things is create kamma. And creating kamma is what binds us to the endless cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth, etc.

“If you hold yourself dear
then guard, guard yourself well.
The wise person would stay awake
nursing himself
in any of the three watches of the night,
the three stages of life.”

We all hold ourselves dear, right? But it’s so easy just to cruise along and not pay attention. As a result, we are often careless and wind up doing things that are harmful to us. But regardless which of the “three watches of the night” we finally wake up – in youth, middle age, or old age – it’s not too late to properly nurse oneself and develop wisdom.

“First
he’d settle himself
in what is correct,
only then
teach others.
He wouldn’t stain his name
: he is wise.

If you’d mold yourself
the way you teach others,
then, well-trained,
go ahead & tame —
for, as they say,
what’s hard to tame is you
yourself.”

The Theravada tradition often gets knocked because it is “selfish,” because of a perception that it is focused entirely on the self. To some extent, this is perhaps true, it is a selfish practice, but not in a negative sense. As the verses above describe, I am of no use in helping anyone else if I haven’t got my own shit together. I’m not going to be a bodhisattva and help all other sentient beings if I can’t even control my own squirrely mind. I mean, think about it, even in the Mahayana tradition, when practicing loving kindness, where do you start? With yourself!

Skipping a few verses:

“They’re easy to do —
things of no good
& no use to yourself.
What’s truly useful & good
is truly harder than hard to do.”

It is so hard for me to control my anger when I’m driving it’s pathetic. I know that anger is bad for me for so many reasons that I can’t count. But besides giving me headaches, making me tense, raising my blood pressure, leading me to use abusive language and to become distracted, when I become angry I am surrendering myself to the whims of the world, I am relinquishing control.

And most importantly, I am continuing to create kamma. And it’s kamma I don’t want.

“Evil is done by oneself

by oneself is one defiled.
Evil is left undone by oneself

by oneself is one cleansed.
Purity & impurity are one’s own doing.
No one purifies another.
No other purifies one.”

Next to the opening verses in the first chapter of the Dhammapada (which are posted at the top right of my blog), these verses are my next favorite. This is so important for me to remember. Only I can defile myself, no one does it to me. And only I can cleanse and purify myself. It’s not done by some deity or deva or saint or witch doctor or whatever. Only I can cleanse myself of the clutter I’ve accumulated through all my pasts, and I start by paying attention to what I am doing right now.

If I may use a baseball metaphor, in some ways I am like the home run hitter. I can bang that ball out of the park, do something spectacular that really elevates my practice, or say something that is really insightful. But like the home run hitter, I am very inconsistent. More often than not, when I step to the plate called life, I swing and miss. I need to stop being the home run hitter with the .210 batting average, and be the consistent base runner who hits .325.

“Don’t sacrifice your own welfare
for that of another,
no matter how great.
Realizing your own true welfare,
be intent on just that.”

I want to thank all my readers who I don’t know, and my followers who I do (sort of), as I plod my way through this project. I’m learning a lot about myself as I do this. Nothing remarkable or earth-shattering, but important nonetheless.

Metta