Rafting Towards Relinquishment

While the Buddha's message coheres into a cohesive whole, he didn't give the same teaching to everyone. Not everyone has the same goals and interests. He taught what was best for whom he was teaching to.

Some people just wanted a good rebirth. That's fine, he taught basic ethics to secure a good rebirth.

Some people just want to be a little happier in their lives, but not eliminate all their stress and discomfort. Some people find a certain level of discomfort tolerable, unnoticeable even. He taught for them, too.

And some people want to make a complete end to all stress and suffering. Some people want to leave the wheel of rebirth, wandering in the realms from lifetime to lifetime, and reach the Deathless. He taught them--us--too.

I've been spending time with a Plum Village group. I love Thich Nhat Hanh, he is brilliant, and has done a wonderful job bringing Buddhism to the west. I first took refuge from his nephew, in fact.

But one thing that strikes me about TNH is a catchphrase I hear a lot from him, "You have all the conditions you need to be happy in this present moment." If I were to sum up his teachings as I understand them, that would be it.

Look at that: Conditions. You have all the conditions for happiness right here, right now. Conditions. He's still speaking of a conditional happiness, one you just have to arrange the conditions for to bring about (or realize the conditions are already present for).

This is not the highest teaching of the Dhamma as I understand it. Thanissaro Bhikkhu makes a big deal out of this: There is an unconditional, unfabricated happiness. This is what the highest teachings point to. It's not enough, for me, to simply have the conditions for a conditional happiness--that still depends on conditions. I'm after the unconditioned happiness. Nibbāna.

There's this subculture within Buddhism that prides itself on being punk. They like to swear a lot (like who fucking cares?) and engage in sexual activity with their students, which should be obviously problematic to anyone with any sense.

I mean, sure, the Buddha could be read as the most punk guy ever. His teaching goes "against the stream", as he put it (and as Noah Levine named his organization), against the stream of worldly pleasures and desires and notions of success. It's as punk as you can get, really.

But there's something about these Dharma Punks that doesn't sit well with me. Is it that their entire shtick is pretty childish? Yes, in part. Is it their arrogance? Yes, definitely so. They often lay claim to be the True Buddhists, and look down on other, more conventional, practitioners, tossing around nonsense phrases like "politically correct".

But hey, that's just my impression. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Love,
A guy whose ears constantly ring because of all the punk shows he went to as a kid

Meditation can be seen as a spectrum that goes from pure mindfulness to pure concentration. An example of what I mean by "pure mindfulness" is open awareness type of meditation, where the mind is simply open to whatever comes up and lets go of it as soon as it arises. Awareness is a bright sky and thoughts and mental phenomena are ephemeral clouds passing through that sky. "Pure concentration", on the other hand, is holding attention on one object and only one object, not letting it waver.

Both contain each other, like the famous taiji/yin-yang symbol from Taoism. Pure mindfulness is what the Buddha referred to as "signless concentration". Instead of focusing on one particular object within experience, the entirety of experience is taken as the object. Experience is regarded as a whole and experienced as a whole. Pure concentration, on the other hand, requires mindful awareness to see when distraction arises, and to see the state of mind and adjust accordingly until proper concentration is reached.

Typically I practice a mix of these. I practice a samatha or concentration exercise, focusing on where I feel the breath in my body and trying to hold my attention there--which is especially challenging during the pauses between in- and out-breaths. Interruptions come up, and I try to let go of them and bring attention back to the breath. Sometimes the interruptions are minor and easily released. But sometimes they are major. Loud. Persistent. Insistent. These must then become the object of meditation, but rather than concentration exercise I do a more mindful examination of them. How do they feel in the body? Where is there tension, where is there relaxation? Where is there constriction or restriction, and where is there release or opening? What is the cause? What is being gratified? What is the danger? How can I work to let go? The examination is performed gently, prodding the object and allowing it to reveal itself under the guidance of my quiet questioning. And eventually it is teased apart, and I'm able to release it and return to the breath.

Buddhist cognitive theory starts with the moment of contact. "Dependent on the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises. The meeting of the three is contact." (MN 18). This holds true for all six senses: The coming together of the sense-object with the sense-base and the sense-consciousness dependent on both is contact. From there, all of cognition proceeds.

Continuing from MN 18: "With contact as condition there is feeling. What one feels, that one perceives. What one perceives, that one thinks about. What one thinks about, that one mentally proliferates." So immediately with contact, we have two things happen: Feeling and perception. Feeling can be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. As such, it conditions either craving, aversion, or ignorance, respectively. This tinges the process that occurs after perception.

From MN 148,

When one is touched by a pleasant feeling, if one delights in it, welcomes it, and remains holding to it, then the underlying tendency to lust lies within one. When one is touched by a painful feeling, if one sorrows, grieves and laments, weeps beating one's breast and becomes distraught, then the underlying tendency to aversion lies within one. When one is touched by a neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling, of one does not understand as it actually is the origination, the disappearance, the gratification, the danger, and the escape in regard to that feeling, then the underlying tendency to ignorance lies within one.

The process of mental proliferation is tinged by this, and that which one thinks about becomes predominant. SN 12.52-60 point out that if you think about the gratification that a particular object brings, it you will increase the craving, but if you think about the inherent danger, you will decrease the craving for it.

Ultimately, the way out is mindfulness of feeling. Keep attention close to direct experience, and close to whether or not the feeling is painful, pleasant, or neutral. That provides a vantage point from which one can see the machinery of craving begin to operate, perceptions distorting the object according to feelings and cravings. Stay close to direct experience without excessive thought, and thereby comes liberation from craving.

In this day and age, we have access to a bewildering array of spiritual teachings from all around the world. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Judaism, Wicca, as well as esoteric teachings like Tantra or Qabala. How are we to know what teachings are vaild and what are not?

The Kālāma people of the Buddha’s time were faced with a similar problem. At that time in India, there were the established priesthoods, or brahmins, as well as a wide variety of heterodox movements taught by wandering ascetics called samaṇa. They had virtually every teaching available, from strict materialism and hedonism to ideas of an eternal world and eternal soul. When the Buddha came to the Kālāmas, they were so confused by this. Their story is recorded in AN 3.65. (I am using Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation.)

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One of the most difficult "doctrines" in Buddhism, pervasive in all branches, is "dependent origination". In its simplest form, it is "When this is, that comes to be; when this is not, that ceases". It is typically formulated as a twelvefold chain, which I'll get to in a sec. I don't pretend to fully grasp it--indeed, it is said that fully grasping it is equivalent to reaching nirvana--but I find it and endless mine of insight. I'll spend this post, and perhaps a few more, exploring some of its implications.

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Buddhism in full of handy little lists. One of my favorites occurs in the second sutta in the Majjhima Nikāya, the Sabbāsava Sutta. In it, the Buddha gives seven different techniques for handling the āsava, which is a difficult word to translate but for now we'll go with Bhikkhu Sujato's rendering of "defilements." Defilements are like stains on a mirror that distort the image and prevent us from seeing clearly. We should not feel guilty for having them, or reject them with aversion, but clean them from our mind as dispassionately as we would clean those stains off a mirror. I haven't written a blog post in awhile, so I thought I'd share this. The seven techniques are given by the short hand: Seeing, restraining, using, enduring, avoiding, removing, and developing.

Giving up defiliments by seeing is done through yoniso manasikāra, a term usually translated as "wise attention". (Yoniso comes from yoni, or womb, and thus has a sense of producing something or creating something, so I've lately been thinking of translating it as "productive attention".) Basically, it means being careful with what you place your attention on. Anything you attend to will be strengthened by that attention. But it's not just what you attend to, but how you pay attention. So, for example, we may have a defilement that we can't ignore (because ignoring something can also make it stronger) so we are careful to pay attention to it in such a way that we come to understand it and weaken its grasp over us (or our grasp of it). So giving up by seeing means looking at those things which are helpful, and looking in ways that are helpful.

Giving up by restraining refers to a common practice called "restraint at the sense doors". We are constantly sensing things, and the objects we perceive come with feelings either pleasant or unpleasant. From there, it is easy to get carried away to attraction or aversion, and the whole mass of suffering. So restraint means to stick close to the objects, and not get carried away. To embrace them without clinging them or rejecting them, but simply letting them be. Restraining oneself from reactivity.

Giving up by using means being attentive to how we use our material things. It is easy for the stuff that we own and use to overwhelm our minds. For greed to arise, for clinging to arise, for jealousy and avarice. So giving up by using means using our stuff for their purpose, and that alone. I use my computer to write this blog post and do not obsess over how I could have a better computer (it won't help me write fancier blog posts!) or compare my computer to someone else's. It also means really only having what is needed, and not accumulating unnecessary possessions.

Giving up by enduring means sometimes you just have to endure what's happening. If an unpleasant feeling arises, instead of rejecting it or finding ways to avoid it, we simply be with it. A great deal of the unpleasantness of pain and discomfort comes not from the pain or discomfort itself, but from our reaction to it. We tense up, we try to get away, and in doing so, we make it worse. If we can just relax into it, and observe the sensation as it is without adding to it, it's usually not nearly as bad and quite easy to sit with.

Giving up by avoiding means simply avoiding things that trigger your defilements. Is there a particular advertisement that vexes you? Don't look at it. Is there a person who brings up feelings of inappropriate lust or anger? Avoid them. At least until you can learn to deal with those feelings with mindfulness and wisdom.

Giving up by removing is a bit more difficult. That means simply stopping the defilements. This doesn't always works, but there certainly are times when we can simply tell ourselves, "No, I won't follow this train of thought. No, I won't tolerate this way of thinking in myself," and cut it off.

Finally, there's giving up by developing. A great way to get rid of defilements is to cultivate their opposite. Are you angry a lot? Cultivate friendliness and kindness and compassion. Are you greedy a lot? Cultivate generosity and renunciation. The sutta gives seven particular things to cultivate, which are called the "factors of awakening" or bojjhaṅga: Mindfulness, curiosity, persistence, joy, serenity, composure, and equipose. Perhaps I'll make a blog post about these some time soon.

So those are seven ways of dealing with defilements given by the Buddha.

You want to be happy. The mind wants to be happy. When confronted with the simple fact that there is so much dissatisfaction in the world, the mind naturally seeks happiness. The question then becomes, where does the mind search for this happiness?

The Buddha gave us two types of searches: The ignoble and the noble, as layed out in MN 26. The mind can search for a gratification in things that are temporary and pass away, like fleeting excitements and sensual delights. This requires constant upkeep, and constantly seeking out new pleasures when the old ones have gone stale or disappeared. And it is agitating, and disturbing. Or the mind can search for a lasting happiness, one that does not depend on external vagaries, but comes from within. One that is imperturbable, and born of a deep and abiding calm.

So, we can take up a search for the latter, the "noble search" as termed by the Buddha. We take it as a provisional hypothesis at first...and only when we've become dissatisfied with the "ignoble search". When we have a sense that there may be something more to living a good life. We take up meditation. For many of us, that gives us a taste of calm and peace, even though our minds are still active and agitated. We feel better, we see good results in our daily lives. This is an inducement to continue cultivating a meditation practice.

At some point, while cultivating a meditation practice, depending on the type of meditation you do, you might find a state of peace and calm unlike anything you've ever experienced. Everything is silent, except maybe for a whisper of a thought either about the breath or just, "wow we're really concentrated now". There is a deep sense of release. And then a great deal of satisfaction and joy arises. It is refreshing, it refreshes the mind in a way you've never experienced before.

From then on, you may want that back. And that's the next stage on practice. Wanting that. Of course, the wanting can get in the way of getting it, and a lot of work has to be done to train yourself how to relax in just the right way, to balance the desire to get this state with the letting go necessary to get there. But now the mind has been made aware that this sort of joy exists...that this is another option for happiness. And it's not an agitated, stressful form of pleasure. Indeed, it's the release from agitation and stress.

The Buddha liked to use the image that meditation practice causes the mind to incline towards happiness the way that the rivers incline to the ocean. Once the mind gets a taste of this happiness, and learns how to get back there, it can become a central quest. (Which is not to say that derailment can't happen, of course.) Then it can be as simple as reminding the mind, "this sort of pleasure is stressful, temporary, and will just leave us longing, whereas this sort of pleasure is the end of stress and is available in any moment simply by using our attention in the right way".

So, try that, as a strategy to quiet the mind, if you've experienced that deep calm and joy before. Focus on the stressful feeling of the thinking, and remind the mind that there's a deeper joy that is free of that stress, and see what the mind does with that reminder.

The Buddha's instructions on right speech are that one should speak truthfully, with kindness, in a way that promotes concord, in a way that is useful, and at the best time.

How does this factor into opposing oppression, if at all? When challenging racist or sexist speech, must we invariably be engaged in wrong speech? Is activist agitating for social change at odds with the Blessed One's instructions for how to conduct ourselves in a way that leads to our personal liberation? But then how can personal liberation not also come with political and social liberation?

The Buddha was not an activist. Though within the sangha, caste oppression was abolished, and he harshly came down on anyone who would perpetuate it within his community, he did not challenge it in society at large. He occasionally gave advice on how the ideal ruler would conduct themselves and their society (including a robust welfare state) but otherwise stayed out of politics.

He did this as a deliberate calculation. He did not want the rulers of the time to oppress his fledgling community; he thought that creating a long-lasting community to preserve and practice the Dhamma was more important than engaging in broader social change. And he succeeded...the Buddhist sangha is one of, if not the oldest continuously existing organizations in the world. It's unlikely that it will be stamped out. So what now? More importantly, what about us lay people? An argument can be made for monastics refraining from politics, but it's hard to imagine a robust ethical argument for lay people not engaging in liberatory politics. Can we reconcile right speech with the responsibility of an activist?

I think the key lies in understanding what exactly is harmonious versus divisive speech. It may seem, on the surface, that challenging oppressive speech is creating division or disharmony. You might be at a family gathering, and everyone is fine, and your uncle makes a racist or homophobic joke, and to challenge it would be to create drama where none seemingly existed.

This, in my view, is taking a narrow view of what exactly counts as social harmony and division. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, all forms of bigotry--these are social division. Not addressing them does not make them go away...and our responsibilities as Buddhists, with our right speech is to promote social harmony, which means addressing these forms of division so they can be healed. Divisiveness is allowing a racist joke to go unchallenged. These underlying divisions need to be brought to light and examined if we are to reach social harmony.

Right speech is, then, in our society, necessarily anti-oppressive.

AN 6.55 tells the story of a monk who is considering disrobing. He is an energetic disciple, the most energetic, with the most vigorous practice, but has gotten nowhere. The Buddha then appears to him and asks him about his lay life as a musician. He could not play the harp when the strings were too taut or too loose. A similar balance is needed in the application of energy for it to be sustainable and persistent. And persistence is what is required of us for the practice.

I'm having a couple of lessons in this right now. I was being a bit too strict in my practice, trying to make myself meditate a certain number of hours a day, forcing myself to study Pāli a certain number of hours a week, keeping the uposatha precepts and complete seclusion on every Sunday no matter what else was happening.

It was stressing me out.

The thing is, the practice is supposed to be joyful. It's suppose to bring peace and calm. This is not to say there won't be difficult times...indeed, it is certain that there will be difficulties. But they should not come from the practice itself...the practice should be what allows one to overcome the difficulties that emerge.

So my approach to the practice was turning it into a chore, rather than an enjoyable activity I wanted to do. And I was feeling tired, and stressed, and my emotions felt destabilized. (Note that this was also happening alongside a major life change, which tends to destabilize my moods as a bipolar person.)

I decided to slack off. Let's just go a couple weekends without observing the uposatha precepts, okay? The Dharma Police aren't going to bust down my door and send me a ticket to Hell. And let's cut the 45 minutes of Pāli study every morning, maybe spend that time sleeping, instead.

And you know what? It worked.

I feel myself re-engaging with my practice. I no longer feel burned out in the evenings, after my workday, so I can do my Pāli lessons in the evenings, and it's okay if I skip lessons. I'm not being tested on this...it's really just for my own enjoyment. And now I want to go back to studying the suttas--they're great, after all, full of great stuff! And that's because I'm also allowed to read comic books or science fiction stories if I feel so moved, too. And because I no longer feel constant pressure and stress, I am more present and mindful in whatever I'm doing in daily life...which is the whole darn point of this whole thing!

Being too slack, too lazy, will get you nowhere in your practice, but overexertion can be just as much of an impediment.