Tag Archives: calm abiding

Please, Sir, Could I Have … Less?

October 2009

Dear friends,

We passed the halfway mark of the three-year, three-month, three-day retreat during the summer, and are now speeding down the hill toward our re-entry into the world we left behind in January 2008. It is hard to believe so much time has passed, and equally hard to believe the rest will be over just as quickly.

Halfway through, I feel I know about half as much as when I came in—and hopefully the second half will be enough time to clear out the rest.

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In a Nutshell

Three-year retreat, year one.

“The three realms of existence are as fleeting as autumn clouds.” ~From The Extensive Sport Sutra, quoted in The Jewel Ornament of Liberation by Gampopa.

A few years ago, when I lived in rural New Hampshire, I was taking a walk on the most gloriously perfect early fall day you can imagine, just feeling on top of the world, la la la la la, when I passed a neighbor’s pig pen. Mr. and Mrs. Pig were friends of mine, and I always stopped to say a few mani’s if they were out and about. But today Mrs. Pig was standing there all alone looking very, very upset. Where is Mr. Pig? As I passed the driveway, why, there was Mr. Pig—laid out on the asphalt, freshly slaughtered and about to be hung up for bacon. Mrs. Pig was next on the list.

Lama Norlha once asked his students, “If you don’t practice now, when will you do it? When you’re a cow grazing in a field?” He always said the best advice he got from his first root lama in Tibet was, “Always remember impermanence.”

A Western teacher I studied Tibetan with back in the 1980s used to say, “We already fell off the building. We’re hurtling toward the ground.”

OK, our time on earth is limited and could end at any moment without warning. But while we’re still here, aka today, how to find the time to practice?

Circa 1980, the first personal computers were behemoths with one font, no graphics, no color, and no mouse, and the most popular game was Pac-Man. An innovative computer game came out based on the 1960s TV show The Prisoner about a renegade British secret agent mysteriously exiled to “the Village,” a relentlessly cheerful island designed to drive a sophisticated Londoner mad. In the computer game, the player typed in words and used the cursor keys to move around in order to solve a series of more and more complex and seemingly illogical puzzles and eventually “escape”—something Number Six, the hero of The Prisoner, never managed to do.

I remember clearly the moment we finally arrived at the solution to the last puzzle: “Unplug the computer.” So simple…yet we never thought of it on our own!

OK, so maybe you need your computer, but what if you just turned it off and meditated for a half hour, or even 15 minutes? Or, don’t turn it off—just walk away and meditate for ten minutes, or five, and come right back.

Or, stay at the computer and just swivel your chair around and let thoughts go for a few minutes. Or, don’t even turn around—just lower your gaze and focus on your breath. Don’t try to change it, just notice it, while gently letting go of any thoughts that arise. You can even look like you’re working!

If you don’t have five minutes, and I’ve been in that situation many times myself, maybe you could follow Thich Nhat Hanh’s advice and take three slow, mindful breaths, relaxing and letting all thoughts go just for that short amount of time.

If you don’t even have time for three breaths, then Mingyur Rinpoche has a suggestion: just rest your mind for ONE SECOND! He says we can do this any time, anywhere. Once while teaching meditation in New York City he stopped and talked to himself for a moment to see if it’s possible to meditate while conversing. He reported to his highly amused audience that yes, it is! In the one-second technique, you just focus for that second on whatever you’re doing; let all thoughts and feelings go, and be present where you are, vividly—feeling tactile sensations, hearing sounds, noticing your breath, or relaxing into the vastness of space.

Many years ago during a teaching at PTC, a student asked the great meditation master Dorje Chang Kalu Rinpoche how often we should meditate. Without hesitating, Rinpoche replied, “Whenever you realize you’re not meditating, then you should meditate.”

Listen! The banshee is already wailing on the mountainside! There’s no other time than now.

Autumn Clouds PTC

Happiness 102

November 2008

A previous post focused on Lama Norlha Rinpoche’s advice that the secret to happiness in this lifetime is, in all our relationships, to focus on people’s good qualities and kindness rather than on their faults and negative behavior.

But in other teachings, Rinpoche has revealed: it is not the whole secret!

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September 2008, 4:00 a.m.

Ha, ha, it’s not really 4:00 a.m. as I write this. I just wanted to echo the title of the first post I wrote, a year ago this month. Normally at 4:00 a.m., we are starting our first meditation session (tun) of the day. Each morning between 4:00 and 5:35, we must complete 100 each of the preliminary practices: prostrations, Dorje Sempa (Vajrasattva), the mandala offering, and Guru Yoga, now that we have finished the intensive accumulation of 111,111 of each of those practices. The other three meditation sessions of the day are devoted mostly to our current main practice.

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Any Time, Anywhere!

September 2008

One of the great things about being a Buddhist is that no matter where you are or what you’re doing, and no matter how bleak—or how perfect— things may look at any given moment, there’s always something you can do to improve the situation. (This is no doubt true of other spiritual paths as well—I just happen to be familiar with Buddhist methods.) Below is a concise guide to a few of the techniques we can pull out in any setting to calm our own mind or send some positive energy to someone in need. Each of them is best cultivated in regular sessions on a cushion or chair; that makes them easier and more effective on the spur of the moment. But if you aren’t able to organize yourself to practice formally, any engagement with them is helpful.

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Same Old Raccoon

August 2008

Lama Norlha Rinpoche, when he teaches meditation, sometimes illustrates his instructions with a classic example: If we become accustomed to sitting in meditation with a spaced-out, blank mind, it is said that we are sowing seeds for rebirth as a hibernating animal. The raccoon, says Rinpoche (via his ace translator, Lama Jamdron), disappears into its den in the late fall, and when it re-emerges in the spring: same old raccoon!

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Five Ways to Not Meditate

  1. It’s a bit chilly, I’d better close the window / put on a sweater.
  2. Darn, I forgot to turn off my cell phone.
  3. Better get a glass of water in case I get thirsty.
  4. That other hand position might be more comfortable.
  5. What a great idea! (Where’s my pen?)

Sitting down to meditate is an invitation to re-initiate the cycle of samsara again and again. Our situation is never quite right at any given moment; there is always a little something we could do to improve it. We are engaged in an endless, bootless quest to perfect our external circumstances, rather than relax and really get to know what’s in front of us right now; and meditation can be just one more arena in which to play out that scenario.

 Lama Norlha Rinpoche told me shortly before three-year retreat began, “If you follow the first thought, the second thought is inevitable.”

 That brings us to a good working definition of meditation: being aware of every thought and impulse that enters our mind, but declining to follow or act on it. From this process we learn something very useful that we can apply throughout our daily life: every thought and impulse fades away automatically if left to its own devices. (How I wish I could remember that all the time!)

 So…if you feel a little chilly, what will happen if you don’t get up and put on a sweater? If it’s a minor discomfort, you may find that chilliness is a fleeting feeling; it might disappear, it might come and go; if you put on a sweater, you might even be too hot and have to take it off again! This applies to most feelings of minor discomfort or dissatisfaction that arise in meditation, or in daily life; it’s amazing how many things will take care of themselves, at least in the short term, if you just let go of the thought. (Caution: in cases of significant or persistent physical discomfort or pain, no need to risk illness or injury…go ahead and fix it. Just use the little things to practice on.)

 What about that cell phone—if it rings, will the disturbance invalidate your meditation? My own experience suggests that, on the contrary, the ringing phone may bring you back from a reverie and remind you to go back to your scheduled meditation already in progress. When I lived near a busy street corner in Brooklyn circa 1980, my meditation schedule seemed to be coordinated with that of a regular passerby who, every morning, would stop and linger on that very corner with his boom box (a 1980s word for a very large audiotape player). At first it was annoying, but after awhile I realized that the boom box, which always caught me unawares, was the very reminder I needed—every day—to apply myself to meditation instead of my habitual daydreaming or planning. (I’m not suggesting you leave your cell phone on on purpose…just that it may not be worth getting up to turn it off if you forgot.)

 As for the great idea: that’s one of my personal favorites. The solution to a problem, an idea for an article or project, something you absolutely must not forget at the grocery store…meditation provides just the environment for bringing such treasures to the surface. It becomes a bit less compelling when I ask myself, what use will it be when I am grief-stricken, disabled, or dying? Sticking with my meditation will develop inner resources to help me at those times—long after I’ve forgotten whether I had all the ingredients for tomorrow’s dinner.

Meditation 101

A number of good books exist that can help you get started meditating. We have studied several of them at Kagyu Samten Chöling in New Hampshire. Bokar Rinpoche’s Meditation: Advice for Beginners is our standard handbook. I recently read Mingyur Rinpoche’s Joy of Living and found his instructions extremely helpful as well. (The first part is about the correspondences between traditional Buddhist methodology and recent discoveries about how the brain works. It’s quite interesting, but you can go directly to part two for the meditation instructions.)

 It’s best to supplement your study of a book with direct instruction from a qualified teacher, especially if you are interested in a particular spiritual tradition. As a reminder, or in case you don’t have any other resources handy, here’s a concise introduction to the basic procedure of what our tradition calls calm abiding meditation, the first type we do, which helps to calm our mind and train it to stay focused rather than zoom off after every thought that pops up.

Sit down. (You can also do walking meditation, but I’m not addressing that here.) Pick a place where you’re not likely to be interrupted, and a realistic time frame (five or ten minutes is good to start), and resolve that you will absolutely, definitely not get up from your seat during that time for any reason short of a certifiable emergency. If you accomplish this much, even if you don’t feel you did anything else, that is the first triumph of meditation: you have already gained a bit of control over your unruly mind.

 Pay attention to posture, but don’t get fraught about it. There are traditional instructions on posture that you can get from a teacher or a book, and following them can help your mind settle down more easily. But according to Mingyur Rinpoche, the posture can be summed up in two points: keep your spine comfortably straight (including the neck) and the rest of your body as relaxed as possible. I am not able to sit cross-legged on a floor cushion, which is the traditional posture considered most conducive to settling the mind; so I sit in a chair, but I can still observe these two points (and most of the others).

Pick something to rest part of your attention on. It can be a visual object, or whatever sounds arise while you are sitting, or, probably the most popular and easy to use: your breathing. Just breathe normally, don’t try to manipulate your breathing in any way; it should be relaxed and natural, and your only job is to observe it. Whatever your focus, the goal is to keep track of it during the entire time you are sitting. However, it should only take up a small part of your awareness, just enough that you always know it is there; the rest of your mind is relaxed and wide open to whatever sensory input arises from without or within. During this time, keep your mind alert to notice each thought that appears; then: don’t engage your mind with that thought, just notice that it has come up—and let it go. (Do NOT kick it out; just let it make its own way to wherever it is going next.) This is not easy, and we may be able to do it only for very short periods—even a second at a time—but each time we let a single thought or emotion pass without getting caught up in it—even if we only manage it once per session, even if we spend the rest of the time completely caught up in one thought after another—that is the next triumph of meditation. If you meditate regularly, it will get easier and easier; and you may even notice that you are sometimes able to apply this skill just when you need it in everyday life—if even once you avoid a confrontation or stressful situation by letting a potential provocation pass, that is the next triumph of meditation!

Give up any idea that you are doing it wrong. This seems to be a pitfall peculiar to us Westerners, who think a) everything is complicated, and b) we should do it perfectly the first time we try it. As long as you are making a sincere effort to apply this very simple method according to your understanding of it, you are meditating, and you will definitely gain benefit from your practice. Or, as Mingyur Rinpoche puts it, the “intention to meditate” is what really counts. There are refinements you can learn from further study, but all you really need is to sit and do it. Don’t think about how it’s going—if you’re thinking, you’re not meditating; conversely, if you’re letting go of thoughts about whether it’s going well or not: you’re meditating!

 Do it every day. If every day is not possible, do it as regularly as you can. “Every time you feel like it” won’t get you anywhere fast. It’s best to make a plan and stick to it. The benefits may not be apparent right away, so don’t give up at the end of a week when nirvana doesn’t seem to be in sight. Lama Norlha Rinpoche assures his students that if we keep at it, practicing regularly and attentively, we will start to notice an improvement in our mental and emotional well-being within a few weeks or months.

 P.S. About walking meditation: There are a lot of ways to do walking meditation, but the simplest is to apply this technique (except for sitting part) while you are taking a walk. It’s very portable, and can make walks more spacious, relaxing, and vivid. But: don’t neglect sitting meditation; regular practice on your cushion or chair in a quiet, undisturbed place is the key to steady progress.

(Indiana Jones and) The Quest for the Wish-Fulfilling Gem!

Suppose someone gave you a treasure map, with a guarantee that if you followed it, you would find a million dollars at the end, and it would be ALL YOURS—no taxes, no fine print, no legal hassles. What would you do? Who wouldn’t drop everything that could possibly be dropped and devote every spare minute to the pursuit of such a fortune?

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