Thai 11
Ko Samui
Monday, April 12, 1999
I got back yesterday from my second ten day silent retreat at Suan Mokh, the Thai Monastery here in the southern Thai province of Surat Thani.
It was the same in the sense that I was familiar with the place, the daily routine, the food, the frogs croaking loudly in the early morning and dusk, and the pesky mosquitoes. It was different in that the group was not nearly as large, the coordinator different, and the group dynamics very different. It was by and large a young group, and I came to the observation young people, in addition to the influence of living in the demanding rush. rush, rush world we have concocted, also have perhaps a developmental challenge in sitting still. That is not such a major insight at all. Just look at the attention span of a five year old and he or she certainly can't concentrate past a few minutes. That is to be expected. I suppose however when we constantly reinforce impatience by giving into the caprice of the young mind's development through "infotainment" in popular media, or challenges that are to be solved in a short time, does nothing for the development of patient endurance later in life.
My purpose was once again to sit still and get back into the present moment and my body/mind. It is key to understand the Buddhist notion that there is no separation between the body and mind which philosophical dualisitic ideas have been concocted. It is clever to go through mental acrobatics and puffing up hubris by making treatises based on sublime logic. But that is not really seeing things they way things truly are. There is no body without a mind, nor a mind without a body. They both are inextricably connected phenomena that arise in nature. The Pali term for the body/mind is "nama-rupa". They cannot exist separately, but that discussion would take a full and careful analysis which is not what I wanted to address here. These "rantings" are supposed to be fluffy, thought-provoking, and somewhat entertaining for you, so sit still already!
Well, I found I could sit much more comfortably for longer periods this time. I sit in zazen, which is a kneeling position because my bad hip prevents me from crossing my legs. An extra pillow did the trick and I could sit for an hour with no pain.
The difficulty I had was staying in the present moment; my mind would flip into future planning, which inevitably brought anxiety, worry, fear, excitement, loathing, happiness, sadness, pain in my stomach, legs, back, and contributed to the problems I had with constipation (ten days, three dumps= not healthy). And I wasn't making elaborate future plans eithejust trying to get a grip on what would happen in a month or so! Imagine if I was thinking about the next 30 years. I think all my hair would turn white and I would be dead in half an hour.
Then I thought, "hey, this angst about the future is sorta what caused me the great problems I've experienced for the past three years". I wasn't living now, was not really fully experiencing life as it unfolds, but was rushing to get some position or situation quickly so I could begin to live again, and until that time I couldn't really live. I was caught in a phantom world where the next job, the next situation would be the gravy train and then I could get back to the highlife. What a ridiculous way to live! What is the present moment when your head is somewhere else?" Whew. When do you actually live then?
Clearly I need a lot more work on this future anxiety. It wasn't only me, but many others commented on the problem with sitting in the present. Most people I know as well could do well to sit still and try their best to get into the present. What is this life for if we are constantly chasing something that doesn't exist?
Well, to balance that I suppose is this little ditty from the musical "South Pacific":
If you have no dreams, your dreams won't come true.
Well, here's another thought I came up with in meditation: I could make the most elaborate future plans, sort out the next month, five years, tens years, what have you, and then after thinking it all through, going through all that anxiety and mental acrobatics to arrive at some crazy scheme, I get up and walk off to lunch only to be killed by a ripe coconut falling out of a tree. Then where would my life be? Would it have been full and happy?
If you have seen the film "Saving Private Ryan", the very last scene where the old man, his wife and family visited the graveyard was something that came to mind this meditation. Recall when he turned to his wife with a tear in his eye and in a trembling voice said, "I lived a good life, didn't I?"
It occurred to me what suffering he went through, not knowing if what he did in his life was right, wrong, good, bad, or ugly. Meditation is a way we can become mindful of our every action, and if we act mindfully, then such doubt would have no power over us. We would be fully present through our actions, or at least try to be. This is how meditation helps us eliminate doubt, fear, and all the assortment of things that cause our suffering (dukkha is the Pali term for those things that cause suffering). How can we have any doubt if we are really here and now at every moment?
Happiness is the aim of all religions. Buddhism has at its root that life gives rise to suffering, as I mentioned before. Western people have a hard time understanding suffering. We have an aversion to such a concept. But that is for you to reflect on, not me to say what your suffering is. It's different for all of us. But my point is that if I could be totally conscious and mindful of what I do in the here and now, that will go a long way to release me from suffering. That is something the Buddha discovered scientifically by simply sitting still. But don't take his word or mine as de facto truth- one has to find out for oneself. Meditation is the method.
This time around for me it was much more clear not to try to reach some goal called nirvana. Nirvana really is a hindrance to meditation practice. It makes the purpose of meditation a contest with ourselves (or maybe with another, given the nature of our concocted world!) to reach something that exists in the future, and there you g the old not-living-in-the-present dilemma. There is such a rich and whole world inside our minds to look at, with all our relationships with others, what we do, what we think, and our personal lives than to complicate it by fighting windmills, to use that image from Cervantes "Don Quixote". It is sheer madness, and not worthy of our precious time we have now to live. We come by this way as the human but once- let's not get wrapped up in senseless things that just cause our suffering. Let's see the present way of nature as it is, and allow those things that cause our suffering go.
That's enough for now. Next time I want to talk about something else that opened up for m I discovered I could see physical objects, living things particularly, and see more than just their physical attribute I could see the lifeforce in things, and things transformed between being transparent and solid in ways that surprised me.
Comments? Email Gaga
Monday, April 12, 1999
I got back yesterday from my second ten day silent retreat at Suan Mokh, the Thai Monastery here in the southern Thai province of Surat Thani.
It was the same in the sense that I was familiar with the place, the daily routine, the food, the frogs croaking loudly in the early morning and dusk, and the pesky mosquitoes. It was different in that the group was not nearly as large, the coordinator different, and the group dynamics very different. It was by and large a young group, and I came to the observation young people, in addition to the influence of living in the demanding rush. rush, rush world we have concocted, also have perhaps a developmental challenge in sitting still. That is not such a major insight at all. Just look at the attention span of a five year old and he or she certainly can't concentrate past a few minutes. That is to be expected. I suppose however when we constantly reinforce impatience by giving into the caprice of the young mind's development through "infotainment" in popular media, or challenges that are to be solved in a short time, does nothing for the development of patient endurance later in life.
My purpose was once again to sit still and get back into the present moment and my body/mind. It is key to understand the Buddhist notion that there is no separation between the body and mind which philosophical dualisitic ideas have been concocted. It is clever to go through mental acrobatics and puffing up hubris by making treatises based on sublime logic. But that is not really seeing things they way things truly are. There is no body without a mind, nor a mind without a body. They both are inextricably connected phenomena that arise in nature. The Pali term for the body/mind is "nama-rupa". They cannot exist separately, but that discussion would take a full and careful analysis which is not what I wanted to address here. These "rantings" are supposed to be fluffy, thought-provoking, and somewhat entertaining for you, so sit still already!
Well, I found I could sit much more comfortably for longer periods this time. I sit in zazen, which is a kneeling position because my bad hip prevents me from crossing my legs. An extra pillow did the trick and I could sit for an hour with no pain.
The difficulty I had was staying in the present moment; my mind would flip into future planning, which inevitably brought anxiety, worry, fear, excitement, loathing, happiness, sadness, pain in my stomach, legs, back, and contributed to the problems I had with constipation (ten days, three dumps= not healthy). And I wasn't making elaborate future plans eithejust trying to get a grip on what would happen in a month or so! Imagine if I was thinking about the next 30 years. I think all my hair would turn white and I would be dead in half an hour.
Then I thought, "hey, this angst about the future is sorta what caused me the great problems I've experienced for the past three years". I wasn't living now, was not really fully experiencing life as it unfolds, but was rushing to get some position or situation quickly so I could begin to live again, and until that time I couldn't really live. I was caught in a phantom world where the next job, the next situation would be the gravy train and then I could get back to the highlife. What a ridiculous way to live! What is the present moment when your head is somewhere else?" Whew. When do you actually live then?
Clearly I need a lot more work on this future anxiety. It wasn't only me, but many others commented on the problem with sitting in the present. Most people I know as well could do well to sit still and try their best to get into the present. What is this life for if we are constantly chasing something that doesn't exist?
Well, to balance that I suppose is this little ditty from the musical "South Pacific":
If you have no dreams, your dreams won't come true.
Well, here's another thought I came up with in meditation: I could make the most elaborate future plans, sort out the next month, five years, tens years, what have you, and then after thinking it all through, going through all that anxiety and mental acrobatics to arrive at some crazy scheme, I get up and walk off to lunch only to be killed by a ripe coconut falling out of a tree. Then where would my life be? Would it have been full and happy?
If you have seen the film "Saving Private Ryan", the very last scene where the old man, his wife and family visited the graveyard was something that came to mind this meditation. Recall when he turned to his wife with a tear in his eye and in a trembling voice said, "I lived a good life, didn't I?"
It occurred to me what suffering he went through, not knowing if what he did in his life was right, wrong, good, bad, or ugly. Meditation is a way we can become mindful of our every action, and if we act mindfully, then such doubt would have no power over us. We would be fully present through our actions, or at least try to be. This is how meditation helps us eliminate doubt, fear, and all the assortment of things that cause our suffering (dukkha is the Pali term for those things that cause suffering). How can we have any doubt if we are really here and now at every moment?
Happiness is the aim of all religions. Buddhism has at its root that life gives rise to suffering, as I mentioned before. Western people have a hard time understanding suffering. We have an aversion to such a concept. But that is for you to reflect on, not me to say what your suffering is. It's different for all of us. But my point is that if I could be totally conscious and mindful of what I do in the here and now, that will go a long way to release me from suffering. That is something the Buddha discovered scientifically by simply sitting still. But don't take his word or mine as de facto truth- one has to find out for oneself. Meditation is the method.
This time around for me it was much more clear not to try to reach some goal called nirvana. Nirvana really is a hindrance to meditation practice. It makes the purpose of meditation a contest with ourselves (or maybe with another, given the nature of our concocted world!) to reach something that exists in the future, and there you g the old not-living-in-the-present dilemma. There is such a rich and whole world inside our minds to look at, with all our relationships with others, what we do, what we think, and our personal lives than to complicate it by fighting windmills, to use that image from Cervantes "Don Quixote". It is sheer madness, and not worthy of our precious time we have now to live. We come by this way as the human but once- let's not get wrapped up in senseless things that just cause our suffering. Let's see the present way of nature as it is, and allow those things that cause our suffering go.
That's enough for now. Next time I want to talk about something else that opened up for m I discovered I could see physical objects, living things particularly, and see more than just their physical attribute I could see the lifeforce in things, and things transformed between being transparent and solid in ways that surprised me.
Comments? Email Gaga
posted by Gaga | 11:32 PM
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