NOPE

Hello everyone, I hope you’re all doing okay and not going too crazy.

I could start anywhere, so I am going to start by saying “Well done!” for getting this far, if you have. I think that a lot of you, maybe all of you, are dealing with this really well considering. I am noticing that our concern for others is at least occasionally kicking in to override the fears we have for ourselves.

Of course, there are some ludicrous manifestations of our fear and self-obsession, such as the Great COVID-19 Toilet Paper Stockpile of 2020 – toilet paperbut overall I think it’s impressive how quickly people have accepted our interdependence and mutual obligations now that these are staring us in the face. Politics and bickering partisanship are not sucking up all the oxygen, for a nice change. I read this earlier somewhere:

It’s sort of funny how at times the neighbors, including myself, get into petty squabbles about irrelevant topics. They certainly seem irrelevant now. But we so easily and smoothly become comrades! People are essentially GOOD! Just give them a chance to prove it.

Of  course this may get old and people may get mean, but right now a lot of Buddha nature is shining.

Literally ordered to stay at home!

I was allowed to drive out just now, despite Mayor Hancock’s brand new Stay at Home Order, because the kittens I am fostering need medication. (They, at least, seem contentedly oblivious to all of this.) Passing a nightclub called “Let’s Get Weird (this is Denver after all), instead of the OPEN sign this is what I saw:

NOPE

Nope indeed. The world is closed for business.

Thanks to said mayoral order forcing everyone to give up their “non-essential” jobs and stay inside (which, by the way, hardly raised an eyebrow – yet only a few weeks ago would have caused a riot), I also saw long queues of millennials lining up to stockpile the last of the marijuana before all non-medicinal dispensaries are shuttered for the That's the pointforeseeable.* Toilet paper is one thing, but running out of pot?! Poor under-25s, I can’t help thinking — all those Springtime hormones and nowhere to party. No, it is not as bad as being sent to war, obviously; but at that age it is still no fun to be stuck at home alone, or stuck at home with one’s parents! Not much fun for the parents either.

Let’s Get Weird

This is a very strange time for the two-legged people of Planet Earth. I already know samsara is crazy, but still I wake up and think, “Huh?!?!!? That wasn’t a dream?!!” (Of course, it kind of is a dream — that’s Buddha’s key point). Or you might be having conversations like this one, a snippet of an earlier text with a friend:

“It feels like a strange movie. It’s like none of this can be real.” “There’s no movie that could do justice to this.” “I know, I would switch it off because it would seem so far fetched.”

It is hard to think of anyone who is not affected by this surreal invisible enemy called COVID-19 — a tiny bundle of protein, 120 nanometers in diameter, carrying just eight kilobytes of genetic code. (By the way, I just had to add COVID to my spellcheck dictionary, which — like us only a few short weeks ago — hails from a more innocent age). Perhaps this pandemic isn’t making much difference to those who are already in such dire straits that today is just another crazy day – like people in Syria or Yemen or the 70 million displaced around the world. It also doesn’t make much difference I suppose to a lot of our animal friends – the millions of chickens, for example, who are still being kept in horrifying conditions and slaughtered en masse so that we can comfort ourselves with chewing their wings.

On the plus side, some people may be having a better time than usual right now due to different karma ripening, such as the dogs and cats who have their whole family stuck at home to entertain them, or the person I know who had happily and voluntarily entered a solitary meditation retreat just before any of this started. social distancing

But in general this social distancing is ironically bringing us humans closer because we are sensing that we are all in it together – our common enemy is clearly the virus, not each other. We understand a little better what other people are going through because we are going through it ourselves, not just at some point, but right now, at the same time.

Even for those of us who have it the best because we can work from home – that is, we actually have a home and a job that can be done at home or, to be honest, any job at all – these times are no doubt challenging. Most people are feeling at least occasionally insecure and panicky (especially if they’re binge-watching the news), not knowing where this is headed, scared of getting sick and not being able to breathe and dying. A lot of people are feeling isolated and restless and bored, and very worried about their finances and future.

COVID-19 got a bit more real for me yesterday when I was asked to pray for the husband of an old friend in England, who had just been rushed to hospital with lack of oxygen related to COVID-19. He is now getting better, I am happy to say, enough to send a message, ““Improving slowly. Breathing is much better with less shortage of breath. Oxygen levels higher now. Probably another day maybe two still in hospital. Very boring. Keep clear of this bastard illness. X”

Another text came in at the same time from a friend in Croatia, telling me about the badly-timed earthquake in Zagreb — people huddled in the streets, not able to shelter in place as their places were shelters no longer, more like death traps.

Everyone matters

If this virus is teaching us anything, it is that far from being isolated separated-out individuals, we are all parts of a whole – and therein we have some obligation to each other because everyone matters. No man is an island. The sanest place to start dealing with this crisis is with this heart of understanding for all these other living beings, including those millions of people whom we know for sure are considerably worse off.Cells in body quote and image of VG

It seems that wherever we look right now there are people in trouble. Practically where possible, and always in our hearts, it makes all the sense in the world right now to take care of our neighbors, family, friends, vulnerable members of our society, people on the frontlines, animals, everyone. And we can take care of our mind through applying the teachings, meditating, and praying so that we can be as strong, fearless, and peaceful as possible.

Let’s actually pray the virus doesn’t hit the refugee camps, for example, where washing your hands even once a day is a struggle. It is clearly concerning that we have such a huge homeless population who have nowhere to shelter in place except the “petri dishes” of understaffed and oversubscribed homeless shelters, as one of them put it. I dread the moment the first case hits the South African townships – as one South African put it, it is a privilege and luxury to be able to social distance.

And never was there a better time to share what resources we have with non-profits helping human beings and animals, responding in whatever way we can to those emails requesting help – because many of them risk closing down and leaving millions of vulnerable beings in very serious trouble. If you do have room in your home, now is not a bad time to consider helping out the overcrowded animal shelters by fostering some dogs or cats.

We are all in this together, cells of the same body of life. Obsessing about ourself will help no one and only drive us crazy. Love and concern for everyone else will help others and keep us sane — Buddha called love “the Great Protector”.

Four noble truths

I’ve been thinking about which Buddhist teachings might be most helpful for weathering this storm, and have concluded that EVERYTHING he said is tailor-made for dealing with a time like this.

In his very first teaching called the “four noble truths”, Buddha explained the first truth as “the truth of suffering” or “true sufferings”. He was referring to the endless and relentless suffering that comes from still hanging onto these impure minds and bodies, mistakenly thinking that they are “Me”. COVID-19 is the latest wave of the wave upon wave of suffering that inevitably arises from this ocean of self-grasping ignorance.

deathSome of the sufferings Buddha explained as samsara’s ongoing nature strike a stronger chord at the moment, now that we are feeling a little less sure of ourselves in the collapse of our normal narratives; but those sufferings have always been there, lurking beneath the surface of our distractions, complacency, and routines. These include but are not limited to being stuck in meaty bodies subject to sickness, ageing, death, and rebirth, dissatisfaction, loneliness, no real control or certainty, and constantly unpeaceful minds. We already have a very weird disease, for example – it is called ageing.

The second noble truth is “true origins,” meaning that this suffering has causes that are far deeper than we normally think about, namely self-grasping ignorance, other delusions, and the contaminated karma they spawn.

The third noble truth, “true cessations”, shows that it is in fact possible to have a suffering-free life that comes from a permanent cessation of ignorance and delusions.

The fourth noble truth, “true paths”, is where Buddha explained the practical path to that cessation, 84,000 teachings that bring peace and free the mind.

dog cartoonPoint is, Buddha’s whole intention has always been to help free everyone from difficulties and suffering, not just temporarily but permanently. He pointed all this suffering out, but he also came up with ways for us to deal with and ultimately transcend it. And these methods have been tried and tested and proved successful for at least 2500 years. Now is the time to use them.

Even CNN is encouraging people to take up a meditation practice:

So, you’re stuck at home. You’re stressed. Now is as good a time as ever to pick up a meditation practice. Scientific findings from an 18-year analysis on a Buddhist monk found that daily intensive meditation may significantly slow brain aging. There is a slew of other health benefits to the mindfulness and quiet peace that often accompanies meditation. And if you feel weird about getting zen with so much happening in the world, remember that even the World Health Organization warned people this week to take care of their mental health as well as their physical health.

Where the rubber hits the road

Buddha brought suffering to our attention so that we could — and would — do something about it. Moreover, Buddhism in general and Kadampa Buddhism in particular is known for helping us practically to transform adverse conditions into the spiritual path by applying the teachings to whatever is coming up for us, not just in the abstract. Dealing with problems is where the rubber hits the road in Buddhism. In The New Eight Steps to Happiness, Geshe Kelsang says:

By training our mind to recognize the spiritual lessons in all our experiences, we can come to view everyone and everything as our Spiritual Teachers, and we can turn any and every situation to our advantage.

Using these circumstances to deepen our inner peace, insight, and compassion means we could end up in a better place than we started, mentally speaking. From that point of view, although I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, this pandemic does give us a lot of opportunity if we decide to apply everything we have learned already or, alternatively, get interested in getting started.

Screen Shot 2020-03-23 at 7.42.21 PMTalking of which, before I go any further, I want to point out to those of you who don’t know that Kadampa Centers around the world are now streaming meditation classes to everyone in their local catchment area. This Buddhist TV is a wonderful addition – nay, antidote! – to all the other online channels you might have been binge-watching! There is great stuff going on all over the place that you can tune into. Click here if you want to know where you can find your local center, and then you can find their Facebook page or website and go from there.

“While you just stayed in your room”

The first port of call in weathering this storm is to learn how to calm down a bit and feel more peaceful and happy in our hearts. But who knows how far this burgeoning meditation habit might take us! If, like me, you are fortunate enough to be confined to your sofa (as opposed to heroically risking your own health to save the rest of us on the frontlines), now is the time to find out.

go insideThere is a whole world inside us, an extraordinary blissful inner landscape that remains largely unexplored because we are usually so busy wandering around in the outside world. Now is our chance to go within and, from there, re-emerge with very different experiences, in a dramatically improved world. Then we can help others do the same. This song came on Spotify while I was out driving for those kitty meds, most appropriate for these times I thought:

I pictured a rainbow
You held it in your hands
I had flashes
But you saw the plan
I wandered out in the world for years
While you just stayed in your room
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon
The whole of the moon.

Resources for meditating at home

Someone suggested on Facebook that it would be a great idea if I listed all the resources we have for reading and meditating at home.

I agree. And so I ask you in the comments to please list all the resources you have been finding helpful, as well as links to them where appropriate. I can then add them to the next article.

As well as the live-streaming mentioned above, for now, if you want to start reading a free Buddhist meditation eBook, click here.

If you want some tips and tricks to get you going in meditation, click here.

I will be back soon. I have a bunch of ideas up my sleeve that are relevant to COVID-19, and now seemingly endless weeks in which to explore them.

Meanwhile, here are some ideas for what you can do stuck at home …

(Or you could just learn to meditate … 🙂 )

(*That part of the mayoral order was rescinded before it even got started – all marijuana dispensaries and liquor stores will remain open for business. Other shops, not so much.)

Related reading

Get started with meditation 

A short meditation you can do at home to calm down 

Some articles on dealing with anxiety 

Love, the great Protector

Everyone wants to be seen: observations from a Buddhist Gerontologist

A guest article.

(Given that these strange COVID-19 times are making our elderly all around the world even more vulnerable, and that many are being kept behind closed doors for their own protection, I find this guest article in 2 parts a timely encouragement to see them and to care. ~ Ed.)

Being seen by others

I discovered my fascination with the elderly during coffee hours after Sunday services in the small town where I grew up. I also learned it was unusual for almost anyone, let alone a five-year-old, to be interested in them. Despite regular encouragement to go upstairs to play with the other children, I managed to finagle my way through the rooms of the parish house and into the company of the elderly parishioners, particularly the women.1960s-grandmother-in-chair-hugging-vintage-images (2)

They’d call me close and, peering out behind coke bottle glasses, ask me things. I don’t remember the detail of those early conversations, but they left me with a lasting impression. I thought, “These people are so interested in others.” I felt special in their presence. Cherished. Safe. I felt seen.

Thus began a lifelong habit of seeking out the oldest person in the room. While the mantra of the mid-’60’s was, “Don’t trust anyone over 30,” mine was “Don’t trust anyone under 50.” My most trusted companion was my paternal grandmother, a kind woman who lived in an old country house at the other end of town. She was one of my greatest teachers, teaching me one of the most important things I have learned in my sixty years on this planet – the power of unconditional love.

Learning to see others

The truth is that I viewed every elderly person as my teacher. In How to Understand the Mind, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso writes that the function of a person is “To perform actions and experience their results.” As an older friend once remarked, “You live long enough, you know stuff.” I reasoned that the older a person was, the more they knew, even if it was what not to do. They were time capsules of valuable karmic lessons, and from an early age I began looking to them for answers.

At some point I realized I was organizing what I was learning into my own mental filing cabinet. Some of it was social in nature — “European Immigration to the US in the Early 20th Century,” some of it technical — “Behavioral Patterns Exhibited by Those with Memory Loss,” and some of it just plain fun — “How to Sew, Crochet or Knit your own Wardrobe.”

I couldn’t help but note the physical changes that occur with age, as well. The thickening glasses. The hearing loss. The swelling in the ankles. The fading memory. The bandages on arms and heads. The skin. (Once I commented on a woman’s badly bruised skin. “Skin?!” she scoffed. “This isn’t skin. It’s tissue paper!”). The smells of ointments, tinctures, and sweet perfume. One by one I learned their stories. I listened. I studied. I watched. I saw.

This man’s search for meaning

Gerontology, the study of aging, emerged as a bonafide college degree in the late ‘70’s and I was one of the first to sign up. There I learned about the “Life Review,” an explanation as to why older people seem to like to reminisce. According to this theory they talk about their lives as a way of making sense of them. They are wrapping things up, getting ready to go.

Davis Funeral Home Edited

Learning that my elderly friends had an almost biological need to talk about their lives prompted me to deepen my line of inquiry. My motive was not entirely altruistic; I was desperate to find answers to some of life’s bigger questions.

Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that I was being raised in a funeral home a few houses down from my church, but underpinning my early life was a nagging thought that everything was existentially pointless.

A story from Joyful Path of Good Fortune sums up my feelings at that time. A man is painstakingly carving a round stone into a square one with a feather. When a passerby asks why on earth he is doing this, he responds,

I am doing this so that I can leave the stone behind.

The story is referencing pointless efforts made in the accumulation of wealth, but to me everything was a variation of the same theme — be it a career, raising a family, or collecting tchotchkes. We will all die in the end, so why bother? I was sure one of my aged friends could provide me with the answer.

Over the decades I moved a lot, which put me in touch with thousands of elderly people in Rhode Island, Florida, New York, Ohio, Kansas, Indiana, North Carolina, California, and immigrants from around the world. When the moment seemed right, I’d ask my friends, the oldest of whom was 104, “What’s the point of all of this?” or “Why are we here?” Everyone seemed happy to offer an opinion, but I never did get a satisfying answer. What I did get, instead, was another list: “The Top Ten Meanings of Life.”

I don’t know if meaninglessness is the chicken and depression is the egg or the other way ‘round, but they are a killer combination. I knew this from my many years of working with people who were stripped mercilessly of the things that meant the world to them — their spouses, homes, cars, careers, reputations, health, wealth, families, and oldest friends. Some were left with nothing to fill the void, critically ill and deeply depressed, begging to die. But I knew of this deadly combination not just from witnessing it, but from experiencing it from the inside out. From a young age I began to experience a deep and inexplicable sadness.

As a young man I stumbled across a quote from the French philosopher Voltaire that struck me as so profound I committed it to memory. He said, “We throw ourselves in prison and stand as our own guard.” I knew on some level I played a role in my own torment, but at the same time I felt powerless to stop. And, as much as the quote impacted me, there was still no answer as to how to get out of this vicious cycle. Or if it was even possible.

Screen Shot 2020-03-15 at 7.13.59 PM

Before becoming a Buddhist I believed a certain amount of suffering was natural, part of the “human condition.” While I never dreamed it was feasible to completely end suffering, as taught by Buddha, I did believe it could be mitigated. So I did with my depression what I did with everything else. I took it to my elderly friends. “Why is there so much suffering in the world?” I’d ask. Or, “Given all that humans must endure, only to die in the end, how can a person ever be happy?” When the moment seemed right, I’d be candid. “I’m depressed,” I’d say. “Do you have an idea of how I can shake it?”

Finding the path

After an exhaustive, nearly half-century search, it was at my first class at the Kadampa Meditation Center in Los Angeles that I began to find answers. The monk taught that my search for freedom from suffering was common. Aware of it or not, every sentient being, even babies and insects, carries the same basic wish to be free. It drives everything we do. And yes, Virginia, there is a way out.

The prison, I learned, is called samsara, a hellish and unending nightmare that is the experience of a self-centered and deluded mind. As Geshe Kelsang puts it,

Samsara is not an external prison; it is a prison made by our own mind.

The meaning of our lives is to be found in securing a permanent release from our jail cell and in helping everyone out of theirs. We do this not only to improve this life, but to secure our futures after we die. But how? As Geshe-la explains:

Although samsara resembles a prison, there is one door through which we can escape. That door is emptiness, the ultimate nature of phenomena. By realizing emptiness we can escape from samsara.

In the early days of my Buddhism, realizing this magic bullet of emptiness seemed a ways off; and, meanwhile, what’s a suffering sentient being to do?! I took refuge in the more easily accessible method practices as outlined in How to Transform Your Life, such as renunciation, compassion, and patience. Geshe-la writes that these minds help us to inch towards the prison door. Eventually

…by diligently practicing a pure spiritual path, and thereby eliminating our self-grasping and other delusions, we can bring our samsara to an end.

jail Blog

In Buddhism, “delusions” are described as those states of mind that create suffering and “virtuous minds” as those that result in happiness. Self-cherishing is a principal delusion, and compassion — our wish for others to be free from suffering — is a principal virtue. Something about this idea clicked for me. I even had a folder. There it was in the far recesses of my mind, dusty and overlooked, but chock-full of rich and valuable evidence to validate the truth of Buddha’s teachings.

I didn’t have the wisdom to know its value at the time but, once I learned what it contained, I reorganized my findings into two separate files and moved them to the forefront of my mind. Borrowing language from my new hero, the Buddhist Master Shantideva, I titled one, “Self-Cherishing — All the Suffering in this World” and the other “Love and Compassion — All the Happiness in this World.”

In part 2 of this article I will expand on my observations of how seeing others and being seen by them inches us toward the door to our own liberation.

In the meantime, I would love to hear your comments.

(Postscript: There are many word choices to describe people “of a certain age.” I’ve used them all in my career so as not to offend, but my personal preference is “elderly.” To my mind the popular euphemism “senior” is a regression, sending us back to high school and in the process devaluing the trials, tribulations, and triumphs all of us experience if we are lucky enough to live that long. I know some people consider “elderly” an ugly word, but historically it was an honorific. As for me, at the ripe old age of sixty, considered “young elderly” by some classifications,” I’m not quite ready to let it go.)

A practical paradigm shift

Someone just sent me this gif, saying she has been trying this out in her meditation sessions on retreat, lol. Blaze the fire of wisdom, and it can consume all our delusions and suffering.

In Buddhism we rely on the realistic minds of wisdom and compassion, starting with a confidence that we can grow these because we have Buddha seed or Buddha nature. Literally whenever we have this Dharma experience functioning in our minds, we are free from feeling anxious, free from feeling tight or hemmed in by the day’s worries, free from feeling overwhelmed.

Therefore, rather than using our delusions to solve all our problems outside the mind, in the “real world”– which in chapter after chapter of our life is turning out to be a rather exhausting and futile venture — I think the sooner we can shift into that Dharma perspective the better. It is a good idea to visit that refuge zone every single morning when we wake up (instead of the caveman mentality that immediately casts around for things to worry about); until one day we discover we never have to leave it.

This will not only help ourselves, but transform us into a source of refuge and courage for others. We can’t solve our own or others’ problems if we stay confused and unhappy. refuge zone“There are too many unhappy people already,” as Geshe Kelsang once put it. For a practical guided meditation to start feeling that refuge, check out this article. 

This is by way of preamble as to why I’m talking about the cool science shown in this quantum video, here. Also, a friend sent me a great book called The Order of Time by physicist Carlo Rovelli, excellent bedtime reading. One thing he says is:

If the world were made of things, what would these things be? The atoms, which we have discovered to be made up in turn of smaller particles? The elementary particles, which, as we have discovered, are nothing other than the ephemeral agitations of a field? The quantum fields, which we have found to be little more than codes of a language with which to speak of interactions and events? We cannot think of the physical world as if it were made of things, of entities. It simply doesn’t work.

What exactly am I grasping at?! However, it is one thing to impress people with this kind of fact at parties, and quite another to use this knowledge to intentionally change ourselves and the world around us. We take it in on a superficial, “Wow,” level — like a great Matrix or What the Bleep! type movie, and then continue about our seemingly solid lives as if they’re real.

what the bleepWhy? Maybe it is because we haven’t brought this information into our hearts. We don’t have the wisdom, yet, actually — we can’t bring this information into our hearts because we don’t have the wisdom, only a superficial intellectual head-based knowledge. It is someone else’s idea — we haven’t developed our own experience of it so it’s not affecting the way we view ourselves or other people.

These cosmic ideas are not making a dent in that persistent illusion, an illusion we are not combatting because either we don’t want to or we don’t know how to. Which is where Buddha’s teachings are so immensely useful because he laid out, step by step, how we could understand the true nature of everything, parts of which the quantum physicists are figuring out now. And, more importantly, he explained why we would want to — because gaining a deep experience of this will destroy all our ignorance and suffering.

The Matrix

While we’re on the subject of The Matrix, let me get something off my chest quickly. It’s a thought-provoking movie, and I sometimes think I’m in it as I wander the streets of New York, especially when I wear my cool black coat. But when Neo et al take the red pill and get unplugged, they don’t end up in bliss but in a “real” world — and it frankly isn’t that enticing! It has its moments (dance scene), but otherwise it seems to alternate between dull and scary, not unlike any other ordinary, impure, seemingly inherently existent world. Doesn’t really surprise me that Cypher chose the blue pill of ignorance.

Matrix black coatHowever, according to Buddha, what will actually happen when we unplug from the matrix of our beginningless hallucinations, purifying our mind with wisdom and compassion, is that we will end up not in the samsaric Zion but in the Pure Land of great bliss, a world that we are free to create and play with as we choose. As Geshe Kelsang says in The Oral Instructions of the Mahamudra (page 20):

There is no such thing as a Pure Land that exists from the side of the object; the  Pure Land is merely an appearance to a pure mind. Equally, there is no such thing as an impure world that exists from its own side; an impure world is merely an appearance to an impure mind.

And what about the mind?

From my very beginnery understanding of modern science, it seems that scientists are saying that everything is illusory, in that it doesn’t exist and appear in the same way; and yet we are buying into the illusion.

However, there is still that “hard problem of consciousness.” The Guardian science section published this article:

“Why can’t the world’s greatest minds solve the mystery of consciousness?” … For example, how could the 1.4 kg lump of moist, pinkish-beige tissue inside your skull give rise to something as mysterious as the experience of being that pinkish-beige lump, and the body to which it is attached?

Buddhism may differ from much of modern science in stressing the importance of consciousness. Buddha specialized in psychology whereas scientists seem to be suggesting that they have a ways to go in this area. For example Carlo Rovelli says:

We understand biology by studying how living beings evolve and live. We understand psychology (a little, not much) by studying how we interact with each other, how we think.

Buddha Shakyamuni (BC 500) has arguably gone further than anyone else in known history in unveiling reality because not only has he explained the nature of apparently external reality, but he has also shared his deep wisdom and direct experience of the nature and function of non-physical consciousness, which is what is doing all this perceiving and hallucinating. (Nor was he the first Buddha or “Awakened One” to do this, countless came before him in countless world systems. What on earth makes us think this is the only universe?! It’s like an ant thinking there’s only one anthill. Anyway, that’s just a random thought I just had, definitely formless.)

Is there a mind-body problem or not?

The article says:

Critics point out, if this non-physical mental stuff did exist, how could it cause physical things to happen – as when the feeling of pain causes me to jerk my fingers away from the saucepan’s edge?

easy-and-hard-problems-of-consciousness-lThe dichotomy long held onto in the materialist or reductionist world view seems to be both contrived and false, for why should there be a “mind-body problem” — formless mind and “physical” reality can and do get along just fine. We don’t need to do away with subjective consciousness to make sense of jerking our fingers away from pain or making sense of creation in general.

If we accept that there can be two primary realities, or arguably that mind is the primary reality producing “material” or at least perceived reality, we can not only make far more sense of our existence but learn to transform it by changing our perceptions. If we can change our existence by changing our thoughts, which we can and do, then this in itself makes a pretty compelling case for the existence of non-physical mind, wouldn’t you say?

Again, from that article:

Yes, it may be true that most of us, in our daily lives, think of consciousness as something over and above our physical being – as if your mind were “a chauffeur inside your own body”, to quote the spiritual author Alan Watts. But to accept this as a scientific principle would mean rewriting the laws of physics.

I dunno, physics is evolving and being rewritten all the time, so I’m fine with that. Accepting our subjective experience is common sense. None of our internal thoughts, feelings, pleasure, pain, and so on are experienced as physical, yet we cannot deny that they are experienced – the author of that Guardian article uses the example of painfully stubbing his toe. I think we know full well what our states of mind feel like inside, even if we can’t see them, sit on them, or physically measure them. We are experiencing and using them non-stop, day and night. Our whole life is determined by them. And without conscious awareness, what, for example, are the scientists having their ideas about the non-existence of conscious awareness with?!

Inner scientists

Buddha and scienceFrom what I have read (admittedly not much), the “how’s” of existence are not explained yet in modern science, which hasn’t figured out what consciousness exactly is, nor the mechanisms by which it projects everything, nor its different levels; but they are explained in Buddhism in great detail and we can come to know what conscious awareness is in our own direct experience. In fact, Buddha Shakyamuni said:

If you realize your own mind you will become a Buddha; you should not seek Buddhahood elsewhere.

Buddha said we needed to become inner scientists, coming to know formless consciousness more and more deeply through observation with our formless consciousness. As soon as we even close our eyes, our conscious awareness is evident. Do check out this article if you like, for tips on how we can come to know it.

From that same Guardian article:

Why aren’t we just brilliant robots, capable of retaining information, of responding to noises and smells and hot saucepans, but dark inside, lacking an inner life?

I don’t know about you (well, I kinda do), but I am not a robot because I am a sentient being with, as it happens, an infinitely deep inner life. Just like you. We are conscious and that consciousness cannot be seen in the “material” world. The definition of mind is, simply, that which is clarity and cognizing. Buddha explains how our consciousness is an impermanent formless continuum that goes on forever. It cannot be detected by any of the five sense awarenesses nor their instruments, such as microscopes or particle accelerators, because it has no visual color or shape, sound, smell, taste, or tactile properties. It has zero atoms and molecules. But despite its lack of matter, it matters. Its function is to cognize, to experience, to perceive, to understand, and, in fact, to create.

Conscious awareness exists

Buddha explains in detail how our mind relates to a seemingly external reality beyond our thoughts. Although it created that physical world in the first place through conceptual imputation or naming, our self-grasping ignorance then believes it exists “out there”, independent of perception, as in a dream. It is not just in this life time – since beginningless time our conceptual mind has been over and again projecting an impure sensory and mental world that we then torturously try to live in as if it were real.

Not only that, but our formless mind itself is even not as real as it appears – it is also empty of existing from its own side.

How to Understand the MindIn his brilliantly intelligent but common-sensical way, Buddha explains the differences between the unpeaceful delusions that are based on that mistaken way of seeing things and the peaceful virtuous states of mind that are not; and how we can effectively train in overcoming the former and perfecting the latter, eventually attaining omniscient wisdom that knows how and when all phenomena exist.

Bottom line is that we can exist in the material world while also existing as spiritual beings, I don’t think there is any actual problem with that. If you want to find out a lot more about any of what I just mentioned, can I recommend you study How to Understand the Mind. It has it all.

What’s the point of all this?

Buddhism’s HUGE! IMHO it’s huger than anything yet discovered in quantum physics, and that’s saying something. Beginningless time, endless world systems, endless consciousness, countless sentient beings, infinite enlightened beings, universal compassion, omniscient wisdom — and all of it illusion-like and dream-like, completely empty of existing from its own side.

But who cares about gaining all this extraordinary understanding of reality if it’s not actually helping us to get rid of our unhappiness, bring us joy, or help people? That’s all any of us really want, deep down, isn’t it? Therefore, when Buddha gave his teachings, his whole motivation was to permanently end suffering – all of which comes directly and indirectly from grasping things as being real when they’re not. What our ignorance is doing is projecting things and people that are not there but also believing that they ARE there and then reacting to that; and this the core reason why all of us are suffering. So Buddha wanted to dispel that illusion to lead everyone, including you and me, to the lasting bliss of enlightenment – the inner light of wisdom that is permanently free from all mistaken appearances — which is mixed with and is reality. 

We can’t wake people up from a nightmare if we believe the nightmare is real.

liberation from sufferingIf we align with reality, like all the countless omniscient beings have done, there is no end to what we can do. The sky’s the limit, only there is no real sky. As it says in that sugar cube video:

There are no limits to your power when you align to a more truthful view of the world you live in. The love that you feel in your heart is an actual power that you have. It’s literally the most powerful force on earth. This is not a cliché — you’ve just been conditioned to believe that it has no real effect. But we’ve seen that its power is absolutely world-changing.

More coming up soon, including the power of our intentions to create our experiences.

 

Meantime, over to you, would love to hear your thoughts …

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Everybody has freedom

6.5 mins read.

Here is a quick article to share something that has been helping me of late and that might help you if you’re anything like me. Coincidentally, sitting in one of my favorite cafés, enjoying a coffee as big as my head, and eavesdropping as usual, I just heard:

Whittier cafe“Everyone is supposed to do what they want to do.” “Agreed. We are all free agents.”

Which is what I wanted to talk about. Geshe Kelsang often says:

Everybody has freedom.

Well, on one level, we really don’t because we are bound and trapped by our delusions and karma. But on the other hand everyone needs to follow their own wishes and has to follow their own karma, and meditating on this has been helping me to stop feeling discouraged that I can’t help more people.

Yeah, you heard that right. There are always some people who “get” us and listen to our wise words of counsel or follow our fantastic example, and there are others who just don’t and won’t. And all power to them. Why should they.

Always rely upon a happy mind alone

In general, I love that Lojong commitment to “Always rely upon a happy mind alone” because it alerts me to when a delusion is brewing, even when it is masquerading as love or superior intention. How do I know? Because I stop feeling so relaxed. I personally prefer to feel super relaxed day and night, so I have learned to tell when tension is beginning to simmer.

disappointmentRecently, I was wondering where some inner tension was coming from. And I detected an old culprit. Over the years, every now and then I want to control people. It is not obvious, not even to me; but when I look carefully I notice that I am becoming discouraged or disappointed because people I feel some responsibility for give up their meditation practice or stop going for refuge or whatever it is. Alternatively, they don’t get interested in meditation in the first place, even though I have tried as painstakingly and skillfully as I can to explain how great it is.

Disappointment only comes from attachment, in this case attachment to them doing what I think they should be doing because it would be good for them. I can’t give any examples, I’m afraid, because that would be too obvious. You know who you are! (Kidding, you have no idea.)

Okay, one example, just to embarrass them. I was thinking about how much my mom and dad would benefit from meditation practice. This is not a new thought — I have had it on and off for almost 40 years. Truth is, however, they are just perfect already. Sure, they could maybe do with more refuge, like everyone else, who couldn’t. But I decided quite awhile ago to just let them be, mentally speaking, and just appreciate them and everyone else unconditionally. As always, I also handed them over into the care of Buddha Tara, reciting Tara’s mantra as a request to all 21 Taras to keep them safe and well.

(Quick seguey: This is not least because Geshe-la once told me that my parents have a strong connection with Buddha Tara. This happened to be on the same occasion that he suggested I stopped preaching Dharma to my parents and just have “normal conversations”. Funny thing is, I hadn’t told him I was preaching, not at all, so I was a bit taken aback when he brought it up. I was preaching, though. I was 18 at the time. I had found Dharma and I was preaching to everyone. Lol.

Tara playWhile on the subject of Geshe-la and my parents – after he met them in London some decades ago, he told me they were “very spiritual”, while closing his eyes and gently rubbing his heart. I have been meaning to let them know that for years, so there it is.)

In any event, during a Skype conversation that I had with these same parents about an hour ago (discussing amongst other things how there is no point people watching the stock market right now amidst all these coronavirus fears unless they want their minds to go up and down as quickly as the Dow), my 84-year-old dad volunteered out of the blue: “I have been saying that mantra “OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA”. He does it at the end of his Pilates class when they all sit “sort of cross legged” for a few minutes.

Nuff said.

Abandon all hope for results

It never works to push. Not externally, obviously, as nothing is more off-putting than feeling judged or found wanting under the guise of someone being interested in your spiritual development. But just as importantly internally, tying our hopes into people Fat Panda 2responding to our attempts to help them in the way we think they oughta. It’s ridiculous, really, when you see it written down in black and white. We can barely control our own minds let alone anyone else’s.

This is where I love contemplating Geshe-la’s phrase “Everybody has freedom.” When I meditate on that, I lose all desire to fix outcomes. Instead I just want to be here for people if they need or want me and to offer what help I can while “abandoning all hope for results” as it says in Lojong. Everyone has their own karma and everyone sees a different world – I sometimes think we are all just going around looking in a mirror. As a friend Doug said to me the other day, “We are all doing the best we can based on what we know.”

Like I said, sometimes people “get you”, and see what you are trying to show them. Other times they don’t. But it doesn’t matter. They have their own freedom. They have their own path and journey. What I can control is my own mind. That’s it. I can practice all the stages of Sutra and Tantra instead of trying to fix this dream from the outside in.

Also, I doubtless disappoint people all the time in my failure to “get” them. Sorry!

Fat Panda

Why do I have expectations of certain people and not the vast majority of others? That is just grasping at me and mine, nothing to do with pure love. As one Fat Pandaexample, I don’t mind that our current foster cat Fat Panda (real name Alissa) doesn’t get it. She doesn’t get much at all, to be honest. But I don’t care. She doesn’t have to get anything or do anything for me to respect her and wish her happiness. And if any of you are in need of a cuddly cat who lost her tail, she’s your girl.

Patient acceptance

If you find you have attachment to the people close to you (“me and mine”) responding in certain ways to your efforts, disappointed when they won’t or can’t, my suggestion is to try and let go of the grasping and let the chips fall as they may. Everyone has freedom. It is ok. This is a practice of patience, of welcoming wholeheartedly whatever arises without wishing it were otherwise. We can use every appearance, no matter how seemingly disappointing, as a motivation to increase our wisdom and attain enlightenment. This is hugely more relaxing, for a start, and I would argue that we need to be relaxed before we can fully generate all the other positive states of mind.

gesheturtle

Over the decades, a lot of people have found Kadampa Buddhism and gotten really close to Geshe Kelsang and then, for whatever reason, gone away. I’ve had a chance to observe him sometimes when this has happened, and he has never seemed too bothered. He knows that everyone has freedom. I think he has a far more long-term view and confidence in his disciples and others, always relating to the future Buddha within. He just carries on offering Buddhism to whoever wants it, to whoever gets it, but with equal no-strings-attached love and respect for everyone. “Try, don’t worry” is one of his sayings. His relaxed and always light-hearted example is incredibly helpful to me.

That’s some quick thoughts on the subject. Over to you for any comments.

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Quantum Buddhism

6.5 mins read + a video

A nun in South Africa sent me a video recently, a quantum physics thing. You’ve probably seen videos like this by now on social media or elsewhere, or maybe you even study science?! It seems to me like some of modern science is catching up to Buddha’s wisdom. I have to say that because whenever I see anything or read anything about peoplequantum physics—and I do find it fascinating, at least when it’s in plain English—I always think “That’s what Buddha said! Only, like, 2500 years ago!” However, perhaps more to the point, not only did he say it, but he also showed us how to actually gain personal experience of these mind-boggling facts and use them to our advantage to be rid of all our suffering and get happy.

So there’s around 7.7 billion human beings, or thereabout, on this planet … (didn’t we just get to 7 billion the other day?! I can’t keep up). In any event, there are a lot of us, not to mention all the animals and so forth … But … (and do pause to think about this for a moment) … if you removed from human beings alone all the empty space between our atoms, how much matter would be left?……

 

 

A sugar cube.

The entire human race would fit into a single sugar cube!

C’mon, that’s pretty impressive, don’t you think?! Fits nicely with one of the earliest examples I read about which is how, if you look at a wall, it appears very solid – ‘cos everything appears solid to us. This is the persistent illusion we have that there’s a real, physical, external, solid wall, which has nothing to do with our perceiving consciousness. But a solid wall is made of lots of atoms, and molecules, and quarks, and leptons, and the rest of it, and they’re all whizzing around really, really fast, and the space between two atoms—apparently, this is what I read—is the equivalent of the space between two planets. And there are also absurdly huge spaces between the subatomic particles. Turns out there is 99.999% more space than matter in a solid wall and in anything else that mistakenly seems solid.

I mean, that’s crazy, no, how it is nothing like it appears?!!!

wallSo why, from a conventional or scientific point of view, do things appear so darned solid if they’re not, if they’re just space?! Because apparently these subatomic particles are moving so fast that they give the illusion of solidity. Maybe it is like quickly twirling a stick of incense in a dark room – it appears like a continuous ring of fire when it is just the point of the incense stick.

As the video says:

The hidden truth of reality is that this is a universe built on pure energy—pure consciousness … This consciousness has no physical boundaries. It is intimately connected everywhere.

This science confirms what Buddha has always been talking about, that everything depends 100% upon the mind and everything is interconnected – something he proved in many different ways.

Okay, let’s get back to the 7.7 billion of us who are now shrunk to the size of a sugar cube. That’s us, right, a sugar cube. So, where do all these apparently solid bodies that we see keep coming from!? Why are we seeing them everywhere? Where are they really? How come they keep getting in my way?!!where is everybody

As Einstein is quoted:

Reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

Buddha also takes this a lot further because, for one thing, the molecules, the subatomic particles, and the space are also all mere illusion. They’re dreamlike, we can’t find them anywhere if we look for them, they don’t exist from their own side. They are mere appearance, mere name, like objects in a dream.

Buddha explained how everything is “empty like space,” and he did so thousands of years ago, long before the invention of particle accelerators and fancy microscopes. He went a lot further than modern science – proving that nothing exists from its own side, not that sugar cube, not even the consciousness perceiving it.

Things’ lack of existing from their own side, or objectively, is ultimate truth. It is reality. There are no ultimate or findable constituents of the universe, not even really dense sugar cubes.  Everything is empty of inherent existence. We can’t find a single thing when we go looking for it. There is nothing there to grasp at.

Conventional reality is an illusion, and therefore, if you think about it, not really sugar cubereality. Only ultimate truth, or emptiness, is reality because only emptiness exists in the way that it appears.

As this video shows, what we’re doing is projecting a world that’s not there; even on the level of conventional science we’re projecting a solid world. We don’t go around and see infinite space everywhere, do we? No, everything appears to be solid and chunky and real. And the problem is, we believe it. We’re actually projecting that solidity with our thoughts, with our consciousness, but we still manage to believe that it’s real.

Our whole lives are trapped within the imaginary confines of that hallucination. If we are so far off understanding and perceiving reality, we are suffering – how could it be otherwise?

And Buddha also had an enormous amount of insight into consciousness – what it is, how it creates our world, and how it is not just doing that in this one brief dreamlike life but in life after life. Everything is arising from the continuum of our consciousness moment by moment, as in a dream, in a never-ending story.

What are the implications?

However, Buddha didn’t explain these things simply so we could all go, “Whoaaaah!!!!”, followed by “What’s for supper?” This kind of information may not be impacting us at a deep level because we don’t really know what to do with it.

This video, at 5 minutes, is almost too long by today’s standards but still it goes by very fast. It may make some of us think “Wow!” But how long does this wonderment last if we don’t slow down to think about it and take the implications deep into our heart? And how can it help us? As the video says:

But despite this knowledge that has been written about in countless ancient mystical texts, and proven time and time again by modern science, we continue to behave as if it wasn’t true. We continue to use the old paradigm model of a physical universe when trying to change the world and fix its problems.

Prince HarryI was telling my childhood Guyanese friends about this video over a Chinese meal in Jamaica Queens, and their eyes did widen. Five minutes later, however, we were discussing Prince Harry and Meghan leaving the royal family, “You’re British! What do you think about THAT?!” Any potential implications from this mind-boggling insight into our existential predicament were already dismissed or forgotten in favor of useless opinions about the “real world”.

And I thought, “Well that had a lot of impact!” I didn’t blame us – it is Albert Einstein’s point, we are living a very persistent illusion. Most people never seem to leave it, even for a minute – it’s horrible, to be honest. And even those of us who do, thanks to the kindness of our wise teachers, are going to keep getting sucked back into this illusion until we can maintain a far deeper knowing in our heart.

The purpose of Buddhism is to gain a deep functional wisdom of all these truths, which sets us free — finally!!! — from the beginningless hallucinations of samsara. Plus it is so much easier to study Buddhism than to study quantum physics! Given this, I cannot resist exploring this video to see if we can start taking its revelations into our hearts and lives to really change stuff up. More coming soon …

Meantime, I would love to hear what you make of all this in the comments below!

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When the world seems bonkers

Guest article by Susan de la Vergne, native Angelino

5.5 mins read

One of our weekly Kadampa branch classes in the Los Angeles area is held in the foothill community of La Cañada at a YMCA — specifically in their chapel, which can hold 25 people who don’t mind sitting close together. There are two doors to the chapel, heavy wooden doors that swing open into the Y courtyard. The odd thing is that the doors don’t latch — it’s as if they’re unlocked and ready to swing wide whenever a chapel visit is needed.

Rain in LASince weather is rarely an issue in this part of the world, it’s not really a problem that the doors don’t latch. It’s not like a blizzard is going to rip the doors open and fill the place with snow. But a couple of years ago we did have a blustery day — windy, rainy, cold (by LA standards) — and as we started the meditation, the wind blew at the chapel entrance, and the heavy unlatched doors trembled.

Nonetheless, we headed into the opening meditation with the wind howling and the doors shaking, and as we started to pay attention to the sensation of our breathing, I hoped the weather would let up, not really thinking that it would. And it didn’t. The wind continued, and about five minutes into the meditation the doors opened a few inches. Leaves blew in from the courtyard. Then the wind blew the doors shut with an audible thud. But they didn’t stay closed. Again, the wind pried open the heavy doors. More leaves. I was having a difficult time meditating through Mother Nature’s noise and interruptions.

When we rose from meditation, we all shifted in our seats and shared a laugh about the challenge of meditating in the midst of all that weather.

But one woman remarked, “That was great!” Many of us looked surprised. “No, really, that was amazing because it was so great for meditation! I really had to concentrate with all that going on. It made me focus so much better. I loved it!”

Which was, of course, a teaching in itself. To me, the banging doors and the blowing leaves were obstacles; to her, they were inspiration! Once again, things don’t exist independently of the mind perceiving them. It’s as true for banging doors and blowing leaves as it is for everything else.

The News of the World

NYT online

I read the news of the world every morning. Things around the world appear to be heating up on many fronts. It’s easy to get discouraged and overwhelmed by accounts of rage and separatism, apparent lies that are becoming a new normal, predictions of imminent new wars, and leaders who used to speak to each other but won’t anymore. It’s hard not to feel swamped by the monumental problems of the world, especially as they appear to be intensifying.

But maybe they’re also an inspiration. Maybe the lies and the escalating hostilities are turning up the heat on our commitment to go inward so we can more skillfully go outward — to develop our capacity for love and compassion in the midst of what seems to be intensifying turmoil. Maybe they’re cranking up the urgency to practice, to make swifter than ever progress towards inner peace.

Just as the wind and the banging doors inspired the woman to hone her focus, so the news of the world can power our practice. When would virtuous minds be more needed than now?

Sometimes when I’m reading or watching the news, I find myself going for refuge to politicians who agree with me — “Yeah, that’s telling them!” I think or sometimes say aloud. I’m glad they get it, glad they have clout I don’t have, and hoping they use their clout and clarity to protect me from whatever craziness or violence I need protection from.

But they regularly disappoint me. They are politicians after all.

Better to take the latest world crisis to the Buddhas and to try to think about it as they might. For example: See the suffering! It’s samsara; what can we expect? Delusions of anger and self-grasping are behind all the violence, all the craziness. Think of the damage that’s being done to the mental continuums of all the people you’re blaming for the way things are. They’re facing far worse in their future, and they have no idea.

Buddha face smallerI’m not trying to put words in a Buddha’s mouth but adopting a perspective based on how they might view the things I’m angsting over. That’s a way for me to go for refuge and to develop compassion even for the people I don’t agree with. It’s also a way to bring to mind all the far-away, remote, “out there” people who happen to be suffering more acutely than I right now because of the anger, lying, resentment, conflict and a whole long list of deluded states of mind that are behind all our negative actions and their consequences.

When the news of the world knocks us down, we can go for refuge to Buddha and find answers to the question, “What can I do?”

In the aisle at Walmart

On Black Friday in November, two Walmart shoppers got into an argument that ended up in a mid-aisle fistfight. The two men brawled to the ground, surrounded by racks of Christmas wrap, while onlookers observed from a few feet away. A security guard broke up the fight, but not before one of the brawlers suffered a broken nose.

2 bearsI wondered how isolated an incident this was. How many hostile shoppers glared at each other across the aisles this past holiday season? Maybe they didn’t deck each other, but they were impatient and annoyed, the same states of mind that led to the Walmart clash.

Rage always starts small.

It is easy to judge the battling men at Walmart. “Really, guys, can you not see how pointless this is?” Or to feel helpless in the face of such an incident. “The world is simply going down the drain!”

Or we can use the difficulties we see around us to ratchet up our own refuge practice. “Buddha, what can I do? How can I view this?”

We can decide to better master our own anger and irritations. We can request blessings for instigators of conflict. We can make dedications. We can practice taking and giving. There are all kinds of practices we can engage in; and thanks to Geshe Kelsang’s practical guidance and instructions we have the tools and techniques we need.

So it’s good to remember that we’re not helpless even when things around us seem very crazy — and that when things seem at their craziest, we can use this as extra inspiration for our practice.

Questions and comments for the guest author are invited below 🙂

 

A window into Kadampa Buddhism in 2020

Kadampa Centers everywhere welcome everyone and provide communities in which to learn about and practice Buddha’s meditations and teachings as an effective way to solve our daily problems, grow spiritually, and transform our world.

On this very cool date of January 1st 2020, I want to share a beautifully made video of one of these 1400 Centers because it seems to be a good representative of all the others. Credit and thanks go to film-maker Josh Ruzansky.

I hope you like it. Do leave your comments and questions below.

Wishing you a very Happy New Year!

 

Click here to find a Kadampa Center near you.