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Today I was talking to someone who had just turned 40 and who had
discovered a few months ago that an old cancer, which was thought
to be in remission, had metastasised to several places in the body,
and it was necessary to go through a process of surgery, radiation
and chemotherapy. This person is also a practitioner and so we were
talking about what it is like to practice with that. I was struck
by a sort of nobility in the human capacity in being able to respond
to something like that with the wisdom and compassion that somehow
brings out the best in us… that nobility. It also made me
think of this poem:
The way it is
By William Stafford.
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
Things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen: people get hurt
Or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
There is something about the vow or intention to keep turning toward
the nobility of the human spirit, to let it be the guiding light,
the reference point. In studying the Dharma, part of what we are
doing is intentionally shifting from the more usual frame of references
that can come up as we meet our life. The fears and desires that
come up and the ways they seem to shape our existence: “When
am I going to get what I want and avoid what I don't want?”
The Dharma presents a different perspective. It also presents a
way of being the person that we are that resonates deeply and fully
with this innate nobility. As we tap into it and express it something
within us is actually relieved. It's a bit like when we fall into,
as the French call it, ‘petit’ or small mind - smaller
ways of relating with the challenges of being alive. It casts its
own description of what life is and what should be the intention
with which we live it. When we do that, when we thwart our own nobility,
there is a way in which we feel lesser; whether we begin to doubt
our own capacity, whether our sense of what’s possible in
our ability to live our human life shrinks, or we begin to feel
dissatisfied with the way life appears to be. Living up to and expressing
this nobility is a challenge.
We are studying a process within this practice of witnessing how
this nobility is brought into being and how this nobility is nurtured,
strengthened and allowed to be a strong influence in our lives.
The starting place is intention. Almost despite ourselves our nobility
stirs up an intention to practice. Maybe you could say that the
path of practice is to continually clarify the intention and learn
to live it, learn to become it. Within the process of our practice
perhaps we can support each other and bear witness to each other’s
question: What is your intention? And then to ask: What is it to
live your intention? How does it influence how you relate to the
different parts of your life? How does it influence how you relate
to the different parts of yourself?
I'd like to talk about some formulations that come out of early
Buddhist tradition that offer a reframing of the human experience.
It's a little like way-seeking mind in which you are seeking a way,
and practicing a way. It assumes that your life has brought you
to being a practitioner. That’s the nature of it - that your
life has contributed to such an event. If you think about it, it's
a little bit of an unusual way to think about our life. The teachings
of the Dharma offer us a reframing. In the midst of all the utilitarian
necessities of our life… e.g. How will I make enough money
to do this or that, or the other functional things that get involved?
We can ask ourselves: What is it to create the capacity to be aware?
How do you do that? What’s involved in it? What is it to engage
in the process of becoming aware and let that being nurtured in
our being? In the early teachings, cultivating this capacity was
called ‘cultivating the five faculties’. Engaging them
and nurturing and becoming the factors of awakening is what was
called the seven factors of awakening.
The five faculties are trust, energy, mindfulness, concentration
and wisdom. When we create an intention it is an interesting proposition,
because in some ways it arises out of our nobility. But it is also
influenced by some sense of discontent, some sense of wanting to
respond to our own suffering, get rid of it, fix it… something!
When I was talking to this person today one of the things that we
were talking about was not wanting to die, and wanting to be cured.
When you go through these treatments, you want them to be successful,
you want to be cured. But if you cling to that the world tightens,
the world becomes rigid and stiff. It loses the capacity to hold
the simple truth that we don't know. We don't know how things are
going to turn out. But there is almost a cellular wish to live,
and that can give rise to this kind of motivation or intention.
Then there’s the intention of practice, this wide acceptance,
this acknowledgement that everything changes. These forces within
us are both there. You might say that one is more like what we are
trying to cultivate and the other one is more of what rises inherently
in our existence. Often our intention is a mix of the two…
and not to eradicate the intention that arises out of some sense
of self-preservation, because being alive is precious. It is a blessed
opportunity; it is there to be appreciated and savoured. There is
something in that appreciation and gratitude for being alive that
lets something in us soften, and find its ease, that interestingly
inclines us toward wider acceptance. So our intention is a mix.
Intention gives rise to our engagement in the practice. Engagement
that arises from our intention is stimulated by our discipline and
perseverance. It is stimulated by our commitment, but it requests
us not to become rigid in our commitment and our persistence, not
to let it become a sort of white-knuckled determination. That gets
too closely linked to thinking, “I have to live at all costs,”
which means it has to happen in accordance with my fears, my wishes.
The first faculty of trust (or confidence), which includes commitment,
and the second factor of energy (or perseverance) - they balance
each other. It’s like trust in the way life is. When we become
too anxious and determined in our practice, we are losing our trust
and appreciation in how life is. It is almost as if we are in mistrusting
or missing the beauty of each moment in our determined effort to
make it how we wish it should be. One of the things in working with
severe illness is learning to trust the practice and let the outcome
happen. Of course when you have a severe or life-threatening illness,
it is ferocious in how it keeps returning you to that… just
trust the practice and let the outcome be what ever it is. Really,
we all share that condition. We are all impermanent. We are not
omniscient - we do not know how our life is going to unfold. The
request is there for all of us - the request of trust and how it
can influence and balance our commitment, our determination and
our energy.
So our intention inspires, guides, and stimulates our efforts.
Also, we can ask ourselves, “How can I relate to this in a
way that expresses my intention?” In whatever realm old life
it is. “How should I relate to this person in a way that expresses
my intention?” In the engagement, something about our practice,
something about our innate ability as a human being, something about
revealing the nature of what it is, is activated. Something is activated
and in the realm of practice that becomes our teacher. That becomes
a teaching of the way things are, of what is, and it guides us in
our effort. Sometimes the guidance is that our practice is too loose
and sometimes our practice is too tight. We need to emphasise discipline
or we need to emphasise loosening up a little bit - don't be so
rigid or determined.
The next faculty is mindfulness. Sometimes the way the word ‘sati’
or mindfulness appears in the sutras seems almost contradictory.
We can talk about being aware -you can reflect at the end of your
day and say, “What were the notable events of today?”
Then you can reflect on what exactly was experienced. “What
were the responses that arose in me to those experiences? Is there
any pattern to them? Do they reveal anything about the conditioned
ways in which I respond to experiences, what I perceive as different
personality types or different kinds of events?” That's one
form of awareness. That form of sati or awareness helps us to cultivate
the capacity to bring that same attention into real time, to be
present for experiences and events as they are happening rather
than later reflecting or revisiting them. We start to be present
for events as they are happening, present for the feelings, the
immediate sense impressions, the concepts that arise in our mind.
As we start to do that, quite literally, the capacity to be present
sets the stage for the capacity to respond intentionally. If we’re
only aware of it days later, there’s no way to be intentional
within it. To be intentional within our experience requires us to
be present for it. The reflection helps to establish that capacity.
In the process of reflection, just note: “What was that experience?”
Especially if something stays in the heart and mind as unfinished
business, we keep replaying it; something about it isn’t settled.
Often it’s helpful to reflect upon it matter-of-factly: this
was the experience, this was the response to the experience. Sometimes
it’s mysterious - we just have some imagery. Something powerful
and upsetting happened, but I can’t remember exactly what
that person said, I just remember how I felt when they said it.
Taking the backward step: taking the experience as it is, in its
unfinished way, and then stepping back. In the stepping back, cultivating
the ability to just note what happened. This sets a foundation for
doing that in real time: to just note what’s happening, and
how that’s responded to. Then, meeting that with the intentionality
that the other faculties are cultivating - the intentionality of
engaging it right now with awareness and insightfulness, with wisdom.
The different faculties set the stage for each other, balancing
and promoting each other.
As sati becomes more evident in the moment, the different attributes
of it become more readily experienced. Sati has no agenda, just
saying “What’s happening right now?” not “What
should happen now?” It’s an openness, very much the
flavour of shikantaza – just sitting in the Zen school. Our
zazen has at its centre point to just sit with open awareness. As
you bring the intentionality that turns onto commitment, to that,
all this unfolds some marvellous, organic, natural, way in which
this just processes. Then, awareness, and the capacity to be in
awareness, unfolds and becomes what happens.
As sati becomes more evident, the next faculty arises - samadhi,
continuous contact. We start to see there are different forms of
continuous contact; for example, the form of directing attention.
Sometimes it’s useful to ask “What’s going on
in my body?” This is very helpful for stabilising agitated
emotions, or making contact when the mind is racing, either from
emotional stimulation or because many different ideas are coming
up. We can ask, “Is that how it is, or am I just making that
up?” While being barraged by a wealth of ideas and concepts,
we can ask, “What’s happening in my body? Are my shoulders
tight? Is my belly soft? Is my jaw clenched?” letting this
become more immediate, in a simple sensed way. Or in our meditation,
returning to the sensation of breathing, as a way to cut through
rumination, distracting thought, as a way to become grounded in
the body, in the moment. The other form of samadhi is open contact
– just availably to experience whatever arises in that moment.
But, usually, we experience some blend of the two types. If there’s
just open awareness the mind tends to drift; the direction of attention
helps to establish the ability to open without an agenda in objectless
concentration.
The final factor of the five is prajna, or wisdom. You could say
that our insights happen in layers. First of all, we become aware
of what our mind says is happening in the moment. Perhaps I’m
being annoyed by an annoying person. Maybe we start by just noticing
there’s an annoying person in our presence. Then we start
to notice, we’re having the experience of annoyance. Then
we start to notice we’re perceiving this person in a certain
way, and that perception is contributing to the experience of annoyance.
Then we start to notice, we have a pattern of perceiving certain
kinds of people this way. Then we start to notice, there’s
something about conditioned existence, the human condition, that
promotes patterns of response. Then we notice that these patterns
of response are not permanent, they come and go. As they do that,
they create a sense of lack of harmony, or suffering, dukkha.
So in one way, we could say it’s a linear progression. In
another way, we could say we’re far too complex to have a
neat orderly way to experience, a neat orderly process of insight.
Sometimes we have a profound insight about the nature of existence,
and then the next moment we pop back into believing our own constructed
experience in that moment. The process of insight as a foundation
for awareness is to be like this: when the insights arise, to let
it register, and maybe in doing so to let it have the same or more
authority than the other statements we make about reality. “This
is a really annoying person.” Our mind believes, that’s
how the world is, that’s how this person is. So in studying
the Dharma, in entertaining its propositions, it offers a reframing
that can set the stage for insights; such as, this is a co-dependent
arising, the product of what’s experienced and how it’s
responded to. We can see it in real time, and discover how it is,
letting it be witnessed – something about the nature of what
is.
Reading about it is not a substitute for experiencing it. Reading
about it is reading about it. You can read about Australia - that’s
not a substitute for going to Australia. But it can reframe, set
the stage, and point our intention in a certain way. So there’s
something about letting our insights have authority. As we do that
our insights will illuminate and make more evident the other statements
we make about the nature of what is, and illuminate the thoughts
that get interwoven into our patterns of response. As they do that,
sometimes that has a painful quality to it. These sets of responses
are, in a way, our best effort to make our life manageable and free
of suffering. As we start to expose them, there’s something
disconcerting about that. We’re challenging our own coping
mechanisms. This is where the other faculties balance out our sense
of distress or discomfort that arises as our insights challenge
our sense of what is and who we are. Sustaining our trust the practice,
sustaining our direct involvement in direct experiencing of our
practice, sustaining the openness of mind that’s just letting
everything coming in, letting the thoughts and feelings arise and
fall away. Sometimes our “a-ha!” moments are often very
encouraging and greatly inspiring: “Yes, I’m really
getting it now!” Or maybe there’s an insight that helps
you see how you can stuck that causes suffering, and it really sets
you free. But it is helpful to note and remember that the process
of insight can have a quality of being unsettling. Insight really
challenges our coping mechanisms, the stories we hold on to, and
that is often uncomfortable. Sometimes that discomfort expresses
itself in that we can feel anything from a sense of failure, that
things are not working out well, to a wish to pull back from practice…
and so we try to practice with that. Notice that this is just what
arises as you start to expose your own psychological strategies.
Can I just keep breathing, and let something soften and stay open?
It’s still a matter of staying with the fundamentals of practice,
and reminding yourself not to get caught in discouragement or aversion.
It’s helpful to remember this funny way in which are own insights
can create that within us.
So that’s the five faculties – setting the stage. Many
of those faculties are included in the factors of awakening. It’s
a bit like the relationship between discipline and devotion. Discipline
is like a directed, determined, effort. Devotion comes when through
that effort, that engagement has become part of us. We’ve
given over to it. As you continue to practice, mindfulness just
becomes… what you do. So if you’re ill, you might not
think to yourself, “Well, best practice with this”,
but it’s more like, what else can you do, except be awake
for yourself? Even when it’s not something you wanted or something
that’s easy to be awake for. So as we give ourselves over,
the faculties become potent forces in our life; they become the
factors of awakening. We start to taste directly that something
about this way of involving a human life has a potency. It’s
not something that we can control, or even fully define or predict;
it’s more something we can allow fuller and fuller involvement
in. As William Stafford says,
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
Things that change. But it doesn’t change.
In Buddhism we might not say it doesn’t change, but that
it flows through all the change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
Maybe you wonder what you’re pursuing, or not pursuing!
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen: people get hurt
Or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
Thank you very much.
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