Aloha Sangha

ancient wisdom for crazy times

Tag: Ryokan

  • check the lining of your own mind

    check the lining of your own mind

    Just when I thought things couldn’t get more dreadful, they did.

    Yes, I know pandemics happen. Evolution hurts sometimes, I guess. Writing in the New York Times on September 23rd of this year, the epidemiologist and physician Dr. Amitha Kalaichandran observed

    Evolution can sometimes look like destruction to the untrained eye.

    We just passed 200,000 deaths here in the USA attributed to Covid-19. Yes, in our Civil War and in World War II, more of our citizens perished.

    But so many of these Covid deaths could have been prevented.

    Last week our liberal Supreme Court Justice and champion of women’s rights, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, passed on. Not an hour after this tragic loss, US Senate Republicans were scheming to get a conservative Justice confirmed to replace her before our presidential elections in November.

    And yesterday I learned another innocent Black life taken by police gunfire will go unpunished. Say her name.

    I don’t know if I can take any more. But I get up and go to work each night, like I always do.

    There is a story from early Mahayana Buddhism I sometimes remember when I feel numb inside, like I do now.

    A young person wished to go off and explore the world on an open ended journey. The night before the departure, a good friend, who came from a well-off family, sewed a valuable gem into the lining of a warm jacket chosen for the journey.

    Many years later, the traveler returned, looking haggard, not well, and wearing rags for clothes. The good friend asked how the journey had gone.

    “Terribly,” the friend replied. “I ran out of my supplies in a short time, and could not afford even one meal a day all this time.”

    “But you had that valuable jewel I had sewn into your jacket the night you left–you could have sold it for all the food you would need, and then some,” the good friend answered.

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    That’s the end of the story. Yeah, it’s not the best ending.

    But what uplifts me is recognizing we all have this valuable jewel sewn into the lining of our very existence, in the fabric of our being.

    You know I’m going to say it now, after this build-up, right?

    As you pay mindful attention to your everyday life, the priceless jewel sewn into the fabric of your own mind allows you to regulate your emotions and helps you ride the waves of their intensity.

    The late, great Indian yoga innovator and teacher, Swami Satchidanada once remarked that while we can’t stop the waves, we can learn to surf.

    The heart of our mindfulness practice is this–that although the waves of fear and grief triggered by this pandemic may not stop any time soon, our heart and mind can become so open and balanced, that we can hold the turning of the world in a quiet place of stillness.

    That we can relate to ourselves and others with kindness, warmth and compassion. Our mindfulness practice teaches us to hold our restlessness with a little kindness.

    And it this turning world starts to settle down on its own. Then you see you can do this. Whatever happens, you can be with it with kindness.

    Psychologists call this widening the window of tolerance. Dan Siegel calls this sailing on a river of well-being.

    When we are outside of our window of tolerance, our nervous system goes into survival mode – fight, flight or freeze. We get overwhelmed and go into freak-out mode, or go numb, as I have gone these past weeks.

    Also writing in the New York Times, this time back in the early pandemic time of April, 2020, the prominent mindfulness teacher and former Buddhist monk, Jack Kornfield wrote:

    The Japanese Zen poet Ryokan Taigu wrote: “Last year, a foolish monk. This year, no change.” We need to acknowledge our humanity. Your feelings are your organism trying to handle things.

    And we are trying as best we can manage under these extraordinary circumstances. Mindfulness can help. But we practice gently and progressively, one step at a time.

    As the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reminded us about enduring social change, the alchemy of mindfulness similarly manifests its miracles slowly, patiently; she once said:

    Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.

    Perhaps we can well honor her legacy of wisdom by practicing the slow burn of kindness and patience in these troubling times. The jewel of mindfulness clearly illuminates this path.

    If the turbulence in your life obscures the path, check the lining of your own mind.

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  • now more than ever

    now more than ever

    The suffering in the world is overwhelming. But the whole mess looks differently when we have a rested, settled mind.

    Everyone is frazzled.  Covid-19, politics, racial and economic disparities, police shootings, school shootings.

    That’s why it’s really important to sit down and do some formal meditation practice.

    Every day.

    It’s too easy to get lost in the news, social media and yes, Netflix, but just be careful.

    When there is this much collective anxiety, it only takes one person to tip the balance in a room in favor of cool, rational thought.

    That would be you, the mindfulness meditator!

    Because in your mind there is less friction. You don’t easily fall into the irrational rabbit holes, extreme views and fixations abounding everywhere.

    yes, you can meditate every day

    Because you put the tush to the cush. Every day, if you can.

    And, oh yes. You always can.

    I can understand not wanting to sit down and down to do formal meditation practice right now. You might miss something important on the news.

    it’s never easy, get over it

    It’s not an easy time to be sitting quietly at home, honestly. But it really never is easy. Just necessary.

    Now more than ever.

    The suffering in the world is overwhelming. But the whole mess looks differently when we have a rested, settled mind.

    Even watching clips of this week’s “debate” after a session of sitting meditation — is bearable. You just feel so much compassion!

    We need to make space for this vital, daily, life changing habit.

    Now more than ever.

    During these times, it’s especially OK to be sad.

    our precious vulnerability

    With mindfulness, our sadness becomes our strength, through our vulnerability. Our humanity. Our “calor humano” as we say in Spanish.

    It’s a strength that lets our heart break open. Over and over.

    Now more than ever.

    I often read poems written by dedicated Buddhist practitioners of old. So many Buddhist poems are I read as invitations:

    To be transformed on the spot,

    To connect deeply with others in our common sufferings,

    To open to new ways of seeing our shared human experiences,

    To welcome mystery, and wondrous beauty, and pain of our own lives and the many forms of life that surround us, and

    bearing witness to what touches us deeply

    To bear witness to the passing away of what touches us deeply.

    Now more than ever.

    Ryōkan (1758-1831), the Japanese Sōtō Zen monk who spent much of his life as a hermit, once wrote a poem to a friend he could not reach, which I find points to our collective socially distanced experience coupled with the wonders of technology…but still evinces a bitter-sweet taste in our mind:

    Your smoky village is not so far from here

    But icy rain kept me captive all morning.

    Just yesterday, it seems, we passed an evening together discussing poetry

    But it’s really been twenty windblown days.

    I’ve begun to copy the text you lent me,

    Fretting how weak I’ve become.

    This letter seals my promise to take my staff

    And make my way through the steep cliffs

    As soon as the sun melts the ice along the mossy paths.

    I feel Ryōkan’s wish to “to take my staff/ and make my way” to my dear friends, but not yet. Maybe when a Covid vaccine is widely available.

    We called called to develop a mind like the earth, as in the Buddha’s advice to Rahula, to his adult son, as recorded in the Majjhima-nikaya (verse 62).  Rahu;a complained that there were just too many dispute, grievances, and ill-will around him that he could not meditate; here is what his Dad said to him:

    Rahula, develop meditation that is like the earth, for then agreeable and disagreeable sensory impressions will not take charge of your mind. Just as when people throw what is clean and unclean on the earth—feces, urine, saliva, pus, or blood—the earth is not horrified, humiliated, or disgusted by it; in the same way, agreeable and disagreeable sensory impressions will not take charge of you mind when you develop meditation like the earth.

    Good poetry and pithy Dharma teachings invite us into the simple beauty of our human world, and allows us to listen to the richness of our present moment experience.

    Just as our wondrous mindfulness practice does.

    Now more than ever.