Things Fall Apart

We develop a practice of meditation, finding the ways that work best for us: The perfect place, the perfect time, the perfect intention and the perfect way to bring ourselves into a state of spaciousness and ease.

And then causes and conditions change. The 'seas' that we talked about last week as a metaphor for the causes and conditions of life become rough. As sailors we learn quickly how to make course corrections, alter speed, trim the sails, or take out the bucket and start bailing. As meditators we need to develop that kind of readiness and flexibility as well.

Occasionally during meditation instruction I have talked about the importance of having a variety of meditation tools in our toolbox. But as life goes along smoothly, we can easily get complacent, relying on the one tool, the one meditation technique that seems to be most effective for us. Where else in life has that ever been a good idea? We eat a varied diet to assure not just balanced nourishment but the ability to draw nourishment from multiple sources. When we plant just one variety of potatoes and that variety succombs to a disease, we starve! When we must go on thinning ice, say to rescue someone, we lie down to spread the weight so we don’t rely too heavily on any one point. We prepare for emergencies by having multiple options, depending on circumstances. We develop a network of friends and family relationships in part so that we can all support each other when times get difficult. We see what happens when someone we know has relied too heavily on only one person for their needs. We are communal creatures and developing community is a basic skill of our survival in a world of impermanence. We acknowledge this when we create sangha, our community of meditation practitioners.

When we experience things falling apart, our meditation practice may feel like it is falling apart, too. “Just when we need it most!” we say, feeling bereft. But at these times if we pause, we can recognize that we are prepared for this, that we have multiple tools in our toolbox. And we also have the support of the sangha to remind us if we forget.

When things fall apart in a riveting way, as when we are suddenly launched into a heightened state of emotion due to startling circumstances, if we have been doing a regular practice of meditation, we may find that we are very much present with all that is going on, that this is in fact what we have been practicing for.

So the practice has not abandoned us at all. It is serving us in this moment, keeping us present, allowing us to notice our emotions and bring a full measure of compassion to ourselves and others. We might notice that things have fallen apart, but in fact we haven’t fallen apart, or at least not to the degree we might have done without the practice.

During this intense period we might not be able to practice meditation in the usual sense, but just as soon as things get a little more stable, we need to resume the practice, because without the natural inner replenishment of the practice we are running the risk of depletion. And then we do feel as if we are falling apart.

But the practice we have relied on most, the one that has been such a nurturing source, might suddenly seem difficult or uncomfortable. Why? Because we know it and we expect it to be as it was, so we get stuck in comparing mind. We may feel we have lost our ability to practice in addition to whatever other loses we may be experiencing, and this sense of loss underscores and amplifies the grief we may already be feeling. Perhaps there’s also a sense of betrayal, because we thought this practice was supposed to be our support, but it’s not there to support us when we most need it. This can set off a chain of memory-laden emotions that echo that sense of betrayal and things seem to unravel more and more. Maybe we become depressed and give up the practice all together.

But the practice is still there! The ability to practice is still within us. We simply need to correct our course, trim our sails or start bailing! What does this mean in meditation terms?

First we need to look at what happens when we try to meditate. Are we not able to release tension and relax? Are we not able to focus? Are we caught up in thoughts and can’t find inner silence?

Compassion is our best companion at these times. Instead of making demands that we meditate in a certain way, we can sense the support of the web of life holding us. Perhaps we experience that support as God, feeling ourselves cradled in his arms or resting in his heart.

Of course experiencing this loving-kindness and compassion is challenging if we are railing at God for creating the causes and conditions that are making us so miserable. This is the exact moment that people of faith are severely tested. By seeing God as separate instead of the whole of which we are a part, we can get into a blame game that exacerbates our misery and sense of isolation.

Feeling ourselves to be integral to the fabric of life both releases our sense of separation and empowers us to be the compassion we wish to receive. We do not have to sit around and wait for it, beg for it or look for it from any other source. We are by our very nature a conduit of universal compassion. We take a deep breath, sense in, let go of all the accumulated tension and release into our natural state of being. We are both held in a compassionate open embrace and we hold the world in a compassionate open embrace. We shift our awareness back and forth between those two focuses and we begin to really understand our role in the nature of things.

When I was a very small child I had a little mantra I would do when I was by myself. I don’t know how I came up with it, who might have taught it to me, but it felt very much my own discovery. I would say, “I am in God and God is in me, and I am in God and God is in me” over and over until that oxymoron made sense to me, at which point I would dissolve into delicious giggles and roll on the ground. As an adult, the word and concept of God are too culturally laden with all the personification and implied separateness that gets in my way of deep understanding. And now that we can see, through the use of lenses and through the research and insights of science, how we are embedded in the fabric of life, all of us made of the same stuff, the illusion of separateness is easier and easier for me to see through.

But for those of us who have a more straightforward relationship with God, who can experience union with God, who weren’t raised by what I affectionately call a ‘raving atheist’ and a ‘closet worshiper of Mother Nature,’ then Hallelujah! Rejoice in that sense of being supported and aspire to be the fullest expression of God’s love.

If the problem with trying to meditate when things are falling apart is a lack of focus, we can do more embodiment work such as mindful inner-directed yoga, slow walking meditation or active breath work. These are all forms of meditation, all valid for keeping us connected to our experience of the present moment. The senses are our anchor to the present moment, so whatever we can do to draw our awareness to sensation is useful. In any given moment we can simply rub our fingers together, or rub our hands on a piece of fabric, noting the texture. This brings us into the present moment.

If sensing in is alien for us, we might give ourselves more opportunities to be fully in the body. For example, we can have a massage but request silence instead of chatting with the massage therapist so that we can really experience the fullness of sensation.

If when we meditate we cannot seem to get free of words, we might visualize them growing, letting the words themselves get very large, so large they lose all meaning, until we can swim between the spaces in our large lettered universe. This is a creative way of being with what is arising in the moment.

If we have a whirlwind of things going on in our life, we can imagine that tornado whirling even faster, so fast all the individual aspects, all the worries and concerns, are a singular blur, as we sit in the calm center, the eye of the storm, at peace.

If we are fraught with worry for another person, we send them loving kindness. As with all metta meditations, we begin with sending metta to ourselves for we need to receive loving-kindness before we can share it, sense in to its infinite nature to be a conduit for its transmission.

Maybe we find we just don’t have the heart for meditation right now, as if it’s a selfish thing to simply sit when there are so many practical things that have to be done. We just don’t have the time!

Let’s remember that Gandhi is quoted as saying, “Today is going to be a particularly busy day, so I will meditate two hours instead of one.” Wait a minute! How can that make any sense? Taking two hours out of an already busy day is no way to get things done. Gandhi was clearly no efficiency expert. But since he accomplished more with his life than almost any other human in recent history by gaining Indian independence from the British Empire without loss of life, and further inspired other non-violent movements including the Civil Rights movement in the United States fifty years ago, and since he continues to be an inspiration to us today, perhaps we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he knew what he was talking about!

But how could giving more time to meditation make us more efficient? First we have to make sure we are doing mindfulness meditation, practicing being fully present, not escaping into a dream state. When we are practiced at being fully present, we are more efficient because we are seeing more clearly, we are more in touch with the flow and we are noticing when we are getting in our own way. We can prioritize, we can come to agreement with others, and we can let go of things that will resolve themselves without our involvement. We can recognize that very few things in our life are truly urgent, yet we habitually act as if they are and drive ourselves and perhaps others accordingly. We can see when those around us are caught up in circular thinking and we can choose not to waste our energy trying to guide a tornado onto a different course.

This is the kind of clarity that streamlines our ability to accomplish what needs accomplishing without wasting time on what doesn’t. Without meditation practice we can be undiscerning, become easily distracted and waste time focusing on things that won’t resolve the problem at hand. Our emotional aspects may run amok, setting a questionable agenda because we haven’t taken the time to access our inner wisdom, our Buddha nature. Without being fully present, we rely more heavily on our habitual nature, so that we keep doing the same thing in the same way, hoping for a different outcome.

Our habitual nature can also infect our meditation practice. When things fall apart we want the tried and true to pull us through. But when the tried and true falls through we are called upon to find another way. If we cannot find 30 to 40 minutes in our suddenly fallen apart day, we might experiment with a series of much shorter meditations throughout our day.

What? Didn’t I just say that Gandhi said two hours of meditation is better than one? Yes, and one minute of quality meditation is good as well if it means we will meditate rather than not meditate at all. In this as in so many areas of life we are not dealing with either/or but both/and. There are many ways to deal with a challenge. Discovering that we can actually change our experience, energy level, and our physical and emotional sense of well being quite dramatically by one minute of truly being present in meditation reminds us to do it, not to put it off. It makes us see that our statement that we don’t have time is clearly a lie. One minute? We all have one minute at many times during the day. One minute while we are put on hold, while we are waiting for a computer download, while we are on the toilet, while we are waiting for water to boil to cook pasta or make tea. One minute? This is never too much to ask! How liberating! But how can this be?

Well, let’s try it. Let’s set a timer for exactly one minute and then see how it affects us to meditate for that minute. We sense into our bodies, release tension, notice the breath rising and falling, and expand into spaciousness, finding a still point of center. We rest here or we continually cycle through this process, whatever works for us at this time.

Now how do you feel? Has there been a shift of energy? What do you notice? Is there perhaps a sense of replenishment? One minute well spent in meditation is a gift we can give ourselves at various times throughout our day. It helps us understand that meditation is not some separate experience, but a natural part of life, like the brief pause at the bottom of a released breath.

Why does the one minute meditation work? I think it is like the last couple of minutes in meditation when I say “In these last moments, really savor what is arising in this moment.” Knowing it will end so soon, we are suddenly able to really pay attention. It's our deadline mentality! It’s based on the same principle as Stephen Levine's teaching of A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last. With the thought that the end is so near, we stop squandering our time, we start noticing the beauty and the preciousness of life. When we think we have a lot of time, we feel free to waste it! Whether it’s a lifetime or forty minutes of just sitting, we perceive it as a lot of time, so we may go about it in a circuitous ramble instead of being clear in our intention to be present and compassionate.

The question for me is not how I feel after a minute of focused inner awareness, but how long do I feel that way? How often would I have to have these minutes in order to feel the sense of connection, aliveness and joy I experience as a result of a regular daily practice?

But when things are difficult and a regular practice feels out of reach, accessing these meditation minutes can help to keep our meditation practice alive.

So we can see that we have many means in our toolbox, a great variety of techniques at our service, to deal with whatever comes up. Yes, it is wonderful to have a good steady practice, but it is important to remember that we have much more than that. We can be flexible, creative, alive and resourceful, ready and fully equipped to sail upon the sea of causes and conditions, whatever they may bring.

Taking Refuge, Taking Responsibility

Two weeks ago we talked about taking refuge and how refuge is not a place to escape to but a relationship, a way of being supported by the inspiration of the Buddha and the discovery of our own Buddha nature; supported by the dharma, both the teachings and the wisdom we find in nature; and supported by the sangha, the community of meditation practitioners who too are taking refuge in this way.

Last week in class I was asked to talk more about what the sangha is. Simply put it is the group of people who share the intention to be present and compassionate. A sangha is not like a group of friends. If someone cries the sangha holds the space for that person to fully experience their feelings without anyone rushing in to comfort them, make it better or make it go away. Instead the person feels the sangha’s complete acceptance of their tears. They really get it that there is room for all of who they are and all of what they feel in the web of support the sangha provides. On a retreat after a few days of sitting in silence you might begin to hear sobbing. This is not because the retreatant is having a miserable time but because they feel the emotional release of sitting in silence and they feel the support of the sangha to help them face whatever they are dealing with in their thoughts and emotions. They can spend time safely coming face to face with the thing that all the distractions in their lives have kept them from facing. It is a very rich sharing when someone breaks down and cries, especially when a man does, as that is so discouraged in our culture. The sangha honors and supports the deep practice of each member, so when we take refuge in it, we feel held but not coddled, interconnected but not necessarily interactive.

When we take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, if we recognize that it is a relationship instead of an escape then we understand that, like any relationship, there is not just refuge but responsibility, if that relationship is going to thrive.

So, we take responsibility for our relationship with our Buddha nature, vowing to nurture and honor it.

We take responsibility for our relationship with the Dharma, vowing to honor the teachings and not manipulate them for our own agenda. And we take responsibility for holding all dharma up to the light of inquiry, not accepting everything we hear or what we have come to believe without question.

We take responsibility for our relationship with the Sangha, vowing to support our sangha sibling in their practice and to honor their privacy by not sharing what they have disclosed in our circle with others. Thus we develop a practice of trustworthiness that is valuable in all our relationships.

Let’s explore this word ‘responsibility’ a little more. Taking responsibility in life sounds straightforward, but it’s amazing how quickly we get out of balance, taking too much responsibility or taking too little and not knowing how we got so turned around.
First we need to let go of the idea that all the responsibility lies elsewhere, that we are hapless flotsam being tossed about on a sea of causes and conditions. We need to recognize that on this sea of causes and conditions we have a boat and we have a sail, oars, a motor, a rudder, a bucket, a compass and more. These are not things that can fall overboard, but they are things we may not realize we have on board. So part of our practice is to recognize all the means we have to cope with whatever causes and conditions arise. This recognition helps us to take responsibility for our own happiness and our own well being.

Circumstances exist. It’s no use to pretend they don’t. Yes, we have a boat but nothing on the boat will change the weather. We have the means to change our relationship to the weather, to the storm, to the choppy waves, to whatever arises.

We are born into a life with certain circumstances, rarely ideal, and even when ideal, we learn that life can change on a dime. Plans we made may no longer be viable due a change in conditions. Taking responsibility includes acknowledging the truth of the situation and the ramifications that arise, just as the sea goes from calm to full of white caps to a raging storm. Then the storm quiets down and the sun comes out and we’re still here.

What if the circumstances in our life seem to preclude the possibility of our living the life we want to live? We have the means to explore this assumption. We have inquiry: Is this true? How do I know this is true?

We have noticing: We see not just the circumstances but our own set of skills, connections, strength and patience. Taking responsibility for our own life experience doesn’t mean forging ahead without regard to conditions. It means working with all that is arising in this moment. Being able to release our attachment to the way we planned to go. Exploring work-arounds to see what really is possible is one way of taking responsibility. So is letting go of our addiction to living in the future, some distant destination always beyond the horizon, and finding joy right here, right now.

We have self awareness: If we feel like a big ship, weighted down with a lot of freight, what’s that about? If making a decision to deal with changing conditions is wrought with difficulty, perhaps we are carrying around too much weight in the form of stories we tell ourselves about our place in the world. Can we develop the flexibility of a small boat?

And we have compassion: Our boat can rock, but we can experience it as a cradle, being held in the supportive web of life. And we can see that we are not alone on these seas, and we can share compassion and feel compassion from others in our midst.

Through the practice of compassion, self-awareness, noticing and inquiry we create for ourselves a small sea-worthy vessel. We are able to navigate our way through causes and conditions. Our practice of meditation gives us the clarity to see through the fog and the storms.

If it doesn’t feel that way, if that sounds like wishful thinking, let’s explore why. Are we at the helm of our vessel? Or do we imagine someone else in charge? And if so who? Why do we believe that to be true? The actions of others do have an impact on us, but if they are crashing into us, then that action is just another cause and condition to be weathered.

Here’s a traditional boat story that is appropriate here:

A man is rowing his own boat, minding his own business, and he sees another boat coming toward him. It’s foggy and he can’t see the person steering the boat, but it’s clear the boat is going to hit his, so he calls out. But the boat keeps coming at him. So he calls out louder, this time more aggressively, fueled by his fear that the boat might hit him and his future thinking of all the harm and hassle that might entail. But the boat keeps coming! Well now he’s really angry! This other boater is clearly ignoring him and is purposely attacking him. So he yells curses and uses his oar not just to fend off the approaching boat to keep himself safe but to clobber the stupid expletive deleted at the helm.

Only then is he able to see that the other boat is empty. Suddenly all his feelings change. He has no hard feelings about a boat floating aimlessly. He doesn’t think it is out to attack him. He just pushes it away and sets back to rowing his boat.

So what does that story tell us? Why do we respond so differently to causes and conditions when we think another person’s volition is involved? Why do we let the actions of another so throw us off course? We can see how we do this in our lives. How angry we get at other drivers on the road if we think we have been disrespected. If we realize that these unskillful actions we see on the road and elsewhere in life are the result of mindlessness – that the person is absent from this moment, their mind somewhere else – then how is that really different from an empty boat? Scary to think about how many empty boats are floating about, but when we understand that to be the case, we can take responsibility to be really present and mindful, to be able to navigate these added conditions.

Now, back to who is at the helm of our own vessel. If we see someone else at the helm, then we are not in touch with our own Buddha nature. We are perhaps reacting out of emotional longing for safety, but it actually makes us less safe. Putting someone else at the helm of our own boat is making ourselves captive rather than captain. Coming into the relationship with our Buddha nature allows us to take the helm of our own lives. Our Buddha nature is our refuge and it’s our responsibility to awaken and cultivate our relationship with this deep, connected inner wisdom that is our birth right.

If our vessel feels unstable, as if it will turn over in a big wave, then we need to add ballast in the form of meditation practice. If we are already doing a regular practice, perhaps a refinement in our understanding of what meditation practice means is in order. Perhaps our practice is taking us off into dreamland or spacy-ness instead of into a deep and abiding awareness of the present moment. This ability to stay with physical sensation – the breath, for example – is not a journey to lofty heights of forgetting where we are, but a door into the fullness of each moment, replete with gratitude for this gift of life in all its variations, the ability to feel connection to all of life as it is. This adds ballast that keeps our vessel steady. Fantasy is lovely but has no staying power. And we can’t navigate our vessel from up in the clouds.

We set our intention to be present and compassionate and we let that intention guide us like a rudder through the challenging waters of our meditation and our life. That is taking responsibility.

Sometimes we may find we are trying to navigate someone else’s vessel. As parents our children’s smaller vessels are tied to ours. The other day we were walking along the shore in Tiburon and saw a motor boat pulling nine little dinghies in a row. It was like a mother duck being followed by her ducklings. A great image! But at some point our children are ready to take charge of their own vessels, and we rejoice in their independence.

As adults with no dependent children, we need to acknowledge that we have responsibility for only one vessel: our own. Whether we are married or not, our vessel is our vessel, no one else’s. And our spouse’s is not ours to steer, no matter how closely we travel together. So this is a very important thing to notice about how we are taking responsibility in our lives. Where are we out of balance? It’s quite common to take too little responsibility for our own vessel, possibly not even recognizing that we have a vessel, and/or too much responsibility for steering the vessels of others.

This vessel analogy has some similarity with the analogy of accepting our seat at the table and having table manners. Work with whichever one feels most compelling for you.

We might say this is a boundaries issue, and it certainly is. But notice that when we talk about vessels, it becomes quite clear where the boundaries are. We don’t want to fall into the water as we lean over to steer another’s boat!

But what if someone we care about is steering their vessel into harm’s way? Are they going the ‘wrong’ way or just not our way? That’s an important question to ask ourselves. Most times we see they are headed for stormy or choppy waters and we want to keep them in calm seas. But learning to navigate in all conditions is part of developing a sea worthy vessel in life. Certainly sailor to sailor conversations are useful, but there are strict rules at sea about asking permission to come aboard. Remember that the only ones that board another’s ship without permission are pirates! Is that the role we want to play in the lives of those we care about? Of course not! And while we’re on board, who’s minding the tiller of our own vessel?

So we take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, and we take responsibility for our relationship with these three refuges as well. Whether we feel adrift, becalmed or about to be engulfed in a big wave, we have the means to navigate all the causes and conditions of our lives.

Taking Refuge, Taking Root

At the beginning of a silent Buddhist retreat we ‘take refuge.’ This is a moment of deepening and clarifying our intention, one that we can take any time, whether on retreat or not. The word refuge means sanctuary, safe haven and sheltered harbor. But the refuge we are talking about is not a physical place. It is not the retreat center. The retreat center provides an ideal situation with which to become familiar with our own refuge: our awakening awareness, spaciousness and luminosity, through which our relationship with the world is transformed. So a refuge is not a getaway, not an escape into numbness or zoning out. It is a refuge of finding the space within each moment. Each atom of existence is mostly space. Even the most solid objects are mostly space. Our bodies at the cellular level are mostly space. If we can attune our awareness to the spaciousness of being, we give ourselves room to breathe even in the most challenging situations.

A retreat is not a getaway. There are many challenges on a retreat: Sitting for many hours a day (multiple periods – not all at once!) being in silence, being with our own thoughts all the time, being away from our own entrenched patterns of living including all the distractions we take for granted. And taking refuge is not an escape route, but a way into being fully present with whatever arises.

Traditionally we take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.

Buddha means awakened.
The historical Buddha, the great enlightened teacher who developed a way to help us understand the path to awakening, is an inspiration to us. We take refuge in his example of how cultivating a dedicated meditation practice with intention, patience, perseverance and a willingness to be present with whatever arises leads to awakening fully into the present moment.

Dharma is the teachings or the truth.
There is the dharma passed down over the past 2500 years of Buddhist teachings, and there is the dharma of inquiry and insight from our own experience in life. There is dharma in nature when we stay present with it instead of racing through it. We take refuge in the cultivated and natural wisdom of the dharma to guide us on our path.

Sangha is the community of practitioners.
On a retreat the sangha is the group of fellow retreatants and teachers with whom we silently sit, eat and walk. The sensed support of so many people on a shared personal quest of mindful self-discovery is palpable in the shared silence of the retreat.

We do not have to be on a retreat to take refuge. We can begin our daily meditation practice with this vow. ‘I take refuge in the Buddha…. I take refuge in the Dharma…. I take refuge in the Sangha.’ After saying each part of this vow, really sense in to the meaning of what you are saying. I have added visual pauses to remind you to do so. Although it would be grammatically correct to shorten the three sentences into one, saying ‘I take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha,’ it would undermine the fullness of intention.

Taking refuge is a skillful way to center in and establish the space for our intention to be present and compassionate. It’s like setting the table for dinner, clearing away the newspapers or the children’s homework and dedicating the table for the purpose of a meal, giving the meal our full and present attention.

Taking refuge is not hiding out from life, but acknowledging our need for centering and balance in order to be fully present for whatever arises. Think of the word refuge and see what comes to mind for you.

In my life there have been times when taking refuge was snuggling up in bed with a favorite comfort food and a stack of novels in which to lose myself. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a novel, being cozy, or eating a favorite food, but believing ‘losing myself’ is the antidote for whatever overwhelming causes and conditions there are in my life is flawed thinking and unskillful. Overwork is not balanced by over-indulgence. Mindfulness brings about skillfulness and balance so that we don’t push ourselves beyond what is possible. We can claim rest as a natural part of our skillful work experience. We can recognize our physical and emotional needs as they arise and assure that we are not pushing ourselves to the point of exhaustion or the need to hide out and get away from the world.

If we are very out of balance and unaware of our connection to all that is, we can misunderstand taking refuge. Like a plant trying to root in rocky soil, we can mistake a rock for solid ground. We can wrap our roots around the rock, holding on tight, believing ourselves to be stable.

When we take refuge in the Buddha in this unskillful way:
We might mistake the historical Buddha for a god and dedicate ourselves to holding him up to the light so that we are in the shadow of this Buddha figure we have created and thus receive no direct light ourselves. We cannot flourish and grow to the fullness of being with no light and such a shallow anchor. We are in a state of disconnection and duality, where the Buddha is a god and we are nothing. However much this confirms our core beliefs and however much it resonates, we must explore our need to separate ourselves from the flow of life, to hold ourselves in the shadow instead of the light, to cling to a rock instead of rooting in the rich soil of life.

When we take refuge in the Dharma in this unskillful way:
We can get stuck in the words delivered. We can become fundamentalist in our protection of them, turning them into dogma without experiencing them for ourselves, questioning and testing the truth in our own lives as the Buddha instructed. The teachings remind us again and again that they are the finger pointing at the moon, and that we must not get fixated on the finger but look to the moon itself.

I recently had a practitioner (not a student of mine) bristle at my exploration of the Eightfold Path using the word ‘spacious’ to see how it enhanced our understanding of the concepts presented. She went to her teacher to see if this was all right. He said that although it was not the literal translation, he could see that the word ‘spacious’ could help to alleviate over-efforting which is a real problem with many meditation students. But she could not see it. She felt threatened by it. She felt it was crucially important to adhere exactly to the words as they have been handed down and translated. I assured her that in my first go round I taught the Eightfold Path in the regular way, but that this was another exploration with advanced students.

She brought up how important adherence to the rules is in the practice of the piano or dance. I was so glad she brought those up because at some point after you have done the necessary exercises to learn these skills, you need to open to the flow of the music and connect in a deeper way, allowing yourself to be a full expression of the instrument you have created through your dedicated practice. She totally disagreed with this. She stayed entrenched in her view and nothing I could say or her teacher could say, would shake her tight hold on her understanding.

We all have places where we get tight and it’s good to notice and to explore why it is so important to us, why we feel so threatened. Clues to holding tight are when we shake with emotion or our voice becomes strident. There may be a shift from authentic expression to rote proselytizing that turns off those we address. We can’t listen to words from those whose views differ from ours without fuming with anger. What an opportunity to see the volcanoes in our own inner landscape! When we find ourselves erupting, what an opportunity to center in, to be present, to question and to notice the associative images, memories and fears that arise with the lava of our emotions. This is not to talk ourselves out of anything, it is simply to notice the workings of the human mind, in this case our mind. Fascinating! And potentially enlightening. This exploration is like sending new roots down into the rich soil that is ever available to us. Doing so allows us to find the richness of the dharma rather than the tightness of dogma.

And finally, when we take refuge in the Sangha in this shallowly-rooted unskillful way:
We believe that the small group of people with whom we sit is the key to any success we have with meditation. We think of the sangha as a particular set of people, and when there is a change in the group we experience it as a loss or intrusion.

When I used to do the Dances of Universal Peace, I was always amazed at how at the beginning of the dancing, when we would stand in a circle and hold hands, I would always end up next to the person I felt most uncomfortable with, the person I might have even dreaded because their personality felt so abrasive or discordant in some way. Over the years of dancing I began to expect this to happen, and to know that by the end of the dances somehow that apprehension or distaste would completely dissolve, as we all settled in to our deeper truer selves where we are all one, beyond the seeming differences in our personalities. I noticed that often the very person who I dreaded turned out to be the one that somehow brought the greatest gift to my experience.

The Dances of Universal Peace are associated with Sufism. In Buddhism this experience might be called an example of the dragon at the gate. When we come upon a strong aversion that blocks the way to fully engaging in a life-enhancing experience, we can see it as the dragon at the gate of our spiritual temple. Are we put off by its fire-breathing roar? Do we run away defeated? Do we keep our eyes on the door and ignore the dragon? Do we get in a battle with the dragon? Or do we recognize the dragon for what it is, as Buddha recognized all of Mara’s taunts and temptations as kindred illusion, known and non-threatening.

And so it is in the sangha. At first we are relating only to personalities, dredging up associative memories that validate our judgments about someone we don’t know or have barely begun to know. This can easily happen on a retreat. With so much time on our hands, it is easy to observe a particular person or group of persons and have a running commentary of judgments. Perhaps they are not fully partaking in the retreat, sleeping in instead of meditating, for example. They take on significance for us and we can’t help but somehow feel threatened by their unwillingness to take the retreat as seriously as we are. So we can get fundamentalist about what it means to be a sangha and see how people are falling down on the job. Conversely we can underestimate the power of the sangha and not take it seriously enough, not understand that our behavior, our honoring the vows we have taken may result in behavior that can undermine and even unravel the well being of the sangha.

So, continuing with this plant analogy, when we root in nourishing soil where our roots are free to grow as needed, and we don’t mistake a rock as solid ground, we flourish and we are stable in our understanding. Like plants whose root systems are nourished and unimpeded, we can grow to the fullness of our nature.

When we take refuge in the Buddha we honor the historical Buddha for his teachings and his great inspiration that reminds us again and again to open to our own Buddha nature, our own capacity for awakening in any moment.

When we take refuge in the Dharma, we value the concepts we study for the structure and insight they provide us. We see the wisdom and we learn from our own experience, from our observations of nature and from the rich sharing of others.

When we take refuge in the Sangha, we value to community of practitioners for our shared commitment, but our awareness of the sangha-nature of all beings grows through our practice.

So taking refuge is a deepening on all levels. It is not an escape route but an intention to live from our Buddha nature. It is not a vow to believe whatever we are taught but to open to the dharma through the wisdom teachings, through observing nature and through direct experience and insight, always with curiosity and willingness to question our own truths and those presented. And it is not a vow to dwell in peaceful delight with a particular group of people, but to recognize and honor the deep abiding buddha nature in all beings.

Spacious Livelihood

Upon rereading Right Livelihood from April 2009, I find it still stands without restating, so I encourage you to read it. Of course the word 'spacious' can be added to enhance awareness of the moments when we are at a decision-making crossroads. That spacious pause might make all the difference as to how we interact in the marketplace in making a living, spending and investing money. Our choices shape the world we live in, so this is a powerful moment, a moment worthy of becoming centered, grounded and spacious.

In class we discussed how meditation increases our ability to notice our thoughts and emotions enough to see where we are in conflict in this realm. Say, for example, one thought-stream has the intention to be a thoughtful world citizen and another really wants that fruit from 3000 mile away or that cute shirt made inexpensive by the exploitation of workers. With spacious awareness we can pause to sense our interconnection with all beings and we can see more clearly the effects of our actions and calculate more accurately the true cost of our purchases.

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So that brings us to the end of the Eightfold Path, the Fourth of the Four Noble Truths. I hope you have found it a fruitful exploration. In this tradition we are encouraged to return again and again to the teachings, to revisit these Four Noble Truths. The first visit our eyes and ears take in the concepts but they are outside our experience. The second time around, we begin to recognize these truths in our lives and begin to incorporate them into our experience. The third time perhaps they have worked their way into our very bones. They can become the conceptual structure upon which we live our lives.

I encourage you to discover more about the Four Noble Truths from other sources and from your own experience through meditation and living in awareness. With each of the Truths, you can ask questions. For example:

The Buddha says that there is suffering in life. Is this true? How do I know it is true? Am I living with that understanding? How does that understanding manifest in my life?

The Buddha says that the cause of most of our suffering is grasping, clinging and pushing away the various aspects of life that attract or repel us. Is this true? Ho do I know it is true? How does that truth manifest in my own life?

The Buddha says that the end of suffering is possible. Is this true? Am I willing to practice in a way that I can discover for myself the truth of this statement?

The Buddha says that the way to end suffering is through the Eightfold Path: Wise Intention, Wise View, Wise Effort, Wise Concentration, Wise Mindfulness, Wise Speech, Wise Action and Wise Livelihood. Is this true? Am I willing to practice in a way that I can discover for myself the truth of this statement?

Spacious Speech

What does the word ‘spacious’ add to our understanding of Wise or Right Speech?
It creates space for a gentle loving inquiry to occur as the desire to speak arises. There are specific Buddhist questions we ask: Is what I want to say truthful? Is it kind? Is it timely? Spaciousness provides us with the feeling of sufficient time and space to ask in before speaking. We can notice whether our words arise from a deep sense of connected awareness and compassion, or from deep seated insecurities that make us feel a need to define and prove ourselves to others.

On a silent retreat there is a palpable since of spaciousness in the practice of being quiet. When I mention silent retreats sometimes people shudder at the thought of not being able to speak for an extended period. Anyone that knows me knows I love to talk, but perhaps it’s an even greater gift for a talker to rest in quietness for a period of time.

On retreat at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, we not only don’t speak, we don’t make eye contact. Sign or body language would be regarded as speech as well, so what we are doing is letting go of active involvement with others. We no longer need to strategize about what to say and when to say it, how it will be received, how we will be perceived, whether we will be misunderstood, and all the other concerns that come with the responsibility of speaking and interacting in the world. When we enter silence and turn our attention inward to the workings of our mind and outward to the patterns in nature, it can be very liberating and relaxing.

But it is not always very quiet! What we notice right away is that although we are not expressing our thoughts we are still thinking them. With the pressure off as to which thoughts to share and which thoughts to refrain from sharing, we can simply notice our thoughts as they course through our awareness.

With our intention to be present in the moment and to be compassionate, we notice the patterns of our thoughts, the phrases that rise up and repeat, the judgments, the churning of self-doubt, the second-guessing, the fantasies, the ‘if only’s that find flaw in the way things are and perhaps the underlying fear that drives them. On retreat we have little else to do but notice our thoughts and emotions as they course through our awareness. We return again and again to physical sensation when we have lost our intention to be present. Part of what is present is thought and emotion. Through meditation we are developing an ability to notice our thinking process as a part of our overall experience of this moment. Our thoughts are not to be avoided but to be noticed, not to be judged but to be held in an open embrace that is increasingly spacious.

As the retreat continues, the spaciousness may grow so that the running commentary of our thoughts takes up less space and the sense of awareness of what is occurring in any given moment becomes more prominent. This may be experienced as a sense of surrendering to the simple state of being, a sense of understanding ourselves as a natural part of life in this moment, not a bystander but a burst of being as simple an expression of life as any lizard, frog or butterfly. We are life loving itself. All the inner chatter is simply a part of the human animal experience, the electrical and chemical activity in our brains. We don’t need to judge it. We simply accept it as part of the nature of our being. This awareness is the gift of silence and a temporary withdrawal from involvement in the world.

But just as a fast is not a long term diet plan, silence is not a long term answer for Right or Wise Speech. But a period of silence with insight does give us the ability to notice so that when we begin to speak again we recognize how challenging it can be, and how much time we speak unnecessarily, simply because we are uncomfortable with silence. Through the retreat process, indeed through a regular practice of meditation, we are developing a comfortable relationship with silence and with our minds.

We no longer feel we must fill the quiet spaces in a conversation, and we can begin to see that when we don’t leap in to fill the space, we give ourselves the chance to sink more deeply into a sensory awareness of the moment, our surroundings and the person or people we are with. This creation of spaciousness provides an opportunity for others to share from a deeper connected place because we are fully present to really listen. When we do speak, our words are much more likely to be responsive, caring and connected. And if they are not, we are able to see that more readily and recognize how we caused harm through our speech. This ability to recognize gives us an opportunity to amend at once, before further misunderstanding occurs. We can feel in our bodies the discomfort of having spoken unwisely. Without the practice, we might not notice this dis-ease for what it is. We might not be present enough to see the effects on ourselves and others of our words, and we would continue on unwisely, and probably even compound the problem, because now, even if we don’t recognize it, we are speaking from this dis-ease.

The practice of meditation is not a cure-all, but it does offer spaciousness and thus provides more clarity. Each individual meditator has the opportunity to develop this spaciousness if their practice is about being fully present, not about drifting off into a dreamy void. Remember we are developing spaciousness, not spacy-ness! We are developing an awareness of the sensations of the body to anchor ourselves in this moment, not going for out of body experiences of transcendence. We are meditating in order to be skillful in life, not to find an escape route from living.

So let’s focus on those three traditional ways of determining whether our speech is right or wise, and how adding the word ‘spacious’ enhances our understanding of each one.

The questions are whether what we want to say is true, kind and timely. If it doesn’t meet all three of these criteria, then it’s better to leave it unsaid, to find a more honest and kind way to say it, or to wait to say it until the time is right.

Spaciousness offers us the time to reflect on the truthfulness, kindness and timeliness of a statement we may feel prompted to make. “Is it true?” we ask ourselves. If it is a fact that has been fully and fairly researched, not just parroted from something we read online or heard on the radio, then it is fairly simple to determine. But even in that case, it would be wise and useful to site our sources, thus giving others some context for the statement.

If what we want to say is our opinion, then the addition of ‘It seems to me,’ ‘I believe, ‘I’ve noticed’ or ‘I feel’ can be helpful in making a statement more truthful. Of course these additions can be overused, making our speech awkward and dull. Noticing how often we need to use these qualifiers, we may want to question our need to express our opinion about so many things. What are we afraid will happen if people don’t know ‘where we stand?’

We have talked in the past about the ‘don’t know mind’ and how liberating it can be. Speech is enhanced by the acceptance that none of us knows all that much. We all have so many filters of distorted perception that we must peer through in order to see the world. Each of our views of reality is relative. Understanding this makes it easier to let go of our need to be right, to get everyone to see things our way in order for us to feel safe in the world, to be heard lest we disappear, etc.

So spacious speech not only aspires to be truthful, it acknowledges how little truth we actually are privy to at any given moment. If we frame our words to incorporate that margin of error we leave space for others to differ in their opinion without feeling negated or threatened by ours.

The second test of Right or Wise Speech is whether our words are kind. We all have very different views of what is kind. For example, some may feel it is kind to correct another’s errors in order to help them perfect themselves. When we hold this point of view, it’s difficult for us to understand why people bristle so when our intention was to be helpful. We might question our assumption that we are not enough just as we are, that there is some idealized perfection that will make all things right.

We can use spaciousness to notice if our words are the expression of a habituated set of judgments, or if we are trying to change someone, to get them to do something they are reluctant to do. Kindness is honoring another person’s process and freedom of choice.

If this person has power over us, if they get to decide what we do or don’t do, then perhaps there is some room for persuasive speaking. But as adults the perception that someone else has power over us is usually a misperception that needs revisiting. Most of us have a lot more power over our own lives than we believe we do. If we are unhappy we do not have to grumble under our breath like feudal serfs who can be tossed out of our humble cottages by the baron. If we can skillfully craft our concerns into words using wise speech, we have to power to change the conditions and the conditioning of our lives. Directing our words to the right person, gathering information by asking the right questions, and finding others who share our concerns empower us to co-create the world we live in instead of simply tolerating it. This gets us back to the topic we discussed last week about accepting our seat at the table.

Unkind speech often comes from a misperception of boundaries. While we are all one in the most fundamental sense, in relationships we learn to honor the space between us, allow for the natural and necessary process of individuation. If we refer to the deep interconnected core, our Buddha nature, for our sense of who we are in the world, then we do not need to have those around us mirror us. We do not need for everyone around us to agree with us, nor do we have the right to enforce our ‘truth’ on them. This forced invasion into another person’s space is very unkind, to say the least. Again, imagining that vast expansive table and fully inhabiting our place, and using our table manners!

As parents of young children we take the responsibility of skillfully guiding another being into autonomy. Because this is a 24/7/365 kind of relationship, our children get the best and worst of us in full measure. But mindfulness can make us much more skillful, helping us as well as our children to live with awareness and compassion. Parents may think of children as extensions of themselves, and if they are insecure in the world, they may force the children to fill in the gaps, to fulfill unmet goals, to be their best face in the world. This is a role children can never fill and should never be required to do.

I mention parenting here because so much of the unskillfulness in parenting comes across in speech. So many of the negative words we tell ourselves as adults are phrases, names or limiting labels that our parents said to us. If in our noticing we keep coming up with phrases our parents said, or find we are trying to fill the gaps where longed-for words were left unsaid, then we have the power to be the parents to ourselves that we need now. We can hold ourselves in tenderness and compassion. We can give ourselves the nurturing we need. We are not dependent on anyone else to provide our happiness. If we are waiting for that, we are wasting our lives. If we as adults are still looking to our parents to give us a sense of completion or, if they have died, mourning not just our parents but the missed opportunity to hear the words we long for, then we are not understanding the incredible power we have to self-nurture. Perhaps our inner child is still hurt and crying, but it is up to us, not our parents, to comfort that child and to meet its needs skillfully. For our own healing, we accept that our parents did the best they could, even when what they did or said was unskillful. We return to the ‘don’t know mind’ to allow for some spaciousness in our tight expectations and disappointments around the parent-child relationship. We don’t know what they were going through. We don’t know how they were parented. We don’t know what it is like to be them. We only know they loved us as best they could.

When we recognize internalized statements our parents thrust upon us, we don’t have to demand a retraction. Instead we can be grateful for the recognition and we can begin a loving inner dialog with the aspect of ourselves that believes that statement to be true.

We can also learn from the experience the truth of how powerful words can be so that we will be more mindful in our speech, taking the time to be sure that our words are kind, coming from a sense of connection and compassion.

You might wonder what happens when our desire to be kind comes into conflict with our desire to be truthful. One student in our sangha recognized that when these two are in conflict, then the wise thing is to wait until the kind way to say our truth is clearer and the time is right and the person we wish to speak to is in a more receptive place. This brings us to our third factor of Right or Wise Speech: Timeliness.

If we pause in spaciousness before speaking, we can certainly notice if this is the right conversation for this moment.
Really? You want to talk about that now? asks someone who is in the middle of preparing a feast and the guests are arriving in ten minutes. We’ve all been in that situation in one form or another. It’s not that we don’t want the conversation. It’s that this is not the time for it.

Timeliness can be determined easily if we are fully in the moment. Demanding to speak about something when it is not a good time for the other person usually means we are caught up in the past or the future and are ignoring this moment. If the person is not telling us in their words or body language that this isn’t a good time, we can always ask if this is a good time to discuss the subject. If not, then another time can be planned.

Clearly, spaciousness does have a valuable role to play in the exploration of true, kind and timely speech.

A caveat: For some of us, the invitation to be aware of our thoughts and to pause before speaking sparks an inner censor. This inner censor is not grounded in kindness as it sits in judgment of every word, making sure that it appears to be kind. The censor is more concerned about our being seen as kind than about being kind. There is a potential for getting caught up in being a good Buddhist. There is no such thing as a good or bad Buddhist. But there is such a thing as a spiritual striver who feels they are not enough as they are, that they must alter themselves beyond recognition, and that Buddhism is a way of suppressing or rejecting the parts of themselves that are hurt, angry, hungry or fed up. With spaciousness, we open to all aspects of our nature and begin to see them more clearly as transient threads rather than the fabric of our being. We have room for all of who we are and all the world’s seeming imperfections when we hold everything in a spacious open embrace.