Some Training Montage From an 80's Movie: On Training with Slogans

Last week was a bad week for meditating. Crap sleep one night and working the night shift another made mornings anything but routine. I did work with the idea of labels, so it wasn't a complete loss, but finding the concentration and desire to meditate was mostly impossible. Back to it this week, though, and with no guilt for the lapse because I never stop training in the preliminaries.

Anyway, let's move onto this week's tenet:

In all activities, train with slogans.

I grasped the intent right away (that this work should be a constant companion), but my mind still wandered. The first thing that came to mind was, of course, pop culture oriented. I thought of obligatory movie and television training montages. That brought to mind a scene from one of my favorite episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: "Once More With Feeling," the episode, and a training montage the scene (which is even funnier because Buffy worried, earlier in the episode, that "this whole session's gonna turn into some training montage from an 80's movie.")

After I got over the giggly feeling I always get when I think of that episode of BtVS, I turned to UnfetterdMind.org. The translation they provide is straightforward: "Use reminders in everything you do." Their explanation for this tenet is also helpful:

"As you go about your day, constantly use such verbal reminders as:
Gain is illusion; loss is enlightenment.
I take all loss and defeat from others; I give all victory and gain to them." (Source) [emphasis theirs]

Wow are those clear marching orders. I still felt the need to consult Tricycle to round out my understanding. I'm so glad I did. One particular bit of Judy Lief's commentary hit me hard, like punch in the gut hard:

"Once you understand the underlying point—to increase loving-kindness and concern for others and to decrease self-absorption and ego fixation—you can make up our own slogan. One suited to where you feel most stuck." (Source)

It punched me in the gut because I've done precisely that, but for a different reason. I recently took an online class taught by Brené Brown, and one of the assignments was to come up with a personal mantra. Sound familiar? It's perfect for the purposes of this tenet because my mantra started as more about loving-kindness and concern for myself, but I say it to myself about others on a regular basis now. As part of the class, I had to create art for every assignment, and here's what I ended up with for my mantra:

Always Learning; Always Growing.

I'm going to work with my mantra more intentionally this week, but I'm also going to follow Lief's suggestion for this slogan: "Where do you place the boundaries of your practice? Where do you shut it down? Choose one situation outside that boundary to include in your slogan practice." (Same source as earlier Lief quote.)

Until next time, namaste and all that.

Nothing's More Suspicious Than Frog's Breath: On Taking Responsibility for Our Own Reactions

Frog's Breath

I'm happy to report that, although I didn't meditate every day last week, I did practice tonglen multiple times. I couldn't bring myself to do it for a whole meditation period, but I did spend a portion of every time I meditated breathing out the good and breathing in the bad. Not sure it had any impact on my perceptions of the person I kept in mind, nor on my general demeanor. On the other hand, it's rare that these things have immediate effect on my day-to-day life. I know it's a good way to remove bias, though, so I think I'll try to add tonglen as a regular part of my practice - perhaps once per week - in hopes it will have a cumulative effect. In the meantime, onto the next slogan:

Three objects, three poisons, and three seeds of virtue.

At first blush, this reads more like a kōan than a tenet of lojong - very riddle-y. UnfetteredMind.org's translation is almost identical, only omitting the "and." And the explanation that website provides is only slightly more helpful:

"Whenever attraction, aversion, or indifference arises in you, do taking and sending to transform the three poisons into seeds of virtue." (Source.)

Okay, so it seems that attraction, aversion, and indifference are the three poisons. ("Taking and sending" refers to tonglen.) What the heck are the objects and the seeds of virtue? As always, I turned to Tricycle next. The commentary provided by Judy Lief is illuminating with regards to applying this tenet to my daily life (I'll come back to this in a moment), but didn't answer my question about the objects and the seeds of virtue. Casting my net a little wider, I found another commentary website. I'm such a big fan of UnfetterMind.org and of Judy Lief that I don't know how often I'll consult it in the future, but it did come in handy today:

"In this practice, 'the three objects' refers to those objects that provoke our emotion of attachment, aversion, or indifference, while 'the three poisons' are the emotions of attachment, aversion or aggression, and stupidity. Then we imagine that all living beings dissolve into the emotions we have as they arise; and peace and virtue are formed with the wish, 'May all living beings be free.' In this way, the three poisons are transformed into the three roots of virtue. This is the practice of relative bodhichitta that we do during post-meditation." (Source.)

My questions answered, I let it all sit for a moment and thought. Strangely enough, the thing that came to mind first was a scene from the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas. If you've not seen that movie, be warned: spoilers ahead.

Sally, who was created by Dr. Finkelstein, is dissatisfied with her life of drudgery. She is constantly poisoning her creator (a process that only puts him to sleep instead of killing him) in order to get away for a bit. The one time we see her do this, Sally puts deadly nightshade (poison), frog's breath (a strong flavor of which Finkelstein is suspicious), and worm's wort (apparently a highly desirable flavor). When presented with his soup, the doctor says "Nothing's more suspicious than frog's breath!" and makes Sally taste it. She fakes tasting and then the next thing we see is Finkelstein snoozing away. If Finkelstein had trusted his suspicions, he wouldn't have been poisoned, but then again - neither would we have had the rest of the movie.

The thing is, I'm not a character in a movie. I do sometimes feel suspicious of my reactions and my automatic labels, and for good reason. I won't jeopardize the story arc if I listen to my instincts and might actually have a more enjoyable one as a result. And that leads me back to the Tricycle piece. Lief's commentary talks about labels and our reactions to the labels, and she focuses on taking responsibility for those reactions. I've been working on my reactions to things for a long time. This is something that predates my embracing Buddhism, so much so that I've collected quotes that embody this thought. I even have a favorite: "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."

So I'm going to think about my thinking again, and think about my reactions. Judy's suggestion for putting the rubber to the road is helpful:

"Pay attention to labeling and notice how tenacious such labels are. When you react, notice what you are reacting to and where you place the blame. Explore the connection between the poison and the object." (Source.)

I've promised myself that I won't slack off because it's something I've done in the past.

Until next time, namaste and all that.

Out with the Good and In with the Bad: On Riding the Breath

Does it count as slacking off if I didn't work too hard on last week's slogan, even though the reason I didn't work on it was because that's the way I look at the world already? Not that I don't get caught up in the shadows flitting on the wall of the cave, but when I stop to think about it, I have no problems reminding myself of the illusory nature of things.

Regardless, let's move onto this week's tenet:

Sending and taking should be practiced alternately. These two should ride the breath.

What the heck does that mean? Even UnfetterdMind.org's alternate translation didn't help: "Train in taking and sending alternately. Put them on the breath."

Source

Moving onto the commentaries, I found my answers:

"As you breathe in, imagine all the suffering and negativity of others as thick black smoke coming in through your right nostril and into your heart. As you breathe out, imagine all your own happiness and wellbeing [sic.] as silvery light coming from your heart and going out through your left nostril to all beings everywhere." (Source)

Sounds counter-intuitive, doesn't it? This idea, tonglen in Tibetan, is something I encountered before starting this journey and this blog. It's something I've even practiced in the past, having been influenced to do so by the work of Pema Chödrön. For those of you who are reading this because you do want a little glimpse into Buddhism, tonglen can be seen, through Judeo-Christian eyes, as praying for good to come to those around us and helping with their burdens.

The danger for me when I worked with tonglen in the past was not setting down the pain of others, and of adding it to my own. It built up quickly, and felt as though my body was suffused with that thick black smoke. Thinking about my past problems with tonglen was exacerbated as I read the Tricycle piece about it. In particular:

"It feels great to pray for others and to be all warm and loving. But that is not all there is to it.  The practice of sending and taking, or tonglen in Tibetan, brings to light the boundaries of that love and caring. If you pray for your friends and family, how about other people and other families? If you pray for those you like or admire, how about those who you dislike or reject? What about those you disagree with, or simply find annoying? What about those who do harm? The idea is to go beyond bias, to include more and more, to let the heart grow and expand." (Source.)

I'm a little nervous of devoting my meditation time this week to this practice (and yes, I've meditated every day - yay for getting back on schedule!), but I'm going to work to keep in mind Judy Lief's parting words in her piece about the seventh slogan: "In your tonglen practice in general, at the end of each breath, drop whatever you have breathed in or out. Let it go completely. Keep a light touch."

Until the next time, namaste and all that.

Sidewalk Art and The Cave: On Being a Child of Illusion

Source

First, I need to confess something: I've been slipping in my preliminaries. A road trip and then being sick with the flu for 5 days threw my routine completely off. So the fact that this week's slogan has to do with meditation, or more specifically - postmeditation, means I'm feeling a little guilty.

Second, onto the slogan:

In post meditation, be a child of illusion.

UnfetteredMind.org translates this slightly differently: "In daily life, be a child of illusion," and then goes on to explain:

"Carry the sense of all experience being a magical illusion into your daily life." (Source.)

This time, UnfetteredMind.org's explanation gave me plenty of fodder, but to be safe I also consulted my new favorite, Tricycle. The piece about this slogan was interesting, as Tricycle pieces always are, but there was one part in particular that stood out to me:

"So rather than trying to make our world solid and predictable, and complaining when that is not the case, we could maintain the glimpses of the illusory nature of experience that arise in meditation practice, and touch in with that open illusory quality in the midst of our daily activities. That looser more open quality is the ground on which the compassionate actions of the bodhisattva can arise." (Source.)

After reading all of this and spending some time thinking about it (once I'd gotten over the guilt of not meditating regularly lately), the first thing that came to mind was sidewalk forced perspective chalk art illusions, like the one above. Anything with a forced perspective illusion, actually, even videos that make it look like water is moving against gravity.

While meditating, I try to let go of things by concentrating on my breath. I'm not good at keeping my mind blank, so my way of blanking things out is a kind of mental white noise. I'm not sure there is a transition from meditation to postmeditation, as the Tricycle piece suggested, but I know I can work on carrying the sense of illusion in my life. If nothing else, my being forced to read Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" when in college has given me a way to think about my daily experiences. I don't think I'll have a problem being a child of illusion.

Until the next time, namaste and all that.

Stillness and Motion: On Resting in the Nature of Alaya

Rooms by the Sea, 1951, Edward Hopper

I sorta kinda maybe actually have a handle on self-liberating the antidote. Weird, I know, since I usually start these posts by saying something like, "Um, yeah. Not so much on last week's tenet." I'm placing all the credit for my sorta kinda maybe success with my newest source of lojong commentary. Judy Leif gave a specific exercise for working with that teaching, and that specific practice really moved me along. 

So what's my antidote? For me, it's all about planning. It's my answer to everything. Of course, letting go of planning is going to be hard, since you've got to plan if you want to get anything done. However, I think if planning is a small part of my day-to-day, instead of my whole existence (which it sometimes can be, almost like an addiction) that it's okay to plan. Thus the "antidote" is being liberated, because now I'm aware of it.

Anyway, onto the fifth lojong slogan:

Rest in the nature of alaya, the essence.

That's a bit boggling, since I'm very familiar with a homonym of alaya, aliyah, which comes from the religion in which I was raised. Undeterred, I moved on and read UnfetteredMind.org's translation. They present the fifth slogan as: "The essence of the path: rest in the basis of all experience." (Source.) The slightly different perspective this presents helped me. Then their explanation was even more illuminating:

"You are clear knowing that is beyond intellect, empty clarity in which experience arises unceasingly. This is buddha nature. When you recognize it, rest right there and do nothing." (Ibid.)

Finally, I spent some time looking at my new source of commentary, and I found one more quote to help my thinking about this tenet fall into place:

"The alaya, or essence, is the open unbiased expanse of mind. It is stillness. It can be envisioned as an expanse, or simply as a gap in our ongoing preoccupations, activities, and concerns." (Source.)

Okay, enough with the quotes already, right? Get with your own thinkin', Jessica! Well, since you asked so nicely...

The first thing that sprang to mind after I was done reading and researching the fifth lojong teaching was the work of one of my favorite painters - Edward Hopper. I know what you're thinking, or at least I think I know. You're wondering how the guy who painted Nighthawks, of all pop culture points of reference, would be the one to come to mind when I'm thinking about Buddhism. The thing is Nighthawks is actually my least favorite of his paintings [pause for the audience to gasp]. Instead, his seaside paintings, such as Rooms by the Sea up there, are my pop culture touchstone this week. There's always such a sense of stillness in Hopper's work, stillness even when things are obviously in motion. And it's that stillness, even when in motion, that seems to me to be the embodiment of alaya.

So that's what I'll be doing this week - working on staying in those moments of stillness, even as I rush through my days.

Until the next time, namaste and all that.

The Ground Is Not Solid and There Is No Spoon: On the Antidote

Source

I skipped writing last weekend because I'd been away from home most of the week and on Sunday, when I normally write, I needed some time to just be. The break was fortunately timed, though, because I was still stuck on trying to get at the nature of unborn awareness. I'd read commentary beyond UnfetteredMind.org's explanation of the third lojong teaching, but the source of that voice inside my head and trying to figure out who is really observing was elusive. I can handle looking outward and seeing nothingness, but I got stumped at turning my examination inward.

Then there's the fourth teaching, which complicated and muddled my brain even more:

Self-liberate even the antidote.

UnfetteredMind.org wasn't helpful. They translate this tenet as, "Let even the remedy release naturally," and then go on to explain by saying:

"When thoughts about emptiness or non-self arise, look at the thought itself. It releases and you return to your original nature." (Source.)

I'd had no thoughts of emptiness nor of non-self. The little bit of sense I'd made of "unborn awareness" came from my understanding of Hindu ideas about God and the soul. Apparently I'd gotten off track. Trying to realign my thoughts to where they were supposed to be made my head hurt. All I could think was...

Source

Instead of getting caught in a never-ending loop of confusion, I took a deep breath and used my Google-Fu to find further explanations about self-liberating the antidote. I'm glad I did, because I hit the jackpot. Turns out that Tricycle: The Buddhist Review has some in-depth commentary about the lojong teachings, and they even include practical exercises you can do to work with the concepts embedded in each tenet.

I read Judy Lief's piece multiple times, and the thing that stood out the most is this sentence that made so much sense to me:

"The need to find solid ground is so strong that you can even make the groundless nature of inner and outer experience into some kind of ground." (Source.)

I read that and it clicked.

Source

Talk about "Thick Thick Thickity Thick Face From Thicktown Thickania." I'm exploring lojong, and Buddhism in general, because I'm trying to make sense of things. I want to understand the nature of unborn awareness, but that's the point of unborn awareness - it is unborn and therefore cannot be grasped. The ground is not solid and there is no spoon.

And, just in case you are foolishly reading this blog to better understand lojong (and if you are, let me remind you I'm such a freakin' novice with all this that I sometimes feel uncomfortable labeling myself as a Buddhist), I want to share one other part of the Tricycle piece:

"The point of self-liberating the antidote is that you don’t need to do anything to liberate it. You just need to realize that there are no antidotes. When you do so, the antidote liberates itself. It is because we keep trying to latch on to each and every meditative experience, realization, or insight that arises that this slogan is so important. It is a reminder not to do that." (Ibid.)

Not that I don't have my work to do on this, but now it feels doable.

Until the next time, namaste and all that.



P.S. Hope you'll forgive me mixing my pop culture references once again, but The Matrix and the 10th Doctor just seemed a natural fit for this post.

We Are the Music Makers: On Unborn Awareness

"Roots Examination"

Not sure if I've gotten the hang of regarding all dharmas as dreams just yet. I understand that teaching in the academic sense of the word "understand," but I'm not living it yet. The truth is that I got wrapped up in my stress responses more than once last week. I am practicing my awareness and mindfulness, but it (like everything else about me) is a work in progress. So, even though I haven't gotten it mastered, I want to move on before I lose momentum.

As a sort of aside, my thought that I should wait until I've got a handle on one teaching before writing about the next is kind of laughable, even two weeks after I made that suggestion, since I know I'll never completely understand/live these tenets.

That means it's time to discuss the third lojong teaching:

Examine the nature of unborn awareness.

 Unfetteredmind.org gives the same translation as the cards I have, and then this explanation:

"Look at what experiences the dream. Don't analyze or speculate about it. Just look and rest in the looking." (Source.)

Is it just me, or does that not help at all? Now, I know that last week's, this week's, and the next three tenets all fall under the banner explanation of, "Awakening to what is ultimately true." But at first blush, it sounds like some more mumbo jumbo, Buddhisty-Wuddhisty talk. It does to me, anyway.

But after sitting with it for a moment, spending a little quality time with my cat, and coming back to it, I had the following conversation with myself: if I'm supposed to see all experiences as dreams, then isn't "what experiences the dream" me? My own consciousness? Should I be looking at my reactions and my triggers? Examining the roots of why I can get so stuck in my stress?

Next, because this is how my brain works, I realize that I do have context for examining the nature of unborn awareness: a quote I've long known by heart. Admittedly my exposure to this quote came via the lickable wallpaper scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, but I know it's really the first couple of lines from "Ode" by Arthur O'Shaughnessy:

"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."

With that realization, things clicked into place a bit. So that means this week, I'll concentrate on watching without judging, this dreamer of dreams.

Until the next time, namaste and all that.