Holding it together is a noble skill

    Of all the deaths that this year has brought, I found the decease of Queen Elizabeth II to be cause for reflection on what it takes to hold things together. As the Head of State, icon of traditional British-ness, place-marker for history and belonging, she was carrying weight. This was because of what the monarchy represents – its current role is to carry the myth and ethos of a nation through the turbulence of political and economic circumstances. By presiding with calm and a sense of 'all will be well' over the end of Britain's empire and its steady decline as a global power, (even to the point where it is hovering on the brink of fragmentation) she sustained the image of a well-ordered and quietly dignified nation as something that people could at least measure their governments against. By being Head of the Church, even as it loses relevance to most of the people whose Faith she is supposed to be the Defender of, her commitment still gave reference to an inner life of values and virtue. By placing duty ahead of any personal wishes and undertaking innumerable tours of duty with cheerful smile and extended handshake – she was a reminder that leadership is supposed to be about service rather than personal gain and power.

The funeral cortege presented her predicament well: her coffin was placed on a gun carriage and surmounted by the Crown. The bare fact, despite the mansions and privilege, was of a person being held in the grip of the State, complete with its military underpinning and regal cap. Whatever the nation, the emblems, we're all in the grip of that power; even though it fails to hold us together, and barely holds itself together.

So it was also impressive that she held herself together personally and ethically in that locked-in role, under the glare of media scrutiny for 70 years. That took patience, equanimity, and, above all, resolve – In Buddhist terms, the woman had some parami.

Holding it together personally takes some skill. And if you expect that look for that to happen in terms professional success and personal drive, take a look at the profile of the great and the mighty: fraud, sex scandals, violent criminality, suicides, sleaze –human minds that have lost touch with values.  So it is: unless people have faith in something beyond the material world, something that connects them to the welfare of others, they lose balance and integrity. All outer, no inner.

How to integrate the outer and the inner? As one of the more renowned teachings of the Buddha (Satipatthāna sutta M:10) notes, one practices mindfulness of body, feeling, mind and its programs internally, externally and both together. The standard interpretation of those phrases 'internally, externally' is that it means 'with respect to oneself and to other people'. Which is a good idea, but the idea of watching other people and imagining what they're feeling and what their mind-states are seems impractical, and subject to misinterpretation and projection. Can I really know whether someone is actually feeling pain or bluffing? Can I with clear mindfulness witness someone else's mind as contracted or elevated?

There is another way of understanding this ‘internal/external’.  In the the Sedaka sutta (S.47:19) – a sutta within the book of the satipaṭṭhāna teachings (Saṃyutta Nikāya 47) the Buddha uses the analogy of a young acrobat who is balanced on a pole that is being carried by an elder acrobat who himself is balancing on a pole. Pretty scary, eh? So the older acrobat recommends that they look out for each other. To which the younger acrobat's rejoinder is that he should look after himself and she'll look after herself and that will be the wisest way to maintain balance. The Buddha approves of this, adding that this is analogous to each individual developing and cultivating the establishments of mindfulness on body, feeling, heart-mind and its programs. So rather than be mindful of what other people are doing–, establish mindfulness on your own body. For an acrobat that takes an unwavering focus on internal qualities of energy, tension, strain, connectedness, as well as on the external contact with the pole and awareness of the body within its space.

The point is made even more directly in the following sutta, Janapadakalyāṇī Sutta S.47:20. Here it's not about balancing, but a kind of juggling. The analogy is of a man who has to carry a bowl brimming with oil on his head, through a crowd of people while the most beautiful girl in the land dances in front of him. Should he spill a drop of that oil by being distracted, a man walking behind him with drawn sword will cut off his head. Do you think he'd be mindful of anyone else's body but his own: internally – how steady and balanced it is – and externally – how it moves through that crowded space?

After all, if the Buddha meant internal = yourself, external= other people, why didn't he say so?

In the full exposition, you'll also read of mindfulness of the sense-bases internally and externally. I don't see that we're contemplating other people's eyesight. But the internal sense of seeing, that which opens when you focus on the act of seeing rather than on the seen, is one of spacious and subtle luminosity (try it in a darkened room). Auditory consciousness, when attended to, offers the 'sound of silence'; and, most important, the heart-mind of emotionally driven thinking opens to a heartful and receptive awareness.

So to most fundamentally hold us together we have the 'internal’ – the somatic vestibular 'inner' sense that the body has, and through which it maintains balance. And the ‘external’ – as the body's tactile sense through which it knows where it is in the world around it by the pressures, warmth (and so on) of the skin. You could also understand internal as the interoceptive sense (how a body knows each part in relation to the whole) and external as the proprioceptive sense (how it knows how to move through space). Try practising that. That’s what an acrobat does.

Through such mindfulness the body has a presence which is grounded, steady and able to discharge stress. It allows us to remain open without getting shredded. In this way, it supports the internal qualities of the mind. Maintain these, the Buddha says, and Mara, the force of delusion and ignorance will not get you.

However, a mind that extends externally without mindfulness is wide open to those forces. We can lose our bodies, our natural rhythms and our ability to rest and regenerate in that insistent tide of speculation, plans, media, possibilities and urgent to-do-lists. Caught in this tide, we can also lose a vital aspect of our minds: wisdom. Let me explain. The Buddha noted that the process of thinking consists of two functions – conceiving, or bringing an idea to mind (vitakka) and fully sensing and evaluating that which has been brought to mind (vicara). It's rather like the two-fold actions of a hand: the fingers grip something and roll it around in the palm and the palm fully senses and evaluates that thing.

Problem is, this takes time; a second or more of valuable time. And in the high-speed world of technology, such a mature process is a waste of time. The result is attention disorder, automatic behaviour driven by stimulation, and a deficiency in terms of the reflective thinking that will give us a reference to whether an idea is ethically sound, or what the consequences could be of acting on any specific idea. In automatic mode, conscience, concern, perspective and sensitivity are reduced or bypassed. People lose heart, get overwhelmed with uncomfortable thoughts, and obsess. In other words, if our minds are directed outwards, (as 'external' is supposed to mean) this is notnecessarily for the welfare of others. If however, our attention is directed internally, we can evaluate, reflect and come into heart. This 'internal' is therefore for the welfare of others. Because if we steady and clarify that internal base, and bring that to bear on how we speak, plan and consider our actions; that is, if we bring the internal and the external together – that will result in skilful behaviour with regard to other creatures.

This is how mindfulness internally/externally can hold body, heart and mind together. Getting into the body, using that to steady the mind ... the beautiful truth is that if one is in balance and stays whole, the mind will settle into clarity and empathy – that's the default when ignorance and stress fall away. Then, as the Buddha also teaches in the Sedaka sutta – one protects oneself by protecting others through the cultivation of patience, harmlessness, kindness, and empathy. These internal qualities emanate from a rightly balanced mind. And that finds its basis in mindfulness of body.

This is because if you bear the whole external body in mind – that is, spread your awareness over the skin boundary – you become more receptive. Skin, unlike the eyes, is not directional, it doesn't aim for anything. It receives, and refers sense-impact to its internal base – as in 'this pin-prick is unpleasant, but it's not pushing me over or a deadly threat, I can remain calm and stable as I deal with this.' A more common and useful application could be 'there is nothing squeezing or obstructing my chest or back, I have space, I am not under pressure, I can remain composed.' By so doing, we can discharge the sense of pressure of time, option paralysis and having so much to do by bringing the heart away from the flashing lights and notions of the external direction and settle it in the groundedness of the body. Steady the mind/heart internally, and, as it settles, awareness opens to the value of skilful action and empathy for others.

So this is how mindfulness internally/externally can hold us together. It has worked for millennia for those who practise it, even as empires and states have come and gone.  Meanwhile in terms of the public domain: wouldn't it be good if people actually spoke straight from the heart? Rather than from the screen or the script? Wouldn't it be refreshing if public figures actually spoke truth, ''words that are useful, worth remembering, well-grounded’ rather than worn-out slogans and empty promises? That is: get out of your head, your script about who you are and how things should be, and be here, receptive, open and grounded. Give up what's not your priority. Instead regain nobility – without the headlines or the paparazzi.

Adjust the frame, review the picture

Currently I’m spending the three months of the Rains Retreat at Sunyata Buddhist Centre in Ireland. Sunyata runs retreats, but its committee has also been interested in it becoming a monastery for the last few years …. Several of our teachers, including myself, have taught retreats here and on occasion stop by for visits, and they seem so glad to have a monk in residence … so I had an idea …. I had been planning on spending the Rains in solitude in a cabin in Italian Alps under the supervision of Santacittarama Monastery; however, owing to the post-Brexit business of getting a visa and of thereby not being able to enter the European mainland for a subsequent 120 days, that plan fell through. Anyway, Ireland (so far) still remains relatively open for British people, Sunyata is very welcoming, and I still relished the opportunity to spend time in solitude. It seems good to periodically step out of the community routines in order to explore and review my aims and practices.

I arrived on July 13. For the first week or so I felt lacklustre in terms of energy; I didn’t expect it to be much different. Everyone’s life adapts to the social environment they’re in, and when we shift from that, energy shift with it. As the frame of one’s life shifts, there is disorientation. But that’s what I’m here for – to adjust the frame and review the picture. 

My life at Cittaviveka is pretty stress-free in many respects. The community is harmonious, nothing much has asked me except to occasionally give a talk. I have however for many years overseen the grounds: tree-planting, general maintenance of the green life of this precious sanctuary. This has always been one of the main attractions of Cittaviveka; a space that’s shared with other life forms. It gets you to adjust to the rhythms of nature. You witness with a sense of awe and delight the comings and goings of the remnants of wildlife that still remain in southern England. There are, from time to time anyway, probably more deer at Cittaviveka than monks. So, yes, over the last thirty years or so, I’ve planned and overseen the conversion of land that was being used for cattle grazing into copses, wild flower meadows and thickets. When one has access to a situation and the resources, it’s just something that one has to do. It used to be pure joy, but nowadays the sense of that weighs on me: there is increasing urgency to support the survival of planetary life, life that is disappearing by the day.  And with climate change, how many of these trees will survive the next 50 years?

 

I was offered a kuti with no duties and I requested one meal a day; the understanding being that we just take it from there and see how it goes. So far, it’s been going very well.  I spend my morning in my kuti, and at around 10:30, turn up in the kitchen with my bowl. Food is offered and I give a blessing chant. Sometimes we have a three or four minute conversation in which the most common phrase that I hear is: ‘Do you need anything? Can I offer you anything?’ And my honest and simple reply is: ‘I’m fine thank you, everything is going well.’

That big picture of this is grim. In the last decade also, I have been shaping my responses to the ongoing environmental crisis. I wrote a book on the topic.* I’ve been part of the restoration of the monastery’s native woodland of over 160 acres (65 hectares). I’ve installed solar panels to power the monastery. As a sangha, we decided to use our own coppiced firewood from the forest to heat the buildings. Personally, I abstain from eating fish or meat; that’s about as refined and eco-friendly as I can get as an alms-mendicant. More recently I determined to not drink plastic bottled water if I could obtain water from any other means for 24 hours; so far over the last four years I’ve been able to do this. I minimise water usage by showering only once every five or six days; I collect rainwater to flush the toilet; I gave up on using shaving foam as the canisters containing this froth inevitably go into a landfill. Instead I carry I carry a refillable bottle of oil and mix that with hand soap to shave: a small bottle lasts a year, and doesn’t get thrown away. But there’s not much I can do more I can do; flying in order to teach presents a dilemma that I negotiate on a case-by-case basis. If I don’t fly to a retreat, does that mean that 20-30 people fly to where I am? At least I don’t go on vacation.

 

And yet, in terms of that big picture, I doubt whether what I do makes any difference. A recent (humorous) comment was that if you really want to avert global warming, better than go vegan or refrain from driving, is to eat a billionaire! Private jets, fleets of large cars, luxury yachts, big mansions: currently the richest 1% of the population are responsible for more twice as much carbon as the poorest 50% (according to Oxfam). Then there’s military expenditure: fighter jets aren’t that carbon-efficient. Statistics certainly contribute to despond.  However my practice is simply to do what I can – because that makes a difference to me. It helps to stay focused, sustain the spirit and not go into despair.

 

So I step back. This is also an opportunity to adjust the frame of my sangha. Locally, at Cittaviveka I am the most senior monk in a situation in which hierarchy can mean a lot. Also, having been here over 35 years, the fact is that I know more about this place than anyone else. Naturally there are projections. So I find myself trying to not be what I think other people might be intimidated by, whilst not being too aloof, available to advise, without appearing as an intrusive know-it-all. In fact I resolve not to express an opinion unless asked to do so. It’s part of community practice. But it’s good to step out of that for a while.

 

And, with Sangha, as with Dhamma practice in general, there is a bigger picture, one of integrity, generosity and service, one that can telescope down to local details and individuals. Every day, we breathe the shared gift of air, along with our aspiration, grief and joy; and we attend the passage of life and death. Most recently George Sharp passed away. He was the Chair of the English Sangha Trust and was the person responsible for inviting Ajahn Sumedho to Britain to establish a monastery. That monastery became Cittaviveka, which he on his own initiative purchased on a handshake – after being told by the owner that the place was derelict. George was a man of intuition and imagination; and he took risks.  As he acknowledged, in his own life this wasn’t always such a successful mix.  But Cittaviveka – that was his greatest success, and a source of gladness for himself and for the welfare of many. 

 

I sense that, after bouts of depression in his earlier days, his heart must have been supported by this. He meditated, recollected and maintained contact with Sangha long after his retirement – until his dying day at the age of 89. Having being informed that he had a fatal aneurysm, and accepted that death was on its way, he woke his son one night to say ‘I think it’s happening.’ His son wanted to call an ambulance, but George, feeling it was too late, held his son’s hand, and consoled him saying, ‘It’s alright, it’s alright…’ as he passed peacefully away.

 

Good Buddhists know how to die well. The last couple of years, supporters whom I’ve seen as inspiring monuments have passed away: Mudita, owner of a Thai restaurant, who had a road-to-Damascus transformation on meeting Luang Por Chah. That was the end of night-clubs and drinking, and the beginning of 40 years of regular practice and providing requisites to monasteries. (She also established The Mudita Trust, which was set up to support poor Thai families so that their daughters didn’t go into prostitution.) Diagnosed with cancer at the age of 84, she declined chemotherapy, with the comment ‘I’ve lived long enough.’ After her death, Tan Nam passed away. He was formerly secretary to the Sangharaja of Cambodia, who left that country with his young family and suitcases just before the Khmer Rouge holocaust. Finding asylum in Britain he held his family together, opened a grocery store, organised events to unify and heal the various factions of the Khmer immigrant diaspora, and presided over the big alms-giving occasions in the monastery. Another great friend, Noy Thompson, recently passed away cheerfully and serenely age of 91, having supported monasteries, worked on and attended retreats, and providing funds to set up The Dharma School in Brighton (now sadly defunct). In this same year, Mae Cham Peng, the Laotian matriarch and a treasure of joy, passed away …. It goes on. 

 

Being a monk, I’m with death and dying a lot. Sometimes it’s like monks are a lymphatic system that drains the grief and the stress that manifests around us and within us. But also we are blood vessels, blessed by connecting to and circulating the finest aspects of human behaviour. Can I be clear enough to be that, and not get clogged? Well, to manage and find balance within all this, I practise embodiment. It’s a matter of feeling emotion without explaining it or nullifying it or philosophising about it; to feel the feeling in the body. This means reframing what one considers ‘body’ to be; in spiritual terms it means ‘that connected field that one experiences oneself as arising within and being affected by’ – such as a body of knowledge, a body of people. Most intimately it’s that pulsing and responsive flow of energies that we associate with a physical form. Mindfulness of that means widening awareness to include that flow as it meets the space around and the ground beneath. Then you can let breathing through that body do the work of bringing an aware life into balance. It keeps the person in perspective.

 

I do things other than formal meditation practice while I’m here. Qi gong provides ongoing support; it opens the body so that the breath-energy can flow through and replenish. It helps to shift from mental abstract intelligence to directly felt here and now embodied intelligence. Chanting works in a similar way: you have to use your breathing body carefully to get the sound ‘right’. That reminds me that sammā (‘right’) of the Eightfold Path is very close to sama ‘in tune’. In fact the Chinese translated sammā as zheng – ‘aligned’, ‘fitting’ – which gets closer to how the path of practice works – and feels. Is an action or approach in alignment? Does it lead to or support balance? Then can that sense of harmony within one’s personal ‘body’ extend to harmony, balance within the greater ‘body’ of self and others? This requires a considerable skill and growth in terms of heart. 

 

Working on the micro-level of balance, I decided to practise calligraphy. Externally, it’s a way of presenting wise sayings succinctly in a way that does justice to their meaning. It’s perfected by balancing script with empty white space. (For Dhamma sayings, one needs a lot of empty space.) It’s also lightweight and portable – a few nibs, a couple of bottles of ink, paper. Years ago, George Sharp, who was a professional illustrator, noticed some of my sketches and cartoons and gave me a calligraphy pen; and for my own amusement as well as to produce a presentation of the First Sermon that would encourage people to chant it, I ended up producing a series of illuminated manuscripts. Much of that was done amid the grime and fungus-riddled air of Cittaviveka in the early days. For the past 38 years, I’ve done very little in that field. Yet at this time in my life I’d like to do a few things to reset the balance from duty to beauty. So I pick up the pen again.

 

I had particular sayings and texts in mind, and thought I would write three or four of them during the Rains. After reintroducing myself to pen and ink, and realising how out of touch I was, I narrowed that aim down to maybe doing one. After a few days of more practice I thought I could just get one sentence. A few hour-long sessions indicated that – forget the words, I needed to just get the letters right. That went down to practising to get one stroke where the ink, nib, hand, and mind were flowing together seamlessly. Where the mind wasn’t aiming for the next letter. Where the hand wasn’t dragging the nib. And how that depended on posture and relaxed embodiment. To keep the hand light while sustaining a focus that can maintain awareness of the lines with the space between and within each letter. It’s the kind of all-encompassing balance that characterises Dhamma practice. The Buddha likened it to the ‘right’ way to hold a quail: too tight and you crush it, to loose and it flies away. When it is sammā, awareness engages without expectation, faltering, pushing or hanging back. The deeper significance being that as these programs and more constitute my ‘self’, such ‘fitting’ action dissolves the actor. The frame gets wide and open. The picture is: 'Work in progress ….'

***

*Buddha-Nature, Human Nature (Amaravati Publications). Available through the monasteries or for download at Buddha-Nature

Practice Notes: Standing Meditation

Here are some extracts from a forthcoming book on standing meditation: On Your Own Two Feet.

 Establish Ground

With practice, standing can feel balanced, steady and comfortable; then you feel grounded but relaxed. That’s essential when the winds of turmoil and trouble start blowing, but it’s also a quietly pleasant way to get to know yourself in terms of body, heart and mind. This is the aim of meditation. And of all meditation postures, standing gives you the easiest way into a steady state, because it establishes a firm but easeful connection to the ground beneath you.

Here’s how. Stand with the legs apart and coming straight down from the hips, so that the stance approximates to the width of your upper body – your chest, or, if you prefer a wider stand, your shoulders. The exact width isn’t crucial, but the felt sense is that the stance is fully planted. 

Stand like a tree, with the feet as your roots.  Feet are generally encased in footwear, and accustomed to meeting a constantly flat surface; because of this, they lose their flexibility. So your feet might benefit from a couple of minutes of flexing: standing on one leg, flex the toes of the other; standing on both feet, lift your heels off the floor and raise your body with your toes; standing on both feet, lift your toes up and back. You might flex like this a few times. Imagine the toes spreading so that they are like monkey’s feet, or like fingers. The toes should not be carrying weight; your feet are alive and aware. Then, as you feel your way into a stance, tip a little from side to side and back and forth until you find a settled and easeful balance.  A balanced and aware stance helps to release tension or gripping in the upper body – particularly in the abdomen. 

When you stand, with your aware feet planted on the ground, soften your knees a little, so the legs are slightly bent, just enough that the muscles in the thighs and the calves aren’t locked into position. The standing then feels flexible and alert; it’s as if you could jump at any moment – but you’re relaxed. You might practise bending your knees a little to sense how the ankles take up a supportive role; then bob up and down a little to get familiar with the flexibility of the stance.

Then soften your knees and adjust your focus to include the entire vertical axis of your body, centred on an imagined line extending down your spine and into your feet. Ease your arms away from the sides on your body – just enough to slide your hand between your arm and your ribs. Keeping your eyes open or half-open, release awareness of what you don’t need right now. Like you don’t need holding in your shoulders; relax. You don’t need a face; let it go. Let your fingers be free. Focus on that upright axis and as that becomes clearly felt, steadily extend your awareness out into the body around it – that soft and warm stuff. Keep going slowly with the intention to encompass any tense or uncomfortable places and let warm awareness embrace them.  When you get to the edge of your body, extend awareness into the space, the open ‘no-pressure’ envelope immediately around you.  Covering the entirety of the body in its space, linger and enjoy.

****

Release tension

To extend the exercise in more detail: tune into the feel of that stance, and, as you get settled into your stance, encourage your upper body to sink just a little, so it feels like it’s nestling into the cradle of the legs and the feet. It’s as if your upper body is like a vase or a bag, settled into the supportive stand of the legs – which are connected to the firm base of the two feet planted on the ground. Fully rest in that support and feel a few easy cycles of breathing in and out.

Ensure that you’re not sagging, or leaning the abdomen forward – so very slightly turn your tailbone under, as if between your legs. Your buttocks will relax, and your belly tuck in. The weight of the upper body will be carried by the legs rather than the lower abdomen. The arch between the legs, the perineum, should feel open.

Your thinking mind will probably chatter and want to get busy, but don't give it much attention. Instead, relax into your belly, and as you breathe out, extend your awareness to the soles of the feet. When the outbreath has completed itself, feel the inhalation come in by itself. As you sense the rising energy of your inhalation, follow the rise by extending awareness up your spine.

Notice how the torso swells and subsides – especially the front, but, to a lesser degree, the back. With your arms hanging freely by your sides, and slightly away from the sides of your body, extend awareness around the sides of your torso, so that you cover the entirety of that swelling and subsiding section of your body.

Tilt the lower point of each shoulder blade into your back so that you remove the shoulder hunch. As you feel your chest open, relax your shoulder blades down your back as if you are slipping out of a coat. You'll become more aware of your spine; it will strengthen and act as the central axis for your upright stance.

Allow a few turns of the breathing cycle to fill out and integrate this upright position. Then extend your awareness down your arms and into your hands. Relax the fingers and focus on the palms, imagining them opening and listening to the space. You may keep your hands open by your sides, or bring them lightly together, with the fingertips touching for greater sensitivity and a sense of containment.

When your hands feel open and alive, slowly draw your awareness up the spine, from the tail on up into the neck and the base of the skull, as if you are carefully tracing the curvy line of the vertebrae with a finger.  It’s like the trunk of a tree, with the growing tip supporting the skull.

Get a feel for that support. Imagine that the skull is settling on top of that spinal axis like a ball resting on a fountain of water. While attuned to the rhythmic flow of breathing, relax the neck muscles, the jaw, and the tissues of the forehead, temples and eye-sockets. Keeping your eyes slightly open (releasing tension might make you feel a bit dizzy at first) let the entire ball of the head rest on that aware spine so that the muscles in your neck and face can ease up.

Let some breathing pass through as your body adjusts to this change and begins to enjoy it. Feel the firmness of your spinal axis and extend awareness down from the base of the skull down to the tail bone. It may not be complete; there may be dull patches or blocks in that line. However rather like a river clearing its blockages, this upright axis will clear itself over time as awareness spreads over the entire form. So, steadily extend your awareness until it’s like an envelope covering your entire body in all directions. 

Linger in that, letting the breathing flow through the body in its envelope of space. If your body starts to tense up, bob up and down slightly or lightly swing from side to side.  Otherwise, as you feel more and more stable, acknowledge and let go of discursive thought and any emotional turbulence.

 ***

Balance and Wholeness: Upright Body, Upright Mind

The mind should be engaged, interested and receptive – while refraining from imperatives or judgements. This can be achieved through softening the focus – that is to get less intense about physical points and be more attuned to a steady and heartful listening. Relying on mental effort alone produces a negative result because that overrides the intelligences of body and heart. In fact, imbalance, tension and constriction in the body are largely due to unskilful mental energy. Non-stop urgency and stress leave their effects in the body’s nervous system; as do their numbing antidotes – escapist entertainment, or passive immersion in whatever a screen is broadcasting. There’s also the imbalance that comes around because of operating only one part of the body while the rest is left inert. For example, sitting for hours in a chair effectively ignores and switches off the flow of energy in the legs and back. Instead, energy gathers and intensifies in the head, neck and shoulders. The result is that breathing is limited, and the coordinated flow of energy through the body is blocked.

Another negative bodily condition occurs through operating in artificial systems’ time rather than in natural embodied time. In the automated world in which we live, energy has to follow clock time, jumps and surges towards notional ends – then is suddenly arrested by the sound of a buzzer or the flash of a light.  And if we don’t find the time to return to a grounded and embodied state, the nervous system gets set to a hasty ‘on-off’ way of life. Then we lose touch with the regulating effect of breathing, and how that helps the body to naturally relax and refresh. So, make a note: the energy of emotional/mental activity is based in the body. Get the body into balance first; then meditation follows on quite naturally.

Standing, because it gets you grounded without requiring a high degree of focus, offers easy access to the embodied state, wherein bodily intelligence comes to the fore. With this, your body’s energies return to the more natural flow, and that flow suffuses the fascia tissues that wrap around and connect all parts of the body. It wakes up to being interconnected and balanced.

You may experience imbalance in terms of the left and right sides of your body. One side may have a lot of energy running through it, and the other side considerably less. The contemplative response to this is to first span the entire width of your body with awareness, and holding that wide frame, attune to the breathing. 

This step alone may allow the breath-energy to suffuse the entirety and restore balance. A further step would be to first discern the furthest edge of the strong energy – that is, if you’re strong in the right, how far does that energized area extend? What is its edge? And beyond that edge how is the body? Then: can you detect the left side? Try sweeping your attention from the right side slowly towards the left, expanding your awareness as you cover the edge. Repeat this exercise carefully several times. Then connect the exhalation with the movement of attention: it’s as if you are breathing across your body. Practise also focusing on the left side, and as you breathe in extend your awareness to the right.

As you deepen the balance and connectivity of your body, the energy that flows along with breathing can spread through the entire bodily form.  You can practise this sweeping through any isolated or restricted areas of your body – such as the throat or belly.  Remember, don’t demand anything to open or be other than it is; just maintain connective and empathetic awareness. If there is empathy rather than a directive, awareness will meet the energy in an area of the body. Widening and softening will allow discordant energies to release into the wide field of the whole body in their own time. 

As this occurs, the body gets to feel like a single homogenous form that is both soft and strong. No single part is carrying another part; nor are we unconsciously carrying our body around in a state of distracted stress. So as the body comes into unity, be receptive to that and let it moderate your attitudes and intentions. Through attunement to the aware and connected state, ease and goodwill come to the fore.  Through accessing energies, awareness can meet, steady and release bodily or emotional conflict, and support positive qualities of body, heart and mind.  

This interconnected balance becomes psychological.  Because we have a place to stand, we don’t have to keep creating one via opinions and territory and beliefs. Instead, we gain heart. And that heart-based sensitivity aligns the mind to ethical integrity, goodwill and ease.  

So the upright, open and stable body supports an upright, open and stable mind. Both are necessary and one supports the other.  An upright mind is balanced, receptive to self and others and non-obsessive; it is a beautiful flowering of human potential.   

Bathing in energy

To encourage deep refreshment, sweep your awareness from the crown of your head downwards – as if you’re pouring oil, or something warm and fluid over your head, and letting it run down the front of the body. Feel the softness of the tissues at the front relaxing; relax down your arms and into the palms of your hands.

If you’re feeling unsteady, it’s good to put more emphasis on the back, and sweep down from your shoulders into the soles of the feet. If you’re feeling too tight, bend the knees a little and encourage the abdomen to loosen and be held by the supple legs.

As the entire body consequently wakes up to itself, there is a sense of enjoyment. Simple, calm pleasure. Get used to that; what is your body now?

 

 

No victory, only healing

In the last couple of weeks, the war in Ukraine has grabbed the headlines, and the hearts of many people. There is the flood of images and stories: of the destruction of cities, and of ragged lines of refugees struggling for safety – and being received with open arms, food, and shelter. European countries have thrown open their borders (with the shameful exception of post-Brexit Britain) and people are moving forward by the thousands with helping hands. This is inspiring. It states the truth of right social order: the people act according to values – and the government facilitates. And the opposite is also true: 

War is not unusual it’s been going on throughout human history; it’s going on in many countries now. And yet terrible long-term conflicts such as in Yemen and Syria seem to pale in regard to the current situation in Europe. No doubt Euro-centricism plays a part, but for those of us living on the continent that initiated two major world wars and endured the nuclear threat of the Cold War, old resonances start echoing.

All of this is heart-breaking: Ukraine being mutilated, Russia crippled and left to a dictator to play with; the only winners are the arms-manufacturers. And on the wider scale this rift is already having global effects. Borders and divisions are hardening. And what was this what it was all about? The security of the borderlands between Russian Europe and NATO Europe? Two Europes? The borders of ‘Europe’ have changed over the centuries: an acorn taking root in the Polish-Lithuanian Empire might have become a sapling in Poland, blossomed as a mature oak in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, aged in the Soviet Union and died in Ukraine. And during that time, armies might have marched past it to defend the ‘borders’. Borders? What do these lines on a map represent, and what lies behind drawing them?

For me, boders represent that tense territory where I get patted down or sent into a separate room for questioning (USA) or waved through with hands in anjali (Thailand). They’re nature is fluid …. I expect if you're an asylum seeker, borders are not the same as if you're a billionaire. But in geopolitical terms, borders mean security. They mean that the central power has control and it can tax and reward and otherwise supervise those within its borders. And to a great extent, these fences are more than geographical. Much of global wealth is fenced off and controlled by a minority global elite. Much of the Earth that we inhabit and depend upon has been parcelled up and sold off to international corporations who can exploit and even destroy it while assuring us that this is good for 'the economy' (i.e. shareholders, CEOs and suitable political lever pullers). How and by whom did this contract get written?

One major author is economic interest. Left to their own devices, human collectives operate in terms of fluid boundaries of inclusivity. Check out your social network. Check out a monastic community. There's a social contract sustained by sharing, interests, loyalties and kinships – like the older social models which constellated around a strong centre and which extended out to a loosely defined periphery (maybe bounded by a geographical barrier). Rather like a galaxy. And there had to be negotiation between the chief and the subjects as to how the whole thing operated. Otherwise, the people abandoned the chief. As the Zulu have it: 'No chief, no tribe; no tribe, no chief.' Is it not natural then that the borderlands would have affiliations to people and cultures on both sides – that there is no hard boundary?

The major boundary-setter has been trade. When that gives rise to money and credit, it needs economic management. Management stands outside the goods and the trade, and is a business that needs to have a secure structure. To provide that is a major reason for the nation-state. Such management is also profitable, becomes a business in itself – banks, stock exchanges, currency trading: this and more make up the greater portion of the global economy.

Looked at in this light, it’s no wonder that most of the world outside the ring of the current opposing parties is stepping back from getting involved. Having experienced European mapmaking and domination, what African, South American or Asian wants to get into another European-based battle over much the same? Not that the management even has a geographical base anymore. Today's empires are of the multi-national corporations (whose reserves exceed that of many countries). Most of the resources of the country I live in, Britain, are owned and controlled by non-native parties. Well, I guess everyone's welcome ... within the social contract – and part of that is to make a proportionate contribution to this land, and to the welfare of the people you share it with. There has to be an ethical basis in this, otherwise financial value overrides human values. And if ethics are abandoned, greed sets in.

Ethics are an aspect of the truth of mutuality – 'to others as to myself' – a sense that balances the individual's behaviour in the light of being part of a whole. This sense is not based upon laws as constructed and written down (and that can always be nullified and changed) but comes from a directly felt acknowledgment and respect of others. From respect, mutuality, kindness, compassion and personal restraint come forth. Whereas the fiat of government doesn't work that well (crime persists and the prisons swell; smart lawyers manage tax evasion for their employees – and governments East, West, North and South break international laws with impunity), personally supervised ethics takes us deep into the heart. Here is the treasure of humanity, of dignity, warm-heartedness and joy. Because not only doesn't it leave any others out – it also doesn't fence off and sell the wealth of the heart it dwells in.

This heart-mind doesn’t have any boundaries – other than those its attention creates. Check it out: if you give full awareness to your mind, you'll notice a changeable flow of thoughts and emotions, some powerful upswells, some habitual vortices – and attempts to organize and direct them. It's the nation-state as an internal microcosm. But what you won't notice are any fixed boundaries to that continuum. Past, present and projected future can all arise in this inner territory, along with impressions of people ‘out there’ and distant places. Come to think of it, where is the mind located? We might say it's within us, but within what? That idea and any notions of where we are also arise within the mind. To be truthful, the mind doesn't have a location, a boundary or an identity. There's no-one there holding it; instead, the director is self-interest wishing, striving, criticizing and re-iterating the same old stuff. What I call 'myself' comes from this intensity of interest, along with a sense of familiarity: ‘This is me.' But these senses are not an entity, they amount to a tonal colouring, like a highlight; something that assists orientation and direction, for good or bad.

That tonal colouring, that sense of purpose and value, has to be connected to ethics. Otherwise, it creates delusions whereby the mind gets possessed by insecurity and selfishness. Then anxiety and clinging get established, and that can lead to full-blown paranoia and power mania. These are all forms of ignorance, because owning and controlling and dominating don't bring security and peace of mind. They're defective programs. Take some famous cases: by the time he died, Stalin had brought around the death of more than 30 million of his own people, including many of his loyal lieutenants, and was still paranoid. Mao did much the same in China. Power breeds mutual destruction.

It's notable that the most the most powerful nations, the ones with the biggest military budgets – the USA, Russia and China – are the most paranoid (as well as being internally conflicted). Belgium, on the other hand, has been ridden over and passed through by invading armies ever since (and before) it began – but it chose to loosen its boundaries and settle into being part of an alliance. At times it even manages to get by without a central government. Yet it is one of the safest and most peaceful countries in the world with a high standard of living, healthcare and education. Its only significant problem is around (you guessed it!) boundary issues between its Flemish and French-speaking communities.

One wonders to what extent we even need nation-states, but let's not indulge in Utopian visions. The main point is that if the heart-mind is understood, and valued as a source of happiness and stability, then its orientation has to be one of respectful interconnectedness. Because in that there is a firm and personally verifiable location – in ethical clarity and goodwill. On that basis – one that’s not hanging onto ungraspable qualities such as material possessions, territory, and dogma – the mind finds balance.

And it has to be developed, because one of the eerie things about ignorance is that you don't realize what you’re leaving out. Let’s not forget the fence we create between humans and non-humans. A boundary between humans and our fellow living creatures allows us to kill 70 billion land animals and over trillion marine animals every year without batting an eyelid. (And this doesn’t include innumerable insects whose activities in fertilizing the land we depend upon.) This same fence gives us the right to devastate the forests, oceans, and soils of this planet on which life depends. Our current social and economic models rely upon us doing this. No environmental contract has yet been negotiated wherein the life and rights of other creatures are given attention. They (along with the trash we create and throw ‘away’) are on the other side of the imaginary fence.

So we have an ignorant political model, an ignorant economic system and an ignorant environmental model. Such a scenario is dry tinder waiting for sparks. Because with the profound disconnectedness that these create, and when there is a loss of mutuality in the social structures, inequality, resentment, poverty, crime and violence arise. We're encouraged to lean on material objects, entertainment and political strongmen to give us some ground – but they can't do that, so we lose heart, and anxiety, depression and psychological disorders increase.

None of this is comfortable. But we’re not looking at comfortable anymore; we're looking at survival. What does not lead to survival is partisanship: them and us; holding on to positions. That leads to politics, and politics is about polarisation, polarisation is about division, and division breeds fear, conflict and war. So it’s not a matter of who’s right who’s the best and who’s wrong. It’s not a matter of being the wisest or the purest. It’s about disbanding the sense of them and the conceit of better and worse, because with that disbanding is the possibility for respect and compassion and integrity. And if we cultivate this individually, we don’t need the police with armour and tear gas or even the moral policing of religion. We become eager to enquire and cultivate whatever can establish wise and mutual supervision of this human nature. We can enjoy the richness of shared humanity where are cultures could cross-fertilize and expand our hearts and minds. If there is anything supreme it is not a nation, it is not a religion or a political ideology – it is the liberation of the heart from ignorance.

The real victory then is the victory over ignorance. Because with that comes the only chance for deep healing.

Welcome to the Pure Land! (In memory of Thich Nhat Hanh)

( A tea-break during forest restoration work at Cittaviveka)

The recent passing away of Thich Nhat Hanh has caused me to linger in some grateful recognition. Of course, the man's influence in terms of spirituality, psychology and activism, was great, but in terms of my current winter retreat, his example brings to mind the value and ongoing need for aspiration. Aspiration ('May I be...') provides an uplift that isn't goal-oriented. It channels desire (chanda), into required motivation. With aspiration we can transform the craving for achievement into an affirmation; without aspiration our hearts wither and sink. And Nhat Hanh (his specific name) set a blazing example of aspiration (and commitment) through non-violent activism, his support for refugees, and his Dhamma teachings . It was an example that touched the hearts of many and brought light into the world.

When I first came across Thich Nhat Hanh, it was via his book 'A Guide to Walking Meditation'.* I don't remember much of the text now, but it referred to connecting to the Earth as one walked, and walking slowly with a smile. One was encouraged to be aware of the trees, the sky the Earth and to extend impressions of walking on lotus blossoms ... of relating to the manifest world, enjoying it and generating positive impressions with regard to being in it. To make it the Pure Land.

However, what I found most memorable was the cover. It had a photograph of Nhat Hanh with a smile on his face, walking in a field holding a sunflower aloft in his right hand, like some kind of flag or totem. Flower-power? Yes, it did stir a recollection of the movement of the late 60s, which was the launching pad of my own spiritual quest. It had been tremendously strengthening to realize that there were other people who believed, like me, that harmlessness and loving kindness could heal humanity. That aspiration, shared and lived, created a culture, an environment based on goodwill, sharing and a return to more natural ways. For a while it seems like there was an entire generation following that theme.

As it happened that flower faded in the seventies (despite the aspirations, the movement had no adequate ethical training, and moneyed interests took over), but the aspiration is timeless. And it keeps manifesting in cultures and religions over the world as we attempt to realize and purify our shared environment. Its most striking example in Buddhist terms is in Pure Land Buddhism, which entails committing to, and even visualizing the Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha, complete with its celestial gardens and deities. The aim being to purify the heart and its relationship to what manifests. This Pure Land practice often accompanies the straight sitting in the Ch'an Buddhism that Thich Nhat Hanh had trained in. Bringing forth aspiration must have been part of his training from an early age.

But not for me. The inadequacies of mainstream Christianity removed any celestial realm from my perspectives and aims. So as the flowers faded, I headed East looking for an adequate spiritual training to take me deeper into myself – a pragmatic deepening down rather than a visionary rising up. A doorway to that opened in Thailand in 1975, when I stumbled into a monastery where I was instructed in a version of the Burmese satipaṭṭhāna meditation method. Apart from fixing attention onto the rising and falling of the diaphragm during the breathing process, this also included walking meditation. Such walking was practised by focusing on the feet, specifically on points in the process such as 'lifting', 'moving' , 'lowering' , 'touching' as a foot was very slowly raised off the floor, moved and lowered to the floor again. As with breathing, any phenomenon occurring other than that point was to be noted with a brief verbal label such as 'thinking', 'hearing', (or, with increased practice, 'aversion', 'frustration') before returning to the focal point. Any degree of feeling – 'pleasant' or 'unpleasant'– was also to be dealt with in like manner in order to firm up the focus on the very moment of the sensation occurring. This was said to lead to 'dry insight' a way that avoided the pitfall of lingering in the pleasurable mental quality that might arise as the mind settled down. Not that there was much of that.

As I later discovered, this was different from the early teachings of the Buddha, wherein agreeable and uplifting states were to be thoroughly felt and explored. In his teaching, Nhat Hanh's embellished that, adding aspirations to spread this happiness through the world. Walking peacefully, one would bring peace into the world.

As for my walking practice, the emphasis was on solitude with no conversation. No gatherings, no shared purpose. Pacing inside my 2.5 metres wide kuti, to avoid distractions – and mosquitoes – things did get more quiet. But externally, the environment was a rectangle of cement paths, void of charm with no affirming connection to the world. At one time, in an attempt to present an external image of something inviting and serene, I collected some large rocks and assembled a Zen-style rock garden. The abbot came by a with a few men and ordered it to be dismantled. Dry indeed.

Returning to Britain in 1978 and joining the small community training under Ajahn Sumedho was a welcome change of environment. Its internal mainspring wasn't one of microscopic attention in meditation, but of intentions of ethics and renunciation. Around that internal axis, behaviour was mediated in terms of relationship to the monastic community, the laity and the tradition. Meditation was geared towards letting go of the obsessive thinking that arose from programs of achievement, sense-desire, and negative self-image. Fortunately it was considered fine and indeed helpful to appreciate natural surroundings, and the chief non-self, Ajahn Sumedho, somehow manifested genial good-humour in the midst of all this sober stuff. And with the daily chanting to bring forth values and commitments, along with a huge amount of togetherness (alms-rounds, the meal, the daily work and the meditation were all communal) a livable aspiration environment grew to encourage an internal flowering.

As that aspiration environment became known as something that lay people could participate in, almost inevitably, and guided by Ajahn Sumedho's compassion, Amaravati, the 'Deathless Realm', arose. It was envisioned both as a centre to support lay people with retreats, and public occasions, and as a vihara for the nuns; bhikkhus were there to help out. Amaravati Buddhist Centre, as it was then called, encompassed interfaith meditation evenings, and offered opportunities for teachers from a range of traditions to teach retreats in its Retreat Centre. Even though we were shivering with cold in unheated rooms, it was a bright if chaotic time.

Thich Nhat Hanh visited Amaravati shortly after his book on walking meditation was being passed around, maybe in 1986 or 1987. By then I knew him to be a peace activist who had committed to non-violence in a country that had been in conflict for over twenty years, a conflict that had escalated to holocaust proportions. He was exiled for his pacifist views, but moved to the USA, where he lectured extensively, raised funds for refugee and children; eventually he founded Plum Village in France. Even that brief summary made it obvious that Nhat Hanh had plenty of spine and a strong heart to back up his smile. His expression was more withdrawn and impassive than that of the book cover; his speech was measured but he clearly didn't go along with our cherished Forest Tradition austerities: noting that it was our lunar all-night meditation vigil, he recommended that we take a rest and look after ourselves instead. But when I asked him about maintaining calm and compassion while his sangha were being attacked and even killed, his reply was steady. The practice of non-violence in the midst of conflict and loss made the heart 'like a diamond that no fire can burn.' It looked like he knew that personally. The War must have offered a Dhamma practice like no other.

Another victim of that war wrote of how Nhat Hanh had saved his life. Returning to the USA after combat in the Vietnam War, Claude Ashin Thomas was psychologically wrecked. Receiving scant sympathy or support in his home country, he had been directed to attend one of Nhat Hanh's talks about peace and reconciliation – and as a result of that, the Vietnamese community in the US offered the funds to send him to Plum Village in France. In the course of a few months, spending time in a community of safety and peace helped him to come to terms with his demons – every night he would be assailed with terror – and eventually determine to take on the life of a monk who led peace pilgrimages over the world.§ That's how important environment is – when you've given up on yourself and run out of road, that's where you can find orientation. Then if you stand up and live out its meaning, you find purpose.

I mention this during our three-month retreat period at Cittaviveka, because although the external setting is pretty idyllic and resonant with images and teachings, still you have to make an effort to internalize the environment. This is because your world depends on what your mind brings in. Which for those not familiar with a retreat isn't always good news, because in this situation, you are deprived of the input that would normally provide orientation, and (admittedly changeable) degrees of personal validity and well-being. This input comes not just through contact (I am affected) but also through interaction (I respond, I am valid) . In normal mainstream life, this interaction is generally fairly brisk, and carries the emotional charge of social contact, work, doing things and getting a result – as measured by an external environment. So the nervous system gets set to externally-based input and response, often at a rapid rate. Then to relax, one turns to music, socializing, jogging, computer games, sport, a hot bath, etc. Then, suitably refreshed, one is ready to go back to another set of external circumstances. It's a precarious balance. 

But on a retreat all of that is gone. One receives the input of a mind that isn't supported by doing and having and making things happen. The land is beautiful, but you don't have to interact with it (although gardening days are offered here, to support interaction). Without interaction, the heart gets disoriented and restless, so it broods and mopes; it gets flooded with memories and uncertainties about the future; it worries about its identity and what others are thinking – and it doesn't know how to relax, clear and reset by engaging with and responding to its strengths and values. Thus it gets stuck in a flood of afflictive mind states that, because they seem permanent, familiar and intimate become 'me' 'myself'.

This scenario can also unfold outside of retreat. In daily life, if the world you live in doesn't offer relax-reset messages (and with constant media stimulation, there is no 'It's over, you're fine, relax' message) one gets stuck in the residues of what life throws at you. These are especially dire when there is constant pressure to achieve, to make a living and be happy in the midst of ever-present threat and a perilous future. It's worse in the case of someone who grows up adapting to a lack of welcome and safety: the nervous system is set to orange alert and generates performance drives in terms of appearance or activity in order to be acceptable. People get frantic; either that or sink into depression and meaninglessness. Being unable to access a ground of well-being and security in oneself, one doesn't relax and reset; instead one gets stressed, overwhelmed, depressed and reactive.

The turning point is a sign that arouses trust and faith: a person of truth (sappurisa), someone who stands for wisdom and compassion and who says you too can access these. You receive, feel the effect and are encouraged to respond. And the first response is to align to the spiritual Refuge and train in interaction based on simple moral precepts. These aren't laws or commandments, but aspirations: 'I undertake to train in not harming other living creatures' ... ' to train in refraining from misappropriating and manipulating'... 'in refraining from sexual abusiveness and stereotyping ...' 'in refraining from false or injurious speech' ... 'in refraining from intoxicants that blur the mind and promote carelessness'. To emphasize that these are to be contemplated in terms of effects on oneself and others, the Buddha presented them in terms of the environment that they generate. Take the precept to refrain from harmful speech:
one is [someone] who reunites those who are divided, a promoter of friendships, who enjoys ... rejoices [and] delights in harmony, a speaker of words that promote harmony. Abandoning harsh speech ... one speaks such words as are gentle, pleasing to the ear, and loveable, as go to the heart, are courteous, desired by many and agreeable to many. Abandoning gossip, one abstains from gossip; one speaks at the right time, speaks what is fact, speaks on what is good, speaks on the Way and the Training; at an appropriate time one speaks such words as are worth remembering, well-reasoned, moderate, and beneficial.” (M 27.13)

So it's not just that you stop doing bad. It also means that you reach into and affirm something in yourself that feels the value behind these intentions, and how they bring forth the best in your own heart and that of others. You can practise them like this: as you undertake to train in harmlessness, resonate the phrase (perhaps with an image of how your harmlessness affects vulnerable creatures) until you get the sense of the patient strength that can restrain the impulse to lash out, seek revenge, and get rid of creatures and people you dislike. You may find that doing this while standing brings additional firmness and balance to the practice; the meaning gets embodied and felt. Linger in that felt meaning until you get a heart-impression, a 'felt sense' of that firm gentle energy; you can even visualize it: heart-energy has a real and palpable quality. Over time, if you give mindful attention to this felt quality of harmlessness it gives you orientation, meaning and purpose. You don't have to achieve it; it settles in through lingering and feeling, and it supports you. So you aspire, practise – and when life throws you off course, you return and pick up the thread again. In this way, harmlessness (and the other precepts) generate a lived-in environment of freedom from threat and regret, and endowed with uprightness and ease. Welcome to the Pure Land!†

So you may not incline towards visualising lotus blossoms and smiling Buddhas, but with ethical aspiration, mindfully sustained, you gain the capacity to switch off the agitating 'What's the point?' 'I can't calm down' 'What am I supposed to do?' programs and reflexes.

I never saw Nhat Hanh again, and the sweetness of the approach on his books and talks didn't work for me. Diamonds are tough as well as bright, and I would have liked to have heard more of that - and of managing the pressure that creates them. Because looking deeply into a loved one's eyes is never going to work in the Monastic Forest Tradition; and equating the peace of nibbana to the gentle happiness of communing with the natural world doesn't quite ring true. However, for me Nhat Hanh's most important teaching ( and practice ) was on cultivating community. And in this respect, different expressions have value inasmuch as they meet individual ways of sustaining the aspiration environment. But the universal bedrock of that environment, in both imaginative and pragmatic terms, is the Precepts. In a world on fire with deceit, environmental abuse and bullying egotistical political leaders, they all serve to support our shared cosmos and enrich the heart.  So it is: in my aspiration environment, the great champions of the spirit are still standing upright, steady and extending open hands.

***

*Thich Naht Hanh: A Guide to Walking Meditation (Nyack NY 1985, Fellowship Publications)
§ See: Claude Anshin Thomas At Hell’s Gate (Boston MA 2004, Shambhala Publications)

†Thich Nhat Hanh's renderings of these core Buddhist precepts is particularly impressive. See http://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhism/G%20-%20TNH/TNH/The%20Five%20Precepts/Five%20Wonderful%20Precepts.htm

 

Sustaining the Network – Questions and Responses in a Pandemic

 (Periodically, the monastery checks its supplies and distributes what isn't immediately needed to those in need, primarily homeless people.)

It’s been a while since I wrote. It’s not that there’s nothing to say, but the number of online sessions I’ve been involved with over the past twenty months have an effect on communication. On top of the quantity of talking I do is the one-way nature of it. Cooped up for nearly two years, I’ve been missing a vital piece – the feedback loop that comes with in-person teaching. Consequently talking seems less important, and writing even less so. 

Anyway, as far ongoing reflections: Yes, we had some Covid outbreaks in the monastery (someone came as a guest without testing) but worked with it and came through; and maybe it’s just another of those things to live and die with. There was a Conference on Climate Change … yes, 'blah, blah, blah'… but at least it’s on the agenda. A big question is:  'What is a world leader anyway?' They current national leadership model doesn’t seem to be able to lead humanity to a safe and benevolent present, let alone a skilful future. It looks more and more like what’s needed is a moral network to counteract the network of money and political power. And yes, the Dhamma network is in this global sense in its comparative infancy, but producing some marvellous statements of the truth of the spirit in the interactive mode. 

So, over the past few years, I’ve been giving attention to supporting that network.  Right now this means responding to the comments and queries I receive through the Dhamma Tracks mail-out that a supporter set up. I only have a superficial understanding of how this mail-out works, but I can review comments. And having read through the first thirty or so, below are the responses that I can make to a few of them.

**

Someone living with a partner with cancer updates me periodically. They mention visiting the monastery (we’ve remained open to some degree) in the grey weather and receiving welcome and feeling the warmth of the stone of the floor of the meditation Hall as they bowed.

Response: Yes, friend, warm ground, and as direct a contact with it as is possible, is a great support. As an aspect of your body, it’s always here.

There were many comments are expressions of gratitude and love.

Response: Reciprocated. The efforts that people go through to attend a global retreat – getting up in the middle of the night, or staying up through the early hours of the morning to be part of the Dhamma field – are a powerful statement, and it’s a privilege to be part of how that happens.

Others mention benefits of specific practices that integrate body and heart. These include the transformative effects of the meditation on the energy of breathing that I taught in November, also the symbiosis of breath and love that Willa Thaniya and I presented. 

Response: She’s in New Zealand, I’m in the UK, and we didn’t work out what to say in advance. The practice taught itself! This retreat took guidance from the reflection that in most non-mechanist cultures, breath and spirit are synonymous. In the Māori understanding ‘love is the breath of life’: the way that breath moves intimately through us and gently extends our energy field into the environment is one of embodied trust and openness. This is one form of love, just as love, that is the extension of good heart, is that which keeps our spirits alive, shared and fluent. The Vedic tradition that the Buddha arose in gave rise to prāṇayāma the yoga of breathing, whereby the energy that breathing readily accesses can be directed through channels in the body to affect systems that we normally can’t adjust. Such as blood pressure, heartbeat, brain function and metabolism. This ‘prāṇa’ is ‘pāna’ in the Pali language. The Buddha used it primarily as an energy to counteract the reflex compulsions of harmful ‘formations’ (saṅkhārā), which otherwise spin the heart into reactions and compulsive habits. When those reflexes cease, one result is an open, fluent and benevolent heart.

 

**

Others mention the power of chanting to purify the mind.

Response: Yes, of course it’s nearly impossible to synchronise chanting online, but I do encourage being mindful of how the body converts breath into sound, and with what effect. This keeps you attuned to the auditory consciousness, which has a wider field than the other consciousness and uses receptivity. (As opposed to the visual consciousness, which is the ‘hunter’ with an attention span like an arrowhead.) Also the heart receives sound effects at a primary imaginal level of heart/mind: this was our way of experiencing in the womb – where the mother’s heartbeat told us we were safe or not. Soon after birth we received the crooning and burbling of the parents to give us reassuring messages. So sound, particularly the sound of the human voice, goes straight to the heart. Therefore, chanting can be used carefully and with clear intention to give beneficial effects to body, heart and mind.

** 

There was a comment on attuning to the ‘field of puñña’, as an antidote to the dull and deadening forces of materialism.

Response: Puñña, ‘goodness’, ‘value’ or ‘merit’ is the richness of heart that arises dependent on intentions and actions associated with goodwill and virtue. Acting in terms of puñña establishes skilful paths for the heart to move down; and the effects in the long-term build spiritual resources and repair the damage of indulgence, guilt, and aversion (to name a few). Although the notion can be dismissed as ‘spiritual materialism’ = ‘give donation, get a fortunate rebirth’, there is an effect that comes not through mechanically applied religious conventions but through attuning and extending the heart to the felt energies associated with goodness. Once you give attention, not so much to the thought, but to the embodied and emotional shift that comes with compassion or truthfulness (for example), you’ll get the point. And you’ll notice by comparison the dulling affect that consumer-driven materialism brings, no matter how sleek the packaging. This is the hinge point of renunciation, and it leads to an instinctive turning away from worldly values.

The commentator also mentioned how sensing the field of puñña overcomes the sense of distance.

Response: Yes, what is ‘distance’ as a felt experience? Isn’t it a mood, an emotional boundary, a sense of separation? And while one can feel separated from people living in the same street, one can feel connected to others at a geographical distance. This is because the citta doesn’t operate in terms of space or time, but in terms of its own energies - contracted or unrestricted, tangled or clear. Accessing the field of puñña, one accesses clear and increasingly unrestricted energies – the ‘measureless mind’ of the brahmavihāra is an example of this. In this way, the sense of restriction and isolation ceases.

**

There was a comment on the benefits of ‘Learning from the Pause’, the blog post of October 2021.

Response: The pause phase of breathing – that is the moments where the exhalation subsides before the inhalation picks up, and vice versa – are essential moderators of the breathing and consequently the nervous system and the mind. Once you get this, you see the relevance of pausing between impact and response, between hearing someone and replying to them, or acting on what you’ve heard – particularly if the impact is evocative. And this is of course, what people by and large don’t do!

** 

Here are responses to a few questions:

Q: A question about managing anxiety.

A: An awareness of the precarious nature of conditioned existence is natural. To live without that is to be dangerously deluded. However, the healthy system is able to stay alert without activating anxiety – which actually biases and impairs its clarity. I recommend a mindful immersion in the body, an awareness of its nervous energy. If this is carried out and awareness extended to cover the entire body, the nervous system will be able to self-regulate, that is, to moderate alertness, and to discharge any hyper-effects. Anxiety contracts the heart as a defence, but it locks the nervous system so that it can’t relax.  So to release anxiety, first put aside any anxiety-forming topics and widen your visual awareness, allowing your seeing and hearing to rove freely, but steadily and calmly. Increasingly extend your attention to encompass the entire body as it stands, making sure you include the soles of the feet. This establishes the ‘upright axis’, a firm centre that extends vertically through the body, and as you sense that, your other senses may settle down to a greater degree.  Then extend your awareness to the perimeter of the body and a little into the space immediately around, above and below. This is the ‘natural’ setting for embodied awareness; it provides a safe envelope around the physical form, and as it isn’t contracted, the heart is at ease.

As you cultivate the less restricted state, allow yourself to enter slightly uncertain territory and cultivate this grounded and safely open state as you move around.

**

Q: What is the connection or balance between effort, inquiry (yoniso manisikara is the pali term I think) and listening (sati sampajanya is the pali term I think)?

A: All translations are debatable, but yoniso manasikāra is generally understood to be deep or penetrative attention. It is a careful adjustment of attention that directs it to pertinent themes. Sampajañña is the wise knowing that arises from sati, mindfulness. They’re similar, but deep attention helps to set up mindfulness, and can use thinking, whereas sampajañña is an alert attunement to the changing nature of phenomena, how they arise and how they cease.

** 

Q: How to welcome conditioned phenomena totally? The mind feels mistrustful. Hence there is a loss of direction, and a sense of insecurity.

A: Welcoming conditioned phenomena totally is a very high standard. Start with being aware of mistrust and insecurity and stop believing in them or trying to overcome them. These senses have their causes and conditions and need to be heard. Ask in a contemplative way:  ‘How does this feel?’ ‘Can I be with that?’ ‘Can I sense how that affects my body? Is there any part of my body that isn’t affected by these?’ When you have established a respectful relationship with these moods, they might subside. And you might also ask ‘What are these trying to do? Where do they want to go? Can I be with them and explore them in a sympathetic way?’

** 

Well, that's about it for now. I'm trying to spend less time in front of a screen, but I expect to comment from time to time. Meanwhile there's the ongoing practice of sustaining the Dhamma field by digging in and nourishing the heart.  Please stay tuned to the field!