Encounters with Buddhism

Fall is Here

2009-10-15T20:53:00.000-07:00

As the weather chills, and more rains cloud the skies. As the temperature inside the house gets towards 60 degrees, and the night draws out its cloak earlier and earlier, a gentle melancholy arises in me. Time is passing, sometimes quietly, sometimes seemingly so slow, but nonetheless, swiftly, whether I feel it or not, swiftly to one end and one end alone. We are here, alive on earth, for such a short time, and then the mystery of mysteries happen, and in one moment we are here, and the next, we have left our bodies. To where? To what? Is there any recognizable self remaining.

Part of my meditative practice is making peace, finding peace, discovering peace in emptiness, in formlessness, in that which is beyond this transitory life on earth. When I settle into the ground of that awareness, it quiets me down, gives me a profound perspective of equanimity, of connection and compassion. Time is practically still in that state.

I've planted bulbs for the Spring. Will need to be creative so the squirrels don't dig them up, as they did the first year I moved into my house in Cary. So disappointing, the squirrels dug up all but about 3 of over a hundred bulbs I planted.

Connecting with the earth and its changing seasons, with the skies and their every changing variety, is very comforting, even if it brings a gentle melancholy for all that has already passed, and what will come to pass.

The Scents of Spring

2009-05-12T15:01:00.000-07:00

The wisteria have come and gone. The honeysuckle and wild white roses scent the walkways like a dream. The hot pink wild climbing roses are out, hiding on the sides of the road, all but impossible to capture and transplant.

The mimosa trees are growing, no blooms yet, but soon enough the heat will bring out another fragrance, so sweet.

Part of the result of meditation is the coming into the presence of the senses. Seeing more clearly. Smelling more clearly. Tasting and feeling more vibrantly.

Most of us have so much to do we don't have time to notice when the different wild flowers come and go. May we find ways to keep our connection with the cycle of nature.

The Outer, the Inner and the Secret

2009-02-25T18:32:00.001-08:00

When I was practicing Tibetan Buddhist traditions I frequently read about and heard about three levels of the teachings: the outer, the inner and the secret.

During empowerments, when the head of the Nyingma tradition was visiting, in high ceremony, we would be given the outer empowerment, the inner empowerment and the secret empowerment.

Sogyal Rinpoche notices in his audio tape on Tibetan Wisdom for Living and Dying the parallel between the Christian hold trinity of The Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost, and the three kayas in Tibetan Buddhism, Nirmanakaya, Dharmakaya and Sambogakaya.

That's all I have to say about that now.

Teachings Offer Solace

2009-01-31T18:48:00.000-08:00

While the Tibetan Buddhist teachings direct from Tibetan Buddhist monks and teachers, while exotic, answer questions and address sufferings that all of us as humans know.

One of the most powerful teachings is this practice.

When you are suffering, suffering strongly almost unbearingly, establish the intention that your suffering help relieve the suffering of all those who are suffering in the same way. If you are heartbroken, imagine the prayer of asking that your suffering relieve the suffering of all those who are heartbroken around the world.

Strangely, paradoxically, instead of it increasing your suffering, the connection with the common suffering of humanity, offers a relief.

In very ordinary American homes, in the 21st century, learnings from long ago, preserved in sacred lineages, are shared, handed on, spreading hope.

2008-12-23T21:41:00.001-08:00

Dharma Haven has a rich description of the Tibetan Buddhist prayer:
Om Mani Padme Hong

A Late Night Prayer

2008-12-23T20:56:00.000-08:00

In a December 23, 2008 note in On Bluebirds' Wings, this came out about what I understood from some Buddhist teachings:

As I practice the teachings that so enlarged my heart to meet the sights my eyes had seen traveling so much as we did, the teachings of the Tibetan Buddhists, to reach out with my heart and compassion to every element in all that is, in the whole universe, known and unknown, and imagine in every aspect of every element, the heart of compassion, receiving my recognition and honoring, and sending back ten thousand thousands of blessings, then the twisting anguish of the suffering that is behind every corner, under the sunglasses, inside the windows, and too many wheres, that anguish dissolves into a rich, fully connected, acceptance and presence.

John Died to the Sound of Buddhists Chanting at his Bedside

2008-12-01T15:09:00.000-08:00

Today is the day bloggers are asked to unite to blog about AIDS. In honor of this day, I wrote the story of meeting John, a man in the Washington DC area, who I met at a Tibetan Buddhist prayer park, who was living and dying with AIDS. You can read the story in my Essays on the Ordinary blog.

Connecting to Suffering while Experiencing Peace

2008-11-29T10:29:00.000-08:00

Robin Eastman's blog, Naked in Eden, is beautiful. In her most recent post, Every Single Day she writes this, and much more:

"Each evening when I sit alone in this field I’m engulfed by the same powerful emotions, the most predominate being Love. It pours into me like liquid gold. Every time I look out at the horizon, tears just roll down my face because I feel the people of the world, their suffering, and I’m moved to profound compassion. The love coming into me is more than I can contain. My heart compels me to send it waaaaay out into the world, evening after evening. Although I feel the world’s suffering as if it were my own I’m overcome by astounding peace."

This reminds me of what I experienced for the first time from learning and doing some Buddhist practices. Seemingly contradictory in thought, but the experience isn't. Beautifully said. Beautifully felt.

Amitofo!

2008-11-27T17:52:00.000-08:00

I lived in Taiwan for one year around 1979. "Amitofo" the name for the Amitabha Buddha is everywhere in Chinese characters. "Ah" "Mi" "To" "Fo". To this day that name resonates deeply.

阿弥陀佛 (阿彌陀佛)

These "characters" the elements of the Chinese written language (also used by the Japanese in combination with their strictly phonetic elements) show, in bold, the "simplified" characters developed in the People's Republic of China to make learning easier for the whole population, and in parenthesis, on the right, the "complex" characters that are still used in Taiwan, and used to be used in Hong Kong before China took over administration after England's administration rights ended.

There are four characters here, which sound out the name, "Ah" "Mi" "To" "Fo". That is intentionally part of the domain name for this blog. As written in the Nciku site, they are said in exclamation or mantra or prayer meaning "Buddha preserve us; Buddha be praised."

See this post in the Sing, Beijing blog, by a young student from Yale named Ricky studying and traveling in China, where he mentions the meaning of "Ahmitofo" in relation to the powerful "Om Mane Padme Hong" mantra in Tibetan Buddhism.

Note:
The Chinese characters shown in this post are from an amazing site nciku.

Want to know how to meditate?

2008-11-10T19:40:00.000-08:00

If you were to ask me how to meditate, here is what I would say.

There are many ways to meditate. Many traditions from different religions and cultures.

Some do quiet sitting, a settling of the mind. This can be seen in the Quaker tradition.

Some do a quiet sitting, with naming the kinds of thoughts or feelings that arise, and then letting them go. Thought. Feeling. Thought.

Some like to focus on the outbreath. With every outbreath, notice the breath leaving your body and going out into the world.

Some like to count to pace the breath. In to the count of four, out to the count of eight. Or some other rhythm.

Some like to scan the sensations and awareness within the body, starting from the head, going down through the whole body, to the finger tips and toes.

Some like to focus on the spine, lengthening the spine, feeling a connection into the earth with gravity, feeling a connection into the heavens.

Yet others chant a mantra, a secret phrase or word, over and over and over, silently.

Yet others chant aloud, whether it is a syllable, a word, a phrase, or short or long prayers.

Yet others chant while conjuring up a profound visualization in the vastness of emptiness, with every aspect of the visualization symbolizing the profound realization.

There is walking meditation, too.

There are the zen practioners who sit very still for long periods of time, in a very defined, definite practice.

There are others who practice loosely, as they are able, on a sofa, or in the car... depending on if you zone out in your meditation, or if you are practicing expanding your awareness and alertness.

Still others dissolve themselves in their meditation.

Others meditate with visualizations that may be narrated on TV, or CD, or DVD.

So there are many many choices and ideas about meditating. You get to chose what helps you the most.

Eyes Open or Closed in Meditation

2008-11-10T19:38:00.001-08:00

When we research meditation, we probably can find strong reasons for practicing meditation with eyes opened, or with eyes closed, or with eyes in a soft focus, or not.

Perhaps what is most important is to know there are many ways to meditate, and to learn about the variety that is our choice by reading what different writers/practitioners think and do.

Sometimes I meditate with a soft focus and eyes open. Sometimes I meditate with my eyes closed, feeling it helps me center within my physical being, relaxing within in, settling into the moment. Other times I like to meditate with a clear almost sharp focus on a candle flame, or a beautiful object or image.

Spirituality vs. Religion

2008-11-10T19:32:00.000-08:00

It is my understanding that religion is an organization that maintains an order and ritual for a particular set of beliefs and practices.

Spirituality is the practice of connecting with the spirit, that part of us and of life which is possibly the least physical, the least material.

Yet, as humans, the way we know, is through the senses of our physical body - we can't know anything but that it is experienced through our body, so perhaps spiritual cannot be separate from the physical.

When I think of practicing a spiritual way of life, I think of spending more of my attention on the awareness of the fragility and fleetingness of life so that I pay special attention to that which is most precious - the nurturing of life. I think of cultivating the ability to maintain a sense of peace and serenity in my being; practicing recognizing when I am agitated or disturbed, and practicing shifting back into a balanced and calm clear state. Rather than focusing on changing the things around me to make me feel better, I feel spiritual work is done inside - in the mind, in the imagination, in the heart - but within. It can be done with eyes closed, in the stillness, and often is easier done that way.

A Meditation Practice

2008-09-13T20:16:00.000-07:00

The meditation practice has begun. Many teachers have said that the longest journey is to the meditation cushion.

What is it about sitting still, resting in the present, that is so far from our natural next step.

I surprise myself sitting. Surprise myself at what returns. At the settling down. At the depth that comes in the grounding. At the peace. At the insight. Not so far, not deep like it was just before my father died in 1994. Then it was an amazing time, like entering Aladdin's cave, so many insights and understandings, wanting to stop to catch them, and instead, letting go, releasing the capturing mind, releasing the thoughts, and just settling deeper and deeper into an awareness of being, beyond awareness, into just being.

When my father died November 9th, 1994, my practices dissolved, but they had supported me tremendously until that point, given me the courage to be with my dying father the days before he died.

Tonight again I will sit. For it is in sitting that I come to my center, the resting spot. In sitting I come to know what is important to do and what I can let go of.

I will remember the different teachers of compassion and awareness who have taught me, and what they have taught me.

Meditation

2008-08-28T16:24:00.000-07:00

Having a daily meditation practice is essential to a deepening calm and spiritual connection and awareness. I have several times had a daily practice, and the results were amazing.

Today, I don't have a daily practice, but I'm getting ready to start.

more to come.

Questions from a Friend

2008-08-17T09:35:00.001-07:00

Whenever I tell some stories about my interest in Buddhism and how it led to a short but life changing experience as a Buddhist nun, in America, people are very curious, very interested. Why would be content enough for a fascinating book. But for now, here are a couple of questions I just received, listed here to prompt some more notes.

What would draw you towards becoming a nun in the Buddhist tradition? Was it more about the charismatic leader, or questions within yourself, or attraction to a lifestyle and where were you coming from?

What were the vows you had to take, what was required of you on a daily basis?

How might a Buddhist nun's life differ from a Catholic nun's life?

Was it difficult? Were there longings during that time that could not be satisfied? What were the joys and the benefits for you?

Practice

2008-08-15T18:30:00.000-07:00

My youngest brother and I share an intellectual - as well as practical - inquiry into the spiritual. Putting it in writing now begs the question of what exactly both of those ideas mean. But that, later.

One day we were talking and he asked me, what did you take out of the time you spent as a nun. You don't show any signs of being influenced by the three years you were involved in the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.

What is still with you?

At that moment I had only a one word answer.
Practice.

You might think I was speaking of the daily practices of prayer and meditation. That isn't what I meant. That isn't what has resulted for me. I meant the ordinary practice of being. Of course, with that one word, we could talk a lifetime, not to mention, live a lifetime, which is exactly the point.

Looking back, looking at how I dove in and learned as much as I could, my crime, one of earnestness, if that is a crime, and it may well be. Little to show for it now. Looking ordinary. Invisible actually in the middle age grayness and diminishing fitness. In fact even inside, you might say there is little to show for it. No more chanting. No more meditation on the guru's face. No more visualization - for the most part. No more wearing the colors. No more part of a community.

What is left?

Practice. Every day, every moment of the day, practicing being.

And is practicing being continuing the practice of compassion and awareness, continuing on the journey of developing one's increasing realizations? More to be explored about that.

Is it harder to be reminded of compassion without all the support that being an ordained monk offers. Of course it is harder.

In the formal practice everything you do and think and feel is associated with compassion and wisdom. The red, brown color of the robes - compassion. The yellow shirt and special ceremonial robes - wisdom. The beginning of prayer and meditation - establishing compassion as the intention. Every ritual implement has profound meaning and symbolism. Every syllable in mantra. There are levels of meaning, the surface meaning, the inner meaning and the secret meaning. One is protected and supported in one's intention on every level. Every thought, every feeling, every action is meant to be and can be moved towards being the embodiment of compassion wisdom.

Is it easier to be distracted from developing one's compassion and wisdom and seeking realization as a lay person, without all the ritual, implements and spiritual practices. You bet.

It is like stepping out of a rocket in space. Floating, rather than being in a vehicle of mission and focus.

Yet there is something very valuable to be learned from taking that formalized experience - such as it was in America, in a monastery-free setting, where the ordained worked ordinary jobs to support themselves - and returning to ordinary life.

Something to see - what is the kernel, beneath the Tibetan forms, beneath the language, the symbols, the ritual implements. What it is like to reintegrate without taking any of the formal forms. What shows up. What remains.

What does practice look like if one does not practice the practices as they were taught. Some would say, "not much!" And that might be true.

Still, it's there.

There in the audio cassette tapes of Sogyal Rinpoche's Tibetan Wisdom for Living and Dying that I bought decades ago, sitting in my car, ready for when I need to reconnect with. Tapes I gave to the people closest to me, to share with them the most profound wisdom I felt I had known this life.

It's there in giving my step-Dad, Charles, in his late 80s a signed copy of the The Tibetan Wisdom for Living and Dying book by Tibetan Buddhist teacher Sogyal Rinpoche.

It's there in requesting of my family who lived with Charles, to bring the Buddhist statue down from Charles' study to be beside his bed during his last days, to be a visual reminder of transcendence. There when my niece went upstairs to his study to carry down this big statue and put it nearby him.

There as one of my past sweethearts was dying in the hospital in Chapel Hill this past July. When I dared talk to him about dying. About holding the face of someone he loved dearly in his mind. Of being aware of moving his consciousness up his spine through his crown chakra as practice for dying.

There, when the terror of violence from the news spills inside my mind like a poison gas and I feel I can not bear the fear arising from hearing of a young mother's murder in the next town over. When I began to meditate again in a quiet space. Lighting a candle. Setting my intention for compassion for all beings in all of creation. Calling upon the visualization that was given us in an empowerment by His Holiness Penor Rinpoche. Reminding me that all this form that we experience, is ultimately emptiness.

There is more, much much more. But for today this is all.

Updated 8/16/08

The Turtle with the Broken Back

2008-08-14T13:12:00.000-07:00

In my Bird Songs and Squirrel Tales blog I tell the story of a turtle with a broken shell in the road one morning on the way to work in Cary, North Carolina. I take it to the side of the street, out of the sun, under a bush and some leaves. Then hours later, feel compelled to return to find it and take it to a wildlife hospital, the Piedmont Animal Hospitall, which by then I had researched on the internet. I delivered it, alive. You can read the rest of that story, there. But here I want to focus on this next question.

Why did it matter so much to me, that I researched help for the wounded wildlife animal, and went back to find the turtle and take it to a hospital?

People say, "You did what? For a turtle?"

So why do I care so much about the suffering of other living creatures?

I always cared. We buried baby birds and kittens that died in little metal bandaid containers, wrapped in toilet paper. We tied thread around sticks to make crosses and stuck them in the ground above the burial plot.

We were up in arms when in Saudi Arabia, we heard the gunshots and Mom told us that they were shooting the stray dogs. We children, we outraged. We found several of the dogs from our local pack of wild - but friendly - dogs, dead. We dug holes for them in the dirt, and we buried them. We had ceremonies to grieve and honor their lives. (The story will be in Apricot Tomorrows.)

But after being exposed to Tibetan Buddhism in the 1990s the depth of concern and action increased deeply.

We hear about the starfish story. About people walking along the beach seeing hundreds of starfish on the sand at low tide. The concern is that they will die out of the water. So one person begins throwing them back in, one at a time. While someone else says, "What's the use? There's so many, you can't save them all." And the answer is, "For the ones that get thrown back in, it is everything, they get to live." (More or less the story.)

It was Seven Years in Tibet, the movie I went to see just before I requested novice ordination in a Tibetan Buddhist lineage in Maryland. They mentioned that while building a movie theater in one of the Tibetan cities, the builders had to be careful about the worms, about not hurting them, and about relocating them.

It is a little puzzling to me now, as I know the Tibetans eat meat. So how is eating meat consistent with being concerned about worms? I can't answer everything. But it did have an impact. I began looking at the smallest life as being worth protecting.

We also were taught that every living creature is on its path, and that its life is precious to it. That really sunk in, deep. The way it can be with children, before they are taught to become jaded.

So I pick up worms - sometimes after a rainstorm there are so many. Maybe they drown even on the sidewalks. And if not, when the sun comes out, many don't live. But if I see one living on a sidewalk, I usually bend down and pick it up to send it over to a grassy area. If it's a creature, insect or reptile, that I'm not comfortable picking up I may use a stick or something to move it out of human traffic - foot traffic, or bicycles.

My friends laugh at me. Maybe in a nice way, maybe thinking I'm off the wall. But I feel the preciousness of life, the preciousness and suffering of being alive. And the teachings do talk about what we do coming back to us. Kind of like the Christian teaching of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Karma. Saving a small life, not just benefiting the little creature, but maybe also benefiting my own life, or the life of others. The kindness spreading. Who knows really?

But definitely, I feel more connected, more compassionate, more committed by these small acts of acknowledging and protecting life. How bad can that be.

Statues of the Buddha

2008-07-27T10:18:00.000-07:00

A wooden Buddha statue likely from Laos.

On April 11th, 2008, my stepfather passed away. He was 93 years old and had a full and healthy life, including ten years in Laos, where he collected a number of Buddhist statues, including this one above. Of all of his statues, except the one he gave me, this one calls to me most. The serenity in the face. The stillness in the posture. The simplicity of the face. The rich sensory quality of the hair spikes on the head, and the simple clear and tall rise above the head.

As Charles, my stepfather, was dying, I had encouraged my family to bring this Buddha down by his side, so he could be reminded unconsciously, of one of the Buddhist teachings. It was taught to me that if possible it is ideal for a dying person to envision their consciousness ejecting from their body through the top of their head, through what is also known as the crown chakra. These tall cap like designs above Buddha heads to me are that reminder.

On a sensory level as I see them I imagine my consciousness embodying not only the physical limits of my body (within my skin) but also stretching up above my head in a reach towards eternity.

My stepfather had also given me a little wood Buddha that was given him by a monk, might have been from Burma. The statue of the Buddha came off from the wooden base it was in, possibly for easier packing. It was one of the most precious gifts I have ever received and one that I have had close to me for at least ten years. It is the center piece of my meditation altar and calls me to a simple appreciation and compassion when I set eyes on it.

Reflections

2008-05-23T09:46:00.000-07:00

It really does feel so strange now to look back over the past few decades and to see that I was involved in at the margins or close to the heart of different communities of people who have made the news. Perhaps the parallel might be if I were active in a small town, probably the mayor of the town never had a book written about them. But some of the leaders from communities I was involved with have been controversial celebrities of a kind.

Chogyam Trungpa is both spoken of as a brilliant life catalyzing spiritual teacher, and in the same breath, as a crazy drunken out of control man, who was beyond liberal in his sexual relations. So too, though many will disagree with the parallel, Alyce Zeoli or Jetsunma, is also spoken of as a brilliant change catalyzing spiritual teacher, and, also, perhaps more so than Trungpa Rinpoche, very controversial as to her integrity.

Other communities I've been part of have not been so noted, or notorious. The Unitarian, Roman Catholic and Episcopal Churches; the schools I attended, including The Forum School of Rome; the universities I attended, including Smith College, The University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Tunghai University, Beijing Normal University and Tufts University (and yes there were others for individual courses); the global nomad community, the Chinese community in Arlington/Lexington Massachusetts; the companies I've worked for including Liberty Mutual, MIT, SAS Institute among others... It is the two Buddhist communities which stand out the most.

What does it feel like to have been part of those two communities? At the time it was exhilerating. It felt like living on the crest of the waves - at the forefront of the moment. At other times it has felt confusing - if one's communities are not respected by all, and are controversial, then how does one hold that connection? Do I forget it happened?

And now, as I enter my later years, I am seeking a way to hold that connection.

Meeting Trungpa's Students

2008-05-12T04:14:00.000-07:00

In January 1978, I moved into a Buddhist Study Group group home on Cherry Street in Northhampton. Rent was $125/month for a large one room with shared bath. It was on the other side of the railroad tracks from the downtown center. The people who lived there were students of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

There I had my first experience meditating in a group.

I recall hearing about a troubling event at a summer retreat from a young man who had attended. Interesting now to see it written about in Stripping the Guru by Geoffrey D. Falk. See the online chapter on Trungpa, A Wild and Crazy Wisdom Guy. Do a FIND for " The pacifist poet William Merwin and his wife, Dana".

More to come.

Websites:
Karma Kagyu Lineage
The Shambhala Organization founded by Trungpa
Pema Chodron, one of Trungpa most famous students, nun, writer

Beginnings

2008-05-11T14:54:00.001-07:00

While growing up in the Mediterranean region I lived around Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Muslim and Jewish holy grounds. I had no contact with Buddhism. None, until I went to college in Western Massachusetts in the US. In the Connecticut River valley between Northampton and Amherst there was a lot of interesting in Buddhism. The Dalai Lama visited numerous times, hosted by the renowned Robert Thurman. Though I did not cross their paths, my connection with Buddhism began there.

A few years before I learned about Buddhism, I had read several Carlos Castaneda books, which had thoroughly captivated me, but I didn't take them as real. Buddhism held similar mystique for me as a young college student. Someone introduced me to Alan Watts' books, and I swallowed them like water. Asia was beguiling: what was behind those exotic words, those exquisitely designed asian writing systems, those different faces with smaller eyes and speech that defies the slightest intuitive comprehension. My inquiry continued.

Chogyam Trungpa. Suzuki Roshi.