"Together Old in Itlay 02" by Miki de Goodaboom. www.mikidegoodaboom.com

By Ven. Chönyi Taylor

It’s official. I am now old, an old fogey. I have passed the 70th-birthday benchmark. And I feel myself changing.

It is a bit like being an adolescent all over again, except that the unstoppable bodily changes herald old fruit rather than fresh flowers. I can now talk about “young people” as anyone under the age of 50. When I fumble with my credit card in the supermarket, I sense the irritation of these speedy youngsters. They are totally unaware of the fact that they, too, will become an old fogey, unless they die before then. We are mostly unseen. A recent magazine supposedly reporting “what women want” did not have one picture in its several articles of anyone over the age of 40, let alone 70. There is no celebration of old age as there is of attaining adulthood. No one, it seems, wants to be reminded of imminent and inevitable death. Perhaps celebration is the wrong approach to aging. 

We celebrate spring rather than autumn. Autumn is “the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,” said Keats in “To Autumn.” I can feel myself wanting to be “earthed.” Somehow, digging in the garden, putting new plants in the soil fills this need. The theologian, Paul Tillich called God the “Ground of our Being.” I have always liked Tillich’s phrase. I can easily adapt it to my Buddhist understandings. The ground of my being is my “Buddha Potential.” But it is deeper than just potential. The ground of my being is my absorption in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. We Buddhists talk about grounds: the grounds and paths to enlightenment. 

The path shows the way forward. The ground is what we have established. Sitting here in the garden, protected from the wind, I allow a sense of absorption to pervade me. All of it, the warmth, the protection, the spring flowers, the prayer flags, my dog guarding the gate, the people walking past my gate to the beach … all of these are pervaded by this same energy. Whatever happens I feel quiet, still, grounded. It may be spring in the garden, but it is autumn in my heart.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?  
think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—  
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

The songs of autumn are the songs of the grounds of our being. 

Many years ago I wrote a poem, unaware that it would one day apply to me. Back then I was one of those young ones who were irritated by the old woman holding up the supermarket queue. These were liberated ladies in that they all belonged to a club for women with university education, but I guess they still fumbled in the supermarket. They were no fools. Now I am one of them.

liberated ladies

By Ven. Chönyi Taylor

The liberated ladies sit and nod
as each autumnal leaf
falls past the sun …
passions
half remembered caricatures
of round full fruit.

They will not hold the sun,
but fold their shoulders warm
with friendly ghosts.

Softly, gently,
each soothing monotone
will sink into the earth …

more like a fruit
than like a stone. 

Perhaps as we get older the practice of Dharma becomes more important than Dharma practice. By this I mean that awareness of the ever-present Buddha energy, arranging one’s mind towards constant compassion, and settling into such knowingness, are more important than the formal words and even the mantras that we recite each day.

These days, I am more interested in making sure the ground beneath my feet is firm. I have many lifetimes ahead with new paths. At least I can carry some of this grounding into my next life.

Ven. Chönyi Taylor is a registered Foundational Buddhism FPMT teacher and an elder for the Discovering Buddhism at Home Course. She is the author of Enough! A Buddhist Approach to Working with Addictive Patterns (Snow Lion, 2010) and has been published in Mandala, Buddhadharma, Dharma Vision and Sangha Magazine. She is a founding member and member of the training committee of the Australian Association of Buddhist Counsellors and Psychotherapists and an Honorary Lecturer in the Discipline of Psychiatry at Sydney University.

“What Death Is All About.” Image courtesy of Athina (chryssalis.deviantart.com).

By Ven. Chönyi Taylor

“… I’d been craving on and off, since I was fifteen, for Death to come and take me the way the wind does a dry leaf out on its limb.”¹

Suicide is a great tragedy and behind each one is unbearable pain. Tong-len² practice is about breathing in this pain, and to do that effectively, we need to be fully open to the experience of that pain. On my daily walk to the beach, I tried to imagine how it would appear to a suicidal person. It was a sparkly, windy day. A wild riot of waves threw themselves at the beach. The piercing cold from overnight storms was tempered by a late winter sun. I was exhilarated, but I had not yet imagined being in those other shoes. When I did, the brightness hurt my eyes. The wind was malignant. The waves taunted me endlessly. My walk became a fearful journey. Where were my enemies? That elderly couple walking towards me? Or were they hiding in the runnels of sand, newly created by the storm? Or leaving messages in the tangles of seaweed and driftwood? Everything threatened. And with each threat, the beach became more and more menacing.

I was glad that I was only imagining this overwhelming oppression and fear. I let it go and returned to that initial exhilaration. Merlin danced around and barked at me to play.

Why would anyone want to die?

Mood disorders are terribly painful illnesses, and they are isolating illnesses. And they make people feel terrible about themselves when, in fact, they can be treated. … These are serious illnesses; they kill just as cancer does. They lead to alcohol and drug abuse in many people. They’re devastating, and they’re treatable.³

At one stage of my life I was one of those people. My reason, believe it or not, was altruistic. Since so many other people and creatures enjoyed life, why should I use the water and breathe the air and eat the food that they otherwise might not have available to them? This was long before I discovered Buddhism. I was not craving death. I just could not see any point in being alive. I never got as far as contemplating how I would die, but just that it seemed a worthy and generous gift to others. Fortunately for my children, I decided that it would be unfair for them to be without a mother during their early childhood. I put off the idea and it never really came back.

I knew my life to be a shambles, and I believed – incontestably – that my family, friends, and patients would be better off without me. There wasn’t much of me left anymore, anyway, and I thought my death would free up the wasted energies and well-meant efforts that were being wasted on my behalf.⁴

Since as Buddhists we believe that all suffering comes from the mind, then the mind is the answer to everything. In the end, this is so. But in the meantime, many people are caught up in the anguish of untreatable physical and mental illnesses that no amount of rational thought will cure. Rational thought only deals with the manifestations – the symptoms – of the disease. Severe depression, as distinct from feeling low, is firmly embedded in our bodies as a dependent-arising.

There was the phase in my life when, like Van Gogh, I would have happily chopped off my right ear and for the same reason, Ménière’s disease. I have had a constant, irritating tinnitus for over 30 years. Like the suicidal thoughts in depression, chopping off one’s ear is a desperate attempt to escape irritating and unremittent pain. By that time, though, I had come across Buddhism. I did not know a lot about it, but what I knew gave me hope. My theme became “work with your mind and your body will take care of itself.” Karma, however, has a big say in what anyone’s body can or cannot do. Karma has given me a few blips in my serotonin pathways. This is called “depression.” But knowing this does not always overcome the lethargy or despair or carping self-criticism. I can, indeed, work with my mind to accept my limitations and apply the principles of thought transformation. When I do, then I am left with the physical effects of mental illness – that same lethargy – but without the despair of self-criticism. Sometimes our medications are the ripening of positive karma, not a condemnation for not dealing with negative karma. Some people need their lithium pills, I need my anti-depressants, type 1 diabetics need their insulin.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has often been asked for advice about depression. Sometimes he suggests specific prayers and practices for different people. But more generally, he mentions karma as a cause of depression. To one person, he suggested cutting down on sugar and sweets for three months. More importantly, he says:

When depression comes, use it against the ego, the self-cherishing thought, which has given you the depression. Then rejoice, “How wonderful it is to have depression in that it can destroy the ego!” Rather than the ego defeating you, you defeat the ego. Rejoice how it’s wonderful to have depression. It means you have succeeded in the prayers you made in the past to experience all the sufferings of other sentient beings, especially the important one, the depression of all sentient beings.⁵

This self-cherishing thought, and the underlying self-grasping, is precisely what we are trying to eliminate through our Dharma practice. So if, like me, you experience clinical depression, then coming to understand the depths of the wisdom of emptiness becomes a very poignant activity … and so it should.

Next time you hear about someone committing suicide, please be aware of how intense the pain must be to drive that person to such drastic, irredeemable action. Think about that devastating sense of hopelessness.

And yet, it is, at the end of the day, the individual moments of restlessness, of bleakness, of strong persuasions and maddened enthusiasms, that inform one’s life, change the nature and direction of one’s work, and give final meaning and color to one’s loves and friendships.⁶

Oh, if only a suicidal person could experience my joy when walking along the beach. Ah, but that is the nitty gritty of tong-len practice. What a wonderful practice. How joyful to share one’s exuberance.

Ven. Chönyi Taylor is a registered Foundational Buddhism FPMT teacher and an elder for the Discovering Buddhism at Home Course. She is the author of Enough! A Buddhist Approach to Working with Addictive Patterns (Snow Lion, 2010) and has been published in Mandala, Buddhadharma, Dharma Vision and Sangha Magazine. She is a founding member and member of the training committee of the Australian Association of Buddhist Counsellors and Psychotherapists and an Honorary Lecturer in the Discipline of Psychiatry at Sydney University.

“Rain” by Janine (janineomg) via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution.

By Ven. Chönyi Taylor

I live in an incredible beautiful part of Australia: down south, near Wilson’s Promontory. It is so beautiful, and also so windy that Shallow Inlet, curving around behind the town, is considered one of the best places in the world for wind surfing. This same wind sweeps up the street and swirls around my house. Whatever the wind’s direction, it pulls off the leaves, throws the plants into a frenzy and wails around the chimney. This is not conducive to sitting outside under the veranda unless one likes wind. I installed bistro blinds. What had been a desolate, wind-swept veranda was instantly transformed into a large and congenial space.

Sometimes we need to face the elements, but sometimes they are too much.

As I increasingly experience the suffering of old age, my need for protection has become more important. My skin tears and bruises more easily. My hearing and sight are no longer accurate. Then there is my mind. Like many older people, I fear the possibility of dementia; I actually should be more fearful for the imprints, the karma, I create. Our positive karmic imprints can be fragile and need protection. The winds of desire with its graspings and aversions begin to howl and complain more loudly as our bodies crumble towards death. What to do?

My mind needs its own bistro blinds ‒ something that allows it to see the outside world without being tossed around by it, a way of staying in touch without being overwhelmed. A strong equanimity that can withstand the raging heat of desire and the painful hailstones of aversion would be good. But I cannot buy equanimity. It is something I have to make myself. It is made, so Buddha told us, from judging rightly, without bias, without attachment or aversion.

It is equanimity which gives us the chance to see the elements raging from the recesses of our minds with clarity. Our ego says, “I want everything good for me.” The stronger the ego, the more grimly we hang onto what we want, despite its impermanence, or franticly reject what we don’t want. The fierce heat of grimness, the hailstones of panic rage around. Equanimity is the first line of defence against the self-centred, self-grasping ego. Equanimity arises only when we are not concerned about our egos.

We need equanimity in so many ways. In meditation, equanimity refers to the balance between too much mental activity (excitement) and not enough (mental dullness). When we train in compassion we begin by developing the equanimity that sees all sentient beings as the same in the sense that we all want happiness and not suffering. We judge them rightly, correctly, without our tendency to label sentient beings as friend, enemy or stranger. With our clear equanimity bistro blinds, we are no longer thrown around by the turmoil that comes from such labels and our emotional reaction to the labels.

Since I cannot put up the inner bistro blinds alone, I need help, a qualified contractor. I am not alone. I call in the contractor. If we do need help, then it makes sense to ask for it. Here is a real life story:

“During my fifth year at primary school I began to experience strange voices inside my head,” Josh explained. “They seemed to replace normal sounds, such as wind in the trees or the noise of a person climbing a staircase. It was like a collision of thousands of human voices, which were aggressive and very frightening. It got so that every sound I heard was transformed into these voices, sometimes for hours on end and especially when I was trying to fall asleep at night. I felt so helpless and frightened and covered my ears with a pillow to block them out, but this only made them a little less loud. I often cried myself to sleep, but even my whimpering made them come.

“My parents didn’t know where to take me for help,” Josh continued. “Then Lama Yeshe came to Melbourne. I felt apprehensive about visiting him but he greeted me with extreme kindness and warmth. His beaming smile made me feel completely relaxed. He made me sit beside him on cushions and asked me about the voices. Then he poured some special medicine into a bowl of hot water, placed a towel over both our heads and together we inhaled the vapors. It was just like inhaling eucalyptus, and I felt wonderfully relaxed and protected by his presence. We did this for some time, then Lama gave me a big hug and told me I would never hear the voices again. I believed him and from that day on I never did.”¹

Equanimity is the internal protector. It is held fast by the external protectors. Lama Zopa Rinpoche has given us lots of advice for protection from external storms, disasters and harmful energies. Much of this is available from the Foundation Store in the form of protection practices, cards, amulets and stickers. If you type “protection” in the search box at Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archives, it will come up with 160 references.

1. Josh Aitken, quoted in Adele Hulse’s Big Love and related in conversation with me many years ago. He is now a father himself and has had no more voices in his head or other signs of schizophrenia.

By Ven. Chönyi Taylor

Photo from Scrapetv.com

I know it can smell revolting. I know that possums and rats get a good feed from it. I know that it contains only leftovers, discarded peels and old food from the fridge, shredded paper from my office and dead leaves. But since I cannot sit next to a rotting corpse and meditate on death, why not sit next to the compost bin instead? It is almost as revolting a place to meditate as beside a corpse.

Impermanence and death feature high in my mind. I read, in the lists generated by FPMT Prayers for the Dead, how many have died at an older age than mine and how many at a younger age. The balance is tipping. Once they were mostly older people, but soon it will be mostly younger people. This is a good reason to prepare for my own demise. One day my body will be as loathsome as my compost bin.

When my compost is at its most loathsome, it is time to turn it over and put it on the garden, recycling the rubbish (at least that which has not already been eaten by the local fauna) to create good soil, good humus. The plants will benefit and produce pleasure or shelter or food. And so my compost meditation takes a new turn. My inner rubbish can be purified and become of benefit. It can provide food for others … “don’t make my mistakes.” As it rots away, only that which can benefit remains … “my efforts at improving my mind may be slow and may feel loathsome, but that is the purification process, after all.”

Loathsome? Well it is to me, but obviously not to the possums. Merely labeled “loathsome.” Aha, a new way to meditate on my compost!

But let me meditate on the positive side of my compost bin and its contents. In the end it creates humus, good soil, opportunities for growth. This label, “humus” has a number of interesting links. It is derived from Latin, where “humus” means “ground” or “earth.” Words like “human,” “humor,” “humility” and “humiliation” all go back to this rootedness in the earth. Now my compost meditation can spread in many directions.

Humility and humiliation have the same root, but very different meanings. They both refer to being low, at ground level, but we can choose to be there or we can be forced to be there. We can be grounded or ground up. Who gets to clean the toilets? Usually, the lowest rung of society. Humility means choosing to clean abhorrent waste and seeing it as an honor. If an inanimate object could be humble, then surely that would apply to my compost bin. What a laugh. Those who do the worst jobs have the opportunity to create the great spiritual quality of humility. Humor also comes from the same root!

Now my compost bin meditation has led me to the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation. The second verse says, “When in the company of others, I shall always consider myself the lowest of all, and from the depths of my heart hold others dear and supreme.” This is a statement of humility.

Saint Isaac, the Syrian, a 7th century Orthodox saint, put it this way: “How can a man acquire humility? … By an unceasing remembrance of errors; by an anticipation of approaching death; by inexpensive clothing; by always preferring the last place; by always running to do the tasks that are the most insignificant and distasteful; by not being disobedient; by unceasing silence; by a dislike of gatherings; by desiring to be unknown and of no account; by never holding to one sort of work exclusively; by shunning conversations with numerous persons; by abhorrence of material gain.”¹

Tibetans look at a person who holds himself above others and they say that person is like someone sitting on a mountain top: it is cold there, it is hard and nothing will grow. But if the person puts himself in a lower position, then that person is like a fertile field – a field of humus, a person of humility. My compost bin has many teachings if I care to listen.

By Ven. Chönyi Taylor

By Ven. Chönyi Taylor

Photo by Amanda M. Hatfield

There’s the story of the fisherman hanging on to his capsized boat and asking God for help. He turns away a surfer on his board, a jet ski, another boat and even a helicopter saying, “No, God will save me!” After many hours, the fisherman, feeling destitute, pleads to God, “Where are you?” Eventually God looks down from the clouds and says, “I sent you a surfer, a jet skier, a boat and even a helicopter. What else do you expect me to do?”

Of course we would not be like that, or would we? “I’ve been practicing so hard. All those mantras and prostrations and hours of meditation. They’re not working. Nothing is happening. I’m still suffering.”

I remember my early days as a Buddhist when I still imagined that Buddhism was the key to all my suffering (true) and this release from suffering would happen almost immediately (false) because I was being a virtuous practitioner (false). I was making strong requests to Avalokiteshvara that I quickly realize the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation[1]. This is a very powerful practice for exposing our self-cherishing ego (true), but I was strong and could manage the intense purification (false). Suddenly I found myself in the middle of a series of difficult situations, all of which gave me opportunities to practice thought transformation. “No, no,” I said mentally to Avalokiteshvara, “it’s too much. I’ll take my Dharma practice more slowly.”

Suffering is not an obstacle to our Dharma practice. It is our Dharma practice. Or to be more precise, it is only through suffering that we experience our lack of wisdom and compassion and are moved to act so we can change the situation. Removing one form of suffering simply exposes deeper and more subtle levels of suffering, but by this time we have more effective skills to bring into the situation. This remains true right up to the moment before we become a buddha, so there is no point in complaining.

Then there are the immediate causes as well as the root cause for our dissatisfaction with ourselves and our lives. Removing the immediate causes, where it is possible, is like the fisherman accepting the surfer’s offer for a ride back to shore. If we suffer from diabetes, then we can remove some immediate causes through the appropriate diet. When that is not enough, then medication gives us the opportunity to live a full and meaningful life, even if this means daily injections. The same applies to psychiatric medications. If our serotonin levels are down, then finding an effective way to lift them allows us to function more effectively. Unfortunately these are called antidepressants. If we simply called them serotonin boosters, then maybe we would be less likely to have an aversion to them.

Removing an immediate cause to our suffering does not eliminate the root cause, our grasping at a self that does not exist. It can however help us on the way to finding the root cause. We are happy to set up the right environmental conditions to meditate. We are happy to be mindful of the food we eat. Medication is only concentrated food.

We tend not to fuss so much about taking medicine for diabetes or asthma. But we get confused when the disorder is in the brain. Bizarre behavior can sometimes be the result of a tumor or trauma to part of the brain. When we know that, then we excuse the bizarre behavior, maybe try to modify it a bit if we can. When the physical problem relates to faulty neurochemistry, we are not so accepting. There is no identifiable lesion, therefore (we falsely argue) the problem is in my mind and meditation will help more than medication.

Maybe that is true. Maybe the problem has arisen from chronic stress or severe trauma or faulty patterns of thought, and the various interactions between these factors. Calming the mind can and does help, but this may not be enough to change the negative karma which has resulted in a neurological disorder.

Maybe, just maybe, the correct medication is the ripening of your positive karma.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with retreat participants inside the structure of the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion in Bendigo, Australia, April 2011. Photo by George Manos.

By Ven. Chönyi Taylor

It was a very subdued atmosphere in retreat at Atisha Centre. Suddenly our various expectations of being rescued from our unwanted situations have gone. Our guru, Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche is in the hospital, his right side paralyzed, unable to speak. The weakness of the human body, even that of the guru, is alarmingly apparent. We cannot talk to him or tell him our concerns or ask for blessings. Or to be more precise, we cannot do these things with his current emanation.

The rest of the world continues: a light, cool breeze, sunshine, scurrying ants and a bush renewed by recent rains. In the distance, cars pass on their Easter holiday activities. From the gompa come the sounds of prayers: Medicine Buddha, light offerings, mantras. These are dedicated to our guru’s long life, but they cannot alter this one fact that at some stage this present body of his will die. What will we do then? We discover that we had assumed that our guru would last forever. Indeed he will, but not in this current body that we know and love.

It is hard to imagine FPMT with neither Lama Yeshe nor Lama Zopa, yet the time will come when this will happen. More than ever we need to understand guru devotion.

First there is the listening, his instructions so softly whispered at times that we strain to hear. Listening is not easy. It is in our silences that the guru can speak to us, when we plant his feet firmly at the corolla of lotus petals in our hearts and wait. In silence and openness we can become aware. We wait. “Lama, think of me” we say, but we do not always stop to listen to what he says. Listening means waiting. Listening means the guru is always present.

Having listened, then we act. There is a particular way of carrying out the guru’s instructions. It is called humility. Atisha Centre, so little for so many years, has suddenly flowered after the drought. How did so few members bring the vision of Lama Yeshe into reality? They listened and then when the time was ripe, they acted.

We all agree that harmony in our centers is important in extending the lives of our teachers. Harmony comes from humility. Humility is a simple recognition firstly of our limitations and secondly that our strengths come through benefits given to us by others. Humility does not push to the front seat, or beg desperately for the guru’s time. Humility does not see my offerings as best or my prayer sessions more powerful or my devotion as stronger than anyone else. Humility recognizes that sometimes other people can be right and I can be wrong. Humility gives the victory to others. Humility acknowledges that I can choose to create disharmony or harmony.

If we really understand the teachings, if we really have an inkling of the power of mind, then we know that we do not need the physical presence of the guru to be blessed by him. It is our restricted mind that grieves when the guru’s current body dies. We forget that we have placed him on our hearts. We forget that the mental continuum is not confined to the physical body. We forget about the clairvoyant powers of a highly developed mind. We forget the enormous number of emanations that a bodhisattva can produce. Above all we forget that in pure guru devotion, the guru is a buddha, fully enlightened, capable of knowing all, deeply compassionate.

“The amount of Dharma you know, the number of realizations you have, depends on how much devotion you have for your guru. The greater your devotion, the greater your Dharma understanding and realizations. It all depends on your guru devotion.” – From “Advice on Guru Practice” by Gomchen Khampala

We have been so profoundly blessed. Lama Zopa, as our guru, teaches us the essence of humility, of compassion and of wisdom. He shows us the qualities we will develop on our individual paths to enlightenment. This will always be true as he remains in his current body, and when the time comes for him to leave it.

Lama Yeshe is still here at Atisha Centre. Lama Zopa is also here among the gum trees and dusty soil and the new statues and gardens and the Great Stupa rising with its steel beams glistening.

For a complete story on the April Australia retreat at which Lama Zopa Rinpoche manifested symptoms of a stroke please refer to page 12 of the July-September 2011 issue of Mandala.

By Ven. Chönyi Taylor

Photo by Bruce Berrien

My tomatoes have not ripened and it is nearly the end of summer.

I awoke this morning to a howling wind, rain and thinking that once again the washing will not dry easily. It was so easy to snuggle under the doona and pretend that the outside world did not exist. I wonder how many million people have the same thought on awaking.

Go away, real world. Here it is still summer. I want my tomatoes to ripen but they have to deal with this relentless wind and little sun. It is not hard to imagine a different world: pleasant day, soft breeze, lying in a hammock and soaking up the sun. Tucked under my doona, which is just what I do, ignoring the sounds of wind and rain. I stick my head up against the pillow. It is newly shaven and sensitive to this cold air. Now I am warm again. I do not want this comfort to end.

I abide solely in this warmth.

It is easy to abide in this way when all is pleasant and it is possible to ignore the rest of the world. Meditation can be like this. Go away world, I do not want to know about you. Call it navel-gazing or narcissism, or attachment to comfort. It is meditation gone wrong. It is meditation in which the post-meditation state is unwanted. We can abide in peace forever, it seems, while everyone else suffers.

If I am to abide in this world, then I am to abide in wind and rain. I am to abide in a world of imperfect people. I am to abide in a world where there is hatred and war and greed and jealousy. And, of course, I also abide in a world of sun and gentle wind, of kindness and sharing and humility. The point is that abiding means being present to all that is around us and not just our personal selection of what we would prefer.

This is often called “being in the moment.” Of course we cannot “be” anywhere else but in the moment. We cannot “be” in the past or the future. It is the enormity of the moment that is overwhelming. It includes the whole universe and everything in it from the biggest galaxy to the tiniest atom. To be in the moment, accepting whatever this moment brings without grasping or aversion, is too much right now. I need to choose which part of this moment to abide in.

Take this moment of watching TV as the images of people being shot and abused appear. If I am to abide in this moment, then I allow the full horror of the conflict into my mind, to feel viscerally the suffering on both sides of the conflict. It means to feel all this without being destroyed by my own awareness. I know I am not capable of being like that. I would need to be a bodhisattva now.

Becoming a bodhisattva does not happen overnight, however strong our intention. We still need to develop the skills. Maybe at this stage I can allow a little of the horror of war to seep into me, but not the lot. It is too much to handle. So I breathe out and relax. Training for me today will be to allow the wind and rain to continue without resentment, that is, with a mind of equanimity.

If my tomatoes ripen, then will I be happy and rejoice at being able to eat them as I pick them? No problem. If my tomatoes do not ripen, then will I be annoyed and frustrated at the wasted time and energy put into growing them? I hope not. So I can choose to use the success or failure of my tomatoes as another training in being a bodhisattva, to acquire a little more equanimity. With equanimity I can drop the good/bad classification of inanimate things, even tomatoes. If I stop classifying them, then I can see them as they are: tomatoes grown in difficult circumstances. That way I might be able to apply the same to animate things, to people, to emotional storms that come my way.

Children growing in difficult circumstances, like tomatoes, may become emotionally stunted, suffering adults. If my equanimity is well developed, I am more likely to see their child or adult self suffering and know what it is. If I can see their suffering, then maybe I can help. If I cannot help, then maybe I can train myself some more. I can grow a little more into bodhisattva-hood and maybe become a buddha one day.

Hmmmm. Who would have thought that worrying about tomatoes could be such good bodhisattva training?

Bristol Shot Tower, Bristol, England, 2009. Photo by Adrian Boliston.

By Ven. Chönyi Taylor

Earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis. There seem to have been a lot of them lately. Our earth is shrugging off some of its pressure and reshaping its surface in the process. What we thought was solid, immovable and permanent, is in fact not. Impermanence is at work.  Impermanence has also made itself felt at Sandy Point, but fortunately not as an earthquake. The balmy spring days have disappeared with a blast of icy wind and rain from the Antarctic.  It was a perfect place to be reborn yesterday, but not today.

My self-cherishing ego (sche) has very clear ideas about a perfect human rebirth. Sche sees balmy days, plenty of food and drink, no illness, not getting old, as the qualities of this perfect birth. Sche would like to be in a place where there would be no need for education because sche would just absorb knowledge without effort.  There would be no computers stalling with the latest virus. The house would remain perfectly clean and tidy without effort on sche’s part. Her back would never be painful. There would be no disagreements because everyone would agree with sche. In fact, no impermanence once that state of perfection has been achieved.

This so called prefect human rebirth of sche sounds suspiciously like the god realms. In fact, sche thinks the god realms are pretty good. Unfortunately, there is still impermanence and sche would still have to die. Anyway, sche is not worried about that. It’s too far in the future and perhaps death could be postponed.

My sche has no interest in the dharma, except when it can feel comfortable. Being blissed out in meditation is OK. Having attention from the guru is great, provided the guru does not challenge sche in any way. Sche only wants to be important, not exposed. Sche is thoroughly dismayed when it does not come top in a Basic Program test, or is required to help clean the gompa. Some voluntary work is OK, provided it brings praise and respect. My sche is thoroughly immersed in the eight worldly dharmas.¹

Of course, that is not what the perfect human rebirth is about. It means a rebirth with uninhibited access to the Dharma, the teachers and the teachings. Unfortunately for my sche, this means being exposed as a fraud, a figment of my imagination, however painful to acknowledge it, however dearly I try to hang onto it. Sche claims to be the source of my happiness and that Dharma progress is measured by comfort. These are things that I very much want.

To get to the real happiness, the lasting happiness, I need an inner earthquake, a major realignment of my mind. Sche has to be challenged and demoted. If I challenge my sche, then I might experience shame, depression, anger and resentment towards the Dharma as I recognize the effects of my sche. Which, then, do I reject? The Dharma or my sche? Sche has always claimed to be my closest and best friend. Dharma makes the same claim. I can’t have both. If I choose Dharma, I can expect earthquakes.

Emptiness poems:  3.

Four times Milarepa²

built a tower, block by block,

hauling each huge stone.

And three times Marpa

made him pull it down.

So I wonder

what Milarepa thought

amongst his drops of sweat,

aching legs and shoulders,

bruises and stinging cuts?

I feel for him, although

my tower building is in my mind

and overheated brain, each

being crudely dismantled

by earthquakes as deeper

strata are realigned –

logic sparking ancient patterns

for a subterranean settling.

¹ Eight worldly dharmas are: 1. being happy when getting material things and 2. unhappy when not; 3. being happy when experiencing pleasure and 4. unhappy when not; 5. being happy with fame and a good reputation and 6. unhappy with notoriety and a bad reputation; 7. being happy when praised and 8. unhappy when criticized.

² Milarepa is a famous Tibetan yogi, noted for his spiritual poetry, his extensive meditation practice and unorthodox methods. He sought a teacher after realizing that killing people who annoyed him was not a good way to live. He requested Marpa to be his teacher, but Marpa apparently ignored him, not allowing  Milarepa to attend teachings and giving him jobs such as building towers that Marpa subsequently knocked down.

By Ven. Chönyi Taylor

My horse, Merlin

I have decided my dog is actually a horse. After all, he has four legs and runs along the beach and he likes eating carrots. Unfortunately, since I started feeding him hay, he has lost weight; he resents being saddled. Anyway, the saddle is too big and I cannot find a blacksmith to make shoes for him. He also has this unusual habit of chasing seagulls. I haven’t seen horses doing that before. I think you would agree that Merlin is a nice name for a horse. Other people insist he is a dog. I don’t know why.

Now that I believe Merlin is a horse, then there are things to do and ways of relating to him that do not apply if he is a dog. I have to change the way I feed and groom him. He will need a stable instead of a kennel – although, he is a small horse, so his kennel may do as a stable. I wonder if hay is cheaper than dog food?

You do not agree? No matter how much you try, if I absolutely insist he is a horse, then nothing you can say would make me change my mind. I would just rationalize away the inconsistencies. I could, like any one of the three Messiahs in the psychiatric hospital¹, pretend you are not there, say are a mental case, or say you are simply wrong.

In fact, every appearance in our daily lives is a false projection of our own mind. Our own mind makes it up and it becomes an obstacle to touching reality. My projection, or delusion, that Merlin is a horse becomes an obstacle to looking after him. My delusion that I inherently exist is an obstacle to being in touch with reality as it actually exists.

You have to see that your attitudes, your view of the world, of your experiences, of your girlfriend or boyfriend, of your own self, are all the interpretation of your own mind, your own imagination. They are your own projection, your mind literally made them up. If you don’t understand this then you have very little chance of understanding emptiness. – Lama Yeshe

Which brings me to the important part of the story. We firmly and habitually believe that we exist as an inherent entity. Because we believe this, we act accordingly. We experience fear that we might not exist after death. We hang on to whatever we believe will prevent this from happening. If teachers present us with the facts about reality, we either ignore them or think they are mad. If we are lucky, we will begin to see reality as they do.

Merlin is definitely not an illusion. He is sitting at my feet right now wondering when I will get up and feed him. If, say through hypnosis, I see a horse in front of me then the trance has affected my eyesight. When I am no longer trapped by the hypnotic effect, then I see his actual dependently-arising shaggy face. If I still think that this shaggy face is a horse’s head, then I am definitely deluded.

Actually, Merlin prefers me to consider him as a dog. That way he gets doggy type meals, a bed inside near the fire, soft toys to play with. He is a much happier horse.

Realizing emptiness is like this. Firstly, we need to one see though the delusion. We can do this through logic. You can prove to me that Merlin cannot be a horse. We can prove that inherent existence is impossible. It is more difficult to get rid of the habits which accompanied the deluded thought. Once I understand he is really a dog, then I stop giving him hay, which in terms of the metaphor means to stop creating negative karma through delusions. Don’t give him hay (negative outcome of delusion), give him dog food (positive outcome of being in touch with reality).

When we investigate our own psychology, we can remove our afflictive obscurations² or negative outcomes which arise from our deluded thoughts. This is a bit like me agreeing (to satisfy you, because I trust you) to feed my horse dog food because it is better for this horse. But it is only when I see the truth, when I see through my delusion, that I really understand why giving him dog food really is best for him. It is only when we know what we are refuting when we talk about emptiness that we can see the truth of the teachings on emptiness. There really is no point in grasping on to something that does not inherently exist just because we believe it inherently exists.

One day it suddenly hits me. Merlin is not a horse, he is a dog. My whole view of Merlin-reality is changed and with it all the problems and paradoxes that arose through my false beliefs. They are simply irrelevant.

With thanks to the DB@H forum!

1. Rokeach, M. (1981). The Three Christs of Ypsilanti. New York: Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1964)

2. Afflictive obscurations: attachment, anger, pride, afflictive ignorance, afflictive doubt, transitory view, wrong view, holding these views as superior, holding ritual and ethics as supreme.