Anxiety Time: Stress vs the Buddha

Anxious: up at night.
Thinking, stressing, waiting - Thin…
(Sleep is for the weak.)

Oddly nauseous.
Fighting for my right to stay
Really not all fun.

Up early In the morn' —
Or is it still late at night?
Is there a diff'rence?

Get-ing there early:
Good, right? Please tell me that's good!
Either way: moving.

Move - Stop — Go - Stoplights - ...
Early buses take longer;
All move as one now.

People take too long!
*Fidget wheels fidget further*
When you feel like this …

Move - Keep moving! - MOVE! - move?
Moving in slow motion, eh?
I see what you do … !

“Mindfulness is it.

Meditation will help you!

Focus on the breath …

Examine the breath.

It’s okay to be like this,

We will help you through.”

Sitting firm, upright.
Zazen shuts the mind right down -
Waves of stillness work.

No one can move oceans
The depth brings the stillness home —
Silence is your friend.

Breath stills the big things
And makes all things quieter
out in out in out …

Quick Links - Week ending 4/12/2015

Welcome in what I hope to do more regularly - a list of quick links and interesting things to share.

This time there is:

Listen to the Soil: A meditator's experiences at Auschwitz

Sinfest - a religious webcomic (with the Buddha as a character)

the Lotus Sutra Song

And now (more) Jeff Bridges:
"Everyone I meet is in my sangha. I don't know if that's the proper definition, but that's the way I'm going to hold it in my mind."

Listen to the Soil: A meditator's experiences at Auschwitz

"Listen to the soil. Let Auschwitz be your teacher." - these words greeted a meditator, raised in an Orthodox Jewish tradition, at the place where the carriers of her culture and cultural identity wept and gnashed their teeth at the hands of those who sought to make all that she was less than a memory.

"For my grandparents, Auschwitz represented more than the place; it was the symbol of the Nazi annihilation of nearly half of Europe's Jews - from six to eleven million - inconceivable numbers of mothers and fathers, daughters and sons gone. Auschwitz also seeded in my grandparents a fear and hate so visceral and terrifying that it seemed to shape every encounter of their lives, including their relationship with me. I saw how my parents carried that inherited fear and hate like an heirloom, and how they lived with it and defined themselves by it and painfully struggled against my anxious longing to unshackle from it.

And I saw in myself how, even though I didn't want it - how desperately I didn't want it - I claimed that same fear and hate I saw in my grandparents and parents and brought it into me. It didn't matter that I wanted so much to reject those stories and seeds, and that I ran away in the thousand ways I could find to run away-still, I became their carrier."

Sounds like an interesting series of posts to keep a watch out for.
[Retrieved from: https://www.upaya.org/2015/11/listening-to-the-soil-reflections-on-bearing-witness-at-auschwitz-berkenau-part-one]

Sinfest - a religious webcomic

Sinfest is an interesting web comic that is based around questions of religious ethics and how they interact with everyday life, the Buddha is an occasional character (an incomplete list of his appearances can be found here.

the Lotus Sutra Song

A sparkling version of "Our Hero"/the Lotus Sutra Song. The creators have more information about it at their website dharmacowboys.com. You have to respect anyone who can slip the word "hegemony" into such an upbeat song.
Also, the chorus has some pleasant words to recall:

"I would never disparage you or keep you at arm's length
Where you only see your weaknesses, I only see your strength
I would never despise you or put you down in any way
Because it's clear to me
I can plainly see
You'll be a buddha someday
I love you."

For more about Bodhisattva Never Disparaging and how to use his example from verse 20 of the Lotus Sutra to enrich your everyday life, I find Open Gate Zen's page to be a good resource.

And finally a word from Master Dogen:

Weird Idea: Reverse Alms

What are alms anyway?

Alms is giving to others as an act of virtue and to humble oneself. It isn’t always physical giving - it could be giving a space or the gift of giving your time. In more modern western terms it is known by another name:

Charity.

The Buddha was said to have had a bowl for his alms, it is one of the few things a Buddhist monk could own. It would be the repository and storehouse for the monk’s possessions and used to eat out of.

There are stories of how this bowl is to be used, like that you can’t just go to the places that you know give good food to monks, but part of the practice is seeking and not finding. Part of the practice is to feel yourself grow tired and hungry out of people ignoring you. Relying on the charity of others makes you more humble.

In the time of the Buddha, there was only one guiding light - the Buddha himself. Now with the help of the modern age you can read many accounts from history and find many places today that practice the giving of charity. This gives the tree of Buddhism that sprouted from the trunk of the Buddha’s teaching many new branches, many new types, many new flavors of Buddhist practice.

Today in the modern world, I see people not too concerned with the idea of Dana, or charitable giving and maybe it’s an idea to ruffle a few feathers about that.

Change it.

I rarely have change in my wallet or pocket, but when I do - I feel weighed down by it. Little pieces of metal that make the weight I carry heavier, and I don’t enjoy that at all. So recently I decided to try to give that weight back.

I started with the idea of taking my change to the streets, first idea - to the street performers, to take the weight weighing me down and using it to give those that work hard to be noticed more. To reward them and to lighten my load all at once. As luck would have it, whenever I had change - I had no street performers to give to.

Sometimes not getting what you want is an incredible stroke of luck!

Time to think again. Time to generate a new idea.

How about I save up my change and give it to a charity at the end of the week or end of the month depending on how much change I generate. A new problem is noticed: How do I select which group is deserving? How do I ignore the amount of money I give to these places? Sometimes it would be a few coins, other times many times that.

How do I not make this about me and who I think is deserving?

How can I help the most?

How do I get rid of my guilt while getting rid of my coins?

Then - I came up with this:

When I have coins weighing me down, walk from selling place to selling place (any place that could sell to the public direct) and if they had a charity tin, box or donation place put my coins in there. That means I didn’t have to think about who was worthy. If they didn’t have a place to donate try the next place.

How is this not about your pride of giving making you feel good?

I don’t tell people why I am there. If they ask I mention it is to donate my change to whatever charity they are supporting.

I don’t answer or say if they don’t ask.

After trying as many places as coins you are getting rid of and not finding enough, the next place can take them all.

This is the way I found works for me - and I have actually done it!

I walked into many places that sell to the public, many I wouldn’t usually enter - so that destroys the pride. It also helps me see things I wouldn’t usually think to see - so that expands the mind.

When I find a place, I make a tiny example - one coin per place, until I have been to more places than coins - then leave.

I did this yesterday - and it was a strange and humbling experience.

I ended up giving my coins to the place where I bought my lunch, there was a line - and I found a donation box away from the line and donated my small stack of coins.

I did it because I had something to give.

I did quietly notice that most of the people in the line I added myself to also donated their change after they made their purchase, and that did feel nice. But it’s not about that.

It’s about giving what you can when you can.

It’s about turning a burden into an opportunity.

Turning a weight into a gift.

To make less for yourself to worry and think about and giving those with little, those who need soo much, to give them more.

The power of Om (and the Four Noble Truths) via Jeff Bridges

[personal update soon]

This is Jeff "the Dude" Bridges, in case you didn't know - he's an actor.

I find actors a remarkable resource in learning how to put one's self aside and inhabit a role or idea. Embodiment. Sometimes they live the role to get very subtle cues about how they should be - sometimes they visualise the role and then try to embody that vision.

This type of stuff would sound very familiar to someone who knew about varajayana/esoteric/"Tibetan" Buddhism¹ however even if you were unfamiliar with that, most people have seen or know of actors.

In the video here we see a basic process - and almost chant - a "round" of the syllable Om (AUM). The people usually in control of the programme (Conan) give control over to this idea and technique. What happens next is that people make some sounds and feel silly - Conan himself gets anxious over making bad television.

What is the issue here?

The issue is that a person in (perceived) authority is giving people space to try something new, to discover how they feel about it and react to that. The authority is going to (and more importantly does) use the space themselves - instantly undermining any "us" vs "them" vibe - we are all in this together.

Even when given space to try something new - to try something innocuous and almost boring, people are hesitant. They don't want to look silly so they smile and laugh to let everyone else know that they are in on the joke too.

People are in a television studio and they want excitement, they want something new - they don't want this something new - this is not what they expected.

They want what they expected more than they wanted to see something new, to learn something about themselves.

If you can't learn about the body you live in and the life you lead from day to day - if you can have that level of ignorance and delusion at your side and not notice it there will be some ... confusion arising from that. Confusion causes pain, trauma and heartbreak. Confusion causes suffering.

That's basically Lord Buddha's First Noble Truth² right there.

Can we find the Second Noble Truth here?

Yes

Ignorance.

Ignorance of one's self - delusion over not feeling ignorant. Clinging to an idea that you know what silly people are like and you are that OR that you are a good person and can't be - whatever you are or wherever you find yourself.

People have written books on dealing with yourself in the moment of awkwardness/stress/suffering/samsara/dukkha³, books about being in the "now".

The Third Noble Truth?

The laughing, the joy at the shared experience. The laughing at oneself in a moment of feeling awkward.

This shows you (and better yet - causes you to feel) a way out of the bad spot you are in. There is hope, there is light, there is - as always - a way out.

What is that way out?

The Fourth Noble Truth - the way out.

The way out ... is best left to another place - even I would admit I am stretching it to get Lord Buddha's primary teaching out of a youtube video from Conan.

One method though is hinted at in this post, get out of the way of yourself so you can do what you need to do. Some people try and succeed with empowerment, some try and succeed with visualisation. There are many ways to bandage yourself up to let yourself heal and grow strong, and I don't want to even pretend that I know or have heard of most of them - or that I have done it.

I have heard of it happening though, and if you are reading this you have probably heard about it happening too.

So you know there is hope.

Feel the path out of the pain, the trauma, the suffering, the darkness - be a friend to yourself.

Then ask yourself.

"How am I not myself?"

---

1 The quotes are there to indicate that it is a thing often associated with Tibet but I don't believe that it originated there - I don't wish to offer a word against the legitimate Tibetan Government external to Tibet coordinated from Dharamsala. Their suffering is real. All suffering should cease. But this is not a place for political banter alone.^↩

2 Wikipedia - If I'm curious about something I tend to look it up in an encyclopaedia type place to get a feel for it, then use that to inform where I should look for more information next and what I am looking for.^↩

3 Wikipedia, again - seriously, if you're not going to click a link, what makes you think you will find a better version of it in books or something!
Also, for what it's worth - I get a perverse amount of pleasure from saying "dukkha" in place of a rhyming swear word out loud.^↩

Feelings should be welcomed

Feelings, whether of compassion or irritation, should be welcomed, recognized, and treated on an absolutely equal basis; because both are ourselves. The tangerine I am eating is me. The mustard greens I am planting are me. I plant with all my heart and mind. I clean this teapot with the kind of attention I would have were I giving the baby Buddha or Jesus a bath. Nothing should be treated more carefully than anything else. In mindfulness, compassion, irritation, mustard green plant, and teapot are all sacred.

- Thich Nhat Hanh, "Miracle of Mindfulnes

One Thing at a Time

It is wonderful to learn to do one thing at a time. When we do formal zazen, we just sit; this means we do not add to the sitting any judgments such as how wonderful it is to do zazen, or how badly we are doing at it. We just sit.

When we wash the dishes, we just wash dishes; when we drive on the highway, we just drive. When pain comes, there is just pain, and when pleasure comes, there is just pleasure. A Buddha is someone who is totally at one with his experience at every moment.

- Francis Dojun Cook, How to Raise an Ox, Wisdom Publications

Let us rise up and be thankful

Let us rise up and be thankful,

for if we didn’t learn a lot today,

at least we learned a little,

and if we didn’t learn a little,

at least we didn’t get sick,

and if we got sick,

at least we didn’t die;

so, let us be thankful.

-The Buddha