Thursday, February 20, 2014

APW: Mind Training


Nothing is the way is appears to be.  From Galileo’s birth to 1491 to Y2K to a journey to the east.  From the affects of foreign aid to the implications of a bite of supermarket chicken to pulling over on the side of the road and welcoming in the hitchhiker.  Here I am, nearly 6 months into my first trip to Asia, having just completed 4 months with the NGO, and recently a week long intermediary course on Meditation and Mind Training at Kopan Monastery.  The lessons of the world revealing illusions, in regards to people and places, keep getting reinforced. This last week was a stimulating change of pace that brought together old and new ideas and entered my life at a perfect time.


Kopan Monastery belongs to a Mahayana Buddhist tradition, originally from Tibet.  It is the same practice of the Dalai Lama.  What distinguishes Mahayana from other Buddhist sects is that once one reaches enlightenment (awakening one’s mind to the true nature of Samsara and liberating oneself from suffering), it becomes your purpose to free all other sentient beings of the same suffering.   Buddhism’s fundamental goals are to develop compassion and wisdom to realize we are all “in this together” and with a pure motivation, we aim to free each other from the delusions.  We all have an innate Buddha nature, and it is a simple matter of awakening the mind to realize its full potential.
 

This is one aspect of the religion that I especially relate to, that we all have the capacity to grow into enlightenment.  It acknowledges also the extremely unlikely circumstances that occur to create our perfect human rebirth.  This helps us generate immense gratitude and compassion, as we are not all so fortunate to be born with this mind and neocortex layer of our brain.  It attempts to perceive the true nature of reality and analyze what are the components and what is the I and the Mind?  Buddhists approaches these questions like a science experiment: generating a theoretical hypothesis, followed by practical meditation, and finally reflects on their congruousness with the original thought.  And then repeat, several million times.   Buddhism is acutely similar in its original belief, developed by Siddhartha Gotama Buddha 2600 years ago, of how the mind and brain works to the most recent theories of Quantum Mechanics.  And like any religion that provides a strong foundation for a human being, its aim is to develop the Self to be more apt to interpret and pursue the road that is now before you.

 
Buddhism may be mistaken in the west as a do-nothing, lazy philosophy.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It is a disciplined practice to attain wisdom to view the world from a clearer perspective.  Our classes began at 6:00 am with morning tea and concluded at 9:00 pm after an evening meditation session.  We engaged in 3 meditations throughout the day totaling between 2 and 3 hours, participated in discussion groups, and had teachings and meditations led by an Australian Nun, whose edited and translated many of the texts of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, a Mexican Dharma Practitioner with a vivid imagination of the dharma, and a Tibetan Lama whose gentle, humorous, knowing presence in the room was perhaps the most powerful I’ve ever experienced from a teacher in a short period of time.

 
We were taught the basics of emptiness, death and impermanence, recognizing self-grasping and self-cherishing, karma, exchanging the self and other, identifying and remedying different delusions, and studied intensively 8 Verse of Thought Transformation.  A lot of seeds were planted that with nurturing will gradually grow.  It is possible to rewire one’s brain through the discipline and desire of practicing a task over and over again.  It is more tangible and easier to relate to in the context of training the physical body, though the same philosophy extends to the mind.  Another fact relates to sometimes we choose what we are interested in learning, and other times we receive lessons that we did not sign up for.  A simple metaphor could look like this:

 
Much of meditation, like any idea or practice, can be compared to cultivating a plant from seed.  The grounds (your perceptions) must first be cleared of stones, debris and then leveled.  The seed must be planted with care into a nurturing fertile soil at an appropriate depth, and then watered in well.  The seed must be tended to with affection for it develop its strong roots (continued practice), and then only after years of care and patience will it be possible for the fruit to be harvested.  It takes years to develop the mind through meditation.  And of course, if one is constantly awaiting the prize, they will miss out on the journey, and the fruit will not taste so sweet.  It is the balance of patience and action, tension and relaxation, that creates all these causes and conditions for the seed to thrive into a tree.  And remember too, if you plant an apple seed, do not expect a pear.

 
Mind training is a growing awareness and an application of this awareness inside and outside themoment.  I recall a Greyhound Bus Ride I took when I was 18 en route to North Carolina to visit my Aunt.  It was my first time traveling solo to the south and I booked my ticket to the bus station in Henderson, North Carolina, not realizing the distinction between Henderson and Hendersonville.  I was roughly 5 hours and $40 short of my destination.  I became aware that this situation was ideal conditions to create a frustrated and agitated mind.  Instead though, I rerouted my ticket, informed my aunt I’d be a little late, swallowed the bill, and enjoyed a book, conversation and the scenery from the window as we drove across the state to Western North Carolina.  If I hadn’t recognized the moment from a perspective outside of the present emotion, I could have had a miserable couple of hours, and off to a rough start to what turned out to be a great trip.  I entered in a positive mood and through a series of events, I found a job opportunity, interview for the position and accepted all within the week.  Our emotions do not have an inherent self-existence, but actually are a manifestation of the causes and conditions we are surrounded with in our daily lives.  Buddhist philosophy, neuroscience and cognitive psychology all go into much greater depth.  If you’re interested in further reading, there are many books which I could recommend, but this one here combines science and Buddhist Philosophy and a fascinating and very accessible text: Joy of Living by Nyingmar Rinpoche

 
I write all this to share about the past experience and try to gain some perspective on it, to encourage others to train their mind so the world becomes a more positive, approachable and desirable place, and to reflect on the title of this blog.  It certainly seems that throughout a wealth of experiences, not everything feels right or worthwhile.  We may feel regret for actions we have done, yearn for something else to exist that isn’t what is in front of us, become baffled by harmful and hateful actions pointed towards us or people we have a connection to, and shake our head at the injustice in this world.  The fact is this goes on every day, in every part of the world, without exception.  We cannot affect the reality of child labor, domestic abuse, exploitation of the poor and discriminated, malicious crimes and the like overnight.  We can be hopeful that there is a decrease in these acts in the modern world, though this also does not feel like a sufficient response.  If the world is covered with thorns, you cannot remove every thorn from this world.  You can however equip your feet (or your mind) for the rough road ahead.  If you approach a stranger or an enemy with compassion and wisdom, you will feel the difference in the response compared to treating someone with coldness and hostility.  If you train your mind with wisdom and understanding, possibly the idea of All Pursuits Worthwhile makes a little more sense.  T might help you cultivate a pure motivation of making yourself, your community and your world a more positive environment to live in and engage with.

 
Thank you, as always, for reading.   All the best, and some prose for the road.
 

Powers of Meditation

 
Nothing is the way it seems until the bubbles settle,
          Even after the curds been skimmed,
And the lemon seeds carefully plucked,
The substance’s transparency is still inclined to fade

A small leaf detaches from the mature Oak Branch
                From high canopy it undulates to the grass,
Anticipation rises affecting the pulsing heart
Unaffected, the leaf lands where it lands,

Tiny particles of steam after morning frost
                Every weather prediction and each souvenir
Changes history – Point of contact, A splash
A smile, a patient’s return to normalcy

One day you have never seen a naked woman
                The next you scratch your chin
In disbelief of the lack of timeliness of your driver
All moments share an inherent feeling
They all exist to be recalled and forgot
                Yet we cannot prevent our motion
From wondering what we are served next,
Ask Alice:  are you the pawn or the hand that moved it? 


flash forward in time
like the lightning bolt
who claimed the longest life
though the cloud protested
‘better to give the longest light,
a single ray of light may affect galaxies’
the star sighed, the thunder groaned
and the wolf howled,
They all agreed to perform their very best.

 A decade into the cave
And the lama finally gave into his itch
The dream felt more and more real
While the mind traced its way through the forest
Into a cobweb of endless trails
Each time its silk spun across itself
It took itself less seriously
another layer was shed
the form never stopped changing
And its true color revealed
 
Is it confirmed that the builder has done his blessings
And did the farmer truly give more than was taken
And did anyone notice the nun, with her bowl flipped over
After witnessing the sunrise skip her part of town
Still, the bird’s shadow never quit following
No matter how high she flew
And the empty vessel accepted
Whatever the creator wished to put inside
 
What if you were to take the brush
Away from the artist, rendering him
unable to paint expressions onto the emptiness
And if you spun the globe
Just faster than its average rate,
Would it expedite the process of mankind
Finding the same two truths
Recognizing this life is no different
Than the last,
And the one after,
Same players, Same stage,
We just exchange roles


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