Jon Kabat-Zinn
Showing posts with label Buddhist Teachings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Buddhist Teachings. Show all posts
Monday, March 14, 2011
Spiritual Wisdom for Personal Application
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Monday, September 6, 2010
Simplicity and Dharma
There are thousands of ways to unnecessarily complicate the spiritual journey and I can safely say that I have tried just about all of them. I say this not so much to brag, but instead, to point out that I possess a wealth of experience in that highly arcane, patently esoteric spiritual practice of wasting time. If nothing else, the words wasted and verbiage expended in this opening paragraph should serve as ample proof that I am more than capable of beating around the proverbial bush with the best of them.
Although my modes of written expression are still far from Hemingwayesque, I have learned to simplify things quite a bit. This truth holds for both my writing and my spiritual pursuits. Nowadays, I like to keep things simple.
I suspect that my affection for simplicity has been around for a long time, lurking perhaps beneath a veneer of intellectual snobbery and psycho-spiritual babbling. What else can possibly explain my 40-year dance with the teachings of Buddhism? If ever a man sought to keep things simple, straightforward, and practical, it was Buddha. I know, yes, I know all about those long, dreary lists of psychological problems found in the depths of human ignorance, as well as the ten this, and the twelve that. Like any religion, Buddhism can get a bit weighty, but what attracts me most is the stark simplicity one finds in the practical “where-the-rubber-meets-the-road” teachings. For example, I am especially fond of this trilogy:
Avoid Doing Harm;
Seek to do Good;
Master the Mind;
In terms of simplicity, it doesn’t get any better than this.
All major spiritual traditions recognize the importance of ethical living and these three lines form the bedrock of Buddhist ethics. Unfortunately, in our post-modern culture the notion of morality and ethical conduct often is either downplayed or overlooked entirely. On the spiritual path, to do either is deadly.
Sacred Character begins with our personal conduct and our personal conduct flows from an internalized value system that we view as important. We need to know and know in depth just what we believe to be right and wrong. Again, this issue is often glossed over in our post-modern world and this is in many ways a tragedy.
Here is the foundational truth to get down in the depth of your being: Your value system, your sense of personal ethics, is the foundation upon which your spiritual journey is constructed. Without a system of personal morality, you are building your house on sand.
Having a personal sense of morality is only the beginning. If you don’t act on your value system – if you don’t put it into practice – you are going nowhere. You are like a house divided against itself. You, my friend, cannot stand. If you do not act on your beliefs of right and wrong, you will lack integrity. And without integrity, there can be no integration. Hopefully, you see the connection between these two words.
In Buddhism, the second paramita is called ethics. The Sanskrit term for this concept is sila. Suyra Das, in speaking of sila as it relates to the sacred path of the Bodhisattva, tells us:
We need guidelines to plan, chart, assess, and inspire our progress as Bodhisattvas, and we find them in the realm of moral ethics. This realm includes the virtues associated with living more wisely, compassionately, and harmoniously among others on an everyday basis. Among these moral virtues are self-discipline, integrity, decorum, faithfulness, temperance, tact, justice, honesty, reverence, and modesty. Bringing these qualities into our practical lives gives us integrity and good character, precisely because we’re synchronizing our three levels of being – outer, inner, and secret – on a moment-by-moment, day-by-day, year-by-year basis. When we’re doing this, we’re living the good life and helping to usher in a better world.
Suyra Das goes on to elaborate on the meaning of the word sila:
The Sanskrit word sila means “that which cools or calms.” In this context, cooling or calming refers to taming the virulent, seething passions that can easily overwhelm us, sometimes damaging ourselves as well as others. Specifically, the practice of ethics serves as an antidote to our tendencies to be careless, meretricious, irresponsible, cruel, false, exploitative, and unfair. Moral living exemplifies compassion in action.
Take a few minutes and become quiet and centered. Now, please focus on the last sentence in the preceding words from Suyra Das.
“Moral living exemplifies compassion in action.”
Such profound and true words and, if we can apply this attitude to our daily living, we will indeed become better persons. Our moral beliefs are directly related to how we interact with the world. If we have internalized the value of compassion and behave in accordance with that belief, we put compassion into action and help make the world a better place. All so simple, yet so profoundly true.
One of my favorite classic western movies is “The Best of the Bad Men.” In this vintage film, most of the famous outlaws of the Old West had managed to come together to pull a bank job. The James brothers, the Daltons, the Youngers…they were all there. Somehow Walter Brennan was a part of the gang, but not a member of any of the outlaw families. Still he played a vital role in the movie.
At one point, two of the bad guys were about to have a gun fight at the bottom of a hill where the gang was camped. Walter Brennan came running down the hill with his six-shooter aimed at both of them. Next, in his unmistakable voice, Brennan told them to back off or he would lay both of them out. To emphasize his point, Brennan then said:
“I ain’t kin to none of ya….and I ain’t troubled by no burdensome scruples.”
The view espoused by Walter Brennan may seem humorous in the context of the movie, but it reflects how many people in our culture have come to see morality. More than a few individuals hold the idea that having internalized values is too restrictive, reduces our freedom, and takes the fun out of life. The fact is, just the opposite is true. Listen to Suyra Das:
Individuals with a strong sense of sila, or ethics, are true to standards that reflect and elicit not only the best in themselves but also the best among human beings in general. They make promises to themselves and others to uphold these standards, but once these promises become second nature to them, they don’t restrict their lives, as others might expect they would. Instead, these promises lend clarity and power to their lives, allowing them more freedom and opportunity to live positively, grow spiritually, and help others naturally along the way.
No, a strong sense of personal values does not restrict our freedom. Instead, it gives us parameters to operate by, facilitates easier decision-making, and, in a sense, helps us define who we are. Values also help us to keep flowing forward toward our goals in life, especially our spiritual goals. Values can be seen as being like the banks of a river; they keep the water flowing toward its destination. Without banks, a river becomes a swamp.
A personal value system serves other positive purposes as well. Each of us it seems is equipped not only with a Sacred Center, but also with a lower center. This lower center is dominated by the ego and its selfish mind set. As a result, even the best of us engage in behaviors which are less than stellar. Speaking of myself, I know that I try to approach life as much as possible from a positive and sacred viewpoint. Still, there are times when I act with selfishness, anger, a mean spirit, and an overall sense of negativity. Having an internalized set of values, a personal moral code if you will, helps me not only identify when I am going off the spiritual rails, it also tends to reduce the frequency with which I behave in a negative manner.
As our world culture moves forward in this new and challenging century, the importance of each individual developing and maintaining an internalized, spiritual value system – one based on inter-connectivity and human compassion – is essential. More to the point, each person has to act on that value system. He or she must be the same inside and outside. This is the true meaning of integrity.
So, where do we start? Why not keep it simple? I suspect we all could:
Avoid doing harm
Seek to do good
Master the Mind
© L.D. Turner 2009/All Rights Reserved
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Daily Living: Grist for the Mindfulness Mill
One of the cultural drawbacks we seem to have here in the West is the tendency to separate things into various and sundry categories or typologies. This is especially true when it comes to the spiritual life. Our culture has a habit of separating the spiritual path from daily living. The result is that many things that happen in our lives either go unnoticed or are trivialized and, as a result, we often miss important spiritual lessons. The fact is all of life can be our teacher. Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck speaks clearly to this issue:
Life always gives us exactly the teacher we need at every moment. This includes every mosquito, every misfortune, every red light, every traffic jam, every obnoxious supervisor (or employee), every illness, every loss, every moment of joy or desperation, every addiction, every piece of garbage, every breath.
I often hear students pursuing spiritual development complaining that life is too demanding, too hectic to allow for real spiritual transformation. The thought of finding time to meditate, for example, seems totally beyond the scope of reasonable expectation:
“Did you ever try to get two kids and a lazy, chronically distracted husband to school and work on time?” So remarked a thirtyish participant at one of LifeBrook’s introductory Zen classes. “I face that five mornings a week, and that’s before I start getting ready for my job.”
No doubt many can relate to the chaos this woman is describing. I know I can. I have found that most folks can find the time to squeeze in at least a brief meditation period at some point during the day. These brief periods, if pursued with commitment and discipline, can be far more beneficial than you think. However, that is not my main point for writing this article. What I hope to get across is that meditation, as important as it is, is only a small part of mindfulness practice.
One helpful way of making sense of mindfulness practice is to define it in terms of formal practice and informal practice. In our formal practice, what we are doing is meditation. This aspect of mindfulness practice can take many forms but most often, it involves sitting quietly and observing the breath. Informal practice involves maintaining periods of mindfulness throughout the day. Informal practice can also take many forms, from something as simple as pausing a moment to watch your breath each time you turn a door knob or cross a threshold. Informal practice can be something as seemingly mundane as walking the dog or changing a baby’s diaper.
Given the frenetic pace of modern life, mindfulness practice offers us a way to incorporate our spiritual practice into the very fabric of our daily lives. And when you think about it, that is exactly where our spirituality should be. Lama Surya Das, an American Buddhist teacher trained in the Tibetan tradition makes a cogent point regarding this aspect of spiritual practice:
Today it seems to me that we have little choice but to assimilate all we experience into our spiritual lives; it is all grist for the mill, manure on fertile fields of spiritual flowers. The sacred and the mundane are inseparable. Your life is your path. Your disappointments are part of your path; your dry cleaning and your dry cleaner are on your path; ditto your credit card payments. It’s not helpful to wait until you have more time for meditation or contemplation, because it may never happen. Cultivating spirituality and awareness has to become a full-time vocation, and for most of us this has to take place within the context of a secular life here in the Western Hemisphere.
Whether we are sitting on our cushion or seat in formal meditation or whether we are folding laundry or drying the dishes, the principles of mindfulness remain the same. Our practice is the same in the zendo and in the traffic jam: we are to fully engage the moment as we pass through it. Lama Surya Das continues:
For you, the seeker, what matters is how you attend to the present moment. This includes motivation, intention, aspiration, desire, hope, and expectation. This is not just about what you do but how you do it. The present moment is where the rubber actually meets the road. Your traction on the path, spiritually speaking, depends on how you apply your heart and soul.
In order to “gain traction” on the spiritual path it is best for us to be realistic and reasonable with ourselves. What this means on a practical level is that we have to be both perceptive and honest. We have to be perceptive enough to realize that we cannot train ourselves like monks and nuns – not while we are living in the contemporary world. By accepting this fact, those of us who are highly committed to the path we have chosen can relax a bit and go easy on ourselves. We can come to the realization that five minutes of solid, committed practice of meditation and/or mindfulness can be of tremendous benefit. We also freely understand and accept that on some days, five minutes may be all we can spare.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have to be honest with ourselves about our commitment to practice. Many times I have found that people who insist they don’t have time for practice actually have plenty of time, but they lack the discipline and will to get down to doing it. Like many in our “quick fix” culture, these folks want the benefits of mindfulness training and meditation practice without the effort required to secure those benefits. Like the “Beauty School Dropout” in the musical “Grease,” these seekers” have the dream but not the drive.”
Beyond perception and honesty, we also need sincerity. Taking up spiritual practice requires a consecrated commitment if it is to be fruitful. Dabbling here and there, taking a little of this and a dab of that is interesting and spiritually stimulating, but does not reap lasting rewards. If you want to move forward with your spiritual practice, whatever the tradition, brace yourself for some hard work. Again, sincerity is essential. Buddhist writer Andrew Weiss tells us:
Offering ourselves sincerely to the moment is the key to good practice. Our intention in practicing mindfulness is more important than any technique. Many meditation teachers have pointed out that all the skill and effort in meditation will not yield fruit if we do not have this sincere desire to wake up…..Five minutes of practice with the sincere desire to wake up to the present moment is worth more than a lifetime of practice without it.
Our daily lives, rather than posing obstacles to spiritual practice, offer the optimal venue for growth. This is especially true when it comes to mindfulness training. Our task is to train in the ability to completely give ourselves to the present moment, whatever we may be doing. Although initially challenging and at times frustrating, if we persevere at this task we will find that the benefits will be well worth our efforts.
(c) L.D. Turner 2010/ All Rights Reserved
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