Buddhist Belief Blog

(This is a topic I was in the process of writing about for this blog, but one of my favorite teachers wrote about it with much greater wisdom than I could manage. So, here is Pema Chodron as she so clearly writes about this “Middle Way” Buddha has taught us is the way.)

I will write one of my own in the near future.

Be well — be in peace,

Ron Rink
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Pema Chodron points to the perfect training ground for the spiritual warrior—anxiety, heartbreak, and tenderness.

The secret of Zen is just two words: not always so.
—Shunryu Suzuki Roshi

It takes some training to equate complete letting go with comfort. But in fact, “nothing to hold on to” is the root of happiness. There’s a sense of freedom when we accept that we’re not in control. Pointing ourselves toward what we would most like to avoid makes our barriers and shields permeable.

This may lead to a don’t-know-what-to-do kind of feeling, a sense of being caught in-between. On the one hand, we’re completely fed up with seeking comfort from what we can eat, drink, smoke, or couple with. We’re also fed up with beliefs, ideas, and “isms” of all kinds. But on the other hand, we wish it were true that outer comfort could bring lasting happiness.

This in-between state is where the warrior spends a lot of time growing up. We’d give anything to have the comfort we used to get from eating a pizza or watching a video. However, even though those things can be pleasurable, we’ve seen that eating a pizza or watching a video is a feeble match for our suffering. We notice this especially when things are falling apart. If we’ve just learned that we have cancer, eating a pizza doesn’t do much to cheer us up. If someone we love has just died or walked out, the outer places we go to for comfort feel feeble and ephemeral.

We are told about the pain of chasing after pleasure and the futility of running from pain. We hear also about the joy of awakening, of realizing our interconnectedness, of trusting the openness of our hearts and minds. But we aren’t told all that much about this state of being in-between, no longer able to get our old comfort from the our side but not yet dwelling in a continual sense of equanimity and warmth.

Anxiety, heartbreak, and tenderness mark the in-between state. It’s the kind of place we usually want to avoid. The challenge is to stay in the middle rather than buy into struggle and complaint. The challenge is to let it soften us rather than make us more rigid and afraid. Becoming intimate with the queasy feeling of being in the middle of nowhere only makes our hearts mote tender. When we are brave enough to stay in the middle, compassion arises spontaneously. By not knowing, not hoping to know, and not acting like we know what’s happening, we begin to access our inner strength.

Yet it seems reasonable to want some kind of relief. If we can make the situation right or wrong, if we can pin it down in any way, then we are on familiar ground. But something has shaken up our habitual patterns and frequently they no longer work. Staying with volatile energy gradually becomes more comfortable than acting it out or repressing it. This open-ended tender place is called bodhichitta. Staying with it is what heals. It allows us to let go of our self-importance. It’s how the warrior learns to love.

This is exactly how we’re training every time we sit in meditation. We see what comes up, acknowledge that with kindness, and let go. Thoughts and emotions rise and fall. Some are more convincing than. others. Habitually we are so uncomfortable with that churned-up feeling that we’d do anything to make it go away. Instead we kindly encourage ourselves to stay with our agitated energy by returning to the breath. This is the basic training in maitri that we need to just keep going forward, to just keep opening our heart.

Dwelling in the in-between state requires learning to contain the paradox of something’s being both right and wrong, of someone’s being strong and loving and also angry, uptight, and stingy. In that painful moment when we don’t live up to our own standards, do we condemn ourselves or truly appreciate the paradox of being human? Can we forgive ourselves and stay in touch with our good and tender heart? When someone pushes our buttons, do we set our to make the person wrong? Or do we repress our reaction with “I’m supposed to be loving. How could I hold this negative thought?” Our practice is to stay with the uneasiness and not solidify into a view. We can meditate, do tonglen, or simply look at the open sky—anything that encourages us to stay on the brink and not solidify into a view.

When we find ourselves in a place of discomfort and fear, when we’re in a dispute, when the doctor says we need tests to see what’s wrong, we’ll find that we want to blame, to take sides, to stand our ground. We feel we must have some resolution. We want to hold our familiar view. For the warrior, “right” is as extreme a view as “wrong.” They both block our innate wisdom. When we stand at the crossroads, not knowing which way to go, we abide in prajnaparamita. The crossroads is an important place in the training of a warrior. It’s where our solid views begin to dissolve.

Holding the paradox is not something any of us will suddenly be able to do. That’s why we’re encouraged to spend our whole lives training with uncertainty, ambiguity, insecurity. To stay in the middle prepares us to meet the unknown without fear; it prepares us to face both our life and our death. The in-between state—where moment by moment the warrior finds himself learning to let go—is the perfect training ground. It really doesn’t matter if we feel depressed about that or inspired. There is absolutely no way to do this just right. That’s why compassion and maitri, along with courage, are vital: they give us the resources to be genuine about where we are, but at the same time to know that we are always in transition, that the only time is now, and that the future is completely unpredictable and open.

As we continue to train, we evolve beyond the little me who continually seeks zones of comfort. We gradually discover that we are big enough to hold something that is neither lie nor truth, neither pure nor impure, neither bad nor good. But first we have to appreciate the richness of the groundless state and hang in there.

It’s important to hear about this in-between state. Otherwise we think the warrior’s journey is one way or the other; either we’re all caught up or we’re free. The fact is that we spend a long time in the middle. This juicy spot is a fruitful place to be. Resting here completely—steadfastly experiencing the clarity of the present moment—is called enlightenment.
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Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist nun, is a founding member and resident teacher at Gampo Abbey, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery in North America established for Westerners. Excerpted from The Places That Scare You © 2001 by Pema Chodron. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston.

Technorati Tags: Buddhist Belief

(My apologies for not getting much writing done for this blog of late. I am hoping to be able to pick up the pace again soon. Here is a timely article written by Roshi Joan Halifax about a Buddhist perspective on the Occupy Wall Street Protests.)

Be well — be in peace,

Ron Rink
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Roshi Joan Halifax

Posted: 10/14/11 09:50 AM ET

It started 28 days ago, with a ragtag group of people who called themselves “Occupy Wall Street” planting themselves at Liberty Square Plaza (aka Zuccotti Park) in New York City, under the shadows of skyscrapers.

They gathered together to call attention to the disproportionate influence that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans have over our political and economic system. Using the phrase “We are the 99 percent,” they drew a circle of inclusion around the myriad forms of structural violence and suffering that so many of us are experiencing these days.

The Buddha would probably agree with their analysis. Numerous Buddhist texts point out that poverty is not any individual’s fate or karma, but rather exists in a web of causes and conditions. The Buddha also noted that the way to build a peaceful society is to ensure equitable distribution of resources.

In a more contemporary rendering of Buddhist teachings, Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh offers this precept: “Do not accumulate wealth whilst millions are hungry. Do not take as the aim of your life, fame, profit, wealth or sensual pleasure. Live simply and share time, energy and material resources with those who are in need.” Bernie Glassman Roshi says: Do not foster a mind of poverty in yourself or others.

In less than a month, this gathering in New York has grown into a worldwide movement that has captured the public imagination and vision. This is a leaderless movement, and one that started without any clear demands, and one that is committed to nonviolence. These are exactly the kinds of movements that those with privilege and power have no idea how to contain.

There is a precedent for this kind of social change. The Civil Rights movement, though now almost exclusively identified with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and to a lesser degree, Rosa Parks, was actually comprised of many leaders in multiple locations who gradually self-organized so that the whole became greater than the sum of its parts. And like Occupy Wall Street, the Civil Rights movement grew in its own power based on a common dedication to justice for all.

Some have criticized or ridiculed Occupy Wall Street because it has not formed a list of clear demands for change. Instead, it has relied on a participatory process, even inviting the public at large to weigh in on what issues are of most importance.

What is really remarkable about this movement is that somehow it has raised the process of “how” change happens to being more important than the “what” of change.

The people on the streets in New York are in the process of being the change they wish to see, to use Gandhi’s phrase. They have organized to provide health care for each other, to feed each other, to clean up their space together, to deal with difficult situations using creative solutions. They have intentionally refused alignment with any political party in order to keep their message open to the widest audience. They are taking pains to use a collective decision-making process so that the voices of the marginalized are being heard and considered.

In the context of Buddhist teachings and practice, these are all compassionate actions.

It calls to mind the words that Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy spoke at the 2003 World Social Forum:

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness — and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling — their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.

The downfall of any revolution is when it unknowingly replicates what has come before it. Can Occupy Wall Street succeed? It can, if it continues to place generosity and compassion before greed, and to recognize the power of interdependence, causality and selflessness.

This piece was co-authored with Maia Duerr, former executive director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and current director of the Upaya Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program. See Maia’s blog, The Jizo Chronicles, for more Buddhist perspectives on Occupy Wall Street.

Follow Roshi Joan Halifax on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@jhalifax

Technorati Tags: Buddhist Belief, Buddhist Belief - Buddhism and Peace

One of the most basic of Buddhist Beliefs is when Buddha points out that our unhappiness is a direct result of our grasping and craving. He said that to end suffering we need to exercise self-restraint, cut way back on our consumption, do more sharing and practice other compassionate ways when relating to our fellow beings. This idea that we are separate from the rest of the world is an illusion – in fact it is our most troublesome delusion. “We are not a collection of objects – we are a communion of subjects.” So notes eco-theologian, Thomas Berry.

We live in a corporate-dominated world today. This domination has resulted in a culture based on greed, materialism and alienation from nature. This culture is further influenced by our governments which are largely controlled by the same corporations and economic institutions they should be regulating. The government, the corporations and all of us share the same basic view – the view that we need to continue to grow and to acquire more and more no matter what the long-term consequences might be. Here we are today – we’re experiencing record-breaking droughts, floods, snowstorms, wildfires, hurricanes and tornadoes. And yet, we keep repeating the same patterns over and over despite what happens to our ecology. We’re not “getting it!”

Most of us are already aware of the fact that our climate is in trouble. Not everyone believes it’s our fault, though. Many people are still figuring it will all straighten itself out in time – that all these major ecological events are cyclical. However, as a Buddhist, I lean more towards the belief that what is happening with our glaciers, oceans, coral reefs, etc., are the result of our own need to continually satisfy our own selfish needs. Our craving for more energy sources since the 1950s has led to an industrial growth economy whereby we initiated dangerous climatic transformations. As my friend, Bill McKibben, who founded 350.org points out, the safe level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is 350 parts per million (ppm). With all the emissions from the coal-fired industrialization in China and India, plus the increase in industrial growth throughout the world, plus the increase in the burning of fossil fuels, we’ve pushed the levels of CO2 up over 395 ppm. At the rate we’re increasing our addiction to fossil fuels and coal, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to turn this around in time.

What is difficult to wrap my brain around is the fact that our society has made the choice not to protect itself from the results of climate change. Science has been defeated by power, money, as well as the greed and bureaucracy of our corporations and government. The concept of “becoming more green” was one of the ways we got sold a bill of goods. When we were convinced to become more “green”, we shifted the responsibility away from corporations, which are accountable for most carbon pollution, and from governments which should be restraining the corporations, and onto us, the private consumers. Now it’s up to us to solve the climate crisis. It’s a lot cheaper for the corporations to change public perception of what they do than to actually change what they do. So the marketing has been changed to persuading us that fossil fuels are essential and not dangerous. Just look at all the commercials showing up on television these days about how great “fracking” for natural gas can be. Look at whose commercials these are – they’re paid for by Exxon Mobil. The other bit of cynical marketing has been about “clean coal”. Is that an oxymoron?

The ignorance, fear and greed of our corporations and government have acquired a disastrous momentum, which has, in turn, led to our cultural obedience. However, as a Buddhist, I believe that once we become aware of the truth, we are presented with a choice. We can choose to continue down the same path, or we can choose to share what we know as widely as possible. The “power’s that be” no longer have the same control over us. We know alternatives are out there and they are necessary. We have to find ways to break the cycle of corruption in our governments as the result of money influencing political decisions. We have to get off fossil fuels.

There’s a great example of what I mean taking place in Washington, D.C. right how as I write this. The civil disobedience action in front of the White house to get President Obama to stop the construction of the Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline is showing some good results. This is a two-week continuous sit-in happening each day. The people taking part are putting their bodies on the line for their beliefs. Most are being arrested and fined. Yet, each day, more people are showing up. There’s more on this at my other blog at http://www.ronrink.com.

What is true for each of us is also true for our culture. Rumi’s lines at the beginning of this article are so appropriate. We have become drunk on the manipulation of the corporations and the government. We are drunk to the point of not realizing the situation we’re in. We’ve been drinking this liquor for over 50 years and we are now teetering on the edge of the roof. The “tipping point” of our environment is nearly here, if it’s not here already. We need to act now to counteract the forms of ignorance and greed we’ve some to accept. We can’t continue to survive on what has been created.

That’s it for this time. Let me hear your comments on this writing on the environment, especially since I’m writing in a Buddhist Blog.

Metta ….May I be well and happy. My I live in safety. May I be healthy and strong. May I live with ease. May all beings be well and happy. May all beings live in safety. May all beings be healthy and strong. May all beings live with ease.

Namaste — Be in Peace.

Ron Rink
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Just click the links that are sort of Grey in color to take you to where you can learn more about each book and how you can purchase a copy for your own library.

Stephanie Kaza — Hooked!: Buddhist Writings on Greed, Desire, and the Urge to Consume

Stephanie Kaza, an amazing writer and Buddhist teacher I knew from my 36 years living in Vermont, gathers key Buddhist thinkers to reflect upon aspects of consumerism, greed and economics. Certainly, many other authors have examined consumerism from the lens of their religious traditions, but this book’s Buddhist perspective is unusual, and its pairing of consumerist critiques with core Buddhist concepts is generally fruitful. Check this one out! Hooked!

Stephanie Kaza — Mindfully Green: A Personal and Spiritual Guide to Whole Earth Thinking

Another one from my Vermont friend — Stephanie Kaza, a biologist and professor of Environmental Studies at University of Vermont, combines Zen Buddhist practices and teachings with her 40 years as an environmentalist for this guide to enlightened environmentalism, proposing a belief in the interdependence of people and nature as the genuine way to “go green”: “When we come to see ourselves as part of the green web of life… we are naturally drawn to respond with compassion.” A good read for Buddhists or anyone from any religion. Mindfully Green

Anam Thubten — No Self – No Problem

No Self – No Problem
shows how to realize the ultimate meaning of life in each moment by dissolving all notions of ego-identity. It asks that spiritual seekers wake up to their true nature, which is already enlightened. Based on Buddhist wisdom traditions, this easy-to-read book discusses in simple, but profound and inspiring language, how we can live a life full of love, satisfaction, and happiness. No Self – No Problem

Sharon Salzberg — The Kindness Handbook

“It takes boldness, even audacity, to step out of our habitual patterns and experiment with a quality like kindness–to work with it and see just how it might shift and open up our lives. This book is an invitation to do just that. — From The Kindness Handbook