Understanding and Ending Our Dukkha

“I teach dukkha and the ending of dukkha.”

–The Buddha

The most important and fundamental aspect of our spiritual practice must start with an understanding of what the Buddha taught, what the aim of his teaching was, and that must start with an understanding of the one word that was the cornerstone of his teaching: dukkha.

Defining the Undefinable but Ever Present

No single English word adequately captures the full depth, range, and subtlety of the crucial Pali term dukkha. Over the years, many translations of the word have been used ("stress," "unsatisfactoriness," "suffering," etc.). Each has its own merits in a given context. There is value in not letting oneself get too comfortable with any one particular translation of the word, since the entire thrust of Buddhist practice is the broadening and deepening of one's understanding of dukkha until its roots are finally exposed and eradicated once and for all. One helpful rule of thumb: as soon as you think you've found the single best translation for the word, think again: for no matter how you describe dukkha, it's always deeper, subtler, and more unsatisfactory than that.

Dukkha is, from a definition by Buddhist scholar Francis Story: Disturbance, irritation, dejection, worry, despair, fear, dread, anguish, anxiety; vulnerability, injury, inability, inferiority; sickness, aging, decay of body and faculties, senility; pain/pleasure; excitement/boredom; deprivation/excess; desire/frustration, suppression; longing/aimlessness; hope/hopelessness; effort, activity, striving/repression; loss, want, insufficiency/satiety; love/lovelessness, friendlessness; dislike, aversion/attraction; parenthood/childlessness; submission/rebellion; decision/indecisiveness, vacillation, uncertainty.

Three Roots of Dukkha

(The Three Poisons: Greed, Anger, and Delusion)

What we notice from meditation is that we only do things, when all is said and done, to get more of what we want, what we like, what we think we should have or should be, or inversely, to get less of the things we don’t want, don’t like, and don’t think we should have.

We notice, as we watch our body and breath, that this constant desire for more is unending. We always need and want something more. This is the operant model we use for processing information. We filter all our experiences through this “greed” lens, storing all our memories in stories about whether we want more of this type of event or less.

We do this because of our delusion that the world should be other than what it is, and that if we can only get it to be our way, everything will be fine and we will be happy. This is nonsense. For it to work, everyone in the world would have to want things to be my way.

Because of this way of processing our lives, we are never able to be satisfied. And to make things worst, when we don’t get what we want, we become angry (everything from mild irritation to wrath arises from our greed and delusion).

This anger shadows our lives, an anger that arises from never getting enough, always having to protect and defend, never being satisfied. Simply put, we must overcome our greed and anger and delusion if we are to end our suffering. That is what the Buddha taught: life must be all about purifying ourselves and ending our suffering. Why would we choose anything else?

Observing Dukkha

If you pay attention (to your body and breath) for just five minutes, you learn that pleasant sensations lead to the desire that these sensations will stay and that unpleasant sensations lead to the hope that they will go away. And both the attraction and the aversion amount to tension in the mind. Both are uncomfortable. So in the first minutes, you get a big lesson about suffering: wanting things to be other than what they are. Such a tremendous amount of truth to be learned just closing your eyes and paying attention to [your breath and] bodily sensations. –Sylvia Boorstein.

Try This Five Minute Meditation Now

Arrange yourself in a comfortable, upright position, in a chair or cross-legged on a sofa or the floor. Bring your attention to the sensation of breathing. Take a few deep breaths, observing the breaths at your abdomen. Find a spot in your abdomen where you can easily track your breath, allow yourself to breath normally, and focus there. Stay with that spot, noticing how it feels as you breathe in and out. Don't force the breath, or bear down too heavily with your focus. Let the breath flow naturally, and simply keep track of how it feels.

If your mind wanders off, simply bring it back.

Observe the breathe in that spot for a minute or so, then shift to a spot two-inches to the right of the original location. Notice how it feels in this new spot. Observe it there for a minute or so, then shift to a spot two-inches to the left of the original location. Again, notice how it feels in this new location.  Observe it for a minute or so, then shift to a spot about two-inches above the original location. Again, observe it for a minute, then shift to a spot two-inches below the original location.

Finally, take a few noticeable, deep breaths and then gently open your eyes and consider how each spot felt different, how your created affinities and aversions, how you made your dukkha.

The Causes of Suffering

If we really want to end our suffering, we need some idea of what causes it. On the most basic level, the cause of suffering is our story-telling. As we experienced in the five-minute meditation above, we create our own suffering, we codify it into stories about what is good and fair, comfortable and satisfying, rather than allowing ourselves to just be present with what is.

To end our suffering, therefore, we have to eliminate the story-telling. This is best done methodically. It cannot be accomplished simply by an act of will, by wanting them to go away. The work must be guided by investigation.

Start by noticing the depth and breath of your stories.

Observe that all stories are fabrications, fictions, not real.

Next, notice the general structure of all story: they desire things to be other than what they are.

Then, observe how we attach to our stories, believe them to be true and accurate, protect and defend these foolish fictions.

Finally, stop believing your stories, stop believe that anything your mind tells you is true.

While you are practicing this, study hard the Two Truths, which will be the subject of a future blog.

Humility and Modesty

Humility and Modesty

Definitions:

Humility is to depart from a position of gentle, non-assertiveness. It is a behavior or attitude or spirit that wholly lacks arrogance and conceit. It is being unassuming without being proud or feeling inferior.

Modesty is to depart from a disinclination to call attention to oneself. Modesty involves observing proprieties, especially in speech, dress and comportment. It is avoid extremes through understatement in everything one has and does materially and spiritually.

Compassion tells us to ask and listen with humility and modesty, not to listen so we can respond with what we already know. But more importantly, this is the meta cognitive question that we should always be asking:

What should I do in each moment to strengthen and master my wandering anxious and stress-producing mind?

Like other spiritual traditions, Buddhism sees humility as a virtue. It advocates humility as a moral precept. As such it is often expressed in terms of exhortation against an arrogant or haughty attitude. Being a sign of ego-centeredness, pride is seen as impeding progress towards spiritual liberation. Buddhist practitioners believe that only a humble mind can readily recognize its own defilements of craving (or greed), aversion (or hatred) and ignorance, thereby embarking on the path of enlightenment and liberation. Behaving humbly is a merit and a desirable moral quality that comes from insight into the spiritual reality, it is both a prerequisite for peacefulness and a manifestation thereof.

Some Buddhist practitioners place so great an emphasis on humility that they are prepared to yield to others in any situation that involves a dispute or contention. This assumes that there is no right and so there is no need to assert my understanding over someone else. Within the Chinese cultural milieu, such a humble attitude is doubtless regarded as a virtue commensurate with the Confucian ethics of social order. Chinese Buddhism accepts it as a norm rather than an anomaly. In fact, the Buddhist principle of "no contention" (wu-cheng) requires that a practitioner refrain from quarreling or contending for personal interests, including intellectual interests. "No contention" implies a humbled ego through which the light of enlightenment may shine. Not so with American Buddhists in general.

But we must be careful in making humility a moral precept, for self-depreciation is as counter-productive as self-aggrandizement when it becoming peaceful.

Humility or modesty as practiced in traditional Chinese society is often criticized as being less than honest or even bordering on hypocrisy. A morally cultivated person is supposed to refrain from talking about his/her own merits and strengths, or to talk about them in a round-about way that suggests modesty. Furthermore, the norm of humility demands that one use stereotyped language that depicts oneself as being worthless but is nevertheless understood to be mere ceremonial courtesy. Even today, a scholar is supposed to refer to his/her publications as "my clumsy works", and an entertainer would beg "excuse" for a "homely and plain" feast and "less than satisfactory hospitality," even though deep down he feels very proud of what he has offered to the guests. Such superficial courtesy appears to be a strong value in societies on which Confucianism has left its mark, including Japan and Korea.

Although humility is important to Buddhism, ultimately spiritual attainments are associated with such personal qualities as the "middle way," a balanced personality that is neither arrogant nor "humble" in the sense of self-abasement. We may add the following criteria to define genuine humility:

·       Behave without arrogance, self-conceit and other egoist tendencies such as jealousy and an impulse to show off.

·       Respect others and show a genuine human interest in them without a desire to please or to impress.

·       Come up with an objective and honest understanding of our own strengths and weaknesses, with a realization that we are far from perfect and have a lot more to learn, to improve and to accomplish.

While we do not recognize self-depreciation or self-effacement as part of humility, we must recognize that our biological self is fraught with frailties and ignorance and that a true self characterized by such divine qualities as love, compassion, joy and wisdom is innate in everyone of us.

Humility

Do not find fault with others. If they behave wrongly, there is no need to make yourself suffer.

–Ajahn Chah (20^th-Century Thai monk)

Humility and Patience

I think that there is a very close connection between humility and patience. Humility involves having the capacity to take a more confrontational stance, having the capacity to retaliate if you wish, yet deliberately deciding not to do so. That is what I would call genuine humility.

I think that true patience has a component or element of self-discipline and restraint--the realization that you could have acted otherwise, you could have adopted a more aggressive approach, but decided not to do so.

On the other hand, being forced to adopt a certain passive response out of a feeling of helplessness or incapacitation--that I wouldn't call genuine humility. That may be a kind of meekness, but it isn't genuine patience or humility.


–His Holiness The Dalai Lama

Real Humility Is Genuineness

Humility, very simply, is the absence of arrogance. Where there is no arrogance, you relate with your world as an eye-level situation, without one-upmanship. Because of that, there can be a genuine interchange. Nobody is using their message to put anybody else down, and nobody has to come down or up to the other person’s level. Everything is eye-level.

Humility in the Shambhala tradition also involves some kind of playfulness, which is a sense of humor….In most religious traditions, you feel humble because of a fear of punishment, pain, and sin. In the Shambhala world you feel full of it. You feel healthy and good. In fact, you feel proud. Therefore, you feel humility. That’s one of the Shambhala contradictions or, we could say, dichotomies. Real humility is genuineness.

–Chogyam Trungpa

Conceit is very prone to arise when one is praised for some particular work or mental quality. Within limits praise from a knowledgeable person is stimulating and encouraging; some people who are modest or diffident by nature can only work well when they are appreciated. The trouble is that too much praise, particularly if it borders on flattery, stimulates the sense of "I"-ness. The ego sticks out its chest and feels two inches taller; it has a delicious feeling of security and believes itself to be invulnerable!

This is the nasty sort of pride that the ancient Greeks called hubris; it was looked upon as an insult to the gods, and when the Olympians found a man suffering from it they unloosed Nemesis, the goddess of revenge, who brought him to death or destruction.

The cultivation of humility is not easy; there's a temptation to indulge in mock-modesty, and untruthfully disclaim any real achievement, and still worse to be conceited about not being conceited. It is wiser, I think, to tackle Conceit at its first uprising; if one can do that, then Humility will develop in the natural course of events.

Pride has been aptly described as the "giant weed." We may grub up a few roots in this life-span, but the thing has already gone to seed and will appear in the future.

One year's seeds

Seven years weeds

say the old gardeners. If we acquire the habit of eradicating conceit in this life, the habit will travel on in our sankharas and bear good fruit the future.

Practices

1. Recognize conceit whenever it pops up and name it: arrogance, conceit, pride, etc; recognition automatically weakens it. This practice is doubly effective because it keeps you on your toes and induces a gentle distaste for the tendency.

2. Remember the first two factors of the noble eightfold path: right view and right intention.

Right view is having “no view” that would allow you to feel superior and right intention is the intention to expunge pride, arrogance, conceit and egotism.

3. Remind yourself profoundly that your talents are not due to your own virtue, but have arisen from all the actions of untold numbers of people in the past and present, therefore it is silly of me to be conceited about qualities which are not in any real sense "yours."

Grief and Grieving

Grieving

Grieving is self-talk, the stories we tell ourselves about the death of a loved-one. To understand grieving and how to grieve, we need to think of the mind as a filter: it filters the environment in a way that makes sense to us, filtering some things in, filtering others out. These filters are called “stories.” All stories have certain characteristics:

1.     For things to be other than what they are

2.     For us to know what to desire more of (or get less of), and

3.     To present a world that if permanent (reification)

Also, stories:

1.     Provide the basis for our self-awareness, and

2.     Make our sense of self and of the world consistent

Understanding grieving asks us to look even further into how our minds work so that we can process the grief and gain relief in a reasonable amount of time. Looking deeper, we see that we

are not really attached to the person who has passed, rather we are clinging to the “I” of our stories: “I didn’t want this to happen to my child….” From the perspective of how the mind works, it is an “I and of me” story. This means that what in fact has happened is that we have changed a static external condition into a personal problem.

The more value, meaning or weight we assign to the condition (family vs. friends vs. strangers, for example), the stronger and more difficult the problem. When it comes to grieving, the intensity of our stories makes in nearly impossible to see that we are imbedded in stories and that our grieving isn’t at all about the person who has passed on, but about our own displeasure at losing a story about who we are and what our relationship was. That last sentence may be the most difficult, and yet the most important, sentence in this whole blog. It is the key to unlocking our pain and suffering at the loss of a loved-one.

Grieving

Grieving is one of the strongest, deepest and most profound of our stories, and grieving for a child is stronger, deeper or more profound that any other form of grieving. No relationship is as unconditional, as selfless and as other-centered as our relationships with our children, and so the loss of a child produces the most intense and long-lasting stories.

We don’t need to examine Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief, nor does it make sense to assume that if the grief is long-lasting it is because we are stuck in one of those imaginary stages, it just means the intensity of the stories around the loss are stronger. What we need to do is to look at how our minds twisted what really happened into suffering. How we attach story to story, story after story, to reinforce our notion that the death should not have occurred, and not the way it did occur. Seeing that, the story begins to dissolve and our suffering lessens and gradually ceases.

Simile of Kisa Gotami

When her young child had died, Kisa Gotami refused to believe it was dead. After asking many people — in vain — for medicine that would revive the child, she was finally directed to the Buddha. When she told him her story, he offered to provide medicine for the child, but he would need a mustard seed — the cheapest Indian spice — obtained from a family in which no one had died.

She went from house to house asking for mustard seed, and everyone offered to give her one. But when she asked if anyone had died in the family, the response was always, "Oh, yes, of course." After a while, the message sunk in: Death is universal. Her mind settled, and she was able to bury her child.

This teaching speaks to the universality of impermanence and death, and the power of the path of practice: that in the midst of this human world with all its sorrows and lamentations, there is still a way to find that which is free from grieving, aging, and illness: the Deathless. Deathless meaning the death of our stories that things should be other than what they are.

The Simile of the Mustard Seed Sutra

Slightly edited from the commentarial text

After flowing-on for beginningless time

Gotami arose in a poor family in Savatthi in the time of the Buddha.

Her name was Gotami-tissa,

but because her body was very skinny

she was called 'Skinny Gotami.'

When she went to her husband's family,

she was scorned [and called] “daughter of a poor family.”

Then she gave birth to a son,

and with the arrival of the son she was treated with respect.

But that son, running back and forth

and running all around while playing met his end.

Because of this, sorrow-to-the-point-of-madness arose in her.

She thought: "Before I was one who received only scorn,

but starting from the time of the birth of my son I gained honor.

These [relatives] will now try to take my son,

in order to expose him outside [in the charnel ground]."

Unable to accept her son’s death, and

under the influence of her sorrow-to-the-point-of-madness,

she secured her child’s lifeless body to her hip

and wandered in the city from the door of one house to another

pleading: "Give medicine to me for my son!"

People reviled her, saying "What good is medicine?"

She could not understand what they were saying.

Then a certain wise man, thinking:

"This woman has had her mind deranged by sorrow for her son;

the Buddha will know the medicine for her,"

said: "Mother, approach the fully Awakened One

and ask about medicine for your son."

She went to the to Buddha and said,

"Blessed One, give me medicine for my son!"

The master, seeing her situation, said,

"Go, having entered the city,

into whatever house has never before experienced any death,

and take from them a mustard seed."

"Very well, Sir," she replied,

and glad of mind she entered the city and came to the first house:

"The master has called for a mustard seed

in order to make medicine for my son.

If this house has never before experienced any death,

please give me a mustard seed."

"Who is able to count how many have died here?"

"Then keep it. What use is that mustard seed to me?"

And going to a second and a third house, and on and on house after house,

her madness left her and her right mind was re-established.

She thought, "This is the way it will be in the entire city.

By means of the Blessed One's compassion for my welfare,

I have realized the universal truth."

And having gained a sense of spiritual urgency from that,

she went out and covered her son in the charnel ground.

She uttered this verse:

It's not just a truth for one village or town,

Nor is it a truth for a single family.

But for every world in the ten directions and the three times,

This indeed is what is true — impermanence.

And so saying, she went into the presence of the master.

Then the master said to her,

"Have you obtained, Gotami, the mustard seed?"

"Finished, sir, is the matter of the mustard seed" she said.

"You have indeed restored me."

And the master then uttered this verse:

A person with a mind that clings,

Deludedly, to sons or possessions,

Is swept away by death that comes

— Like mighty flood to sleeping town.

At the conclusion of this verse, her “stories” dropped off,

her insight then grew... and she became a diligent seeker and disciple.

Practicing with Grieving

Death is a natural process: birth, aging and death are simply the way all life proceeds. The process is not the problem. It is our stories that the process shouldn’t happen: our wanting things to be other than what they are, our belief, as a 103 year-old woman said to me, that “no parent would ever have to watch her child die of old age”; our misguided assumption that “good health and long-life” are the natural process, not aging and death; our conviction that we are healthy and well (always), not aging and dying (always), that there is a “right” sequence to dying (no one should die young,” etc. When a death “seems” to fall our of our imagined right sequence, or when it is that of a child, the stories become even more intense and the grieving is even longer-lasting and profound.

As we know from the Sutra of Gotami and the Mustard Seed, whenever a life arises, it abides and then ceases. This is the natural way: birth, aging and death. It is the natural law of the universe. This natural law: we aren’t responsible for it, we can’t change it. And to cling to it, meaning to our ideas of what should be rather than what it is, especially in the face of the death of a loved-one, very dramatically increases our pain and suffering, our anguish and stress.

Our clinging is not something “real,” it is merely a concept, a concept that arises when we want something to be other than what it is and we focus our attention on it. To sustain grieving, we must constantly refocus on the idea, and to do this we must slightly intensify the story each time. So the causes of the grieving and our suffering are not outside us, but right inside us. And with patience and understand, we can allow it to transform our hearts rather than continue to causes us sorrow.

Once we begin to understand and realize how we cling, we can look closely at how our mind creates stories and begin the process of realizing that all our stories are our fabrications, created by the mind in a specific pattern that the mind has found useful to order to create a consistent universe for us, regardless of whether it has any validity or not, regardless of whether or not it is painful or beneficial.

As we practice with these understandings, we develop the crucial insights necessary to move from our traditional story-telling and self-talk, which leads us to suffer, to a new, wiser understanding that lets our suffering diminish and cease and allows peace of mind to return and creates the conditions necessary for the peace of mind to be sustained, even in the face of a powerful loss.

Our practice does not ask us to deny our feelings in the face of one of life’s greatest challenges, it simple asks us to look honestly at what is happening. It is only with a truthful and truth-filled heart that we can genuinely process death. When the grieving is kind and gentle, it calmly and quietly dissolves and then we can begin the deeper practice of realizing that there are no comings and goings.

Metta Practice for Mourning

Here’s a mourning practice that very quietly and naturally reshapes our perception of a loved-one we have lost so that we can move forward with them joyfully filling our hearts rather than overwhelming us with grief and sorrow.

Recite this chant, slowly and out-loud, twice a day for 49 days. As you recite it, visualize your loved-one with a big smile in a comfortable and happy setting. Sharpen the image and hold it in your imagination as you recite the chant.

Metta Chant

May I be free from anger and hatred.

May I be free from greed and selfishness.

May I be free from fears and anxiety.

May I be free from pain and suffering.

May I be free from ignorance and delusion.

May I be free from negative states of mind.

May I be peaceful and happy.

May I experience peace and tranquility of body and mind.

May name of the deceased be free from anger and hatred.

May name of the deceased be free from greed and selfishness.

May name of the deceased be free from fears and anxiety.

May name of the deceased be free from pain and suffering.

May name of the deceased be free from ignorance and delusion.

May name of the deceased be free from negative states of mind.

May name of the deceased be peaceful and happy.

May name of the deceased experience peace and tranquility of body and mind.

May all beings be free from anger and hatred.

May all beings be free from greed and selfishness.

May all beings be free from fears and anxiety.

May all beings be free from all pain and suffering.

May all beings be free from ignorance and delusion.

May all beings be free from negative states of mind.

May all beings be peaceful and happy.

May all beings experience peace and tranquility of body and mind.

Over the course of the 49 days of chanting, you will notice that your self-talk, your stories, will gradually shift from the pain of loss to memories and images of the person that are filled with joy and happiness. Forty-nine days is a the traditional mourning period in Buddhism, but feel free to continue the practice as long as it brings you comfort and allows you to integrate the loss into your life with a peaceful heart.

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This Is It, The Core of Our Practice

This Is The What, How, Why and Wherefore of Our Practice

We recite the Heart Sutra in our Temples and Centers and Monasteries everyday.

At its core, this is what those 35 or so lines are saying.

Dependent Arising shows us that everything is empty.

Emptiness shows us that all phenomena are impermanent and interrelated (conditioned by each other): Indra’s net.

Conditional nature shows us that compassion is our Buddhanature; that harming others harms us and so we must not only be of benefic, but we must do it with all beings in mind (the three pure vows)

The three pure vows generate, directly and indirectly, our moral and ethics norms: the precepts, eightfold noble path, the paramitas, Asanga’s wholesome mindstates, the 11 virtuous mental factors, etc.

So the meaning of life, which is found in being beneficial for the sake of all beings, comes from the Buddha’s discovery of dependent arising, 12 links, when he sat under the Bodhi tree 2600 years ago.

Very briefly, here are those key concepts:

Dependent Arising

These Twelve Links describe our conscious experience. Our ignorance of how things really are conditions us to the basic act of the mind which is to cognize things with which we have sense contact by concocting stories (volitional formations or sankharas) about them. These stories allow us to develop consciousness, which is nothing more than a self-awareness of our stories.

Consciousness first and foremost conditions us to being aware of our mind-body. Once mind-body arises as an ignorant active structure, sense organs arise and become active. Active sense organs make it possible for there to be contact with external objects (sights, smells, sounds, etc), leaving a meaningful impression on the mind, an experience that is both physical and emotional and of which we are conscious. Without contact, nothing would exist for sentient beings, not even the world.

Because there has been contact, a feeling arises about the experience of the contact. Because feelings are dependent upon contact, which arises from senses that exist because there is mind-body–all of which is just a fabrication, a concoction, a story that arose from ignorance, the feeling is false and foolish.

Ignorant feelings lead to foolish desires the affinities and aversion we have at the point of contact. This craving–this desire for, this wanting–leads to clinging, which means attaching. The stronger the feeling and craving, the greater the clinging and attachment.

It is critical to understand is that Clinging is the attachment to self, not to an external. It is here that we see the embryonic beginnings of the dangerously ignorant “I am and this is mine.”

If there were no clinging, there would be no suffering. But with clinging, everything and anything is grasped as me and mine, self and of-self. This thing we are grasping has arisen because ignorant mind clings to a sense contact and its attendant feeling, which arose through conditions a moment ago and is now gone.

Once attachment occurs, existence arises. Meaning once there is clinging there is a basis for something, whatever is clung to, to now exist as the object of my desire. So clinging causes something to arise in the realm of our existence. Thus there is both a being and an environment for that being created, solidifying both a false inner world and outer world. The embryo of this moment is now fully developed and ready to assert itself.

With existence there is (re)birth. Even though it was previously just clinging to a concept, the self has grown and developed and a new emphatically self-centered I has been (re)born. Rebirth happens every time there is craving or desire, every time there is a thought. For every time there is a thought, desire develops and the sense of I-mine develops.

With birth as a condition, aging and death arise. (Perhaps better to call these three: arising, abiding, and ceasing as we do not mean physical birth here.) Because we don’t realize this, we stay ignorant and keep being born. Further, in the natural process of arising, running its course, and ceasing, the self appropriates and identifies with these: my birth, my aging, my death.

This is how we have transformed a natural process into a static personal problem.

(This explanation is based on a dharma talk by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu.)

Emptiness

The truth is that beneath our ever-changing minds and aging bodies there is no permanent, eternal or essential self. But rather than seeing things this way, as they really are, we concoct stories and superimpose them on ourselves and on things around us, creating a false and foolish self-existence and reality that actually does not exist at all. Emptiness is the absence of this false seemingly solid and substantive nature which we have invested with definition, value, meaning and weight and which we believe is real.

(This explanation is based Guy Newland’s definition in Introduction to Emptiness.)

Indra’s Net

In the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a beautiful net that it stretches out indefinitely in all directions. There is a single glittering jewel at every node of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number.

If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels and look at it closely, we see that on its polished surface are reflected all the other jewels in the net. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that the process of reflection is infinite, without beginning or end.

Understanding Indra’s Net

1. The Holographic Nature of the Universe

The net is like a hologram. In a hologram, every point of the hologram contains information regarding all other points.

2. The Interconnectedness of All Things

When any jewel in the net is touched, all other jewels in the node are affected. This speaks to the hidden interconnectedness and interdependency of everything and everyone in the universe.

3. Lack of a substantive self

Each node, if considered as representing an individual, simply reflects the qualities of all other nodes, suggesting the notion of non-self and emptiness, meaning a lack of a solid and permanent self.

4. Non-locality

Indra's Net shoots holes in the assumption or imputation of a solid and fixed universe out there. The capacity of one jewel to reflect the light of another jewel from the other edge of infinity is something that is difficult for the linear mind, rational mind to comprehend. The fact that all nodes are simply reflections indicates that there is no particular single source point from where it all arises. This addresses some of the key issues of the meaning of life.

5. Illusion or Maya

The fact that all nodes are simply a reflection of all others implies the illusory nature of all appearances. Appearances, such as “the sky” are thus not reality but a reflection of reality. “The real sky is knowing that samsara and nirvana are merely an illusory display.”

6. The Mirror-like Nature of Mind

The capacity to reflect all things attests to the mind being a mirror of reality, not its basis. This is one of the axioms that explains the Middle Way.

Three Pure Vows

These vows list the ideal, the intention and the commitment of a bodhisattva, a person committed to following the path. They are, simply put, the cure for The Three Poisons: greed, anger the delusion. Buddhists practicing in Mahayana institutions around the world recite these vows every day. They are the guiding principles of a practitioner’s life. These short vows tell us what we need to do in any situation: do the least harm and be of the most benefit. They are the criteria we look to when we need to make any decision–big or small.

I vow to do no harm.

I vow to do only good.

I vow to save all sentient beings.

Asanga’s Wholesome Mindstates and The 11 Virtuous Mental Factors

Asanga’s Wholesome Mindstates

1.     Generosity

2.     Compassion

3.     Patience

4.     Humility and Modesty

5.     Moral Restraint

6.     Truthfulness

7.     Dependability

8.     Regret

9.     Distaste

The 11 Virtuous Mental Factors

1.     Faith

2.     Sense of Propriety

3.     Considerateness

4.     Suppleness

5.     Equanimity

6.     Conscientiousness

7.     Renunciation

8.     
Imperturbability

9.     Unbewildered clarity

10.  
Non-violence

11.  Enthusiasm for practice

Overcoming Doubt

Doubt

Doubt is a part of every spiritual journey, and yet the resolution of doubt can bring great stability to a practice. But doubt is so complex and deeply imbedded in who we are and how we act that it is often difficult to notice, to understand, to see get beyond regardless of how strong thoure analytic belief in what we are doing.

While doubt may aid in keeping us from derailing, more often than not it prevents us from moving forward or changing.

Have a looksee at the qualities connected with doubt and there will be no doubt about the difficulties it makes for spiritual growth. [This list is from Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA.]

Physical Qualities

heavy

confused

foggy

sluggish

restless

leaning forward

fatigued

ungrounded

create comfort

urge to move

heat/pain

tightness

deflated

anxious

tense

shallow breath

agitated

emptiness in gut

contraction

folding in on self

uncomfortable in body

enervating

deflated

nervous

unsettled in chest

hungry

Cognitive Qualities and Beliefs

What’s the point?

Will it do any good?

I’m lazy

I can’t

vacillation/uncertainty

I don’t want to

I don’t know the answer

This doesn’t work

I’m not the type/not me

How can I figure it out?

I need help

It’s a cult

It doesn’t work

I should feel connected

I should be certain

There is a right way to be

I’m not ok

I’m not enough

I’m not worthy of the dharma

I’m not good enough

I’m unworthy

I’m flawed

I’m incapable

I should be able to figure this out myself

It’s too hard

I should be a monastic

I’ll never be a nun

I have to suffer

I have to give up everything

I’m going to lose who I am

Who am I if I give up my personality?

Emotions

aversion

anger

frustration

disconnected/lonely

fear

insecure

helpless

anxious

depressed

frenetic

nervous

unsettled

grief

intimidated

overwhelmed

confused and foggy

power

uncertain

wayward

shiftless

rudderless

despair

hesitant

Motivations

decrease of motivation

paralysis

try harder

make feeling go away

do

want to figure it out

quit

become passive

get my way

apathy

embrace my victimhood

can’t start

find an easy way out

find an excuse not to do it

run

avoid

destroy and refute it

do something pleasurable

Behavior

not do it

doing something one regrets

avoidance

put things on hold

shut down

eat

decide too quickly because of discomfort

with uncertainty

paralysis

escape

short with people

indecisive

quit

run away

shyness

avoid things/people

watch TV

sleep

internet/email

withdraw

stop eating

collect facts

read

make lists

procrastinate

anger

gossip

avoid sitting

imaginary conversations

head outdoors

head for the light

turn to nature

listen to dharma talks or lectures

talk about it

see a therapist

study it

turn towards it

Doubt in our practice is the fifth of the Five Hindrances. Mindfulness, meditation, and concentration, and wisdom and investigation are the keys to overcoming doubt. A strong or serious practice would include an emphasis on either mindfulness or meditation and either wisdom or investigation.