Matthieu Ricard explored the concept of Sukkha as well-being, an optimal state, a healthy quality that suffuses all emotional states and conditions. It is a wholesome way of being that endures in all conditions; regardless of the weather at sea, the sea itself is clean and unpolluted.
Hedonic pleasures: get old and eventually prove exhausting.
Well-being/sukkha: confers strength, freedom, compassion; continued experience and understanding of it allows it to deepen and endure.
Exacerbated self-concern is a prime source of insecurity. (Remember, we learned that perceived attack on the “self” leads to physical pathology.)
Genuine self-confidence in not about a triumphant ego, but lies in breaking the bubble of the Self, dissolving the target, and gives rise to a deep compassion, work for the benefit of others, and an end to hopelessness.
(I love this guy!)
Sukkha, as a particular kind of well-being, addresses themes of self-interest, anxiety and true health.
Practice progresses slowly—like watching the hands of a clock. If the hands haven’t moved after some time—if you aren’t more compassionate and less anxious, then the practice isn’t working!
Father Keating: Early Christians accepted two types of revelations: scriptures and nature (!) He said the proceedings are “telling me more about G-d than anything else. Because I’ve read the scriptures.”
The Garden of Eden story is fundamentally about humans tempted to become G-d. Do you want to become G-d on G-d’s terms? Or on your own terms? If the latter, you’re out of paradise, bereft, and don’t become G-d at all.
This is very significant for the health professions: life “on my own terms” is an illusion that doesn’t work, and doesn’t make us healthy or happy. People have no idea where true happiness is to be found, and are seeking in all the wrong places. Or if they find some truth, the person is too morally weak to do anything about it.
To be “healthy” is to accept our weakness, to acknowledge that we need others, and to see the fate of others seeking happiness in all the wrong places.
He spoke of the “post-conceptual, intuitive presence of Reality,” called Love. Love is knowing at the deepest level, beyond a “self.” This is seeing G-d (however you name It—“God has been called a lot worse things than ‘God’!”) on its own terms.
Our whole being emerges from this presence—this is tender, loving, motherly, concerned—health-giving—and given gratuitously, with the invitation that, as G-d is our host, so are we to pass on to humanity the great truth that we are receiving.
Fr. Keating continued by saying that his work now is in recovering the Christian contemplative tradition, which has fallen into neglect, and some opposition. Christians need to be converted!
Of the practice of Silence, he said this is listening more deeply than ears or heart can go. Listening to that energy which is everything, and nothing.
It doesn’t matter how you sit, but you must discontinue habits of looking for happiness in the wrong places. It is this which makes us ill.
Someone at this point noted, “The greatest impediment to knowledge is not ignorance by the illusion of knowledge.”
His Holiness: The validity of a moment of cognition can only be determined in relation to other elements.
A theory or discipline should be checked-out by comparing notes with other, perhaps radically-different, perspective.
Some misconceptions about religion, and interreligious dialogue:
-- That religions contradict one another, and “cancel out”, leaving only science as a measure of truth.
-- that the contemplative traditions involve progress towards some “right” answer, to be verified or rejected by one’s teacher
He further advocated a return to empiricism, not resting with doctrinal answers, but comparing notes on the deepest experiential level to see if a convergence between religions can be found.
Sylvia Boorstein: Compassion is easy to hold as an ideal, but kindness, its active manifestation, is often held to be a secondary virtue, something to settle for if you can’t have power, etc. In fact, kindness is a major force for wholesomeness and good!
She then asked the Dalai Lama how compassion related to one’s ability to do something about a problem.
He responded that compassion is about more than empathy; aided by wisdom, it also involves seeing the causes of a situation, and the possibility of freedom from suffering. Compassion as the simple wish to not see others suffer can lead to a sense of helplessness. Insight into the situation enables us to see how we can help. The apogee of compassion is “Great Compassion”, the motivation to seek enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.
Jon Kabat-Zinn wrapped things up thus:
we have a fleeting chance in this human lifetime to move closer to What We Actually Are, to really embody mindful awareness.
”The bell has rung,” the reverberations will continue, and their impact is yet unknown.
Your job is to ask where your deepest questions come from—What is my job on this planet? As a sentient human, awake to my own awareness and vast potential, how can I be of service?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment