When there is awareness, a reaction that is seen and understood to be a hindrance diminishes on its own. It may take a lot of repeated suffering, but a moment comes when the energy of seeing takes the place of the habit."
-- Toni Packer, The Wonder of Presence
Before this Nehan sesshin, I didn't relate to Toni Packer at all. I picked up this book today, thinking I'd pass it along to someone else. And then I saw words that described my experience perfectly. And another notion about myself and the world flew out the window! The entire book is brilliant, and just what I need right now.
The piece I meant to write, anchored by the quote “I am always with you,” was this:
This recent sesshin was really difficult. I know the basic instruction for dealing with racing thought and emotion: feel the feeling. Understanding that the impulse to think arises from a sensation lower than words, you feel that sensation, and you feel the impulse to fix or resolve or figure it out or otherwise force it to be different.
You become minutely aware of sensations in the body, the rush of adrenaline, the pang of yearning. Or maybe you don’t! These are like instructions for finding the surface in a raging storm at sea: sometimes you do break the surface and manage to inhale, but …it’s not always possible.
There is refuge in the stability of the body-mudra, the yogic posture of the Buddhas, rooted and balanced, upright through all assaults. And there is refuge in the breath, in attending to this body that breathes. But there are other refuges, false ones, ones that appear to give comfort, but only fuel the karma that is being uprooted. For me, these would be thinking, planning, and fantasy.
From minute personal observation, I can now report that, in the very depths of my being, when the going gets tough, I turn to two fantasies of comfort. The first is food—delicious, filling, flavorful food, its development and preparation. A universe of melted cheese and carbohydrates. At one point, I realized I had just reinvented tuna noodle casserole.
The second comfort is relationship: the gratifying love and appreciation of another human being; harmonious togetherness; maybe the thrill of discovery; some praise; some hugging. A couple people in particular—or their two-dimensional representations—served as reliable gratification-objects.
These depths of mind are not very flattering, but such is the karma of this person. It’s the material I have to work with—the unformed basis of Buddhahood if I hear the teachings right. I do know that judging or hating it just adds to the suffering.
And looking, again and again, is tremendously healing. It took every ounce of resolve to keep sitting, to sit through breaks and all the last night, and to continue noticing the mind and body with as much compassion as possible.
I wrote:
Trust
Relearned, remembered today
There is a place untouched and true.
An eye in every storm
Immediate, infinite
Deeply intimate
Somewhere under the roiling drama, there is indeed a quiet place to observe from, deeper than the stories that race around on the surface.
I guess the last thing I want to say is that I recognized my views of the world are Not Always Right. This is a basic teaching, but I’m talking about a systematic misunderstanding of my relationships with others in the world.
I suddenly realized, there was no need to be afraid at the monastery. Although I was in a state of minor emergency there for months on end. The Samdinhirmocana Sutra (and maybe others as well) liken the imputational aspect of mind to a flaw in vision. Like something in the eye that makes everything have a halo around it, or appear the wrong color. So we experience a reality mediated by these fundamental flaws, and experience it, without questions, as a real part of the world.
Birds build nests. Cats watch. Humans sit and know.
And look: I am jealous of A, suspicious of B, hampered by a strategy of unwilling surrender while here (at the monastery). Would it have hurt to spare them ONE kind thought all week?
I need them: I could not sit all night or all week without them. And they need me too. I forget my own basic dignity. And theirs. Who cares what C thinks she thinks of me? Or if I think it’s because of something I did two years ago?
We don’t see ourselves clearly: I don’t see myself; I don’t see others; and they certainly don’t see me clearly either. And it doesn’t really matter. My inner world of human relationships doesn’t reflect the truth: it’s the rather shallow experience of a scared, insecure person with an agenda of self-protection and gratification. People are actually much more interesting than my stories about them. And it’s pointless to waste thought on what I think their stories about me might be. That’s no way to live a life. (And yet I have, alas.)
The important thing is that our relationships are founded on wholesome ground. Whether I “like” these people at the moment or not, somehow we all come together anyway, and we sit, and things change. Just forget the story and focus on the intention.
Because people do change. And the people who come to spiritual practice are often pretty loopy, or desperate, or lost, and that’s fine. It shouldn’t be any other way. This is about resolving karma and seeing clearly; we need odd, quirky, deluded folks for that. And our own oddest and most dysfunctional selves are going to rise to the surface, blindly drawn toward the healing and destruction of the Dharma.
Gratefully borrowed from the vast ocean of the internet.
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