Episode 106: Puzzles and Glimpses

As a student of Chögyam Trungpa, I heard the phrase “back to square one” quite a lot  •  he implied that doing something over and over again is very important — in our dharma practice, in our meditation, and in our studies  •  throughout his teachings, Trungpa Rinpoche put a great deal of emphasis on building a strong foundation, and on going back to the very earliest teachings of the Buddha, in particular to the teachings of the Four Noble Truths: the reality of suffering, the causes of suffering, the possibility of the cessation of suffering, and various pathways to do so  •  in a more immediate sense, going back to square one can mean going back to your very first personal inspiration to embark on the path of dharma  •  why are you doing this? what is the point? what inspired you from the very beginning?  •  going back to square one means to always touch back on the foundation  •  no matter how “advanced” you may feel, you always have to check back and ask: are you actually working on yourself, are you actually dealing with your own  neuroses, your own habits, your own obstacles?  •  and as you extend your practice to working with others to cultivate wisdom and compassion and skillful means, how are you working with that?  •  so you go back to the beginning; you start from square one, over and over and over  •  this practice of going back to square one keeps things fresh and honest; it keeps us in tune with the fundamental questions that we need to look into.

Buddhism is often referred to as a path; not as a set of beliefs or a doctrine, but as a trail, a path, a walkway  • it's a direction, or a guideline, or a map of sorts; you have an idea of trying to get somewhere, but you can't see where the destination is  •  so there's a quality of faith that if you walk along this path, you'll get where you'd like to go  •  walking on a path teaches you about your own resilience, your own strengths, your own fears and hesitations  • you're confronted with challenges all the time: the path is washed out, or something blocks the path  •  such obstacles are central to the experience  •  but there's also a sense of accomplishment, of building resilience and strength, of finding out who you are in the face of challenges  •  if you have a fixed idea of some destination, you might begin to wonder, Where am I trying to get anyway?  •  the path keeps unfolding and you keep walking along, but you have no idea how to know if you've reached your destination or not  •  Am I there yet? Is this it? You may even start to suspect that there is no “there” •  all your thoughts about where you're trying to get to can begin to crumble —  which is actually wonderful and amazing  •  you might even say,  now you're finally getting somewhere.

Walking meditation is often introduced in the context of group practice: you're sitting and a gong rings, and then you stand up and begin walking; then another gong rings and you go back to sitting  •  this brings up a couple of interesting things  •  how do we transition from one state to another without losing it and needing to regroup on some subtle level?  •  we are brought face to face with the challenge of having a more continuous sense of mindfulness and awareness, rather than turning it on and turning it off  •  the group aspect also brings up how easy it is to be in our practice bubble, and not really be aware of those around us or the environment in which we're practicing  •  it also brings in a relational aspect: when you are walking in a circle, there's someone in front of you and someone behind you  •  they may be wearing funny clothes, or they may be going faster or slower than you'd like  •  you have to coordinate what you're doing with others, so there's a relational aspect that has a rich texture  •  another important and inspiring aspect of walking meditation is how it's connected with going beyond our own concerns, with making gestures of peace in the midst of war-torn worlds  •  training in walking meditation can help us to be able to touch in with the force of peace, even in the midst of struggle and chaos and suffering. 

In this episode I'd like to explore the topic of walking meditation  •  in some ways walking meditation is a link between stillness and movement; it is a bridge between the quiet and peaceful state of sitting meditation and the activities of daily life  •  but in walking meditation, we're not trying to get somewhere; the walking itself is the point  •  in walking meditation, you place your attention on the contact of your feet with the earth or the floor  •  you pay attention as your balance shifts from one foot to the other foot, and to the pushing off as you shift from one foot to the other  •  it’s very simple  •  the idea is not to be overly precious or self conscious, but simply keep our attention so that when we walk with each step, it's a genuine step, a true step  •  when we walk, we really walk; we include everything in each step  •  walking meditation has the sense of continuous presence, continuous awareness, continuous being  •  you don't have to be in a formal setting; you can notice how you walk, notice how connected or disconnected you are with your walking, and then work with that  •  I invite you to explore what it's like to walk, just to walk, with mindfulness  •  it's amazing how powerful one true gesture can be.  

In this episode I'd like to explore the role of self reliance on the Buddhist path  •  the basic idea is that nobody can walk your path for you; even if we encounter the wisest teachers and most supportive community that ever existed, fundamentally, at some very deep level, each of us is on our own  •  we must confront our own mind, our own emotions, our own habits; each of us must discover what this journey of awakening is all about  •  the quality of self reliance is very much related to a sense of persistence—learning how to just stick with something when our inspiration wanes  •  we might look for shortcuts, for ways to beat the system, so to speak; but there's really no way around the fact that if we want any results, we need to persist  •  one way of looking at this is to compare an escalator and a staircase  •  with an escalator, you just hop on and it lifts you up to your destination  •  it seems so much better than trudging up a staircase  •  but when you reach the top of the escalator, you haven’t really changed  •  when you walk up a staircase, one step at a time, you're building strength; with each step, something is transforming  •  the person at the top is very different from the person who took that first step. 

Today I'd like to explore the question of sacredness  •  there is a tendency to think that there are certain special things in life that are sacred, and then there's the rest of life, which is secular  •  is sacredness something that exists out there, or do we decide what is sacred?  •  in Buddhism there's an emphasis on seeing sacredness in the most mundane aspects of our ordinary life  •  viewing things with a sacred outlook has the power to reconnect us with a quality of wonder, a quality of awe, a quality of deep respect  •  you simply view everything — your body, your words, your emotions, your thoughts, your consciousness — as though it matters, as though it is worthy of your mindful attention and care  •  we can be inspired by certain special sacred sites, but the point is not to use those experiences to diminish or devalue the rest of our life  •  there are opportunities  to see the sacredness all around us in every situation, in every encounter, all the time, hidden in plain sight.

This episode focuses on the faults and shortcomings we see in ourselves and in other beings:  how do we become friends with ourselves, with all our faults, without excusing them and without concealing them?  •  why is it so easy to see everybody else's faults and so hard to look at our own?  •  I was inspired in part by a traditional poem called “Calling to the Gurus from Afar”; it's an example of a student being willing to show up as they are  •  here is the stanza I’m referring to: “My faults are as large as a mountain, but I conceal them within me  /  Others faults are as minute as a sesame seed, but I proclaim them and condemn them  /  I boast about my virtues, though I don't even have a few  /  I call myself a Dharma practitioner and practice only non-dharma  /  Guru, think of me, look upon me quickly with compassion, grant your blessings so that I subdue my selfishness and pride”  •  this poem was written by a great Tibetan master named Jamgon Kongtrul  •  it's oddly reassuring that someone like that can lay out such faults so easily, so openly, and with a sense of humor or lightness as well  • it’s like taking our pile of juicy neurotic habits or attachments and laying them out like dead fish and exposing them to the light of the sun, and in that environment of sanity and compassion, they simply dry up.

In this episode, I'd like to focus on meditation in action, and particularly on speech  •  in Buddhism there is a tremendous respect for the spoken word  •  speech is powerful; it can be beneficial, and it also can be harmful  • because speech plays such a large role in our lives, it is an excellent basis for meditation in action, for cultivating our mindfulness and awareness  •  so I'd like to introduce what are called the six points of mindful speech — six things to pay attention to when you are speaking  •  the first point is precision, which is based on enunciation and speaking clearly  •  it is quite kind to do this, for it makes it easier for others to understand us   •  the second point is simplicity; this includes choosing your words well, as well as noticing if you're talking just to be talking  •  the third point is pacing; being mindful that you are not speaking to too fast or too slow  •  the fourth point is silence; sometimes the most important communication we can make is to bite our tongue and not say what we're thinking  •  the fifth point is really listening to what others are saying; it's learning to pay attention to the nuances and the subtleties  •  the sixth point is making it a practice to pay attention to your own speech and your speech patterns  •  all of these points are based on cultivating a quality of mind that is gentle and true and precise and open.  

Loving kindness – known in Sanskrit as maitri – is a cornerstone of the entire Buddhist path  •  without loving kindness, no matter how much you meditate or how much you study the dharma, it will lack ultimate value  •  maitri is the valve through which the power of the dharma can flow  •  it is the foundation of true spiritual practice; it is transformative; and it is fundamental to our human nature  •  yet, ironically, it's easy to lose our connection, to lose that sense of the heart of things  •  at first, maitri might arrive just as simple little pinpricks, little noticings in the midst of our struggles and dramas  •  in the midst of all that, there are little refreshing moments where we're pulled out of our own dramas for a second  •  it might be sparked by the simplest thing — as simple as the sun coming out from behind the clouds after days of cloudiness  •  when we start to notice those little moments, we begin to realize that kind of tenderness and heartfulness of life is always there  •  instead of being caught up in perpetual strategies and struggles to secure happiness, maitri, or loving kindness, is something that is always accessible, no matter the circumstances.  

When Trungpa Rinpoche spoke about the importance of joining intellect and intuition, he was referring to combining learning and study with the practice of meditation  •  the practice of meditation helps us to overcome the chaos of conflicting emotions, while learning or sharpening the intellect leads to gentleness  •  the idea of learning in this case isn't necessarily about acquiring large amounts of of information; it is about cultivating an inquisitive mind  •  first you need to listen and learn, to pay attention, to get the facts  •  but then you have to really think about what you have learned; you have to work with it and struggle with it  •  there's a kind of laziness of mind that settles for a superficial understanding without really questioning what is being said, and why  •  this is particularly true in this “age of information,” which in many ways has become the age of disinformation and conspiracy theories  •  there is a tendency to not really think about what you hear, but just respond on an emotional level to rumor and innuendo  •  such gullibility can leave us vulnerable to manipulation by people who don't necessarily have the best of intentions  •  the type of questioning I'm referring to is not cynical questioning based on hatred and aggression, but a questioning that comes from curiosity and genuine interest  •  because we're willing to question ourselves as well as others, it leads to a kind of softness or gentleness, as well as clarity and depth.