What's love?

To love another means to understand them.
To love means to see them for who they are.
To love means to support their happiness.
To love means to rejoice in their growth and development.

We can develop this kind of love for everyone. We can move through the world with this love. In this way, we can love friends, strangers and even our opponents.

I see you. I respect you. I can understand your situation and see why you might think that is in your best interest. I might not agree with you, but I rejoice in your efforts to lift yourself so you can live a better life.

What prevents us from loving others in this way? Our own small mindedness. Our own fixation to our position and place. Our own inability to love and accept who we are, much less who others are.

By supporting and growing our own hearts, we can learn to expand our love to everyone. By understanding ourselves more fully, we become more in tune with others. Expand our self-awareness, and we expand our circle of acceptance.

Letter to a young practitioner.

Dear friend,

It is a great joy and pleasure to see you so eagerly engage in the practice and the curiosity with which you inquire about the path. I implore you to never temper this curiosity and to always ask questions of your teachers and other Dharma practitioners whom you hold in high regard.

I have little advice to offer save this- search inside yourself. Everyone around you is looking outwards, building up their image and their status. Our culture revolves around gain and loss. Our culture orients us towards what is easy, and it is clear to me that the path ahead of you is difficult, but that is all the more reason for you to travel it. You must learn to set aside everyday concerns and look within. Dig deep into your own thoughts, feelings and perceptions. Yearn to understand the human condition. Everything in you is played out in the world around you. What you struggle with is what we all struggle with.

There is something that burns in you. Something you must know. Something you must resolve and figure out. Use that, don't deny its necessity. Your urgency will carry you far on the path, use it to fuel your study and practice. Don't waste it on meaningless activity or distracted impulses. Accept the fact that you are called to the practice, with all of the responsibility and heaviness that it requires.

If you think that you do not have what you need, that your situation is too rough or that it is not the right time; question yourself, not your life. The practitioner uses all situations as the practice, all obstacles as the path. From where you stand, there is no map. You can only take one step forward and look for guides along the way. The Buddha himself said that all he can do is open the door, you must walk through.

You must know how much your example inspires us. Your effort and dedication will always give your fellow practitioners and teachers much joy. But also know that you will often feel alone on the path. Padampa Sangye told his student Machig Lapdron, that in the deepest and darkest of places you must find the Buddha within. You must follow that example.

There are a few teachings with which you must make your constant companion. When all seems lost and you feel that you are reaching about in the darkness, they will be like beacons of light on the horizon calling you forth. They are the Dharmachakrapravatana on the four noble truths, Shantideva's Way of the Bodhisattva, and Garab Dorje's Three Words that Strike the Essential Point. Rely on them always and let them inspire you and be a source of rest and abundance. Let these teachings infuse your mind and shape your practice. Learn from them what seems relevant now, but return again and again as they will never stop revealing themselves in your practice. They will naturally give rise to devotion for the lineage and deepen your contemplation.

Be attentive to that which rises up in you. Learn to be comfortable with yourself. Find peace and joy in solitude. When you can sit for hours and not do anything, you have made friends with yourself in a way that few among us can appreciate. The practice never gets easier, you simply learn to be more comfortable with the truth of suffering. As you learn to more fully understand the human condition, you learn to be less reactive and you will find that you don't have to respond to every little impulse. You will learn to rest in openness, to be more receptive and to embrace the vulnerability of what it means to be human. In that space, where we can see clearly without getting caught by the hook of attachment or aversion, reification or denial, there is an opportunity that we will see the truth of cessation and recognize our true nature. Cessation isn't extinction, it isn't a nothingness. What ceases is our false self, our confused notion of who we are. What is revealed is our true nature, what the Buddha called the tathagatagarbha, the buddha heart. This is a legacy available to you, something you have the opportunity to carry forward into your life.

Be patient with yourself. Fight the urge to expect a quick result. The result is the path, and the journey ahead is long. What you want you cannot give birth to now, you must live it. It must live through you. Each experience, each impression gives it shape and form. The practice creates the form of your life. As you sit with the inexpressible, that which is just beyond the reach of your mind, you will give birth to clarity. Recognize the freedom in that arising. Everything is arising. That is the way the practitioner moves through the world.

When you are lost for meaning and purpose, wondering what is the point, know that there is purpose in carrying something. Carry the practice into every nook and cranny of your life. The practice will give your life meaning and from it you will engender a much broader scope of the world and your place in it. Let it inform your intentions, your actions and your livelihood. Carry this as a special gift to yourself, and should you dare, and of course you must, share your time, energy and heart with others.

Faithfully yours, and with much confidence in you as you set out on this journey.

Gregory Scott Patenaude

Getting closer.

In meditation we get closer to the pain, closer to dukkha, closer to reality, closer to the situation as it really is. We learn how to sit in that space, not doing anything. We learn how to gain the composure necessary to be there, to be present, to witness and stay engaged, but not to react.

Normally, amidst pain and chaos and confusion, we tend to shut down. We tend to close ourselves us, put up our guard, insulate ourselves. Protection is a normal response to fear and uncertainty.

In our practice, we don't need to deliberately choose pain or subject ourselves to tortuous situations, but we can choose to stand amidst the pain. We can choose to be present instead of reacting and shutting down.

A genuine practice authentically aligns us with the world and others around us. It's okay to be close to the pain. Our pain is real.

Buddha on the Life Changing Practice of Mindfulness

“Whoever, mendicants, should practice these four foundations of mindfulness for just one week may expect one of two results: either complete deliverance in this life or, if there is a residue of clinging, the state of a non-returner.”

On one occasion, the Buddha was staying in the Kuru kingdom near a marketplace called Khammasadhamma. The Kuru kingdom was the center of Vedic culture and the dominant political and cultural center of the area. The local culture was committed to brahmanic rituals and rites of purification and the society maintained a strict social hierarchy. The marketplace would have been filled with artisans working on their craft, traders doing business, and local religious and political leaders lobbying for power and control. It was a culture not much different than our own.

At that time and in that place, the Buddha spoke to his disciples about the practice of mindfulness, teaching what is known as the Mahāsatipatṭhāna Sutta, the Great Sutra on the Foundations of Mindfulness. This work of his revealed the core practice of mindfulness, which is central to the Buddha’s teachings and a core principle of living life according to the Dharma.

The practice of mindfulness is for those practitioners who are committed to living mindfully in order to realize inner freedom. It is a practice to overcome busyness and distraction, teaching us to let go of preoccupations and focus the mind in the present. This practice of being mindful and aware frees us from suffering, fear and anxiety, giving us the capacity to be present and engaged, to look deeply and discover the insight needed to transform our life and the world around us.  Accessible and relevant to the modern world, this teaching reveals four qualities of the mind necessary for embarking on a lifetime of practice. This practical yet profound practice teaches us how to maintain mindfulness of the body, how to experience sense perceptions and the influences of the inner and outer world, how to recognize thoughts and various mental states, and how to carry mindfulness through the varieties of our lived experience.

In the Digha Nikaya, the Long Discourses of the Buddha, the Buddha taught the practice of the foundations of mindfulness.

There is, mendicants, this one way to the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and distress, for the disappearance of pain and sadness, for the gaining of the right path, for the realization of Nirvana- that is to say the four foundations of mindfulness.

During the Buddha’s time, the local culture would have been obsessed with purifying the body, improving its condition and making it more pleasing for the sake of everyday concerns. They would have yearned for a way to purify their minds of negative thoughts and mental states, reaching out to their local Brahmin for a method of cleansing the mind and spirit. In this regard, ancient India is not much different than our own modern day world. People are always looking for an easy fix to their problems. People spend countless resources on ways to cleanse the body and make it healthier. They seek out methods that all promise to lead to happiness and a life of meaning and purpose. Celebrities of the moment all have the solution of the day available to you.

Knowing the local culture and the concerns of his audience, the Buddha taught the foundations of mindfulness as the single authentic way to purify our own body, speech and mind. He taught the practice of mindfulness as the only way to overcome sorrow and distress, pain and sadness. This single practice sets us out on the right path, on the path of inner freedom. 

Here, mendicants, a mendicant abides contemplating body as body, ardent, clearly aware and mindful, having put aside hankering and fretting for the world. She abides contemplating feelings as feelings; she abides contemplating mind as mind; she abides contemplating phenomena as phenomena, ardent, clearly aware and mindful, having put aside hankering and fretting for the world.

Four Qualities for Engaging in the Practice

The Buddha taught that when we are contemplating these foundations of mindfulness, we should be ardent, clearly aware, mindful and put aside any hankering and fretting for the world. These four qualities are essential if our practice is to be fruitful.

Ardent (Pali. Ātāpī) means to burn. It is to be passionate and enthusiastic about the task at hand. One who is not ardent lacks energy. Thus, the Buddha taught that to engage in the practice of mindfulness we need to be passionate about our work. Who among us is passionate about the work they do? 

Amateurs are passionate, to be an amateur is ‘to love’. Amateurs are curious and have lots of questions, and the answers to those questions lead to more questions resulting in a constant state of wonder. Approaching the practice with a beginners mind, we are fueled by wonder and fascination. Amateurs are passionate enough to do the work it takes to orientate themselves to the worlds in which they inquire. Their passion allows them to build the framework necessary to explore deeper. Their passion carries them beyond the superficial layers, it fosters depth and the depth feeds the passion. Passion coupled with orientation, a framework for exploration and the ability to see deeper are the prerequisites for becoming an expert. Being ardent, we start as amateurs in the practice and end up as masters.

Clearly aware (Skt. samprajanya) is a vigilant awareness that is fully alert to the present moment. The Buddha describes this vigilant awareness in the Satipatthanasamyutta:

And how, mendicants, does a mendicant exercise clear comprehension? Here, mendicants, for a mendicant feelings are understood as they arise, understood as the remain present, understood as they pass away. Thoughts are understood as they arise; perceptions are understood as they arise…It is in this way, mendicants, that a mendicant exercises clear comprehension.

Being clearly aware means being present in a non-reactive and non-judgemental way. It is like a watchmen in the tower, looking out over his domain, knowing who is coming and going. It is sharp, attentive and focused.

The next quality of the mind that must be developed is mindfulness itself. Mindful in this sense means to be mindful of the object of our intention. Attention follows intention, so we need to be clear about what we are being mindful of. Once we have set a clear intention, mindfulness maintains our attention on that focus. When the mind wanders and becomes distracted, mindfulness brings us back. Mindfulness can be described as a rope that ties a monkey to a stake. As the monkey of the mind moves and jumps around, the rope always brings the monkey back.

The last quality of the mind required for this practice is to put aside hankering and fretting for this world. Set aside your attachment and aversion, your craving and fixation. Remain in a state free from judgment and speculation. Let go of reactions to whatever is coming up in your experience, simply maintain the continuity of mindfulness and vigilant awareness with curiosity and enthusiasm. 

Cultivating these four mental qualities of being ardent, clearly aware, mindful and setting aside our reactions to our experience, we can move through each of the four foundations of mindfulness, contemplating the body as body, feelings as feelings, mind as mind, and phenomena as phenomena; simply being aware of our experience in a non-reactive and non-judgemental way.

These four qualities of mind are the way in which we engage in the practice of mindfulness. Next time, we will look into the practice as it pertains to contemplating one’s own body, feelings, mind and experience.

You are the work.

Farmers direct the stream;

archers straighten the arrow's shaft;

carpenters shape the wood; 

the spiritual work on themselves.

Buddha

from the Dhammapada 10:17

The farmer knows his fields, the condition of his crops and how the seasons affect his harvest. He knows when water is plentiful and when it needs to be used judiciously. The farmer understands his medium. 

The archer knows her bow and arrow. She knows when the arrow is true and when it is must be straightened. Her craft is mastered by knowing the subtle nuances and conditions of her medium so that she can reliably hit her mark. 

The carpenter knows wood. He knows how it will split, which wood is soft and which is hard. He knows how the grain will appear and how to use the inherent qualities of the wood to produce a work of art. 

To practice the dharma we need to understand our medium. We are the medium, our own body, speech and mind. We are the wood to be shaped and the arrow to be straightened. We must understand the human condition in order for our practice to take root. Mastering our practice means understanding the human condition, and that starts by understanding dukkha.