Cultivating Evenmindedness
Guided Upekkha Bhavana (Cultivating Evenmindedness)
This is one of the guided meditations that I led recently in a Google+ Hangout.
This particular one is a guide to developing the quality of equanimity (upekkha), or evenmindedness. There's an introductory talk in which I outline four different uses of the term equanimity, and then I guided the class through an approach to meditation in which we lose our sense of separateness, so that there's an element of anatta (not-self) brought into the practice before we begin to cultivate lovingkindness.
The practice also brings together mental stillness and non-reactivity, and metta, or lovingkindness. It's important to remember that "even-mindedness" (or equanimity) is actually "even-minded love" or "equanimous love" and isn't a state of uncaring.
PS. You can see all of our 100 Days of Lovingkindness posts here.
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There it was… that one question that people ask you so many times during job interviews: where do you see yourself in 10 years? I was fresh out of school and had never thought about it that much.
Strange, right? You grow up, choose a direction in school and you seem to also be determined at the age of 14 what your life will be like.
So there I was, with a mouth full of silence. What should I say to the interviewer?
Needless to say, the answer didn't come then. It still intrigued me and I started thinking.
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Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma
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Emily Drabble, The Guardian: All teachers want their students to be calm, focused, alert, aware and creative, which is essentially what mindfulness is all about, so it's no wonder the term has become a bit of a buzzword, even in mainstream education.
The Guardian Teacher Network has resources to help introduce mindfulness to young people at school (and at home) and to help them develop some essential life skills.
The most delicious way to start has to be Mindfulness and the art of chocolate eating. Taking just three minutes, this is a practical and instantly likeable introduction to bringing mindfulness to the classroom…
Read the original article »
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The Buddha, in Bhikkhu Thanissaro's translation at least, said, "A person of integrity is grateful and thankful." This is one of those thoughts that I'm profoundly grateful for because I don't think it would ever have occurred to me. Yet searching the web for the terms "gratitude" and "integrity" brought me to an interesting book, The Gratitude Factor: Enhancing Your Life Through Grateful Living, by Charles M. Shelton.
Shelton explores this theme of integrity and gratitude. He distinguishes between thankfulness (which involves being appreciative of some specific person or thing) and gratitude (which is a deeper and more pervasive attitude to life consisting of being grateful not just for specific things but for living itself). And he observes that many people who discuss this distinction, and who value gratitude over thankfulness, see gratitude as being related to "virtue" and "integrity."
Here's the connection that Shelton makes:
So wisdom helps us to recognize what truly brings peace and happiness, and mindfulness and volition, informed by that wisdom, help us to educate the more grasping and the more aggressive parts of the brain and encourages them to "stand down" so that we can act in ways that bring about peace and happiness. Perhaps we're enlightened when those more primitive parts of the brain are completely re-educated. Or perhaps they simply go offline, or their inputs are so weakened that they can never, after the point of awakening, have a real effect on our behavior. I just don't know.
But the thing is that our multiple and conflicting selves become more integrated around our wisdom, so that there's less inner conflict. The whole of us becomes an expression of, and an accessory to, that which is most wise in us. All spiritual practice involves a process of integration, which leads to "integrity," which means "wholeness." And this is a wholeness centered on "the good."
Mudita — joyful appreciation, focusing on the good in ourselves and others — is one important factor in bringing about this sense of wholeness and integrity. The less we obsess about what's wrong with the world, the less we feel out of place in the world, and the less we feel conflicted and defensive. And so our sense of existing in a state of polarization is reduced. Our sense of being an isolated "self" is reduced. Our being becomes more relaxed, more diffused. We see ourselves as essentially good, and we see our role as being to encourage the emergence of the good that is in others.
Shelton also notes:
PS. You can see all of our 100 Days of Livingkindness posts here.
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This particular one is a guide to developing the quality of equanimity (upekkha), or evenmindedness. There's an introductory talk in which I outline four different uses of the term equanimity, and then I guided the class through an approach to meditation in which we lose our sense of separateness, so that there's an element of anatta (not-self) brought into the practice before we begin to cultivate lovingkindness.
The practice also brings together mental stillness and non-reactivity, and metta, or lovingkindness. It's important to remember that "even-mindedness" (or equanimity) is actually "even-minded love" or "equanimous love" and isn't a state of uncaring.
PS. You can see all of our 100 Days of Lovingkindness posts here.
Read More @ Source
Posted: 27 Jun 2013 10:00 AM PDT
Strange, right? You grow up, choose a direction in school and you seem to also be determined at the age of 14 what your life will be like.
So there I was, with a mouth full of silence. What should I say to the interviewer?
Needless to say, the answer didn't come then. It still intrigued me and I started thinking.
Read more »
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Posted: 18 Nov 2016 01:47 AM PST
This is from a poem that I love. It's called, "Fire" by Judy Brown.
What makes a fire burn
is the space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.
So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood….
This feels like beautiful advice. It's an invitation to pause and to find the spaces in our life that allow spirit to shine through. So, what stops us? What makes it so difficult? When we're in a rush and feeling stressed, the hardest thing in the world is to stop. You probably know what it's like. If you try to stop, everything in your body and your mind is still charging forward. There's a huge, anxious, restless drive to check things off the list and tie up all loose ends. It's really physically uncomfortable to pause!
We each have an existential hum of fear that is in the background of our daily life. We have a perception of our temporariness, that around the corner we face inevitable loss. We will lose our own bodies and minds, we will lose others who we love. This apprehension keeps us focused on defending against loss, trying to predict loss, trying in some way trying to occupy ourselves so we don't have to face the rawness.
True Refuge, published Jan 2013. Available at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
Our fear keeps us busily filling in the space between the logs. This trance of more to do prevents us from finding the breathing space; it keeps us from the blessings of sacred presence. When we see this, something deep within us longs to stop. This wisdom guides us to pause and touch the moment; to listen to the wind, to feel the one who is hugging us, to see the light in a dear one's eyes. This wisdom brings us to the simplicity of the inflow and outflow of the breath. It calls to us lovingly: "Stop and come home. Find, in the space between the logs, the light that is your source."
Adapted from my book Radical Acceptance (2003)
For more information visit: www.tarabrach.com
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What makes a fire burn
is the space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.
So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood….
This feels like beautiful advice. It's an invitation to pause and to find the spaces in our life that allow spirit to shine through. So, what stops us? What makes it so difficult? When we're in a rush and feeling stressed, the hardest thing in the world is to stop. You probably know what it's like. If you try to stop, everything in your body and your mind is still charging forward. There's a huge, anxious, restless drive to check things off the list and tie up all loose ends. It's really physically uncomfortable to pause!
We each have an existential hum of fear that is in the background of our daily life. We have a perception of our temporariness, that around the corner we face inevitable loss. We will lose our own bodies and minds, we will lose others who we love. This apprehension keeps us focused on defending against loss, trying to predict loss, trying in some way trying to occupy ourselves so we don't have to face the rawness.
True Refuge, published Jan 2013. Available at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.Our fear keeps us busily filling in the space between the logs. This trance of more to do prevents us from finding the breathing space; it keeps us from the blessings of sacred presence. When we see this, something deep within us longs to stop. This wisdom guides us to pause and touch the moment; to listen to the wind, to feel the one who is hugging us, to see the light in a dear one's eyes. This wisdom brings us to the simplicity of the inflow and outflow of the breath. It calls to us lovingly: "Stop and come home. Find, in the space between the logs, the light that is your source."
Adapted from my book Radical Acceptance (2003)
For more information visit: www.tarabrach.com
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Posted: 27 Jun 2013 05:00 AM PDT
"If we do not know how to take care of ourselves and to love ourselves, we cannot take care of the people we love. Loving oneself is the foundation for loving another person."
~Thich Nhat Hanh
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Posted: 27 Jun 2013 12:00 AM PDT
Emily Drabble, The Guardian: All teachers want their students to be calm, focused, alert, aware and creative, which is essentially what mindfulness is all about, so it's no wonder the term has become a bit of a buzzword, even in mainstream education.The Guardian Teacher Network has resources to help introduce mindfulness to young people at school (and at home) and to help them develop some essential life skills.
The most delicious way to start has to be Mindfulness and the art of chocolate eating. Taking just three minutes, this is a practical and instantly likeable introduction to bringing mindfulness to the classroom…
Read the original article »
Read More @ Source
Posted: 26 Jun 2013 11:00 PM PDT
Right meditation begins with our ordinary mind singularizing itself (ekakara) thus reaching a point at which the essence or substance of mind, i.e., pure Mind is vividly and directly apperceived This incidentally, is where the notion of 'no-mind' comes from which is discussed in Zen literature. No-mind pertains to the absolute cessation of mental fluctuations in which mind returns to its natural state, that is, pure Mind. In such a state, in the midst of the empty, constructed world, one is continually able to pierce through the phenomenal veil and commune with pure Mind.
Mind returning to pure Mind which is increate, is something that can only be described as an earth shaking experience because it has never been previously accomplished owing to the power of ignorance (avidya). It might be argued that this experience is subjective. But for the practitioner who has penetrated into the heart of pure Mind by meditation, Mind is a real object—an object that the goes beyond the domain of the senses.
For the ordinary Buddhist practitioner who wishes to singularize their ordinary mind, it will prove to be an exceedingly difficult undertaking. The reason for this is that any form of mentation, i.e., mental activity, automatically hides pure Mind which transcends any and all mental efforts. Until access to pure Mind is gained there is no actual accomplishment of meditation.
Those who believe, otherwise, in the effectiveness of sitting meditation (J., zazen) are really deluding themselves by believing that taking up a particular posture brings them closer to the goal. It doesn't. They are still in an existential trance, so to speak. They are still captivated by the phenomenal world believing in a physical means to awakening.
Read More @ Source Mind returning to pure Mind which is increate, is something that can only be described as an earth shaking experience because it has never been previously accomplished owing to the power of ignorance (avidya). It might be argued that this experience is subjective. But for the practitioner who has penetrated into the heart of pure Mind by meditation, Mind is a real object—an object that the goes beyond the domain of the senses.
For the ordinary Buddhist practitioner who wishes to singularize their ordinary mind, it will prove to be an exceedingly difficult undertaking. The reason for this is that any form of mentation, i.e., mental activity, automatically hides pure Mind which transcends any and all mental efforts. Until access to pure Mind is gained there is no actual accomplishment of meditation.
Those who believe, otherwise, in the effectiveness of sitting meditation (J., zazen) are really deluding themselves by believing that taking up a particular posture brings them closer to the goal. It doesn't. They are still in an existential trance, so to speak. They are still captivated by the phenomenal world believing in a physical means to awakening.
Posted: 26 Jun 2013 10:00 PM PDT
Here's a mildly edited email message that I received recently from someone whose connection with Master Charan Singh, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), and Sant Mat started about the same time mine did. I added some links and bracketed explanations of terms.
His thoughts brought back memories, and stimulated some new ideas. He gave me the OK to share his message in a blog post. It's an interesting rendition of how someone can be converted to a faith, and then deconverted.
Read More @ Source His thoughts brought back memories, and stimulated some new ideas. He gave me the OK to share his message in a blog post. It's an interesting rendition of how someone can be converted to a faith, and then deconverted.
Dear Brian:
Reading your blog evokes recollections that have long been dormant. What a compendium of experience I long since left on the processing heap to decompose on its own!
What a saga of my youthful ignorance which commenced in Los Angeles in 1968 (I was 22) with my initiation by Charan Singh's stuffed shirt proxy and ended with a thud in 1975 in the living room in my Greenwich Village, Manhattan, apartment when, in merely a moment -- what could be called a mystical moment -- I experienced all of Sant Mat as pure evil.
I am sure I wrote at length about that experience in my journals as well as my self-created deprogramming which commenced at a brisk pace, but I currently do not possess the patience to revisit those ramblings found in my bound diaries on the top shelf of my wall of personal archives and books.
In short, I recall visiting long gone Wiser's metaphysical book store on Broadway seeking materials that might heal my damaged constitution, and I did. (Later I sold all my Sant Mat books to Wiser's which provided me lunch money and then some.)
In August of the year of my recovery I did Werner Erhard's est and had a great time with it all, and for Thanksgiving of that year I attended an est Thanksgiving dinner, and dined on turkey as strident indication that my "spiritual" vegetarianism had ceased. (It was an odd experience, as if someone other than "me" was consuming forbidden flesh.)
This barebones telling omits a exceedingly colorful story which could grace the multiple pages of a personal memoir. The cast of Sant Mat characters and my perception of them at the time contrasted with my contemporary observations might indeed prove an interesting read. Not sure I am up to such a task, but you might find my writings posted on what was then Yahoo Groups' "ExSatsangi Support Group" etc., amusing. Below this message are some of those postings.
Again, I truly enjoyed perusing your blog, and look forward to doing so again.
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My inner child speaks: I tried, I really tried to love Mr. C. Singh, but alas I never did. Love to me comes out of heritage over time with another. He and I had no heritage of knowing one another, despite the lore. He offered no heritage. We never exchanged one word. I didn't even get to shake his hand because I was obedient.
At the reception in Pasadena about 1969, we were told not to approach him, and only respond if he approached us. Others just walked up to him and introduced themselves. But, oh, no. Not me. I abided by the edict.
I recall standing 6 feet from him and our eyes met. I waited. He didn't move, and then he moved on. That was my one chance, only if I were up to being disobedient. So you vow all sorts of things to this guy and he doesn't have the decency to introduce himself.
That was that. I put a picture of him in my journal. I closed my journal entries with Radha Soami. I was supposed to acknowledge what a miraculous service he'd done for me. I did my meditation in my cabin in the woods north of Santa Cruz in the San Lorenzo valley, and he didn't show up astrally either.
Ho hum! What a friend we have in Charan!
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My outer adult: This was really lousy. Hell, I wasn't going to arm myself with paregoric and lomatil and pay thousands for airfare and head to the sub-continent, after that! Why there's plenty of Indian restaurants right here, amoeba free. Never made it to the Dera [headquarters of RSSB in India], just saw the PLM [Perfect Living Master] on stage talking.
The first night he didn't even talk. He just sat here surveying us! Paid for my ticket like everyone else and the guy just sits. No rapture, no lights, no fireworks. He just sits there [darshan].
When he did talk on the two subsequent nights there was a lot about the terribleness of sensuous pleasures, but unfortunately he didn't go into any puerile details. I tried to be in awe. It didn't happen. I suppose I mocked up being in awe just to go with the flow.
Later I whipped up a Parshad Pillaf. It was tasty but I think eating it was giving me "sensuous pleasure" with the commensurate guilt. I suppose I should have gotten the message then and there, but I didn't until several years later, when I dined on Thanksgiving turkey with Werner Erhard and the gang.
Werner shook my hand. Werner talked to me. He might not have been a PLM but he sure was damn good company.
And so ends the tale, inner and outer of "Charan Singh in Front of Me."
--------------------------
Starting off with my Sant Mat story and trying to keep it brief, for openers.
In Los Angeles, when I was about 19, I began having out of body experiences, extreme ones, extreme in their visual vividness and sound. These experiences involved high speed traveling, and I was curious to follow these travels to a destination point, for it seemed, while traveling I was on the way to "somewhere."
I had questions. Was there a final destination of such travel, was the final destination a place I'd want to experience, what was this all about? I was not on a spiritual quest but the quest for some answers.
And it was near that time in 1967 that I met two young men through fellow UCLA students, both later it turned out were initiates of Charan Singh (and both homosexual).
One named Danny was a dreamy bearded young man who was as I was told "very spiritual" and who talked very little. The other was a chatty singer who was once a groupie of Ella Fitzgerald.
One way or another, I ended up in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles at the apartment of a somewhat dour, but not unlikable, woman named Mary Blakemore at a local "satsang." It was the first time I'd heard the word "satsang" and I sat in her living room listening to her wax on and on about her Master and trips to a place called The Dera.
At some point I broached the topic of my out of body experiences and described them.
As I spoke they seemed to be somewhat startled and their eyes got wider and wider, dreamier and dreamier. Only later did I come to understand the root of their reaction when I learned that it was clear to them from my descriptions that I had been travelling in the 3rd and 4th realms according to Sant Mat cosmology, realms that they been earnestly (perhaps) meditating to reach and never got near.
I was told that such high grand experiences were "unearned" ones, gifts from a past life time, and that when and if I was initiated I would be starting from the scratch level at which, I came to understand, was the level of sound and vision that they were experiencing (if any).
I merely wanted to find out where the journeys I was experiencing were leading and would perhaps take me, and thus I began to buy into the Sant Mat interpretation of such experiences.
I was initiated in Los Angeles in 1968 by proxy by a man whose name I do not recall, who looked like a Methodist minister. There was absolutely nothing commanding about this gentleman upon whose face I never saw a smile or any affability or warmth. For several years I attempted to be a good Satsangi and failed.
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A grand factor in that failure was that meditation never brought forth the profound, overpowering and spectacular sound and light experiences that brought me to Sant Mat in the first place.
Oddly, the experiences which precipitated my interest in Sant Mat continued intermittently and spontaneously but never during meditation. Meditation did provide an occasional buzz, some minimal sound, and once, just once, the alleged astral form of Charan Singh himself.
I dragged on for several years being a guilty and bad satsangi, trying to love The Master etc. and so on, then sometime about 1975, now living in New York City, another kind of experience occurred.
Standing in my living room, I felt an overwhelming wave of evil and that evil was associated with Radhasoami; I experienced the entire RS Master/Initiate relationship as sinister and manipulative.
From that point on I began deprogramming myself from the superstition and threats etc. that previous posts have clearly outlined. I was unaware of any support groups at that time in 1975, and went it alone, and withdrew.
My involvement was limited in its duration and I'd not formed any close friendships with other RS people, so I suppose it was not the wrenching withdrawal from RS other have experienced. I consider myself extremely fortunate for having ended the association when I did at the age of 28, with a very rich life still to be lived.
And despite the "threats" such a rich life was lived and continues to be lived.
I am indeed grateful to those who have contributed so abundantly of themselves in this and the other ex-satsangi groups, for the sharings have allowed me to confirm the appropriateness of my curtailment of my RS connection, and have allowed me to sever long forgotten loose ends.
Posted: 26 Jun 2013 09:00 PM PDT
The Buddha, in Bhikkhu Thanissaro's translation at least, said, "A person of integrity is grateful and thankful." This is one of those thoughts that I'm profoundly grateful for because I don't think it would ever have occurred to me. Yet searching the web for the terms "gratitude" and "integrity" brought me to an interesting book, The Gratitude Factor: Enhancing Your Life Through Grateful Living, by Charles M. Shelton.Shelton explores this theme of integrity and gratitude. He distinguishes between thankfulness (which involves being appreciative of some specific person or thing) and gratitude (which is a deeper and more pervasive attitude to life consisting of being grateful not just for specific things but for living itself). And he observes that many people who discuss this distinction, and who value gratitude over thankfulness, see gratitude as being related to "virtue" and "integrity."
Here's the connection that Shelton makes:
A life of deepening gratitude requires that we commit ourselves to goodness; only people of integrity live truly good lives. Only conscience can ensure that we are women and men of integrity. Conscience is a uniquely human quality that requires us to make choices that reflect goodness, to follow thought on our choices, and to commit ourselves to the choices we make. Gratitude is linked to conscience just by the fact that we could never acknowledge, live out, or give back our giftedness unless we had within us some prior moral sense that recognizes the gracious generosity of giving and motivates us to give back in turn for what we have received.I've pointed out often that the brain is modular, and not a single system running smoothly as one unit. It involves cooperation, competition, inhibition of one module by another. And so our selves are modular in exactly the same way. We don't have "a self." And to the extent to which the various modules in the brain are operating on conflicting assumptions, to that extent the more unhappy and conflicted our experience will be. When some parts of the brain are screaming that hanging on selfishly to what we have is the way to be happy, and another is saying that compassionately giving to another person is the way to be happy, then — stuck in this conflict — we're not going to be happy. And in fact it's the latter of these two parts of the brain that is right; giving creates more happiness than holding on.
So wisdom helps us to recognize what truly brings peace and happiness, and mindfulness and volition, informed by that wisdom, help us to educate the more grasping and the more aggressive parts of the brain and encourages them to "stand down" so that we can act in ways that bring about peace and happiness. Perhaps we're enlightened when those more primitive parts of the brain are completely re-educated. Or perhaps they simply go offline, or their inputs are so weakened that they can never, after the point of awakening, have a real effect on our behavior. I just don't know.
But the thing is that our multiple and conflicting selves become more integrated around our wisdom, so that there's less inner conflict. The whole of us becomes an expression of, and an accessory to, that which is most wise in us. All spiritual practice involves a process of integration, which leads to "integrity," which means "wholeness." And this is a wholeness centered on "the good."
Mudita — joyful appreciation, focusing on the good in ourselves and others — is one important factor in bringing about this sense of wholeness and integrity. The less we obsess about what's wrong with the world, the less we feel out of place in the world, and the less we feel conflicted and defensive. And so our sense of existing in a state of polarization is reduced. Our sense of being an isolated "self" is reduced. Our being becomes more relaxed, more diffused. We see ourselves as essentially good, and we see our role as being to encourage the emergence of the good that is in others.
Shelton also notes:
Individuals who feel interiorly a sense of their own goodness appear to possess an integrity that flows outwardly; they claim that a fundamental stance of goodness exists in the world. For them the world is an inviting place that encourages them to spread and give away their own goodness.As I continue to explore mudita as part of our 100 Days of Lovingkindness, that statement more and more closely resembles my own experience. I hope this is true for you as well.
PS. You can see all of our 100 Days of Livingkindness posts here.
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