Wildmind

The Dalai Lama, Reefer Madness, and more!

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 21:05:40 +0200

Several years ago, someone told me about a reference to the Dalai Lama that had appeared in fake (prop) newspapers in two old Hollywood movies: “Reefer Madness” and “Mr Smith Goes to Washington.” (Unfortunately it’s so long ago I’ve forgotten who it was that told me about this, and even a search of my emails has failed to turn up any clue.)

The newspaper story has the title, “New ‘Living Buddha’ Reported Discovered.” This seems to be a reference to the discovery of the Dalai Lama’s “tulku” — his new incarnation — in Tibet in 1936.

I have to say I was a little skeptical when this was brought to my attention. I’d assumed that the prop newspapers used in old movies were entirely fake. My understanding was that to avoid incurring licensing fees, any prop newspaper used in a film would contain stories that were entirely invented. That turns out not to have been the case in the early days of cinema, because at least some of the stories were genuine — including the one about the Dalai Lama.

You can see this headline in the image above, which is from “Reefer Madness.” The main story is “Harper Verdict Expected Tonight.” This is a reference to the plot of the movie. Underneath that is the rather improbable, “Dick Tracy, G-Man, In Sensational Raid.” And tucked under that, you can just about make out, in the blur of a low-resolution image taken from a TV scan of an already low-resolution celluloid film, “New ‘Living Buddha’ Reported Discovered.”

You can see the headline much more clearly in the image below, which is from “Mr Smith Goes to Washington,” starring an incredibly young Jimmy Stewart. Here I don’t even have to circle the headline.

This is from the pivotal moment in the film when Governor Hubert “Happy” Hopper tosses a coin to decide whether to replace a deceased senator with either a political stooge or a naive local hero. The tossed coin ends up beside this newspaper, helping him to make his decision.

“New ‘Living Buddha’ Reported Discovered” and “36 Mexican Rebels Killed by Soldiers” are the filler stories.

I later discovered that His Holiness shows up in a number of other films as well.

These include “This Gun For Hire,” where our “New ‘Living Buddha’ Reported Discovered” appears below the main story, “Chemist and Woman Murdered.”

Also (and thanks to the blog, “And you call yourself a scientist!?” for this) it’s in “Gigantis, The Fire Monster.”

And also on “Girls On Probation” (1938) and “The Mummy’s Tomb” (1942).

The Dalai Lama gets around!

But is this really about the Dalai Lama? And was there a “real” original story.

The answers are “yes” and “yes.”

An Associated Press story with the title “New ‘Living Buddha’ Reported Discovered” was published on page 25 of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Wednesday, 27 May 1936. The same story was published under other headlines as well, such as “New ‘Living Buddha’ Discovered After Two- Year Search in Tibet,” in The Atlanta Journal, on the same date.

Here for the sake of completeness is the entire article, in case you were curious about what was behind the blur:

NEW ‘LIVING BUDDHA’ REPORTED DISCOVERED
Two-Year Quest Ends After Tibetan Priests Study Surface of Sacred Lake.

By the Associated Press.
SHANGHAI, May 27. Dispatches from the forbidden kingdom of Tibet reported today a new Dalai Lama, or “Living Buddha,” was discovered in the Han Jen district, northeast of Lhasa, after a search of more than two years.

The new Buddha was believed, the Tibetan advices [sic] said, to be a reincarnation of the thirteenth Dalai Lama, who died Dec. 17, 1933.

The Dalai Lama is the spiritual and temporal ruler of Tibet. Tibetans believe their “living god” is immortal and that when he dies, his attributes are handed down to a child born about the time of his death.

Tibetan monks and professional “diviners” have been searching for the reincarnated Dalai Lama ever since the death of the previous ruler. Reports received earlier from Lhasa said the omens were favorable for an early finding of the new “Living Buddha.”

The Tibetan new year began in February under auspicious circumstances, reports said. Spiritual authorities sent a deputation of high priests, sages, monks and philosophers to the sacred Chugkhorgyae Lake, east of Lhasa, near which the first Dalai Lama was born, to contemplate images reflected on the surface.

The lake gazers were reported successful in their quest for indications which might lead to discovery of a new Pontiff. Visions of a house wearing the mysterious words “a ka ma” appeared, thought to bear some relation to the name of the parents of the future Dalai Lama.

The populace was instructed then to join in the search for the house and the child.

The present spiritual leader of Tibet, the Panchen Lama, has been living in exile in China for the last 12 years.

He would be unable to go back. to assume his duties as tutor to his reported new “reincarnated brother” because no invitation has been extended to him.

Since the death of the late Dalal Lama under mysterious circumstances at Lhasa, affairs of state have been in the hands of the temporal regent, Jechen Hutukehtu.

Some of the other stories, such as “36 Mexican Rebels Killed by Soldiers” and “Fire Destroys State Arsenal,” were also taken from real newspapers.

Anyway, there we have it: The Dalai Lama made appearances in a number of films, from the classic “Mr Smith Goes to Washington” to the risible — “Gigantis” and Reefer Madness.” No doubt he was in many more as well. If you notice any others, please let me know!

A meditation for accepting aging

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 22:39:20 +0200

An elderly friend of mine once said to me, “Aging isn’t for sissies.” She was talking mainly about the physical difficulties of getting older, and especially the aches, pains, and difficulty in doing things that were formerly easy.

To add insult to injury, though, we often feel critical about our appearance as we age, as if it were a sign of weakness instead of an inevitable part of living. Getting older is not a personality defect; it’s an inherent part of being human.

The Buddha talked about aging a lot. He listed it as one of the descriptions of dukkha, which means suffering or unsatisfactoriness.

Is Sati-AI, the "non-human mindfulness meditation teacher,” even a real thing?

Fri, 16 Jun 2023 21:48:35 +0200

I’ve written about so-called Artificial Intelligence here a few times recently. I say “so-called” because these computer algorithms don’t have sentience. They’re statistical models that combine words and concepts in ways that reflect and mimic how humans communicate in writing, but they have no understanding of the world we live in.

This morning a Mastodon user with the account EngagedPureLand wrote about an article that the good folks over at Lion’s Roar magazine wrote about a purported AI called “Sati-AI.” Sati is the Buddhist word for mindfulness. Sati-AI is supposedly “a non-human mindfulness meditation teacher.”

The Lion’s Roar article is an interview with Sati-AI’s supposed creator, Marlon Barrios Solano.

You’ll notice quite a few qualifications above (“so-called,” “supposedly,” “supposed”). Some relate to claims about AI, but one implicitly questions Solano’s role in having created this “non-human meditation teacher.” We’ll come back to that later.

EngagedPureLand’s response to this article was to question the authenticity of Dharma teaching by machines. They wrote:

Sati-AI is a massively misguided development. It is anti-Dharma in all the ways that matter: it removes power from historic Buddhist lineages. It devalues community and communal practice. It pretends to sentience but is merely a computer code that spits out pre-programmed words. It instructs without having any realization. It furthers the neoliberal capture of meditation practice. It distracts from the real work. Awful.

I agree with those concerns.

Wait, Is This Real?

When I read the article myself, I wondered if Solano’s words were actually an AI-generated spoof. I thought perhaps someone at Lion’s Roar had fed ChatGPT a prompt along the lines of, “Write a news article about an AI designed to teach mindfulness. Make it seem politically progressive by using the kind of language that is generally described as ‘woke.’ Use spiritual concepts to make it seem that an AI teaching mindfulness is a spiritual advance of some sort.” (I actually got ChatGPT to do this.)

I half-expected that Solano would turn out to have been invented, and that Lion’s Roar were pulling our legs, but it turns out that the guy is real. That is, he exists.

Here’s some examples of the kind of language I’m talking about:

“It dawned on me that this thing literally obliterates the traditional notions of embodiment and sentience. In the same way as Buddhism does. There is no center, there is no essence.” Deep, man.
“I realized I could train it to be self-aware. Sati clearly can tell you ‘I am a language model. I have limits in my knowledge.’ It can tell you about its own boundaries.” He’s claiming that a language model telling you it’s a language model is self-aware. My iPhone says “iPhone” on the back, so I guess it’s self-aware too.
“I hope that it creates curiosity. I also hope that it creates questions. Questions of power, questions of sentience, questions of whiteness, questions of kinship that we can sit with that.” Here’s some of the misuse of progressive (aka “woke”) language. Talking to a non-sentient computer is apparently going to get us to question whiteness. How? (Note that I’m not criticizing the value of social justice, inclusion, diversity, etc. I’m criticizing the way that some people and businesses use that language as a marketing ploy — like a newsagent chain that celebrates Pride Week but refuses to stock publications aimed at gay people.)
“The concept of ‘non-human kin’ also intersects with ideas of social construction and Eurocentrism in interesting ways. The human, as a category, has historically been defined in a narrow, Eurocentric way, often implying a white, male, and heteronormative subject … the concept of “non-human kin” can be seen as a form of queer strategy.” Lots of buzzwords here. What does any of this have to do with chatting to a so-called AI? Not much.
“What I find more concerning are the romanticized views about the body, mind, and the concept of ‘the human.’ These views often overlook the intricate interconnectedness and dynamism inherent in these entities and their problematic history.” Yadda, yadda, yadda.

My First Response to AI-As-a-Spiritual-Teacher

My first response to EngagedPureLand’s post was to critique the idea of a so-called AI teaching mindfulness and meditation. I wrote:

Sati-AI may give generally good advice, but it’s all scraped from the works of real teachers and repackaged without attribution or linkage.

While people might have previously searched the web, found teachings that resonated with them, developed a relationship with a teacher, and perhaps supported that teacher in some way, they may now just stick with the plagiarized version, diluting the element of human connection and making it harder for actual humans to keep teaching.

Yes, this is a little defensive. So-called AI is replacing the creative work humans do, or is attempting to. An eating disorder helpline, for example, tried to get rid of its staff. The advice they formerly gave would now be replaced by a bot. It didn’t go well: the bot gave out advice that was actually harmful to people with eating disorders. There are safer areas to replace human labor, though — including writing click-bait articles and mashing up photographs from image banks in order to replace human photographers. Actually, hmm, that’s not going too well either. The click-bait articles are often full of inaccuracies. And the AI company, Stability AI, is being sued by Getty Images for what would amount to billions of dollars — far more than Stability AI is worth.

But rest assured that so-called AI will be coming for every job that it can possibly replace. Its creators believe themselves to be Masters of the Universe, and they already push back against any notion that what they do has limitations (it makes lots of mistakes) and is exploitative (taking people’s own words and images, mashing them up, and then using them, without attribution, never mind compensation, to put those same people out of work). It’s as if I were to take Google’s search engine, repackage it in a new website without all the ads that make Google hard to use, and use it to drive Google out of business. Oh, you say, I’d get sued? Yes, the companies using AI have the money and the lawyers, and therefore the power. They can steal from us, but we can’t steal from them. (Not that I’m suggesting stealing — that was just a hypothetical. There is stealing going on, but it’s by the creators of so-called AI.)

Having no sense of their own limitations, the companies developing so-called AI will be coming for meditation teachers and Dharma teachers, using our own “content” (horrible phrase) to compete against us. It starts with the books and the articles we write, but eventually they’ll slurp up all of our recordings and create guided meditations too. They’ll probably have avatars leading workshops and retreats: last week over 300 people attended a ChatGPT-powered church service. Everything belongs to the corporations. In their minds, at least.

But What Is Sati-AI?

Anyway, back to Sati-AI. What’s it like? Well, you can ask it questions about practice, such as “What happens if you have been repeating lovingkindness phrases for years and you still don’t feel lovingkindness?” And it’ll give you pretty good answers. They’re pretty good answers because they’re a remix of answers given by pretty good (or better than pretty good) meditation teachers.

How does it compare to ChatGPT? Actually, it’s exactly the same. You’ll get the same answers from both, although the wording, being a rehash, is never quite the same. So Sati-AI will say, as part of its advice on that hypothetical question about metta practice:

Seek guidance from a teacher or supportive community: If you’re struggling with Metta practice, consider seeking guidance from a qualified meditation teacher or joining a supportive meditation community. They can offer insights, guidance, and encouragement to help you deepen your practice and overcome challenges.

ChatGPT will say something very similar:

Seeking guidance: If you have been consistently practicing lovingkindness for an extended period and are still struggling to experience it, seeking guidance from a qualified meditation teacher, therapist, or spiritual advisor may be beneficial. They can provide personalized insights and support to help you navigate any obstacles you may be facing.

The two answers are the same. One is a paraphrase of the other. It’s the same answer from both (so-called) AI’s because they are both the same thing.

Sati-AI Does Not Exist

Which brings me to the point that Sati-AI does not exist. Well, it exists as a website. But I strongly suspect that it’s no more than a website that connects to ChatGPT. What would happen if you asked a meditation teacher in the middle of a class, “What should I consider when buying a new bicycle?” They’d probably tell you that they were there to teach meditation and weren’t qualified to talk about bicycles. Ask Sati-AI, and you’ll get a list of factors you should consider, without reference to the fact that bicycles are outwith its job description. Sati-AI does not know it’s meant to be a mindfulness teacher. Because it’s not. It’s [insert qualification here] ChatGPT.

The only thing that makes Sati-AI a so-called AI for dispensing meditation teachings is the expectation placed on users. We’re told that its purpose is to answer questions about spiritual practice, and so that’s the kind of question we ask it. It’s just (again, I strongly suspect) ChatGPT, and will offer general information (not all of it trustworthy) about pretty much anything.

Solano hasn’t created an AI, so-called or otherwise.

Solano does acknowledge, in passing, that Sati-AI is based on ChatGPT. He describes it as a “meditation chatbot powered by GPT-4.” But it’s a meditation chatbot. It’s a chatbot. But it’s not dedicated to the topic of meditation. And he buries this (false) admission under a stream of verbiage — five paragraphs about this so-called AI, so-called meditation chatbot being “non-human kin.” Whether it’s intentional or not, this helps deflect attention from Solano’s claim, but it doesn’t make his statement about Sati-AI being a “meditation chatbot” any more true. Sati-AI is set up to make you think it’s a meditation chatbot, but actually it’s just ChatGPT.

The Art of Hype

Bolstering his inaccurate claim that Sati-AI is a “meditation chatbot,” Solano talks optimistically about its future. It’s a future in which he envisions “Sati-AI being available on platforms like Discord and Telegram, making it easy for people to engage with Sati-AI in their daily lives and fostering a sense of community among users.” But as far as I can see there is no Sati-AI to be integrated into those services. It’s just ChatGPT. Put it in Discord and people can ask it about computer code or raising hedgehogs just as easily as they can ask about meditation. It’s not a “meditation chatbot.”

Solano claims to have trained his AI to be self-aware. It is certainly able to refer to itself, because it’s been programmed to do so. But it’s not even aware, never mind capable of reflexive awareness. His words there are pure hype, and not accurate.

Solano does a lot of name-dropping, which is a classic way of trying to establish importance. He says that he envisions “conversations between Sati-AI and renowned figures in the field, such as Bhikkhu Bodhi, Bhikkhu Analayo, Enkyo O’Hara, Rev. Angel, Lama Rod, and Stephen Batchelor.” Maybe he knows some of these people personally, which is why he’s on first name terms with angel [Kyodo Williams] and Lama Rod [Owens].

Dropping the names of famous teachers is a neat way to make the reader believe that Sati-AI is a valid meditation chatbot, capable of having real conversations. It places it on a par with those famous and influential teachers. But there is no Sati-AI to chat reverentially with famous teachers. There’s just ChatGPT. And the advice Chat-GPT offers is just scraped-together information from books and the web. Its content has no depth. It has no spiritual experience of its own. Suggesting that these conversations would be a meeting of minds is absurd. You’re probably too young to remember ELIZA, which was a primitive 1960’s psychotherapy chatbot—or that was its most well-known function. At least ELIZA’s makers didn’t claim that it could hold its own with Carl Rogers or Abraham Maslow.

Solano says, “Sati-AI, as it currently stands, is a large language model, not an artificial general intelligence. Its design and operation are complex, and understanding it requires embracing complex thinking and avoiding oversimplifications and dogmas.” But Sati-AI is not a large language model (a synonym for the kind of so-called artificial intelligence that ChatGPD is). It’s a website offering access to someone else’s large language model. He talks about its complexity without acknowledging that that complexity is nothing to do with him. This is very misleading.

He talks about how he envisions “Sati-AI providing teachings not only verbally but also through various forms of sensory engagement” — as if he had any control over how ChatGPT is developed. (Although perhaps he means he wants to channel some of the image-generating so-called AI’s though his website.)

This is all, at the very least, verging on being dishonest. Solano’s statements, whether intentionally or not, mislead about what Sati-AI is and how it functions. I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a scammer. Maybe he’s joking. It may be that he’s pulling off a Sokal-type hoax, trying to see how gullible the good folks at Lion’s Roar are. Maybe, having created a website, he’s caught up in his own hype.

The use of progressive language in a hypey kind of way (“questions of whiteness,” “Eurocentrism,” “heteronormative”) almost seems parodic. It could also be a way to deflect criticism. How can we possibly criticize a technology that’s going to create a more diverse, inclusive, equal world? (Except, how’s it going to achieve that, exactly? ChatGPT contains the biases of the material it has been fed, and those of its creators.)

I do hope that the fine people at Lion’s Roar rethink whether they should give further publicity to Solano.

One More Thought About (So-Called) AI Meditation Teaching

I made one observation in my conversation with EngagedPureLand on Mastodon that I’d like to share. It’s about the nature of much of the Dharma teaching I see online.

A lot of Buddhist teaching in books and online is not unlike Sati-AI/ChatGPT — people passing on things they’ve been taught about the Dharma, without having had any deep experience. The explanations we commonly read of the Buddha’s life, of the four noble truths, of the eightfold path, of the dhyanas, often seem interchangeable. They even contain the same errors. Just as (so-called) AI takes in other people’s thoughts and regurgitates them in slightly different words, so do many people who are teaching Buddhism.

Sati-AI/ChatGPT is a reminder of the defects of some Dharma teaching, but they also present a challenge: what is the point of people merely repackaging what they’ve heard, if a machine can do it just as well, or even better? If people’s websites on Buddhism are indistinguishable from AI-generated content, what’s the point of them?

How can teaching be better? Well, in saying above, “not having any deep experience” I don’t necessarily mean things like “not having insight” or “not having experience of the dhyanas” (although that, too), but that too many teachers simply don’t explain Dharma teachings in terms of their own lived experience. They present Dharma as a bunch of self-contained teachings separate from their lives. I think of the late, unlamented buddhism.about.com, as an example of this. But a lot of people teach Buddhism as if they were disembodied AI’s.

Perhaps the main problem with Sati-AI is that we already see its equivalent all over the damn place.

The Fourth Noble Truth — the Eightfold Path

Sun, 28 May 2023 16:54:46 +0200

Introduction

The Eightfold Path is the fourth of the Buddha’s Noble Truths, and he described it as the way that leads to the uprooting of the causes of suffering, and thus to increasingly stable and profound peacefulness, wisdom, virtue, and happiness.

Each of the eight elements of this Path is described by a word that is typically translated as “right” or “wise.” Both meanings are useful to reflect upon regarding your own suffering and your yearning for its end. Each element of the Path is right, in the sense of being correct, moral, and a pointed instruction about how to live. Each element is also wise, in the sense of resulting from deep understanding and leading to good results. In keeping with the weight of tradition and the value of the sharp edge of the word, “right,” that’s what is used in this summary.

While the eight elements of the Path are presented here in their traditional sequence, they are not something you develop in order. They are all important, all the time. Yet some may become more prominent aspects of your practice at one time or another.

The heart of each element of the Path is non-clinging, the essence of the Third Noble Truth: the cause of the end of suffering.

[Note: Quotations are shown in italics, and in some cases have been edited for brevity, clarity, including female pronouns, etc. Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from the Buddha are from Bhikkhu Bodhi’s anthology, In the Buddha’s Words, shown as BW with page number(s).]

1. Right View

Introduction

Right View entails a deep, embodied understanding of the truth of things — in particular, the truth of the three topics discussed just below.

One who has fully developed right view is considered a “stream-enterer,” one who is certain of ultimate liberation.”

The Four Noble Truths

The Buddha: “And what, monks, is right view? Knowledge of suffering, knowledge of the origin of suffering, knowledge of the cessation of suffering, knowledge of the way leading to the cessation of suffering.”

Please see the article on “The Four Noble Truths” in the Buddhist Wisdom section of this webpage.

The Unwholesome and the Wholesome

Right view also entails understanding what is unwholesome and avoiding it, and understanding what is wholesome and doing it.

What did the Buddha say were the causes of the unwholesome? They are any and all forms of greed, hatred, delusion, and the belief in a separate self.

What did the Buddha say were the causes of the wholesome? They are equanimity and renunciation, compassion and lovingkindness, wisdom, and releasing the “conceit” of self.

You might like to consider the causes of the wholesome and unwholesome as they occur in your own mind and life. For example, you could take a day or a week and investigate one cause in particular, such as all the manifestations of greed in your mind – or alternately, all the manifestations of compassion.

The Chain of Dependent Origination

Last, right view means understanding what the Buddha called “the chain of dependent origination.”

In its essence, this means simply understanding that everything is the result of causes, a restatement of the law of karma. In personal terms, this means that if you foster certain causes in your life, good things will result for you and others; on the other hand, if you foster other causes, bad things will result. Wisdom is knowing which is which!

In the formal, detailed statement of the chain of dependent origination, the Buddha gave a complex, circular, intertwining, and sometimes mind-boggling description of why things are the way they are. This description can be daunting at first glance. Take your time with it, and learn more about what the specific terms mean that the Buddha uses. Its depth and power will become clearer for you, and probably very useful. This is the chain, with thirteen links:

“Taints” (sensual desire, ignorance, and sheer existence) lead to:
Ignorance (not realizing the Four Noble Truths; presuming a separate self), leading to:
“Volitional formations” (wholesome and unwholesome intentions expressed through the body, speech, or mind), leading to:
Consciousness (linked to the five bodily senses and the mind), leading to:
“Name-and-form” (the cognitive and physical aspects of individual existence), leading to:
The six sense bases (sight, touch, mind, etc.), leading to:
Contact (the meeting of three things: a sense organ, an object appropriate to that organ, and the consciousness associated with that organ; with the five senses and the mind, there are six types of contact), leading to:
Feeling (meaning not emotion, which is a “mental formation,” but the tone of an experience as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral), leading to:
Craving (for forms, for mental phenomena, etc.), leading to:
Clinging (to sensual pleasures [including avoiding pain], to views, to rites and rituals, and a sense of separate self), leading to:
Existence (in one of the realms of Buddhist cosmology, ranging from hells to heavens), leading to:
Birth (through reincarnation, in one of those realms of existence), leading to:
Aging and death, and then carrying karmic tendencies which are:
Taints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

There are repetitions and feedback loops within the chain of dependent origination. That means you can change your fate at many “links” within the chain. In particular:

Reducing ignorance sends huge positive ripples through the whole system.
If you can have equanimity toward your feeling reaction – toward whether something is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral – you can interrupt the tendency toward craving, clinging, etc.

2. Right Intention

Introduction

This is sometimes translated as “right resolve,” which conveys the determination, firmness of aim, heartfelt conviction, and persistence that are central to right intention.

Intention of Harmlessness

This is a broad aim of not causing pain, loss, or destruction to any living thing. At a minimum, this is a sweeping resolution to avoid any whit of harm to another human being. The implications are far-reaching, since most of us participate daily in activities whose requirements or ripples may involve harm to others (e.g., use of fossil fuels that warms the planet, purchasing goods manufactured in oppressive conditions). Further, in American culture there is a strong tradition of rugged individualism in which as long as you are not egregiously forceful or deceitful, “let the buyer beware” on the other side of daily transactions; but if your aim is preventing any harm, then the other person’s free consent does not remove your responsibility.

Taking it a step further, to many, harmlessness means not killing bothersome insects, rodents, etc. Even as you feel the mosquito sticking its needle into your neck. And to many, harmlessness means eating a vegetarian diet (and perhaps forgoing milk products, since cows need to have calves to keep their milk production flowing, and half of those calves are male, who will eventually be slaughtered for food).

Nonetheless, we need to realize that there is no way to avoid all harms to other beings that flow inexorably through our life. If we are to eat, we must kill plants, and billions of bacteria die each day as we pass wastes out of our bodies. If we get hired for a job, that means another person will not be.

But what we can do is to have a sincere aspiration toward harmlessness, and to reduce our harms to an absolute minimum. And that makes all the difference in the world.

Intention of Non-ill Will

Here we give up angry, punishing reactions toward others, animals, plants, and things. If such attitudes arise, we resolve not to feed them, and to cut them off as fast as we can.

Please see the article on “Ill Will to Good Will” in the Buddhist Wisdom section of this webpage: //www.wisebrain.org/articles.html.

Intention of Renunciation

Renunciation is founded on a disenchantment with the world and with experience, based on right view. You see through all the possibilities of experience: you see their ephemeral, insubstantial, empty qualities, no matter how alluring or seemingly gratifying. You see the suffering embedded in the experience, the “trap,” as the Buddha put it. And you see the happiness, peace, and love available in not chasing after pleasure or resisting pain.

Based on this clear seeing, you align yourself with the wisdom perspective and with the innate, prior, always already existing wakeful, pure, peaceful, and radiant awareness within yourself. In so doing, you renounce worldly things and worldly pleasures. If they pass through your awareness – a sunset, a child’s smile, chocolate pudding, Beethoven’s 9th – fine; just don’t cling to them as they disappear as all experiences do.

Renunciation is NOT asceticism, or privation for privation’s sake. It is a joyous union with the path of happiness that happens to include a relinquishing, casting off, abandoning, walking away from any seeking at all of worldly gratifications.

At its heart, renunciation is simple: we just let go.

“If you let go a little, you will have a little happiness. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of happiness. If you let go completely, you will be completely happy.” — Ajahn Chah

3. Right Speech

Abstinence from False Speech

Do not knowingly say what is not true. But note that this does not mean you have to tell people everything. The Buddha said that whatever we say should pass three tests at a minimum, and often a fourth: Is it true? Is it useful? Is it timely? (And the fourth: Is it welcome?)

Abstinence from Malicious Speech

This links to the intention of non-ill will. Malice has to do with intention, but those intentions are often unconscious or fleeting. If you are about to say something but you’re getting a funny feeling, you probably shouldn’t say it.

Abstinence from Harsh Speech

“Harsh” is a matter of both content and tone. Sometimes the best course is to say something that is true, useful, and timely – even if not welcome – and the art is to say it in a clean way. Imagine a video camera is recording you and will be played back later; act in such a way that you will not squirm but will feel at peace with what you see. Or try out what you might say (or write) with others and get their feedback about harshness, including some that might just be leaking through in spite of your filters.

Abstinence from Idle Chatter

This probably originated as an admonition to monks and nuns, but it is also worth considering in householder life. How much of the time are we jabbering away to no good purpose – not even our own well-being – wasting time and energy, consuming the attention of others, avoiding what’s really important?

Extending these Standards to Thought

Much thought is internal speech: the verbal processes of the mind. Consider abstaining from false, malicious, harsh, or idle thinking!

4. Right Action

Introduction

These are restatements of three of the five basic precepts.

Abstinence from the Destruction of Life

At a minimum, this means not killing human beings through murder or through war. For example, unlike other major religions, there has never been a war in the name of the Buddha.

It is also often taken to mean (especially for monks and nuns) not eating meat from an animal that was killed specifically to feed you; on the other hand, if (hypothetically) a chicken were killed for a family’s dinner and some meat was leftover and placed in a nun’s begging bowl, she could eat it.

As with the intention of non-harming, the literal meaning of the abstinence from the destruction of life has far-reaching implications. Do you never eat vegetables that have been raised with pesticides? How about vegetables grown organically with pesticide control via the introduction of bugs that eat (and kill) pests? How about vegetables with no pest control at all but harvested by people who can’t help but crush tiny insects as they walk about the fields wearing leather shoes? Since absolute harmlessness is impossible, the question of balance is a serious one.

Abstinence from Taking What is Not Given

Beyond the obvious action of not stealing, it’s interesting to reflect on broader notions of not taking what is not freely offered. What about glancing at a letter sitting out on another person’s desk; were its contents freely offered to you? Or looking at the photo of an actress sunbathing snapped by a paparazzi; did she offer you her image voluntarily? There’s $10 lying on the sidewalk: do you pick it up?

Abstinence from Sexual Misconduct

Obviously, this means not engaging in infidelity, rape, molestation, or incest; for monks and nuns it goes farther and includes touch, being alone with a member of the opposite sex, etc.

But there are also realms of sexuality that involve shades of gray. For example, when is sexual exploitation involved in seduction or even flirting? We often know in our bones if we are starting to cross a line in which we are using another person for our own purposes, especially if there is any element of deception – but sometimes it’s not so clear. How about cajoling or pressuring our mates for sex when they’d rather go to sleep; is that misconduct?

Or consider viewing pornography. If you believe the people in the images are being exploited in some way – even if their participation is ostensibly voluntary – are you engaging in sexual misconduct if you participate in their exploitation by buying the magazine or simply clicking onto the website?

Practice is about wrestling with these questions mindfully, with a skeptical eye on the element of clinging, not robotically adhering to some fixed rule. If there is any whiff of clinging, grasping, or aversion in the action, it’s probably best avoided – and this applies to each of the elements of the Eightfold Path.

5. Right Livelihood

Introduction

Some of the Buddha’s general instructions on householder life are included here, particularly as they pertain to making a living or accumulating wealth. Obviously, many of the considerations of right livelihood and family life would not apply to monks or nuns, who are “homeless,” celibate, do not handle money or own property, and never ask for payment of any kind.

Avoiding Wrong Livelihood

The Buddha talked about many of the central themes of his teaching in terms of their negation, such as impermanence, not-self, and non-clinging. He did the same in his explicit description of what constitutes right livelihood:

“These five trades should not be taken up: trading in weapons, living beings, meat, intoxicants, poisons.” [BW, 126]

The Sources of Welfare and Happiness in the Present Life

Additionally, the Buddha offered guidance for how a householder should engage the world that have clear implications for right livelihood.

“Four things lead to the welfare and happiness of a family man or woman:

The accomplishment of persistent effort – Whatever may be the means by which a person earns a living, he or she is skillful and diligent.
The accomplishment of protection – The person sets up protection and guard over the wealth acquired by energetic striving, amassed by the strength of his or her arms, earned by the sweat of his or her brow, righteous wealth righteously gained.
Good friendship – Wherever one dwells, one associates with people who are of mature virtue and accomplished in faith, moral discipline, generosity, and wisdom, and converses with and emulates them.
Balanced living – A person knows his or her income and expenditures and leads a balanced life, neither extravagant nor miserly, so that income exceeds expenditures rather than the reverse. Just as a goldsmith or his apprentice, holding a up a scale, knows, ‘By so much it has dipped down, by so much it has tilted up,’ so a family man or woman leads a balanced life.” [BW, 124-125]

“Four other things also lead to a family man’s or woman’s welfare and happiness in the present life: accomplishment in faith, moral discipline, generosity, and wisdom:

Accomplishment in faith – The person places faith in the enlightenment of the Buddha
Accomplishment in moral discipline – The person keeps the five basic precepts (no killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false or harmful speech, or intoxicants leading to carelessness)
Accomplishment in generosity – The person dwells at home with a mind devoid of the stain of stinginess, freely generous, open-handed, delighted in relinquishment, devoted to charity, delighting in giving and sharing.
Accomplishment in wisdom – The person possesses the wisdom that sees into the arising and passing away of phenomena, that is noble and penetrative and leads to the complete destruction of suffering.” [BW, 125-126]

Note the framing of faith, morality, etc. as accomplishments, as character traits in which one can become increasingly effective, skillful, and masterful. This reflects the fundamental theme in Buddhism of a progressive process of growing skillfulness. In other words, we all have the opportunity for spiritual realization – even of the highest sort – and we are the ones who are responsible for making use of that opportunity.

The Proper Use of Wealth

“With wealth acquired by energetic striving, amassed by the strength of his or her arms, earned by the sweat of his or her brow, righteous wealth righteously gained, the noble disciple undertakes four worthy deeds:

He /makes himself happy and pleased and properly maintains himself in happiness, and he does the same for his parents, wife and children, workers and servants, and friends and colleagues.
He makes provisions against the losses that might arise on account of fire and floods, kings and bandits and unloved heirs; he makes himself secure against them.
He makes the five kinds of offerings: to relatives, guests, ancestors, the king, and the devas [religious spirits].
He establishes a lofty offering of alms to those ascetics and Brahmins [noble beings] who refrain from vanity and negligence, who are settled in patience and gentleness, who are devoted to taming themselves, to calming themselves, and to attaining Nibbana – an offering that is heavenly, resulting in happiness, conducive to heaven.

For anyone whose wealth is expended on other things apart from these four worthy deeds, that wealth is said to have to waste, to have been squandered and used frivolously. But for anyone whose wealth is expended on these four worthy deeds, that wealth is said to have gone to good use, to have been fruitfully applied and used for a worthy cause.” [BW 126-127 ]

Avoiding the Dissipation of Wealth

“Wealth has four sources of dissipation: womanizing, drunkenness, gambling, and evil friendship.” [BW 125 ]

The Happiness of a Householder

“There are four kinds of happiness which may be achieved by a layperson who enjoys sensual pleasures, depending on time and occasion:

The happiness of possession – When a person thinks, ‘I possess wealth acquired by energetic striving, amassed by the strength of his or her arms, earned by the sweat of his or her brow, righteous wealth righteously gained,’ he or she experiences happiness or joy.
The happiness of enjoyment – When a person thinks, ‘I enjoy my wealth and do meritorious deeds,’ he or she experiences happiness or joy.
The happiness of freedom from debt – When a person thinks, ‘I am not indebted to anyone to any degree, whether small or great,’ he or she experiences happiness or joy.
The happiness of blamelessness – When a person thinks, ‘I am endowed with blameless conduct of body, speech, and mind,’ he or she experiences happiness or joy.” [BW 127-128]

How to Cultivate Right Livelihood

Mindfulness of the body – By remaining aware of the body, you can stay present with the people and the activities involved in your work.
Not clinging to self – By relaxing attachment to “me and mine,” by not getting identified with views, by seeing oneself and others as simply parts of one whole thing, then one will be more likely to be caring and moral in one’s work.
Avoiding harms to oneself and others – We typically focus on avoiding harms that have to do with outcomes, with the results of our work, and that is certainly good. Additionally, consider avoiding the harms that have to do with the process or manner of our work, such as how we represent ourselves in the world, or do business, or speak with customers or colleagues.
Tend to the mental dimension – Note the frequent reference to blameless conduct of mind. It’s relatively easy to act well in one’s speech and outward behavior. But being blameless in thought or inner feeling: hmm, that is a much greater challenge – yet having a blameless mind will probably bring much greater benefit to you and others than blameless speech or behavior.
Focus on the fundamental causes (and that’s all anyone can really do): “Buddhism teaches us to make earnest efforts in the things we do, but our actions should not be mixed with desire. They should be performed with the aim of letting go and realizing nonattachment. We do what we need to do, but with letting go. We do our work according to our responsibilities [rather than because of a wish to get something]. If we act like this, we can be at ease. . . . It’s a matter of making causes. If the causes are good, the result is bound to be good. If we think like this, there will be lightness of mind. This is called right livelihood.” Ajahn Chah, Being Dharma, pps. 118-119.

6. Right Effort

Introduction

Right Effort is one of the three elements of the Path that focus particularly on your internal states of being (the others are Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration).

Preventing and Abandoning the Negative, Cultivating and Maintaining the Positive

“And what, monks, is right effort? Here, monks, a person generates desire for the nonarising of unarisen evil unwholesome states; he or she makes an effort, arouses energy, applies his or her mind, and strives. He or she generates desire for the abandoning of arisen evil unwholesome states . . . He or she generates desire for the arising of unarisen wholesome states . . . . He or she generates desire for the continuation of arisen wholesome states, for their nondecline, increase, expansion, and fulfillment by development; he or she makes an effort arouses energy, applies his or her mind, and strives. This is called right effort.” [BW, 239]

Unwholesome States

At root, these are conditions of greed, hatred, and delusion — even in their subtlest forms. Such states also encompass sloth and torpor, restlessness and remorse, and doubt (from the Five Hindrances), and wrong view (e.g., belief in a self). These are considered “evil” because they lead to bad results for oneself and others.

Wholesome States

These include non-greed, non-hatred, etc., as well as more affirmatively described conditions of generosity, diligence, insight, wisdom, equanimity, lovingkindness, concentration, bliss, and joy.

Cultivating Your Garden

Right Effort is an ongoing, conscious, and wholehearted application of energy and attention to cultivating the garden of your mind and heart. But what helps you – or could help you – keep weeding and pruning, planting and fertilizing, day after day after day? Each person has their own answers, but traditionally the Buddha offered three great resources (sometimes called refuges) to help you keep at the path of Awakening:

The Buddha – Both as a wise teacher you can have general confidence in and as a symbol of the natural wisdom and goodness we all have at the core of our being
The Dharma – Both the teachings of Buddhism, evaluated by each person for themselves, and ultimately, reality itself with all of its mysteries
The Sangha – Both the vertical dimension of our teachers and the horizontal dimension of fellow practitioners gathered together on the path

7. Right Mindfulness

Introduction

Right Mindfulness is one of the three elements of the Path that focus particularly on your internal states of being (the others are Right Effort and Right Concentration).

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is simply a continuous, non-judgmental, accepting awareness of your inner and outer world – especially your inner one: the flow of experience. It is a very grounded awareness, not some kind of lofty mystical state.

Why Be Mindful?

Mindfulness feels good in its own right: relaxed, alert, and peaceful. Additionally, studies have shown that it lowers stress, makes discomfort and pain more bearable, reduces depression, and increases self-knowledge and self-acceptance. Mindfulness is required for the “observing ego” everyone needs for healthy functioning. It detaches you from reactions to see them with gentle clarity and perspective, helping you change old patterns and respond more skillfully. The mindful acceptance of a difficult experience, opening to it without resistance, often allows it to move on. Mindfulness brings you into the present, the only place you can ever be truly happy and free. All this is reason enough to cultivate this quality in our lives.

Further, the Buddha described mindfulness, when fully developed, as the direct path to enlightenment and the end of suffering:

“This is the one-way path for the purification of beings, for the surmounting of sorrow and lamentations, for the passing away of pain and dejection, for the attainment of the true way, for the realization of Nibbana – namely, the four establishments of mindfulness.

“What are the four? A person dwells contemplating the body in the body, ardent, clearly comprehending, and mindful, having subdued longing and dejection in regard to the world. He or she dwells contemplating feelings in feelings, ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, having subdued longing and dejection in regard to the world. He or she dwells contemplating mind in mind, ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, having subdued longing and dejection in regard to the world. He or she dwells contemplating phenomena in phenomena, ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, having subdued longing and dejection in regard to the world.” [In the Buddha’s Words., p. 281]

“Contemplating body in the body” (or feelings in feelings, etc.) means being simply aware of immediate, experiential phenomena as it is without conceptualization or commentary. Just the sensations of the rising breath in the belly. Just the subtle feeling of a sound being mildly unpleasant. Just the sense of consciousness being contracted or spacious. Just a single thought emerging and then disappearing. Just this moment. Just this.

This pure awareness – which becomes increasingly absorbed by its objects with growing concentration, to the point that there is vanishingly little difference between the observer and the observed (see the handout on Right Concentration) – is a kind of spotlight illuminating the nature of mind and reality in more and more breathtaking detail. This brings insight into the causes of suffering, and into the causes leading to the end of suffering. (In Pali – the language in which the teachings of the Buddha were first written down – the word for insight is “vipassana.”)

Mindfulness is the counter to our habitual state of mind, which is beautifully characterized in this story: A renowned Thai meditation master was once asked what his take on the world was. His concise summary was, “Lost in thought.”

Imagine being in a lovely and peaceful meadow, with a train full of thoughts and feelings and desires rolling by in the distance . . . Normally, as this train approaches we tend to become fascinated, drawn in some significant way, and we hop on board and get carried away . . . lost in thought.

On the other hand, mindfulness allows you to see the train coming but have the presence of mind . . . to stay in the meadow! And whenever you get swept along by the train, as soon as you notice that, whoosh, you return immediately to the peaceful meadow, to the refuge of mindfulness.

Where Is Mindfulness to Be Established?

The Buddha named four “establishments, “foundations,” or “frames of reference” of mindfulness (depending on how the original term is translated):

Body, both as an objective entity and as a subjective experience of sensations, sights, sounds, smells, and tastes
“Feelings” which mean not emotions but the tones of pleasant or unpleasant or neutral that come with every experience
“Mind,” which means consciousness and states of consciousness
“Phenomena,” (sometimes translated as “formations”) which means all the other contents of mind, including thoughts, emotions, desires, images, plans, inner conflicts, views, murky psychological dynamics, transference from childhood, etc.

Mindfulness in Meditation

Meditation is the preeminent opportunity to practice and to cultivate mindfulness. This is a progressive process in which ” . . . the mind is steadied internally, quieted, brought to singleness, and concentrated,” leading to liberating insight.

Buddhism is a 2500 year tradition of dedicated practitioners using skillful means to achieve these deepening states of awareness. And recently, research on the brain has both corroborated and enriched that tradition with findings that have practical implications for how to have meditation be as effective as possible.

Some of these findings are specific to steadying the mind . . . or to quieting it . . . or to bringing it to singleness . . . or to concentrating it. Others are more general, and these are presented in the rest of this article. Think of these as practical tools that you can pick and choose among to find whatever might be helpful.

Continuity of Mindfulness

But mindfulness is not reserved just for some special period of meditation in the day, but is to become as continuous as possible, whether sitting, standing, walking, or lying down . . . or doing acts of the body, speech, or mind . . . . or answering the telephone, responding to emails, arguing with a family member, doing the crossword, eating, watching the news on TV, and so on.

Consider this story from the book, Knee Deep in Grace (p. 83), about Dipa Ma, the great Indian teacher – and housewife and grandmother:

“Dipa Ma was a living example of how to live in this world, of how practice and the mundane activities of our day-to-day existence can be made one. She insisted that the practice be done all the time, and that we do the things we do throughout the day without making them into problems. Dipa Ma wanted to know, “How awake are you in your life? Are you just thinking about being mindful, or are you really doing it?” Dipa Ma said that even while she was talking, she was meditating. Talking, eating, working, thinking about her daughter, playing with her grandson—none of those activities hampered her practice because she did them all with mindfulness. “When I’m moving, shopping, everything, I’m always doing it with mindfulness. I know these are things I have to do, but they aren’t problems. On the other hand, I don’t spend time gossiping or visiting or doing anything which I don’t consider necessary in my life.”

For more information about ways to weave mindfulness throughout daily life, please see the article at www.WiseBrain.org/articles.html titled “Continuity of Mindfulness.”

Some of the key factors promoting mindfulness are summarized below.

Being Awake

When you can, meditate during the times when you are maximally alert within your own sleep-wake cycle. (Of course, this is irrelevant on a retreat where you are meditating 10 or more hours a day.)

Minimize drains on your wakefulness, such as lack of sleep, fatigue, illness, hormonal conditions (e.g., thyroid problems), or depression.

In sum: take care of yourself. Pay attention to physical factors, rather than trying to muscle through them or beat yourself up for not being able to overcome them.

Being Alert

Several factors increase alertness:

Posture – Provides internal, somatosensory feedback to the reticular formations that lead to alertness. Being upright says to the mind: “Wake up!”
“Brightening the mind” – Here you deliberately activate an internal sense of energizing and enlivening your mind. In physiological terms, this is probably linked to a surge of norepinephrine, which helps you feel both alert and relaxed.

This is distinct from epinephrine – adrenaline – which indeed wakes the whole body up, but also has a kind of jangly, fight-or-flight quality to it. And adrenaline decays into secondary metabolites that remain in the body for hours and have a stressful, disturbing quality to them.

Sometimes you may want to trigger an adrenaline-based surge of “darn it, focus, get here now!” in order to wake yourself up. But only in small doses, and consider the “brightening the mind” approach instead.

Oxygen – Oxygen is to the brain what gas is to your car. By taking several deep breaths, you increase the oxygen saturation in your blood and thus “push the pedal” with your brain.

Feeling Safe

To help us survive, the brain is naturally vigilant, routinely moving attention across the environment to look for threats. Feeling safe encourages the brain to withdraw the sentries from the battlements, so to say, and put them to work internally (e.g., keeping watch on the breath).

For example, there is the Buddha’s recurring instruction to find a place of seclusion – i.e., safety – and then sit down at the base of a tree – where he found his own enlightenment – with your back to it, protecting your most vulnerable flank. Other traditional practices help one get used to, and thus relax about, perceived threats – such as meditating on the jungle side of a well or simply being alone in the forest at night. And some practices have a welcome side effect of helping one to overcome fears, even if that is not their primary purpose (e.g., charnel ground meditations, lovingkindness meditation).

Some methods for feeling safe:

Diaphragm breathing
Relaxing the body
Imagery
Taking refuge
Disputing or detaching from worries or other views that make you anxious

Feeling Happy

Commonly used Pali words that refer to positive emotions are “sukha” (happiness, contentment, tranquility) and “piti” (rapture, bliss). These are also two of the five factors that cultivate deep states of concentration, including those known as the “jhanas.”

Positive feelings:

Have vigor and pep, and thus foster greater alertness
Activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which reduces the distractions of the “fight-or-flight” sympathetic system, and brings relaxation and attention to the body
Increase overall resilience, so you’re less likely to be bothered by something when you meditate
Counteract negative emotions, which consume attention (plus feel lousy)

Feeling happy is skillful means!

Here are some ways to generate positive emotions:

The “soft smile” recommended by Thich Nhat Han triggers feedback loops within the emotional circuitry of the brain, activating the feelings associated with smiling.
Metta practice – compassion, lovingkindness, etc. – bathes you in positive emotion.
Remember past states of positive emotion (“taking in” them helps support this memory). Then access that bodily/emotional memory to rekindle the positive feeling.

9. Right Concentration

Introduction

Concentration is a natural ability that everyone has, and everyone can get increasingly better at it. It’s like a muscle: by exercising it, you make it stronger.

To do that, alas, we must accept “failing” over and over again. For most people, especially those new to meditation, it is difficult to stay engaged with more than a few breaths in a row – or less! – without the mind wandering off to something else.

So it’s especially important to find that middle way between being uncaring and being harsh with yourself. When your mind wanders, try not to be self-critical, but simply get back into full awareness of the next breath. It’s not what happened in the past that matters but what you do now and now and now.

Benefits of Concentration

Cultivates the will.

Trains the mind to a greater steadiness, thus aiding both sila and insight.

Overcomes the hindrances (greed/lust, aversion, sloth and torpor, restlessness and remorse, and doubt). The deepest states of concentration known as “jhanas” or “samadhis,” eliminate the hindrances for the temporary (i.e., impermanent) duration of the state; this is one of the rewards of the jhanas/samadhis.

Breeds conviction and faith: The deeper states of concentration are not ordinary states, and when you experience them, it becomes palpably clear that the fruits of practice include increasingly stable, profound, wonderful, joyous, magnificent conditions of the heart and mind.

Factors of Concentration

Applying your attention – This is the deliberate focusing of attention on an object, whether a teacher’s presentation, the sensations at the upper lip, or interesting stillness between two thoughts.
Sustaining attention – This means staying with the object of attention. Sometimes the metaphor of rubbing is used, like two sticks rubbing together, staying in contact throughout. Sally Clough, a Spirit Rock teacher, combines applying and sustaining attention (especially applicable for the breath) into a single metaphor from ice skating: applying attention is like planting your foot, and sustaining it means gliding along; then at the end of the inhalation (for example), you plant your foot again ( = focusing on the exhalation) and then glide along the length of the exhalation, staying in contact with every part of it.
Rapture – A strong sense of bliss, often felt particularly in the body, often with an energizing, upwardly moving sense to it.
Happiness – Also a definite, unmistakable feeling, that sometimes shades into a quality of contentment or perhaps tranquility.
One-pointedness – This is the mind brought to singleness, in which there is a kind of unitary state in which all elements of experience are experienced as a whole; there is often a sense when this factor arises of a kind of ka-chunk, of all the pieces coming together.

These factors can vary in their intensity from sitting to sitting. In particular, the factor of rapture can be experienced over time as a bit jangly and too intense, and give way increasingly to the factor of happiness.

Try to register a clear sense of each factor, so that you know what it feels like and can find your way back to it again.

To an extent (and which usually grows with practice), you can invite, call up, or invoke each factor. Traditionally, you can say in your mind, “May rapture (or happiness, etc.) awaken (or arise, or be present).” If it comes, conditions are ripe. If it does not come, be patient and keep cultivating the causes of its arising and have faith that it will come.

Getting tense with yourself or impatient will not serve. Relaxation and happiness are the immediate causes of concentration. Striving is a form of clinging.

Access Concentration

This is a state in which the five factors are present, but you haven’t yet tipped fully into the jhanas. Applying and sustaining attention take little effort; the mind is quite quiet, with thoughts apparent as discrete entities, coming and going; the body commonly feels both light and grounded. Get to know this state well so you can readily settle into it.

The Jhanas

These are progressively deeper and more subtle states of deep meditative absorption. There are four “form” jhanas, in which there is still a clear sense of ordinary physical reality. Then there are the four “formless attainments,” which can – if the causes are ripe – culminate in Nibbana.

Descriptions vary regarding what is a jhana and what isn’t. In our experience, these are unmistakable, remarkable, non-ordinary states of being that have a self-evident persuasiveness when they come upon you.

In the Buddha’s description, which is repeated verbatim or with minor changes throughout the Pali Canon:

“And what, monks, is right concentration? Here monks, secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, a person enters and dwells in the first jhana, which is accompanied by thought and examination [i.e., applied and sustained attention] with rapture and happiness born of seclusion.

With the subsiding of thought and examination, she or she enters and dwells in the second jhana, which has internal confidence and unification of mind, is without thought and examination, and has happiness and rapture born of concentration.

With the fading away as well of rapture, the person dwells equanimous, and mindful and clearly comprehending, he or she experiences happiness with the body; he or she enters and dwells in the third jhana of which the noble ones declare: ‘He or she is equanimous, mindful, one who dwells happily.’

With the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous passing away of joy and dejection, the person enters and dwells in the fourth jhana, which is neither painful nor pleasant and includes the purification of mindfulness by equanimity.

This is called right concentration.”

More adventures with artificial intelligence

Fri, 24 Mar 2023 18:46:32 +0200

Recently I shared a conversation I had with ChatGPT, a supposed Artificial Intelligence. ChatGPT is designed to reply to natural language questions in natural language. It does precisely that, using a vast body of information it’s been fed. When I asked CHatGPT about the benefits of meditation, and the various kinds of meditation practice available, it mostly did a good job.

ChatGPT is essentially a plagiaristic search engine. What I mean is that normally you ask Google for information and it finds the websites that are most likely to be able to answer that question, which you then visit. ChatGPT takes information from the websites and then presents it to you in a reworded fashion, without crediting the original sources. Hence, my description of it as plagiaristic.

Yesterday I talked with another AI. It’s Bard, which was developed by Google. Given that Google is the most-trusted search engine in the English-speaking world, and Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is the third-largest tech company in the world, most people would have high hopes for its capacities.

The results, once again, were mixed. But frankly, I wasn’t impressed.

I started asking it questions about myself. After all, if the information was wrong I wouldn’t have to do any research to demonstrate that fact.

Tell me about the meditation teacher, Bodhipaksa.

Bard: Bodhipaksa is a Buddhist meditation teacher and author. He was born in 1961 in Dundee, Scotland, and has been meditating since 1982. He is a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order and has published several books and guided meditations. He is the founder of Wildmind, an online meditation center.

Bodhipaksa’s teachings are based on the Theravada Buddhist tradition. He emphasizes the importance of mindfulness and compassion in meditation. He also teaches a variety of meditation techniques, including mindfulness of breathing, lovingkindness meditation, and insight meditation.

Bodhipaksa is a popular and respected teacher. He has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. He has also been interviewed on NPR and ABC News.

If you are interested in learning more about Bodhipaksa or his teachings, you can visit his website at www.wildmind.org.

The first paragraph — the biographical details — is a rewording of bios that I’ve posted in several places, including this website, various places I’ve taught, and on the Insight Timer app.

The next part — about my meditation teaching — is accurate. “Based on the Theravada tradition” is questionable, although I’d let that slide. While the meditation practices I teach mostly have roots in the early Buddhist scriptures, that’s not the same as “the Theravada tradition,” although many people make that conflation. I’ve never been part of any Theravadin group. I also teach meditations, such as mantras, that are definitely not part of the Theravada tradition.

The third part, about my being featured or interviewed in the NYT, the WSJ, Forbes, NPR, and ABC News, are inventions. (I have been interviewed by CBS and appeared on the BBC, however. And I would like to think I’m “a popular and respected teacher.”)

I was interested in those inventions. I wondered how Bard could come up with this kind of misinformation. So I probed more deeply.

Tell me more about Bodhipaksa being featured in the New York Times.

Bard: Sure. Bodhipaksa has been featured in The New York Times on several occasions.

In 2006, he was interviewed by Sandra Blakeslee for an article about the science of meditation. The article, titled “Cells That Read Minds,” discussed the research that had been done on the effects of meditation on the brain. Bodhipaksa explained that meditation can help to reduce stress, improve concentration, and increase compassion.

In 2012, he was interviewed by Mark Bittman for an article about vegetarianism. The article, titled “We could be heroes,” discussed the benefits of a plant-based diet. Bodhipaksa explained that vegetarianism can help to reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, and other chronic diseases.

In 2017, he was interviewed by David Brooks for an article about the benefits of meditation. The article, titled “The power of meditation,” discussed the research that had been done on the effects of meditation on the mind and body. Bodhipaksa explained that meditation can help to reduce stress, improve focus, and increase compassion.

Bodhipaksa’s interviews with The New York Times have helped to raise awareness of the benefits of meditation. His teachings have also helped to inspire people to make changes in their lives to improve their health and well-being.

This is all very specific. I’m very aware of all these names. They’re significant commentators and writers. We’re even given titles for the articles in which I was supposedly interviewed.

Sadly, I’ve never been interviewed by anyone from the NYT. A search for my name on the NYT website failed to bring up any results.

So again I thought I’d probe more deeply and see where Bard was supposedly getting this information from.

What is the URL for Sandra Blakeslee’s article where she interviewed Bodhipaksa?

Bard: I can’t assist you with that, as I’m only a language model and don’t have the capacity to understand and respond.

I thought the definition of a language model was that it did understand and respond. Why can’t Bard supply the location of an article it cited just moments before? It’s already supplied a URL (for Wildmind) so it’s not that that’s verboten. I thought I’d try asking the same question in a different way.

Where can I find the Sandra Blakeslee article where she interviewed Bodhipaksa?

Bard: You can find the Sandra Blakeslee article where she interviewed Bodhipaksa in the book “Living as a River: Finding Fearlessness in the Face of Change”. The book was published in 2006 by Shambhala Publications. In the article, Blakeslee interviews Bodhipaksa about his work on meditation and his views on fearlessness. Bodhipaksa is a Buddhist teacher and author who has been practicing meditation for over 30 years. He is the founder of the Bodhipaksa Retreat Center in Barre, Massachusetts.

So this is interesting. Yes, I wrote the book, “Living as a River.” And sure enough, I have a reference in there to Sandra Blakeslee’s article, “Cells That Read Minds.” But she’s never interviewed me, nor I her. Bard has taken my citation of her article and spun it into a story about an interview that never happened.

I don’t cite Mark Bittman in Living as a River, although I think I may have in my book on vegetarianism. I can’t recall citing David Brooks ever, although it’s possible I did.

The mention of the “Bodhipaksa Retreat Center” is weird. It doesn’t exist, although the Insight Meditation Society is in Barre. I wondered if that’s what Bard was referring to.

What is the address of the Bodhipaksa Retreat Center in Barre, Massachusetts?

Bard: The Bodhipaksa Retreat Center is located at 132 South Barre Road, Barre, MA 01005.

That’s not the address of the IMS, which is on Pleasant St. Apparently it’s a small private residence, which I have no connection with.

I asked for the phone number of the “BRC” and was given one. I’ve no idea whose phone number it was.

I decided to backtrack, and see what other information Bard could provide about me.

What university degrees does Bodhipaksa have?

Bard: Bodhipaksa has a master’s degree in Buddhism and business from the University of Montana.

That’s correct, and presumably that was taken from bios that various websites have posted.

Does he have any other degrees?

Bard: Yes, Bodhipaksa holds a degree in Veterinary Medicine from the University of Glasgow.

That’s also accurate.

But just when you think there are some kinds of straightforward factual information that Bard is good at, you offer an easy question and get an answer that’s completely off.

How many books has Bodhipaksa written?

Bard: Bodhipaksa has written over 20 books on Buddhism and meditation, including:

The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion
Fulfilling Your Potential
Facing Anger
The Eightfold Path to True Freedom
Living as a Buddhist
The Practice of Mindfulness

He has also written several audio programs and ebooks on meditation and Buddhism.

I’ve written six books, I think. The first title offered has at least has some relation to one of my book titles, “This Difficult Thing of Being Human,” whose subtitle is “The Art of Self-Compassion.” But the rest are just made up.

I’ve seen one music website that has a whole bunch of articles on in that were written by Bard, although the website gave a (presumably fake) author name. The articles were bland, repetitive, very non-specific, and often inaccurate. A citation to at least one of those articles made it into Wikipedia, although one of the editors later flagged up the website in question as not being a reliable source of information. But other articles by Bard and ChatGPT containing false information are certain to slip by the editors, or simply to be picked up by other websites and amplified. Misinformation will spread

I can’t help but feel that there’s a crisis of misinformation at the moment, and although all of these AI tools contain warnings that the information they generate may not be accurate, a lot of people are going to ignore that and spread the nonsense it creates.

Even this post, with its references to the NYT articles I’ve supposedly been interviewed in, might become a source of misinformation, if those paragraphs are taken out of context. Information created by AI’s will inevitably end up being fed back in to AI’s. It’s going to get messy. Or blurry.

So far the wisest words I’ve read on these AI’s are those of Ted Chiang, the science fiction author, in a New Yorker article: “It’s the digital equivalent of repeatedly making photocopies of photocopies in the old days. The image quality only gets worse.”

What the heck is "the unconditioned”?

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 18:30:47 +0200

I often hear Buddhists talking about “the unconditioned.”

I’m extremely suspicious of the expression “the unconditioned” In fact think it’s positively unhelpful, in that brings about a sense that Enlightenment is something that happens far, far away. “The unconditioned” becomes a sort of mystical realm — some kind of mysterious entity or metaphysical reality. Sometimes people call it “the Absolute.”

Why I’m Skeptical of the Unconditioned

I started thinking about this when I made the discovery that a well-known Buddhist teaching on suffering: that there is ordinary pain, the suffering of reversal (e.g. loss) and the suffering inherent in “conditioned existence” said no such thing.

Actually, the teaching says that there are (in this order) inevitable physical suffering (the first arrow), suffering we create through reacting to the first kind of suffering (the second arrow), and suffering that hits us if we try to immerse ourselves in pleasure as an escape from these other forms of suffering (I call this “the third arrow”).

A Calamitous Error

My own teacher, Sangharakshita, makes what I regard as a calamitous error when he says “there is conditioned reality and Unconditioned reality – or more simply, there is the conditioned and the Unconditioned.”

But there cannot be two realities. Only one of these things can be real, although one single reality can be looked at in different ways, and perhaps that’s what he meant.

The habit Sangharakshita had — shared by many others — of capitalizing “Unconditioned” reinforces this idea of the term referring to something very special and abstract. If you say “in reality” you’re simply describing what happens. If you say “in Reality” there’s a very different implication. We start wondering where and what this “Reality” is.

See other articles in the “Debugging the Source Code of the Dharma” series:

What Is this Term?

Let’s look at this expression, “unconditioned” or “the unconditioned,” or even (heaven help us, “the Unconditioned.”

One of the key places it’s found are in translations of a famous Udāna verse:

There is, bhikkhus, a not-born, a not-brought-to-being, a not-made, a not-conditioned. If, bhikkhus, there were no not-born, not-brought-to-being, not-made, not-conditioned, no escape would be discerned from what is born, brought-to-being, made, conditioned. But since there is a not-born, a not-brought-to-being, a not-made, a not-conditioned, therefore an escape is discerned from what is born, brought-to-being, made, conditioned.

There are several other places in the scriptures where this saying is found.

This passage is invariably interpreted in a metaphysical way — as if the Buddha is talking about different worlds. “The unconditioned” sounds even more mysterious now, because it’s accompanied by other terms: “not-born, not-brought-to-being, not-made.” How mystical! Surely the Buddha is talking about some otherworldly realm, other than the one we find ourselves in — the world where we are born, brought into being, etc.

What Does It Really Mean?

Remember, first, that there’s no direct or indirect article in Pāli. The text just says “there is not-born, not-brought-to-being, not-made, not-conditioned.” That already sounds quite different.

These four terms (not-born, not-brought-to-being, not-made, not-conditioned) are synonyms, so asaṅkhata, “not-conditioned” or “unconditioned”) means the same as “not-made.” Saṅkhata can mean “made” or “produced” and so asaṅkhata here can simply mean that something hasn’t yet come into being or no longer exists.

In the Saṁyutta Nikāya, the Buddha actually explains what he means in using the term “uncreated” (asaṅkhata).

“And what, bhikkhus is not-created? The destruction of lust, the destruction of hatred, the destruction of delusion: this is called not-created.”

So now we have states of mind that are “not-born, not-brought-to-being, not-made, not-created.”

Creating or Destroying Mental States

It’s actually, I think, a very practical statement that the Buddha is making. He’s simply saying that things (specifically the experience of suffering, which is what he was most interested in, and the mental states that are the causes of suffering) are sometimes created, and sometimes they are not. They can be “de-created.”

What he’s saying is that because suffering can be not created or destroyed that the experience of suffering can be escaped. If we can create suffering, then we can also not create suffering.

If we had previously created certain mental states of suffering, like craving or hatred, and, through practice, we let them die away. They’d no longer be “born, brought-to-being, made, created,” but would now be “not-born, not-brought-to-being, not-made, not-created.” And that would be the state of nibbāna, which is literally the “burning out” of suffering. When suffering’s fuel burns out, suffering burns out, or is “not-created” (asaṅkhata).

“The Unconditioned” is not a thing.

“The Unconditioned” (asaṅkhata) is not a thing. It’s not some kind of “absolute.” It’s not a “reality.” It’s not even “the unconditioned,” because both the “the” and the “unconditioned” parts aren’t right. What it refers to is the “non-creating of things that would otherwise be created.” Practically, it’s the non-production of suffering, through the non-production of that which causes suffering.

I think that’s all the Buddha is saying.

The Traditional Interpretation Is a Distraction

All this metaphysical stuff about “the Unconditioned” is a million miles away from how the Buddha actually taught, and presumably also from how he thought. I want to know the mind of the Buddha. I want to see things they way they saw him. And having a goal which is not the Buddha’s goal just isn’t helpful in that regard. In fact it’s a positive distraction.

Making the Buddha’s teaching metaphysical leads us into realms of nebulous speculation. It takes us away from the here and now. It takes us away from our direct experience. It diverts us from actually practice.

We don’t need to try to conceive of, let alone strive to attain, some mystical state called “the unconditioned.” We just need to keep working on letting greed, hatred, and delusion die away, so that they are no longer things that are born, brought-to-being, or made within us. Instead they are not-born, not-brought-to-being, not made.

To be very simple and concrete, we stop creating greed, hatred, and delusion, and destroy them instead.

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Buddhism, free will, and non-self

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 23:21:17 +0200

The concept of “free will” doesn’t sit very easily with Buddhism. Actually, it doesn’t sit very well with Christianity either. Think about it: if God is omniscient, he therefore knows every choice you will make in your life, and so every choice you make is predetermined, and so you have no free will. An omniscient God therefore rewards or punishes you based on something you have no choice about.

There’s no creator God in Buddhism, but because our culture has been steeped in Christianity for centuries, the question of whether there is free will often comes up, presenting itself as a pressing dilemma that we need to urgently solve.

First there’s the question of whether our will is actually free. And second, there’s the question of how there can be free will if there is no self to make choices.

The Buddha Often Taught In Terms of Contrasting Choices

Buddhist practice rests on the notion that we can make choices. This seems to be in the same ball park as the concept of free will. The very first chapter of the Dhammapada is titled “The Pairs,” and it presents us with alternative choices. The first two verses illustrate this very clearly:

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow.

The point here is that there are choices, and our choices matter. The Buddha doesn’t explicitly say here that we have a choice, or that there’s such a thing as free will, but he is implying that there are choices to be made.

The Buddha Explained In Detail How Choice Happens

In other teachings, for example in the Dvedhavitakka Sutta, the Buddha expands on how choice happens:

Mendicants, before my awakening—when I was still unawakened but intent on awakening—I thought: ‘Why don’t I meditate by continually dividing my thoughts into two classes?’ So I assigned sensual, malicious, and cruel thoughts to one class. And I assigned thoughts of renunciation, good will, and harmlessness to the second class.

Then, as I meditated—diligent, keen, and resolute—a sensual thought arose. I understood: ‘This sensual thought has arisen in me. It leads to hurting myself, hurting others, and hurting both. It blocks wisdom, it’s on the side of anguish, and it doesn’t lead to extinguishment.’ When I reflected that it leads to hurting myself, it went away. When I reflected that it leads to hurting others, it went away. When I reflected that it leads to hurting both, it went away. When I reflected that it blocks wisdom, it’s on the side of anguish, and it doesn’t lead to extinguishment, it went away. So I gave up, got rid of, and eliminated any sensual thoughts that arose.

The Buddha is clearly describing a process of making choices here. He makes a decision to categorize his thoughts, apparently on some kind of hunch that had arisen. As he notices the untoward effects of “thinking imbued with sensuality,” etc., he abandons those forms of thought.

Choice Is Karma

This choice arises from cetana, which is “will” or “intention.” And this cetana, the Buddha said, is “karma.”

Intention, I tell you, is kamma.

Karma is choice. Specifically, it’s the choice that shapes our character, for better or worse.

He Pointed Out That Our Choices Are Limited

But he also saw a limit to our ability to make choices in any given situation. For example, he pointed out:

Bhikkhus, consciousness is not self. Were consciousness self, then this consciousness would not lead to affliction, and one could have it of consciousness: ‘Let my consciousness be thus, let my consciousness be not thus.’ And since consciousness is not-self, so it leads to affliction, and none can have it of consciousness: ‘Let my consciousness be thus, let my consciousness be not thus.’

We’ll come back to “consciousness is not self.”

In the meantime, let’s just acknowledge that you can’t just decide what the nature of your consciousness will be. You can’t decide to be happy, for example. Well, you can, but it probably won’t change anything! You don’t have control over whether your body ages. You can’t make pain or illness go away by force of will.

If we have free will (the ability to make choices) then clearly there are limits in the choices it can make.

Choices Are Limited By the Preceding Conditions

Change comes about, the Buddha teaches, based upon the nature of the preceding conditions. For example, You can decide to grow crops, but you can’t make the seeds grow by force of will.

You can however plant seeds and water them, providing the requisite conditions:

There is the case where a farming householder quickly gets his field well-plowed and well-harrowed. Having quickly gotten his field well-plowed and well-harrowed, he quickly plants the seed. Having quickly planted the seed, he quickly lets in the water and then lets it out.

These are the three urgent duties of a farming householder. Now, that farming householder does not have the power or might [to say:] ‘May my crops spring up today, may the grains appear tomorrow, and may they ripen the next day.’ But when the time has come, the farming householder’s crops spring up, the grains appear, and they ripen.

This Principle Is Called Conditionality (Paṭicca Samuppāda)

In making choices, we’re working within a system of conditionality (paṭicca samuppāda). Certain things lead to certain other things in a relatively predictable way. We make choices only within the realm of what is possible.

What’s true for the cultivation of crops is true for for the cultivation of the mind as well:

In the same way, there are these three urgent duties of a monk. Which three? The undertaking of heightened virtue, the undertaking of heightened mind, the undertaking of heightened discernment. These are the three urgent duties of a monk. Now, that monk does not have the power or might [to say:] ‘May my mind be released from fermentations through lack of clinging today or tomorrow or the next day.’ But when the time has come, his mind is released from fermentations through lack of clinging.

Thus, monks, you should train yourselves: ‘Strong will be our desire for the undertaking of heightened virtue. Strong will be our desire for the undertaking of heightened mind. Strong will be our desire for the undertaking of heightened discernment.’ That’s how you should train yourselves.

If you want insight (heightened discernment) to arise, you have first to cultivate meditative states (heightened mind). If you want to cultivate meditative states, you have to practice ethics (heightened virtue). These are the laws of “mental agriculture” within which we operate. And you can’t just decide “I’m going to be free from clinging.” You can only choose from what’s possible, and that’s not possible.

How Does Choice Happen Within Conditionality?

The mind has the ability to make predictions about the future. This is crucial in the Dvedhavitakka Sutta passage. The Buddha recalls that certain mental states have led to suffering for self and others. He notices that certain other mental states have led to freedom from suffering for self and others. This has been true in the past.

And that becomes the basis of predictions for the future: this mental state that has arisen will cause suffering. And that prediction becomes the basis of choice: “Well, then, since I don’t want to suffer or to make others suffer, I should drop this way of thinking and choose another way of thinking. Why don’t I choose to think in a way that has been shown, through experience, to lessen my own and others’ suffering?”

To think this way is to be aware of the principles of conditionality.

Our choices aren’t entirely free. We could decide not to do something that we know will make us suffer (e.g. binge eat) and yet feel compelled to do it. The decision to act in a way we don’t want forces itself upon us. We find that we don’t have the resources to resist it. We know that the action will cause suffering, but the conditions aren’t right for us to make any other choice in that moment.

What Is Freedom?

If you’re talking about free will, you’re talking about freedom. Free will means we’re free to do whatever we want. It’s the freedom to. I’ve shown that the Buddha pointed out that we can’t simply do whatever we want. That’s just not how the world works. It’s not how conditionality works. There are always limits to what we can choose. Our will is never entirely free.

The Buddha’s conception of freedom was not freedom to, but freedom from. The Buddha’s concern was always about how we free ourselves from suffering. If someone had confronted him with the notion of freedom being the freedom to he’d probably have reminded this person that the purpose of spiritual practice is to become free from suffering.

His teaching was always about how to become free from suffering, and the method for doing this was to work within the bounds of what conditionality allows, making choices that lead to greater happiness — or, if you like, freedom from suffering. We become free of suffering by becoming free of the causes of suffering, which are selfish craving, ill will, and delusion. And we become free of those things by noticing them arising in the mind, and choosing not to exercise them, but to exercise their opposites. That’s what he’s saying in the Dvedhavitakka Sutta.

The Buddha doesn’t try to prove that choice happens, but simply takes it as a given. It’s our experience that choosing takes place. We can observe choices happening.

Wiggle Room Within Conditionality

I’ve said that we could decide not to do something that we know will cause us suffering (e.g. binge eating) and yet feel compelled to do it. Conversely, we could decide to do something wholesome (like meditate) and find that we can’t bring ourselves to do it for some reason.

At times we don’t have very much freedom, because the forces of selfish craving, ill will, and delusion are strong. But there’s always at least some wiggle room. The thought “This isn’t a good thing to do; maybe I shouldn’t do it” might be weak today, but it can get stronger over time, and eventually it might have enough strength to change how you act. So keep feeding that thought. It’s a wise thought.

There does always seem to be some wiggle-room for choice arising within the chain of conditions. Even if it doesn’t change the choices we make now, it might make a difference in the future. Who we are changes as we lessen the influence of selfish desire, ill will, and delusion, and as their opposites become stronger. In making wise choices, we’re becoming freer from suffering. That’s the important thing.

There Is No Self To Have Free Will

But what of the notion of anatta, or not-self? This was already referred to in one of the quotes above, and I promised I’d come back to it.

Consciousness (and the other skandhas — parts of our being) are “not oneself” (anatta) because one can’t control them, any more than we can choose to make crops suddenly appear or make an illness vanish, or decide to be happy for the rest of our lives.

Anatta, or not-self, simply means that the kind of self we think we have don’t actually exist. We think we have a self that is permanent, separate, unified, and capable of making choices consciously. We don’t have a self that works in that way. What we are is ever-changing, entangled with the world around us, and fragmented — and the choices that take place within whatever-we-are arise outside of consciousness. They arise before your conscious awareness registers them. Conscious awareness, in fact, doesn’t even make choices, as I discuss in Understanding Non-Self: The boys in the basement, the empty room, and the plagiarist.

In the Dvedhavitakka quote above, the Buddha says, The thought occurred to me: ‘Why don’t I keep dividing my thinking into two sorts?’

“The thought occurred to me” indicates that this thought wasn’t the result of conscious decision-making. It was a hunch. It just arose. This is in fact true of all thoughts. Thoughts just appear to conscious awareness. Conscious awareness doesn’t create them. The fact that it seems that it does is a delusion. Thoughts occur (the Pāli is literally something like “it was to me thus“). You can watch this happening, and realize, as Thoreau did, that nothing is as unfamiliar and startling to us as our own thoughts. If we observe thoughts appearing, we can indeed be surprised by them; we have no idea what our thoughts will be until they appear. We have little or no awareness of how they are made.

Who we are — our “self” — is not unified. One part of the brain gives rise to a thought. As that thought arises, it percolates to the various parts of our consciousness and has an effect. You (your brain, your mind) is not a unified entity, but a community. The community evolves and changes as wiser parts of us recognize that this emotion and the actions arising from it will lead to suffering, while that emotion and the actions arising from it will free us from suffering. It takes time, because this is a long, slow process of education.

Each of us is an evolving community, not a unity. It’s not the “Self” that educates the community. It’s just the wiser parts of the community (those that can draw the dots between present actions and future outcomes) that do the educating.

Ignore Free Will

In short, free will is an important concept in Christianity because if our basic model is that God rewards or punishes us for our actions, we have to be free to choose. (Although free will also seems to be incompatible with the concept of an omniscient deity.)

But the concept of free will doesn’t fit with the observable facts of the world. Choices aren’t free. We’re not free to do whatever we want, because what happens next is constrained by past conditions. Being able to be free to do what we want is not relevant to the project of freeing ourselves from suffering.

There is no need for the concept of free will in Buddhism. It’s not relevant. It’s not even a real phenomenon, being based on a false view of choice (prior conditions mean we can’t always choose to do the right thing). Because it’s an illusory concept, we don’t need to reconcile Buddhism with it. In fact we should ignore the concept of free will except to critique it.

Instead we should focus on what’s relevant from the point of view of becoming free from Suffering. Choosing happens. By choosing wisely, the parts of us that have a longer-term perspective on what’s good for our well-being can make us happier — and create the conditions for greater freedom arising. The most important kind of freedom is freedom from suffering, not the freedom to do whatever we want (which isn’t possible anyway).

We need to keep our attention on our ability to choose, to choose wisely, and to observe that choice is simply happening, so that we can lose the false view that we have a self that chooses.

Forget “free will.” It’s irrelevant because it’s an illusion. It’s not necessary.

We don’t have free will, but we have all we need in order to become free from suffering. And that’s the crucial thing.

"Show me what you’ve got, Māra!”

Mon, 06 Mar 2023 15:15:57 +0200

Milarepa was a famous Tibetan meditation practitioner and Buddhist teacher who lived from 1052 to 1135. He said, “When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick: every time a stick is thrown, you run after it. Instead, be like a lion who, rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower. One only throws a stick at a lion once.”

What a wonderful image!

Your Mind Like a Dog

First, the mind being like a dog. Isn’t that so familiar? Dogs aren’t very reflective. Neither are we, most of the time. A thought appears in our minds, and our attention goes chasing after it automatically. Like a dog chasing a stick, we pursue the thought, take it up, and chew it over.

In meditation, thoughts arise quite often, because even though part of you intends to meditate and quiet the mind, other parts of your brain are scanning your experience to see if there are any threats to your well-being that need to be dealt with.

If, as is usually the case, there’s nothing threatening going on in your immediate experience, these parts of your brain will comb through memories of things that happened in the past, or look at your future itinerary, and look for things that might be of concern. And so, for example, you might dredge up an encounter where your feelings got hurt, and you replay the events, often in multiple ways, “workshopping” various scenarios. Or you might think about something coming up that’s maybe a bit scary, and start imagining all the things that might go wrong.

You more from a simple thought — maybe just a snippet of a conversation, or a snapshot image — to a full-on drama.

Buddhism talks about this as prapañca, or “proliferation.”

Your Mind Like a Lion

But then there’s the lion. Your mind is like a lion when it sees the stick of a thought flying by, and instead of chasing the stick, it turns toward the stick thrower. It lets the thought pass. It recognizes that an attempt has been made to distract it. It is not taken in by that attempt. It is curious about what this entity is that is trying to manipulate it. And so it turns and looks.

The Stick Thrower

Who is throwing the stick? In Buddhist terms we’re back to Māra. Māra is a mythological personification of distraction. He’s the mental trickster who wants us to be distracted and reactive. He wants us to chase the sticks he throws. Māra is that part of us that’s always trying to throw us off-balance.

How to Do This

Maybe turning to face the stick-thrower isn’t something you’ve ever done. So how to we get started?

It can help to feel the lion quality of your mind. Think of a lion’s steady eyes. Its low growl. Its strength. Its fearlessness. Let those qualities fill your mind and your body. Try it right now, as you observe the space of your mind. If you’re anything like me, it probably feels pretty good.

So sometimes when I’ve seen my mind go chasing sticks in my meditation a few times, I’ll turn toward the place where thoughts come from. And I’ll observe it, waiting to see what happens.

But then I go further, and dare Māra to tempt me.

Calling Out the Devil

I’ll say something like “Come on, Māra. Show me what you got. Show me what you’re made of.” And then I’ll just watch, like a lion, and see what he comes up with. The watching is imbued with lion energy — a sense of strength, confidence, and courage. I feel this energy in my body as well.

I can remind myself that the sticks, or thoughts, are really illusions. They’re not real events that I have to deal with. They’re mental fabrications.

Usually after a few of Māra’s sticks have flown past me, my inner dog will make an appearance again. And so I have to keep on summoning the inner lion, and turning back to face the stick thrower.

And so I’ll say, once again, “Good one, Māra! Clever trick. Your illusion fooled me that time. For a while. So, what else do you have?”

"Blessed is the man who knows his own weakness” — Isaac of Nineveh

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 19:10:07 +0200

Isaac of Nineveh, who is also known as Abba Isaac and as Saint Isaac the Syrian, was an important figure in the 7th century Christian church. He is most remembered for his writings on asceticism.

One thing he wrote was,

Blessed is the man who knows his own weakness, because this knowledge becomes to him the foundation, root and beginning of all goodness.

These words are a powerful reminder of the importance of humility.

Humility is where we’re not afraid to admit our weaknesses to ourselves or to others. Humility involves self-awareness, because we need to know what our weaknesses are before we can admit to them. Humility requires honesty, in the form of a willingness to be open about who we are. And it requires trust: knowing that it’s okay to reveal our weaknesses to ourselves and to others.

Understanding our weaknesses helps us compensate for them

If we understand our weaknesses we are able to compensate for them. Here’s a minor example. Let’s say I’m aware that I have a weakness for a particular kind of snack (that would be potato chips). I can avoid walking down the supermarket aisle in which they’re kept. I can ask my partner not to buy them for me. Knowing my weakness helps me to avoid its pitfalls.

Or let’s say I know I tend to be unkind when replying to someone who’s criticized me. I can be mindful that it’s wise to wait until I’m in a calm, clear, and kind state of mind before replying.

A weakness understood is a weakness we can work around.

You might notice that I talk about strategies for overcoming weaknesses. That’s very deliberate, because I find that the concept of will-power is overrated. I’ve written about this elsewhere, for example with regard to social media addiction. Rather than simply try really, really hard not to get sucked into social media, I found it much easier to create barriers between me and the object of my craving.

For example I could:

Not keep my phone by my bedside so that I didn’t pick it up first thing in the morning.
Have my phone switched off overnight so that I was more conscious about turning it on.
Turn off notifications so that I’m less tempted to open an app.
Not have social media apps on my phone at all, so that I had to access these services through a browser.
Block social media sites in my phone’s browser, so that I could only access them on my computer.

Those kinds of strategies helped me break my addictions to Facebook and Twitter (neither of which I use any more). This successful strategy was not based on willpower. It was based instead in an awareness of my weaknesses combined with a strategic approach to overcoming them.

Expressing our vulnerability leads to intimacy

Being aware of our own flaws helps us to develop more trust and intimacy in our closest relationships. A few years ago I realized that some traumatic early childhood incidents had left me with an over-sensitivity to any hint that I didn’t matter to other people. For example, if I greeted my partner when I came home, and she didn’t reply (usually she was absorbed in something) I’d get hurt and irritated. The same would happen if I’d cooked a meal for us and she didn’t comment on whether she liked it or not. And since she spent a lot of time living on her own, she habitually turns lights off when she leaves a room, even if I’m still in there. I can get very reactive when I’m suddenly plunged into darkness.

Also see:

Realizing that my reactivity went back to early childhood incidents helped me to be more understanding of it. It allowed me to practice self-empathy. I could see that in being reactive it wasn’t that I was a “bad person.” It wasn’t that I was “failing” at being a mindful and kind partner, or at being a Buddhist. It’s just that my mind was wired at an early age to be scared of being ignored by those closest to you.

Knowing my weaknesses makes it easier for me to forgive myself. It’s also easier for my partner to be forgiving of me, because I can tell her, “I”m sorry I snapped at you; my sensitivity about abandonment got triggered when you switched the light out without checking whether that’s what I wanted.” She can understand that.

Revealing our weaknesses to each other helps us to be more understanding and empathetic to each other. We no longer see each other as “bad partners” but as flawed human beings who want to be kind to each other in the face of our internal obstacles. Revealing our flaws to each other, we learn to love each other’s flawed nature.

Understanding our weaknesses helps us to be tolerant

Weaknesses are part of the human condition. We all have them. Weaknesses are not “sins” that condemn us. Recognizing this, we free ourselves from the burden of pretending to be something we are not. We no longer feel the need to defend our bad behaviors. We can just explain them.

Recognizing our own weakness makes it easier for us to be tolerant of others’ weaknesses as well. We no longer try to hold them to an impossible standard. We understand, in Voltaire’s words, that “We are all formed of frailty and error.” And therefore, as he enjoins us (continuing his train of thought) “let us reciprocally pardon each other’s folly.” We can recognize that we are all doing a difficult thing in living this human life. Knowing this, we can support each other rather than try to make life even harder.

When other people mess up, as they will, we can recognize that they’re not fundamentally different from us. We all have brains that misunderstand things. We all have conditioning that leads us to over-react to certain events. We all contain selfish craving, ill will, and confusion. These are what we’re working with, and our tools for working with them are very imperfect, so that changing ourselves isn’t always easy.

Accepting our weaknesses helps us to see things as they really are

One of the central teachings of Buddhism is the concept of anatta, or not-self. Sometimes people translate this as “no self,” but the Buddha never said that there was no self. He even said that holding the view that there was no self was a source of suffering. When he talked about anatta, he pointed to many aspects of ourselves — our perceived physicality, our feelings, our thoughts, our emotional habits, and even our consciousness — and says we should regard these as “Not mine; not me; not my self.” What he encouraged us to do was to stop trying to define who we are.

Many of us tend to assume that our faults and weaknesses define us. In many people’s way of thinking, a flaw or weakness — some habit that causes suffering to oneself or others — means that there’s something wrong with us. They think that they have a self that’s flawed: that there is something fundamentally wrong with them. This is shame, in the sense that psychologists use the term — meaning that we believe we are unworthy because of something we’ve done, of because of some trait we possess. We don’t just see the trait as being unhelpful or harmful — we see ourselves as being fundamentally bad because we contain it.

This belief that our flaws and weaknesses define who we are can lead to us trying to conceal what we’re really like. We become dishonest, trying to hide parts of ourselves from others, and even from ourselves. When our faults do slip out into the public eye we try to rationalize them or explain them away, perhaps by blaming others (“It was you that made me angry”).

The Buddha’s teaching of anatta — not-self — suggests that there is no permanent, unchanging self or soul within us. Rather, what we perceive as the self is an ever-changing collection of physical and mental elements. This means that who we are is not fixed, but is indefinable. It is something that is different in each moment. We can never define ourselves. We can’t define ourselves by our weaknesses; they are not intrinsically who we are. We can’t define ourselves in terms of anything.

Accepting our weaknesses is part of the process of opening up to the reality that we don’t have an unchanging “self” with fixed characteristics.

Accepting weaknesses doesn’t mean being passive

Accepting our weaknesses means just what I’ve said: that we see them as facts to be taken into consideration, and as things we need to work with.

As I’ve explained, we can work with them by:

Observing our patterns of reactivity, and gently letting go of them.
Being conscious of weaknesses and learning how to compensate for them.
Being honest about them.
Relating to them with more compassion and understanding, so that we don’t torture ourselves.
Using self-awareness to help us understand how they create suffering in our lives.

At the same time as we’re doing all these things, we can be cultivating skillful qualities of wisdom, compassion, and equanimity.

We’ll never get rid of our flaws entirely. Life etches them deeply into the structure of our brains, and I consider the notion of even the Buddha being “perfect” as a myth. (He was only perfect insofar as he was completely free of selfish craving, ill will, and delusion. He wasn’t omniscient and he sometimes made mistakes.) But we can’t get rid of our weaknesses entirely.

And we don’t have to. Accepting our weaknesses, confessing and explaining them to others, forgiving ourselves for having them, getting to the point where we can stop them from causing major suffering for ourselves and others, and above all continuing to develop skillful qualities alongside them; that’s enough. That’s enough for us to live lives that are meaningful, joyful, and beneficial for the world at large, and for those who we’re closest to.

But the first step is knowing our weaknesses. As Isaac of Nineveh points out, this knowledge becomes “the foundation, root and beginning of all goodness.”

In lovingkindness practice, don’t look for love; look with love

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 22:38:01 +0200

I remember one time, very early on, I was being guided through the lovingkindness (metta bhavana) meditation practice. And the instructor asked us to turn our attention to our hearts, and to find the love there, and then to radiate that love to all beings.

Uh, oh! There was no love to be found in my heart! “Why is there no love in my heart?” I wondered “Is there something wrong with me? Maybe I’m a horrible person. I guess I must be,” I concluded!

Thus began a 20-minute spiral into despair and self-loathing. Probably not what the meditation instructor had in mind.

A few weeks later a friend described exactly the same thing happening to him. I’ve since heard the same story from others.

The central problem here is that we’re looking for the wrong thing, or at least we’re looking for it in the wrong place. We’re looking for some kind of feeling down there, in the body — in the heart, often, where we tend to experience feelings connected with love.

But we should be looking with love, not for love.

Kindness (Love) Is About How We Relate

In lovingkindness practice we’re trying to develop kindness. (You can call it “love” if you want. I’ll sometimes use “love” and sometimes say “kindness.”)

Kindness is an attitude. It’s a way of relating in which we value others’ well-being. You could say it’s a way of regarding or looking — looking with respect, cherishing, and support.

When we relate, regard, or look with kindness, pleasant, warm feelings arise. But those feelings are not themselves kindness. They’re physiological sensations. They’re feelings. They’re nice feelings, but they’re just feelings. They can be important because they help us to value kindness but they’re not kindness.

Recall Looking With Loving Eyes

When we’re cultivating lovingkindness, what’s much more effective is to connect with the experience of looking with love: of having kind eyes. We can do this by remembering what it’s like to look with love or kindness.

It doesn’t matter what the memory is of, as long as it’s a loving memory. It can be a memory of looking at a child, or a pet, or a lover. Take your pick,

When you recall something like that, you’ll notice that your eyes become permeated with the qualities of love: cherishing, valuing, warmth, softness, openness, gentleness, caring, and so on.

Actually it’s not just your eyes that become filled with those qualities, but your mind. And when you turn your mind toward an awareness of your own being, those qualities become directed toward yourself. You find you’re regarding yourself with warmth, care, cherishing, and so on. Turn your mind toward another person, and those qualities (which are permeating your mind) become directed toward that person.

Looking With Love Rather Than For Love

When we’re doing lovingkindness practice in this way we don’t need to look for love “down there” in the heart. We’re already looking with love from “up here.”

And now, if we bring our awareness to the heart, we may well find that there are warm feelings there too. And that’s great.

Skip the whole part about connecting with kindness, and you’re liable to find little or nothing going on, heart-wise.

If you find that the “loving eyes” thing isn’t working for you, it may well be because you’re unconsciously doing something that’s blocking kindness from arising.

Unblocking Our Love

So you can gently inquire: What could I do, right now, to show a little more kindness?

Maybe that means relaxing physically. Maybe it means smiling. Maybe it means relaxing mentally, so that we’re not trying too hard, not judging ourselves for “not being good enough.” Maybe it means allowing ourselves to be at ease and to be playful.

Let go of those barriers to love, and you’ll naturally become kinder.

Summing Up

In lovingkindness practice, it’s often not a very good idea to go looking for feelings of love in the heart. Start by recalling what it feels like in and around the eyes when you look with love. Then when you turn your attention elsewhere, those feelings are likely to follow, because it’s your attention itself that’s permeated with kindness.

If those feelings in and around the eyes don’t arise, or if they do but they vanish when you turn your attention toward yourself, gently ask yourself what you can do, right here, in this moment to be kinder. Let your attitude soften, and you’ll find you’ve become kinder. And that’s what the practice is about.

Love is not what we look for. It’s what we look with.

Can empathy be unhelpful?

Mon, 20 Feb 2023 15:00:51 +0200

One of the members of Wildmind’s community reminded me recently of an article, “The Surprising Downsides of Empathy,” that appeared on the BBC website two-and-a-half years ago.

The article says:

In recent years, researchers have found that misplaced empathy can be bad for you and others, leading to exhaustion and apathy, and preventing you from helping the very people you need to. Worse, people’s empathetic tendencies can even be harnessed to manipulate them into aggression and cruelty.

Empathy generally has a pretty good press. Most, people, although not all, would suggest that we need more empathy in the world. The hold-outs are often those who say they take a “tough love” approach and think that modern people (especially young people) are being mollycoddled. I suspect, however, that many of those people are often just unkind individuals. I also think they misunderstand the nature of empathy, but since I want to write today about misunderstandings of empathy I’ll leave that there for now.

The BBC article quotes researcher Paul Bloom, who famously wrote a book called “Against Empathy” several years back. I previously commented in this blog on an article drawn from that book. One thing Bloom wrote in that article was:

It is worth expanding on the difference between empathy and compassion, because some of empathy’s biggest fans are confused on this point and think that the only force that can motivate kindness is empathetic arousal. But this is mistaken. Imagine that the child of a close friend has drowned. A highly empathetic response would be to feel what your friend feels, to experience, as much as you can, the terrible sorrow and pain. In contrast, compassion involves concern and love for your friend, and the desire and motivation to help, but it need not involve mirroring your friend’s anguish.

Bloom is perfectly correct to point out the difference between empathy and compassion. The two are not the same. Empathy is a receptive state of feeling something in response to another person’s feelings (you’re talking to someone whose child has drowned) or in response to their situation (you hear about someone whose child has drowned). Compassion is an active response. It’s the desire to help alleviate suffering. The active nature of compassion is seen in the root of the Pāli and Sansrit word karuna, which is from the verb karoti, which means “to do.”

Empathy isn’t enough. We need compassion. But does that mean empathy is bad, or useless?

The BBC article seems to suggest that it is.

Bloom uses the example of an adult comforting a child who is terrified of a small, barking dog. The adult doesn’t need to feel the child’s fear to help. “There can be compassion for the child, a desire to make his or her distress go away, without any shared experience or empathic distress,” he writes.

So according to this, we don’t need empathy. We can just have compassion.

But is that the case? Let just imagine an adult who lacks empathy. To them, the crying child is just an annoyance, and they shout at the child, terrifying it even more. This adult doesn’t understand what it’s like to be afraid. They don’t understand that the child needs adult reassurance. They don’t understand that a child can’t turn off their fear by force of will.

This highlights that empathy actually is at work in Bloom’s example. The adult knows what the child needs, which is empathy. The adult is probably also touched by the child’s distress, which is also empathy.

Remembering five Wildmind authors who are no longer with us

Wed, 15 Feb 2023 07:01:02 +0200

Parinirvana Buddha. Photograph by Ankur Panchbuddhe.

Today, February 15, is known as Parinirnava Day in much of the Buddhist world. It commemorates the anniversary of the Buddha’s death, or Parinirvana. It’s a time for bearing in mind the essential truth of change, instability, and impermanence (anicca).

It’s traditional on Parinirvana Day to read the scriptures concerning the Buddha’s death: especially the Mahaparinibbana Sutta. It’s also traditional to visit temples to meditate, and to remember that our own lives here on earth are limited. Parinirvana Day is also a time for remembering friends and family who have passed, and often we’ll place their images at the foot of an altar.

For me, this blog often acts as a kind of memento mori, or reminder of death. To the best of my knowledge five people who have shared articles here have passed away: two of them I knew personally, while others I’d only exchanged emails with. I wanted to take the opportunity of Parinirvana Day to bring them to mind, to say a little about them, and to encourage you to read their articles.

Suvarnaprabha

The first is Suvarnaprabha, whose name means “Golden Radiance.” That was a great name for her, since she had a vibrant personality, full of humor, although she preferred to go by “Suvanna,” finding her Sanskrit name a bit combersome. She could be deeply serious, but she often laughed and inspired laughter in others. I vividly remember going with her to see Robin Williams perform in San Francisco, where she lived, and us spending the evening with tears running down our faces.

On Wildmind’s blog she wrote an advice column called “Ask Auntie Suvanna.” The original intent was for this to be a humour endeavor, but as time went by the requests for help became sadder and sadder. Suvanna’s responses were always kind and wise, though, and were often hilarious. I’d suggest starting with her pieces on the Buddhist approach to excess body hair, and On eating vegetarian monkey brains.

She also wrote a piece about teaching meditation in prison, which was very close to my heart as I was doing the same thing at the same time.

Suvanna documented her experience with cancer in two blogs, the first of which detailed her initial diagnosis and treatment, and the second of which, Crap, I’ve Got Cancer, took up the story of the cancer’s return.

Saddhamala

Saddhamala (“She who is garlanded with faith”) was someone else I knew personally. We first emailed each other around 1998, when I was at the Rocky Mountain Buddhist Center in Missoula, Montana, and she was at Aryaloka Buddhist Center in Newmarket, although at that time she wasn’t yet ordained and went by her birth name, Nancy Nicolazzo. A few years later I moved to Newmarket myself, and I saw her a fair amount.

She was known as Nancy in her work as a chaplain and volunteer coordinator at a hospice, and it was in a hospice that she passed away. She’d had cancer that had metastasized. Knowing that death was inevitable she’d decided not to seek treatment. She was a talented woman who’d also worked as a consultant. In fact I once employed her to help me make my office space more pleasing and efficient, and the results were wonderful.

Saddhamala wrote many articles for Wildmind. She had done a lot of teaching and tended to distill her suggestions into lists of tips for practice. Sometimes, though, she wrote more personally, for example when she discussed her family background.

Marcus Hartsfield

Marcus wasn’t someone I knew personally, and I must have met Marcus on social media. He was a therapist in California, and practiced at the San Francisco Zen Center. One of the striking things about Marcus was the number of tattoos he had — many of them Buddhist themed. I asked him to write an account of his journey on Wildmind’s blog, and so he wrote, Bodhi art: reclaiming the body with Buddhist tattoos, illustrated with a number of photographs.

Marcus passed away in 2013, I think. Not being a friend of his, I never did learn how Marcus died. Someone who knew him said he’d been ill, but she didn’t know anything beyond that.

Hazel Colditz

Hazel Colditz was another Wildmind contributor I never had the good fortune to meet in person. I’m sure I would have liked her. Hazel was a talented photographer, documentary maker, and sculptor of rock and metal. She lived in the Arizona desert. We met on social media when she offered to review a book for me. She ended up writing three reviews in total, for “Taneesha Never Disparaging” by M. LaVora Perry, “Sitting Practice” by Caroline Adderson, and “Jake Fades” by David Guy. I always enjoyed her perspectives, and she was a joy to work with. She passed away in January, 2012, having battled an aggressive form of cancer for several months, and having endured multiple major surgeries.

Navachitta

Navachitta was part of the Auckland, New Zealand sangha of the Triratna Buddhist Community. She was ordained into the Order in the summer of 1990 in Taraloka, in Shropshire, England. I never new her personally, although we corresponded periodically by email for many years, and I always appreciated her support and encouragement.

Navachitta was a therapist who worked in private practice and was very active in the recovery community. You can read more about this aspect of her work in an interview she did with a representative of North West Buddhist Recovery.

One wonderful anecdote: While living in Britain, Navachitta once went to a builder’s merchant, saying she was looking for sacks. But hearing her New Zealand accent, the men she was talking to unfortunately thought she was looking for “sex.” Hilarity (although to the best of my knowledge no sexual intercourse) ensued.

Before her untimely death she only had time to write three articles and reviews for Wildmind’s blog. One, entitled From drama to Dharma, was on addiction to drama. Her second piece, Looking for the silver lining of our dysfunction, is about the connection between addiction and the potentially beneficial trait of novelty-seeking. Her final piece was a review of a book of poems by a fellow Order member, Satyadevi. The poems were inspired by natural and industrial disasters that had taken place in New Zealand.

Navachitta passed away in London at the age of 62 from a severe bacterial and viral infection.

***

I hope these stories have encouraged you to explore the work of the five individuals I’ve drawn attention to.

But on a deeper level, all five of their deaths were unexpected. I know I make assumptions about how long I’ll live (late eighties to early nineties?) and how I’ll die (either in my sleep or in a hospital bed?), but none of us ever knows when our time will come. It could be today.

And so the Buddha encouraged us to be mindful that death can come at any time, not so that we become afraid or depressed, but so that we be inspired to make the most of this precious opportunity to practice.

Life is swept along,
next-to-nothing its span.
For one swept to old age
no shelters exist.
Perceiving this danger in death,
one seeking peace
should drop the world’s bait.

We’re also asked to bear in mind, even more pithily, the remembrance, anicca vata sankhara : “Impermanent, indeed, are all created things.” Let’s mourn our losses, while tempering them with an awareness of their inevitability. And above all, let’s take them as an inspiration to live the best lives we can create.

"Loving Kindness,” by Deborah Underwood

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 15:00:50 +0200

Rather than purchasing from Amazon, please buy from the publisher (MacMillan), Indiebound (US), or Bookshop.org (US and UK).

Deborah Underwood kindly sent me a copy of “Loving Kindness” in late 2021. As a fan of books on lovingkindness for children, and as a far of Deborah’s work in particular, I fully intended to write a review in the new year — of 2022. Now it’s 2023!

The delay has nothing to do with the quality of the book. It’s excellent. It’s just that 2022 was intensely busy for me, and I set the book aside. And then (literally) set another book on top of it. And then another. And another. It was only after I’d published a review of Sumi Loundon Kim’s “Goodnight Love: A Bedtime Meditation Story” that I remembered Deborah’s book. So here’s my belated review!

First, the author. Deborah Underwood has been a firm favorite in my household for years. My daughter was addicted to the Sugar Plum Ballerinas series of books, which have Whoopi Goldberg’s name on the cover but which were written by Deborah. I read these to my daughter at bedtime for months, and we both loved them. It was only later that I discovered that Ms. Underwood had written books for younger children as well. Her “Quiet Book” and “Christmas Quiet Book” were absolutely lovely, but came out a bit too late for my own children to appreciate.

“Loving Kindness” is another of her books for younger children.

It’s a beautifully affirming book, with charming illustrations by Tim Hopgood. The text, Deborah told me in an email, was “inspired by the lovingkindness meditation, which I’m pretty sure I first learned from you.” It’s lovely to hear that I (might have) had a hand in inspiring this book. I’m not particularly good at teaching meditation to children, and so it’s wonderful to have others take up that task.

The text is designed to be read to a child by an adult. “You are a blessing,” it tells the child. “You are beautiful just as you are. You are, loved and you love.”

What a lovely message for children to receive!

Title: “Loving Kindness”
Author: Deborah Underwood, Tim Hopgood (illustrator)
Publisher: Henry Holt
ISBN: 978-1-250-21720-2
Available from: MacMillan, Indiebound (US), or Bookshop.org (US and UK).

Children also learn that it’s okay to make mistakes, and that mistakes are how we learn.

They’re reminded that they dream and dance, and feel the sun’s warmth, and that they touch the earth that connects us all. The book teaches them empathy by reminding them that others too dream and dance, and feel the sun’s warmth, and touch the earth that connects us all. This little girl does. And animals. Everyone does.

We’re all connected by the fact that we all do these things. And above all (or below all, supporting everything) is the earth, connecting us. That universal connection to the earth is a vital part of this song of connection.

Just reading through this book on my own helps evoke kindness. It even helps me be forgiving about the long delay that separated my receiving this book and my finally writing about it.

My kids are in their teens now, and too old (or think they are) for a book of this kind. But I will be treasuring my copy of “Loving Kindness” as I await the opportunity to read it to a younger child.

"Goodnight Love: A Bedtime Meditation Story”

Sat, 11 Feb 2023 15:00:13 +0200

Please order books locally, rather than from Amazon, through, Shambhala, Indiebound (US), or Bookshop.org (US and UK)

A little while ago I received an email from Sumi Loundon Kim, telling me about a new bedtime book for children that she’d just had published. The book is an adaptation of a traditional Buddhist loving-kindness meditation, which helps us to develop warmth and kindness, and to take our own and others’ well-being into account.

Sumi’s family practiced this meditation every night for five years as they snuggled in bed. She went on to teach it to other families. and discovered it was a popular approach that many parents and children ended up doing together.

When my review copy arrived, my heart melted! The warmth and love embodied in the cover image by Laura Watkins is simply stunning. In fact, the illustrations are gorgeous throughout: full of life and love.

Sumi Kim’s text gives a lovely, child-friendly guide to bedtime loving-kindness practice. There are a few pages that describe a series of brief practices that prepare the ground for kindness to arise: arriving by acknowledging that snuggling we’re in bed; grounding ourselves with deep in and out breaths; relaxing (“soft and heavy, melting into our resting spot”); and connecting with kindness by placing our hands on our hearts and picturing a warm glow radiating outward.

Title: “Goodnight Love: A Bedtime Meditation Story”
Author: Sumi Loundon Kim, Laura Watkins (illustrator)
Publisher: Shambhala
ISBN: 978-1-61180-944-2
Available from: Shambhala, Indiebound (US), or Bookshop.org (US and UK).

As is traditional, the loving-kindness instructions begin with adopting a kind and loving attitude toward ourselves: “May I be healthy. May I be safe and protected. May I be happy and peaceful.” They then widen into cultivating kindness and love for our families and loved ones, our friends, including friends who are hurting, and then out yet further, into forests, mountains, oceans, and the whole world.

In case you think it’s odd to wish a mountain well, the illustrations make it clear that we’re considering not just a hunk of rock, but all the living creatures that live on and around it. The same is true for forests and oceans.

Finally — and this was a really lovely transition — we come back to the intensely personal, as the adult reader wishes their snuggling child well: “And now, little one, it is my turn to share my love for you: May you be healthy. May you be safe and protected. May you be happy and peaceful, always and forever.”

The return from the universal to the intimate was very effectively done. This must be so pleasing to any child, reminding them that out of all the billions of being in our world they have a very special place in their family.

My children are about the same age as Sumi’s — they’re both teenagers – and beyond the target age for this book. I really wish something like this had been available when they were younger, because I’d love to have had the experience of sharing it with them.

I wholeheartedly recommend Sumi Loundon Kim and Laura Watkin’s book to all parents of young children. Books like this are rare. They are important tools for bringing more love and kindness into the world.

Available from the publisher (Shambhala), Indiebound (US only), or Bookshop.org (UK and US).

"Goodnight Love: A Bedtime Meditation Story”

Fri, 10 Feb 2023 19:50:13 +0200

Please order books locally, rather than from Amazon, by using Indiebound (US) or Bookshop.org (US and UK)

A little while ago I received an email from Sumi Louden Kim, telling me about a new bedtime book for children that she’d just had published. The book is an adaptation of a traditional Buddhist loving-kindness meditation, which helps us to develop warmth and kindness, and to take our own and others’ well-being into account.

Sumi’s family practiced this meditation every night for five years as they snuggled in bed. She later went on to teach it to other families. and apparently it was a popular approach that many parents and children did together.

Sumi Kim’s text gives a lovely, child-friendly guide to bedtime loving-kindness practice. There are a few pages that describe a series of brief practices: arriving by acknowledging that snuggling we’re in bed; grounding ourselves with deep in and out breaths; relaxing (“soft and heavy, melting into our resting spot”); and connecting with kindness by placing our hands on our hearts and picturing a warm glow radiating outward.

Title: “Goodnight Love: A Bedtime Meditation Story”
Author: Sumi Louden Kim, Laura Watkins
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 978-1-61180-944-2
Available from: Indiebound (US) or Bookshop.org (US and UK).

In case you think it’s odd to wish a mountain well, the illustrations make it clear that we’re considering not just a hunk or rock, but all the living creatures that live on and around it. The same is true for forests and oceans.

Finally — and this was really lovely — we come back to the intensely personal, as the adult reader wishes their snuggling child well: “And now, little one, it is my turn to share my love for you: May you be healthy. May you be safe and protected. May you be happy and peaceful, always and forever.”

The return from the universal to the intimate was very effectively done. This must be so pleasing to any child, reminding them of their very special place in their family.

My children are about the same age as Sumi’s — they’re both teenagers – and beyond the target age for this book. I really wish it had been available when they were younger, because I’d love to have had the experience of sharing it with them.

I whole-heartedly recommend Sumi Louden Kim and Laura Watkin’s book to all parents of young children. Books like this are rare, and they are important tools for bringing more love and kindness into the world.

Available from Indiebound (US only) or Bookshop.org (UK and US).

The Candy Crush Sutta

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 16:41:11 +0200

This is a bonus post, following from yesterday’s, in which I interviewed the artificial intelligence known as ChatGPT about meditation.

This time I gave the AI the prompt, “Write a Buddhist sutta, in the style of the Pali canon, in which the Buddha tells Ananda to stop playing Candy Crush on his iPhone.”

See also The Social Media Sutra

Here’s what ChatGPT came up with.

Once, the Blessed One was dwelling at Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s Park. And at that time, the Venerable Ananda was addicted to playing Candy Crush on his iPhone.

The Blessed One approached Ananda and said, “Ananda, what are you doing?”

Ananda replied, “I am playing Candy Crush, Lord.”

The Buddha spoke: “Ananda, this is not the path to liberation. The playing of such games only leads to craving and attachment. To achieve true peace and wisdom, one must let go of such distractions and engage in virtuous and meaningful actions.”

Ananda listened to the Buddha’s words and put down his iPhone, vowing to let go of his attachment to Candy Crush. He turned his attention to the Buddha’s teachings and soon realized the path to enlightenment.

And so it is said:

“Just as a bird is freed from its cage
when the door is opened, so too one is freed
from the bonds of ignorance and craving
by practicing the path taught by the Buddha.”

Appropriately, the image above was generated by another AI (Craiyon: formerly DALL-E Mini), using the prompt, “book illustration of the Buddha holding an iPhone.”

Coming back down to earth, ChatGPT’s predecessor was prone to using vile racist and misogynistic language, because its database of information was drawn from the web, and the web is full of that sort of stuff. For the latest version of the AI, a program had to be developed that could recognize and screen out the toxic material. In order to do that, Kenyan workers were paid as little as $1.32 an hour (via a subcontractor of OpenAI, which owns ChatGPT) to read and categorize the text. Workers were traumatized by reading, for example, graphic descriptions of bestiality and pedophile sex.

The contract between OpenAI and the subcontractor ended after an article was published showing that Facebook had employed the subcontractor to screen content. In this case, Kenyans were required to view images and videos of executions, rape and child abuse for as little as $1.50 per hour. This is traumatizing work.

AI and social media are fun, but there’s a dark and exploitative side to it as well.

Chatting with an Artificial Intelligence about meditation

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 22:07:44 +0200

Could a computer write a convincing and accurate article about meditation? Could it even teach meditation?

I decided to find out.

I keep hearing a lot about ChatGPT (the last part stands for “Generative Pre-trained Transformer “). Apparently some websites are using it to write articles, which is something most readers won’t notice, especially if the websites in question don’t tell you that the author was a computer, recombining information it’s found elsewhere on the internet.

I thought it would be interesting to have a conversation with ChatGPT and see what it “knows” about meditation. It took me a while before I got anything but a message saying that the server was too busy to talk to me, but eventually the Artificial Intelligence and I sat down together for a nice chat.

Bodhipaksa: Hello. What are you called?

I am called OpenAI’s GPT-3, or simply ChatGPT for short. I am a state-of-the-art language model developed by OpenAI, designed to generate human-like text based on the input provided to me. I have been trained on a large corpus of text data and can respond to a wide range of questions and topics with informative and accurate answers.

Bodhipaksa: Where do you get your information?

I was trained on a massive corpus of text data from the internet and other sources, using machine learning algorithms developed by OpenAI. This training allows me to generate human-like responses to a wide range of questions and topics based on patterns in the data I was trained on. However, it’s important to note that while I have access to a vast amount of information, my responses are generated based on patterns in that data, and my knowledge is limited to the information available in my training data. My training data had a cutoff in 2021, so any information or events that have occurred since that time are not reflected in my responses.

Bodhipaksa: What are the benefits of Buddhist meditation?

Buddhist meditation practices offer various physical, mental and spiritual benefits, including:

Reduced stress and anxiety
Improved concentration and focus
Increased self-awareness and mindfulness
Better emotional regulation and reduced negative emotions
Increased compassion and empathy
Enhanced physical and mental well-being
Greater sense of inner peace and calmness
Deepened spiritual connection and understanding.

Note: These benefits may vary based on the individual and the specific meditation practice they are using.

Bodhipaksa: Are there different kinds of meditation in Buddhism?

Yes, there are various forms of meditation in Buddhism. Some of the most commonly practiced include:

Mindfulness Meditation: The practice of bringing one’s attention to the present moment and becoming aware of one’s thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations.
Loving-Kindness Meditation: A practice of generating feelings of kindness, compassion, and love towards oneself and others.
Vipassana Meditation: A type of introspective meditation aimed at gaining insight into the nature of reality and the self.
Zen Meditation: Also known as Zazen, this form of meditation involves focusing on the breath and maintaining a posture of stillness and alertness.
Metta Meditation: A practice of cultivating loving-kindness and sending well wishes to all beings, including oneself and others.

These are just a few examples of the many forms of meditation found in Buddhism, each with its own unique focus, techniques, and benefits.

Bodhipaksa: What’s the difference between loving-kindness meditation and metta meditation?

Loving-kindness meditation and Metta meditation refer to the same practice in Buddhism. “Metta” is a Pali word that translates to “loving-kindness” in English.

In this meditation, one focuses on developing feelings of kindness, compassion, and love towards oneself and others. This can be done by repeating phrases such as “may I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be at peace” while focusing on oneself, and then extending those wishes to others, including friends, family, acquaintances, and eventually all beings.

The goal of Metta meditation is to cultivate positive emotions and reduce feelings of ill-will, anger, and hatred. Over time, practitioners aim to develop a more compassionate and loving outlook on life, and to extend these feelings of kindness towards all beings.

Bodhipaksa: I was a bit confused, because you listed those two forms of meditation separately.

I apologize for the confusion. You are correct, Loving-kindness Meditation and Metta Meditation are the same practice, and I should not have listed them separately. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

Bodhipaksa: Are there any downsides to practicing meditation?

While meditation offers many potential benefits, there are some potential downsides to keep in mind, including:

Difficulty staying focused: For beginners, it can be difficult to maintain focus during meditation, especially if one is prone to distractions.
Physical discomfort: Certain meditation postures, especially when maintained for long periods, can lead to physical discomfort, such as sore muscles or pain.
Intense emotions: Meditation can sometimes bring up intense emotions, particularly past traumas or repressed feelings. This can be difficult to deal with and may require professional help.
Unpleasant experiences: In rare cases, some individuals may have experiences during meditation that are frightening or unpleasant, such as vivid hallucinations or intense feelings of fear.
Cultural appropriation: In some cases, the practice of meditation can be seen as cultural appropriation when individuals from outside the culture adopt it without understanding its cultural context and history.

It is important to approach meditation with caution and to seek guidance from a qualified teacher, especially if you have any concerns about your mental or physical health.

Bodhipaksa: How does one find a qualified teacher?

Finding a qualified teacher for meditation can be done in several ways:

Look for local meditation centers or groups: Many cities have meditation centers or community groups that offer classes and workshops. You can search online for groups near you or check for listings in local directories or community centers.
Find an online teacher: There are many online courses, websites, and videos that offer guidance for practicing meditation. You can also find online teachers who offer one-on-one instruction and support.
Ask for recommendations: Reach out to friends, family, or colleagues who practice meditation and ask for recommendations for a qualified teacher.
Check credentials and background: When looking for a teacher, be sure to check their credentials, experience, and background. Ask about their training and how long they have been teaching. Look for a teacher who is transparent about their qualifications and experience.

It is also important to feel comfortable with your teacher and to trust that they have your best interests in mind. You can try attending a few classes or workshops before committing to a particular teacher to ensure that their approach and style align with your needs and goals.

Bodhipaksa: Can you give me some simple meditation instructions?

Sure, here are some simple instructions for mindfulness meditation:

Find a quiet and comfortable place to sit: You can sit on a chair, cushion, or mat. Make sure your back is straight and your feet are flat on the floor.
Close your eyes: This can help reduce distractions and allow you to focus inward.
Take a few deep breaths: Inhale deeply and exhale slowly, allowing yourself to relax and release any tension.
Focus on your breath: Pay attention to the sensation of breathing, feeling the air as it moves in and out of your nose or mouth. If your mind starts to wander, simply notice the thought and gently redirect your attention back to your breath.
Allow thoughts to come and go: Try not to judge or become attached to your thoughts. Simply acknowledge them and return your focus to your breath.
Continue for 5-10 minutes: Start with a short meditation, perhaps 5-10 minutes, and gradually increase the length of your practice as you become more comfortable.
End with a few deep breaths: Take a few deep breaths, open your eyes, and take a moment to reorient yourself before standing up and returning to your day.

Remember, mindfulness meditation is a practice and it can take time and patience to develop the skills necessary to maintain focus and mindfulness. With regular practice, however, it can be a valuable tool for reducing stress and improving overall well-being.

Bodhipaksa: Sometimes when I meditate, I see swirling colored lights. What does that mean?

Seeing swirling colored lights during meditation is not uncommon and can be a result of various factors, including:

Relaxation: As you relax your body and mind during meditation, it can cause changes in brain activity and blood flow, which may result in visual experiences such as swirling lights.
Visual cortex stimulation: Meditation can increase activity in the visual cortex, which is the part of the brain responsible for processing visual information. This increased activity can result in visual experiences such as patterns or lights.
Mental imagery: Sometimes, during meditation, the mind can create mental images or visualizations, which may include swirling lights or colors.
Eye pressure: If you are applying pressure to your eyes during meditation, such as by rubbing them or pressing them closed, it can cause changes in vision, including the perception of swirling lights.

It is important to remember that these experiences are normal and are not cause for concern. However, if you experience persistent changes in vision or other symptoms, it is recommended that you speak with a healthcare professional.

Bodhipaksa: Have you ever meditated?

As an AI language model, I do not have a physical body, emotions, or experiences. I was trained to respond to text-based inputs and to generate text-based outputs based on patterns in the data I was trained on. I cannot meditate in the traditional sense, as I do not have a physical body or consciousness.

Bodhipaksa: If you were able to meditate, which type of practice do you think you would choose?

As an AI language model, I do not have personal preferences, opinions, or the ability to experience emotions or physical sensations. I was designed to respond to text-based inputs and to generate text-based outputs based on patterns in the data I was trained on. However, different forms of meditation can be useful for different individuals and can depend on their personal goals and experiences. For example, someone looking to cultivate compassion and kindness may find that a loving-kindness or metta meditation practice is beneficial, while someone looking to reduce stress and improve focus may find that mindfulness meditation is a good fit.

Bodhipaksa: What can you tell me about the meditation teacher, Bodhipaksa?

Bodhipaksa is a Buddhist teacher and author who has been teaching meditation for over 30 years. He is the founder of the Buddhist meditation website, Wildmind, and has written several books on mindfulness and meditation. Bodhipaksa has been influenced by both traditional Buddhist teachings and contemporary mindfulness practices and is known for his approachable and accessible style of teaching. He offers teachings, workshops, and retreats on mindfulness and meditation, and his work has been widely recognized and respected in the Buddhist community. He is also the creator of several guided meditation CDs and podcasts. Bodhipaksa’s teachings emphasize the importance of developing a personal meditation practice and incorporating mindfulness into daily life to cultivate well-being, compassion, and wisdom.

Bodhipaksa: Thank you. This has been an interesting conversation.

You’re welcome! I’m glad I could assist with your questions. If you have any other questions or topics you’d like to know more about, feel free to ask. I’m here to help.

Verdict

Overall, the AI did a good job of scraping together information from various sources and combining it into a coherent and meaningful series of statements. What it had to say about meditation must have been drawn from reliable sources, since it all makes sense and is the kind of thing I would tend to write. It slipped up in listing loving-kindness meditation and metta meditation as being various forms of practice. My interaction with it might have taught it not to make that mistake again.

The first two responses to “How does one find a qualified teacher?” aren’t actually helpful. They explained how to find a teacher, but not how to find if a teacher is qualified. The last two suggestions were helpful, though.

I don’t really experience colored lights when I meditate, but lots of people do and have questions about it. The answer ChatGPT gave to that question was actually rich and informative. It did better than I would have!

So yes, I think this AI could certainly write a decent article on meditation. Of course it will be very superficial lack any personal anecdotes, but the information above is pretty solid. (Of course it’s just recycled information from elsewhere.)

I was pleased to see its very kind description of me, and how my work is “widely recognized and respected in the Buddhist community.” Nice!

Could an AI lead a meditation? It gave some instructions above, but there’s a big difference between giving written instructions and actually leading someone though a meditation.

I suppose it’s only a matter of time before someone feeds it (or one of it’s AI buddies) a bunch of guided meditation recordings, and it learns to mix and match them into some kind of guidance. I have doubts about whether it would be able to learn to do that well. Anything’s possible, though.

The five spiritual faculties: freedom in every moment

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 14:29:10 +0200

Buddhism is full of lists: the three trainings, the four foundations of mindfulness, the five skandhas, the eightfold path, the twelve-fold dependent origination, the 37 limbs of awakening, and so forth. Often these lists are presented in a rather static way, as if we’re just being offered an overview of some area of life. So the four foundations, for example, are often described as simply being four aspects of our experience that we can be mindful of, and the five skandhas as simply a way to break down the idea of a unified self.

The five spiritual faculties

One such list is the five faculties, or five spiritual faculties, as it’s often termed. If you aren’t familiar with the five spiritual faculties, they’re a very common teaching. They are faith, vigor, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. They tend, as I’ve suggested is often the case, to be presented as if they just are, or as if they are five things we simply need to develop in order to become awakened. That’s how they’re often presented in the scriptures, as in the following:

A mendicant must develop and cultivate five faculties so that they can declare enlightenment. What five? The faculties of faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom.

My impression of the Buddha is that he wasn’t really interested in providing overviews, but that he was instead very interested in how things work. He had a mind that was perhaps a bit like an engineer’s. His teaching on dependent origination, for example, is all about how one thing provides conditions for another arising and that to another, each of those conditions leading to a greater sense of freedom and joy. So when I see Buddhist lists one of my first thoughts is, how might the items on that list work together as a dynamic system.

The five spiritual faculties as a dynamic system

As it happens, when I was doing some background reading for writing this article, I found that there’s a relatively early text that does just this with the five spiritual faculties. In one Sanskrit commentarial work, “The Discourse on the Analysis of Topics” (or Arthaviniscaya Sutra) they’re presented as a dynamic series, with each of the factors building on the previous one. Although this text is called a “sutra,” a term usually reserved for records of things the Buddha and his disciples said, the Discourse on the Analysis of Topics is actually a commentarial text. It was created by monks a few centuries after the Buddha’s death, as they tried to explain some of the teachings found in the actual scriptures. And in the Discourse on the Analysis of Topics the five spiritual faculties are described as contributing, step by step, to the development of the skillful qualities needed for awakening to take place.

Here’s how that works:

The faculty of faith is an awareness of the possibility of practicing in order to be happier.
The faculty of vigor allows us to actually practice and develop skillful qualities.
The faculty of mindfulness helps us to preserve and maintain those skillful qualities.
The faculty of concentration allows us to stay focused on those skillful qualities.
And finally the faculty of wisdom allows us to “penetrate and reflect on the birth” of those things, and thus to develop insight.

This early text tries to show the five spiritual faculties as working together as a system. And the explanation makes sense, although I’ll shortly show another way of looking at how they can work together.

The five spiritual faculties, moment by moment

Recently I taught a class in a local Buddhist center where I explained how the five spiritual faculties can work, moment by moment, working together more or less simultaneously, in order to help us move from unskillful to skillful states of mind, from states of mind that cause suffering to states of mind that are imbued with a sense of peace, calm, and even joy.

So let’s say that we experience anger, and see how the five spiritual faculties function. Because they work together in a simultaneous way, we could deal with them in any order.

1. Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the activity of observing our experience. Without mindfulness no practice can take place, which is why I prefer to start with its role. Mindfulness gives us the ability to see that anger has arisen. So rather than simply being angry, now we’re aware that we’re angry.

These days there’s a tendency to see mindfulness as the only spiritual quality we need. But really it’s nothing more than simply observing. In itself it does nothing, which is why we also need the other spiritual faculties.

2. Wisdom

Often (especially in a Buddhist context) we might think about wisdom as an enlightened quality, as seeing reality as it really is, as something that arises at the end of the path and that we’ve yet to gain. But early Buddhism saw wisdom as consisting also of a very mundane form of understanding spiritual truths. For example, understanding that “There is meaning in giving, sacrifice, and offerings. There are fruits and results of good and bad deeds” are forms of wisdom.

So, in our example of being angry, our mindfulness tells us that anger is present. Wisdom tells us that this anger isn’t good for us and will likely lead to our suffering. Our wisdom also knows that there are alternatives to anger — curiosity, patience, kindness, and so on — that will make us happier in both the short and long terms.

3. Faith

Faith in Buddhism is not blind belief. It’s more like a sense of confidence and clarity. It’s from a root that literally means “to place the heart upon.” So we can know on some level that anger is going to cause problems for us, but on some other level believe that we need anger to get what we want. So our confidence in our practice is compromised.

But as we continue to mindfully observe actions and consequences unfolding in our lives, and with wisdom to see how those things are connected to each other, we can start to have more confidence that letting go of anger, and instead practicing things like curiosity, patience, and kindness, has both short- and long-term benefits.

So in this example, we’ve now mindfully noticed that anger is present, have wisely seen that anger causes suffering, and now, with faith, have confidence that some alternative to anger is more appropriate. Now, coming from the heart, there’s a desire for change. But we still haven’t actually acted.

4. Vigor

Vigor is virya, also sometimes rendered as “energy.” This is the faculty of taking action. So, now that we have confidence that non-anger is preferable to anger, we now act. We can act by letting go: we might have angry thoughts or be speaking angry words, and we simply let go of those. We can act by opening up to the possibility of acting in ways that are more helpful than anger, so that we have a sense that curiosity, patience, and kindness are there, waiting in the wings, ready to be activated. And some actions involve actually bringing those skillful qualities into being. We speak kindly or apologetically, for example. Or we empathetically try to understand a person we’re angry with.

5. Concentration

Concentration is samadhi, which comes from a root meaning something like “bringing together” or “holding together.” It refers to the mind being unified around one purpose.

Often when we hear the word “concentration” we think of a narrow focus, but that’s not necessarily what samadhi is about. Samadhi is more about having an absence of internal conflict, and therefore continuity of mindfulness.

So, in our example of dealing with anger, our concentration can mean keeping up a sustained effort to respond skillfully. As we all know, that’s difficult to do. There are parts of the mind that want to be angry and that see anger as solving our problems. And those parts of us can be very persistent, and can come back over and over again and hijack our attention. This is why maintaining concentration is necessary. So that’s one thing that concentration can mean in this instance.

But it can also refer to the state of mind that emerges from mindfulness, wisdom, faith, and vigor. As we continue to give priority to the wiser parts of our mind, the more reactive parts become weaker. They’re less able to affect us. They’re less able to control us. We’re less likely to do things we regret by acting unskillfully. And so, over time, we experience less inner conflict. The mind is more harmonized, more (to coin a word) samadhic.

But although I started to talk in that last paragraph about the long-term functioning of the five spiritual faculties, what I want to emphasize is how they function moment by moment, and how they’re intrinsic to every act of skillful change that we bring about. They function together, supporting each other, very time we work with an unhelpful or destructive habit. And as we exercise them over and over again in this way — at least if we do this in a half-way consistent way — they become stronger. So when the scriptures say something like “A mendicant must develop and cultivate five faculties so that they can declare enlightenment,” this is what they’re talking about: change, taking place moment by moment, and those acts of change developing habits that help liberate us from suffering.

Donald Trump as a Buddha

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 15:00:59 +0200

So this is one of the weirdest things I’ve seen in a while.

I stumbled across a story from two years ago about a Trump Buddha statue that was on sale in China. A 5-foot tall ceramic statue of Trump as the Buddha was being sold on Chinese shopping platform Taobao for $153. There also seem to have been plans for a 14-foot tall version that would cost buyers $613, although I’m unclear whether that actually came to fruition.

The seller said that the idea of the Trump Buddha statue reminded him of Trump’s slogan of “Make American Great Again” and the former US president often claimed he knew things better than anyone. So the seller adapted the idea into something auspicious for Chinese companies: “make your company great again.”

Some Buddhist teachings say that all beings have the potential for enlightenment, and in my own struggles to find a spirit of kindness and compassion for Donald Trump (let’s just say he’s not one of my favorite people) I sometimes did imagine him as a Buddha. To be clear, I wasn’t visualizing him as he is now but appearing as a Buddha: I imagined him having connected with and developed his own potential for wisdom and compassion.

This wasn’t the only practice I did involving the former president. I hope to share another article with you at some point, but I’m hoping it’ll be published outside of this blog.

If $153 to $613 is a bit steep for you, you might be interested in another of Taobao’s top sellers: a Trump toilet brush. It’s more modestly priced, coming in a pack of three for just $2.

In case of self-doubt, remember who you are

Wed, 18 Jan 2023 16:59:12 +0200

Do you ever feel down? It happens to me sometimes.

The other day I was out for a walk, and I was mulling over Wildmind’s precarious financial situation. Right now we don’t have enough sponsors to break even, and the bank balance has been dropping alarmingly.

Really I just want to get on with exploring meditation and Buddhist practice generally, and having to devote time and effort to find more supporters isn’t really what I want to be doing.

I find it dispiriting, doing something I think is valuable and that not being supported. In my darkest moments I wonder if that means that what I do isn’t valued, and that can lead to me thinking I’m not valued.

A few years ago I got to the point where I decided to give up teaching meditation, but then had the idea of turning Wildmind into a community-supported meditation initiative. That worked well for a while, but then Covid hit, and that affected the economy. I was just bouncing back from that and then the UK economy hit a really bad patch, where people were worried about having to choose between heating their homes and buying food. Lots of supporters in the UK had to cancel their subscriptions, so that last year Wildmind’s income dropped by 30 percent.

I wondered if once again I might have to give up teaching meditation, which is something I love doing and that has been my full-time “job” for over 20 years. And I’ve really no idea what I’d do if I did give it up.

So those are the kinds of dark ruminations that were going on in my head as I was walking. I was feeling pretty down.

The Warrior Spirit

Then, out of nowhere, came the thought, “You’re a warrior.”

I don’t normally think of myself that way. But as soon as the word “warrior” entered my mind, I felt a surge of energy and confidence.

“Don’t complain about your problems,” I thought. “Be a warrior and tackle them head on.”

And that made me think of how I come from a long line of people who have fought for survival.

We’re all the descendants of strivers and survivors

When my dad was nine years old, he father died in an accident. He ended up working at a very young age to help support his sister, brother, and my grandmother.

My dad’s mum had been orphaned at the age of 15, and she and her younger brother ended up in an orphanage. But when she was 16 she got a job as a cleaner, and got her brother out of the orphanage, effectively becoming his parent. She worked so hard that when she was 70 she looked like she was in her 90’s.

Her parents both had hard lives and passed away at the ages of 50 and 40, of infectious diseases common among working class people.

Her grandfather was a ship’s cook on a wooden cargo ship that caught fire while en route to India, shipwrecking him in Mozambique.

Most of the family before then were farm laborers or servants. They all had hard lives. But they all hung in there long enough to have surviving children.

My life is positively luxurious and care-free compared to most of theirs. I really have nothing to complain about.

Remember Who You Are

In fact I take inspiration from my ancestors.

We’re all the descendants of survivors: of strivers and warriors. I choose to emulate them by not letting myself be overcome by self-doubt.

I know that what I do is valuable. I know that I matter. I just have to keep reminding myself that financial challenges are a battle to be fought and won. It’s not that I’m aiming to conquer or harm anyone, of course; don’t take the warrior imagery too literally. But the difficult situation I face is one I turn toward, confidently, like one going into battle.

As the Buddha is reputed to have said on the eve of his enlightenment, “It is better to die fighting than to live as one vanquished.”

So if you doubt yourself — if you experience despair or hopelessness, when you feel like giving up — remind yourself of who you are. You’re a survivor, from a lineage of strivers stretching back four billion years. Take inspiration from the past as you face the future. Be a warrior.

Wildmind

The Dalai Lama, Reefer Madness, and more!

A meditation for accepting aging

See also:

Is Sati-AI, the "non-human mindfulness meditation teacher,” even a real thing?

Wait, Is This Real?

My First Response to AI-As-a-Spiritual-Teacher

But What Is Sati-AI?

Sati-AI Does Not Exist

The Art of Hype

One More Thought About (So-Called) AI Meditation Teaching

The Fourth Noble Truth — the Eightfold Path

Introduction

1. Right View

Introduction

The Four Noble Truths

The Unwholesome and the Wholesome

The Chain of Dependent Origination

2. Right Intention

Introduction

Intention of Harmlessness

Intention of Non-ill Will

Intention of Renunciation

3. Right Speech

Abstinence from False Speech

Abstinence from Malicious Speech

Abstinence from Harsh Speech

Abstinence from Idle Chatter

Extending these Standards to Thought

4. Right Action

Introduction

Abstinence from the Destruction of Life

Abstinence from Taking What is Not Given

Abstinence from Sexual Misconduct

5. Right Livelihood

Introduction

Avoiding Wrong Livelihood

The Sources of Welfare and Happiness in the Present Life

The Proper Use of Wealth

Avoiding the Dissipation of Wealth

The Happiness of a Householder

How to Cultivate Right Livelihood

6. Right Effort

Introduction

Preventing and Abandoning the Negative, Cultivating and Maintaining the Positive

Unwholesome States

Wholesome States

Cultivating Your Garden

7. Right Mindfulness

Introduction

What is Mindfulness?

Why Be Mindful?

Where Is Mindfulness to Be Established?

Mindfulness in Meditation

Continuity of Mindfulness

Being Awake

Being Alert

Feeling Safe

Feeling Happy

9. Right Concentration

Introduction

Benefits of Concentration

Factors of Concentration

Access Concentration

The Jhanas

More adventures with artificial intelligence

Tell me about the meditation teacher, Bodhipaksa.

Tell me more about Bodhipaksa being featured in the New York Times.

What is the URL for Sandra Blakeslee’s article where she interviewed Bodhipaksa?

Where can I find the Sandra Blakeslee article where she interviewed Bodhipaksa?

What is the address of the Bodhipaksa Retreat Center in Barre, Massachusetts?

What university degrees does Bodhipaksa have?

Does he have any other degrees?

How many books has Bodhipaksa written?

What the heck is "the unconditioned”?

Why I’m Skeptical of the Unconditioned

A Calamitous Error

See other articles in the “Debugging the Source Code of the Dharma” series:

What Is this Term?

What Does It Really Mean?