On race and Buddhism

http://resistracism.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/on-race-and-buddhism/

Daily Meditation 01/25/10

Today I somehow didn't set the timer properly and wound up going for 1 hr 20 min before I checked the clock. It was somewhat of a rough ride with me many times succumbing to the seductiveness of thought. I tried to be more muscular in my concentration but felt like I was clamping too tightly. I also tried breathing as if each breathe were my very last on this earth. This worked for awhile - present, aware and concentrated until some shiny attractive thought passed and then I was gone again... Other times I was lost in the trees and then all of a sudden found myself in a clearing... Open, spacious, and clear. Hard to maintain though and soon enough lost in the trees again. How wonderful it is to meditate... Even after a "tough" session everything seems right, as if I have bathed my mind and emerged refreshed. Later I found myself lost in the spaciousness outside - wind blowing and animating all it touched, leaves and flowers trembling, gentle ridges and clouds framing like eyebrows.

A Path With Heart chapter 1: Did I Love Well?

A Path With Heart is one of a very few books that speaks directly to me, articulating what may have been half conscious or half buried, at the same time clarifying and elevating the internal discourse and my interactions in the world. Jack Kornfield’s gentle wisdom is always inspiring and I have found it to be a continual catalyst for transformation.

Chapter 1’s title “Did I Love Well?” is the question to ask. It is a question that frames effort, grounds ambition, nurtures humility and challenges us to do more.

“Does this path have a heart? If it does the path is good. If it doesn’t, it is of no use.”

The eyes read and the mind comprehends but these words imprint on my heart. Over and over again until I feel like I am there with Don Juan and Carlos Castaneda.

The meditation/reflection on ones death was also powerful. The simplicity and immediacy of real goodness. As a child I remember feeding stay cats and how it felt as they crunched on the dry food we gave them. In high school I remember helping out a few times as a teacher’s assistant for a class of learning disabled children. It was really tough and they often did not respond as one expected or thought they should. Last year I opened a door for an older woman. It was spontaneous. These acts are in contrast to what I do with TLF which is always in a larger context, planned with specific expectations and calculations. Not to say that it isn’t genuine but this reflection reminds me that I need to make an effort so I don’t lose immediacy, spontaneity and ultimately connection.

“In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.”

This I also have read and repeated over and over like a mantra. It sometimes comes to mind when I am lost in a cloud of administration, management and planning and one of the youth at TLF asks me something that doesn’t fit into these boxes. I am reminded to try and be present and answer simply. Or when my children want to be comforted or even just heard when I have work or existential burdens weighing me down. It’s in fact a blessing for oneself to remember Mother Theresa’s words. For all our grand plans and ambitions, in the end this is what really matters.

The lovingkindness meditation is one I practice almost every day at the end of my daily meditation. I learned it on the last day of the first 10 day retreat I did. I found myself crying uncontrollably and it felt like my heart had layers peeled off it. In the beginning it was hardest to feel loving kindness for oneself. Like trying to get water from a dry well. It’s an amazing thing to feel lovingkindness spontaneously arise or come up during a difficult situation where previously I would have been angry or vengeful. That’s not to say that I still don’t have negative feelings but somehow it’s different. I can forgo reproving myself, feeling guilty and get onto actually being present and start to do something. For this I am very grateful.

May we all be filled with lovingkindness
May we all be well
May we all be peaceful and at ease
May we all be happy

Never Give Up

Wednesday 26 December 2007, by HH the XIV Dalai Lama

Never give up
No matter what is going on
Never give up

Develop the heart
Too much energy in your country
Is spent developing the mind
Instead of the heart
Develop the heart

Be compassionate

Not just with your friends
But with everyone

Be compassionate

Work for peace
In your heart
And in the world
Work for peace

And I say again
Never give up
No matter what is going on around you
Never give up

copyright©2003 His Holiness The Dalai Lama and Ron Whitehead
Message given by His Holiness The Dalai Lama to Ron Whitehead.
Longer message translated into this poem by Ron Whitehead.
Poem message blessed by His Holiness The Dalai Lama
with permission for Ron Whitehead to share with everyone.

from: http://www.tibetwrites.org/?Never-Give-Up

"Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can."
— Dalai Lama XIV

Meditation and martial arts

More than six years later I am still trying to feel my way thru having two major practices: meditation which has slowly become more of an embracing of Buddhism as a path and my martial arts practice which I have been doing on and off since 1984 and was the main reason I came to Indonesia in 1992. One thing is for sure, the amount of aggression I feel towards self and others has gone down. Fear, anger, aversion is something I can start to put in a "larger container" and look at with some degree of subjectivity. I also have started to gain understanding of how anger and aggression damages me. But I often feel out of sync with the vibe at my martial arts school even though to be accurate this feeling predates my meditation practice.

Daily meditation 01/24/10

Still working on concentration series of talks by Gil Fronsdal series on Audiodharma. Still strange not to being doing Vipassana but today in my meditation at times I felt present, connected, whole, fresh and alive. A few times I could "see" a thought arise and recognize it as such. Other times I felt myself slip and without noticing give in to the seductiveness of thought. It was nice to note without blame or remorse and get back to the breath. I am so grateful for the Audiodharma recordings and Gil Fronsdal.

I need and enjoy my daily sittings so much. At some point I would like to look more deeply at my resistance to going back for a third 10 day retreat...

We have had some mice in our house and looking at my reluctance to have our dogs take care of them I see pity but also some dogmatic adherence to not killing. A bit of a comic scene with my wife on a chair screaming - just like a scene in some cartoon, my daughter locking herself in another room refusing to open the door, and the dogs busily sniffing, happy to be inside the house and finally proudly carrying out a very small mouse body.