Articles by the Mentors

Christopher asked the mentors of the programme to write short articles (of about 1000 words) that explore different aspects of the dharma. You may read them here:

Reflections on Service

Andrew Getz

The Dharma has much to say about the quality of our relationships, whether our relationship to our inner life or to our life in the world. As we grow in wisdom and compassion our clarity and understanding of our relationship to the world is also transformed. The sense of a separate and defended identity gives way to an open generous free flow of energy when we allow ourselves the direct experience of a heart to heart connection through service. The giving of Dana (the Pali word for generosity) expresses this understanding. Generosity is at the foundation of the Buddhist tradition, as the teachings have always been given freely, and monastics have in turn been supported by the generosity of those who have benefited from the teachings.

I remember as a monk in Thailand, when I used to go on alms round, there was a time in which I felt I had nothing tangible to offer the villagers in return for the food they were offering to me to support my practice. As I contemplated this I came to recognize that what I could do was to allow my heart to open to receive their gift, to recognize it was given to something larger than myself, it was being offered to the stream of Dharma from which I was both a beneficiary and a recipient . “I” dissolved into that stream of generosity and devotion. It was a genuine exchange of the heart in which giving mingled with receiving. I allowed their gift to truly support me and it inspired me to develop my practice, which would ultimately benefit others. This is the spirit of service; we recognize the Dharma wisdom of letting go as both recipient and giver join the flow of wisdom and kindness. This stream expresses a truth about who we are that is beyond our ego’s illusion of separateness, and yet acknowledges that this illusion of separateness is also a part of the stream.

As we engage in service, we can begin to identify feelings that are rooted in the misapprehension of ourselves as separate. We can receive them with compassion yet know them clearly, so that they can begin to dissolve in the light of awareness. There is a Buddhist Sutta (the classical texts purported to be the actual words and teachings of the Buddha) in which a woman comes to the Buddha in the depths of despair soon after the death of her young child. He instructs her to go to the door of each family in the village, and to knock on the door, and to ask the family of that home if they have had a death in their family, he then asks her to collect a mustard seed from each family that has not lost someone.

As I imagine the sight of this mourning mother wandering through the village, I picture villagers rushing about their chores or on their way to work in the fields, some might have been angry to be stopped or delayed, some might have laughed maliciously at the sight of this dishevelled, weeping woman. Others would have slammed the door on her out of a fear of being overwhelmed by so much unadulterated pain.

Some might even have clung to the Buddhist teachings of impermanence and tried to convince her of its truth, as a way to make sense of her loss. These villagers are personifications that reflect the myriad ways in which we have learned to obstruct our hearts, or need to defend ourselves, based on a misunderstanding about who we are in relationship to the world. Through our meditation practice we learn to trust the capacity of the heart to hold the truth of suffering. It is through allowing that we can begin to discover that awareness has the capacity to support us even in the face of intense pain. By simply bringing mindful presence into contact with these old rigid patterns, we are cultivating a gentle compassion for our human predicament, and in so doing we may get an inkling that these old patterns are simply relics of the past based on an unexamined conviction in who we have taken ourselves to be. Out of this a new kindness and compassion may be born. Someone once asked the Buddhist author Stephen Levine how he became so loving, and he responded “by being mindful of all the times my heart was closed”. Serving others is one way to expose and challenge our belief in who we have taken ourselves to be.

As the story goes the mourning mother did not collect a single mustard seed. One could well imagine that many of the homes she visited that had also experienced loss might have invited her to sit by the fire and share in her grief. In this way her personal grief provided a gateway to a shared understanding and deep connection with the universal human condition. It is said that this understanding liberated her from her grief.

As a hospice nurse, I have had the privilege to be present in the midst of the beautiful brutal truth of loss, and the spontaneous strength that can arise in us to meet the challenge of such a profound grief. There is a grace in sharing our human condition and a simplicity that can emerge in being present offering a kind word and attending to immediate concerns of the moment.

In this way, service offers us an opportunity to exercise our hearts capacities that we are developing on the cushion. We recognize that the world offers an opportunity to do our practice as much as the retreat center. It can also reflect back to us the places that our heart is still obstructed and it is a beautiful opportunity to touch and be touched by the mystery and depth of our inter-connections.

Service can open our hearts, and help us to examine the assumptions of where we want to go or how we want to be perceived that can inhibit a genuine contact and allowing. I think that is what Henry David Thoreau meant when he said that if he knew someone was approaching to do him good he would run in the opposite direction as fast as possible. Our practice of service is aimed not simply at “doing good”, but of recognizing that the heart of service is inseparable from our own loving heart, which is not so much about doing anything, but about being who we are in relationship, and by offering the simple gift of our presence.

I recall visiting a well known forest monk and teacher engaged in a large reforestation project in Northern Thailand. I was impressed with his work and I imagined that it might provide a wonderful model in which the contemplative monastic practice found an expression in service. I ask this teacher how he balanced his meditation practice with his commitment to change the outer world. He responded by saying that trying to change the outside was simply a distraction for him. I was taken aback by this response and I said, “but what about all this work that you are doing here to protect the watershed, and to start this tree nursery, and to replant trees in the villages?” His response was simple and direct, he said “I have lived in the forest for forty years, I’m not trying to change anything, I’m simply expressing my love of the trees and the villages and village people.”

Service is not separate from this love; service is the movement of the unobstructed heart in response to the world and to suffering. Often our view is obscured by our reactivity when the other is not what we would like or we are dependent on the response of the other, or are invested in making some kind of change in them. Then our intention to serve provides a field in which to explore our reactions with mindful attention. This is the practice of bringing mindfulness both within and without as the Buddha recommends in the Satipathana Sutta.

The End of Learning

Asaf Federman

Friends on the Path, Buddhists and others who look for spiritual transformation, sometimes express two contradictory ideas about the right way for growth towards liberation. One may say that the most important thing is knowledge and learning of your spiritual tradition, and the other may say that personal experience is the most important thing. For example, the former would say "understanding the philosophy of dependent arising is mostly important"; the latter would say "meditative attainments are what matters". Could it be that both of them miss the point?

Every spiritual tradition had its intellectuals who dedicated their life to various kinds of studying. They usually argue the following manner: if we want to learn something about ourselves and about the world from, let's say, Buddhism, we must treat this tradition seriously. We have no choice but to explore the texts and living traditions that have preserved the knowledge and we must make a serious effort to know as much as we can on its ideas, concepts, methods and practices. These academics (I call them academics even if they do not belong to the academy. As far as I am concerned, they could be Buddhist monks) values a rigorous study of the tradition. Moreover, they claim ignoring the tradition will leave us ignorant.

The tradition is seen as an authoritative source of knowledge, knowledge that was found and kept by people like them who have read texts, philosophized, reflected on and criticized the known. Many of them have thought of as highly spiritual. It may be said that the Buddha, Nagarjuna and Dogen were such characters. Even in the field of meditative practice it is clear that Ledi Sayadaw and Mahasi Sayadaw, the fathers of modern Vipassana had enormous textual and philosophical knowledge.

It is hard to dismiss this view. We know that knowledge and understanding are important parts of learning and developing. We all belong to a culture and to a tradition and the more we learn about them the more we understand ourselves. But aren't we missing something when we think it is the only way?

Opposing the academic view stand those who endorse pure experience, clean from any concept. Naturally these voices are heard mostly in retreats, meditation workshops and similar spiritual circles. Their argument is as follows: tradition is a "dead letter", transferred knowledge is only words, and mere words cannot penetrate the heart and transform it. Only personal experience, they say, can make spiritual development happen, and personal experience is attained through forms of meditative practice, yoga, being with a teacher or even pure non-doing.

The radicals among them would say that there is actually nothing to do because any action is tainted with thinking and tradition – all we can do is wait patiently until grace will come a upon us. Words, ideas and philosophy are only the product of a "mind" which actually blocks real and immediate experiential understanding. This view too can be supported by history: the Buddha refused to answer metaphysical questions of Malunkyaputta (MN 63/M ii 427) and advised the Kalamas to trust their own experience and not to adopt traditional knowledge blindly (A i 188). Many great teachers have reported a life changing experience that happened while that could not be expressed by words. The "Absolute" the "One" or "God", are beyond the grasping of the "mind".

This view too is not easily dismissed. We know that language has its limits, especially when we try to describe either a personal experience (of any kind) or the Sublime. When we deepen our acquaintance with our minds we learn more about their decisive powers. Words make distinctions but a powerful force of a different level creates love and connection. We feel that there is something else: reality is not its description!

Different people have different inclinations. Some look for the spiritual experience that will change their life and spends days, months and years in meditative practices. Others try to get closer to truth and spend months and years in studying and reflecting. But are we right to separate the way of the heart from the way of the mind? Moreover, is it true that the mind works against the heart and vice versa?

I suggest we have a deep look into the illusionary basis of each view. The first, the academic view, sees the intellectual function of the mind as superior to other mental functions. Knowledge is seen as something "out there" that can be internalized "in here" by the means of discursive and analytic thought. Knowledge that comes from experience is categorized as incomplete, dependent on the situation and then the mind wishes to measure it with its measurement tools. In this case what does not agree with one's world view is judged as imagination, illusion, dream, or just "a feeling". In other words, the academic thinks he is outside the world and can see it objectively by using his mind.

The second view, the experiential, sees thoughts as an inferior product of mental activity. It is claimed that thoughts distort reality and any knowledge that may arise through thinking is categorized as speculative, as if it came from "outside". The experientialist trusts only what seems to come from "inside", i.e., anything that is associated with experienced feelings and emotions is seen relevant and authentic. By looking for pure subjective experience one forgets that the subject exist only with relations to the object.

Could it be that each of these two views misses something by rejecting important domains of reality? Could it be that "experience" and "intellect" do not contradict each other? Could it be the "in" and "out" are actually the aspects of the same thing?

The Buddhist view prioritizes neither feeling nor intellect. Intellect is the use of categories and concepts to analyze reality. The Pali word is sannà: the function of perceiving. Feeling in Pali is vedanà, it is born out of sensual contact, including the contact with thoughts, illusions, and other mental activities, and is dependent on the ability to feel. These two functions belong to the Five Aggregates (khandha) – physical body, feelings, perceptions, conditioned formations, consciousness – which are also called the aggregates of clinging. They are called the aggregates of clinging because instead of seeing them as they are, aspects of human experience, we tend to cling to one of them and give it a primer authority. However, non of them is superior to the other in the sense of being an exclusive pathway for truth.

Truth is one. It is neither divided to five nor to two. This is what meant by non-dual truth. But non-dual does not mean ignoring one side of a dualism. We tend to think that one truth means not-two (and this is just another form of dualism!), and following this line we mistakenly try to adopt one way by rejecting the other. This is why we, according to our inclinations, may go against the mind or against the heart. In either case, we do injustice to ourselves and miss the point.

The truth cannot be possessed by thinking and cannot be possessed by feeling. It is neither in the sutras and nor in meditation. As a matter of fact it is as well in the sutras as in meditation. When it reveals itself it releases the conflict between mind and heart and it brings the end of learning. It is worth reading about it, worth feeling it, worth contemplating on it and meditating with it, up to the point that all conflicts disappear.

May all being be free of conflict and sorrow!

The Courage to See Clearly

Bryan Tucker

Noam Chomsky, the well-known dissident intellectual from the U.S., once wrote that “we live entangled in webs of endless deceit, often self-deceit, but with a little honest effort, it is possible to extricate ourselves from them.” He was writing about U.S. foreign policy in much of the world, specifically in Latin America, but I immediately realized that his comments, which jumped off the page when I first read them, could easily be applied to many areas of life. We live not only in a time of deceit on a grand scale, of poisoned debate, mistrust, divisiveness, and ill-will, where, for example, large numbers of people no longer believe what their governments tell them. We also have difficulty discerning the truth in our mundane affairs.

Notwithstanding Pilate’s famous quip to Jesus, the subject of what is the truth and how do we go about discerning it is as important as ever. Recall that the very meaning of the Pali word “vipassana,” the meditative practice that is fundamental to the Buddha’s teachings, is “seeing things clearly.”

When I was a youngster I dreamed of being a scientist, and one of the reasons was the emphasis on seeing and knowing things as they “really” are. I grew up questioning religious dogma and wanted to be able to distinguish what was mere belief from what was directly knowable. Of course, this presupposes that there is such a thing as how things “really” are as opposed to how they appear to be.

How do we know that something is “really” true? Most people have a general sense of what it means to know something, and it is encapsulated in the phrase “seeing is believing.” In other words, virtually everyone implicitly understands that our senses provide us with the knowledge upon which we live our lives. On the other hand, we also admit that our senses can deceive us, as when we are under the influence of drugs or for those who are mentally ill.

What I propose to delve into is this: given that our senses are the usual means by which we know something to be true, and leaving aside those times when their accuracy might reasonably be doubted, what about those times when, as Chomsky alludes to, we almost literally refuse to see what is right before our eyes? What about those times when we do deceive ourselves into believing that something we know “deep down” to be false is really true, or vice versa? This is not meant to be a merely academic exercise; while philosophers have wrangled for centuries over the basic question of how we know what we know and made it into one of the pillars of philosophy, known as epistemology, what I propose here is discussion of something more immediate and directly important to our daily lives. Many of us find ourselves in difficult situations - for example, in our careers or marriages. Perhaps we might be dealing with an aging parent, a new employer, or an unhappy spouse. I have noticed that often our troubles revolve around an unwillingness to see the truth in such cases.

Perhaps, more importantly, there is an unwillingness even to consider an alternative point of view, since one has become fixed to one’s own cherished position.

My aim is to assist people to look with more courage at those areas of their lives that are giving them problems, areas that they might not be willing to look at, might not be willing to acknowledge. And it is indeed a matter of courage to overcome the fear that prevents one from accepting what is often right before one’s eyes.

Overcoming self-deceit takes courage and effort, two mental qualities much extolled by the Buddha. It means being willing to experience fear without running away from it. How does a person develop and practice such courage? That will be a corollary question to the main one of examining why we are afraid to acknowledge what we might otherwise admit as the plain truth.

I do not mean to imply that under all circumstances where we find ourselves in difficulty we are wilfully ignorant of the truth. There are often times when we honestly do not know what the truth is. But I am more interested in those times when we are more than dimly aware we are ignoring something that needs attention. It is at those times that we need to know how to develop the ability to stay open-minded and steady in the face of fear.

A popular fable called “The Emperor’s New Clothes” succinctly illustrates the state of mind I am interested in examining. Almost everyone is familiar with this story and of how it took a young boy, whose innocence prevented him from falling victim to fear, to speak the unvarnished truth of what was apparent but was being willfully ignored by everyone else. I will ask: how can we be more like that boy in our daily lives, more willing to commit ourselves to what we know to be true, and to act on our knowledge when it is appropriate?

One of the memorable lines from the Bible is “You shall see the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” In the Buddhist tradition, the ability to see and speak the truth is considered to be one of the greatest virtues of a “noble life.” It is in hopes that an improved ability to see things clearly will lead to freedom and a lessening of suffering that I humbly offer this program of mutual exploration, for the benefit of one and all.

Community

Carol Perry

Community has always been my passion. I was drawn to the idea of community even when I didn’t know what community really is - I’m still learning.  Community takes many forms.  One evolving form is contemporary sangha - a community of people supporting each other in the dharma, the unsurpassed wisdom taught by the Buddha.  Two thousand five hundred years later, the Internet has made it possible to communicate amongst a global sangha.  I am excited to have an opportunity to work with others in our mutual commitment to awakening.

A longing for liberation, connection, love, and community is common to all human beings. At some level we intuitively recognise how inextricably intertwined we are with each other and with nature.  Recent studies of the human neural system have revealed that our nervous systems mutually influence and regulate the nervous system of others. Understanding the subtle interweaving of our beings is especially important in our interactions with children. It has often been said that we need a community to raise a child.  We also need a community of people committed to dharma inquiry to bring the dharma alive in ourselves.  Many have found great peace in isolation from others on retreats.  That peace can quickly dissolve in the face of   difficulties arising in relationship. According to the teachings, the next Buddha is to be named Maitreya, meaning “loving kindness”.  Some teachers say the next Maitreya will be community, not an individual.  Community can be the embodiment of dharma wisdom, or it can be hell on wheels.  It seems that this is the challenge of our time.

The Buddha taught that sangha is an integral part of the dharma.  He advised that we keep company with people who support our practice. “Only blessings can arise from seeking the company of wise and discerning persons, who skilfully offer both challenges and advice as if guiding one to hidden treasure.” 

Community yields rewards as well as pain and confusion.  Interaction with others offers many chances for inquiry into the self that arises at the moment when we cling to anything at all.  It is not surprising that relationships in our communities bring us face to face with our construction of self-image.  Wants and desires for things can seem small in comparison to the desires and expectations we have of others. The conscious or unconscious belief that my wants and desires are more important than your wants and desires is behind the obsessive desire for getting what I want. When we set our desires against the desires of others, the clinging is magnified and the sense of a separate self is magnified.  It is fertile ground for insight into our tendency to compete with other selves for the satisfaction of desires.  A sense of alienation inevitably arises along with this struggle of selves.

Our hearts don’t have to freeze.  The apparent thoughtlessness of any individual, when we see it as serving our own mindfulness, cannot lead to unskilful actions.
But we all have blind spots and we all feel confused at times.  Our fellow travellers on the path can offer a mirror to these blind spots even though we may feel resistant to looking in the mirror. Sometimes our dharma friends will “skilfully offer both challenges and advice”.  Sometimes they will be our teachers simply because difference of opinion, diversity of personality, difference in choice or priorities challenge us.

It is easy to become blinded by our own rightness, the strength of our opinions, the preferences for a certain style, the preference for other priorities and choices, the desire to be the leader, the desire to be in control, the desire to be the superior authority.  Tension generated by the effort required to defend a self that feels like it will die if it doesn’t get what it wants, can be overwhelming. In this state of tension, we are unable to bring inquiry to the experience by asking what is happening in my mind?  Instead we stay obsessed with what appears to be happening around us. Without inquiry into what is happening in the mind, we fail to see the self-image that is ardently being protected is a construction of the mind.  We fail to see that attempts to get the other person to do what we want and thus uphold the particular self-image that appears threatened, is a waste of energy. The other person is not going to uphold your self-image; they are too busy struggling to get you to uphold their self-image.  The whole thing ends up in a struggle about whose will is going to prevail, rather than a discussion or negotiation between two people who have clarity and compassion.

The dharma offers paths for inquiry into the mind’s habitual attraction to the sense of a permanent and separate self. Inquiry is a process of differentiating aspects of our state of being as it shifts and changes. As our inquiry into the nature of being becomes stronger and we can observe our inner life in more and more detail.

Lets follow an experience along one of these paths of inquiry. First there is consciousness that makes known the objects of the mind. Objects of the mind can be thoughts, emotions such as fear, sensations such as coldness, dryness or tension.  Objects of the mind can be an experience of unpleasant, pleasant or neutral.  When contact with another person arises in the field of consciousness, many objects of consciousness arise with that contact.  They have a form and you have a form, there is some contact between the forms such as seeing each other, hearing each other and so on. They have a perception and you have a perception of what they are seeing and hearing and you have a perception of what you are seeing and hearing.  These perceptions are influenced by feelings of pleasant, unpleasant and neutral in each person.  Feelings will differ amongst individuals depending on their unique life experiences.  These feelings give rise to thoughts.  When there is no awareness we make these feelings and thoughts into fixed beliefs, attitudes and opinions that become another chapter of the story called “me”.  Some chapters of our “self” story are so old we have forgotten what is there, yet they continue to cloud our ability to see beyond them.  At this point we often become confused because we tend to keep our attention on the other person or the situation.  We do this by analysing, embroidering, exaggerating, and reviewing the other’s so-called wrongs.  Rather, we need to observe our beliefs, our expectations, our desires, our aversions, our tensions and contractions.

It is both challenging and liberating to keep company with others who are motivated in their inquiry and who are willing to support the inquiry of others.  Sometimes we need the compassionate objectivity of a friend to see into some of our more deeply buried “self” stories. Supportive dharma communities, in whatever form they take, are invaluable for bringing the liberating wisdom of the dharma alive in us.

The Beginning, and the End, of Practice

Dave Adair

I submit to you that there is only question in the Dharma. And it’s on the tip of all of our tongues – and it is unutterable.

To put it into words is akin to trying to describe the magnificence, the beauty, and the unfathomable mystery of a newborn child. We can talk up one side and down the other, but it just can’t be spoken – not really spoken, in a way that does it justice. When we’re still and silent, we can’t even describe it to ourselves. We need to be substantially still to recognize that we can’t describe it, not even to ourselves. Like grasping at smoke, we don’t get closer to possessing it whether we move faster or slower. It just won’t be had! And, like smoke, the very question whose answer we seek refuses to be limited by our words – coarse and abstract, conceptions at a time when we least want a “concept” to come between us and our love.

Imagine describing the subtle beauty of a flower to someone who was born blind. Or imagine taking a sip of tea, and then describing that experience, in its entirety, to someone who’s never drank. If that’s too abstract, imagine trying to describe it to yourself – not as a concept or as a generality, but as a complete and uncompromising description of your actual experience. Can it be done?
Nisargadatta Maharaj says:
Unfortunately, language is a mental tool and works only in opposites. Words carry distinctions. Non-distinction speaks in silence. It is useless to struggle with words to express what is beyond words.
All division is in the mind; there is none in reality. Nothing exists by itself. In the beginning, as in the end, all is one.

Buoyed by Maharaj’s expression of faith in language, let’s continue, shall we?!
It’s our brains’ job to divide our world into this and that, and create concepts that allow us to function in the everyday world. Plant your fields at the right time of year; don’t walk in front of a moving bus; remember where to turn to get to Mahadev’s. While the practical benefits of the mind’s division can’t be denied, it can also obscure a deeper truth of interconnectedness and unity.

So how does this relate to the beginning or the end of practice? If it’s difficult, or even impossible, to fully describe something as simple as drinking tea, what can we really rely on? What ISN’T difficult or impossible to describe? Is it possible that ALL of the this’s and the that’s in our lives, including the ones we cherish and think we couldn’t possibly let go of – are not as solid and separate as we thought?

In the realm of concepts and ideas, the word “practice” has the same nature as all others. It is limited, rather coarse, indefinite, and like all other descriptors, ultimately false.

Krishnamurti spoke about our sometimes mistaken belief that meditation, or practice, is somehow separate: Meditation is not a separate thing from life; it is the very essence of life, the very essence of daily living. To listen to those bells, to hear [that] laughter ..., to listen to the sound of the bell on the bicycle of the little girl as she passes by: it is the whole of life, and not just fragment of it, that meditation opens.
As I walked out of a store yesterday, a young man asked if he could use my mobile phone, since he had been waiting several hours for a ride home. On the phone I heard him say, “Mom! I’m not doing that! I’m not taking a bus in this city – I don’t know where I am!” It became clear to me that this young man was very slow, at best, and could use some help. So I asked where he was going, then volunteered to walk with him to the bus stop and get him on the right bus. On the walk I learned that his sister is suicidal, like he is. And she hears voices, like he does. But she hadn’t been hospitalized in a psychiatric ward, like he has.

After I put him on the bus, a whole slew of thoughts and emotions welled up inside of me – there but for the grace of God go I; there is suffering in the world; all of the wealth in this country and so little goes to those really in need. And I also thought about how I came to this place of caring so much for people that I don’t know. It wasn’t always this way – it’s the result of practice, I guess. So the warm feelings I had for this kid – were they the result of practice, or the beginning of practice? Were they the end of the practice of my past, or the beginning of the practice of my future?
Or were those warm feelings just life expressing itself? Because our practice is not a separate thing from life; it is the whole of life. No beginning, and no end.

Finding Your Voice

Ellaya Ayal Mor

There is a story about a king with two sons and a daughter. He sends his children out into the world asking them to bring back something that can fill the entire royal hall. He or she who succeeds, says the king, will receive the entire kingdom. The two elder sons return after a while, leading wagons loaded with straw and sand, but these fail to fill the hall. The princess returns with nothing. Standing in the middle of the hall in front of the royal throne, she begins to sing. She sings her life; her fears and sorrows, her hopes and prayers, she sings of love, loss, and longing, of seduction, struggle and serenity. She sings of anger and forgiveness, of rebellion and acceptance, she sings of falling and rising, of finding and losing and finding once again. She sings and sings and as she sings, a hush spreads through the hall, tears prick at the eyes of all the royal members of the court as their souls stir with the memory of something ancient.

And as the princess's voice takes on a rhythmic lilt, all members of the royal court start clapping their hands and stomping their feet to the rhythm, and the great big royal hall is suddenly full to the very brim with joy.

It seems, one of the first things that become painfully obvious the moment one sits down on the meditation cushion, is the multitude of voices that are constantly pulling and prodding at us; anxiously or angrily, seductively or doubtingly, excitedly or ecstatically, they are telling us this that or the other, pushing for space, arguing sovereignty over each other. I am sure we are all familiar with the unsettling sensation of that loud inner buzz that often appears to leave no room whatsoever for anything else to come through. As I reflected upon my given theme, I tried to inwardly pinpoint the essence of it for myself. What have these words "finding your voice," meant to me throughout my personal journey and what is their relevance today as I continue walking my path? What is that voice that can fill an entire palace with joy, and where does it come from?

Looking within, it seems that so many of the voices that moved me throughout my life were voices that frantically tried to fill that empty hall. Voices that quite desperately demanded acknowledgement, security, and love, for a very shaken and fragmented little self that was residing within my being. And yet at the same time that same shaken and fragmented little self, sensing oh so vaguely, the stirring of some deeply hidden promise, floundered about, desperately searching for the one voice that is the true voice. That one voice that gathers all other voices into it's light.

Without knowing how to give it a name, or perhaps giving it all manner of names, that palpitating anxious little self hungrily gathered sparks, sparks that life just manifested in various ways; perhaps a sentence of poetry, a friend returning from India, or the urge to create.

The little self would try to speak these sparks, spouting them out, reciting them, enthusiastically hanging on to their sweet promise, trying to own their nectar as a part of her self. But with time these sparks, sparks of being that mysteriously resonated somewhere deep deep within, started kindling a voice, that interestingly enough (noted the little self), seemed to be coming from something or somewhere far greater and vaster than herself.

Like Hansel and Gretel following pebbles through the forest, we follow these sparks, trying to reach our home. And then at some point we may discover that the pebbles or crumbs of bread are all gone and we are lost in the dark, fumbling through the thistles, more likely then not about to bump into a wicked witch. I feel the wicked witch confrontation to be a vital part of the voice quest, frightening and painful as it may be. We all carry some sort of wicked witch voice within us. To face the wicked witch, to feel the heat of her rage and her capacity to bind us, to stand before her oven and then refuse to enter, is an important rite of passage that ultimately I believe, allows us to gather our wicked witch parts into the light, empowering our true voice with strength, beauty, and depth.

And so again what is this "true voice"?

I have often seem myself groping for the voice that will show me up as being "Somebody Special". Would this not be the true voice? The voice that expresses my uniqueness and individuality, the voice that speaks with the confidence of what I know and believe? Ahh how this palpitating little self longs to be special. I can hear myself saying: "If I say this, or if I say that, that will really sound good, that will show that I know" etc. etc. Countless times I have attempted to fill my hall in this manner with straw or sand, and I have learned from experience that this voice tends to be a kind of dead end voice that ultimately leads it's hapless follower into an invisible brick wall to be somewhat painfully knocked on the head.

Why?

I have watched dharma teachers leading groups and answering questions, thinking to myself "how do they know what to say, what would I say?" I have led workshops, struggling to give "right" answers to people who--I chose to believe--think I know something they don't.

And gradually it began dawning on me that perhaps there is another voice. A voice that doesn't come from what "I" know or what "I" don't know and that actually doesn't even care. Perhaps there is a voice that comes from some river of knowing that exists in itself and that can stream through me, taking all my wicked witch-ness, all my Hansel and Gretel-ness, all my individual personality tendencies and my personal life experiences along for the ride. Perhaps there is a voice of knowing that happily allows itself not to know at times. A voice of knowing that is completely impersonal but that enjoys adorning and coloring itself with my personal uniqueness or special-ness, a special-ness that is simply what it is, pure and simple, and perhaps (I'm not one hundred percent sure) also completely impersonal by nature.

And perhaps, instead of trying to speak my voice, I can simply listen for it, letting it speak all by itself. Perhaps it's not a matter of finding it, but merely allowing it to emerge, bubble up from it's source and start flowing.

And perhaps if this river of a voice freely flows, carrying upon it's back little bits and pieces of self, it can merge and flow into other rivers that sparkle and glisten with different shades and colors.

And perhaps if these voice rivers freely flow in and out of each other, mingling currents, sharing streams, it will become absolutely clear, with not a shred of doubt, that the multi river phenomena is pure illusion and that there actually is, always was, and forever will be, only one river.
And as all rivers merge into one, the princess opens her mouth to sing and her voice rings through the palace. She sings of love and longing, tears and sorrow. She sings of anger and rebellion, of struggle and serenity, of finding and losing and finding once again, she sings of falling and rising, hopes and prayers, she sings her life which is all life. And the hall is full of joy.

Letting go – Allowing life to be

Eran Harpaz

"I‘m incredibly sad" said John, his brown eyes full with tears, "It seemed to me she had been so happy with her life with me. We were dreaming about having a family together. We were planning living in the forests of the blue mountains. That day we were actually making our way to the train that would take us away from her home town to a new life altogether, when she suddenly stopped and said she want us to break up. Just like that, completely out of the blue. She didn`t even looked angry, troubled or anything while saying: "Please go. I don`t want to ever see you again". Then she turned away. I havn`t seen her since".

John paused for a moment, swallowing a big chunk that has been stucked in the middle of his throat. He then stared quietly, his gaze deep and empty, at the vast blue ocean in front of us.

"You know", he said eventually still staring at the water, "this sadness that fills my heart does not feel like anything I could imagine myself feeling in such circumstances. It feels like a sticky, sad liquid fills not only my heart but each and every cell of my body, but you know something, it`s taste, the sweet taste of sadness, is the only taste that I have. No bitter sorrow, no hot anger. Only sadness. Just sadness as such, period".

"It sounds" I said, feeling a bit lighter, "it sounds like you`re letting go of her". We were looking at each other. Eye ball to eye ball.
Jon smiled. "I`m doing nothing" he said, "She had gone, that`s a fact. I`m just letting that fact be…"

Life is a movement. Life is a flux of things, situations, perceptions, thoughts and feelings which appear to appear, stay for a while and disappear. Life simply and naturally manifests itself in accordance with this very rule.

Whatever had a beginning, be it your relationship, your home or your life – will have an end.

Whatever comes, be it good luck or bad luck, happiness depression or any other guest of conciousness – goes. That which had been born – bound to die.

A denial of the movement of life brings pain, anguish and dissatisfaction. It is not something that happens after death or not even sometime in the far future. It is immediate. Here and now. Actually the very denial of the movement of life is by itself pain, anguish and dissatisfaction.

The Buddha, an incredible spiritual teacher living 2500 years ago, has encouraged us human beings to have a close look at the madness of the so called "normal" life most of us are leading, with the great support, not to say immense pressure, of our parents, associates, media and religious leaders. Such a look, called insight (vipassana) meditation creates deep intimacy between our existential pain and ourselves, intimacy that let deep understanding regarding the problems of life and their origins to emerge.

Nisargadatta Maharaj, India`s great saint of last century has remarked in a beautiful metaphor: “Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of life flows. It is only when the mind refuses to flow with life, and gets stucked at the banks, that it becomes a problem. By flowing with life I mean acceptance – letting come what comes, and letting go what goes.”

This very "sticking" to the shore, not letting it go, clinging to it, is a resistance to life. We cannot live life, wholly and truthfully, and yet resist less favorable parts of it at the same time. It is a way of living a fragmented life. It is a way of living with ourselves, as well as with others, while ghosts of dissatisfaction, fear, sorrow and pain keep haunting us, acting as shadows that we`re making immense efforts to ignore and run away from, yet they accompany us throughout our lives, manifesting as anger, rage, violence, difficulties in our relationships, feelings of inferiority, blame, jelousy, sorrow, depression, and we could go on and on.

Meditation and deep understanding into the flowing nature of life, the seemingly problems of life and the origins of these problems, teach us the wisdom of letting go. Letting go that which actually bounds us, that which blurs our eyes seeing the simple, immediate sky of liberated existence. They are all part of way of life that has been offered by the Buddha. It is a way of living which naturally gives rise for insights into the nature of this life and to a wise approach to it (which is the very path itself…).

This path calls us not just to deeply listen to ourselves and life around us. It also calls us to act upon what we hear and see while deeply listening. It takes wisdom and experience to tell the difference between that which we can and better have the courage making an effort for bringing a change into, and that which we humbly welcome, learning patiently living in peace with.

It takes some wisdom and practice to understand that loved ones who had gone – simply had gone. The fact might not be pleasureable. It might be very sad and deeply painful. Yet, it doesn`t have to be anything more than what it is, a highly unpleasurable, yet passing away, event. It doesn`t have in itself the power to stop us from being truly and wholly alive.
In order to be alive, we have to let life be.

The wise response to life`s nature of change is letting come what comes, letting be what is and letting go what goes. Nothing else will do.

The Sangha

Gail Aylward

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Beyond Projections

Jenny Wilks

There is a Chinese story of two travellers walking, separately, from one village to another and asking a local farmer: 'what are the people like in the next village?' The farmer asks them how they found the people in the village they had just come from. One traveller says that those villagers were grumpy, bad-tempered and unfriendly, but the other traveller says they were warm, sociable and welcoming. To each of them the farmer says: 'I think you'll find people much the same in the next village.'

This illustrates a key realisation of the Buddha: the role of the mind in our experience of the world. As the Dhammapada puts it: 'mind is the forerunner of all things (dhammas); all are led by mind; all are made out of mind.' All that we experience as 'out there' is in fact constructed by our minds from the information received through our senses. The problem is that the mind does not simply reflect what is there; the world we experience is coloured and distorted by the assumptions, views, and desires we bring to it, and this leads to disappointment and suffering when things do not conform to our demands. As the Jewish Talmud says: 'we do not see things as they are, we see them as we are'.

The essence of the Buddha's teaching is his explanation of the cause and end of suffering (summed up in the four noble truths). His starting point is that all human beings suffer, to a greater or lesser extent, and all wish for this to end. The problem the Buddha identified is that we cannot prevent suffering (our own or other people's) if we don't know what causes it, and we almost always look for the cause of our discontent in the wrong places. We blame other people, the government, society, the weather, and so on.

Of course there are external causes of pain and distress in the world, some caused by the forces of nature and some, perhaps most, by the greed and folly of humanity. But most of us, most of the time, are not being afflicted by major catastrophe yet we still suffer. We want things to be different, we long for things we don't have and we resist what happens to us. This chronic dissatisfaction is the kind of suffering the Buddha addresses, and his message is clear and uncompromising: we cannot blame this anguish on anyone but ourselves. It is rooted in our own minds.

The Zen patriarch Seng Tsan wrote: 'The great way is not difficult for those who do not pick and choose'. The problem is not that we have simple likes and dislikes, but that we want to hold on to what is pleasant and push away what is painful. This is the essence of the second noble truth, that craving is the cause of suffering. Craving (tanha) can be strong or subtle: it is simply our response to not having what we want, and having what we don't want. Whenever we let go of this, in that moment we notice inner relief. Wanting people, things or events to conform to our desires is bound to lead to disappointment; the situation may not turn out in the way we want and even if it does, this cannot last forever.

This view of suffering as mind-made is not meant to sound depressing; in fact it is liberating. If our emotional anguish is not caused by other people or by external events, then we do not have to rely on them for our happiness or peace of mind. But it is of course very difficult to disentangle things as they really are from the assumptions and interpretations that we impose upon them.

This is one of the key aims of insight meditation. Through the practice of mindfulness, we come to see things as they are before we attach our concepts, desires, opinions, preferences and so on. Then we don't have to go along with the mind's tendency to create a story around whatever is happening. We learn to have a more direct awareness of our mental states, and by clearly seeing how they arise and pass away, how they are conditioned, we can begin to loosen our habit of identifying with them as 'me' or 'mine'. When we perceive things without the distorting veil of clinging, the sense of separation between ourselves and the objects of experience begins to dissolve.

In the absence of grasping and aversion the whole notion of who we are - our 'self' - is seen to be as insubstantial and transient as everything else. It is not only that the sense of self is the cause of our habitual wanting; the wanting also constructs the sense of self - they are mutually dependent. The Buddha's teaching of anatta, 'not-self', is not a philosophical proposition to be understood but an experience to be realised through non-clinging. The emptiness of the self can be seen whenever we let go of wishing for something to change to suit our preferences, and allow it to be just as it is. The contraction in the mind that we call 'I' then finds nothing to sustain it, and the truth of things can be revealed.

This is important not just for ourselves but for the world. Most of the suffering human beings inflict on others - from everyday selfishness to major oppression and violence - is based on clinging to the desires of the self. The more we see the emptiness of this, the less likely we are to cause harm or distress to others though our actions, and compassion - the wish to alleviate the suffering of others - is more able to arise.

The Western consumerist economy relies on our insatiable desire to possess more, with dire consequences for the planet. If people (when basic needs are met) felt content with what they already had, they could no longer be sold the latest fashionable goods. Indeed, after the Vietnam war, US government advisers in Thailand recommended that the Buddhist establishment should play down teachings on contentment and renunciation since they might obstruct the country's programme of capitalist economic development. In fact, psychologists have found that people generally over-estimate how happy any new possession or lifestyle change will make them, and for how long. But as long as we do not realize that the problem is not with things themselves but with our attitudes and expectations, we keep trying to seek happiness in the same way.

The Buddha, like the Greek Stoic philosophers, saw that the key to contentment in life is not whether we have pleasant or unpleasant experiences or possessions (which is mostly out of our control) but how we respond to them. To the extent that our experience of the world is mind-made we can learn to relate to it differently, in a way that enables us to see things as they really are and ultimately leads to liberation from suffering. When the projections of the mind no longer interfere with our view of things, we realize that subject and object share the same nature, there is no-one to cling and no-thing to be clung to, and the path to freedom is wide open.

The Middle Way is not the Halfway

Jose Reissig

The Buddha’s teachings are known as the teachings of the Middle Way. This designation all too often leads to the misunderstanding that the teachings constitute a compromise between two extremes. We will start by examining the roots of this misunderstanding. We will then consider how to uproot it, thereby preparing the ground for the realization of the radical nature of the teachings.

The Polarity Project
Have you noticed how our minds tend to get turned on exclusively by the polar ends of the spectrum of possibilities?
- When watching sports I find my mind eager to embrace one side or the other. In the end, it is myself who wins or loses.
- When playing a game of, say, tennis or poker, keeping score becomes paramount. All that matters is “the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat.”
- When watching the news I often catch myself keeping score. Did my side, my viewpoint, come out ahead?
- I bemoan any sign of illness, and feel entitled to a clean bill of health.
- In the course of my daily activities I tend to assign Brownie points to myself. Did I do well in that phone call, or in that encounter?
- Ditto with the meditation practice. Was that a “good” sit? Is my breath up to snuff?

In his teaching of Dependent Arising the Buddha referred to our tendency to polarize everything. Simply put: after the mind makes contact with an object through the senses, its immediate reaction is to say to itself: “it feels pleasant” or “it feels unpleasant” (the third alternative, in which the mind feels somewhere in-between, will be discussed below).Then, the I comes in and turns it into “I feel pleasure” or “I feel displeasure.” The wanting/pushing-away escalates from there on, the I getting puffed up at every step. It becomes clear to the attentive observer that the pleasure/displeasure or success/failure charade is tailor-made to conjure the I. Check it out for yourself.

The Halfway Project
When the polarity project becomes too oppressive, when the demands we make upon ourselves to succeed – often under pressure from our parents, our peers, or the work environment – become overwhelming, the easy way out is a stance of indifference. The sour grapes syndrome kicks in. We stop being gung-ho on success and settle for something short of it. True, the I gets no direct benefit from this, but neither are its yearnings exposed. The polarity project is replaced by the halfway project. With tepid conviction we settle for somewhere in-between.
- Provided my team does not lose big, a loss is OK.
- I lost, but it’s not a problem because I’ve not been playing this game for long.
- The game was tied, so both sides ought to be pleased.
- Even though Bush got elected this time around, the electorate is likely to swing the other way in the next election.
- My headache is finally gone, so I can forget about it.
- My practice is just so-so, but it could be worse.
- The war is finally over. We can disregard the underlying conflict that persists.

Appropriate as all this may be at times, it is a far cry from the Middle Way.

The Middle Way
The Buddha said: “One should not pursue sensual pleasure…and one should not pursue self-mortification…The Middle Way discovered by the Tathagata [i.e., the Buddha] avoids both extremes; giving vision, giving knowledge, it leads to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbana. One should know what it is to extol and what it is to disparage, and knowing both one should neither extol nor disparage but should teach only the Dhamma” (Majjhima Nikaya 139.3). An unwary reader might focus on just a portion of this statement, and take the Middle Way to be simply an avoidance of the extremes. After all, the Oxford Dictionary defines it as a compromise between two extremes. But that is just the Halfway Project; i.e. something very different from what the Buddha proposes. True, in that quote he is steering us away from the extremes, but only to point to a path of practice that has nothing to do with compromise. He points to a path leading to vision, knowledge, peace, and enlightenment; to the body of his teachings -- namely the Dhamma.

Consider the instances examined in the previous sections:
- When playing tennis, or watching someone playing, can we just be present with the playing?
- When watching the news, can we open up our hearts and minds to the full impact of the words and images, without checking them out against our own agenda?
- When feeling ill, besides doing whatever it is appropriate to do, can we connect with our vulnerability and – yes – our impermanence?
--When considering peace, can we see it not just as the absence of war, but as the embodiment of love?
- When sitting, can we come to terms with what “right” (i.e. appropriate) effort is about? The Buddha clarified what this means by using the simile of a string instrument. Its strings should neither be too taut nor too loose. How do we know when they have the right tension? It has nothing to do with a halfway point. It is the point at which music emerges. The simile encapsulates the magic of the Middle Way: we sit, and suddenly, unexplainably, we find ourselves free from the props of the I, dancing with life’s music. .

The Middle Way is an invitation to discard our concern about success or failure, winning or losing, and to dance instead with the “whole catastrophe” of life. To do so in ways that are appropriate to our inner and outer circumstances, surely. But the key is to stay fully open to the truth of things.

To see how things are

Kali von Koch

Hopefully there comes one day in our lives, when we ask ourselves, what really is important, what really matters. Where do we focus our energy, what preoccupies our thoughts, and maybe we have to ask ourselves, how it would be if we had to die soon. And then naturally follows the question how have we lived or even how have we loved! These are precious moments in our lives, that sometimes only comes about through a crisis, like someone dear one dying or leaving us. But we can ask ourselves at anytime, just like the Buddha did in his palace; why do I live, what is this all about, how can I learn to love more, how can I make a difference?

When we come into meditation practise and Dharma studies, we are fortunate beings, no matter what the reason may be that made us come that far. If suffering brought us here, or if it was curiosity, if it was a coincident, or an ongoing search for truth that made us inquire into the nature of things. Whatever brought us to the Dharma we are ever so fortunate, because here are teachings that can liberate and set us free.

Free here means free from suffering, free to experience the joy of life without clinging. Sooner or later we will be faced to see that it is clinging to things that can not last, that give us pain again and again. We also cling to ideas, to feelings, to experiences not to mention people. The amazing thing is that any moment we open our hand and let go of something, a sense of space is created and as we liberate whatever it may be, be it a belief, a thing or person, we experience relief. Sometimes or maybe often, this happens through a process of mourning. But it can also happen through direct insight into a situation.

Resistance & Acceptance
The Buddha taught us about the Four Noble Truths and the first noble truth, the fact that there is un-satisfactoriness in life, is in a way liberating just to hear about for some of us anyway, if we can only hear it in the right way. (It took me years of practice to realize how profound these teachings are, but I was too naïve believing very much in the pursuit of pleasure, who does not?, so I got knocked down and had to learn the hard way, i.e. suffering. But I am sure it must be possible without going through such painful experiences, and I am mentioning it so that you, the reader of this text, knows that I speak from personal experience and not book knowledge.)

However just to acknowledge the fact of suffering in life can give us an initial sense of freedom; -Ah, good, I don't have to be happy, prosperous and a lucky person in every moment, it is okay to experience limitations in life, not only okay, but even normal! Especially in a western society where happiness and success is put out as a measure how okay one is as a person.
When we contemplate what suffering implies, we sooner or later probably come to realize that at the centre of our experience is this sense of "I" or self, which we try to protect and defend. The Buddha taught us that we can be liberated from suffering not through escaping from pain and problems in life but by uprooting the conviction in a "self" that needs protecting. The Buddhist teachings provide us with lots of both tools and practices to look into the birth and death of the sense of self on a moment-to moment basis. I feel it is really important however to point out that acceptance of what is, plays an important role here. We don't liberate through negating ourselves or being judgemental on our egoic forces. It's rather through awareness and acceptance of what is which will lead us to relaxation, which in turn will make us able to study our experiences. This in turn will then bring insights into the unsubstantial nature of all phenomena. It is the insights which will free us and not the experiences we may have on the way, although there maybe many wonderful ones on the meditative path, apart from all the painful ones that many of us also have. We are however always reminded of how temporary all things are, so that we learn to let go, since if we cling and resist change, suffering will be inevitable.

In a blessed moment when the mind is filled with wisdom of the way things actually are, when we can se the so called "bare actuality", there is a moment of freedom, a going along with things as they are without holding on or resisting the flow of reality. This Mindfulness which we practice in meditation is defined as bare attention, "the 'clear and single-minded awareness of what actually happens to us and in us, at the successive moments of perception'. Mindfulness is usually directed to the body, the breath, emotional states and the feeling tone (positive, negative or neutral) of experience." (Nyanaponika, 1962). Although this may sound very rare and special when we read about it, I would like to say that it is actually something available to us at any time. If we would only be willing to drop our ideas about ourselves, ideas about life and spirituality, if we would let our curtain of defending who we think we are drop, we can experience that "bare actuality" at any moment. It is easy because it is our true nature. I believe it is our "natural state" actually. It is difficult because we believe strongly in our own ideas about things, and it is difficult because we resist what is. We assume we are born, that we die, that we are women or men, that we have a self etc. It's endless, yet it is easy if only…. Because we see through coloured glasses we don't realize how simple this bare actuality is.

New Dharmic psychology
There are many new tools available today, in order to reveal truth beyond our personality. The Dharmic psychology-field is expanding, the field where the assumption of a real sense of self is questioned. Rather these new ways focus on revealing that which stands in the way of seeing our selfless nature. Many new ways of psychotherapy from a Buddhist and spiritual perspective is evolving, where one looks for the "essential reality" beyond name and form, beyond conceptual framework, are developing in our western society today. Maybe this could be seen as the western contribution to Buddhism, or it is just out of pure need, since for us complicated human beings of today, it simply is not enough to just sit down under a tree and be quiet. For some rare person maybe, but we are looking for ways to integrate the spiritual dimension in every walk of life, into our relationships, our working life, our family and love life. To make this planet a spiritual mature place, we need spirituality in the marketplace. This is how I love this work; I am in love with "God" and I am in love with People and this life on this planet and I wish to share any inspiration and tools I may have with anyone who wants to.

Taking Refuge

Ken Streat

When we awake in the morning we say ‘I woke up’. It feels that way, but if we look we see that we did not wake up. We did not decide to wake up. There was no choice, no volition, no intention to wake. Waking simply happened, and in that waking sounds, sights, thoughts and feelings appeared and with them the thought, ‘I am awake’. The story that begins afresh each day the mind believes is my life. In the Buddhist tradition this story making process is called Samsara.

This lack of volition is fundamental to freedom. While we believe ourselves responsible, guilty, failing or successful and separate from others, we are bound to keep looking for the answers to our existential problems within the changeable conditions of life.
All wisdom in all cultures and at all times resides in understanding the illusion of being a separate person stuck in unsatisfactory time and space. In the understanding nothing new is gained. When we realise a mirage is not water the mirage is still there but we no longer run after it to quench our thirst. The true is common to all, unbound by philosophy and theology. The seeing of this is always now and it is ever fresh, innocent. We cannot reach now through effort in time. Every part of now is like any other part of now. It is not going anywhere, it just eternally unfolds. And in its eternal unfolding it is always fully open, fully revealed. There is nothing hidden. Reality is exactly what is.

A doorway to understanding is through the only constant fact in our lives that we know to be true. The seeing that we are. Who or what we are; the good, bad, clever, stupid, happy or sad is always relative and changeable. While our being is experienceable fact. This sense of ‘being alive now’ is translated by the mind into the words ‘I am’. Going beyond these words and staying in the being with an interested attention is taking refuge in yourself. This sense of being is always with you. It is like the game of falling backwards and being caught by a friend. Except in this game you don’t even need to fall and your friend is yourself.

The Past and the Present

Lila Kimhi

The mysterious relationships between the past and the present have occupied many for centuries, culminating in philosophical, theological and religious attempts to solve that riddle.
Lets look at it together.

What is time and where does it abide? Could it be that time is only a concept, a human invention? What is a day to a tree? A mountain? A butterfly? Where is our past now and where is the present located? When we begin to look at this, we soon realize it is impossible to frame the present moment, since it immediately becomes the past. It's an illusive time frame, like any other frame we try to impose upon reality. It seems that we cannot register the present with our senses that are recording movements and changes, but at the same time we can know it.

The non-dual Hindu perception of time is different from our usual understanding. In Ramesh Balsekar's- a Bombay contemporary teacher- words, "We think we are still and the future comes to us, becomes the present moment, and then becomes the past. Could it not be that what is happening is that the entire existence is unmoving, immobile, and it is 'we' - the illusory, shadowy 'me's' - who are moving around it?"

The word 'Sati' in Pali, Meaning mindfulness, comes from the Sanskrit word 'Smirti', memory, what may point to an interesting connection between the two. For the Buddha himself memories served as an important tool and they seems to me to be a part of his process: While the Buddha was practicing with strict asceticism, a memory of an experience of happiness and calmness he had as a child made him realize what he was looking for doesn't lie in the extreme, and in addition, he changed his practice. Soon after, during the night of his awakening, memories of all his many past lives came to his mind, and were followed by understanding and knowledge.

It takes the right kind of understanding and attitude towards our memories and our past not to get caught in them, to see them clearly and then see through them. We often refer to our past, however, as the major source of our misery today. This reference is often accompanied by rock-solid explanations of what is happening in our present: "my mother didn't treat me right when I was a kid so I cannot maintain a long-term relationships now", "I was a slow student in school therefore now I cannot peruse high education" and many others.

We are so used to the story we tell ourselves (and others, including friends, partners and therapists) about ourselves and how we came to be what we are now, that rarely we stop and examine it. Our narrative is usually accompanied by certain set of emotions that reinforces our familiarity with the narrative, and hence strengthens our belief in it. Not questioning that story or its connection to our daily lives means not respecting our natural ability to change, and in turn may lead to stagnation. In addition, we might be caught in the repetition of unhealthy patterns without being aware, or without knowing how to break free of them.

At times, we may rightfully feel we cannot go on with our present until we deal with our past. Painful memories can stay in our system for years, and when unattended, dictate our lives in the present and hold us back from living to our fullest potential. When we go to the extreme of repressing or suppressing them, we live, as a result, a flat life, always entangled in an inner effort to cover up what we do not, or cannot yet, see.

A gentle and wise approach towards ourselves, that involves compassionate acceptance of who we are, as we are, and of who we were along with what had happened to us, can help a great deal when it accompanies the process of seeing clearly into the patterns that govern our lives and releasing the stuckness.

How can we develop the wisdom that leads to understanding and to a change in our attitude?

Looking into the myth of free will can help. " I should/shouldn't have done/said/thought that" is probably one of the most common inner-phrases in all languages at all times. We use these phrases abundantly on ourselves and on others, blaming or accusing ourselves and others for what we did or did not do. Did we have any choice or control over the fact of being born to a particular parent? How about over the fact of being born at all? Did we choose our religion, your kindergarten, school, or the country we spent our youth in? In other words, did we choose our genes or our conditioning? Obviously not. And how about this actual moment, reading these words? Do you have any control over the thoughts that are rushing through your mind right now? Did you choose to be interested, or maybe, instead, interest came to visit you?

Life has its own agenda, and it doesn't take much notice of our planning, tactics and strategies aimed at getting what we want and avoiding what we don't want. The basis of life is uncertainty but we try to "bottle" it into concepts and beliefs in the hope of security, and while it flows through us we are quick to jump in and claim ownership. The idea of an independent, separated self that makes independent separated choices simply doesn't survive the reality check. In the words of the Buddha: "events happen, deeds are done, but there is no individual doer of any deed".

When we sit in meditation, there is no way of knowing what kind of thoughts, emotions, body sensations or states of mind will arise in consciousness. We cannot choose them, but we can observe them unfold with the right attitude: respecting whatever comes as it is, understanding its changing nature and knowing it is not who we are, nor does it belong to us. For me that kind of attitude is a key word and a significant helper on my path.

Looking deeply into our experience in the present moment helps us come to terms with our past. The deep understanding that we could not have acted any differently then the way we did, given who we were and the various causes and conditions that had constituted our past, brings relief and paves the path to acceptance and compassion towards ourselves and others and helps us cross the river of identification and attachment, the river of suffering.

The unconceivable, ever changing yet ever present now, remains in many ways unknown. Living in the present moment means living in the unknown. Can we live in this fresh moment, appreciating and respecting its mystery? In the Buddha's words (from the Sutta Nipata): "let there be nothing behind you; leave the future to one side. Do not clutch at what is left in the middle; then you will become a wanderer and calm".

Dealing with Differences

Linda Gutierrez

"How do you deal with differences?"
I asked my aunt Irene the other day. Without hesitation she answered, "Tolerance." My aunt is someone I admire. She is 84 years old and only a few years ago she went to a very poor village in the north of Mexico to participate in a health care program to help the people of the village. She slept on a concrete floor in a dormitory. She says she has not done anything special in her life. She has many friends like herself. Tolerance. (Webster's Dictionary) "Recognition of and respect for the opinions, beliefs, or actions of others." It also means, "Capacity to withstand pain or hardship". My aunt practices both meanings of tolerance.

The opposite of tolerant is dogmatic. It is impossible to practice tolerance when we are blinded by our beliefs or opinions. A most tragic expression of this is war or killing done in the name of god or ideology. Every day there are many horrific examples of intolerance. For example, the war that is being fought in Iraq in the name of Democracy, or the now daily acts of terror everywhere in the world. This creates a climate of insecurity, fear and helplessness, which in turn waters the seeds of intolerance. How is it possible to not feel affected about what is happening? Are not the people in power or the ones that explode the bombs to blame? How can one be tolerant of a murderer or a corrupt politician? How can a person deal with the crushing weight of so much violence and injustice?

Fortunately there are people who inspire us with their tolerance and compassion in the face of terrible adversity. Dr. Yenzin Choedrak the physician of the Dalai Lama who spent 17 years in a Chinese prison suffering great torture spoke of compassion for the torturers. At a conference in New York, September 2003, Tibetan nuns who were ex-prisoners in Chinese prisons said, "We feel only compassion for the Chinese...Just as we are incarcerated so are the Chinese. The Chinese guards are not free...they are imprisoned too, and suffer also, when they are forced to be cruel like that". This deep understanding and insight appears like a kind of timeless echo in the diaries of Etty Hillesum who remained compassionate in a German concentration camp. When treated badly by a concentration camp guard she would wonder to herself what suffering had made the camp guard behave in that way. There is a saying, "Violence begets violence". The experiences of these people show us that there can be another way, "Violence begets compassion." Certainly the Tibetan monks and nuns and Etty Hillesum turned their attention from their own suffering to the suffering of those around them.

How can WE practice the tolerance that would lead us to this understanding and compassion? The Supreme Patriarch of Buddhism in Cambodia, the Ven. Maha Ghosananda when asked to speak at a demonstration against anti-personnel mines, said simply, "We must first get rid of the anti-personnel mines inside ourselves." Truly whenever we hold in our thoughts and feelings an "enemy image" of someone, or judge or even think of someone as being in a certain way we contribute to violence in the world. It is violent because it is untrue.

It is a wonderful and essential practice to look at how we live with the people around us, our partner, our family, our friends. It is true peace work. One of the key skills is deep listening. When someone communicates with us, what is our response? Deep listening means first to pay full attention to inward reactions that constrict and cloud clarity of mind, like judging or preconceived ideas that blind us to the truth of the moment. These reactions literally prevent us from seeing. It is important to be aware of our intention in relation to the other person. Deep listening also means looking beneath the surface of what someone says to us often in an unskillful way to their suffering or dissatisfaction. The suffering or dissatisfaction of another person can NEVER be the cause of our suffering or dissatisfaction. It can stimulate our feelings, but we often believe it is the cause. Everyday language is full of these distortions. *You make me angry." "I feel rejected." "I feel hurt when you don't include me." These are all interpretations of what someone is doing to us. This is only a small example of the tragic lack of communication or misunderstanding that is our daily fare. No wonder we are starving. We think we are alone with no possibility to give or receive. We do not experience communion.

Insight (vipassana) meditation can help us become aware of habits of thoughts and reactions. When we sit with choiceless awareness we can be quite shocked at what goes though our minds. With practice spaciousness can develop and the sense of self diminishes. Insight, understanding and compassion can flower. The spaciousness can include seemingly irreconcilable extremes as in the poem, "Call Me by My True Names" by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh. In this poem Thich Nhat Hanh says he has many names. His names include a twelve-year-old girl raped by a sea pirate, the sea pirate and himself. Thich Nhat Nanh writes in his introductory notes to the poem, "I was very angry, of course. But I could not take sides against the sea pirate. If I could have, it would have been easier, but I couldn't. I realized that if I had been born in his village and had lived a similar life - economic, educational, and so on - it is likely that I would now be that sea pirate. So it is not easy to take sides. Out of suffering, I wrote this poem. It is called "Please Call Me by My True Names," because I have many names, and when you call me by any of them, I have to say, 'Yes'". The "yes" that Thich Nhat Hanh is expressing is the yes of compassion.

The whole world is our sangha, a kind of globalization that includes everyone. It matters very much what we do, how we live, how we think about our world. There is no fixed answer though, only footprints on a path. "What is the use of talking, and there is no end of talking, and there is no end of things in the heart." May we all experience peace and compassion in our lives. May we all learn skillful communication. May we all practice tolerance.

What is here is enough

Lotta Ekelund

Sometimes it just happens - the stillness comes to us in which we come in touch with small details as for the first time. Just receiving without control, receiving life as it is. It can happen in contact with a new little leaf, a flower, the smell of earth, or even with something we normally neglect - like the touch of the floor or sand under our feet or the suddenly very clear seeing of our own toes.

We get a glimpse of the richness of life when we don't add anything to it. But most of the time this is not the experience…

In the western world we generally can have our basic needs fulfilled and more than that. We often have time and possibility to do things we like, and we might think that our life is quite good. But still there can come a feeling of dissatisfaction, or that something is missing. We don't feel satisfied with ourselves, others or life itself. We want something more, maybe wishing to be somebody else or somewhere else…
Either we want to get rid of something we have or we want to get something that we don't have. When we focus on what is missing or finding faults with what is here, we can become convinced that we and our life are not complete, not enough.
These tendencies are not only in our minds, but also in the world around us. Every culture has its ideas of what is a perfect life, of what is important to achieve to feel happy about oneself. Advertisements and media give us strong messages about what is right and wrong, what is success and how to become happy through things we can acquire. It is difficult to not be influenced by that.

If we are not aware we start to believe that the way to get rid of this uncomfortable feeling of dissatisfaction is to try to get THAT which makes us feel good. We often look outside of ourselves to find this thing, love, food, experience… something that will fill this hunger. It can feel so important to get a certain thing that if we don't we feel really miserable, and might think that our life is a big failure. If we happen to get what we wanted we can feel content and happy, but since both we and the object are in a constant dance of change, this satisfaction won't last and we will start to look for something else.

Is it the object itself that makes us happy, or is it the absence of wants and dissatisfaction which makes us feel good? If we believe it is the object, we can come in to an endless story of trying to fill our needs with people and things. This is a way to simply feed the pattern, and dissatisfaction will grow.

In meditation we can see this pattern in a more subtle way. Even if our intention when we sit down is to be with what is here, without adding or subtracting, we sometimes see the opposite happen. We can see how we avoid our present experience out of fear to feel pain or discomfort. If we have lived with fear of pain for a long time, this pattern might be so strong that we don't even want to see what is there, just in case there is something that will hurt. We can also see the tendencies to get drawn to the pleasant thoughts and feelings and wanting them to last. Maybe dreaming of a time in the future when everything will fall into place.
Partly these ways of sliding away from what is here, is just a habit of the doing mind, conditioned to try to fix what is wrong, to get it right and to protect us. Or simply doing anything since non-doing is so unfamiliar. It can be scary or just confusing to drop the doing, fixing and controlling.
A lot of our self-worth can come from the manifestations of what we do and achieve, and it is a big challenge to drop that and see what is left. Will it be enough? Will I be enough? But when we dare to try we feel what a release it is to simply receive life, welcoming it in all its aspects.

But of course, to experience what is here is not always pleasant. It can mean getting in touch with pain that is too strong for us. Pema Chödrön writes in her book "When things fall apart" that the point is: "to lean towards the discomfort of life and see it clearly rather than to protect ourselves from it. In practising meditation we're not trying to live up to some kind of ideal - quite the opposite. We're just being with our experience, whatever it is. … If sometimes we can approach what scares us, and sometimes we absolutely can't, then that's our experience. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and it's always with us is really a most profound instruction."
Next time when the feeling of dissatisfaction comes, can we just see it for what it is without acting on it? It is uncomfortable, but as everything else it comes and goes. Maybe it will turn out that what we need is already here, that this is enough.

Can we rest in what is here, without trying to select what we want to be here and not? Feeling the release when we give up trying to fix life. Just resting in this ever changing, limitless vastness of what we know and of what we don't know? It takes courage to live like that, but the courage grows when we meet our inner world and see that there is nothing to be afraid of.
Life is just this. A never-ending mystery and an adventure to which we belong.

Happiness alone

Michal Cohen

This article is about being happy.
We all want to be happy. Most of the time we hand the key of our happiness to others or to external conditions: family, friends, society, beliefs and ideas. However, when through meditation, we listen deeply, we start to grow away from dependency and partiality and emerge into a very different way of being. We learn to find wisdom, trust and happiness within. We depend on ourselves alone, and then we come to see that there is an even better way. We move again from dependency on our conditioned personality into trusting life itself. To the extent to which we keep our trust in this ever changing, seemingly chaotic wonder that is life, the more we open up. This openness is a doorway to profound peace and happiness.

From Trust in the External to Trust in Oneself
Humans are social beings. We need social interaction in order to live and to learn. We also need interaction in order to grow and fulfil our innate spiritual potential to be free and happy. Once someone made a comment to the Buddha. 'As I understand it, half of spiritual life is about good friendship'. 'Wrong', Buddha replied, 'Good friendship is the whole of spiritual life'.
However, there is time for being with others and time to be alone. Being so used to sharing with others we tend to forget our capability to fully experience and explore our own being, to contain and hold both our joy and pain. Forgetting to listen to our own wisdom, we tend to put our trust in others. Doing so we give away our peace of mind. This tendency to be with others becomes a habit, which easily turns into an addiction. Addictions take us into the realm of fear and confusion - away from ease and happiness.
In contemplating on our life it's good to question our social interactions. It's good to see how much of it is skilful, and how much is a means of avoidance. Seeing this clearly we can swing freely between being with others and being with ourselves. Then, we reconnect to our inner strength and to the deep silence within - to that which knows.

It often happens that we just can't let go so easily. Due to external conditions and fear, we cling. Ananda was the Buddha's personal attendant for twenty-five years. His whole being was full of loving kindness towards his beloved teacher. His whole life was dedicated to the spiritual path, and yet his mind and heart were not free of pain and fear. When the Buddha died Ananda was lost in grief and confusion. Despite the teachings he had received he was not able to let go of his pain. The story goes that after the Buddha's passing away, completely exhausted, Ananda went to bed. Lifting his feet off the ground, his head not yet touching the pillow, free of any external support - BANG. In a split second of complete letting go of any expectations and effort, he was freed - he was happy.

True happiness comes from within. If we trust our aloneness completely, knowing that there is absolutely nothing we need to look for outside - we are free. This knowing is accessible for all of us when we dare to be completely alone. Whether we choose it or whether life puts us there - at times we withdraw from fellow human beings and get away from all interaction. This can be of great benefit and brings us in touch with inner beauty. But this is not the whole of being alone.

From Trust in Oneself to Trust in Non-Self
We may have the intention to spend some time alone. We shut ourselves from the world, stay at home, disconnect the telephone, or maybe go on a retreat. All too soon we realize that "they" are all there anyway. We try to get some clarity on a matter and to listen our own inner voice, but all we hear is this unbearably noisy cacophony of others' voices. We hear our mum, our granddad, our teachers. We hear our memories from the past and our projections into the future, a thicket of views, ideas and concepts.

These are all parts of our personality. In a sense, we are never really alone. We may manage to cut away from other people, but how can we isolate ourselves from our personality? I remember being on a long self-retreat in a monastery in Sri Lanka. The place was dotted with many signs, all in the local Sinhalese language - all very long. Only one sign was in English, and it was very simple and short: "Self reliance is the best". I was very amused. Spending so much time with "my" self - alone, I knew vividly that nothing in myself is really mine. Nothing in myself is worth relying on. My body is constantly changing, rarely doing what I want it to. My feelings, emotions, ideas and inspirations all seem to move on their own accord, as if the glue sticking them all to one thing called "me" is no more than a fiction. I couldn't possibly rely on "myself". Placing the key to my happiness in "myself" was as pointless as placing it in others' hands. This is the Buddha's teaching on non-self. Our personality, self-image and understanding are very conditioned, fragile and unstable. They are all, in fact, very unreliable.

DHARMA AND ADVAITA

Nadamo

In this life I had teachers from many different traditions, Tibetan lamas, Indian 'gurujis', teachers from the Insight Meditation (Vipassana) tradition and some rather unknown so called sects from Christian and other backgrounds. There was a lot of confusion in the beginning and conflicting questions. Today all these issues are no more a problem, but surprisingly I still visit teachers from two traditions that seem to be quite apart: Advaita and Dharma.
Outwardly they seem to be very different. In Buddhism you have to practise hard. And if you have done this, please practise a bit more and harder. And do not think of 'awakening' in this lifetime. Better forget about it. It will be countless lifetimes, if not aeons. Even the Buddha's chief disciples Sariputta and (Maha)Moggallana made their aspirations to the Buddha Anomadassi 100000 aeons (an aeon is the amount of time needed for the cosmos to evolve and dissolve) before they awakened in their last life under the Buddha Gotama. The Tibetans speak a lot about making merits, which is basically collecting 'good points' for a future beneficial rebirth. You do not really have a chance this lifetime, but through doing good deeds (like giving to the monks and nuns, donations to Buddha statues and monasteries etc.) you will gain merits and have a better starting position in another life.
How much are we willing to believe? Is there no other way for an awakened and liberated life?

The idea of making merits for some far distant future life was never attractive to me. I was looking for a more appealing teaching and found it in the Advaitan tradition!
„Instant awakening possible! No practice needed! Nothing to do! Nothing to gain!”
To hear these and similar messages from my teacher in Lucknow (Papaji or Poonjaji) was so liberating and lifted a great load of my shoulders. Simply to be quiet and stay in the moment and relax! I am already where I seek to be! Nothing to achieve or to gain. Whatever I look for is already here! Here in this moment! And it has always been there. It never was absent! Simply being! How beautiful it is to be a human being instead of a „human having”!
Touching in Advaita is the emphasis on 'Absolute Truth'. To see from the highest level is a challenge. And trying to understand what cannot be understood is a fruitless endeavour but still very tempting. The Dharma on the other hand seems a bit dry and if you read the original suttas like 'The Middle Length Discourses' you know what I mean. You must be extremely dedicated to read them. These suttas are more an object of study, but it is not easy to enjoy reading them.

What did the Buddha say about „awakening”? Is it true that it takes many lifetimes or do we have a chance to find it this life? After all the 'highest knowledge' or 'Nibbana' is mentioned quite often in the texts. Let us look at Sutta Nr.10: 'The Foundations of Mindfulness' in the 'Middle Length Discourses'. At the end 'anna' or highest knowledge, the perfect knowledge of an Arahant is promised in seven years only if this practice of mindfulness is done properly. The Buddha then reduces the time to six, five, four, three, two and one year. Then he reduces it further from seven months, six ... to half a month. And in the end the Buddha says that it can even be done in a weeks time! So if you have ever done a 10 day retreat you know how close you came already unless you succeeded immediately!
One of my teachers always said: 'Never mind' in its alternate meaning never to use the mind. Or 'Do not start a single thought! 'Be quiet'. But is this really so easy to do? Reflecting about it you will recognise that not to think is easier because you do not need energy. To produce a thought energy is needed. Not to think is effortless. How easy it sounds and how difficult it is not to think about things. Thinking about thoughts. Thoughts about thoughts. Being in a meditation retreat I am sometimes painfully aware how tiring the endless thought process can be. And there seems to be no switch to stop it. Specially not when I wish for the thoughts to end and give me a break. But I learned to simply be with it! And to let it be and let the thoughts have the space they need.
Advaitan teachers love to say that no effort is needed to be in the 'Here and Now'. Everything is already here with you. Nothing more is needed. You are this consciousness! You are THAT!
These great masters seem sometimes to forget that they themselves did a lot of practice. Intense and long practice. After 'awakening' it seems easy to give such advice! When 'IT' happens you possibly just laugh that whatever you searched for all your life has always been there right under your nose. It is as close as your own eye. The eye cannot see the eye! And that is why it is so easy to miss! It is right here in front of you. Always and always has been. But it is so close ...
Practice or No-Practice. Do we really have a choice? Free will or no free will?
Ramakrishna Paramahansa said: 'Be totally convinced that you are merely a machine that is operated upon by God, and then you may do whatever you like.'
So is there karma and do we suffer the consequences of our actions?
'Yes', says Ramesh Balsekar, a teacher who lives in Mumbai, 'you are responsible towards the society in which you committed your actions (crimes) and they will put you in jail and you suffer for it. But ultimately it was God's will and you are not responsible.'
There are certainly differences to the 'Buddhist' view of karma. 'Beings are owners of their karma, heirs of their karma, their karma is their womb from which they are born, their karma is their friend, their karma is their refuge. It is karma that distinguishes beings as inferior and superior.' (MN 135.4)
But we should not forget that all these 'theories' are only concepts. They might be extremely helpful as a seeker on the way, but ultimately it is just another concept. So are the 'Four Noble Truth' and 'The Noble Eightfold Path', very helpful concepts, very valuable, but ultimately they will be left behind!
Another difference is the teacher or master or guru. In Advaita you will often find quite a degree of devotion to the guru (also in Tibetan Buddhism). And some teachers make it clear that you can only 'arrive' through the help of the guru. The assistance of the teacher is necessary. This attitude varies from teacher to teacher and is not always found.
Whereas in 'Buddhism' you are responsible for yourself and you have to find the way yourself through study, practice and a gradual path. There is even the concept of the 'Paccekka-Buddhas. These Buddhas 'awaken' without the aid of a teacher. But usually the assistance of the Dharma is greatly valued. It seems to be easier to attain in the time of the Buddha, when sometimes after a single verse the Buddha uttered, many people entered the 'stream' or higher attainments. When there is no Buddha in a world and the Dharma is lost it is supposed to be a difficult and dark time. With the advice of the Buddha or another wise friend (kalyana-mitta) it is certainly easier. But in the end we have to do the task alone. The teacher is only helpful to a certain degree.
As the Buddha said: 'I can show you the way and tell you all about it. But you have to do the walking by yourself!'

But apart from all the Dharma and Advaita teachers the best teacher is life itself. And for me it appears in the form of a little eight year old girl, who is the daughter of my partner. She really shows me my limitations and pushes my buttons as no other teacher has ever managed to do! She teaches me patience and letting go. To look afresh again and see things with an open heart. Not to cling to the old, which was yesterday, but to be with whatever is the way it is. And also to forget and forgive and start anew. These are the qualities for an awakened life!

I like to end with a saying from Nisargadatta Maharaj:
„When I see I am nothing that is wisdom and when I see I am
everything that is love! And between those two my life moves!”

Reflect on it! Eat it, drink it, digest it, breathe it, see it, hear it, smell it, taste it and touch it! Get up with it and go to bed with it!
And L I V E  I T!

The Power of Trust

Nicole Stern

Trust is one important key point unfolding on the spiritual path.
In the Buddhist text you find the Pali Word SADDHA. It means trust, faith or confidence. Literally - to place the heart upon, to give our heart over to.

What is trust? Where does trust come from? Do we simply just have trust or not? Can we develop trust? Whom or what can we trust? These are important questions to reflect on. I would like to share my reflections with you.

My marriage broke up last year and this brought a radical change in all areas of my life. The ideas, ideals and trust about the marriage, my future, my partner and myself crashed together. Nothing was left BUT a sense of trust in life itself that supported me basically to deal with the whole painful situation.
I had spent more than a year holding on to the marriage and wanted to find a solution. I became exhausted from all the energy put into this struggle. Finally I stoped this unfruitful process and we split up. I had to practise letting go everyday of the past. I had to step into the unknown. With this leap, my energy, clarity and vision came back. I learned to trust in process of change by surrendering to the unknown, to living with insecurity and to each moment. This feels to me to be a valid expression of trust now.

Radical life changes like a separation, facing a serious illness, a death of a beloved or our own impending death call us to ask ourself what and how we can trust. Our pain shows us how strongly we want things to be stable and reliable. We try to feel a firm ground under our feet only to discover that this ground does not exist. It takes real trust to let go of the deep, existential longing for stability so we can leap into the insecurity of life.

It is a precious opportunity to discover the power of trust. I am very glad for my lesson. It offered me a deep experience that trust can’t rely upon external conditions. We can discover that trust is centred on this immediate moment – this breath and this step. We live as fully as we can right now and trust in the unfolding moment, which is fresh and full of opportunities. Realising this, it will bring more freedom and lightness into our lives.

Faith, trust, and confidence are deeply interconnected and interrelated.
The Buddhist texts say that faith and trust is the doorway through which all positive qualities manifest. It allows the energy of aliveness, easy effort, mindfulness, concentration, insight and wisdom in our life.

We can distinguish three kinds of trust:

1. Blind trust
This is a belief or hope in something outside of ourselves. Blind trust is not verified by our experience in any way. It is accepted without questioning or testing. An example is holding onto narrow beliefs without realising the results of this upon others and ourselves. The Buddha’s teachings remind us that faith should be rooted in understanding. He encourages us to investigate and test the object of our faith.
2. Bright trust
The Buddhist texts say that this trust brightens the heart and mind. For many of us, bright faith arises when we feel deeply touched by truth. For some it arises when we are hearing the Dharma, sometimes we feel it upon meeting an inspiring person, seeing children playing, or witnessing a beautiful sunset. Bright trust inspires a natural outflow of confidence and energy. But bright trust still lacks understanding or wisdom. With bright faith we can still be fooled. We do not yet inquire into the object of our trust.
3. Verified trust
I experience the arising of verified trust as one of the greatest happiness as the Dharma and meditation practice unfolds for me. We can see the truth of the Dharma for ourselves, through our own personal experience. Our faith has been confirmed. We have checked out, what we have heard or read. What inspired us in the beginning turns out to be true for us. As mindfulness gets stronger and insight deepens, we see clearer and our trust naturally develops. Each insight deepens our faith until it becomes unshakable. We become sure. We trust in the spirit of our inquiry. We are living in the light of our understanding. With this we have integrated and embodied our truth.

The Power of Trust unfolds in the faith that we can face everything that is happening in our lives. It is the force of faith, trust and confidence that gives us the ability and the willingness to continue. This view shifts our focus from pain to opportunity. We no longer feel that we are a victim of circumstances; we can use different situations for inner growth. This is a radical shift. Trust gives meaning to the challenges that come. It opens up profound possibilities. With faith we can go on and change our lives.

Sometimes we feel grounded in trust, but at other times this trust seems to have left us. Maybe we discover at one point that trust is also conditioned and impermanent. Can we cultivate a state of mind that will allow even our trust to come and go? When we allow feeling the lack of trust, we will meet our fear that undermines trust. Trust is the antidote to fear. In our journey into trust we get to know all the layers of fear, like fear of pain, death, loneliness, insecurity, confusion – and the fear of fear itself.

To live fully means to take risks. This needs courage. Fear dictates that we must hold on, while trust expands us and allows going beyond the limitations of fear into the magnificent dimensions of an all-embracing love.

Non-Dual Wisdom

Radha Nicholson

Awakening to the unconditioned is to recognise that which is unborn, undying, unfabricated, beyond constructions, notions and beliefs and beyond all ideas of existence or non-existence. This involves letting go of the falsehood of duality, the notion of a separate sense of self, and the division of the world into “self” and “other”. It is to recognise the emptiness of self and the emptiness of all phenomena. Non-dual means not one, not two.

Often, in this life, we tend to inquire into the nature of existence only when we reach a crisis, when our fear, our anxiety or our alienation is overwhelming. Usually, only then are we willing to make the necessary changes, to let go of the person, the lifestyle, the habits and entrenched patterns of behaviour or the ideas to which we have been clinging.

In this meditation practice we are invited to explore and inquire into the nature of reality, to directly and deeply discover the wisdom of non-clinging mind. When we do this, we recognise that there is no separate sense of self. Then, looking at the world around, no thing is ever the same and the insubstantial nature of all things is revealed. This is the emptiness of self and the emptiness of all phenomena.

We cannot make ourselves wake up, for the unconditioned is not dependent upon conditions. However, we can provide conditions which support and nurture insight. We can discover the simplicity of silence, and deep attentiveness to the moment. When we listen deeply to our inner world with receptivity, openness and courage, we begin to see clearly how we have constructed an erroneous and separate notion of self, the self that divides, separates, and alienates. We construct inner and outer, the ‘me” and “not me”, the free and the bound. This is duality. All fears, all doubts, all anxieties are based in and rely upon this division, this duality. When we look closely at the notion of self, the ‘I” vanishes. Then, in this selflessness, we realise that throughout life we have lived with anguish, sorrow and despair based on a mistaken construct of identity. In daily life, the “I”, the “my” and the “other” arises and there seems to be a continuity through time and space. The sense of ‘I” may rest on any of the five aggregates, on form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations or consciousness.

But there can be movement of the mind with the “I” resting on any of the five aggregates, without clinging. This is non-clinging mind. When we open our eyes in the morning, the ‘I” is there but it may be experienced lightly, without substance, as is often said, “like a line drawn on water”. This is the emptiness of self and if we look carefully, of all phenomena. In this non-duality, reality is revealed.

Recently, on a retreat in Australia at Wat Buddha Dhamma, a woman shared that during her walking meditation that she had discovered the elegance of walking, the complete ease of walking. What a profound discovery! How much time do we spend walking? If we know the elegance of walking, or simply sitting, surely we know also the elegance of living. This elegance is the elegance of living and dying, not to hold to any moment, to be simply walking, simply sitting, not trying to become someone or something, just walking, just sitting, living with wisdom and wakefulness.

Liberation is not personal. Liberation is the falling away of all that which is held onto as personal. With the cessation of clinging, of holding, of grasping, freedom from suffering is available, reality is revealed. So our practice is to bring understanding and the wisdom of the non-dual to all problems which may arise. The signal that we are ‘off-track” is usually that we are experiencing intense feelings or a total lack of feelings. At these times, useful inquiry questions are “What is it that I am clinging to?” or “What is it that I am avoiding?” or “What is the nature of this?”

About two years ago a wonderful woman came to me for therapy. She had a long history of trauma and we had previously worked together with some of these issues. Then, she came one day for a session and said:
“I want to do some work on my abandonment issues”.
Since we had already covered this ground previously in therapy I decided to take a different tack. I knew that she had a long spiritual practice and she had some understanding of her non-separation from all things, so I simply said:
“Please, right now, sit in your deepest understanding”.
She appeared to be only slightly surprised by my request and sat quietly on my couch with her eyes closed. When I noticed her soften and relax I began to inquire.
“What is it like?” I asked her.
She began to report her experience with pauses and silences between her comments.
“Quite soft, …. peace…. one with all things..… not separate from anything” and so on.
So then I said: “Who is being abandoned?”
“No one!” she laughed and wept with relief “How could I be?”
“Is that all I have to do? To bring my deepest understanding to every problem?”
“That’s all”, I said. “So where is the problem of abandonment?”
“No problem at all”, she replied.
This is an example of inquiry into the constructed self and the realisation of not-self. This is also non-dual wisdom, bringing the insight of not-self to whatever difficulties may arise.

Simply see what you are not within the actual experience itself. This is the beginning of awakening. When we say “I am learning to meditate” we often separate “I” and “meditation”. We divide the actual meditation into the learner and the learned, to the breather and the breathing, to the experiencer, the “I”, and what is experienced. Deepen into this exploration, this inquiry, and the emptiness of self and of all phenomena is revealed. Then, there is only the indivisible. In the immediacy of living, in this very life, is the immeasurable nature of reality.

The expression of this understanding of non-duality is the compassionate heart, warmth, deep friendship and utter harmlessness to self and others. Deep listening to life and the unobstructed heart of compassion are not separate. Wisdom springs from the recognition and realisation of the end of the seemingly unsurpassable chasm between “self” and “other”. To live fully is to live an awakened life, to have an awakened response to life, to discover and express the wisdom of non-duality.

When Ramana Maharshi lay dying the cries of his devotees’ grief reached his ears. He asked one of his attendants, “Why do they despair so deeply?” His attendant answered, “It is because you are leaving them, master”. Ramana turned to his attendant in puzzlement, “But where do they think I could go?”

In a verse spoken by the Buddha before he died he said the following:

All conditioned things are impermanent
They are phenomena subject to birth and death.
When birth and death no longer are
The complete silencing is joy.

This is the wisdom of non-duality. To discover the heart of the dharma is to cling to no thing, to relinquish all clinging, even to this very life.

May all beings discover the elegance of living and dying
May all beings relinquish clinging
May all beings realise non-dual wisdom

The Desire for Liberation

Rakefet Bar-Kama (Sandhya)

The phrase ‘desire for liberation’ seems like a contradiction in terms: how can desire, which is regarded as a root cause of all suffering and bondage, be associated with liberation, which is regarded as the “total eradication of hate, greed and delusion”, meaning also the absence of all attachments, which is the samsaric byproduct of desire. So how can ‘desire’ and ‘liberation’ go together?
In the Dharma circles it seems that desires have a bad reputation, while liberation is considered a worthy goal. In Pali there are two different words to describe two different kinds of desires, and the desire for liberation falls under the “good & wholesome” category (Chanda).
I’d like to examine if desire and liberation are that opposite at all.

A few years ago I witnessed an exchanged that left a very deep impact on me. I was serving in a retreat that Shaila Catherine taught in Israel. One day, during the questions and answers, one participant asked about boredom; he said he was bored. To this, Shaila could have answered in a few possible ways: she could have explained about the five hindrances of which boredom is one of; she could have encouraged him to cultivate more interest in the small details of the breath or the details of the moment, or she could have sent him to do some walking meditation to move his energy a bit.
Instead, Shaila did something rather surprising: she asked him why he was there, at the retreat. The young man stopped and thought for a moment, then said, “Because I don’t want to waste my life”.
These words struck a deep cord in me.
What does it mean to “not waste my life”?
How can we live life in such a way that we feel it’s not wasted?

When I was in my twenties, many years ago, I lived in New York City and – appropriate to the age and place – my time was dedicated to having fun and exploring sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. Then one day, I came across the famous words of the American poet Henry David Thoreau:
‘I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately’.
These words shook me to my very core: what does it mean to live deliberately? Something in every cell of my being recognized and resonated with the notion of living deliberately, though I was at a loss as to what it meant.
For me not to waste my life is to live deliberately. And to live deliberately is to be awake.
So the desire to be awake brought me to the practice.

We often hear we should be wary, suspicious about the desire to be liberated because it comes from the ego; the ego wants to wear it like a medal. Generally I don’t like the word “ego”, as it is usually used in a derogatory, demeaning connotation, as if there’s something wrong or unspiritual with the ego. I see ego as the arising of sense of self, and as such, the ego is not an obstacle to liberation, especially if we don’t identify with it, if we see through it, and see its rising and falling, similarly to the four foundations of awareness, described in the Maha Satipatana Suttra. Let’s not care so much about the ego when we feel the longing to be awake. Much like a rocket, when sent to the moon, is not concerned with who sent it - the Americans or the Russians; the rocket is only thinking, “Wow! I’m going to see the moon!” In a similar way, when we feel a deep longing to be free, let’s not concern ourselves with where this wish is coming from; the only thing that matters is wanting to be awake.

The arising of desire in inevitable, it is inherent in the state of embodiment. According to the Buddha, when perception occurs – recognition occurs, and giving name and conceptualization occurs, and from there it’s a short way for desire and aversion to arise. From desires we form attachments.

This may not be purely Buddhist, but I believe that all desires stem from the “original” desire for oneness, for union, just as every pain stems from the ‘original’ pain, the pain of separation, which is the sense of self, the arising of ego.
Similarly, I believe that all desires are desires to be free, free from suffering, free from pain, but these desires are mislead, misdirected to various external objects, to wealth, power, fame, and other sensual pleasures, comfort and security. The fulfillment of these desires is futile, but it brings us a glimpse of the state of freedom, a short-lived but tangible taste of liberation. It is the mind’s attempt to heal the separation, to return to union.

The Advaita-Vedanta teacher, HWL Punjaji said, “The moment you give rise to the desire for freedom, from that moment you are on the raft. If you desire freedom above everything else, then that takes care of all the rest. It takes care of all desires.”

Being good little Buddhists (myself included) we sometimes think our desires are in the way, an obstacle to being free. We are afraid of our desires and their power.We think we need to choose between desires - and liberation. But desires are only a problem in the mind that splits things into duality, “this desire is good, that one is bad; this one is holier than that one”. The problem is what the mind does with the desire, in the hope of escaping the power of the desire.
We shouldn’t fight our desires - conflicts feed the ego/self. The struggle to eliminate desires is in itself an expression of self. The self thrives on struggles and conflicts. When we resist our desires saying, “I don’t want to be slave to them” there is force; which means they still have power on us. My teacher yogi Amrit Desai used to say, “What you resist – persists.”  We make a mistake when we think the goal of spirituality is to conquer and destroy greed and attachments. We don’t need to rid ourselves from attachments and desires, we only need – through determined and diligent effort - to see clearly into the their empty nature. Then we can watch them drop, one by one, and enjoy the freedom we have every day more and more, every day less and less desires, not by force but by the understanding and wisdom that comes out of practice, or by some miraculous magic and grace of life.

When we remember that desires are also the Movement of Life - then we make sure we don’t squash them. We’re put in the dualistic world to be completely immersed in duality, to be sunk in the dual mud to our knees until we’re so sick of it – we seek a way out. Then we discover the non-dual and we rejoice, and reject the dual. Finally we may discover that these are not two, not separate, there’s no dual and non-dual. We’re sunk in the mud of duality and it’s not a problem! At the first stage we study the mud, examine it, contemplate it, read and write about it, try to transcend it. Finally we realize: there’s nothing to transcend - there’s no problem at all! Yes, we’re stuck in the mud, and yet, there’s no mud, there’s no stuckness.

Desires are pointers. They point us to the direction we want to go, like the finger pointing to the moon. It is usually said, “Don’t look at the finger – it’s just the pointer, look at the moon.” Perhaps at first, desires point and we need to look beyond them, to what they point at.
But I’ve discovered – everything is a pointer. Every thing in life points to the beyond.
Then we may discover something really strange: everything is pointing back to itself. There’s no difference between the pointer and pointed. Everything is the stuff that liberation is made of.

Every step a teacher

Reni Ovadia

That the magnitude of a step is not reviled before it is taken, and only through its following years of quiet practice, in which its many pieces assemble together, some with a clarity so self evident it melts away my tendency to question and doubt, some more vague yet so remarkably pointing to the same unmistakable direction, has been the core of my Vipasanah experience, a tantalizing door that started as an adventurous curiosity about The Nature of (The) Mind, and became an ever evolving path, a way of life so fresh I still find myself on the verge of trembling with wander at its unthinkable simplicity.  

So many books on my shelves, many articles through which I ploughed looking for wisdom, why do I feel that precious time has not been put to its best use in reading them?  Is it the phalli of a mind in love (can I ever say what with, when it is with the very loss of its objects that my mind rejuvenates?) to claim that my long academic years weight too heavily with undermining the simple fact that little does second hand knowledge inform our steps if what we seek is a life rich with truth, with beauty,  with joy, that spring and flow through our actions when we allow ourselves to be spaciously ignorant, our being saturated with blessed possibilities as we freely look, hence see and find, a teacher in every step we take.

"Oh, what am I to do?" is a question a psychotherapist frequently hears in her office, as people come in their suffering, their minds feeble from years of looking for answers from knowledgeable others.  If one is careful not to fall into the role of a professional helper, but rather to mindfully engage in opportunities of pointing people beyond a missing now-solution, towards a radical lift of what covers the well of their own unmet dormant wisdom, one is fortunate to take part in the very giving of Dharma, of unmediated living.

There is but one true teacher: experience, if we take time and effort to see into the causes of the affects we find ourselves in, and do what is required of us, not taking what is not freely given, nor forcing what is not willingly received.  This forever enfolding lesson The Buddha presents to us, over and over again, in the rich body of his teachings.  Yet while this Master of all teachers is intimately at hand, we only too poorly use it, because it is the tendency of the mind to grasp at its own surface, not realizing that the very grasping clouds the light of a wider lesson.

The distinction between "surface" and "inner" mind has been grounded in western psychological thought alongside the celebrated discovery of the, so called, Unconscious.  Could it be that lacking a tool to directly experience the mind, a control obsessed western culture, has embarked on a psychoanalytical energy consuming task, of attempting to translate unconscious into consciousness, through symbolic representations which are viewed as the utmost possible form of consciousness?  
I've spent long years both on the couch and behind it looking  for, and, to no surprise, "finding", "hidden meaning" in what I and others think, say, dream, do.  It gave me artistic pleasure as well as a fabricated sense of being smart.  Sometimes it was even beneficial.  But is "finding" (attributing without questioning) "hidden meaning" really the same as a conscious being owning up to her actions?   
Isn't conscious life more than an elaborated form of theory-adaptive thinking?  Don't we get obscured by our own mudded restless mind, rather then help ourselves away from the pull of thinking that masks itself as adding "depth" to experience? 
Could it be that free conscious living is simpler than we were taught, simpler then our cultural awe at seaming complexity would have us believe?  

Eight years ago, during my first Vipasana course, the conceptual stones that  fortified my thinking mind, habituating it – and me – to regard itself as superior, while blindly enforcing its separation from other doors of conscious experience - smell, taste, sound, sight, touch - landing ground to a widening gap between "inner" and "outer", came trembling down – Thank Buddha for that!   
In as much as the experience was to shutter my invested practice of psychoanalysis, never to be the same again, its immediate reward was much too immense to overlook:  a totally new dimension of presence, priceless in its precious vividness.  What immeasurable joy, when the world comes to life through direct senseful experience, accompanied by thoughts, yes, but no longer within their grasp as censoring mediators! 
Senseful – a word not listed in the dictionary where "sensuous" has long played a common lead role. 

It is an early morning and I am walking towards the kitchen hall. I breath in and out, the sky in its blending blue-gray-red colors touches the same grass my bear feet feel the dew of, a soft morning breeze brings me the smell of earth and trees, the sweet voices of the birds, and as the grass softly bends under my weight, the generosity of it all fills my heart with a gratitude so vast, it brings tears of a love returned to my eyes. 
Utterly giving, the world asks nothing of us in return.  What can I ever give back to balance the riches of its unconditional offerings?   To, at least, be mindful in my conduct, oh, let me begin with that little.  To observe and follow simple directions, as they get momentarily formed, just for me, as for all, as long as I openly see, openly listen, with every step teaching me anew, in every step showing me the Way.

The Significance of this Moment

Rick Lawrence

What does the word ‘significance’ mean to you? if we look in the Oxford dictionary some of the descriptions we find are ‘Importance’ and also ‘that which has a secret meaning’.
Let us therefore look into the whole significance this moment has to offer us.

This moment is the platform where we experience life with all its ups and downs, quite often if we want something to happen, we want it to happen now. When we don’t want something that is present for us we can safely say we definitely don’t want it now! All experience can only happen in the now, in this moment, otherwise it is either a memory or a projection that actually is also being known in the present moment!

There has been an explosion of interest in the practices of exploring the Now. This can be seen in the growing interest of the Satsang (In the presence of Truth) movement here in the West. This interest in exploring awareness increases when we see what the importance of being more awake has.

“So what is all the fuss about being present, being in the now, being aware?…” these responses can easily arise when there is an over familiarity with this kind of terminology.
It doesn’t take long for mind to become bored with itself; thus propelling the need for something else to fill the uneasy gap that restlessness brings. Being irritated by something is a reflection of that movement to escape what arises. When we start to see this pattern emerging it can be even more difficult to acknowledge the truth of this moment, we can see the tendency to justify our view, make whatever it is we are in conflict with e.g. a person, an event, a statement etc. somehow wrong.

Our ongoing entanglement with it gives it substance… builds, builds, builds until we have this huge mountain infront of us that can seem impassable.

So what can we do about it?

This is where the true significance of the present moment is realised. The present moment is the only experience that is tangible. When we are interested in looking fully, authentically, honestly at what arises now, we have the opportunity to see clearly. This takes courage and the willingness to possibly make mistakes. When the obstacles that create suffering and dissatisfaction are met in this way there is an opportunity to release the energy that has been driving them.

Problems gain existence by the refusal to meet them. Sometimes they make such a fuss that they force us into a corner where it is impossible to deny them any further. At this point it is as if they have completed their Mission. The Mission called ‘Notice Me!’
Problems gain their energy by fighting with them or fleeing from them, especially fleeing from feeling them.

When there is this active listening to what is, this accommodating, this allowance. Conflict has a chance to release the blocked energy that is itself. Issues may still be there to be dealt with. But the charge that was so often the predominant catalyst in the situation has been given the opportunity for release.

The significance of this moment is the invitation to embrace ‘this’ (what arises or doesn’t). This enquiry will lead naturally to the discovery of the insubstantial nature of all phenomena. Especially the phenomena we affectionately relate to as ‘Me’. What is important is the willingness to take this journey; otherwise we are left defending notions.

What makes this moment significant is the recognition that the search for meaning or the fear of no meaning has no relevance at all to what is revealed. Words can never describe they are just pointers. Concepts are always a way of thinking or talking about something. One step removed from the act of experiencing.

This moment is pure and simple, sometimes sad, sometimes glad, when it is seen that grasping onto ‘should be’ fuels this idea of unhappy – and therefore creates the search for happy. Then awakening from struggle can happen.

We can have so many feelings ‘about’ a situation and even complete contradictory feelings, but do they ever say what anything is? or are they just feelings about! garments that we put on, garments to make us feel that ‘We Know’- garments that give some form of security.

Clarity needs no justification or approval or affirmation, this is the significance of the present moment. That all is complete the way that it is.

This moment speaks to us in many languages – the languages of interpretation, projection and investment, clearly seeing this process reveals that which is unbound and not located in any position, its nature clear, luminous and all encompassing.

The significance of this moment speaks for itself, the question is are we willing to listen?

Living with Change

Roger Stalder

We all live with change. It is so fundamental to all life that the Buddha called it a characteristic of existence. How we live with inner and outer change matters tremendously and has an impact on our well-being and that of others. A deep understanding of it can serve as a catalyst to awakening.

Change often occurs suddenly and sometimes leaves us with no time to reflect upon it, demanding an immediate response. This can be a great challenge. To learn to be steady in the flux of things is one of the aims of the Dharma.

One of the problematic issues in living with change is our tendency to want to fix our lives outwardly through possessions, status and security and inwardly through holding on to views, habits and emotional security. We might want to ask ourselves: What serves as a problematic area in our life? How can we live wisely with our acquisitions without wasting them or just blindly running after more? This questions refer to areas of possessions, knowledge and status, as well as to our emotional life and to our relationship with ourselves and others. It may require a deeper look at the way we deal with change, whether it be small or big, profound or profane. Sometimes it is more useful to take one's attention away from the content of the story to the underlying emotion that feeds it. Fear often serves as a source of resistance when dealing with change. It may also be a refusal to face a chapter in the book of life coming to a closure. We prefer to stay unhappy with the known and familiar rather than to risk taking a step into the unknown. Or we initiate change just in order to avoid dealing with what is present. Sometimes a bold and courageous step to bring about change is required, as well as an awareness of the consequences it might have for us, others and the environment.

Meditation, inquiry and communication with wise people help to bring light into the movements of the mind. They can all serve as a basis to steady the mind and bring about insights into this characteristic of existence. There are many tools in the teachings of the Buddha and in the contemporary world to draw on. Certainly a sense of groundedness and clarity in our livelihood and truthfulness to our intentions make a difference. A good sense of humour and the courage to face life as it presents itself to us are vital. Meditation and reflection on the true, the good and the beautiful uplift the mind and open the heart. Crucial is the willingness to learn from change. Integrity is a key word.

The Dharma points to the development of equanimity in facing the conditions of life. They come as pairs such as gain and loss, success and failure, praise and blame, pleasure and pain, health and sickness. Change is the wind that blows us back and forth between these conditions. We usually run after the pleasant aspects and try to avoid the unpleasant ones. But all to often we have no choice over their arising or departing. If the conditions for them to arise are there, they arise and they cease when the conditions cease. Desire to have or not to have is the fundamental fuel and makes the wind of change even stronger, such that it can grow to a disastrous storm in our life.

The Dharma goes even deeper and states that all that is subject to change is not to be relied upon for true inner joy and freedom. This also applies to all sorts of spiritual mind-states. Unreliability is the second characteristic of existence. Because the Buddha points to the ending of unreliability or suffering, there is an unchanging, deathless dimension that can end all fixations on problems with change and unreliability in life once and for all.

The gateway to this is a deep understanding of the third characteristic of existence, namely emptiness. Emptiness is less a mystical state lying somewhere behind this reality than a deep understanding of the selfless, conditioned and changing existence of all phenomena, including our cherished "I". When the "I" comes in and lands on one, some or all experience as being "I, me or mine", we are bound to suffer. It takes out the selflessness of all phenomena and glosses an "I" over it. We then step, as it were, out of the natural rhythm of change in life. With this isolated sense of self we try to seek security from change. What we think of as being an independent, seemingly secure "I" witnessing life, is rather a complex network of memories, ideas, impulses and reactions, much more a condition itself in the flow of life. Does this suggest to live without a sense of self?
The suggestion is to see and know the movement of the mind trying to fix experience with the view of a self or a not-self or even an universal Self. And to stay clear and true to that deep understanding when it beautifully dawns on us. This is the freedom from fixation and change to be discovered by the teaching of the Dharma.

Non Attachment

Simona Salewski

I was watching my little nephew when he was a baby and how he would hold on to his little plush elephant. Somehow it made him feel very safe and comfortable and as soon as someone would take it away, he would start crying. It made me think ‘what is it that we’re holding on to, clinging to, attached to, that creates suffering or stress if someone or life would take it away? I’m sure all of us have quite a few things that we could list. It just makes it rather obvious how holding on to things is such a big source of unhappiness and suffering. If we think about it there is literally nothing that we can really hold on to because eventually everything will disintegrate, leave us, disappear, go up in flames or die. There is just no guarantee. Everything that will take birth will die; everything that comes into existence will take its leave or change. We all know that these are the facts so why do we continue to deny them? Why do we hang on to things and get so attached to people and places to give this sense of security.

Very often there can be a feeling of dissatisfaction in our lives, as if we are lacking something and very often we find ourselves trying to fill that void with consumerism, food, TV, chatting etc. Or we might think ‘if only I had …..!’ ‘if I only was……. then I’d be happy!’ But as experience will prove, we usually find that if we get what we want, that satisfaction doesn’t last very long and soon we want something else. Constantly wanting things to be different than they are, takes a lot of time and energy and can leave us feeling very frustrated. This unhappiness might also be the main reason why we have chosen the path of meditation or a retreat because somewhere within us we know that ‘this can’t be all there is to life!’ We don’t want to be weighed down by our dissatisfaction; we would love to live a happy life.

What is it that leads to a harmonious and peaceful life that nourishes and gives us a feeling of interconnectedness? I believe that we all deeply know where happiness lies. When we look back at our lives, maybe we remember moments that offered us happiness or gave us a sense of appreciation, maybe the feeling of being in love or letting go of a burden that was weighing us down. In these moments there can be a sense of trust, lightness and freedom, a feeling that there is nothing to loose as everything is already within us. Nothing needs to be more or less because things are perfect as they are in the ever changing, being calm and silent within, in the midst of busy life. So how can we practice in our daily lives that which invites silence, peace, lightness and acceptance?

I remember in my first years of travelling in Europe, I would find myself in a situation of having no money. Those were the moments when life became very simple and rather magical; when all that mattered was food, water and a place to sleep. There was somehow nothing to do and nowhere to go, but to surrender to the situation. And life would just unfold very magically right in front of me. In those moments of surrender I felt a tremendous sense of appreciation for water, food and for friendliness.

There is such beauty to be found in living with very little, as one has to rely on the kindness and generosity of others. Life seems to bring us where we need to be and sometimes it might not be the most comfortable, safe and secure place or situation but in my experience those where the moments where I really had to let go of my ideals of how things should be and start placing trust into life itself. We don’t have to become monks to start living simply, but in our own capacity it’s a great practice to see what it is that we really need. It’s like creating space and as everything is intertwined and interdependent with each other it supports a spacious mind. Simple living still today has strengthened my faith and trust in this perfectly, ever unfolding life.

Not long ago I was looking after a dear friend of mine with MND (motor neurone disease). The letting go that he had to practice was a difficult task. In the end phase of his illness he had to let go of parts of his body everyday. One day his arms wouldn’t want to stay on his shower chair anymore and the next day his stomach would stop working. Each day he had no choice but to try and let go of some other part of his body and as a natural process he didn’t want to have any input from the outside world anymore. He stopped watching TV, he stopped reading the news and didn’t even want to listen to stories anymore that weren’t concerning this moment. He just wanted to be quiet.

If we want to let go, we just have to be really quiet, if we stop the input from outside, we have a chance to see what is going on inside and the real business might start in the mind. But just like a glass of water that has been filled with dirt, if we leave it alone and not move it, the dirt will eventually settle by itself and the water becomes crystal clear and see-through. Clarity will settle in when we can find some space around our thoughts.

By just sitting down and being quiet, relaxing and letting go of all the tightness and stress, we can loosen the grip and hold things lightly without having to push anything away neither holding it tight. Loosen up all the ideas that we have of ourselves and others, of how things should be.

Jo, a good friend of mine, would very often say to me: “Simona, this might be the last day of our life, aren’t we lucky to have this day.” and she meant it and every moment somehow was a miracle unfolding in front of our eyes. Each time we would miss a train or couldn’t find a place to stay or had our money stolen, basically each time something went wrong, Jo was rather happy and excited about it, just because life showed us over and over that we had no control over it and if we had even the slightest notion that we had control, then life would show us otherwise. We like to create our fixed ideas of how things should be or work out and there just is no guarantee.

The fact that we just don’t know what happens next and where life brings us, makes every moment a wonder, a miracle. How do we know if we ever will see this person, place or handbag again? Then why hold on to anything? Every moment offers us an opportunity to let go. Sometimes it might not be the easiest thing to do, but a simple way of living, making quiet time for ourselves and holding things lightly supports our path to liberation. By strengthening our faith in life itself and trusting unto the path that we choose, we might find that an ease and love with life and all things start to settle into this very being.

Why meditate?

Vernon Castle

My wish to simply be happy led me to meditation. My father died in an airplane crash when I was about 2 years old. I can remember him only as the loving presence awaiting me at the front gate as I crawled out on the crushed rock driveway. The pain I had to endure was worth it because when I got to the gate he’d pick me up and I can the still feel the “now it’s ok” truth as he held me.
The world is so filled with these stark contrasts, these mixed experiences of wanting and avoiding. I wanted the love and so felt I had to endure the pain even at 2 years old. It was a felt conviction of course, not having the words or the conceptual scaffolding to look at my feeling life. It was my introduction to duality.
When I think of the word duality, I imagine something like an old fashioned barbell, round weights connected by a lifting bar. The standard litany goes “light and dark, pleasure and pain, up and down”. I experience consciousness as traveling between two poles. At one end is the “me”, a sense of utter involvement in the stories of my life – my hopes and grief’s, my marriage, my children and my other relationships, working as a school teacher and being a homeowner, wanting to be free and awake, trying to live with integrity and being disappointed with my lapses.

At the other end is “not me”, that open, resting in the now, spacious place of grace where the confines of myself have evaporated and there is a dwelling with what is. Simply that. No discursive thought train taking me for a ride at any unguarded moment. Restful. At peace, with no need to move towards or away from any mental formation. The kind of consciousness I used to think was just before the leap into some kind of higher order, the waiting room for the nearly enlightened!
From this perspective, my spiritual life was the flow between those two poles of “me” and “not me”. I heard a teacher quoted as saying, “ My mind tells me I am nothing. My heart tells me I am everything. Between these two poles my life flows”. I was under the impression that the Middle Path so often referred to by the Buddha was the art of staying balanced and aware, not a compromised point of view between two poles but a kind of wakeful traveler. My sense of self traversed this duality and I saw my practice as knowing at any given moment where I was on this continuum, “in it but not of it”. At one level that’s still true. If I’m going to respond to the world and not just react, I need to be clearly aware of what this mind/body complex is experiencing and then choose a true course, a path of integrity. That’s a pretty good reason to cultivate meditative awareness. Yet there is a deeper and more compelling level.

As I look at this movement of mind, I become aware that the drama of “me” is in the foreground, the awareness focused on the present moment. Yet there is a background underlying all of this movement. Imagine a stage play with the actors strutting and speaking. Then imagine a shift in attention, from the actors to the space in which they are acting, a sort of figure/ground reversal. Maybe what some traditions call ‘God” or the “Timeless” can be revealed here.

A few years ago I was involved in an intensive personal retreat, something to which I have made a commitment to do every other year. My practice on that retreat was “jhana” which is a deeply focused concentration practice. The Buddha makes numerous references to the jhanas in the sutras and I wanted to see for myself. I had different imaginings about what might arise from such an effort but tried to simply stay open to what developed.
It is a remarkable thing, to spend six weeks sharpening and deepening my attentiveness. The Buddha referred to “dukkha”, that quality of unsatisfactoriness or suffering, as being a fundamental aspect of life. I saw how dukkha was woven through the rope of existence, inextricable and palpable – to see that the First Noble Truth is a direct and tangible reality. I saw the bravery and ardor of my fellow yogis as they moved through their days of practice and I was filled with respect for the earnest efforts of those around me.
Then, towards the end of my time, something profoundly simple occurred. For years I have heard the metta prayers and done the practice of directing this loving kindness to myself and to all beings. It is a lovely aspect of the Dhamma. I thought that I was kind to myself and forgiving of my imperfections. I heard that H.H. the Dalai Lama was shocked to learn that self hatred was a common condition for many practitioners in the West and remember thinking, “Well, at least I’m not stuck on that one!” I’d guess that a fish doesn’t think of itself as wet either. There is a part in the metta practice when one calls to mind a loved one and allows the feeling of well wishing to arise. Sometimes it is evoked by envisioning a mother holding her newly born infant with the tenderness and deep love she might feel directed to her only child. Over the years, I had done this, directing metta to myself, those around me and towards all beings.

I was sitting outside on a bench watching a few rabbits grazing on grass tips, not focusing particularly, but winding down from the intensity of the concentration as the end of my retreat approached. There arose a sweetness of compassion for this person sitting on the bench. It was limitless and unconditional and washing over him. I deeply appreciated this being, saw his frailty and impermanence, his suffering and grief. I loved this being and knew compassion for it. I suddenly realized it was “me”. It is interesting to note that the seat of this loving kindness was me as well. There was a sort of figure/ground reversal. That which I call myself springs out of a “ground” which might be described as the essential nature of the awakened mind. From there arises compassion. It is timeless and unconditioned, yet abiding. From Kalu Rinpoche, "You live in illusion and in the appearance of things. There is a reality. You are the reality. If you wake up to that reality, you will know that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything."
There has been a transformation in relationship with my family and friends, with my students at school, with strangers. I had never truly felt love and compassion for myself so how could I ever really feel it for any other being? I have become much easier on people and myself. This is probably pretty elementary but it has been like a huge bell ringing in my heart. Self hate was an absence of compassion for myself.
So, why meditate? For me it has been an unfolding invitation to learn how to truly live. I ask myself everyday to explore where I am not living with integrity and hope to find the courage and energy to be fully human.