Evening discussion of some ideas of Buddhism

On those occasions at the end of dharma talks or lectures, when the teacher asks whether we have any questions, I can never think of anything to say. But we have four Buddhist monks staying with us and some questions did arise in discussion. Like I have never understood how Buddhism clings to the concept of reincarnation when it holds to the principle of the nonself (the anatman). What is there to reincarnate? We had a long talk with Phab Lai – a monk originally from Britain. He said that what drew him to Thich Nhat Hanh was this teacher’s ability to cut through some of the most confusing aspects of Buddhist doctrine and present a simple message that everyone could understand, and sometimes to challenge fundamental tenets that have been held in many Buddhist schools, when he believed that they were nonsensical. As an example, he says, it has often been said in Buddhism that “ all is suffering.” (The statements here will be Phab Lai’s – or my understanding of those statements.) Thich Nhat Hanh says that what the Buddha actually said was that “suffering exists”. While it might be a useful intellectual exercise or temporarily leap of faith to work from the idea that all is suffering, Thich Nhat Hanh does not accept that statement. Like, how can it be that a table or a chair are suffering, and why should they be? But it is readily understood, as a statement of the human condition, that “suffering exists”. And it isn’t necessary to claim that all is suffering.

Another example he gave is that the universal reason given for suffering in Buddhism is desire. i.e., suffering exists because of desire. Phab Lai said that this is not what Thich Nhat Hanh teaches. He teaches instead that suffering exists on account of the klesas (sometimes translated as impediments) such as ignorance, desire/greed, anger. There are different accounts of the Klesas among different schools of Buddhism. But Phab Lai’s understanding is that it isn’t necessary to claim that all suffering is caused simply by desire. He says that he would also add to the traditional accounting of the Klesas the element of “fear” (which is nontraditional, as far as he knows).

What I like about all this, is the latitude given to understand a teaching from the inside, rather than cling to a doctrine, just because it is handed down.

To go back to the idea of reincarnation, Thich Nhat Hanh presents this also in a way that is more acceptable to people who haven’t grown up with this concept. He says that our karma, made up of good or bad words and deeds, etc. has a continuation, in that it goes on having an influence in the time to come. Although we are not really born and do not really die (i.e., anatman), there is a dispersal of matter and energy, which reconstitutes themselves somehow. It is not necessary to believe that the same elements come together again in the same body.

I told Phab Lai about the traditional metaphor given for Karma in Vedanta of the bow and quiver of arrows . We receive (sanchita) karma from past lifetimes in the form of a quiver of arrows. We have an arrow in the bow that we are about to shoot (agami karma), and have already launched other arrows (prarabdha karma) towards their target. According to vedanta, we have complete responsibility, but the only thing over which we have current control is of the arrow currently in the bow. I asked Phab Lai, if it is possible to reconcile this concept of Karma with his understanding of Buddhism. For instance, where does the quiver of arrows, the sanchita karma, come from if we have not acquired these through the rebirth of the soul or jiva? He thought that it may be possible to explain the acquisition of karma in other ways, since, as a human being, we are influenced by the accumulation of elements that go into our makeup, such as what we acquire from our parents and the environment in which we grow up. He also said that it might sometimes be necessary to chase after the arrows we have already shot, which I liked.

The idea of taking responsibility for actions had come out also in the dharma discussion of the morning, where the Brahma Viharas were discussed. Karuna (compassion) was presented not just as a state of mind (like sympathy), but of something that required the taking of responsibility towards the objects of compassion, i.e. it is an active principle. It isn’t enough to love or feel compassion another human being – this must also be expressed and borne out by one’s actions. Thich Nhat Hanh is a proponent of “engaged Buddhism,” or Buddhism in action.

Memories and experience

Walking in the woods today I turned my thoughts to my early childhood. The fields and woods were growing dark under a gibbous moon and there was plenty of time to let memories surface. I thought of the houses in which I lived, of moments with parents, of childhood friends. It was actually surprising how few memories came, especially before the age of five. I think if I were to write headlines for each of these memories, they would not fill very much space.

Then I let my thoughts flow to memories of adolescence and adulthood. There too the record is murky – a convoluted worm’s-path in sand. I felt sad not on account of memories, but for the fact that so much of life passes unconsciously, unprocessed, without due reflection, as if on automatic pilot. And the consequence is that memory is dim. Even the broad outlines, such as the rationale for directions taken, lose their clarity.

Just as my feet knew to complete the long circle of my evening walk in the semi-darkness, while my mind was reeling back through other times and places, my life experience has brought me safely along to the present juncture. It isn’t a question of following a path and reaching a destination – it’s a question of the manner in which we travel the path.

Scaps from my journal during the mindfulness retreat

Chang How

Thursday, March 5

We started a four day retreat with Chang How, a Thich Nhat Hanh disciple, at Khukuk, a kibbutz just above the Sea of Galilee. We arrived Wednesday lunch time and it will continue till Saturday afternoon.

During the evening meditation I thought again about what Murakami wrote at the prize ceremony in Jerusalem. I must download the speech, lest it disappears from Haaretz website. His speech emphasized that every human being has worth and dignity. Is this dignity based on his Buddha Nature, or is it based on the things that make him unique – the imperfections? Are the imperfections, the egoism, the flaws of character, also Buddha Nature? I think that for a writer these are of the essence; the thing that makes a novel interesting. The dirt – this is the place a novelist goes, and dwells. But he transforms it into art – he exhalts what other men shun. He doesn’t belong to that dirt, but rests upon it like a lotus, like a saint. Of course this is a very idealized view of a novelist. But in reading writers of the calibre of Murakami or Mistry, there is a feeling that they are special in that way.

Thursday morning.

I was very tired yesterday when we arrived, and tired this morning in meditation. Thoughts confused. I imagined, I think it was early morning, that over Chang How, while she sat talking, giving a dharma talk, there was a high beam, and on it sat a crow. I was gazing at the crow, which made bird movements, hopping and pecking. And then at breakfast in the dining hall, I also sat gazing above Chang How’s head (this time in reality). Behind her hung a photograph from the early days of the kibbutz. There was the fortress from the 1940s, its tower, stone walls and interior courtyard. There was a banner saying that you must have the intelligence to know what to want, and then to execute it.

The teacher gave a dharma talk this morning about her own life experiences, which included early life in Vietnam. She became a refugee and had to move three times, the last time to Canada. When she fled, it was without any possessions. She had only two shirts and two pairs of pants, all of which she was wearing.

Chang How was for a long time very angry with her mother. Her mother had to work hard to support their large family, such that she had little time for the children. Once when she came home from work the children asked her to take them for a ride on her motor bike, but she was just too tired. Till today, her mother is full of worry, remembering her earlier hard time and the war.

They had a handicapped brother, who lived with them at home. Chang How said that while one normally thinks that it is the most beautiful child who gets the most attention, his disability brought all of them to love and help him.

Chang How grew up hating the Americans for what they did in Vietnam, and it took her a long time to overcome this hatred. Later in Canada she met with war veterans and told the story of how one visited her home. He had been traumatized by the war and was very distrustful when he came to stay with her. Before going to bed he secretly checked the whole apartment, crawling from place to place, checking every room. He even came into her room while she pretended to sleep. He was afraid she would murder him.

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Satyakama Jabala told his mom that he wanted to study under a vedic teacher and so he needed to ask her about his lineage. She said, When I was young, I was a maid, and had many relationships. Therefore I can’t say with any certainty what your lineage may be. My name is Jabala, so you should say that you are Satyakama Jabala.

Satyakama Jabala went and sought out a vedic teacher and, when the teacher asked him about his lineage, he repeated the story is mother had told him. The teacher said that only a true Brahmin would have responded like that, without hiding any part of the truth. He accepted him as his student.

“Om is like a pin, which pierces through all the leaves.”

This morning in meditation I felt like Om must be the string upon which all the beads of a mala are strung.

I fell into a deep sleep after breakfast, with the Upanishads shielding my face from the sunlight. Dorit had been reading aloud the 14 mindfulness trainings, and I had said, “The dharma’s too hard, I’m going back to sleep.” I didn’t awake until 10:30, till long after the “dharma sharing” had begun.

The days, (in the Galilee) are full of birds, “sounds like they are saying words.”

Maybe they are giving their own version of a dharma sharing, if I could understand them.

Da – Datta – Dhamyatta. I had been looking for that half-remembered passage from What the Thunder Said, in TS Eliot’s The Wasteland. Quoted from somewhere in the Upanishads, I think. [found it later: Brhadaaranyaka Upanisad, Chapter 5, 2.] Dorit had been asking if Dana, the donation given to the teacher in Buddhist retreats, is a Sanskrit word. English, Italian, Pali, Sanskrit – the same.

My Flip camera‘s battery is weakening fast. This morning I managed to film only till the end of the recitation of the first mindfulness training. Strange, I dreamed, in my mid-morning slumber, that it had an iphone battery, and was therefore replaceable. It would be nice if it would be so.

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’Day of Mindfulness’

Every six weeks the Israeli Thich Nhat Hanh sangha holds a day of mindfulness in the Pluralistic Spiritual Ctr and I join partly to manage the screening of a recorded dharma talk.

The last couple of times, besides the work with the projector, there have been lots of early morning preparations; this time carrying and assembling tables, so that I have wondered whether the day was more relaxing or stressful.

It’s a pleasant group of people to be with and the practice is meaningful for me, though sometimes I find it better to tune out and replace the long-winded visualizations and instructions with my personal practice.

As in workshops and seminars everywhere, one of the first items is the round of names, or whatever this is called in workshopese. This time the suggestion was to mention, besides one’s name and sangha connection, also a person or persons with whom we feel we would like to improve communication or come to understand better.

Some people named family members, such as sons or brothers. Others said they felt like they needed to understand themselves better or everyone better.

I suddenly remembered our visit to the prehistoric sites in Dordogne, near Plum Village (Thich Nhat Hanh’s retreat centre in France), and my fascination with the mysterious culture that had created paintings and drawings on cave walls. I had felt such a powerful desire to understand these people, because it seemed to me that if we could understand the motivations of these, our ancestors, we could better understand ourselves.

Dorit spoke to the sangha about the visit that she and Samiyeh made to the retreat and conference held by Thich Nhat Hanh in Hanoi.

The subject of Thich Nhat Hanh’s talk, in the recorded session we heard today, was a proposed letter to one of the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks. The directions he took in the talk were interesting. I would need to hear it at least one more time to grasp it well. But he said that one of the purposes of such a letter would be to come to understand our wrong perceptions, and perhaps to help the attacker to understand his wrong perceptions too. Thich Nhat Hanh said that peace making itself was about coming to understand wrong perceptions which lead to war and conflict.

Of all the people who spoke in the hours and days after the September 11 attacks, I remember that those of Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama were the most significant to me at the time. All the world’s religions are receptacles of wisdom, and religious teachers can often offer spiritual insights into current events. However it seems to me that Buddhist teachers in particular have a quick grasp of the changes that our world is going through. Thus Thich Nhat Hanh dedicates great attention to the environment, whereas for so many other teachers it is still a non-issue. It is not surprising that a tradition that is based on mindfulness, flexibility of thinking, a rejection of dogma, and other positive traits, can be counted upon to give fresh insights into the challenges we face.

Mindful saturday

Today, a beautiful spring day, we had a Day of Mindfulness at the Spiritual Centre. As usual, I participated for half the day, staying till lunch. Two nuns from Plum Village, who happened to be in the country, led the retreat. The DVD excerpt from a talk by Thich Nhat Hanh, from the Breath of the Buddha retreat in 2006, was very good. The subject was the 3 doors of liberation – Emptiness, Signlessness, Aimlessness. All explained very well. The explanation of emptiness was most meaningful to me. “When we speak of emptiness, we need to ask ’empty of what?’. The flower is not empty of sunshine, or of the cloud that formed it. It is empty of its independent existence.”

After lunch I watched an interesting presentation which Yonatan sent me, http://www.storyofstuff.com/. That’s definitely food for thought – everybody should see this marvelous explanation of our insane consumer society and figure out what they can do to lessen the size of their footprint on the earth.

We spent the evening talking to the two nuns, since they are staying till tomorrow. We know Thay Nim a long time, from her days in the Israeli sangha. She has grown more gentle as a nun. Then we had to work on a proposal which was due today. Finished at four minutes to midnight. Worked on the proposal while listening to Abida Parveen, a wonderful singer of sufi music from Pakistan.