STARTING OUT. ZEN AND MEDITATION

PANDA ZEN

BEING WITH LIKE MINDED PEOPLE 

Hi.

        So you have made the decision to start to meditate! You have been meditating at home and studied on the Internet and done some sitting. You also see a need to be with a group or Sangha
as it's sometimes called.

        Good.

        The next step will be to look in your area and find out who is "sitting" within a distance that you can commit to driving once a week. There are lots of different kinds of sitting groups. And all sorts of different approaches. It really does get confusing, Just keep in mind that we meditate just to do it. We are seeking process not outcome. There may be some sort of outcome but it really doesn't matter.

        My encouragement is that you should "shop around" for a bit. See what the different "schools" of thought have that might attract you from where you are right now. Sometimes there are some really "charismatic" people who are the guiding teachers and can "attract" people through personality and presentation. That's good. Nothing wrong with that. Just keep in mind that it's not a personality thing but a spiritual thing. So my encouragement would be to look around.

        Find out the sitting hours.

        Go.

        Be anxious and nervous. We all are the first several times. It's OK. It will wear off and pretty soon you won't be in that anxiety anymore. Give it some time and effort.

        Showing up is the hardest part. Usually there is a component of the group that will focus on new people just coming to practice. This might include some beginning "classes" and some education on how to "sit."

        Remember that a lot of this will be opinion. Take what you can from where you are and then evolve.

        Study on your own. Never stop learning.

        Make a commitment to sit with the group and on your own. Sitting on my own has always been my primary focus. Groups are wonderful. Sitting on your own has it's own benefits. Like what to do when you find yourself without a group.

        Don't worry about how you are doing. It doesn't matter. Just sit. Don't compare yourself. If you grew up like I did you have a lot of internal criticism in you head. It's only purpose is to discourage you.

        If you find yourself sitting with a group for a while find a way to give back. It sorta solidifies that whole "I am part of something" feeling. And it's good for you to give. Me too.

        Be serious enough but don't be too serious. This is your choice. Something that you are doing to support you. There is no right or wrong way to sit. Don't let anyone convince you of that. Try everything.

        Find out for yourself. Try it and see. Keep what works right now and keep evolving.

        Give what you can. The only groups I sit with are on a "donation" basis. This is a personal decision. If you can afford to and have the desire to help finance a system then do so. Remember that you can learn awareness anywhere.

        There are people who feel that they need to do something and go somewhere "special" in order to focus on practice. Really? " If you can't find the truth where you are then why are you looking somewhere else?"

        So explore and have fun. Have the experience and remember it's all OK.

Thoughts and comments are welcome!!! If you are just starting in meditation let me know what your experience has been. 

Bryan

     

     

Time and the Buddha Clock

                                    Time!
 
                                                 

I have always found time fascinating.

And the idea that we are all given a certain amount. Perspective about time is really important. I have done some work with end stage cancer patients and they all became critically aware of time.

Do any of us live our lives in the knowing that we have a limited amount of time?

Do we wait too long before:

Taking that time for ourselves
Writing that book we wanted to write
Learning to play an instrument 
Telling someone we care for no other reason than we do
Making contact with that someone from the past we can't stop thinking about
Getting that pet 
Eating well
Exercising
Taking a class.
Going somewhere just for the heck of it.
Reading that one book we wanted to read.
Giving hugs.
Cleaning that room or the desk.
Writing a real letter to that person we always needed too.
Donating a few minutes a week somewhere to be of service.
Sitting in the sun.
Sitting under the moon.
Looking through a microscope.
Looking through a telescope.
Attending a play.
Hearing live music. 
Crying for no reason.
Laughing for the same.

And more.

We only have so much time. How are we using our time? Not how we spend it. It's not ours to spend.
It is ours to use.
Until we can't.

Take a minute today and think about your time.
Use some to enhance your life.
Every day.

Keep going for as long as you can.

Bryan

Spirituality and Being By Giving.

         
         THE SECRET OF GIVING TO GET.

        Once upon a time there was man who was miserable. He was lonely, sad, angry, and felt like the world wasn't doing what was "right" by him. He justified this position by saying that he was getting screwed by the universe and nothing ever went his way and he was unlucky.

        The man proceeded to "share" his misery with everyone he met, anger, loneliness, bitterness, and fear. No one much liked this man and that only added to his feelings of being lost and uncomfortable. The man went on with this miserable existence for years while trying to achieve some momentary ease by being opinionated about others and acquiring numerous possessions.

        One day the man was walking in the forest and grumbling to himself about his anger,frustration, miserable existence and bitterness.

        In the distance he became aware of a light coming towards him along the path in the woods.  As he come closer he could see a very strange sight and he stopped walking. The light was from a woman walking towards him talking to a wolf who was walking with her. He knew she must be very special perhaps a shaman or windtalker. She was surrounded by a soft light and had a small smile etched on her face. She was so serene, calm and at ease. She was everything he wanted to be and he knew she had everything he wanted. As she came even closer he started to feel more anger and bitterness which he aimed at the women and he felt his fear of the wolf.

       Soon they all  faced each other.

      "What the hell are you so happy about he challenged her?"
      No reply.
      "Do you think you're better than me? The mans rage started to peak.
      No reply
      The man couldn't control himself and proceeded to unload a lifetime of anger, shame, frustration,       and greed upon the woman.
      No reply.
      "Why you and not me? What makes you different?"
 
      Finally the man ceased screaming and started sobbing. After a minute he felt a hand upon his shoulder and the wolf leaning against his leg. Then he felt the embrace  against him and she whispered:
   
       "BECOME THE THING YOU SEEK THEN YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE IT."

The universe and time stopped. The ebb and flow of he man changed direction. Barriers fell.
     
When the world started again the woman and wolf were gone. The mans tears continued but               they had changed to tears of release.

The man spent the rest of his time giving to others the things he wanted to have. By giving he         automatically had what he wanted, the experience had always been there but he had spent so               much time waiting to get he forgot to give.
       .
        We spend a lot of our time focused on getting our needs met. There are not only a lot of different kinds of needs but as individuals we also make decisions what our needs are and we get to prioritize them.

        I would like to focus on a very specific area of need. Emotional needs and how we can use something that we have available to us everyday to meet these need.
That something would be us, I know it sounds really simple doesn't it?

 HOW IT WORKS FOR ME.

Here are some of the states that I am already sharing with others.

• Example: When we experience Anger we give a lot of anger to the world. We do it when ever things are not the way we want them to be.  

• Example: When we experience Sorrow and Sadness we project it and in fact rarely hold back on sharing our misery and sadness whenever we can. 

• Example: When I feel Loneliness and it's friend gossip I avoid others and feel detached. How many times have we "decided" that someone doesn't meet with our approval? We decide that somehow this person is irritating, confusing, to us they seem fill in the blank, and we don't really want much to do with them. This is the art of sowing loneliness and having opinions. 

        Notice that these are not things that we want to experience ourselves but we share freely of them to others. We like to think that these are all experiences that happen to us from the outside in as though coming at us from the world. We don't like to think that we generate anger, we don't like to believe that we generate greed, and we certainly don't want to believe that we generate sadness. 

        But we do.

        Our default model:

        Let's say you want to feel love.  We have been conditioned to act and behave like we need to find love, acquire love, make sure it's safe, and don't accidentally lose it along the way. Sound familiar? 

        Or we take a different and more familiar tact. We wait. We wait until the universe comes into alignment and love appears. The are a lot of problems with this theory. The biggest one being that we may wait until we die. Love may never appear. 

       So What do we do instead of grasping or waiting?

      IN ORDER TO EXPERIENCE BEING HAPPY ALL I NEED IS TO GIVE HAPPINESS                  AWAY.

       IN ORDER TO FEEL LOVE WE LOVE OTHERS AND IMMEDIATELY HAVE LOVE

      

       IN ORDER TO FEEL CONNECTED WE HAVE TO CONNECT.

     
       IN ORDER TO HAVE FRIENDS WE GIVE OUR FRIENDSHIP.

       IF WE WANT TO HAVE INTELLIGENCE WE GIVE  INTELLIGENCE..

       IF WE WANT COMPASSION WE ARE COMPASSIONATE. 

       IF WE WANT TO BE ENCOURAGED WE CAN GET THAT BY ENCOURAGING.

       Is there really a way to get any of this without the act of doing it?

       I already know that if I want to have anger all I have to do is be angry. Why do we miss how this works in all other areas? Is it because I would rather believe that anger is bad so that I couldn't possibly be the one who generates it?

        And something added for you.

        If you give it away what you will find is your experience of it will grow and the source will continue  to feed you. At times we act like we were given all things in small amounts that if we use it will  will never get it back.We attempt to gain it from others and hoard it. But by the act of giving it   away we posses more than we could ever imagine having. We will have more happiness, love,
encouragement and joy than we ever imagined, just by giving them away.

 
      Healing The Hole in my Heart

      I was waiting
      And it never came.
      Confused and empty I waited wanting.
      Nothing but time melting me quicker
      than I would ever know.
      Until I did.
   
      Pieces fell off.
      Wasting me
      Pretending .
      Until siting one day
      The Mobius self said
      My wanting was a vacuum of my own choosing.
      An endless sinkhole of fear and need.
   
      So I gave away.
      Not back.
      Not to receive in turn
      But away.
      Caring, Kindness, compassion, friendship,
      Smiles, and joy, and time and energy
      And
      THE HOLE STARTED TO MEND.   


WE HAVE MORE TO GIVE THAN WE EVER NEED. 
      
WE RE A CONDUIT FOR ALL THAT MATTERS
      
WHEN THE CONTAINER DISSOLVES
WE SEE
. 

     

Spiritual Burnout: Repair and Moving On.

Hello!

There comes a time in those seeking a spiritual "base" start to become what I can best describe as "stale" and without feelings of gain. This happens at different times during a persons seeking along the way. The standard is to lose faith in the teacher or guide. This really sucks because it can appear to undermine all your effort and comes with a sense of wanting to abandon the whole direction. My main suggestion is to make sure that anyone you are willing to have mentor your valuable self needs to at some point echo the Buddha's word and let you know that she or he wants what they teach to be challenged. Any guide, teacher, or head of a religion should welcome anyone who challenges the teachings. There are a few reasons that this can happen.

1. Loss of excitement and enthusiasm: Most of this know the feelings. In seeking a spiritual path we become enamoured and then enthused about a certain school, teaching, teacher, or method. This feeling of something new and exciting will often carry us for a while. Sooner or later this is going to wear off. Like any relationship we sooner or later start to see what we did not see before. A school starts to be compressive, a teaching does not seem to apply to our daily lives and struggle, a teacher may, who at first seemed all knowing, becomes shallow and self serving, or the method gives up it's glamour and becomes part of the norm. I am sure there are many other reasons but these few seem pretty predominant. Take a break. That might be all you need if it comes to being burned out. Get away for a while. Read and process something new in the area you are interested in. Lots of books and information about almost any path. Don't be afraid to explore.

2. Sometimes we become so focused on the outcome that we lose sight of the process. This, in part, comes as a result of "wanting to achieve" an end result. It no longer is about the slow, small, painful steps that are needed to make sure that we are acting with integrity and honesty. We just want to "achieve" enlightenment or the end reward or move up and on. It doesn't work that way. Anyone who offers you a quick and easy way to the spiritual path is selling you their ego and filling the bank account with your money. Outcome in spiritual growth has never been achieved and focus on outcome results in burnout. Take some time out and make some decisions about being in the process of the system. Look at objectives and goals that you have and ask yourself if they are realistic and doable. Accept that growth usually comes in bits and pieces.

3. The environment hinges entirely on the 'social" aspects. This can be subtle but has effected more people than you might think. Relationships with others is fine and can help build a positive group. As long as people don't gossip,cheat, tell lies, steal, insult, or demean each other. I have a few friends who have stopped attending due to social interactions that turned sour and they decided to leave. I think that the focus needs to be primarily on the teachings and helping others. When the environment becomes to social it's easy to have conflicts and become lost. A spiritual path can be fun and interesting in part due to the people we meet. The main focus however needs to remain on the path and what we learn from it. There is nothing wrong with enjoying people as long as you have your priorities set.

So we need to remain aware of how we are on this path. Lots of ups and downs and round about progress on any path of spiritual understanding.

If you think of other obstacles let me know.
Always glad to hear from you.

Bryan

Living in the future and spiritual practice.

Hi.

I once had a friend I was seeing in the hospital. She had cancer and was in stage four. I remember sitting with her while she was having chemo. We were relatively quiet and just sitting. As I remember I was reading at the time.

I felt her looking at me and looked up. She was looking directly at me and said " We will never know what happens next. We were never supposed to know what happens next." I could do nothing but agree. I could hear my mind trying to set up an argument and wanting to disagree. But I couldn't.

Why?

Because nothing I ever imagined in my mind about my future experience ever came true. Oh, it came pretty close a few times, but never ever was it totally accurate. Most of the time outcome was entirely different than plan.

When you think of it the entire universe is always changing. Never ending combinations and drifts. Plans are good for the moment but never survive contact with the future. Plans start to adapt and evolve along with everything else in the universe.

"Impermanence is the essence of everything"
Pema Chodren

Knowing this is a great worry breaker. No more worries about what might happen in the future. No more focus on what might go right or wrong. Only the focus on the now and what we need to do next.

A lot of people will take issue with this attitude. They will insist that they made plans and followed thought to success.

But memory is just that. Memory. It's a story about what happened. Not particularly accurate or on point.

So. We do what needs to be done to make our plans generate towards what we want to achieve. We don't stay attached to outcome. Outcome means nothing in the now. Process means everything in the now.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.

Bryan
                                                 

Spirituality and Ego

Hi.

        I had a long discussion concerning my blog concerning following others and this of course included teachers. I had some complaints here in Detroit from some of the "teachers" running organizations. A few seem to challenge the idea of someone "learning" spirituality on their own.
The major complaint seemed to be coming from two different areas.

        The first was the premise that if you are using your "ego" to examine and change your "ego" it's not going to happen. It was suggested that the only way to do this is to place yourself under a "master" who would then be able to help you examine and "be aware" of your ego. That's pretty interesting. I can see the argument and I reminded others that I never said to go it alone. I never suggested that we don't find mentors and people we admire in order to gain information and the tools we need to see ourselves.

        What I said was that be aware of any agendas and possible hidden motives that a lot of the so called "teachers" seem to have. Really ego? When I look into the spiritual world all I see are egos. Teachers who present that they somehow have come to a place that allows them to guide you are very helpful. They are not however ego less. They do not have "all" the answers. They are simply an ego leading an ego. It would pay to keep this in mind and not follow someone "blindly" because they sound like they know what they are talking about.

        How many spiritual paths were created by a human  not listening to other humans? I can think of a few. The three major religions on the planet. Did humans influence others? Yes. But remember the last words of the Buddha that reflect the need to seek and find your own salvation.

        The second area seems to revolve around the belief that people need to be told what to do and how to act or they won't be able to figure it out on their own. OK. I guess if you are the kind of person who needs to be told what to do then join in with someone who will offer you that. Just don't get confused with someone telling you that the need is to live up to the presented ideal. Do you see that teaching and preaching the ideal is different from being able to live that way?

        We are warriors seeking the spiritual path. It takes that kind of commitment and desire to stay true to changing our conditioning and living with projection. Don't ever let anyone fool you into thinking that they have somehow overcome these obstacles and can now "show you the way." This usually translates into money and power.

Keep going.

In Loving Kindness
Bryan

Doing no Harm. Spirituality and complexity.

Well

     Of course we all want to do not harm. Right? I mean none of us really wants to hurt anyone right?

     Or perhaps this isn't entirely true. Or not true at all.

     Recent I sat with a Zen group that spent some time processing the precepts. We spent a whole lot of time on "doing no harm." Not the first time I have spent time on this one. In general the group started out examining this precept and as time went on the discussion became increasingly complicated. And more complicated.

     Is this a simple precept or an increasingly complex subject?

     Do no harm. The closer you are to your own experience the easier this becomes. I mean after all you can pretty much decide if you are going to harm someone in the here and now. It's a matter of paying attention. It's that simple. We ask ourselves "what am I doing right now?" The minute we start to move out from the center of where we are the issue becomes more complicated by degrees. And. The more convoluted the concept becomes.

     There are some people on this planet who have every intention of doing harm. They are actively pursuing it right now as we speak. Watch the news. See how that goes? For a single person speaking to a group of people the concept is fairly easy. Do no harm. You look at the people in your sphere and do no harm. The people in the next city? Maybe not.

     Is doing no harm going to be a universal principle that we (planet earth) can live by? I'm not at all sure. The concept itself has been around for a really long time. Thousands of years. How's it going? Not so hot. Why?

     Well Greed. The ego is built by greed and in turn supports greed. Greed, or wanting, is the only
thing standing in the way of universal "do no harm" rule.

     Now if you think about it greed is a very universal principle. There is no where you can go where greed is not alive and well. Everyone seems to want more than they need. Because, well, they need more. Communication has done little to disperse the feeling for more. If anything it continues to exacerbate the problem with advertising.

     I really believe in small groups that, in general, we can expect to do no harm. I also believe that the more people, places, and things we add that greed inevitably raises it's ugly presence and conflict occurs.

     I think we need to adopt a more universal concept of how do no harm works. I think that without addressing the concepts of projection and conditioning that the best we can to is resolve the issue among very small groups of people.

I welcome any comments or input.

In Loving Kindness
Bryan