Receiving the dharma name

i'll have more to say about receiving a dharma name after it happens, i'm sure. my head is still swimming from the meditation retreat this past weekend. Zen Master Jeff Shore provided instruction on the ox herding pictures, which you learn about when you develop a meditation practice. the pictures represent the various stages that a practioner will progress through en route to enlightenment. his lessons were helpful, and i shall return to them once i've had time to process.

i want to write a little about receiving the dharma name this coming saturday. i came to practice through recovery. it is advisable that once you leave something as pervasive as a reliance on drugs and alcohol behind, you must understand that you cannot live by your own will. i'll sidestep the larger philosophical argument about the will to power because it's truly not helpful here. and when you live a spiritual existence, as jeff shore indicates, you cannot live entirely by your own devices.

i have always looked for the answer that would help me feel whole. i have always felt like other people knew things that i didn't. the truth is that most people didn't have an answer that i lacked. some were full of bull. others simply knew what i am now struggling with - there is no balance, no stability. the only way to begin a spiritual path is to understand this fact and to trust. trust that the spiritual path you have chosen provides a method for dealing with this instability.

in buddhism, the answer is so simple that it continues to elude me in painful fashion. just when i think i have it, i don't. it's incredibly frustrating for the western mind. at what point do i find myself? my ego is simply a construction that provides a method for adapting to and surviving in this world in which we live. and that construction will vary from culture to culture. my buddha nature never changes. and we all have one. we are all buddhas. unfortunately, this construction - my ego - has superceded my buddha nature. like the ivy that grows all over everything here in pennsylvania, my ego has covered over my buddha nature. suffering arises from my ego attaching to states of mind that serve my ego. this suffering dissipates when i begin to understand this.

so i have been meditating for over a year. i began prior to recovery, but like most delusions, the spiritual bliss dissolved fairly quickly. because my committment to the sangha and development of spiritual practice is valued, the sangha will provide me with a new name on saturday. this name will be won hae-sang. won means ultimate truth, and hae-sang means star of wisdom. as i develop my practice, i will serve as a star of wisdom for the world, providing balance especially in my scholarly endeavors.

my american mind is screaming in absolute terror. my buddha replies, "there is no absolute terror, so there is no need to scream." when i wonder what it would be like to be enlightened, i look at people like the Dalai Lama and Eckert Tolle. these human beings have used their wisdom in a manner befitting stars of wisdom. i am grateful for the name, for the opportunity to change, for the friends whom i have made, and for my life. i hope to shine brightly, remembering the Lojong slogan, "Abandon all hope of fruition." Sphere: Related Content

as happy as i want to be...

it's been warm in philly, finally, i guess. the weather has been unseasonably cool this summer. i decided to hike again. it was difficult to get up this morning. i've been having some funky dreams. i suppose my mind is cycling through some junk because it's been a menagerie of people who have passed through my life, weird situations that i never to be in, and other pictures of weirdness. i'm just a little too entertained by what's going on to wake up. but i did. and i was out of the house by 8:30 a.m., which is good for me.

as i walked, i thought about my last post. one of the main purposes of the post was to explain my catharsis about being happy. however, the post took another direction. i felt somehow dissatisfied with this. i've received different signals that most people weather difficulties when they adjust their thinking. listening to npr the other day, i heard an interview with barbara bradley hagarty talking about the science of spirituality. while i think she wanted listeners to read and determine their own beliefs, she spoke about people whose spiritual experiences were simply too uncanny. one woman spoke about how she thought about her illness, and rather than viewing it as an obstacle, she viewed the illness as a learning experience. click here to listen to the story.

this story wasn't the only place i heard this message. when i spoke with rev. minju, she also indicated that we have a choice. we have a choice about how we think about the situations in which we find ourselves. we can choose to think that everything in our lives is happening to us, resisting and fighting it. or we can choose to accept it, and to think positively about it. her words echo what you hear when you work on your sobriety, a quote by Abraham Lincoln: "Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be."

my week ended with a dharma talk on Saturday morning. meditation practice helps you to adjust your thinking about life. the woman who gave the talk compared meditation to taking a vacation. practicing stillness provides us with a way to calm our thoughts. when we calm our thoughts, we begin to see with clarity. she used the example of the oak tree. if we imagine an acorn that falls into a clearing, we might also imagine that it grows to be a sapling, with growing leaves and roots. but as the sapling grows, weeds and other trees might also move into the clearing and compete with the sapling. they might also deprive the sapling of necessary nutrients. but the sapling doesn't complain. it doesn't feel threatened. it simply continues in its silence.

so i continue in mine. this week will be busy. i will go to the temple on tuesday to listen to a master speak. on friday and saturday, i will attend my first meditation retreat, conducted by jeff shore. on the 29th, i will receive a dharma name from won buddhism. while these are perks of attending such a great sangha, the stillness that i find in meditating has helped me tremendously. Sphere: Related Content

hiking in the rain

i was going to begin this post with the quote, "life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about dancing in the rain." However, in the search to find the author, i realized how overused it is. overused or not, though, it reflects what i have learned over the past couple of days.

my life has been difficult this year. there is no doubt about it. but i have been reminded several times that it doesn't matter what life throws at me. what matters is how i respond. and in the face of making a couple of difficult decisions, i chose this morning to take a hike through Wissahickon Park. Wissahickon is part of a larger park system in Philadelphia called Fairmont Park. Those with even a passing familiarity with Philadelphia should know it. It's either a reminder that large urban centers can preserve parcels of land for green space, or for it's more notorious reputation as a place where young women shouldn't go alone. And of course, without knowing recent news of attacks occurring in the park, i went alone.

i am always surprised when the universe reminds me of why i need hikes like this. in order to start my hike, i needed to make it across a bustling thoroughfare, Bells Mill Road. It's difficult because you can't necessarily see the oncoming traffic in the right lane until it whips around the corner. as i waited for an opportunity to cross, cars on one side stopped but as i waited for traffic in the other lane, a women who decided to whiz by saw me and proceeded to slam on her brakes. i wasn't in her lane, mind you. i was in the other lane. she stopped because she saw me in the corner of her eye and clearly wasn't paying attention to anything but her own universe. she proceeded to roll down her window and bitch me out for not crossing the bridge - with no shoulders - to cross at the stop signs.
i had a little trouble letting this situation go at the beginning of the hike. i was frustrated with this woman. i hadn't walked in front of her car, she hadn't been harmed, and clearly she flew of the handle. it eventually passed but i realized as i was walking back to the car something i hadn't realized at the time of the incident. the crosswalk. i hadn't been paying attention either. i was simply wanting to cross the street; i hadn't noticed the worn white paint on the road. the yellow signs, however, should have stuck out to me. both the driver and myself were not in the present moment.

once i shook the incident, the hike was great. the ground wasn't too soft. the Wissahickon creek murmured beside the path. as the hiking trail cut away in a different direction, the murmuring subsided, and the rain pelting the leaves of the dense canopy of trees remained. at a number of places were tiny creeks where the water had carved a path. and my mind really kept returning to the ideas of change and impermanence.

impermanence. trees grow, they live, and they die. in several areas, fallen trees remain. often across the path. sometimes across the small creeks that flowed next to the path. sometimes just off in the distance. and i could make speculations as to why those trees perished. the important note is that they have a cycle. just as ideas have a cycle. sometimes they are present as my mind functions, but my thinking can continue even with the obstruction. sometimes i have to step over them, as they obscure the path ahead. and seeing them in the distance, far from the trail, i am reminded that while they are not what they once were, they remain a part of the landscape. each time i hike, though, i observe them as being. just as i should with thoughts.

it is difficult to explain to others who do not have a meditation practice why it's important NOT to label or describe. when i reflect upon the past year, it's easy for me to let the story play on and on in my head. i review all those situations where i felt powerless or cheated. all of the emotions return and i revel in those emotions like a pig rolls around in mud. and i take those emotions and those thoughts, and begin to place them into neat jars that are clearly labeled. but in the Buddhist tradition, we do not do that. we begin to observe these emotions, thoughts. rather than thinking about them, i simply learn to watch them as they rise and fall. like a tree, each thought, each emotion has a cycle.

as a meditation practitioner new to the path, i began to understand that i had been using breath awareness to bypass much of my emotional baggage. rather than letting it in, i simply pushed it to the side. my tendency has been to take the situation apart, as i mentioned above. to analyze. to categorize. and that's really not what Buddhist meditation is all about. it's about acceptance. i sat down the one of the ministers of the temple, and explained what was going on. and she told me a story.

when she began her practice, she was much like me. she wanted to analyze and label. she had a complicated process. but one of her teachers simplified it for her. the master related her actions to finding a book in a dark room. you try to remember where things are so you don't trip; you pull down books to find the book you are looking for. you go through a lot of trouble to find a book in this dark room when all you really need to do is turn on a light.

it's so simple that i can't wrap my mind around it. as emotions and thoughts arise, i should just let them in. eventually through this process, my understanding of my own mind will be that these emotions and thoughts will arise less often. as i understand my true Buddha nature, i will behave differently. i will also learn to understand that these emotions brought about by memories are not real. they are simply residual, left over from a situation that has passed.

a tall order indeed. as i proceed with my practice, i will keep these things in mind. i have been changing with the meditation practice; my reactions to situations are much different than they once were. i'm kind of stubborn, so i have to hear things over and over again. it's like the hiking trail today, though. once i know and understand it, i will benefit more. what a glorious realization to have! Sphere: Related Content