The Buddha is quoted as saying, Luminous is this mind brightly shining, but it is obscured by attachments. [AN 1.49-51]Continue reading
The Buddha is quoted as saying, Luminous is this mind brightly shining, but it is obscured by attachments. [AN 1.49-51]
What obscures the luminous mind are what the Buddha called the three poisons of greed, aversion, and delusion. These are poisons that we willingly swallow, usually not even realizing we are actively obscuring the natural luminous mind that is ours by nature.
Fortunately, we have the innate capacity to cultivate the antidotes to these poisons and clarify the mind. Through our practice of meditation and quiet contemplation, we cultivate a sense of spaciousness. We release the tension of clinging to things or withdrawing and withholding from life. We begin to see how, through fear, we have been creating a false sense of separation.
Through this simple and often misunderstood practice, wholesome states naturally arise, including generosity (dana), lovingkindness (metta), and wisdom (panna).
In our Cooking Pot analogy, if we have the cooking pot of Wise View, that contains and flavors Wise Mindfulness; and if we have a steady fire of Wise Effort, sparked by Wise Intention; and if we stir that mindfulness with the spoon of Wise Concentration practices, then wholesome nourishing states naturally occur. We become aware of the habituated harmful tendency to mix in the Three Poisons of greed, aversion, and delusion. These unwholesome tendencies are common to us all in big and little ways. But we rarely pause to consider how they pollute our experience of life, how they deplete any possibility of joy and connection. So we keep adding them into the mix and wonder why we are so unhappy. But instead of investigating, we add more poison! We say to ourselves, If only I had more of that, If only I didn’t have to deal with this, or This kind of thing only happens to me.
Simple recognition of these poisons begins to disempower them. Reactivity empowers them. Making an enemy of them empowers them. Acknowledging them as a part of the human experience disempowers them. As the Buddha was awakening, acknowledging all the thoughts that arose, his recognition of them as the luring distractions they were, was key to his awakening. Coming into a skillful relationship with all that arises is the key.
Yesterday my husband and I were enjoying lunch with old friends on the patio of a Japanese restaurant. At one point, a yellow jacket stopped by to peruse our dishes. My friend and I simply paused in our eating until it had passed. But when it moved on to our husbands’ plates, the yellow jacket got quite a different reception! It was suddenly engulfed in a battle of chopsticks. It ultimately spent more time with the men than with us, having to engage and defend itself. Their distress was significantly more acute than our mild noticing. It did lead the men into a fun conversation about Hiroshi Inagaki’s classic Samurai Trilogy where Tishiro Mifuni caught a fly with his chopsticks, a move replicated in the second Karate Kid movie. So, all good. But that reactivity, that distress, that battle-ready mode, was interesting to observe.
I’ve mentioned before that it’s helpful to focus on ‘how’ than ‘what’. What happened in that example was a yellow jacket passed through our eating space. The antagonized yellow jacket didn’t sting anyone, but it could have.
How we are in relationship to what happens matters. Whether it’s a traffic jam, disappointing news, or potentially frustrating experiences, we all have plenty of opportunities to practice noticing how we engage with all that arises. As we cultivate awareness and compassion, we clear the way for the luminous mind to shine, radiating a deeper understanding of the way of all things. That yellow jacket is not the enemy, not the other. Nor is the driver who is weaving dangerously in traffic. Nor is the politician trying to gain power for all the wrong reasons. Life is full of potential enemies, but our practice allows us to stop drinking the poison of greed, aversion, and delusion. It allows us to recognize the intrinsic interconnection of all life, the nature of impermanence, the power of lovingkindness, and the wisdom of awareness.
The Cooking Pot analogy helps us to remember and see the relationships between the eight aspects of the Eightfold Path. But, as handy as it is, once we are experiencing these states, these ways of being, the analogy can be released, because this is, at its heart, an experiential practice. We focus our attention on how it feels to set a Wise Intention, exert Wise Effort, have insight into Wise View, and cultivate Wise Mindfulness. The felt sense is the most valuable means we have to recognize and cultivate all that we need to live in a wise, meaningful, easeful, kind, compassionate, generous, joyful, and balanced way.
Metta, Dana, and Panna
Let’s look more closely at some of what we are cultivating.
Metta, the Pali word for lovingkindness, fills our hearts full to overflowing with a sense of ease and interconnection. This is not chasing after love. It’s not sitting around wishing we were loved. It’s not treating love as a commodity in short supply that we must guard and dole out stingily. Instead, it is infinite lovingkindness, so that every life form, from the smallest gnat to our dearest friend, including those with whom we disagree or don’t want to spend time with — all beings! — receive the lovingkindness that radiates from us. When we radiate lovingkindness, we are radiating respect and recognition. Those who receive it feel seen and heard. They don’t feel judged or feared. Their sense of separation is softened. Lovingkindness is a no-strings-attached, no-expectations way of being. It creates a safe space.
Dana, the Pali word for generosity, naturally arises. It is so different from the transactional, dutybound, way of giving we are used to. It is non-transactional. We give out of our bounty, out of gratitude, out of joy. You may be aware of the word dana only as how teachers in the Buddhist Insight tradition receive payment from students. But it is a non-transactional relationship. A sense of generosity naturally arises from students who have experienced any transformation of suffering, and so too arises the desire to support the teacher so they may continue to share the dharma. But the word itself is more far-reaching and pervades every aspect of our lives in wondrous ways that reveal and illuminate our intrinsic interconnection.
Panna, the Pali word for wisdom, arises from developing a regular practice of meditation, making room for insight. Suddenly we may come to understand deeply that all is intrinsically interconnected, that everything is in a state of transition at all times, all the elements coming together and coming apart in a dance of life. We see that this dance is sometimes painful. And we see how we make the pain much worse when we take it personally.
As an example, let’s look at something we don’t take personally. How about gravity? We accept that objects unsupported fall down. We didn’t know this initially. We had to learn it as babies dropping our uneaten food off our highchairs to the annoyance of our parents. Huh, look at that! How did that happen? What happens if I let go of this cup? Whoosh! and Splash! Wow! Imagine discovering gravity! How cool is that?
But now we know and take gravity for granted. Can we recognize that so many things in life are like gravity, a circumstance that isn’t personal? So often we take it personally when something happens to us.
Come to think of it, sometimes we even take gravity personally. Look in the mirror. Do you take it personally when the skin begins to sag? When the breasts droop? Do you judge yourself as failing, or judge life as unfair? Can you imagine letting that go and accepting that it’s just gravity? In so many ways the things that we have an aversion to are just as much a normal part of life as gravity. The yellow jacket is just life. The erratic driver is just a series of causes and conditions, physical, societal, and emotional, with a heavy dose of the Three Poisons along the way. Does our judgment change anything? Our sending metta, lovingkindness, just might. It certainly changes how we feel and allows us to return our attention to our driving, which is a benefit to all.
These insights help to soften the chokehold of tightly held opinions and harsh judgments. It is a waking up and seeing that pierces the cloud of delusion.
In so many ways, we tend to tie ourselves up in knots because we expect life to be different than it is, or we expect it to stay the same when it doesn’t. Just like gravity, it is a law of nature that everything is impermanent. And just as reliable as gravity is the deep understanding that all life is interconnected.
We learn to stop running away from what is and to greet it with spacious awareness and infinite lovingkindness.
That’s our practice in each moment of every day. And this practice allows for the simple radiance of the luminous mind to shine brightly, unobscured.
