True Beauty

This morning we had a slideshow of our photos running on our home TV, and both of us were looking at some pictures of when we were at Las Vegas a few years ago, at how beautiful some of the insides of the hotels are. It was Chinese New Years celebration and there were beautiful statues and decorations dotted throughout the complex and streets.

But then I contemplated a little deeper. Is this beauty there to lure people in to spend and therefore lose more money? Where did the money come from for the decorations if not the tears of those who have lost their hard earned money to a bad bet? Suddenly what I thought was beautiful became a manifestation of pain and sorrow.

It made me question what is beauty exactly. The beauty of a red sky at sunset is also the bleeding of the earth as the pollution erodes away the clean air, the spectacular beauty of the molten rock pouring from a volcano is also the deadly force that destroys lives and towns. The beauty of a cute baby's face is also the suffering of a less fortunate child who gets no such attention. What is a beautiful roast dinner to one, to a vegetarian is a murder scene.

As the Buddha said:

"...beauty that simply stands opposed to ugliness is not true beauty."

Beauty that discriminates is not beauty, and neither is it ugliness. Beauty that discriminates is discrimination.

So what then is true beauty? Does this then mean that beauty is nothing but an illusion? Is beauty just a notion we have constructed? A seduction to attachment that we should allow to pass without ado?

We know beauty when we see it, but let us look at the dictionary definition:

"The quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind."

This satisfaction, the pleasure that peace can bring, is exactly what we experience only in the present moment. When there is nothing to grasp for, when we arrive, when we finally find peace, then we are truly satisfied.

And so I think that everything in the present moment is beautiful. Absolutely everything. The moment we transcend samsara we are taken to the Pure Land, everything is illuminated by Amitabha, we get to witness the Buddha-nature, the dharma in all things.

That doesn't mean to say that actions are beautiful. It may be difficult to see beauty in a scene of mass destruction for instance. But in the present moment there are no actions, there is no destruction, there is no karma. To see beauty we need to see beyond actions, beyond past or future, to all that is present in the here and now. We need to look deeply into things to see their true nature, their true emptiness, to see that what is lasting, what inter-is, is beautiful. Everything is illuminated by the infinite light of Amida.

It is that light that is beautiful. What we think of as pleasing to the senses is really just a glimpse of the Pure Land, but we mistakenly think that the source of the beauty is the object itself. In actuality, then, when we see something as beautiful we should acknowledge that the true source of that beauty is suchness itself, whether we see that through mindfulness, vipassana or through the mind of Amida via the nembutsu.

The next time I am sitting in awe at a beautiful landscape, decorations, or the beautiful face of my daughter, I won't doubt the beauty I see. I won't look deeply at an object only to replace one notion with another, instead I will see it as it really is, with notions extinguished. With this I will know that through the grace of Amida the beauty I am seeing is really the beauty of Amida's light illuminating the scene. That through this light I can look deeply into the present moment, into its emptiness, and in that I will see its true, satisfying nature, its true beauty.

The faith we have in this gives us enormous strength to act with a clear mind, and to resolve suffering. That is true beauty.

From the Dharmapada: The Path of Perfection:

"When one attains the release called the Beautiful, at such a time he knows in truth what Beauty is."

Namu Amida Butsu!

When All Is Lost

About two weeks ago I had a nightmare. I'm not quite sure why, I think I had a cold at the time and wasn't sleeping well. In the nightmare I was being chased by a gang who were desperately trying to kill me. Right before I woke up I was surrounded by men holding knives and seemingly in the last few seconds of my life. It was terrifying.

Even though I was dreaming I was in a state of absolute panic and fear. It wasn't the kind of fear that would afford me the time to be mindful. It wasn't a matter of looking deeply into my fears, because I was overwhelmed by a primal need to protect my life, to fight for survival.

Suddenly all the sutras, all the books I've read, all concepts, dharma debates and practices all became meaningless. What I needed was to see my family one last time. My wife and adorable daughter. I needed a warm hand to pull me up and out of my terror. I had no energy to think, the fear was so overwhelming it paralyzed me.

Zen is quite a practical religion, and my practice would tell me to just act and not let the fear itself become an obstacle to a necessary action. There are many instances when that is very sound advice. Yet when death seems inevitable, that strategy hardly seems useful if even possible.

When Jesus was on the cross he exclaimed "My Father, Why have you forsaken me?". As our lives are being taken from us, our reaction is to feel alone, abandoned and helpless.

When all else is lost, where do you turn? It struck me at this point that perhaps Zen practice isn't enough. Maybe my practice isn't strong enough, or perhaps I am just honest to realize that I am not strong enough. No matter how able we are to tame our minds, sometimes in a state of desperation what you need the most is comfort. You need to regress to a child, and submit your worries to your mother's capable hands.

Pure Land Buddhists, and many other Buddhists also, chant the name of Amitabha Buddha when death is imminent. Supposedly to be reborn in the Pure Land, but I think there is more to it than that. It is not an egotistic practice, it is an act of devotion.

As a baby we are helpless, yet somehow more content than we are the rest of our lives. Our lives are entrusted to our mother, who feeds and nurtures us. This type of submission is the deepest form of devotion, the deepest faith we will ever experience. Yet when a baby is distressed she cries 'mama'. To say that this is purely a survival tactic is superficial, I think, because reaching out gives us hope, and where there is hope there can be peace.

For all the instruction we receive on following the eightfold path, we should never see it as a skill to attain. When fear is overwhelming you are in no state to look to practice a skill. If anything, Zen is about letting go of skills, letting go of notions. This is very important. There is an excellent book by Shunryu Suzuki called 'Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind' that emphasizes that very point.

Letting go is exactly what we do as a baby: we let go of our need to survive, we surrender it to our mother, and then we are as peaceful as a sleeping baby.

Many of the most devout Christians, Muslims, the most faithful of theistic religious followers, have learnt how to let go. They submit their worries, their fears, to God, to Jesus, to Mary, or to Allah. By letting go they are able to live in the present moment in peace. This isn't something to be dismissed, even if you have never followed a theistic religion.

As Zen practitioners we shouldn't deny our human state. We are loving creatures. We need companionship, not just books, empty words or ability to sit alone in meditation. In our deepest moment of need, we need someone to carry us away. We don't need practice, we need someone. This is why we have Amida Buddha, God, Jesus, Mary... that is why we need a personification, a person to submit our troubles to and to carry us away when we most need someone to be there for us. It is a most fundamental aspect of our humanity and should be embraced, not transcended. It should be transformed into love for a greater being, into energy that can lift you up into their arms.

Devotion itself can be Dharma. It was said in a Zen proverb that anything that is not of the self is Dharma. Submitting yourself to another is thus Dharma. Submitting your fears actually enables you to be mindful. It is a deep practice that should be embraced.

As Carl Jung pointed out, we should never deny our own roots. If we grew up in a Christian environment, then we should embrace the figure of Jesus or Mary. If we feel more comfortable embracing Buddha then we should embrace them. But we should always have someone that, in our weakest moment, we can submit our fears to. Perhaps you won't realize this until you are faced with overwhelming fear, but I can bet it will happen one day.

Zen tells us that words and concepts are not sufficient to allow us to experience reality. In our weakest state we realize just how true that is.

It took this nightmare for me to understand how important it is to not see Zen as something to be mastered or even attained. You're not studying for a degree in psychology. Just as how you arrived, on your deathbed you have nothing. As we are reading we should always pause to remind ourselves that there is nothing to learn there, but everything to let go.

But in a state of fear, even the thought of letting go is not enough. Letting go doesn't help you from feeling lonely.

Mindfulness is often described as the practice of observing our thoughts as if they were flowing down a river and we were sitting on the riverbed watching. And this works. Devotion doesn't change that. It just means that at the end of the river is God, or Buddha, or Mary, with a glowing, happy face and wide open arms. When you have no strength, they are your strength. We let go of our thoughts, but we know who will receive them. They will watch your thoughts flow down the river with you.

And when all is lost, in your final moments, you simply fall into that river, and flow into their arms.

Even in moments in daily life this can be useful, because the burden of looking deeply is shared - now you have someone watching your thoughts also, so you will want to only have pure thoughts, you will strive to become better.

Devotion can be a wonderful thing, and (contrary to some of my previous posts) I am beginning to think that having a person to look to, and to devote yourself to, can give you more strength to practice, not less, and someone to fall back onto when all else is lost.

Slowing Down

When we're driving down the freeway, going perhaps 70 or 80mph, our eyes lock onto objects further and further away the faster we go. The world around us disappears, and all that we see is our destination. While we are traveling where are we? We are neither at our destination, nor are we on the way because we do not see what is on the way. We are nowhere. Tuning out reality, neglecting the world that is here now, all we do is set ourselves up for accidents and tragedy.

If we live our life at 80mph we are not alive in reality. We live instead in a world of delusional goals. If we spend today worrying about tomorrow, or dwelling on yesterday, then with that mentality a true day is never experienced. Where we set our sights is the difference between living and not living.

If your mind is the car, and your body is the surroundings, the question becomes whether your mind is truly in your body. A phrase people often use is "you are a million miles away". How accurate this is. When you are not alive in the present moment, your mind leaves your body. You live in a true out of body experience. The mind escapes from the body and tries to live in its own world, in samsara, maya, an illusory world. The goal of mindfulness, the goal of Zen Buddhism, is to bring together your mind and your body. We do this by slowing down, and looking deeply.

When the car is going so fast the driver no longer sees what is around him, what happens to the car? Likewise when your mind is preoccupied with tomorrow, what happens to today? What would we do if the orange tree didn't bear any fruit because it was too busy worrying about whether next year's summer will be warm enough? What would we do if the sun stopped burning because it was worrying about whether it will exist billions of years from now?

The mind is a powerful instrument, but like everything it is an interdependent component. It depends on your body as much as your body depends on your mind. When your mind thinks it is a separate, individual object and it tries to leave the body, then neither can exist. A speeding car certainly doesn't stay on the freeway for long.

Having angry thoughts is natural. One shouldn't suppress angry thoughts. But mindfulness can transform how your mind responds to anger. If you let anger consume you, your mind will be a million miles away. All that would be left is a run-away car with no driver that can cause so much damage. Being mindful when you are angry lets you acknowledge the anger objectively, without affecting what drives your actions. The car moves on slowly and gracefully and the anger, because it is now seen as empty and impermanent, dissipates and passes by. This is an example of how mindfulness transforms suffering.

To live is to touch reality. The mind must be in contact with the body, the body must be in contact with its environment. Everything interconnects in harmony. When we try to separate, when we view things as separate, we are delusional and we ignore the harmony, thinking we can create something better ourselves in our mind. Erroneously we accept our thoughts as though they are reality when they are nothing but a fictitious, fake reality. The true reality is out there, not in your mind.

As a illusory separate thing the mind is vulnerable, the separateness must eventually end, it possesses and loses, it lives in a world of pain and sorrow. But when the mind joins with the body, when the body joins with the environment, then there can be no vulnerability. There is no loss because all is one. Living mindfully is living in peace, living in nirvana, in the pure land.

Putting this in perspective shows me just how important it is to live mindfully. I may walk a little slower. I may drive a little slower. I may move a little more gracefully. I may speak fewer words. I may stop more often to soak up the beauty in which I am immersed. But each step I take is a step I take in heaven, on this beautiful path for all of eternity.

Zen Parenting

Some people have told me that having children is the end of your life as you know it. I have often written about my experience of having children and how it relates to my work life elsewhere, but I'd like to also share my experience of having children from a spiritual perspective.

One may think that even in Buddhism having children can be a distraction from your path to enlightenment, but I don't think that's the case at all. In fact the opposite is true.

I have set myself a goal of becoming more mindful each day. I find new techniques to transcend my existence such that I do not exist day by day in a cloud of samsara, but instead I live in reality, touching the here and now as each moment passes, becoming a part of the harmony of reality.

Since having a child I have discovered what it is like to live. Every time I am playing with, being with my daughter I feel alive. I'm sure many parents have also had this wonderful experience. But why is this?

My daughter doesn't let me sit down for long. She pulls me up by my hand, and drags me over to her toys or outside. She wants to play. Playing is participating for the enjoyment of participating, of being a part of something, of being able to win or lose without it really affecting you. Is there much of a difference between playing and being mindful? Is this not kensho in Zen Buddhism? Is not the bliss of playing a sharing in the sambhogakaya of the Buddha?

My daughter always bring me back to reality, she always helps me touch the here and now. In her I see a being who transcends the worrying, endless decisions and debate that seem to consume us as adults.

This is just one way that being with children can be a form of meditation. Children are also a good reminder of sunyata, emptiness. In them we see ourselves, our wife, parents, ancestors, cultures. In them we see all of humaity, we see the dharmakaya. Every sentence they utter can be seen as a koan, not just because it it is seemingly nonsensical, but because it is a glimpse of true reality.

There is perhaps not greater manifestation of the law of karma than your child. Every action, every intention you have, will bear fruit in your child. If you curse, it won't take long before you hear a complaint from the school principal about your child's foul mouth. If you lose your temper and smack your child in a moment of weakness, then this is how your child will learn how to react in difficult social situations. Children are like mirrors, and in them not only do you see your ancestory but you also see every action you take. They are your walking karma.

Having children is a gift that can transform our lives in many ways, but more than anything they can be zen masters, teachers that can educate us not just about parenting, but also about ourselves, reality and enlightenment.

If only we stayed that way.

You Are Home

Decision trees let us map out scenarios and possible outcomes, and from an outcome another series of choices, another series of possible outcomes, and so on. The resultant structure is called a decision tree because each decision branch resembles a tree.

As complicated as it may sound, in the back of our mind we are constantly immersed in a giant decision tree. We subconsciously think 'what will we have for dinner tonight? if we have chicken it would be nice. If we have sandwiches we might still be hungry. If we have chicken then what would we do after dinner?' - the list goes on. Whether we're conscious of it or not, it's most definitely there.

This is a subconcious form of worry. It's in the background all day long, and the more we have going on in our lives, the larger and more complex the decision tree becomes. The more we think about problems, the larger and more complex it becomes. It bogs us down, it feels heavy.

Goals, expectations, desires, this constant feeling that we need to attain more to be happier - all of these things add new dimensions and more weight to our decision tree. It's ironic that we think that we can gain happiness by acquiring more things - more wealth, a bigger house, a bigger car, a bigger TV. Yet beyond the instant gratification, what does it really give us? It just adds to the weight of the burden of our decision tree.

When we have a larger decision tree in the back of our mind, we feel like we have "a lot on our mind". When we have less, we feel at peace.

When we go on a vacation we try to forget about our worries. All we're really doing is trying to forget our decision tree is there. Vacation is a form of denial. By changing the scenery all we're doing is trying to remove the reminders of the things in our decision tree - the pending worries. But ignoring the tree is not the solution. You cannot run away from the things you have decided need worrying about.

Some people feel that drinking alcohol or taking drugs, blurring our mental capacity to think clearly, will also take away our problems. But again, beyond the instant gratification all we are doing is denying that the problems are there. When we're sober, they suddenly reappear and now you have more to worry about: am I becoming depending on alcohol? What did I do when I was drunk?

Thinking about scenarios and possible outcomes is a form of protection. By having answers ready, by being prepared, we are more likely to be able to retain our status quo - to keep our peace.

But perhaps the decision tree is not the problem, perhaps the problem is our attachment to the status quo - our aversion to changes in our environment and routine that gives us this mental capacity to worry.

From since we were very young, the day we had our first problem ('why isn't mommy around to feed me?'). The womb was such a permanent seeming place. It seems that the minute we are born we have a carrot dangling in front of us. We are trained to live up to the expectations of society. Fashion, trends, peer pressure. Yet the truth is we are born with everything we need to find happiness. The problem is not that we are unhappy, the problem is that we are looking for happiness in the wrong places.

Nobody really tells us where to find happiness. Our parents may not know. With everything that is pushed into our faces from the media, it's easy to think that material wealth is the key to happiness. That posessing more somehow gives us a sense of foundation and permanence.

Becoming attached to the status quo, to the environment in which you live, to posessions that make this synthetic foundation, is a symptom that you do not yet understand where to find happiness. If we start to value reality not as something that is stationary, permanent, but instead value life as a stream of flowing water, always changing path and always adapting to the course, then we no longer become attached to the false notion of permanence.

All life is impermanent. Change is unavoidable.True happiness lies not in synthesizing a notion of permanence. True happiness lies in realizing impermanence and understanding how truly wonderful change can be.

We think that to live is to resist change. But all we are doing is living in this giant decision tree, we are not really living in reality at all. We live two steps ahead of ourselves, and so we don't really live at all. It becomes this illusory world of problems, of notions, prejudices, disappointment, unhappiness, suffering.

To accept change, to value reality for what it really is, is to be truly alive. When we accept this, the decision tree embedded in our mind disintegrates. We no longer need to protect things from changing because we embrace change. We touch everything around us with a new form of relationship, a pure friendship that constitutes true loving kindness.

This is peace. This is nirvana. Happiness is right here already - all it takes is a new perspective.

Tranquility

Intently I watch the calm,
the still waters of a lake during sunset,
a quiet breeze gently caressing every leaf, every tree.
Gentle echoes emanate but wane,
chasing voices, rushing whispers,
the breath of tenderness across the landscape
as she peacefully slips below the blanket of dusk.
Colors fading, edges no longer seen,
but not into darkness, warmth,
embraced in the stillness of peace.
A distant bird's lonely song
is all that remains,
the quiet voice of life.
the overtone of tranquility.

There is peace all around us. There is tranquility everywhere. Nirvana is here, in the here and now, it is not somewhere waiting for us or hiding from us. What is Nirvana, and what is Buddha Nature if not true tranquility. The harmony of nature, free from judgment, free from worries, free from fear, free from our projections and our selfish manipulation, free from these notions, that is Nirvana.

A picture of a still lake can help remind us of that, it can be a "bell of mindfulness" - a term I borrow from Thich Nhat Hanh. It helps us realize the harmony and tranquility that is inherent in nature, it brings us home. In that sense artwork can embody the dharmakaya. In music you can hear the sounds of nature, the harmony of Nirvana. All of these forms of creative art can help heal us, can help transform our suffering into peace, they can all help calm the waters of our anger and our fear.

Even during a great volcano there can be tranquility. Like all things even rocks change. The molten lava is rock that has sustained us for millions of years, the lava is a part of us just like the sky is a part of us. It may seem angry, but lava soon cools and turns back into rock, once again at the service of nature. It is not consumed by anger, it doesn't seek revenge, it has no notions of good or bad. The lava is the rock, the lava is the mud, the lava sustains life and the lava transforms life. Like the sunshine it provides energy that is necessary to the harmony of nature, that is necessary to tranquility.

So long as we maintain our notions and opinions, we cannot see tranquility. The silent lake at dusk may be hiding fish feeding on aquatic insects, yet without our judgment this can be just as still as the lake itself.

The lake of life, samsara, is tranquil if we only let it be. Nirvana is here if we can only see it.

Kids Without Compassion

In both schools of Buddhism the emphasis seems to be on transforming human nature from what it is natural to a different nature where loving kindness is valued over selfish gain. The question I have though, is whether that is in fact the 'natural' human condition, to be selfish?

There was recently an article on NewsWeek about "kids who lack compassion". There was a study where children were told stories of other children, some of whom were lucky and others who were not. When asked who they would prefer to befriend, the answer was consistently the children who were luckier. Ergo children inherently lack compassion, and compassion is something they learn later in life. You can read the article here:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16286475/site/newsweek/page/1

Many people see this as sign of hopelessness, that there is no future for a compassionate humanity if by our very nature we are born to be selfish. Some even cite evolution as being the cause of this condition. However I disagree.

The problem is not with the children. Children are born, for the most part, as blank slates. Of course they have emotions that are based on selfish gain, that is a matter of survival, but when it comes to their values these are mostly learnt from their parents and environment. If the parents value a boy who finds $5 as being lucky, then so will the children. If the parents value beauty over personality then so will the children.

What if the child who found $5 then used it to buy his first pack of cigarettes? What if the boy who lost that $5 learnt a valuable lesson about looking after his money? Who is the lucker one? Learning values requires looking deeply, and children do have a natural capacity for looking deeply but only if it is nurtured by their parents.

In a nurturing environment children learn that survival can be attained without the need for aggressive behavior. Children learn values of compassion by seeing their parents value compassion, by seeing their children being mindful and looking deeply and not acting on impule and emotion.

This is not a matter of natural selection in evolution, it is not a matter of original sin as some may claim. To say that is dismissing the actual problem, and dispelling our responsibility as a society. This is a problem that can be solved and the solution is in our hands.