The Truth Behind Desire

I was so glad I went to IMC on Monday. Gil gave a great talk on 'desire'.

Here are my notes:

Desire is not to be rid of. Rather, we need to have a wise relationship with it. Some desires are worth having, others are not. Each time, we need to carefully evaluate, is this wise or not? is this helpful or not? Sometimes compulsion makes it impossible to have that reflection. To evaluate, we need to look at the consequences for ourselves, and also for others. 

Desires are layered. We need to look at the surface desire, and what is the motivation underneath the desire. The quality of our intention has a big impact on the overall quality of our life. Are we motivated primarily by love or hostility, generosity or greed? We need to ask what is the the main purpose for our life, and then evaluate each of our desires against that purpose. 

We need to understand who is in charge? Us, or the desire? Are we in such a state of calm, contentment, and clarity, that we can see the desire and then have no need to pick it up? 

Simple guidelines. Important wisdom. Not taking desire at face value.

I know for myself, there has been many times when seemingly 'good' desire was in fact rooted in greed. And while I had a subconscious, intuitive sense of the truth, I chose to ignore it, not realizing the ultimate price. Conversely, I have also noticed how 'bad' impulses often arise out of a hurt place. Next time ill will arises, I will not be so quick to judge and feel even worse for it. There is a loving path to take there, that leads to a place of non reactivity and self-compassion. 

How do you relate to desire?

High Wire Act

Together,

the tyranny from sticky memories

of past deceptions,

along with the mirage 

of future freedom, without,

keep me suspended

in hard wire act, back and forth,

between two imaginary poles,

high above present reality.

Truthful heart,

heavy with burden of rancor,

and tiredness, and sorrow,

begs for a lighter load.

Confused mind

is of little help

as it contemplates fork in the road,

wondering which way?

Sitting still, I dwell amidst, 

letting wisdom do its work

of diligent sifting.

Listening to the Heart

Some timely words, straight from ZenDotStudio, a wonderful and always inspiring blog by Dharma sister and artist, Carole Leslie:

But mostly it's about honouring the call of the heart, doing what may not always seem logical or safe but doing it anyway. And somehow as you take the mundane, daily steps, you move closer to the heart's calling. Sometimes it's clear what the next step is and some days clouds cover the horizon. Some days you need to adjust your course around fallen trees and downed power lines and sometimes you just need to sit still and wait for the direction to make itself clear.

And so gradually it becomes clear at the gut level that we can never really know what's around the next corner but we have faith and trust that life is unfolding as it should. And there is always that sign in our heart pointing us toward harmony.

And so I sit.

Not Just Any Post-Its

Saturday, at Zen Hospice we did the Post-Its exercise. Although, I had gone through it twice before, this time was no less powerful. It goes like this:

1. Pick 16 blank square Post-Its, broken out into four categories of four, from four different colors
2. Lay them out on a sheet of paper
3. In the first category, write down your four most precious material possessions, one per Post-It
4. In the second category, write down your four most liked activities, one per Post-It
5. In the third category, write down your four most  favorite roles, one per Post-It
6. In the fourth category, write down your four most dear people, one per Post-It
7. Become aware of the feelings, thoughts, sensations as you go through exercise
8. Next, you are being asked by group facilitator to pick one item in each category and surrender it to him
9. Stay very aware of what is going on inside, as you hand items over to person, and look into his eyes
10. Next, you are to pick four more items, this time from any category
11. Again, notice what happens as you give those up as well
12. Last, facilitator goes around the room for the third time, and picks any number of items from different people, at random
13. What does it feel like?

Very, very powerful, not just in terms of helping one get a sense of what it must be like to face one's end of life, but also in terms of clarifying for oneself, what it is that really matters. It was certainly the case for me, as I found myself contemplating the universe of my attachments, and the differing degrees to which I am attached to different things, and activities, and roles, and people.

Asking the Right Question

Last night, I was fortunate to sit with, and hear talk from forest monk and Buddhist scholar Thanissaro Bikkhu. He spoke about the importance of giving skillful answers to questions. His talk referred to several suttas, with relevant excerpts quoted below: 

From Panha Sutta:

"There are these four ways of answering questions. Which four? There are questions that should be answered categorically [straightforwardly yes, no, this, that]. There are questions that should be answered with an analytical (qualified) answer [defining or redefining the terms]. There are questions that should be answered with a counter-question. There are questions that should be put aside. These are the four ways of answering questions."

From Abhaya Sutta (Thanissaro Bikkhu's commentary in Access to Insight):

The prince asks him two questions, and in both cases he responds first with a counter-question, before going on to give an analytical answer to the first question and a categorical answer to the second. Each counter-question serves a double function: to give the prince a familiar reference point for understanding the answer about to come, and also to give him a chance to speak of his own intelligence and good motives. This provides him with the opportunity to save face after being stymied in his desire to best the Buddha in argument. The Commentary notes that the prince had placed his infant son on his lap as a cheap debater's trick: if the Buddha had put him in an uncomfortable spot in the debate, the prince would have pinched his son, causing him to cry and thus effectively bringing the debate to a halt. The Buddha, however, uses the infant's presence to remove any sense of a debate and also to make an effective point. Taking Nigantha Nataputta's image of a dangerous object stuck in the throat, he applies it to the infant, and then goes on to make the point that, unlike the Niganthas — who were content to leave someone with a potentially lethal object in the throat — the Buddha's desire is to remove such objects, out of sympathy and compassion.

Most notably, Thanissaro Bikkhu stressed the importance of not just answering questions skillfully, but also of raising the right questions. 

This morning, I reflect on this last point from Thanissaro Bikkhu, and I wonder which question(s) do I need to ask myself? which ones do I need to bring forth to my teacher? and I realize, that in itself is a great question to ask . . . 

How about you? Which questions should you be asking, that you have not already asked?

Sacred Fire Burning

Sitting some more,

I felt discontent,

brewing.

Oh! no, not again,

judging mind wanted to dismiss,

quick.

Down below,
tender heart was beating

to another drum.

Soon, I started to see,

the fire of sacred desire,

kept under lid.

Two Roads

Today, Gil expanded on the topic of intention, this time addressing choices we make not just in the long run, but also moment to moment. Here are my notes - talk was videotaped, so you should be able to view it very soon:

The teachings of the Buddha frequently refer to the two directions we can choose at any moment: either skillful or unskillful. This supposes we understand what is most beneficial. How de we meet every situation? Gil read following poem from Robert Frost:

'The Road Not Taken'

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.  

We always have the choice between two options: to go further into the woods and get more entangled, or to take the road less traveled. Most people choose the first one. We can have people walk the path with us, but eventually, we are the only one who can walk the path. No one can do it for us. There is a poignancy in all the choices we make, including small ones. Analogy of two parallel lines. If one nudges one even slightly, in the long run it can result in the big difference in direction. We can have a role in where our life is going, and the choices we make. How we meet each moment and circumstances.

I shared dream I had with Gil:

I am in a clothing store, shopping with my daughter. In a room off to the side, I find an installation with, on the surface some flint stones with chiseled hooks at the end. I examine them, one by one. The stones are resting on a large black circular rock. I lift the rock and find another smaller black rock underneath. The whole thing is resting on a huge, light colored rock, most of it buried under the ground. On the right, there are also some fragments of a large female Buddha, made out of green marble. Only the face and the hands are visible. 

I ask Gil about persistent weight in my stomach, that shows up every time I sit. Should I keep paying attention to it, or should I ignore it? Weight feels like black stone in my dream. The stone hooks make me think of various clingings I have been examining. Gil wonders how I feel about the huge rock in my dream. I like the solidity, and the vastness. Gil suggests I do not turn away from unpleasantness in the stomach. There is something there for me to learn. I need to stay with it, and experience it within wider context. It may be an important step towards feeling greater compassion for others.

Grateful for teacher who can help me make skillful choices, as here in where to place attention during meditation.

What Is Your Intention?

Gil's last night talk was about intention.  One of those talks that get you thinking, a lot . . .

My notes from the talk:

More important even than meditation, is intention we set for awakening. Discovering the meaning, values, purpose we want to organize our life around. And then have the courage to live it. Remembering that we can choose how to live our life right now. Are we being driven by pleasure, security, approval . . . or something else?

Like the Buddha, everybody has a palace that they need to leave. Need to discover for ourselves what is our palace? and what is outside of that palace? There has to be some turning away from one thing towards another. For that, we need to plum the depth of our intention, in the direction of the heart. By asking the question, what is my intention, over and over, the intention gets refined over time, and becomes purified from the ego. Dropping down every day, finding out the weak links, and our shortcomings. Each time, answering in one sentence. 

Do not settle for first answer. Do not allow fear or responsibilities to get in the way of what might be. Figure out things we need to renounce, leave behind, the palace, so that we can follow through with our intention. This is especially important in our culture, because we are faced with so many choices, that it is easy for our deepest intention to get lost. 

What do you spend your time doing? Human life is very precious. Hence do not waste it in meaningless activities. Instead focus on aspiration for awakening, and heart's innermost desire to be free. Also, talk to other people and share your search. It can be very interesting. 

When Gil asked us to spend a few minutes quiet to define our intention, all I could come up with was: "To love myself completely and love others just as much". Today, with more time to investigate, my attention turns towards the castle. The old barriers inside my body that keep love from flowing freely, in and out. The ego, that keeps making life harder than it needs to be, with its incessant demands for attention, and reassurance, and satisfaction. The need for an illusory security. The intellectual pride, that looks down on the heart . . . So many rooms in the castle, to open and close.

What is your life intention? What is your castle?