#buddhasamana

[panatmansam]

You aren't so Permanent

Think about it for a second. How old are you? Over 20? Over 30? Over 40? Over 50? Let's say you are over 40. Let's say born in 1979., That means you should have clear memories of 1989. Do you? What do you remember? Anybody die? Were you sick that year? Lose any teeth? You were ten.

What about 1999? Have any stuff from that year? That was a big year. Any friends still left. Any dead? Any have kids? How many individual days do you remember? Softball games? Hockey? Football? Hardly any huh? Slim Shady came out that year.What about the stuff that kept you so worried all the time? Remember? Did it all come true? Did it all fall apart?

This day to day consciousness of yours that you hold so dear. It is nothing at all. What a conceit of ours to imagine that some God or eternal consciousness would find anything in our petty grasping temporary memories. Fleeting sense impressions which to preserve for all time. Why is this small thing so significant?

What of your 1999 body is left? Those cells are long dead, excreted and flushed and have become fish or a reef somewhere. You are a drifting puff of blue smoke in a hallway. Passing away, always passing away.

[panatmansam]

Inner and Outer Teachings in Buddhism

“Ananda, what does the Order of monks expect of me? I have taught the Dharma, Ananda, making no distinction between inner and outer: the Tathāgatahas no ‘guru’s fist’in respect of teachings.

== Mahāparinibbāna Sutta 2.25.1

   The Buddha was not a mystic. His awakening was not a shattering insight into a transcendent Truth that revealed to him the mysteries of God. He did not claim to have had an experience that granted him privileged, esoteric knowledge of how the universe ticks. Only as Buddhism became more and more of a religion were such grandiose claims imputed to his awakening. In describing to the five ascetics what his awakening meant, he spoke of having discovered complete freedom of heart and mind from the compulsions of craving. He called such freedom the taste of the dharma.

– Stephen Batchelor, “Buddhism Without Beliefs”

Buddhism started in India 2500 years ago and moved into Tibet, China then to Japan. It also spread south into Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar. In each of these places, it took on unique characteristics. Tales of hungry ghosts, of gods, heavens and legendary beasts were attached to the Buddha.

The “core Buddhism” that of the oldest teachings is devoid of these trappings. The Buddha taught using the Dharmic vocabulary of Northern India, but the concepts were very different from the Brahminism of his day especially his teachings on anatta or no-soul which angered the Brahmin priests who condemned it as blasphemy.

I must disagree with Batchelor on one point. The Buddha was a "mystic" in the classic definition of the word as one who experiences divinity "directly. The Buddha uses that precise phrase "direct experience". Nibbana is the closest thing to divinity in our sense of the word that we can translate.

Oh, one final thing. Buddhism despite what the historical Buddha taught twenty-five hundred years ago, today, Buddhism most definitely has an inner and an outer teaching as do the of the main religious traditions including Abrahamic faiths of the West.

One is about devotion and faith and may speak of Gods and Demigods, heavens and hells and require sacrifice and ritual.

The other, the inner, the “esoteric” teaching is about eliminating suffering, not after 10,000 incarnations but here, now in this life. It is practical. It involves training the mind through an application of mental discipline and moral rectitude. We must be kind, compassionate and good. We do not push ourselves forward as holders of a secret knowledge; however, the flip side of this is that we do not offer somebody new to the tradition a teaching which might cause them anxiety or confusion.

The Buddha's message was once clear. I fear it is no longer.

[panatmansam]

Taming the Elephant

In the early teachings calming the mind in meditation was equated with “taming the elephant”. The traditional method was to stake the wild elephant out near water. The elephant would rage and struggle. Every day the trainer would visit and talk quietly to the animal but not interfere.

After a few days the elephant would tire and get hungry. The trainer would then feed and stroke the creature all the while speaking slowly and calmly. Eventually the elephant would calm and be quiet and ready to respond to commands.

We do not “struggle” to quiet the thoughts. This is the single greatest error that beginning meditators make especially those without teachers. There are two kinds of thoughts you will encounter. The first is the “discursive thought”.

These are the thoughts that tell a story and connect with other thoughts in a narrative. The second are thoughts generated by the default mode network (DFN). These thoughts are autobiographical and are always negative. These are the thoughts that keep people from meditating.

The key? Recognize these thoughts and let them go moving back to center that is to your mantra, your breathing or whatever your meditation focus happens to be.

[panatmansam]

Swimming in the River of Being

The old man was wrinkled in the manner of old soft leather. Skin brown soft and still supple somehow despite the passage of nine decades in the Bengali sun. His eyes sparkled with quick intelligence as he glanced up to greet us as we entered his room in the monastery.

We spoke of many things that last meeting at Escondido in October 2020. We spoke of friends now gone, passed into whatever awaits us after the breaking up of this form. Then he spoke of the ancient ones of long ago and the legends they told about death and the movement of the life force from body to body.

He said the Arya were originally a wandering people who worshiped the sun and the wheel. These symbols are still part of Buddhism to this day. Over many generations these people learned that by silently gazing into the glowing embers of a campfire (hearth) that certain mental states could be reached. These were enhanced by the drinking of soma. This drink is unknown to us but could have been alcohol mixed with opium, cannabis, a local hallucinogenic mushroom still collected by herbalists or some other local mixture. The drink was said to be empowering and to bring visions.

These men and women wandered the great broadleaf forests of the Himalayan foothills in the far Northeast of historical India in modern Nepal. They made great bonfires of sandalwood logs and these forests are still the source of most sandalwood produced today. Sandalwood is sacred to Buddhists and used in Buddhist meditation.

Then the old man became quiet and spoke to my acquaintance in a language I could not identify. My friend turned to me and said "he says he's dying and he is going to prepare to leap". I told him I didn't understand what he meant by "leap". My friend spoke to the old man again in whispers. Then he said "in Jhāna practice when you enter the stream you will feel the pull of the river of being."

The old man continued, and my friend translated: "you must enter the river and be in the midst of the stream when the moment of death arises. You will know when the time has come because the pull will become irresistible and you will feel the aggregates of this being dissolve. There will be a time when a Buddha can act to prevent themselves from being pulled into the river of being. This is the true purpose of Jhāna practice according to the ancient ones." With that the old man coughed and waved us away.

On the drive home I asked my friend what we had witnessed. He said the old people from the villages believed a lot of strange things and that they were interesting from an ethnological point of view but not really very practical from a modern scientific standpoint. I wonder.

[panatmansam]

I teach only suffering and the end of suffering

The above quote is found twice in the Pali Canon. This quotation is often used by writers, myself included, to indicate that the Buddhadharma, the teachings of the Buddha are limited to this simple program.

This is of course false. The Buddha teaches all kinds of things. He has advice for newlyweds, advice for servants, advice for household budgets, entire discourses relating to proper behavior. There are discourses which are humorous where the Buddha gives upstart Brahmin teenagers their comeuppance. Many of the suttas read like sales pitches to wealthy householders looking for financial support.

If you get into the original documents a personality emerges. The Buddha is a man. He loses his temper and throws an entire group of acolytes out of camp for waking him up. He uses sarcasm.

He also teaches the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. The Discourses contain explicit and specific instructions on how to meditate properly.

Enlightenment is a real thing. Here is the problem. There are all kinds of "supranormal" powers associated with enlightenment including flying cross legged through the sky, but also hearing for miles, seeing for miles and other superpowers. On the other hand it is treated as a regular thing. The "super normal" powers are like the miracles of Jesus. They were added to the stories later to add magical significance to the event and indeed there is evidence of this in the suttas.

No, the reality was that students trained over the rainy season (monsoon season) then traveled teaching the dhamma. When ready they retreat into a "forest fastness, the root of a tree, an abandoned hut" in other words they are SOLITARY. Not with other monks ALONE.

Then they meditate and using what they have learned they reach nirvana and then RETURN TO THE COMMUNITY.

I believe they are here today. Among us working where they can do they best work they can. I want to join them before I pass from this Earth or get as close as I can. I want to help or inspire others to walk the path of the arahant.

[panatmansam]

My Buddhism is Secular and Pantheistic

I am only focused on what some people call early or primitive Buddhism. I see the Suttas as an instruction manual kept alive by men memorizing the words, generation after generation of young men grown old passing the words down, chanting the sacred words, in those preliterate days. Without writing only memory could preserve the dhamma.

Siddhārtha Gautama was a genius of top quality, Socrates, Newton. Spinoza, Einstein as quality is judged here in the West. I think that much of what was added later was an accretion, an encrustation, like barnacles on the belly of once sleek racing sloop.

He taught us twenty-five hundred years ago. Now it has come down to us over via the memory of nine hundred generations of monks since 500 BCE.

[panatmansam]

My Meditation Practice

I am going through all the secondary sources looking for references to primary sources for “guarding the doors of the senses” in order to develop a training for myself. My goal, and not one I am recommending for anybody else, is to learn how to find absolute quietude of spirit.

I want to be able to block all emotion. I want to face my own death, the death of my loved ones or even the pending destruction of the entire world with exquisite serenity. An unrippled pond.

I know it can be done. I did it before my heart surgery when I knew I might die. I did it at my father’s death bed though, admittedly I did not love the old man. I want to be able to block pain. This I am getting very good at so long as I have my tools. I need to learn to do it cold. In bed with nothing as in a hospital bed or ambulance.

The key to this is learning one-pointed concentration and how to sustain it. This is the key to all of it. It opens the path to everything promised by the Buddha. It is the path to samādhi It is the path to the jhāna. It is, so they tell me, the path to enlightenment, to nibanna.

[panatmansam]

Secular Buddhism: Roar Our Lion's Roar

It's a pretty good bet that most Buddhists worldwide believe when they die that they are reincarnated in some way. All of the texts the Pali Canon and the Mahayana sutras refer to reincarnation and to the topic of "merit" earned by regular people through supporting the monastics economically and with reverence.

Now, of course, I am a well known, card-carrying Pantheist meaning that my Secular Buddhism credentials are suspect. Not that I believe in any "God" nor am I a fan of any organized religion but because I hold the belief that life as a process is directed intrinsically. Directed not from above, but that is itself trial and error but with an end goal in "mind". It evolves through mutation and has no consideration for the passage of eons of time.

This is opposed by atheists who contend that such beliefs are neither secular nor Buddhist.This is not correct. The Buddha considered my pantheist position that upon death we reabsorbed into some greater thing and REJECTED it. This is ETERNALISM.

The Buddha said it was a false teaching based on an attachment to SELF and a desire for CONTINUATION  of self. So. I am shot down.Yes, but you ATHEISTS fared no better. He considered the concept that being ends upon the breakup of the body as a false belief and such a believer fell victim to a craving for nonbeing vibhavatanha in Pali.

This is also an attachment, clinging and a blockade on the path to nibbana.These forms of clinging are called "clinging to the doctrine of self" and will be found again and again in the Pali canon.

There you have it. The Buddha refuses to definitely take a position and essentially leaves it open by saying these are both false views. There is no eternal soul, but being is not extinguished upon death. This is a seeming contradiction. How can both be true? Either being goes on or it ends. Right?

What is important? That we perfect ourselves in the Precepts i.e. we live a moral life. We Eliminate hate, lust, craving and clinging. Specifically clinging to sensual pleasures (all senses not just sex), rules and practices (aimed at the Brahmins), clinging to doctrines of self (pantheist or atheist)

See Cula-sihanada Sutta: The Shorter Discourse on the Lion's Roar (MN11)

[panatmansam]

Getting Rid of All Cares and Troubles: Training Notes Sabbāsava Sutta (MN 2)

This sutta has it all. Specific directions to the meditator on HOW to attain EQUANIMITY which is the first position in the final stage of the graduated path to nibbana.

This is the second sutta in the Majjhima Nikaya and is one of the bedrock teachings. This sutta assumes that you have attained the ability of prolonged focused concentration and have some basic understanding of Buddhist theory of the mind.

It breaks down like this. We are a consciousness but not a self. This consciousness is best when in a state of equanimity. This is a state of unshakable calm and is a prerequisite to nirvana (nibbana).

How do we attain it?

We GUARD THE DOORS OF OUR SENSES.

An āsava is a mental imperfection, a defect. The first type we remove is through VISION. "Also as regards the present, uncertainty arises in him thus: 'Do I exist? Do I not exist? Who am I? How am I ? From where has this soul come? Where will this soul go?' The diligent student meditates upon impermanence and these concerns fall away.

The student who fails to meditate properly in the Buddha's words:

"In a person who thus considers improperly there arises one of the six [wrong] views. The view 'I have self' arises in Or, the view 'I have no self' arises in him. Or, the view 'I perceive self through self' arises in him really and firmly. Or, the view 'I perceive self through self' arises in him. Or, the view 'I perceive self through non-self' arises in him really and firmly. Or, he has the view thus: 'That self of mine speaks, knows and experiences the results of wholesome and unwholesome actions. That self of mine is permanent, stable, durable, incorruptible and will be eternal like all things permanent.'

"Bhikkhus! This wrong view is called a false belief!

Okay, that's a lot to unpack and we've just cracked this sutta open. The Buddha starts out by shutting down most of the philosophical debate in the sangha. He steps into the center of the assembly under the Bodhi tree and tells the assembled students to stop bickering. Whether or not we are eternal or die for good when we die here is a useless question and gives rise to these six FALSE BELIEFS.

'I     have self'

I have     no self

I     perceive self through self

perceive     non-self through self

I     perceive self through non-self

That     self of mine speaks, knows and experiences the results of wholesome and     unwholesome actions

That     self of mine is permanent, stable, durable, incorruptible and will be     eternal like all things permanent.'

So, all of these are false. We have neither have a self nor noself. We cannot perceive self or nonself through self or nonself.

Now, what the heck are we supposed to do with this confusing teaching?

[panatmansam]

Your fate is not your karma. Your destiny is not your karma.

Karma is your action.

Your fate is only partly controlled by your actions. It is partly controlled by the actions of other human beings. It is partly controlled by non-human actors. Lastly by random chaotic chance.

Let’s say that the cat, startled by a wind gust, spills your coffee and as a result you’re running late for work. You argue with your partner over the cleanup and now rushing you run a red light and get a ticket.

The ticket was your destiny not your karma. Your karma was rushing through the light. The wind gust was random chance and the cat is a nonhuman actor. Your wife of course was the human actor. All combined to make your fate.

Results of karma are called karmaphala.

[panatmansam]

This is actually a pretty good summary. I use it as a “memory jogger” during contemplation.

[panatmansam]

Secular Buddhism in a Nutshell

Buddhism distilled down to its essence is this. There are certain mental exercises which develop a mental technique of  DETACHMENT. This detachment is a means of dealing with the pain of loss which is the necessary reality of life. Every life. However, detachment alone is NOT ENOUGH.

Along with the detachment we must also live a MORAL LIFE. Buddhist morality is simple and basic. Compassion. Don't be cruel to each other.  Share what you have.  Don't take what is not given. Be kind. Realize that your past is only a MENTAL FORMATION.

What about DEATH? You won't have to worry about it. You see the peace one achieves during a lifetime of practice is preparation for death.  In the suttas, the discourses (teachings) of the Buddha there are a lot of references to Indian mythology.  There is much talk of gods and heaven and hells and reincarnation. The suttas arose in a cultural context after all.

However, encased within this cultural setting are the TRUE INSTRUCTIONS. These are the instructions meant for those in seclusion on the path. The Buddha says "stop asking me about life after death. It is a foolish question. All I teach is the ending of suffering, here and now. “

In the end friends the essence is simple. Be kind. Be compassionate. Practice solitude at least once in your life during that solitude learn concentration. Learn detachment. Learn the destruction of ego. If you want to go further? Well, that is up to you of course but the legends say once one enters the stream there is no going back. Sam.

[panatmansam]

[panatmansam]

Maximus

I am going to return to my Buddhist vocation and retreat back into solitude and once again be  donning the garments of the samana.

This means returning to a monk like existence of study, meditation and writing. Although I live with my wife she is a willing participant in this part of my life and in fact makes it possible by running interference for me with the outside world.

In my solitary existence other than my cat Fidget I speak to nobody aside from doctors. Nobody except Maximus. Max for short.

Max is a ghostly white Venetian Carnival mask hanging om the wall just in front of my desk. What is cool about Maximus is that he is modeled after an ancient Roman Cavalry mask which resembled theater masks depicting Gods. The faces were perfect without emotion. They terrorized the poor tribes people. Not this time.

This one was found at the site of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest which took place in Germany in 9 AD where the German “barbarian” forces ambushed the Romans and massacred them leaving their bones in a great pile deep in the dark ancient forest to be found a decade later by a frightened Roman patrol.

The Romans never conquered the Germans.

[panatmansam]

Where does the idea that Buddhism says that life is nothing but suffering come from, other than a reading of the first truth in isolation do you think? And actually it can’t be just the first truth in isolation because he doesn’t say existence itself is suffering.

That is where it comes from for certain. I often have to explain this to new students of Buddhism. Buddhists are realists. There is no fairy tale after life. Some Buddhist traditions do accept reincarnation and the concept of "merit" that is do good in this life and be reincarnated in a higher realm.

However, a careful reading of the Buddha's teachings gives us another less fanciful teaching. He says that he isn't going to tell us what happens after we die. He says it doesn't matter because all he teaches is how to end suffering now, here in this life.

You see, Buddhism is very honest in its teaching. Some people cannot deal with deep philosophical concepts. In fact, we are warned, as teachers, not to cause fear in the hearts of the simple folk. Let them light incense and pray to the statues.

The truth is simple. The Buddha lays out a gradual training for those who are interested. It is very clearly outlined in the suttas. In three suttas primarily.

One must first learn true mindfulness. Onepointedness. It takes practice but anybody can do it if properly trained. That is stage one. Stage two involves solitude and applying this new skill to certain exercises. Daily. All day. Every day. Alone. In a room.

The third stage? Well, I just don't know. I have thus far failed in my vocation and may have to start over from the beginning.

[panatmansam]

The Secular Buddhist View

In this view, most people do not believe in any kind of afterlife including reincarnation. This is because they can't see a mechanism for it to work that doesn't involve the supernatural. How can any part of me be transmitted to any other being aside from the obvious, sex and genetics?

So, they believe when we die, it ends.

There is nothing left. No heaven, hell, gods, devils or reincarnation. Not even blackness. Not even nothingness. Where does a candle flame go when it is extinguished? No where. It goes neither here nor there, It is just gone. Yet all flames are the same flame.