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Ill Will and Kindness

3/26/2015

 

“I undertake the precept to refrain from speaking or acting with ill will.” If we take this precept quietly and genuinely, we’re vowing to do our best to not act out of anger, impatience, grumpiness, fear, or other aversive states.

When ill will is strong, we tend to focus more on what’s triggering it than on the mind-heart itself. So we may want to be more mindful when the impulse arises to criticize, blow the horn, raise our voice, turn away abruptly, or hit the “send” button after writing an intense email.

Of course, in the relative world, there are no absolutes. When we’re angry or frightened because our child is dashing toward the busy street without looking, we might yell “Stop!” rather than sit and compose ourselves for a few minutes. The urgency of some situations may outweigh the urgency to collect our equanimity first. However, after an emergency, we can reflect on what was going on inside and see if there’s something to be learned.

Buddhism has five lay precepts. Each is about restraining some kind of behavior: (1) killing, (2) stealing, (3) sexual misconduct, (4) lying, and (5) becoming inebriated. The first four were in wide usage before the Buddha was born. He adopted them and added his own spin. Specifically he said the intention behind an action is more important than the action itself.

The other day, I was talking with a scholar (Tony Bernard) about the first precept. It is usually translated as non-killing. But he said the actual wording (pāṇātipātā veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi) refers to non-striking. Given the Buddha’s emphasis on intention, a good case could be made for translating it as “… refraining from acting out of ill will.”

I’m not ready to drop the word “killing” from the precepts I recite every morning. But there is something about “refraining from acting with ill will” that resonates deeply in me. I have already followed Bhante Vimalaraṁsi’s example of adding a sixth precept: “to be loving and kind to myself and all beings.” This captures in positive language the foundation of all precepts and ethical behavior: kindness.

“Refraining from acting out of ill will,” goes to the core of how we get steered away from kindness. If we take it genuinely, it could lighten our lives and benefit those around us.

So I’ve added this precept before the other six. If you don’t take the precepts regularly, you could try saying this one seriously each day. 

I’d love to hear how it affects you.

Mettā,
Doug

PS. Here are all seven precepts in the wording I prefer (for now):

I undertake the precept to refrain speaking or acting with ill will.
I undertake the precept to refrain from killing or harming living beings on purpose.
I undertake the precept to refrain from taking what is not freely given.
I undertake the precept to refrain from wrongful sexual activity.
I undertake the precept to refrain from lies, gossip, harsh speech, and idle chatter.
I undertake the precept to refrain from drugs or alcohol to the point of heedlessness.
I undertake the precept to be loving and kind to myself and all beings. 

Interactive Saṅgha

3/26/2015

 

Here are some questions we might take into dyads or group discussion during our Tuesday saṅgha. They were brainstormed, unedited, and in no particular order. Please comment or add others for us to consider:

• Three traditional training questions about your recent meditation:

      - What's new and interesting?

      - What's difficult?

      - What wonderings do you have?

• What insights/realizations have come up for you recently? (Very small ones count!)

      – What happens in the mind-heart in your worst sittings _____

      - What happens during your best sittings _______

• How does the mind-heart feel about your practice this week?

• What did you notice in your meditation this evening?

• What's the quality of the mind-heart right now?

      - Having said that, what is the quality now?

      - And now?

• How do you know if you are doing it (meditation) right (skillfully)?

• What shadow elements might be affecting your practice?

      - What do you do with those?

• Talk to me about death.

• What's your favorite hindrance (or what hindrance favors you the most)?

• Please fill in: "If only ______, my meditation would be better."
     – Or: Please fill in: "If it weren't for _________, my meditation would be everything I can imagine wanting it to be."

• My meditation gives me everything I'd ever wanted … except …

• Fear and Love questions:

      – Tell me about fear?

      – What's fear's image of who you are?

      – What's the heart's image of who you are?

      – What's the heart's image of me?

• Who are you?

• If you were wiser than you are, what advice would you offer yourself?

      … would you offer me?

• If you did nothing but work on effective practices for the next 400 years, what would you be like at the end of that time?


An Easing Awake Newsletter, Edition the First

3/15/2015

 
Our first newsletter is warm off the presses (it's been a while in the making) and available here for your pleasure. It will bring you up to date on our nascent sangha and give you a peek under the hood. Welcome!

The Invitation

3/10/2015

 
by Oriah Mountain Dream.
People usually come to spiritual practices to alleviate (or escape) the anguish in their lives. But there is no way out. The only way is through, starting with the truth of how this moment truly is. For me, this prose poem points to this gentle fierceness. Oriah Mountain Dreamer was not writing as a Buddhist. But she captures in Western idioms some of the depth and textures that don't come through as fluidly in scholarly translations of the sutras .  Freedom comes through a wide open and unrelenting poignancy, not through careful correctness. - Doug

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your hearts longing.


It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals, or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true, I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours or mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn't interest me who you are, or how you came to be here- I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

The Duck

3/4/2015

 
Picture
This is one of my favorite poems of all times. And know it has been illustrated for us by a middle aged yogi and a five year old yogi. The poem was written by Donald C. Babcock and appeared in the New Yorker in October of 1947 (at about the time I was conceived).

Now we are ready to look at something pretty special.
It is a duck riding the ocean a hundred feet beyond the surf.
No, it isn't a gull.
A gull always has a raucous touch about him.
This is some sort of duck, and he cuddles in the swells.
He isn't cold, and he is thinking things over.
There is a big heaving in the Atlantic,
And he is part of it.
He looks a bit like a mandarin, or the Lord Buddha meditating under the Bo tree,
But he has hardly enough above the eyes to be a philosopher.
He has poise, however, which is what philosophers must have.
He can rest while the Atlantic heaves, because he rests in the Atlantic.
Probably he doesn't know how large the ocean is.
And neither do you.
But he realizes it.
And what does he do, I ask you. He sits down in it.
He reposes in the immediate as if it were infinity – which it is.
That is religion, and the duck has it.
He has made himself part of the boundless,
by easing himself into it just where it touches him.
I like the little duck.
He doesn't know much.
But he has religion.


Easing Awake

3/4/2015

 
Ease (peacefulness, equanimity) and wakefulness (clear awareness) are with us all the time. But they have no tension to draw our attention, so we miss them. Meanwhile unwholesome qualities like striving, desire, aversion, fear, and discouragement may also be present. These have a lot of tension and draw our attention. Like the nightly news, bad news grabs the headlines while good news is boring.

Searching for peaceful awareness is like scouring the countryside to find our noses. Rather than strive for easeful wakefulness, we can use them by taking a dispassionate interest in whatever is going.

If the mind is scattered, we just notice, “Ah, scattered mind.” If it’s peaceful we notice, “Hmmm, peacefulness.” If it’s grumpy and resistant we notice, “Far out, grumpiness.” What arises in the mind-heart is not as important as the quality with which we know it. This journey is easier if we smile and enjoy what’s happening rather than tensely control or fret about it.

Here’s the secret: unwholesome qualities cannot survive in the light of relaxed awareness. They dissolve like mist in the morning sun.

Even if ease and wakefulness seem puny, we can still exercise what we have. Dispassionate interest makes them stronger. As awareness grows, it will take care of those hindrances and distractions. We don’t have to do it. Our job is to take care of awareness. Then it can do its job of taking take care of us.

T. S. Elliot famously wrote:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Reflecting the S-Sense of the Six Rs

3/4/2015

 
Our practice brings comfort with new ways of seeing, even when it involves new ways of describing the practice itself. Last night's sangha saw this recasting of the 6-Rs...

  • Recognize
  • Release
  • Relax
  • Re-smile
  • Return to mettā
  • Repeat

__________________________________

...as the 5 S's:

  • See
  • Set it free
  • Soften
  • Smile
  • Send mettā

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