Be kind, live simply, don’t interfere

It’s 7:30 PM and I’m sitting in my room. Someone is watching a movie on a portable DVD player outside my window and Thai movie voices are drifting in, along with the sound of the crickets, and an engine running somewhere. I went for a walk after the evening gathering tonight and sat by one of the small ponds looking up at the stars. The night is warm and the pavement that I sat on still held the heat from the day. Only the brighter stars shone through the light from a quarter moon, but the many silent diamond points seemed to call me outward.

I was given a book with questions about Buddhism, answered simply. One of the questions was about how the Buddha thought we should live. It answered with a story about all of the different kinds of birds in Tibet getting together for a meeting to decide how they could best live together. After a long meeting with much discussion, they decided that the best answer to the question was for all birds to take only as much food as they needed.

I kind of liked the simplicity of that. I’ve been talking with Ning quite a lot lately and some of the discussions have been about this idea. “Don’t do things to harm or interfere with yourself or others”, and “live simply” are some of the basic guidelines for living here. At this temple, there are no set rules, and what rules there are seem to be more suggestions than dictates. Even these two “suggestions” have a fairly wide range of interpretation. However, there is actually quite a lot of weight that is removed from one’s life when one simplifies the things that are considered to be “essential”.

Hmm. I don’t seem to be terribly eloquent tonight, but I’ve had many discussions lately and wanted to share some of the things that we have been talking about. When here, discussions are pretty much all about dhamma – about the teachings of the place, of the Buddha, of how to live them or understand them. It probably sounds like this could get a bit wearying – which it can at times. It’s amazing how many times and in how many ways one needs to hear something before it begins to make sense though.

Realizing this, I am afraid that the following snippets may be less than immediately enlightening for you. However, I wanted to write them down while I am thinking about them, and perhaps they can be food for thought, or maybe one or two ideas can be helpful.

Lots of what is taught here revolves around not judging things: “Don’t accept or deny, both are judgements. When you disagree or reject something you create your own headache. When you accept or subscribe to something, it’s pretty much the same.” There is a middle ground where you don’t have to accept or deny or even put a great deal of thought into it. In the way of all things “Zen” however, there is a paradox where thought doesn’t work very well. It doesn’t mean one should not have an opinion about things and it doesn’t mean that one should have an opinion or judgment. Just don’t take either judging or not judging (or the “self” that is doing the judging) too seriously.

“There are no mistakes if you don’t have a desire to gain something or get somewhere”. Mistakes can only exist if you think you are trying to get something and don’t get it. If you can be open to whatever comes, then no step is a miss-step.

Along the same lines, the idea that it is OK to be exactly who and what we are, without needing to fix it or change it or improve it, or otherwise do things to it comes up over and over and sinks in a little bit further each time. We are, or perhaps I am, so accustomed to instantly deciding if a part of me needs improving or not, and then seeking to change it, that it is difficult to settle into acceptance. It’s difficult to accept that letting go of the illusion of control does not mean stagnation, complacency, or laziness.

“The mind will unwind itself. It only needs the time and space to do it”. Along the same lines as above. Like a wind-up toy, as long as we keep winding, the mind will be tight, full, and busy. Stop the winding, and it will loosen on its own.

“Don’t give meaning to what you hear, see, smell, touch, taste, think. Don’t judge it or hate it, love it or fear it or be attracted to it. Just let it be. This is also changing. This is also impermanent”. This doesn’t mean you can’t feel, that you should avoid experience, control it, push it away, disengage from life. Everything is constantly changing. You can’t hold on, even if you try. So, relax and don’t try so hard.

Here is Ning’s way of saying pretty much the same thing:

Firstly, don’t care. (meaning, as above, don’t judge or hate or like or fear etc.) However, if you do care then:

Don’t fix (meaning, don’t get stuck to, fixed to, or bonded to the caring). But… if you get do get stuck to something then:

Don’t worry about it.

I would add, if you worry about it, then don’t worry about worrying about it.

At some point along the way, just end up by letting go.

The result of these things, and the reason for them, is to let the mind unravel and release the weights that we carry and the many things that we hold on to. Just because I set a boulder down on the ground does not mean that I hate it or that I’ve lost it. I don’t have to carry it though. Letting go does not mean losing, it just means not carrying. It also means giving freedom – freedom to come and go, be with or not with and be OK.

Ka-hae-mee-sewan (my phonetics): A declaration meaning “I share all of what I have and what I am”. It is used as a kind of blessing. Giving in this way is like offering a light to the world. However large or small the light, it is not diminished by its giving. Perhaps especially when we feel small or like we have nothing to give, this is a helpful practice. Give the light you have, give in whatever way works for you, and you discover that there is more worthiness than you thought. We all have so much that we can give.

A-Hoe-see (my phonetics again): May all be forgiven, or perhaps to say it more definitely “All is forgiven”. Used often between people or in situations where there are negative feelings or discomfort. It can also be used at any time there are internal thoughts or feelings that are causing discomfort. It is an asking, and giving, of forgiveness as a clearing of connections, expectations, and bonds that keep us from being free. The word is useful, as it carries many meanings and a lot of depth. However, you can use your own words and meanings too. Pretty much all religions, I think, have a way of asking for, and giving, forgiveness.

It’s tomorrow and I’m just adding a couple of words before posting this. I have been having some quieter days here over the past while, and spending less time with the computer. My posts to this blog seem to be getting a bit fewer and farther between. It is still hot, in defiance of the fact that it is supposed to be winter. The weather report says it’s 34 degrees here today, with 37 expected for tomorrow. Yikes! It’s apparently -12 and snowing at home, so the temperature gap between here and there is fairly wide. Basically though, I’m just settling in and letting things sift and flow over and through me. It feels like a healing time and I still feel glad that I came. 

Mountains, Zen, and flaming lanterns

It’s 8:14 PM as I start to write this. I just came into my room after sitting outside for about 20 minutes watching the stars and the flaming lanterns floating by. This is the night before Kaithin, which is a big gathering time that is held by every temple shortly after the end of Buddhist lent. Ours is tomorrow. Tonight there are several hundred extra people and it’s quite a busy place. There is a whole row of booths set up to offer free food and treats tomorrow, and the Lantam – gathering area – is all decorated with flowers, bunches of bananas and other food. I watched the lanterns on my own, rather than going to where they were being sent off. It was peaceful to sit with the twinkling stars and the orange glow of the lanterns growing, then getting fainter as they sailed off into an indeterminate distance.

Food booths - not so crowded as earlier

Money trees and offerings

Yesterday I was invited on a trip again, which I thought had the goal of gathering more bananas. It turned out to be a hike up a small mountain in search of some the ingredients for the medicine tea that Gan’s monk friend brews. Seven of us hiked for about 20 minutes up a steep slope through groves of bamboo and then up to the limestone peak, all eroded and dissolved into sharp and jagged knife edged ridges, deep holes and slices all festooned with vines and creepers. I find these kinds of mountains to have a prehistoric feel and look to them, and keep expecting to see dinosaurs coming around a corner or peeking out of a hole.

Going up

Sharp rocks

Arched hole in the mountain, seen from our mountain top

Through the bamboo

The ingredients we were after this time turned out to be a kind of tree, or very thick woody vine – I’m not sure which – that was growing near the top of the mountain. The particular one we collected was about 40 feet long I think and grew up the side of a cliff, through a hole in the rock and out and up on the other side. The monk hacked it down with a machete and cut it into manageable lengths, then we carried it down the hill again, arriving hot, sweaty and dirty at the bottom. It was quite a fun adventure actually, especially preceded as it was by lunch in the garden of the grandmother’s place and followed by snacks from a market that appeared across the street from her house when we got back. It had all of the things one would expect from a Thai country market – deep fried chicken feat, some really smelly fish dipped in batter and hopefully cooked really well, lots of vegetables I can’t identify, various sorts of fruit and treats, fresh and unrefrigerated meat in the hot sun, smiling people milling about and bright and happy sounding Thai music blaring from bad speakers. I bought a couple of small watermelons for about 80 cents each and we bought a variety of other snacky sorts of things.

The day also involved discussions about the nature of things, of course, and what it means to live at the temple. In Buddhist belief, everything that exists does so because of a chain of cause and effect that goes back to the very beginning of all things. The universe as we know it is a vast interconnection of cause and effect running forward and perpetuating itself in an endless cycle of arising and passing away. Karma is this cycle of cause and effect and means just that – the effects of previous causes that in turn become more causes leading to more effects, etc.

There are three kinds of karma. “Bad” Karma is the karma of evil or ignorant action and it results in “bad” effects. Good Karma is the opposite and results in good or pleasant effects. However, Buddhists see both good and bad as being equal or similar in that they both result in continuing motion and continuation of the cycle of cause and effect. This cycle is believed to run forever from life to death to life to death and so on. As long as there is a continuation of Karma, there is a continuation of the cycle of life and death. There is also a third kind of Karma which is not good or bad, and is concerned with not being attached to things. This third kind cancels out the good and the bad because it is both and neither. It’s not concerned with results, but with stopping.

As a simpler way of thinking about it, you can imagine being in a pool of water and splashing about. The splashing makes waves and the waves will continue as long as you keep splashing. Stop splashing and hold still for a while and the waves will stop. Good and bad Karma both involve more splashing and both make waves. If you stop being concerned with either one, and stop moving about so much, the waves diminish.

All this is to explain how and why the way of life at temple is pretty much completely upside down from what one finds in most of the rest of the world. Out in “the world” one is generally concerned with making things happen, making goals and obtaining them, getting results, being productive, and all of those sorts of things. This is OK, but it’s also a lot like splashing about in the pool. It continues to make more waves. At the temple, the focus is on stopping and so they aren’t particularly concerned with wanting things, or not wanting things, doing things or not doing things, obtaining or achieving or not obtaining or achieving. Rather, the focus here is on letting everything flow through without trying to give it too much meaning or getting too involved in it.

Driving through a small city, for instance, it was suggested that I should “not pay attention and not be curious”. “Don’t try to interpret or make connections,” “Don’t give meaning to everything. It doesn’t have any intrinsic meaning. The only meaning is what you give it, and you don’t need to give it any meaning at all. Just let it go.”

The result of this is a mind state which is very flowing. Feelings, thoughts and emotions flow in and just as quickly flow out. The experience is still there, the appearance is the same, but the experience is of things not sticking. It is also an experience of not taking things personally or holding onto problems or disagreements. Some people here, I am learning, can be very direct and seemingly negative with each other, but since the practice is to let go of whatever comes up, it doesn’t last and people aren’t bothered by it. Things are not repressed or controlled – but they are released without intention of harm. If someone is offered negative energy or feelings, the practice is to not take it personally, not keep it or hold onto it in any way. Just let it flow and go.

Now and then I experience bits of what I think of as this “flowing” state. It feels quite good actually, like a stream running through that just carries experience with it and removes the need to get stuck to anything. It’s a free and creative feeling since it allows the moment to be what it is without judgment, and this allows the next moment to be free and spontaneous too. It also involves a great deal of trust – trust that each moment will happen on its own and there is no necessity to try to control it. Whatever is needed in that moment will be there, inside and outside.

Of course, a particular sensation or feeling is just another passing thing and should not be attached to. My present understanding will change and the sensation of “flowing” will change too. Sometimes it will be there and other times not – just like anything else that comes along. Flowing allows for the experience of flowing to also be flowing…  J

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Now it is tomorrow afternoon, counting from when I started writing this. I went out into the world feeling somewhat lonely, alone and homesick this morning, for a variety of reasons – some of which I am aware of and many others of which I probably am not. It’s interesting how the more people there are around the easier it is to feel alone Though. I think there may be an equation in there somewhere as well, but I drained the batteries of the mathematics particle in my brain on the last equation and it’s going to take a while to recharge.

Many people’s families came, and old friends from all over Thailand, and so everyone was busy entertaining people that they knew from elsewhere. I’m still the only Western person anywhere around and though everyone is very kind and eager to include me, I still feel like a pea in a field of beans, or something like that. Similar, but not quite fitting in. Of course, this is just the meaning I’m giving to the feeling. I could just as easily feel welcomed, supported and included (all of which are also true). We sort out what we want in any given moment I guess.

This seemed a good time for some practical application of what I was pontificating about last night. Here were all of these feelings and interpretations that I was experiencing. I could feel them pulling and jostling inside and feel how much my mind wants to dig into them, figure them out, dwell on them, hold onto them and identify with them, even though they aren’t very comfortable. I was therefore busily splashing about in the pool and making the waves bigger and more complicated with every splash. The way here is to not try to suppress or get rid of them, but also not pay attention to them. Leave them alone and they will do whatever they need to do, stay as long as they need to stay, and go away on their own. Stop splashing about and let the waves settle.

I talked to Ning briefly at breakfast. I sent a note to her last night, part of which explained that I’d gotten my phone to work as a portable hotspot so I can check my email from my room now (sometimes, when it works). She said that this morning the image of the portable hotspot came to her as she was sitting in the assembly, because she felt like she was a portable hotspot for a little while. When we clear out some of the blockages and resistance inside, there is an energy, or light, that begins to flow through and shine more brightly and this light shines out to others as well. I think that we are always receiving and broadcasting actually, and it is the frequency of what we pay attention to that we both receive and increase with our broadcast. On a practical, here and now basis, we get uncomfortable results when we focus on “bad” or negative thoughts and feelings, more comfortable results when we focus on “good” or positive feelings, and a freeing, opening, releasing result when we allow both good and bad to flow. Without needing to believe in the life after life thing, and also letting go of all of the negative connotations of Karma as “fate”, I think the idea of the three kinds of karmas or cause/effect relationships can be helpful in the here and now. Release from the stickiness of emotional drama can be a relief at any time...

I’m trying to write what I’m feeling and experiencing, though words don’t really do a good job of describing these things. I’m not sure why I think it’s useful to do this, but it’s what I’m doing at the moment so I guess I’ll keep at it for a while at least.

I will send a wish for anyone who wants it – to release the feelings, judgments, and attachments that are hurting you, blocking you, or causing you pain and allow them to dissolve away, or perhaps lift away like the lanterns I saw last night. Light a candle and let the heat of the flame fill a floating lantern to lift them from your life and carry them away, beacons to light the sky of others…

Gardens, stories, stillness and more bananas

This morning I went to the garden again and finished a pineapple row. I paced off the length of it and was somewhat dismayed to discover that’s it only about 110 meters long, and not the 200 or 300 meters that I had estimated before. I guess distances are longer when they’re full of weeds. That’s probably a part of the theory of relativity somewhere. Einstein got around to figuring out E = mc² and the special and general theories of relativity, where time, velocity and distance all affect each other. However, he didn’t know about some of the other strange interactions that can happen with distance. For instance, I’ve derived the formula  d = W/cm²  x  (I³/P²)  x  MM/ 2   (That’s distance = weeds per square centimeter times the cube of one’s impatience or irritation level (they are interchangeable) divided by the square of one’s inner peacefulness, times the distance you’d get if you actually measured it with a meter stick while not doing any weeding, divided by 2. I’m not sure why it’s divided by two, but it needed to be divided by something somewhere, and 2 seemed like a good number. As an aside, “I” (for impatience and/or irritation level) is measured in a unit somewhat like the erg, but it’s measured in “irks” instead. The more irked you are, the longer your row to hoe, so to speak. Note that impatience grows faster than peacefulness. However, if peacefulness is larger than impatience or irritation, the quotient becomes less than one and the row actually gets shorter. Doesn’t math always just make things a lot clearer?  J

Anyway, I haven’t been writing as much lately and it’s been a couple of days already since I started this post. Being here is a bit like soaking in a solvent that dissolves stuff that has been accumulated inside and floats it off somewhere. Or maybe it’s like being a jar of turbid water that’s put down on a shelf and left to sit quietly for a while so that the sediment settles and the water is clearer. Or maybe it’s not like either of those things. The point is, I’m feeling my mind quieting a bit and it’s harder to get it focused on computer things. I’m a little bit worried that it’s going to start getting harder to describe the experiences again soon as well.

When I came last time it was like this too. At first it feels kind of like a quiet retreat somewhere. It’s a bit less comfortable than a resort in Cancun or something, but it’s restful and renewing in its own way. As you sink into it more, however, you start to notice changes inside. I should say “I”, maybe. Perhaps other people experience it differently. In any case, thoughts begin to quiet down a bit and there are times when there is more stillness inside. They talk about “letting go” in many ways here, and a lot of this has to do with just not paying attention to or holding onto thoughts and emotions as they pass by. The “solvent” effect helps this along, so that things that used to stick don’t so much anymore. Another image is that we’re all covered in Velcro and through the day all kinds of stuff gets thrown at us that sticks to the Velcro until we’re buried in stuff sticking to us. It feels like the being slowly de-velcroed, so that not only are you not carrying as much stuff, new stuff doesn’t stick as much or as long.

When I used to meditate, I was taught that when we allow the mind to become still and we stop taking in so much new “stuff” then old “stuff” that we’ve stored inside starts to rise to the surface and come out. This is a healthy process, like cleaning the cupboards and sweeping under the stove – or so I’m told. It’s also what happens with good therapy, using Western psychology, or at least with psychotherapeutic and/or body based therapy. The thing is, the mind has many layers and who we are is such a mystery. The longer one is here, the more it feels like the scene in the Matrix where Neo is asked to choose between the blue pill and the red pill. “How deep does the rabbit hole go?” And if you go there, can you talk about it or communicate it in any intelligible way?

So, outside, life goes on as normal. Some monks were welding a support for some solar panels today, everyone is busy getting ready for Khaitin (pronounced like Gateen I think) – a big festival that every monastery holds once a year – the sun comes up and goes down, people sleep and eat and work. Inside, there’s a kind of openness that is growing and more times when I sit and don’t think about anything at all for a moment or two – just kind of feel the world around me. I’ve felt that in the garden mostly, though it’s also so hot working in the sun that people remark about how red my face is and my clothes are soaked with sweat. Part of me sinks into the feeling with a kind of grateful relief, and part of me looks at it suspiciously. A friend wrote in an email the other day about a feeling of “Now I’ve got you exactly where you want me.”  This suspicious part is worried about being too still I think. It is also the part that frets about things and needs to be entertained, or that gets uncomfortable after sitting still and gets up with a list of things that need to be done. It’s useful, but sometimes too insistent.

It’s a kind of Zen Buddhist approach here, where there are lots of paradoxes and things can get topsy turvy. Don’t focus or concentrate, don’t pay attention to the mind and what it does, don’t try to get things done but don’t not try to do anything. You don’t have to do nothing, just don’t try to do something…  Ning described holding on with an example of hands. Generally they are relaxed and open. If you want to pick something up and hold onto it, it takes intention and energy. To keep holding continues to take energy. The same is true of thoughts and emotions. To hold onto them takes energy, but it’s such a habit that we don’t know we’re doing it. We keep holding on and tire or stress ourselves out.

It makes sense. But things have a way of turning inside out all the time – like one of Douglas Adam’s Characters in his book “So Long and Thanks for all the Fish”. This character, “Wonko the Sane” built his house inside out so that the inside walls, furniture and things were on the outside, and the outside walls were on the inside. That way, the world was “inside” his insane asylum house, and he lived outside – which is why he thought he was sane. Everyone else was in the asylum.

And… around and about all of this is the subject of stories. It’s all about stories – the stories on the inside and the stories on the outside. The stories that we tell ourselves so that we can think we understand the world a little bit. The stories that can change as we grow or understand differently, and the stories that we hold onto for dear life because without them we feel lost.  Oh the stories...  J

Tomorrow, I’ve been asked to go and help cut bananas and bring them back here. I’m not sure what that will entail – I assume a bit of hacking with knives and carrying banana bunches while hopefully avoiding large spiders. Guess I’ll see tomorrow…

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Just posting this and will quickly add that the banana cutting turned out to involve lots of driving, a very little bit of cutting and carrying, lots of bumping along on back roads lined with rice fields and rubber tree plantations, and no big spiders.

Dealing with Kneeling

The last couple of days have been quite quiet, as I’ve mainly sequestered myself in my room and have been avoiding people. This is actually a bit difficult to do since if I want to eat I have to go to the gathering in the morning (or go to town and buy something) and that tends to mean running into lots of people with suggestions of things to do or talk about or places to go. I went to the garden the other day and did a stint for a couple of hours hoeing pineapple plants. It actually felt kind of good to be out there and to look back and know I’d done something when I was done. (It was awfully hot though, and I felt a bit like a wet dishrag when I was done) There’s a very large field of pineapples interspersed with rows of trees. The rows seem very long – maybe 300 or 400 meters and there’s not a lot of help out there so some of them are pretty overgrown. It’s hard to find the poor pineapple plants sometimes. Anyway, I’ve not been back yet despite saying that I would and have been hiding out in my room instead.

I’ve actually been really really tired for some reason, and feeling very antisocial. There’s been a bit of a flue or cold bug or something going around and so maybe my body is fighting that. Whatever the reason, here I am. (Note: I wrote this two days ago. I'm not still in my room, and I did go back for another stint in the garden...)  :-)

This morning however, while attempting to avoid being asked to go anywhere, I was invited to a lunch that a woman was putting on for her son’s birthday. Usually when I’m invited to lunch it just means me and a couple of other people having a small social gathering. Today I arrived to the sound of chanting (which was actually quite nice) and found about 20 monks arranged on the floor around two big plastic mats, with food piled in the middles. They finished their chanting and the eating started – monks first as is the custom here, served by the nuns and laypeople. There wasn’t room for two groups, so we brought food to the monks, and waited for them to be finished. I didn’t help much and mostly tried to stay out of the way, but at one point I was handing out some dessert custard and one of the monks said quite nicely “please sit”. At first I thought he was inviting me to join him, which was strange because it was kind of a formal dinner situation and I wasn’t a monk. Then I realized he was saying I shouldn’t hand food to monks by just bending over and giving it to them, I needed to kneel down and then hand it to them, and he was instructing me in his culture.

Well, I understand that this is Thai culture and I know that Thai people learn to kneel and bow to monks and royalty from birth. I also understand that it is a way of showing respect and that to Thai people it is showing respect to the role of the monk as much or more than to the individual person. It is part of what makes Thai society work and it is a good practice in letting go of some parts of ego. It is also a sometimes helpful contrast to the lack of respect that we have for authority in the West – a lack of respect that renders being in charge of things an often very difficult and thankless task.

So, I know all of this, but I still found myself gritting my teeth about being asked to kneel to give some frigging dessert to these guys. I’ve been doing pretty well with the kneeling and bowing at the morning gatherings. There’s quite a bit of it sometimes, but it turns out to be quite a good stretch routine and kind of helpful for the knees and back, so when I get uptight about it I just make it into exercise. The combination of being asked to kneel (however politely) to serve food though kind of pushed my tolerance level a bit.

It all went OK of course. The monks finished and left and the rest of us ate what was left (there was plenty), and the day went on.

It generally doesn’t help to resist things very much I suppose, but sometimes it just comes up and there it is. What to do about it? Just notice it I guess and don’t get too concerned, like with anything else that comes up. I doubt that my resistance to kneeling is going to make a lot of difference in the world as we know it anyway. I’m not even sure if it’s called for – respect is an important part of a social system. I would have to say, though, that I’m officially against indiscriminate kneeling and postures of subservience, and if there’s an anti kneeling and postures of subservience group in existence somewhere I would be a card carrying member, except that I’m also somewhat resistant to groups organized for the purpose of resistance...

So there…   J