WW: 2024 teeshirt

(Every summer I issue myself a new teeshirt. Here's this year's pick.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Don't Do Anything

As non-Vajrayana Western converts to Buddhism will tell you, we have a slightly awkward relationship with Tibet. Not that we have any real bone to pick with our Tantric brothers and sisters. It's mostly just a difference of style. Practice models in the three other common convert denominations – Zen, Vipassana, Theravada – are pretty stripped-down, with Zen probably being the most "gorgeous" of the very Puritan lot. Tibetan forms, meanwhile, are downright High Church.

More prosaic is the simple fact that the Dalai Lama is the only Buddhist most Westerners can name, and since our media regularly imply that he's the "boss of Buddhism", we're all generally believed to owe him fealty. Thus, non-Buddhists are often surprised to learn that I don't really follow the guy's news – he's fine as far as august spiritual figures go, but carries no greater weight with me than the Pope or other sincere religious celebrities.

Similarly, Tibetan Buddhist stereotypes often pass for Buddhist, full stop. Yet I rarely chant "om"; I don't own a copy of the Tibetan Book of the Dead; my Zen teaching embraces transmigration (which I don't necessarily buy, either) rather than reincarnation; and therefore we don't believe past masters can inhabit children.

All of which to say, non-Tantric Neo-Buddhists tend to know fairly little about that tradition or its teachings.

So I was grateful when a fellow Mastodonian shared a particularly provocative passage from Tilopa, an Indian sage whose wisdom looms large in Tibet. Upon further exploration I learned that the posted lines are actually the heart statement of the great Tantra master's programme.

The interpretation presented can be traced to Alan Watts, and reads as follows:

No thought, no reflection, no analysis,
No cultivation, no intention;
Let it settle itself.

Certainly a Zen-friendly sentiment, in that we-say-these-things-a-lot-but-never-do-them kind of way. And other translations found elsewhere enrich the context:

Don’t recall.
Don’t imagine.
Don’t think.
Don’t examine.
Don’t control.
Rest.

A bit more Soto in flavour than Watts' Rinzai-esque lines, perhaps, consisting of nuts and bolts exhortations ("act this way") rather than a self-absent explication of phenomena. But taken together – as is usually the case with these two schools of Japanese Zen – they bring greater insight.

And finally, this fraternal take:

Let go of what has passed.
Let go of what may come.
Let go of what is happening now.
Don’t try to figure anything out.
Don’t try to make anything happen.
Relax, right now, and rest.

(Both of the non-Watts translations quoted here are the work of Tibetan Buddhism teacher Ken Mcleod.)

So I'm paying this forward, as a particularly valuable meditation for Zenners, regardless of source.

Because it's not just good stuff, it's Zen stuff. And also good Zen stuff.



(Tableau of Tilopa courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

The Eight Worldly Dharmas

It just struck me that I've never posted on these before. Which is remarkable, since they're central to my practice, and indeed my life.

Also, since August is "Suicide Month" on Rusty Ring – the time when, for arbitrary reasons, I've ended up addressing that phenomenon most years – this is a good time to bring up the subject. Because suicide is the result of alienation, even though, as the Dharmas demonstrate, we're not alien.

Just dumb.

The Eight Worldly Dharmas (also called Preoccupations, Distractions, Desires, Concerns, Conditions, Winds, or Things I Do Instead of Zen) is a catalogue of 8 human constants that obscure the Path. (Or 4, to be precise, and their equally unproductive opposites – which together represent subsidiary principles of the Middle Way.)

I've had no luck determining the origin of this teaching. Today it passes for Buddhist, but feels like insight that predates us. I don't suppose it matters, but if we've jumped someone else's copyright… deep bow.

Anyway, here, for the first time on our stage, are the Eight Worldly Dharmas:

Wanting to get things
Not wanting to lose things

Wanting to be happy
Not wanting to be unhappy

Wanting acknowledgement
Not wanting to be overlooked

Wanting approval
Not wanting blame

That's my personal stock. Ask in a year and some wording may have changed.

There are other inventories on the Enlightenment Superpath:

1).
getting things you want/avoiding things you do not want
wanting happiness/not wanting misery
wanting fame/not wanting to be unknown
wanting praise/not wanting blame

2).
acquiring material things or not acquiring them
interesting or uninteresting sounds
praise or criticism
happiness or unhappiness

3).
benefit and decrease
ill repute and good repute
blame and praise
suffering and happiness

As you can see there is considerable variation in tone and imagery, but the thrust is consistent. (By the way, "interesting or uninteresting sounds" may sound like a weird phobia, but there's a lot of this sort of thing in the basal Buddhist texts. Random draughts, unethically-high beds, off-putting smells… not the stuff of existential angst, but you're supposed to meditate on it until you grasp the root of the problem. In this case, the writer is saying that we obsess over contextual conditions beyond our control – hot or cold, loved or alone, putting up with rude jerks or being left in peace. Your neighbours playing the Beatles on their stereo, or Slim Whitman. Pick your hell.)

And to be perfectly pedantic, when it comes right down to it, there are really only 2 Worldly Dharmas (split in half, as before):

Getting stuff you like
Not getting stuff you like

Avoiding stuff you don't like
Getting stuff you don't like

But I guess the Ancestors figured you couldn't get a self-help book out of that. For starters, it's too easily memorised.

Any road, this practice is explosive for me. The attitudes of others have played an inordinate role in my sense of self and worth, and if you study the Dharmas carefully, you'll see that they're mostly about that: stuff others give or withhold. The remainder – natural phenomena, like cold in your room or the infirmity of age – is similarly not the fundamental problem.

Not that any of these are trivial, mind you. Irrelevant and unimportant are not the same. But being aware of what originates in your skull restores a whopping measure of control.

Because suffering is actually two emergencies: suffering, and fear of suffering. And of the two, the second causes the most pain.

Doesn't mean the first isn't unpleasant, too. Just that it's not what manipulates you.

But you have influence over that second one.

And that's what the Eight Worldly Dharmas encapsulate: that stuff going on outside you, beyond your control, twangs your desires, and that's what plays you. Stop caring, and the monster is defanged.

And you get to that place by looking deeply. Doesn't happen instantly, but keep at it and you'll be amazed how far not striving will take you. And the more you observe the results, the dumber your desires look.

And the dumber they look, the smarter you become.

And there's not a damn thing anything outside you can do about it.

So that's why I meditate – or just reflect – on one or all of the Eight Worldly Dharmas on a regular basis. Maybe change things up from time to time and contemplate a different inventory.

Because it's about time my demons caught a few worldly dharmas of their own.


(Photo of Narcissus var. 'Slim Whitman' [yes, really] courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

Scale

Humanity: "If a tree falls in the forest, and no-one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"

Rest of the Universe: "Mm. So, anyway…"


(Photo of Messier 63, just one galaxy in the M51 Group, all of whose lifeforms are noteworthy for the total lack of prestige any of them impute to humanity, courtesy of ESA/Hubble, NASA, and Wikimedia Commons.)

No State of Emergency

Events this week have me thinking about my favourite Zen teaching story. (I say that about all of them, though my very favourites are the ones I take the piss out of in this journal.)

The gist goes like this:

A bandit army descended on a town, causing all the monks in the local monastery to abandon it, except the master.

Bursting into the zendo, the pirate general was enraged to find the old monk calmly dusting the altar, not even deigning to bow.

“Do you not realise,” he shouted, “that I would run you through without a second thought?”

“And do you not realise,” said the master, “that I would be run through without a second thought?”

At this the general bowed and left.

This is one of those tales we Zenners like to exchange with pious smiles, certain of its allegory, and that we'll never be held to the conviction it implies.

And now here we are.

The plague our species is currently facing puts me in a surrealistic place. Whenever I've imagined myself in an apocalyptic scenario – which is frequently, given my culture's obsession with it – I've seen myself meeting the aftermath of war, natural disaster, or economic crisis beside my neighbours, pooling our skills, standing firm against the selfish and the predatory, guiding our community to peace, promise, and security.

But in an epidemic, you have to board yourself up in your house, see to your own needs, and avoid catching or communicating the sickness to others.

And so stillness and acceptance must be the discipline, in full knowledge that very bad things might happen. And you must not go out and do combat with them, or call for help from others, or even, God forbid, open the door to curse at them.

Instead you must remain heroically immobile. To borrow an image from Thich Nhat Hanh, you must be "lake-still, mountain-solid".

In other words, I am now living the worst nightmare of all religiosos: actually having to practice what I preach.

The death and mortal-threat fables that abound in our religion distinguish it from other faiths. (Some may quibble that traditional Christianity, with its endless recitations of gruesome martyrdom, takes this laurel, but I would counter that those are journalism, placing the listener outside of events. Our tales make him or her inhabit the dying character.)

Such stories as The Tiger and the Strawberry, or The Mother and the Mustard Seed, exist for a pedagogical purpose. They remind us of the knife-edge we walk, that we must walk, and the impermanence of all things, including ourselves. The intent is to jangle us out of the chains of our dread, and into the freedom that acknowledgement confers.

We are not the universe. We are not the most important thing in the universe. It was just fine before we got here, and it will be just fine after we leave.

And so will we.

Because this life is not the goal of this life.

Understanding that, and practicing it, is the origin of strength.

There is no "state of emergency" in Buddhism, aside from the one we were born into and can't resolve without practice. There's no Buddhist constitution that can be suspended when it becomes inconvenient. The law is immutable.

And that's a gift.

So now is the time to do all that stuff we've been saying we do.

Now is the time to practice Zen.

In taking the cushion, let us cleave to our humanity, care for our fellow Earthlings, and maintain our grasp of reality.

Because we have no alternative.


(Photo courtesy of Unsplash.com and a generous photographer.)

Preference Meditation

According to an Internet commenter, when Thais encounter food they don't care for, they don't say, "I don't like this."

They say, "I don't know how to eat this." (กินไม่เป็น)


(Photo courtesy of Wilfredo Rodríguez and Wikimedia Commons.)

Fetters

“The Bible was telling me every day: 'Sell all that you have and give to the poor.'

"So I sold it."

Abba Semperion, The Paradise of the Desert Fathers


(Photo of Syriac Gospels courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum, Wikimedia Commons, and a generous photographer.)