Training the Mind

Meditation is very much like training a puppy. You put the puppy down and say, "Stay." Does the puppy listen? It gets up and it runs away. You sit the puppy back down again. "Stay." And the puppy runs away over and over again. Sometimes the puppy jumps up, runs over, and pees in the corner or makes some other mess. Our minds are much the same as the puppy, only they create even bigger messes. In training the mind, or the puppy, we have to start over and over again.
-- Jack Kornfield (as quoted by Joe McCarthy at Gumption)

Rail Runner, and Ramblings

Suzy and I went to Santa Fe today. It was her first time going there, and our first time out of Albuquerque since we landed here 3 months ago after leaving China. Also, it was our first time to try out the shiny and sexy Rail Runner train. The trip didn't disappoint! The train ride was a blast, we ate lots of tasty food, enjoyed the plaza, and visited one of the museums for free (thanks, Rail Runner!). You can see today's photos on Flickr... Most of them are of Suzy in front of various scenic spots. :)

Anywho, my main focus of this blog post will be some spiritual stuff. The majority of this is sparked by one of the fruits of our trip to Santa Fe. As a "hey, why not?" kind of thing, we checked out the clearance racks of a small book shop near the train station before coming back to Albuquerque. Right there, on the $1 clearance shelf, were two books: The Four Agreements Companion Book and Toltec Prophecies of don Miguel Ruiz. I have not cracked open the latter yet, but I read partway into the Companion Book on the train ride home.

As the title says, it's a companion for The Four Agreements, a very inspiring little book that I've talked about at length before. This companion book aims to illuminate the other, primarily through practical exercises to help increase one's understanding of what the Four Agreements are all about. While a bit repetitive at some points, what I've read so far is pretty good.

One of the first practical exercises involves jotting down your answers to some exploratory questions, mostly about your self image -- who you think you are, who you think you should be, what other people tell you to be like, etc. Some things I wrote down surprised me. I wrote about 5 pages of stuff in response to the questions, and I'd like to share a few choice bits with you (prompts from the book are in italics):

• I believe I am... a work-in-progress.
• My image of perfection is... somebody who is AUTHENTIC.
• I wear these social masks because... living by a script is often easier than really being in the moment.
• If I take the [social] masks off... it will be the first time!

The latter two represent some serious spiritual stuff to chew on in the days to come. It wasn't until I started furiously writing down my stream-of-consciousness answers to the prompts that I realized just how many "social masks" I wear on most days. On a troubling note, I'm not sure how my average day would go without those masks. How do I peel them away? When I'm at work, am I really "Thomas, the knowledgeable and friendly UPS guy"? Or is some/all of that just a mask I wear to suit the occasion? If I took away the mask elements, what would be left? Can I even do it?

Much of what each of us does every day involves some kind of socially-acceptable script we've agreed to as a community -- shopping for groceries ("how can I help you today?"), helping customers ("can you tell me the tracking number, sir?"), greeting acquaintances on the street ("hey, how's it going?"), etc. My job is especially scripted at times, because there's a certain flow of information I need from customers (or that I need to give to my service providers) over and over. Can I still get that information, can I still go through the script, without losing my identity to the script? Can I be at once authentic and in line with the flow of the task at hand? There's the real spiritual challenge.

The Litmus Test for Spiritual Books

From Aubrey Wade's review of don Miguel Ruiz's The Voice of Knowledge:

"We've all read books that promise great healing, wisdom and illumination, but not all deliver on their grand guarantee. The litmus test of a true work of useful wisdom is whether the material is applicable in mundane, real-world situations."

This speaks to something that's been on my mind lately, as I've thought about books and spirituality. In particular, I've been thinking about two books: The Way of the Wizard (by Deepak Chopra) and The Four Agreements (an earlier book by don Miguel Ruiz).

I've spent the last couple of weeks reading through The Way of the Wizard. I'm only halfway through it, but I've been frustrated by it. Deepak Chopra is so clearly a man of deep compassion and insight, yet both this book and another of his that I read (The Book of Secrets) seem to lack clarity of focus and good presentation. These two books are sprinkled with spiritual gems, but "sprinkled" is the key word -- these tasty morsels of food-for-thought are far outweighed by the many moments of puzzlement as to what, exactly, Chopra wants people to take away from what he's saying.

On the other hand, The Four Agreements has struck me in a contrary way. Despite its various shortcomings, it is overall a more successful and effective book. What is it about this book that makes it stand out, compared to The Way of the Wizard?

To borrow again from Aubrey's review, she said that part of the power of The Voice of Knowledge was that she "frequently 'heard' the teaching in the middle of daily issues or challenges." That is part of the key, in my opinion. Though I am still waiting for a copy of The Voice of Knowledge so I can read it myself, her sentiments about the book mirror my feelings about The Four Agreements and many other books I consider to be great sources of spiritual insight in my life.

The Four Agreements is not perfect, but it has an overall direction -- to give the reader simple, systematic tools for understanding and improving the spiritual quality of his or her life. Not only that, but the simplicity of these tools lends themselves to the experiences and challenges of real, every day life. Frequently during my day, I will think back to one of the agreements, and notice that I have either subconsciously applied it, or that there is some way I can consciously apply it to the moment at hand.

So there's two major qualities at play here: simplicity, and structure. As much as I really want to like Deepak Chopra's books, the two I've read have had neither of these two qualities. Sure, he does attempt to provide some structure by splitting the books up into "secrets" or "lessons," each of which has (or is supposed to have) some overall thesis to it. But this structure is primarily a literary one -- a writer's structure. It is not a structure of philosophy, or logic, or spirit. Very little in The Way of the Wizard builds on, or supports, or is interconnected with, anything else in the book. It's a mishmash of ideas rather haphazardly thrown into a collection of chapters. At the end of each chapter, I as a reader found myself left hanging. Especially so when I tried to imagine how I could ever apply the "lessons" to real life as I live it from day to day.

As Aubrey Wade said: the litmus test for a book like this is how applicable it is to the real world. I'd take that a step further and say, the litmus test for a book like this is how often the real world reminds you of what you read in the book. At work and in my family life, the Four Agreements have been useful tools for me, and they have spontaneously jumped into my mind as I went about my day. As much as I like Deepak Chopra and respect his desire to impart wisdom, I've yet to have a moment in my day when I thought back to something in The Way of the Wizard and realized it had enriched my life.

Blogging By the Numbers #3

See my previous blogging by the numbers posts, one and two, for a look at what I've done before. Away we go!

• One-Hundred: How much % my happiness level has gone up, now that I'm not teaching English 40 hours a week. 20 would be okay, but 40 sucked. I'm 100% happier to be working with UPS and genuinely providing good service to people, and doing a lot of hands-on work.
• Sixty-Seven: That's the temperature yesterday here in Albuquerque. Pretty darn warm, for this time of year. I've decided I'm gonna just wear t-shirts every day from this point on, regardless of the weather -- more often than not these days, it's too warm for a sweater.
• Forty: That's roughly how many awesome Ayumi Hamasaki songs I lost when I accidentally effed up my iPod Touch last month, trying to put songs on it from Linux. Oops! But I learned a lot in the process, and now I've got all sorts of good stuff on my iPod.
• Twelve: The number of books on my desk.
• Eight: How many of those twelve books are about China or Chinese.
  
• Six: About how many dollars I spent on my freakin' awesome Philips headphones yesterday. Of course, they cost more than that really... But I paid most of that by using up the last of my money on a Target gift card from my sister Liz. Thanks Liz!
• Three: This morning on Twitter, three religious words were in the top 10 terms used in people's messages: God, Jesus, and Church. Of course, today is Sunday, so it's no small wonder!
  
• Zero: The number of e-mails I get from real human beings on an average day. If this number happens to be above zero on a given day, the e-mail is still usually not worth reading or bothering with. Twitter is where it's at, baby.
  

Religion = Answers? Or Questions?

Time for a blog post inspired by Twitter! Hmm, that seems to be a theme I'm starting at my blog. Anywho... My friend @juhasaarinen yadda re-tweeted (that is, passed on) a post by @linuxluver, which was in turn an anonymouse quote posted by @AtheistQOTD. Whew! Here's how it looked by the time I saw it:

RT @linuxluver:"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned."Anon via @AtheistQOTD

My first thought upon seeing this quote is that it must've been spoken by an American... Or possibly a narrow-minded European (isn't that what we Americans are, really? :-)). It strikes me as distinctly American to define "religion" as a system of "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots" formulated for strict obedience and life-force-sucking regularity. American culture is deeply informed by Christianity, which is often seen as having those two traits I just mentioned.

As a Buddhist, I find the equation of "religion = Christianity" or "religion = lifeless rules to be obeyed OR ELSE!!!" to be kind of ludicrous. If I was one to get my feathers ruffled about such a thing (which I strive not to be), I would even find it offensive. Anybody who has genuinely studied or practice Buddhism will know it's the exact opposite of "answers that may never be questioned." How so?

1. The Buddha himself urged his followers not to obey his words merely because he said them. He warned against placing anything on an unrealistic pedestal, be it the Buddha, an image of the Buddha, religious scripture, etc. Among his last words were, "be a lamp unto yourself." Just because the Buddha or one of his favored students said it does not make it true, much less immune to challenge. This is one layer of the reasoning behind the Zen maxim: "If you meet the Buddha on the path, kill him!"
2. The very nature of Buddha dharma (the teachings) is one of exploration. Nothing is hidden from you in the teachings, and nothing is meant to be taken purely at face value. Blind faith has no place in Buddhism. The only leap of faith you may be asked to take is faith in the fact that you can discover the same truths the Buddha did -- but you will have to do so through your own effort and questioning.
3. Buddhism is repeatedly described as a path to be internalized. Aspects of it, such as the Five Precepts (against killing, stealing, intoxication, etc.), are not commandments written in stone. If you follow them because you "should" then you are doing so for the wrong reasons. Like any aspect of the Buddha's teachings, the Precepts should be realized, that is made real, through your own understanding. You should avoid killing because you know it is harmful -- not because somebody told you it's harmful.

Buddhism, like any authentic religion/philosophy that is authentically practiced, is not about unquestionable answers. It is about the questions, answerable and otherwise. Remember, you can't spell QUESTions without "quest!" :-)

You must know for yourself, directly, the truth of yourself and you cannot realize it through another, however great. There is no authority that can reveal it.
-- Authentic Report of Sixteen Talks given in 1945 & 1946 (p. 85)

No matter how wonderful or valuable the precepts are, when you attach to them, they become a set of rules that come in from the outside rather than being a manifestation of one's life. When that happens, they become a hindrance. That is when they bind a person rather than help one to realize the inherent freedom of all beings.
-- John Daido Loori, The Heart of Being (p. 52)

Nothing is truly learned until it is lived.
-- Deepak Chopra, The Way of the Wizard (p. 8)

The precepts are the definition of the life of a Buddha. They describe the way a Buddha lives his or her life. Buddha and precepts are not two separate entities.
-- John Daido Loori, The Heart of Being (p. 24)

Recent Twitter Favorites

Facebook is pretty stale for me, especially now that I'm back in the USA and it's much easier to keep in touch with people here. So, these days I've been spending a lot of time on Twitter. There's lots of cool people on there, including celebrities like Lance Armstrong, and some great non-celebs like my friend coffeesister. Here are some of my favorite tweets by other people recently:

• wilw: Guess who has two thumbs and thought it was Sunday until about an hour ago? SPOILER ALERT: It was me. Stupid, stupid me.
• Foodimentary: 25 yrs ago large Atlantic bluefin tuna might sell for a penny a pound for catfood. Today, it sells for over $100 per lb in sushi.
• skinnyjeans: Inspiration: "What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” ~ Richard Bach from book "Illusions"

For insightful quotes and inspiration, I recommend following coffeesister, BeMeaningful, and tinybuddha.

You can see all my favorites on Twitter, both funny ones and meaningful ones. ;-)

Best of Thomas Time 3

It's that time, folks: I want to blog, but can't think of anything interesting to say. So what's a boy to do? Rehash some old favorite blog posts, of course! Here goes... A random assortment of The Best of Thomas Time since October 2008! Enjoy. ;-)

• Emptiness - Nobody says to me, "you should stay here to enjoy the culture and study more Chinese." The first and usually only thing they say to me is money, money, money.
• Goodbye Party - My last day at Wall Street, and my goodbye party! Best moment: Mark getting a cake smashed into his face.
• Photo Bankrupcty - Limiting my shutterbug addiction, so my photos can be better!
• The Four Agreements - I discovered this little gem of a book in December. It's not perfect, nor as enlightening as Buddhist teachings have been for me. However, it is an insightful little thing and it can illuminate whatever spiritual beliefs you already have, often in productive ways. The Four Agreements are an excellent ethical code of conduct, in my opinion.
• The 100th Birthday of the Grand Canyon - Well, the 100th birthday for it as a National Monument. Good enough!
• Practice = Enlightenment - Being a Buddhist and being enlightened is not like graduating college. You are only a Buddhist, or a Buddha, in the moments you practice. Practice for what? Nothing. Practice for the sake of practicing. Sit like Buddha, be Buddha. Speak like Buddha, be Buddha. Think like Buddha, be Buddha. Act like Buddha, be Buddha.

The Meaning of Death

It is said that the Buddha considered Yama Raja, the lord of death, to be his greatest teacher. He likened death to an elephant's footprint -- it is the largest imprint in all the jungle of our life. Many people who casually glance at Buddhism hear this teaching (or one like it) and think that Buddhism is pessamistic, or obsessed with death. Buddhism is concerned with death only insofar as it can illuminate life.

Think about this for a second -- our lives have an arrow. The arrow points from our past to our future, and (as far as we know) it can only go that one direction. Whether you believe in rebirth/reincarnation or not, one thing is clear: this life you are in now began with a birth at some point, and will eventually end with a death at some point.

What if instead of being an arrow, your life was a circle? No beginning, no end; an endless loop. How different would your experience of life be?

It strikes me that the linear way we experience life is a benefit. Both biologically and spiritually speaking, life as we know it could not exist in any way except as an arrow. No point A and no point B means no change. No change means the universe is static. A static universe means no stars, no planets, no carbon, no oxygen, and no Thomas Time. If everything just swirled around in circles, you and I could not exist. If everything was a perfect cycle, nothing could develop or grow or evolve -- nothing could happen. With no irritation, no pearl could grow inside an oyster (to borrow the metaphor of Lama Surya Das).

Our lives derive meaning specifically from the fact that they will, to our knowledge, end at some unknown but inevitable point in the future. If we could not grow and change, if we could not be born and die, if your life and mine was just one big circle, I don't think we could even have the awareness that we do. In a way, the idea of Heaven or some perfect state of bliss scares me. It seems a fate worse than death -- perfect Heaven would have no change, no challenge, no risk, no taste of victory after the fear of failure.

Wanting to be free from the inevitability of death seems as ridiculous to me as a raindrop trying to fall for eternity rather than face the inevitable impact with the ground, or a roof, or a leaf. If you are a raindrop, and all you can do is fall forever (because you are attached to the life of falling), what is your life? Falling has no meaning without a reference to some place fallen from and a place fallen onto. Without those point A and B, the raindrop might as well be suspended in a vast void of total nothingness -- and so it is in a life without birth or death.

That's one reason Buddhists think about and meditate on death; that's why death was Buddha's greatest guru. That point B defines our life; it gives meaning to every day before it. Just as a real, live rose (which will eventually die) is vastly more beautiful than even the most perfect plastic rose (which could outlive us all), a life framed by birth and death is vastly more beautiful than a life that could never end. Don't you agree?

(Photo courtesy of jmtimages.)

Facebook owns your name, your likeness, and ALL your content. FOREVER.

Okay, this is ridiculous. I'm taking a long, hard look at my attachment to Facebook, because of a Terms of Service update that has just come to light. Mashable summed it up very well:

In short, all of the content you’ve ever uploaded on Facebook can be used, modified or even sublicensed by Facebook in every possible way - even if you quit the service.

Isn't that grand? And here's another part that most people are not paying much attention to. The Terms of Service also state that you grant Facebook the right "to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising." This, just like Facebook's right to all of your data, cannot be revoked even if you delete your data or cancel your account.

It's true that all of these terms have been there for a while -- but there used to be a part of the Terms of Service that stated you could delete your content and revoke Facebook's right to use it. That part of the TOS has been removed. In the "Termination" section of the TOS, it specifically says that even if the rest of the Terms are terminated (such as by closing your Facebook account), they still retain all those rights to your name, likeness, content, etc.

So, basically anything you've ever done, said, and uploaded (or someone else has done, said, and uploaded about you) belongs to Facebook. Forever. Including your name and your pictures. And these can be used to advertise or promote anything, whether you like it or not.

This is just disgusting.

(I should point out that Twitter does not have these ridiculous terms that claim ownership of everything you do and say.)

Lance Armstrong's Bike Stolen

Gotta love this. I just heard from Lance Armstrong via Twitter that his time trial bike just got stolen, along with three bikes belonging to other people. The best part is his latest tweet, with a photo of the bike:

http://twitpic.com/1i8t1 - A pic of the stolen tt bike. There is only one like it in the world therefore hard to pawn it off. Reward being offered.

Take a look at the picture. Good luck trying to pawn off a one-of-a-kind bike with Armstrong's name plastered on it.

Disappointment

These days, I've felt a growing disappointment with Obama. Not so much because I placed a high level of faith in him myself, but it's more like a change in the weather. I feel it around me, hanging in the air.



As recent as a month ago, I heard family and friends singing the praises of Obama as if he were Jesus. "Change has come!", the shouts rang out. "Now that Obama is here, things will get better!", the prayers and mantras issued forth from the lips of family members and casual acquaintances alike.

Indeed, I had some hope that things would improve with Obama taking the reins. Not so much because I think he's much better or different than McCain or any of the others in DC -- I do not. But I saw a great deal of inspiration that infused the people of this country, and people of other countries as well. Obama was a symbol of what people wanted -- they wanted a leader who they could be proud of, not ashamed of (I'm looking at you, George W. Bush!). They wanted to hope beyond all hope that finally somebody could step in and put an end to the nonsense that's dragged America through the mud for the last 8 years.

In a way, people put TOO much hope in Obama. Too much hope and not enough action. They wanted, and still want, him to be a savior. The problem with a savior is that, by definition, he saves you. What most Americans don't realize is that nobody can save us, not even the Obama we thought we knew when we elected him. He can't save us, but he sure can sink us if we keep giving him and his administration license to do so.

Unless you take action, unless you do something beyond voting once every four years, little will happen. There is no "change" without you doing the changing. Obama cannot rescue America anymore than Buddha or Jesus can save your soul -- you have to want it, and you have to feel it with every ounce of your being so that there is no alternative except to act.

Where's the change? Obama has filled our government with people no less corrupt than the last batch. In some cases, he has moved up frighteningly powerful people -- ones who were already in positions of interest that stand in stark contrast to the wellbeing of our country (*cough cough*The Federal Reserve*cough cough*). Instead of investing our billions of dollars (all printed out of the ether, I might add) into education, or job training, or libraries, or cancer research, or any genuine matter of concern for America, what has the Obama administration done? They've snowed us in under an avalanche of debt so that we can give money to car companies, fiscally irresponsible companies that rival the airlines and newspapers and the music industry for being out-of-touch, overpriced, and under-performing.

Obama's barely been in a month, so we'll need to wait and see how things turn out in the long run. But we're off to a crappy start. Even without the 600,000+ jobs already lost this year, we'd be off to a crappy start. Obama got in, he penned a few things about Guantanamo and got a big surge of praise off that -- but since then, I haven't heard anyone around me say a single favorable thing about what our new administration has done since Inauguration Day. All the Obama fans in my family have fallen silent, the people I talk casually with have shifted from chanting "change!" to merely shaking their heads and giving a weighty sigh.

The only change I see is the source of our disappointment. Before, we were disappointed in our boob of a president whose legacy included slaughtered soldiers and crushed civil liberties. Now our disappointment, equally strong if not stronger than before, is rooted in a different president whose legacy is quickly shaping up to be that of a slaughtered economy and crushed hope.

Of course, my fellow Ron Paul supporters knew this would happen all along. I hoped against it, but they were right -- and my faint glimmer of trust in the American people to push our nation to live up to the high standards everybody raised Obama to, well... That vanished about as quickly as those 600,000 jobs last month. Oh if only the Republicans had chosen Ron Paul instead of McCain! At least we would've had a chance to turn this Titanic of a nation a few degrees away from the icebergs we're now crashing into.

Happy Valentine's Day

"Love consists not of gazing at each other, but in gazing together in the same direction."
-- Antoine de Saint Exupery

(Photograph courtesy of Jacque Davis)

Life Lessons from Windows Weekly

Today, as I was listening to a recent episode of the Windows Weekly podcast, Paul Thurrott ended up talking a bit about something that really caught my attention. The gist of what he said is this: the difficult economic situation here in the USA (and elsewhere, but especially here) is not what a lot of people think and hope it to be. He quoted Steve Ballmer as saying this recession is not like what happened in the 90's with the internet boom, where we had soaring highs, a big crash, and then a quick recovery. In a way, there will be no recovery from this recession.

Paul said that this is a wake-up call for many people to absorb two principles into their lifestyle: live simply, and live within your means. That's why there may be no recovery from the recession, in a traditional sense. Recovery implies we can muddle through and eventually go back to the way things were; but there was an undertone in what Paul said that made me realize that's not what we should expect. The fact is, this recession is a wake-up call not to a short-lived inconvenience to our American lifestyle. As he said, it is like somebody hit the "reset" button. There's no going back -- it's a new world, we have to start from scratch with a new lifestyle.

These thoughts struck me deeply as I was listening to the podcast while crossing a busy six-lane street. As I watched car after car go by, I thought about the ridiculousness of it all. Virtually every car that passed had only one person inside. It was like watching a bunch of floating bubbles go by, each one a self-contained little world. Most likely, the majority of those cars were bought with borrowed money and thus the source of a lot of financial stress and worry. Each car was a symbol for just how much we overextend ourselves for creature comforts.

Paul's take on the recession represents a bittersweet message, especially for people my age. Bitter because we Americans have always cherished our rather carefree, uninhibited way of life that allows us to buy anything we want, anytime we want, knowing that in the unquestionably prosperous future we will pay it all off somehow. Bitter for people my age because we grew up seeing the world around us in that light -- we imagined our transition to adulthood being crowned with cars and houses and unlimited scholarship money and great jobs in any field that touched our inner spirit. Now as we come of age, we see that world is a thing of the (recent) past. It will likely not come back again; not anytime soon, anyway.

The "sweet" side of the bittersweet is that this situation has the negative potential to reset not only our bank accounts, but the positive potential to reset our outlook as well. Perhaps some people will realize what they should have always known: that happiness does not come from what you own or what you buy, but from what you do and how you live your life.

The reset button can take away a lot of dreams and crush a lot of people's hopes and hearts, but in the long run, perhaps it will be better for us. Maybe we'll be more in tune with the reality that many other people have always known, instead of living in our fantasy of a treadmill lifestyle that constantly climbs up, up, up into ever greater material riches.

Perhaps this recession is really something other than what most people think. Maybe it's the bursting bubble of America's childhood dreams; maybe now our country is being forced to grow up a little, take responsibility, and be a nation of adults. Are we up to the challenge? Or will we hide under our blankets and hope that mommy or God will come and make it all better?

Books In Progress: It's not you, it's me!

So, as usual, I'm reading around five books at the same time right now. One of them is Buddha Is As Buddha Does, by Lama Surya Das. I've read Surya Das's other books, Awakening the Buddha Within and Awakening to the Sacred, both of which touched me deeply and inspired me in my early studies of Buddhism. Buddha Is As Buddha Does (which I will call BIABD from now on, to avoid having to type the awkward title over and over) is a more recent book, with a seemingly refined focus compared to Awakening.

I'm only a couple chapters in, but I gotta say -- the book just isn't sucking me in. I like Surya Das. He's not the best writer, but he writes with a palpable level of passion for his subject. It's clear that he wants to help people and he wants to spread the Buddha's wisdom to help ease some suffering in the world. But BIABD just hasn't been able to grab me. Compared to The Heart of Being, this just isn't as compelling or as penetrating in its insight.

This book is focused on exactly the topic I want to explore right now -- the ideal of the Bodhisattva, and how to live like one. Surya Das structures the book around the ten paramitas or ten "perfections" of Buddhism -- generosity, ethics, patience, effort, meditation, etc. That's great! I want to dive into that framework more, and apply it to my life. However, I'm finding it a bit of a chore to get myself to open the book, which disappoints me.

BIABD is attractively presented, and Surya Das writes in his characteristically casual, non-preachy style. It's not a bad book by any means, but I think there is a fundamental problem for someone like me. Since first cracking open Awakening the Buddha Within over six years ago, I have moved on. I don't need to be convinced of the value of the Buddha's path -- I already know it and agree. This book is written from much the same starting point as Awakening; namely, it assumes you are starting mostly from scratch and need to be convinced that the Buddha Way is a good way. It's kind of like getting your Bachelor's in computer science, and then reading "PCs for Dummies." You're still not an expert in computer science, but you've moved on at any rate!

So, dear Lama Surya Das, I'm sorry. I'll keep trying with the book, but I don't think it's going to work out. But don't be sad! It's not you, it's me!

Practice = Enlightenment

This morning, I flipped to my bookmarked page in The Heart of Being, a book on Buddhism. There, I came across this passage:

Enlightenment and morality are one reality. This statement has perturbed people over the ages and given rise to misunderstandings and concerns that until we are enlightened, we remain immoral. We need to understand that Master Dogen's statement "There is no enlightenment without morality and no morality without enlightenment" arises directly from his equation "Practice is enlightenment." All sentient beings are already perfect and complete, already enlightened, but for most people that enlightenment has not yet been realized.

(emphasis mine)

The two things that jumped out at me were the equation (Practice = Enlightenment) and the last sentence: enlightenment has not yet been realized. This is not realization like "Aha! I understand!", but more like realized -- something is made real or manifested in the real world.

This is the heart of Buddhism, especially Zen. This is why it is "the pathless path" and "the goalless goal"; this is why wise teachers constantly admonish their students to stop worrying about how long it takes, stop striving and struggling so hard for the truth. It really does come when you stop struggling. According to Buddhism, enlightenment is not a state of being -- it is a mode of being, a life in action.

In Buddhism Is Not What You Think, Steve Hagen offered this to ponder: What is a pedestrian? If you are sitting and reading this right now, you are not a pedestrian. But the moment you stand up and start walking somewhere, a pedestrian exists in the world. Your action creates the pedestrian. Some little cosmic switch did not flick on because of your struggle and strife -- the Gods did not point and you and say "Shazam! You are now a pedestrian!" Your action created that mode of being. The moment you stop walking, the pedestrian ceases to be.

So for Buddhism, it is the same -- what is a Buddha, an enlightened being? It is nothing more than a person who acts in enlightened ways. If for a brief moment you feel oneness with the world, if you can see the truth, if you speak to heal and not to hurt -- in that brief moment, you are enlightened. You are the embodiment of enlightenment. You = Enlightenment and Enlightenment = You. But just because you were enlightened for a minute, or a month, or a year, does not mean that you are an enlightened being forever. Just because you gave me a nice birthday card a year ago does not mean you are a "good person." You need to manifest goodness in your actions and with every molecule of your being. You have to use your awareness and your actions to re-create, or to re-realize, yourself as a Buddha every moment, every day.

Being enlightened is not like graduating from college. You graduate from college, and you are now a "college graduate." You don't have to do anything more to be a college graduate -- that label is a label of state, a label of accomplishment. It is forever true from that point on. But enlightenment and wisdom don't work that way -- you have to be enlightenment and wisdom, otherwise the label is meaningless.

Practice is not a means to attain enlightenment but the manifestation of enlightenment itself.
-- John Daido Loori, The Heart of Being (p. 75)

(Photo courtesy of nuanc.)

Happy Birthday, Z!

Today is the 30th birthday for one of my favorite movie stars, Zhang Ziyi (章子怡). So, Happy Birthday, Ziyi!

Dalai Lama on Twitter

Update: Alas, it was a scam. The account got suspended, and then came back later as the "Unofficial Dalai Lama." Such a shame. I mean, it's cool that people want to spread updates about what the Dalai Lama is doing, but 1) It's not cool to impersonate and deceive, and 2) There's already a bunch of Dalai Lama followers on Twitter who post updates on his schedule, speeches, etc. So why do we need another one? We don't. We need the real Dalai Lama on there! Guess we'll have to wait a while... Anyway, the following is my original post.

Awesome. I just noticed today, thanks to Kevin Rose, that the Dalai Lama is on Twitter. Okay... It's actually the office of the Dalai Lama, but it's a good development. I honestly wouldn't expect His Holiness to sit in the lotus position with a netbook in his lap, tapping away to the Twitter hordes. It would be mighty cool if he did, though. ;)

Is there any question that Twitter has pretty much arrived as a social network? We've got Barack Obama, Levar Burton, Britney Spears... Okay, well, we could do without Britney. But the presence of the Dalai Lama makes up a bit for her. Get on Twitter and follow me!

Meddling at Home and Abroad

Although you'd never know it by reading the print media or watching television talk shows, we who support the foreign policy of the Founding Fathers hold an honored place in the history of the Republican Party and of the conservative and libertarian movements. The so-called old Right, or original Right, opposed Big Government at home and abroad and considered foreign interventionism to be the other side of the same statist coin as interventionism at home. They recognized that Big Government was no more honest or competent in foreign policy than it was in domestic policy. In both cases it was the same institution, with the same people, operating under the same incentives.
-- Congressman Ron Paul, The Revolution: A Manifesto

Damn you, fake Alka-Seltzer!

Yo, I'm sick. Don't know what it is, but it sucks -- it first hit me with a very annoying sore throat, then moved on to attack my sinuses. My throat is fine today, but my head has been so stuffy feeling, it's not even funny. Also, I've been taking the Walgreens knock-off of Alka-Seltzer and I think it's making things worse in a way. The real Alka-Seltzer I usually took didn't have antihistamines in it, as far as I know, but this does. It doesn't make me sleepy, but it does make my already cloudy brain that much more overcast.

Sometimes during my work day, my brain is like a radio station that experiences dead air. Nothing's transmitting, nothing's happening, just that faint hiss of static that tells you the microphone's plugged in but nobody's behind it. It's really not cool to stand face-to-face with a customer, your cash register drawer open, and your brain is having difficulty grasping just how to count out $2.00 in change to them. I think I'm gonna stop taking that crap and see if my fuzzy brain improves. It's not like the antihistamines have actually been relieving my discomfort, anyway.

On a completely different topic -- the Super Bowl. I wasn't going to watch, but when Suzy and I went to Wing Basket (45 minute wait for our order, kthxbye), I ended up watching when that insane 100 yard play happened right before halftime. I knew then that this game was going to be something worth watching, even for somebody like myself who generally doesn't follow football very much. I just may have to become a bloodthirsty fan, now! At least our national sport is cooler than ping-pong (sorry, Suzy).