Episódios
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Often, in Buddhist texts, the “eight worldly concerns” make their appearance. This verse, for example, is part of my daily practice:
I will learn to keep all these practices Untainted by thoughts of the eight worldly concerns. May I recognize all things as like illusions, And, without attachment, gain freedom from bondage.
What are the concerns that taint daily life? The Buddha lists them in Lokavipatti Sutta. As translated by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, the sutta begins:
Monks, these eight worldly conditions spin after the world, and the world spins after these eight worldly conditions. Which eight? Gain, loss, status, disgrace, censure, praise, pleasure, & pain. These are the eight worldly conditions that spin after the world, and the world spins after these eight worldly conditions.
That passage never struck me as profound until I saw the “concerns” translated as “winds.” Yes, most of us bend to the winds of:
Gain/loss,
status/disgrace,
censure/praise,
pleasure/pain.
With all eight winds, the compass heading is between attachment and aversion to avoid being blown off the path. Walk the path of equanimity.
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We have to learn the art of stopping—stopping our thinking, our habit energies, our forgetfulness, the strong emotions that rule us. —Thich Nhat Hanh (1926-2022)
That’s a good subject to talk with your chiropractor about when you’re lying facedown on her adjustment table in an office adjoining a shopping complex as the December holidays approach—the art of stopping. It’s what happened to me yesterday.
I had already decided that, because of the hectic season, my next podcast would be a guided meditation listeners could use whenever they find themselves busily bee-ing and forgetting to simply be. Then Doc Misty said she had been thinking about the importance of stopping and found it hard to build even ten minutes a day into her busy schedule for meditation.
So, I’ll have her and people like her in mind as I lead this. I hope it’s useful for those newer to meditation and the more experienced listeners to From the Pure Land.
Before we begin, I’ll say a few words about Thay. That’s what his students call the venerable Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who died in 2022 at the age of 95. That’s the Vietnamese word for “teacher.” It was my privilege to consider Thay my primary teacher for almost three decades and to have attended numerous in-person events with him, including a weeklong retreat in the mountains of Vermont.
If you’re unfamiliar with Thich Nhat Hanh, consider reading his classic book The Miracle of Mindfulness or anorther favorite of mine, Living Buddha, Living Christ.
That retreat in Vermont was held at the Ascutney Mountain Resort in the skiing off-season. The retreat organizers rented the place and hired a local catering firm to supply vegetarian meals. The caterers were given one unusual instruction. At every meal, the bell of mindfulness would be rung once or twice.
Thay’s students know what the sound of the bell means. When they hear it, they are asked to stop whatever they are doing (as long as they can do so safely), listen to the beautiful sound as it fades, focus on their breathing, and return fully to their “true home.” So the catering servers and kitchen staff were asked to do the same. At each meal, as the bell sounded, they would stop along with the rest of us. Sometimes, they’d stop in midstride holding a tray of food or empty plates.
At the retreat’s final meal, as we thanked the catering employees, they told us how much they enjoyed this new practice of stopping. So, I invite you now to find a comfortable, quiet spot to stop and breathe when you hear the sound of the bell. You might think:
Listen. Listen. This beautiful sound brings me back to my true home.
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Many of us have mixed emotions about special days—those days designated for us all to feel and act in a certain way. The goal of From the Pure Land is to spur and encourage you on whatever path feels right for you. In that spirit, to explore aspects of generosity, I thought I’d present the ideas of Australian moral philosopher Peter Singer from a pro and con standpoint—food for thought on Giving Tuesday Eve.
You may be familiar with Singer because of his best-known book and his website, both called The Life You Can Save. The website is particularly useful because it helps identify what, according to Singer’s criteria, are the world’s most effective charities.
It was around ten years ago when Singer’s website helped me choose GiveDirectly as a regular recipient for my charitable spending, which continues to this day. Its mind-bogglingly simple philosophy is that the lowest overhead and highest effectiveness can be obtained by simply giving poor people money and following up on effectiveness. I highly recommend it and encourage you to check it out.
Singer has made significant contributions to the field of ethics, particularly in the areas of animal rights, effective altruism, and utilitarianism. His work has sparked both admiration and controversy. Here’s how Jack Maden, Founder and Director of Philosophy Break, sums up the questions raised by the thought experiment Singer often uses:
"Whose responsibility is it to improve society? Do we each have a moral duty to help those we don’t know? And, if so, how far does that duty go?"
The thought experiment in brief:
Your walk to work takes you past a knee-deep pond, and on this day, you see a toddler splashing in it. Then you realize her arms are flailing, and she’s in danger of drowning. You see no one else around. The child must have wandered there on her own. You know you can easily wade in and save the toddler, but then your new shoes would be ruined, your suit would need cleaning, and the aftermath would make you late for work. What should you do?
The answer, in this case, is obvious. But then, Maden explains:
"Having established this, Singer then asks us to consider the fact that, actually, there are children dying of preventable causes around the world every single day.
"In poverty-stricken areas of the globe, for instance, children lack access to life-saving medicines or vaccinations that cost just tens of dollars to administer.
"If we’re willing to sacrifice our clothes to save the life of a child drowning in front of us, then surely we’d be willing to sacrifice a few spare dollars to save children elsewhere from preventable deaths.
"The question Singer then puts to us is: well, why don’t we? Why aren’t we all routinely giving as much as we can to help save children’s lives?"
Overall, Singer’s utilitarian philosophy would guide our actions and our spending toward increasing happiness and reducing suffering for all beings worldwide. It makes no difference to Singer whether the child in danger of dying is about to drown in a pond in your neighborhood or about to starve to death on the other side of the globe. And, for Singer, “all beings” definitely includes animals. Singer’s views make sense from a Buddhist perspective, but then there’s that non-Buddhist aphorism about the Devil (Mara?) being in the details.
Singer, for example, finds euthanasia permissible in some circumstances for severely disabled infants. Moreover, some critics find flaws in applying Singer’s ethics in everyday life.
In a Philosophy Now article titled Peter Singer Says You Are a Bad Person, Howard Darmstadter, an adjunct professor of philosophy and law, says:
"Singer’s ethical theory has become controversial because it has led him to views on abortion and euthanasia that many find abhorrent. However, for most of us, issues about abortion and euthanasia seldom arise, whereas eating and spending are daily events. But even in areas involving animals or charitable giving, Singer’s principles have awkward consequences. Consider: if all pleasure or suffering counts equally, then (as his argument goes), the pleasure or suffering of your own children should have no special place in your calculations. So if you live in Ohio and are deciding whether to spend $200,000 to send your daughter east to Princeton for four years, or instead spend $80,000 to send her down the road to Ohio State, while giving the other $120,000 to save the lives of hundreds of African children—well, Hello, Columbus (Ohio)! (The Life You Can Save, p.138)"
Here’s another quotation from Darmstadter:
"Finally, that child in the pool. Everyone knows what you should do. But suppose that later that day you encounter a second drowning child. Again, we would want you to take the plunge. But a third? A fiftieth? Suppose you encountered a hundred such children every day. Perhaps at some point you’ll think “Why does this all fall on me?” and walk on by, pretending you don’t hear the child’s screams. Or perhaps you’ll just spend more time away from pools."
Darmstadter’s point is that our feelings about one drowning child we can save can’t be compared with our attitude toward all children in mortal peril.
My views loosely align with those of Peter Singer. The goal of what I do is to reduce overall suffering, but I tread a Middle Way between all beings and the beings I know and love. I feel loving-kindness for all beings but do sometimes give priority to humans over termites and to my spouse over all women who are recovering from surgery. On the other hand, I encouraged my sons to go to state colleges.
Charitable living is not an either/or state of being. I welcome any thoughts you’d like to share in the comments below or by email to [email protected].
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I find it curious that every year, Americans slaughter 50 million turkeys to express their gratitude. —Bhante Gunaratana
I chose that quotation not because I believe everyone should abstain from eating turkey but rather to question how we express gratitude. This blog post and podcast are intended to raise questions for contemplation. Answers—if there are such things—are up to the individual.
The idea for this post came when I was meditating in one room, and my wife listened to a dharma talk in another. The bits that filtered into my consciousness had to do with gratitude—of course. It was four days before the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving.
My inclination, as a contrarian, was to buck the trend. But what could be wrong with gratitude? Countless Buddhist teachers suggest incorporating it into our practice. For one example, in an essay by teacher Jonathan Borella about making mindful gratitude part of one’s daily practice, he writes:
Evolutionary psychology describes an adaptation called the Zargonic effect, which predisposes the human mind to notice what’s wrong more easily than what is right. It might have served our ancestors well who had to survive in the wild and build a society from the ground up. But for people like us who have time and space and safety to come and sit in meditation together and not have to worry about anything (at least for the moment), an unmindfulness of this habit tends to lead us to worry about things when there is nothing to worry about.
So a mindful practice of cultivating gratitude can help to correct for this habit and bring our mind back to center where there is peace and a more holistic and balanced view of the way things actually are.
Part of my daily practice is reflecting on these words:
Seeing its many wonderful qualities, I rejoice and delight in this human life.
Contemplating those words daily—as well as other parts of my practice—has led me to a state of constant joy and gratitude for my life as it is, warts and all. It’s my baseline. If one of those warts distracts me from the baseline, I quickly remember that I love it, too. This is known as “one taste” in Buddhism—to accept everything that comes one’s way without trying to separate the wanted from the unwanted.
Here’s the well-known quote from the Third Chinese Patriarch of Zen:
The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.
Having no preferences at all is a lot to ask. Instead, consider recognizing that preferences are just that. They’re unrelated to the satisfaction you feel or don’t feel with your life.
We’re getting closer now to my grumpiness about gratitude—or, more accurately, some ways that thankfulness is expressed. I feel gratitude for being alive in human form in the world as I perceive it. Thanks to the Buddha, the dharma, the sangha, and my individual teachers, I maintain a daily practice that reminds me I live in a pure land. That’s a lot to be thankful for. Gratitude is an essential part of my being.
If you don’t have a practice that is leading or has led you to constant joy and gratitude, consider beginning one with a daily component of cultivating gratitude and appreciation for what is.
Where I suggest caution is gratitude that is intertwined with ego and preferences—thankfulness for one thing over another. I had a blessed moment yesterday of listening to music played and sung by a group of friends and listened to by others in this circle of friendship. I found myself meditating and contemplating love and friendship. I wasn’t thankful for this particular group of friends (as much as I love them) or this particular genre of music (as much as I appreciate it). I was grateful for friendship and how the music drew us together.
As Thanksgiving approaches for those of us in the United States, I suggest caution about feeling and expressing gratitude for Aunt Mary’s apple pie (as opposed to Uncle Charlie’s pumpkin), feeling pride in how many compliments you got for your stuffing or how many compliments you gave to others, rating the quality of the blessing or the eloquence of one toast over another. Be thankful for it all.
Consider refraining from putting your loved ones on the spot to name something they’re grateful for. The result will be embarrassment for the shy ones and temptations to show off for others.
These may seem like small quibbles, and they are. Consider them goads to evaluate how the small things in life influence your spiritual growth.
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When I launched From the Pure Land as a blog almost six months ago, I was comfortable writing but not public speaking. My mild cognitive impairment (MCI) resulted in too many pauses for me to grasp and say the word I was looking for, and sometimes, the word I spoke was not the one I intended.
As it turned out, the more I exercised my writing neuronic connections, the more the speaking connections improved. I still speak slowly and make mistakes, but I felt ready to start podcasting, which is easy to add to Substack blogging. So I record and release some of the From the Pure Land blog posts as podcasts as well.
My goal in it all is to spread the teachings and practices that have helped me live in a pure land of joy and compassion. The podcasts help me reach more people. They have been listened to in 36 countries, and we’re approaching our first 1,000 downloads. What’s especially exciting about that is the opportunity to include some meditations.
The current edition is aimed at the listeners. It’s a guided meditation on what has been called the Supreme Contemplation—four thoughts that turn the mind away from worldly concerns and toward spiritual practices, away from suffering and toward peace and loving equanimity. It’s an important component of Tibetan Buddhism and a key part of my daily practice.
For a fuller discussion of the four thoughts, here’s a link to a teaching by Alexander Berzin and one to an article called The Supreme Contemplation by Andrew Holecek in the Winter 2013 edition of Tricycle.
The four thoughts are:
* The preciousness of human life.
* Impermanence and death.
* Karma or the way causes and conditions always have a result.
* The way our minds create so much of our suffering.
If you’re reading this as a blog post, consider clicking the arrow above and joining me and the podcast listeners in a meditation. You can also click on the tab that says “Transcript.”
From the Pure Land has thousands of readers and hundreds of subscribers in 32 U.S. states and 14 countries. The podcast has listeners in 36 countries. Consider:
* If you are not already a subscriber, please become one. Free and paid subscribers receive the same content, but subscribing for $5 a month or $50 a year helps support my mission to reduce the world’s suffering.
* Make a one-time gift of any amount.
* Share this post with a friend.
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Just as the ocean has a gradual shelf, a gradual slope, a gradual inclination, with a sudden drop-off only after a long stretch; in the same way this Dhamma and Vinaya has a gradual training, a gradual performance, a gradual practice, with a penetration to gnosis only after a long stretch. —From the Uposatha Sutta translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
The quotation above will serve as the entry point for our second From the Pure Land Back to Basics post. The first one also came after a period when I had wandered into political and social issues.
Returning to the quote, the translator uses the Pali words dhamma and vinaya. In Sanskrit, dhamma becomes dharma, which we English speakers often use. Let’s focus first on those words.
Dharma has many meanings, but as used here, it refers to the body of teachings from the Buddha. Vinaya, in Pali and Sanskrit, is the set of rules and precepts used by fully ordained monks and nuns, but it can also mean “discipline.” In this sutta, the Buddha is addressing his monks, using the ocean as a teaching aid to explain eight “amazing and astounding qualities” common to both the ocean and the journey to gnosis, or enlightenment.
The quotation above is from the first of the eight, emphasizing that the route is gradual. Learning the dharma and diligently practicing as taught is, the Buddha said, an “amazing and astounding” process that leads gradually to gnosis. The Buddha is telling his students not to expect quick and sudden enlightenment but rather to enjoy the journey, “with a sudden drop-off only after a long stretch.”
I spent several years in the 1980s as an avid recreational scuba diver. I had Advanced Open Water and Night Diving certifications and made over 200 dives. I glided over reefs that were 30 or 40 feet deep, sometimes following them to, say, 60-foot depth and eventually to a drop-off of hundreds or thousands of feet. That drop-off is called a wall. Occasionally, I’d make a single dive alongside a wall to my limit of 120 feet.
Every inch of those dives was “amazing and astounding.” Now, here’s the thing: The Buddha roamed and lived nowhere near an ocean and probably had never in his earthly life seen one. Scuba gear would not be invented for more than another 2,000 years. Yet he used that perfect analogy.
What I hear the Buddha saying is that the journey itself is beautiful. Many Western students get hung up on the idea of enlightenment as a goal.
Did my meditation this morning get me closer to enlightenment?
My answer to that would be:
Not if that’s how you think of it.
Meditation and other practices taught in Buddhism are ways of living—skillful means of lessening the world’s suffering. They do lead to enlightenment—gnosis—but thinking about that as the goal distorts the process.
So, what is meant by the doctrine and discipline?
Here’s my informal summation of the doctrine—what the Buddha taught:
We all have painful episodes in our lives, but we can eliminate the second arrow of suffering by working with our minds to restrain our ego, craving, aversion, fear of the future, and ignorance that blinds us to the interconnectedness of all beings. The Eightfold Path was the Buddha’s first guide to retraining our minds.
All beings have an innate Buddha Nature that can be manifested by practicing the dharma. That’s the eventual gnosis that can be reached “after a long stretch” of practice.
Again, informally, here’s my take on the discipline:
The basic five precepts for laypersons are not to take life, not to take what is not offered, not to indulge in sex or other sensual pleasures in a way that causes harm to oneself or others, not to lie or gossip, and not to indulge in intoxicants that cloud the mind. These precepts are guides, not absolutes.
Beyond these, I like to refer to the Pāramitās or Perfections. These vary in number and terminology, but in essence, they are generosity, ethical conduct, patient forbearance, joyful effort, renunciation of worldly distractions, nondual wisdom, loving kindness (goodwill), and equanimity.
The role of meditation or contemplation is woven throughout the doctrine and discipline. That’s because the path is an experiential one that depends on more than words and concepts. It must be lived. I’m reminded again of scuba diving. Gliding underwater in scuba gear, one can hear nothing but the sound of the air coming from the tanks and going out the regulator. There are no words, just the bliss of being in a joyful pure land.
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My wife, Carol, had outpatient knee replacement surgery yesterday, Election Day, so we both went to sleep around 11 p.m. East Coast U.S. time. At 3 a.m., after I awoke and got a pain pill for her, I checked the election returns and decided to write and record a quick post and podcast with quotations about all of us and the world being perfect as we are because causes and conditions produced us. We and the world could be no different than who and what we are.
And just as people accept what comes and make it their teacher, maybe nations can, too. Maybe citizens can learn to listen more fully to each other. Here’s Thich Nhat Hanh on deep listening from his book The Art of Communicating:
Deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of another person. You can call it compassionate listening. You listen with only one purpose: to help him or her to empty his heart. Even if he says things that are full of wrong perceptions, full of bitterness, you are still capable of continuing to listen with compassion. Because you know that listening like that, you give that person a chance to suffer less. If you want to help him to correct his perception, you wait for another time. For now, you don't interrupt. You don't argue. You just listen with compassion and help him to suffer less. One hour like that can bring transformation and healing.
Huang Po from The Zen Teaching of Huang Po translated by John Blofeld:
If you can simply cease to cherish opinions, the present will be your only thought.
Shunryu Suzuki from Zen Mind Beginners Mind:
Each of you is perfect the way you are...and you can use a little improvement.
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche from Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism:
The bad news is you're falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is, there's no ground.
Two more from Thich Nhat Hanh:
The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.
The seed of suffering in you may be strong, but don't wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy.
And a phrase he used often in guided meditations. You might try saying the first two words to yourself on the in-breath and the next two on the out-breath:
Present moment only moment.
One more thought: Carol will recover from her surgery regardless of election outcomes.
May we all rest peacefully in the perfection of the present moment.
From the Pure Land has hundreds of subscribers in 32 U.S. states and 14 countries. The podcast has listeners in 33 countries. Consider:
* If you are not already a subscriber, please become one. Free and paid subscribers receive the same content, but subscribing for $5 a month or $50 a year helps support my mission.
* Make a one-time gift of any amount.
* Share this post with a friend.
* Listen and subscribe to the From the Pure Land podcasts via your favorite app or by clicking here.
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Today’s podcast and post is about “the clear and empty nature of the mind,” which you may hear referred to as rigpa or simply as nature of mind. Resting in the nature of mind is the heart of my Buddhist practice. As long as I can find that state and remain in it, I can handle any situation along the path—usually in a joyful way but always with kindness and compassion for myself and others.
I kid you not. I believe that peace of mind is available to every one of us.
Learning to find and rest in your nature of mind can’t be done in words and images. It’s an experiential process that takes time and…not effort but whatever you can imagine as the opposite of effort. It takes a relaxing into your mind—not the confused aspects of your mind—its true nature that “is sometimes called the union of clarity and emptiness or the union of wisdom and the expanse.”
While words won’t take you to the nature of your mind, I’m going to use some to, I hope, enhance your motivation to find it.
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Below is a lightly edited version of the transcript, which isn’t perfect. I advise listening to the recording. [I also made a big mistake in the recording. I’m 78 years old; not 87. And I meant to mention an article by Andrew Holecek about the bardos. The idea is that some of the preparation for the death bardos can help with life’s bardos. Here’s the link to the article.]
Welcome to an episode of the From the Pure Land podcast. I'm Mel Pine.
I just took a little breath, a deep breath, and suggest that we all take a deep breath as we get ready to talk about November 5.
I'm going to do something different this time. I'm a writer and editor by background. I'm used to expressing myself on a keyboard. But I'm going to do this ad lib as though I'm talking with a friend or a group of friends and hope that the transcript comes out in a way I can publish it along with the podcast and blog post.
If you're listening to a podcast and you want to see the transcript, it will be posted on the From the Pure Land blog on Substack, and you can get there by going—by typing in melpine.substck.com.
So I was having lunch today with a friend and we were talking about how people are stressing out about the coming election. I mean, both of us have our own opinions about how important the election is, and it is very important. If you've been reading my blog, you know that I feel strongly that the sense of the United States as an aspirational democracy, a place of refuge and freedom, might change if Trump and Company are elected.
My father was an immigrant and my maternal grandparents were immigrants. So that's important to me, but I also might be less happy about some things in some situations—I mean, when you think about it:
The universe has been around for, according to science, almost 14 billion years. And the universe will keep going, according to science, for many trillions of years. We humans have been on the earth for 200,000 to 300,000 years. And when you think of that stretch of time…and when you think of us and our little spot on the planet Earth…in our solar system, in our galaxy, and pull back and look at the enormity of the universe, we're small potatoes. We're less than small potatoes.
We're also somewhat privileged to be able to worry about things like whether we're an inspirational democracy and a model for the world. If I were living in the Gaza Strip right now, I would not have the luxury of worrying about that. So, I say that just to put it into perspective.
Thinking about the November 5 and the election coming up, I thought about the Tibetan Buddhist word bardo. A bardo is a gap or transition, like the one between living and dying. And normally when we talk about bardos, we talk about the bardos of dying, passing through stages that in Tibetan Buddhism, lead to rebirth.
And we talk about certain bardos of living, the bardo of being born, for example, as a transition. There are other transitions we go through in life. The word bardo can really refer to any gap, any transition. So you might even say that from one moment to the next is a bardo.
Obviously, that's too small a speck of time to think a lot about. But I was thinking about my life today after I saw a picture—a picture came up that I love to see every now and then. It came up as a Facebook reminder from 44 years ago. It's a picture of me crossing the finish line of the 1980 New York City Marathon.
Well, I am 78 now, and I've had six joint replacement surgeries so I don't move as well as I did in October 1980. I walk with a cane sometimes if I’m going a fairly long distance or on uneven ground. If i'm going longer distances like at an airport, I use a motorized wheelchair.
So that phase of my life is a good example of impermanence. We Buddhists like to talk about impermanence. And I am no longer athletic enough to run 26.2 miles. In another phase in my life, I was traveling the mountains in Papua New Guinea. Long story what got me there on a business trip, but there are pictures of me in a t-shirt and shorts wandering the Central Highlands of Papua New Guinea. That's something I could not do today.
I'm in a phase of my life where I sit a lot and think a lot and read and research and write. I believe I am going into what I think of as a final productive stage of my life spreading the word—I hate to use the term “spreading the dharma” because it can sound funny to people and maybe it's overused—but spreading a message that I hope reduces your suffering, reduces the suffering around me in the world.
And in doing that, it invigorates me. It reduces my suffering. It helps me maintain that sublime happiness that I referred to in a recent blog post. It affirms my joy at being alive to be able to do things like this.
And I will be able to continue doing things like this even if Donald Trump wins the election on November 5.
I started to say—I don't think I finished the thought, but I started to say—that I'm not as comfortable as I am sitting down and writing. I have mild cognitive impairment, which manifests in difficulty finding the right word. So sometimes, there will be long pauses between one word and the next. You might call it the Joe Biden syndrome. And sometimes, the wrong word comes out. You might call it the Donald Trump syndrome.
So it's a bit daring for me to do it this way, but I wanted to get this message out and I wanted to get it out quickly. I also thought I ought to lead into a little meditation that I hope will help you, help whoever is listening, as we head toward November 5 and think about maintaining our equilibrium.
So if you would, find a comfortable place where you won't be disturbed. If you can't do that right now, you might pause this and return later. When you find a spot, you're going to sit comfortably. If you’re in a chair, your feet will be on the floor. If you're sitting on the floor or a sofa or with your legs crossed, that's fine, too. Even if you wanna lie down, that's okay. If you want to stand and walk around, that's okay.
You want to be comfortable, and you do want your back to be straight—relatively straight, straightish—so you can breathe easily in and out.
I like to ring the bell three times when we begin a meditation and when we end one.
And sometimes I say:
Body, speech, and mind in perfect oneness,I send my heart along with the sound of this bell.May the hearers awaken from forgetfulnessAnd transcend all sorrow.
[Bell rings three times]
As the sound of the bell fades, we take a few breaths. We fall deeper and deeper into relaxation. It's always possible to get a little bit more relaxed.
Your eyes can be open or closed. If they're open, you're not going to focus on anything. You're just going to have them rest and not attach to anything. Just let them take in whatever is before them as a whole. Or, if you're more comfortable, just have your eyes closed.
And you're aware of your breath.
You're aware as your breath enters and leaves.
You're aware of any areas where your body is, or where your feet are, touching the ground or where you’re in contact with, as I am now, with a solid arm on my chair. Aware of any physical sensations at points like that. Maybe focus on one of them for a moment. I'm focused right now on that arm on my chair.
What does that feel like? Is there a temperature associated with it? Any discomfort Comfort? Any vibrations? And you just relax into what we call open awareness.
You're aware of whatever your mind brings to your attention. And if it's not producing anything, that's fine. You're watching any thoughts you have come and go, not being swayed by them, not getting attached to them. Any emotions, let them be.
And if you're aware of them, they usually just dissipate. Let them go. Thoughts, emotions, a pang here, an itch there, a sound you may hear, a movement you may see…just don't attach to it.
And you might say to yourself silently
May I be well.
May I be happy
May I rest in equanimity.
You might think about the people who agree with you politically, agree with you about the election, whether that's for one candidate or another or in the middle somewhere or totally detached from the whole thing. Whatever way you feel, think about the group of people who feel that way with you.
May we be well.
May we be happy.
May we rest in equanimity.
And now for all the people who are undecided or confused:
May you be well.
May you be happy.
May you rest in equanimity.
Now, I know this will be difficult for some of you, but I'd like you to think about the people who are planning to vote for that other candidate, the one you hope will lose. Some of them may have motivations you don't approve of, but you might think of them as people who are confused, as people who maybe need to feel connected. As maybe people who are lost. As people who are entitled to your loving kindness.
And you might say to them in your mind:
May you be well.
May you be happy.
May you rest in equanimity.
Now one more. For people all over the world, those who are hurting and those who are not, those who are in war zones and those who are not, and for all beings—that limitless number—of all sorts.
May you be well.
May you be happy.
May you live in equanimity.
Thank you.
[Bell rings three times]
You might need a moment to collect yourself. Focus on the room you're in or whatever space you're in. I think I'll leave it there. I'm tempted to say more, but I think that's enough for now. I wish you well going through the bardo of November 5 standing calmly like a tree with deep roots, able to withstand whatever winds come.
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I couldn’t be happier with this first From the Pure Land interview—except that:
* There’s a weird silence at the beginning.
* Toward the end, you’ll hear a quotation from the Dalai Lama read twice, but please continue until the strange long silence at the end. You can skip that.
* A few other glitches because of my inexperience with the technology.
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As a Buddhist blogger, it’s essential to maintain my equanimity. I know that life is perfect as it is because it is shaped by causes and conditions, and there could be no other way. And I know that every moment is impermanent—those I like and those I’d prefer not to live through. So I take everything in stride and hope to pass that state of mind on to readers and listeners.
As an American voter, I’m concerned about what seems to be a pivotal crossroads for the United States. On November 5, we will elect our next president.
One candidate is a megalomaniac who admires fascistic leaders and holds some minorities to blame for not making America great in the way he thinks it should be. He learned from his previous time in office that he won't get his way if he appoints staff members with principles. He won’t make that mistake again. We can’t be as sure about how the other candidate will govern, but she has run a campaign aimed at uniting us—a campaign respecting all Americans and the aspirational ideals on which the nation was founded.
One would think the choice would be a no-brainer, but surveys indicate that American opinion is divided down the middle—roughly 50% of us for each candidate. Many of those who support Donald Trump feel overwhelmed and ignored by intellectual elites on the other side who seem to have engineered a perilous cultural change in recent generations. They disdain the intellectual elites and don’t see Trump’s megalomania as a great threat. Many of those who support Kamala Harris disdain the MAGA (Make America Great Again) crowd and see anyone who opposes her as a sexist, a racist, a Christian Nationalist, or all of the above.
There are indications that people in each camp are unwilling to change their minds. What has brought us to this potentially tragic impasse?
An extensive report on how we got here and—politically speaking—what we can do about it was published on October 11 and has been widely quoted. Called Politics Without Winners: Can Either Party Build a Majority Coalition? it begins:
In the American political system, the parties’ purpose is to form enduring national coalitions. Look at almost any point in American history, and you will find a majority party working to sustain a complex coalition and a minority party hoping to recapture the majority. Today, however, American politics features two minority parties, and neither seems interested in building a national coalition. Close elections and narrow majorities dominate electoral politics more than at any other point in American history.
For those interested in exploring the issue from a political perspective, I recommend The Idiot’s Guide to Dominating American Politics, a Substack post by Yascha Mounk, who asks:
Has something in America changed, such that it is no longer possible to build broad and stable majorities? Or could one of the two parties, perhaps taking inspiration from the leaders that set previous partisan realignments into motion, succeed in putting together such a dominant coalition?
Mounk’s answer is yes, but I’m more interested in the spiritual aspect of the question. A clue to that answer comes from David Brooks, who writes mainly on politics but often ties political trends to deep social issues. In Why the Heck Isn’t She Running Away With This? he writes:
I think the reason for all this is that political parties no longer serve the function they used to. In days gone by, parties were political organizations designed to win elections and gain power. Party leaders would expand their coalitions toward that end. Today, on the other hand, in an increasingly secular age, political parties are better seen as religious organizations that exist to provide believers with meaning, membership and moral sanctification. If that’s your purpose, of course you have to stick to the existing gospel. You have to focus your attention on affirming the creed of the current true believers. You get so buried within the walls of your own catechism, you can’t even imagine what it would be like to think outside it. [Emphasis added]
We come once again to the growing isolation experienced by many, especially in the West, and the declining role of religious organizations. As I’ve said before, we need more options to fill the gap left by doctrinaire Western religions, and some Eastern religions could do it. They are, without doubt, better alternatives than political parties.
Buddhism has a nuanced concept of evangelism. You might call it evangelism with mettā (loving-kindness and a good-natured attitude). Bodhicitta, a deep desire to relieve suffering and spread enlightenment for all beings, is part of our path, which we walk in the spirit of mettā. Here’s what Telling Secrets, an Episcopal blog, says about Buddhist evangelism:
It's just my observation, but I think Christians could learn a great deal from Buddhists about evangelism.
They don't do it. They live it.
It's not about getting people to "join" them. It's about living it. It's not about the Wat or The Temple. It's about your home and your family.
I couldn’t say it better.
What we can learn from Christians, though, is to be more open about our practices and beliefs—always with mettā, respecting the beliefs, or nonbeliefs, of others.
It’s a step we can take to relieve suffering and maybe lessen political polarization, too.
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Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with a lacquer mixed with powdered gold. The image came to me as I considered a brief way to describe tonglen, the Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice of breathing in the suffering of others and breathing out healing. We receive what’s broken and return what’s whole.
The practice of kintsugi, which began in 14th-century Japan, demonstrates how beauty can be found in imperfection. It’s linked to the philosophy of wabi-sabi, acceptance of impermanence and imperfection. It may be that wabi-sabi is related to early Japanese Buddhism and Zen. Here’s a link to an essay that explores the traditions.
That’s a lot to take in, so let’s pause for a brief silent contemplation of suffering and healing…brokenness and wholeness…impermanence and beauty.
The teachings of the revered 8th-century Buddhist philosopher Shantideva are sometimes cited as the basis for tonglen. In what has become a classic Buddhist text, The Way of the Bodhisattva, he wrote:
Do not be downcast, but marshal all your powers;Make an effort; be the master of yourself!Practice the equality of self and other;Practice the exchange of self and other.
Lojong (mind-training) practices expanded on the exchange of self and other. Here’s Verse 7 from Eight Verses of Training the Mind, written in the 11th or 12th century:
In brief, directly or indirectly,I will offer help and happiness to all my mothers,And secretly take upon myselfAll their hurt and suffering.
“Mothers” here means all beings, based on the Tibetan belief that every being has been the mother of every other being over the eons.
Before practicing tonglen, one should feel grounded. I’d suggest avoiding it unless you feel whole. On the other hand, if you’re comfortable with your spiritual path and meditation practice, practicing tonglen in a generalized way can help you develop your compassion and loving-kindness.
By that, I mean imagining the peace and well-being within you as a substance with shape and color—then imagining the world’s suffering as another shape outside of you with a different color. You first ground yourself in the embodiment of your well-being and then begin breathing in the external substance and breathing out the internal healthy one.
At later stages, we can get more specific with our tonglen. Here’s where it’s especially wise not to do this unless you feel grounded in equanimity. If you’re an empath—especially vulnerable to absorbing others’ pain—this is not the practice for you. If you are comfortable in equanimity, you can relieve others’ suffering without taking on more pain. Your compassionate and loving equanimity is limitless, even if your empathy is not. That’s worth repeating:
Your compassionate and loving equanimity is limitless, even if your empathy is not.
I began practicing tonglen in a generalized way to enhance my loving-kindness and soon began applying it to individuals. I began with a man who has dementia and wants to live. I breathe in his disease and beathe out my strength. With another man with dementia—this one wanting to die—I breathed in any lingering thoughts that might be holding him back and breathed out my acceptance of death.
When I’m in the physical presence of the other person, I might add some Buddhist chants if they fit within that person’s belief system. Sometimes, I do tonglen for people hundreds or thousands of miles away. I believe strongly that the interconnected web is much more than a metaphor. Our thoughts, our intentions, our prayers, and our actions all have an impact near and far.
For this reason, tonglen brings healing to others as it reinforces one’s own loving-kindness. If you’d like to try it, I won’t take you further than you want. I’ll give you a few moments to find a comfortable and private place to meditate.
[Ring bell 3 times]
You’re relaxed with your back reasonably straight, so air can flow in and out smoothly. Your eyes can be open or closed. You scan your body to relax any knots of tension.
Focus your awareness on whatever part of your body is in contact with the ground or something else. What does that feel like? Does it have a temperature? Is there a vibration there?
Now, focus your attention on your breath. How does the air feel as it approaches and enters your nostrils? Follow it down into your lungs and then out again. You might try exhaling through your mouth. Inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth.
Now, see if you can find an area of compassion, clarity, and wisdom within yourself. It’s not really in any one place. It’s limitless, but it may feel centered in your heart. Rest your awareness there.
Imagine before you a symbol of love, calm, and strength. The image could be in a human or other form. It’s whatever or whoever represents love, calm, and strength for you. It’s glowing with light like the sun’s as it dissolves into you.
As you breathe in, you feel its warmth. Now, you imagine before you a mass of suffering in a dark color—maybe gray. You feel as though the yellow glow within you is limitless so you exhale its warmth and light into the dark cloud and inhale the dark suffering, which becomes absorbed in the yellow within.
You continue like this for a while.
[Pause]
You can continue to inhale the world’s suffering and exhale a healing light, or if you are feeling stable and whole, you might imagine a loved one or perhaps a group that’s suffering. Imagine that person or group in front of you. Inhale the suffering and exhale the healing light.
You’re aware that exchanging your loving equanimity for the suffering of others benefits both the sender and receiver.
You can remain in a tonglen exchange with one or more people or with the world’s general suffering as long as it’s comfortable until you hear the bell ring three times.
[Long pause]
[Ring bell 3 times]
A dedication prayer to close:
By the power of this compassionate practiceMay suffering be transformed into peace.May the hearts of all beings be openAnd their wisdom radiate from within.
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I’m about to give vent to my contrarian side. Before I do, though, let’s consider what civilization was like when Gautama Buddha began teaching and as Buddhism spread throughout South, Southeast, and East Asia.
Siddhartha Gautama was born in the foothills of the Himalayas in what’s now Nepal, near the border with India. He taught there and in the Ganges Plain and acknowledged spiritual roots in the Indus Valley. It’s generally believed he lived for an 80-year span between 560 and 400 BCE.
We can’t know the texture of day-to-day life there and then, but it was an area of the world undergoing what then would be considered rapid change. The urban centers of the Indus Valley had collapsed, leading to a population shift eastward toward the Ganges Plain, where settlements were smaller and more widely dispersed. Tribal kingdoms were being absorbed into state formations.
The Vedic period was giving way in philosophy and religion. Spiritual life was rich and complex, with many mendicants wandering the plain and teaching practices to end rebirth and suffering. The Buddha studied with at least two of those and became one himself, a highly successful one. Upanishads were composed in that era, and modern Hinduism emerged, as did Jainism.
Along with these cultural changes came oppressive rulers, caste-based cruelty, exploitation of ordinary people during wars, banditry, and draconian punishments for even minor crimes. Natural disasters, epidemics, and wild animals also posed an ever-present threat to human safety.
The phrase “Life is tough, and then you die” comes to mind. Life was indeed tough, and the culprits making life so difficult were demons and a pantheon of deities, often related to forces of nature. That helps explain the background of the Metta (Loving-Kindness) Sutta. Here’s what I wrote previously about the sutta’s back story:
What led the Buddha to say these particular words [teaching kindness] fascinates me. He addressed a group of monks who had gone into the forest to meditate during the rainy season but were scared off by the devas (celestial beings) in the trees. The monks returned to the Buddha, who had no other location to suggest.
The Buddha sent them back to the forest after teaching them the Metta Sutta, which they then recited and practiced in the woods. That made the devas realize they had no reason to scare off the monks again. The monks remained in that forest throughout the rainy season and returned to the Buddha as enlightened beings.
The Buddha was a master at addressing people where they were, not where he thought they should be. Did he believe that devas were making threatening sounds and playing tricks on the monks to get rid of them? Or did he use the sutta to relax the monks and build their confidence? Either way, he taught them how to be more loving, not how to scare the demons away by being more fierce. He taught them:
Let one not deceive nor despise another person, anywhere at all. In anger and ill-will, let him not wish any harm to another. Just as a mother would protect her only child with her own life, even so, let him cultivate boundless thoughts of loving kindness towards all beings. Let him cultivate boundless thoughts of loving kindness towards the whole world — above, below and all around, unobstructed, free from hatred and enmity.
Now, here comes my contrarian side.
For many centuries after Gautama Buddha passed into parinirvana, people continued to believe in demons, but the language used to defeat demons became more warlike—and that language remains in liturgies we venerate even though we realize that the real enemies are “our own projections and misdeeds.”
Consider this quatrain from the Wheel of Sharp Weapons, attributed to Dharmarakṣita, as translated by Thubten Jinpa:
My ill temper is intense, my paranoia more coarse than everyone’s; Hard to befriend, I constantly provoke others’ negative traits-- Dance and trample on the head of this betrayer, false conception! Mortally strike at the heart of this butcher and enemy, Ego!
I added the emphasis on the final two lines, which are repeated 37 times in Dharmarakṣita’s 116-verse teaching.
Here’s another line:
Strike him, strike him, pierce the heart of this enemy, the self!
Maybe I’m picking on Dharmarakṣita, who lived in the Ninth Century. Still, the translator is a respected current teacher who says he’s especially proud of this translation, and the work is widely used.
I agree that a grasping ego is a block to awakening, but I prefer to say I “let go” of mine—the grasping aspect. If I had obliterated any ego, I wouldn’t be writing these words. And if Thubten Jinpa had no ego at all, would he have put in all the hours needed to translate the Wheel of Sharp Weapons? I may have the opportunity to ask him that later this month.
I can’t begin to count how often words like “fierce” and “wrathful” are used in Tibetan teachings. Again, I understand why they’re in the original literature, but I’m giving vent to my inner curmudgeon to remind us that if Buddhism is to flourish in the West, perhaps we need to return to a more loving language like that in the Metta Sutta.
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Equanimity…is the quality of heart that balances the movement of the heart with wisdom. Equanimity allows us to care, while also owning the limits of that care…. It is not detachment, because our heart is still engaged. We learn to take wise action when appropriate, and we let go of attachment to outcomes. —The Tattooed Buddha
Inspired by my dharma siblings, with whom I sit for an hour every morning via Zoom, I wrote and recorded a meditation to help us all balance our empathy with our equanimity during these troubled times. No matter how comfortable our individual lives may be, we can’t help feeling the pain of the world’s violence, searing divisiveness, and catastrophic environmental events.
The lands considered holy by Abrahamic religions are engulfed in technologically frightening warfare on the verge of spreading. In Nepal—with its deep significance to Buddhists and Hindus—hundreds have died in flash floods this week and earlier this year during a period of severe monsoons. Communication has not yet been fully restored, so the effects of the recent flooding remain to be determined, but Nepal is disproportionately vulnerable to climate change.
In the United States, which also has seen unprecedented flooding in the past week, the closely divided and widely separated electorate is nearing an election that could be pivotal for the world as well as the nation. It continues to struggle with an influx of refugees at its southern border, fleeing political and environmental instability.
Political and environmental instability is also driving would-be immigrants toward Europe, where political systems are being strained, and war continues between Russia and Ukraine.
We know that the world has recovered from devastation before. From 1939 to 1945, the Second World War resulted in up to 85 million fatalities, more than 50 million of them civilians. Tens of millions were dislocated and forced to find new homes. From 1347 to 1351, the bubonic plague is estimated to have cost Europe and China half of their population and the Middle East a third. The resulting disruptions lasted decades.
Still, in times like we’re living through, some of us experience empathy fatigue—running out of emotion—while others, known as empaths, can’t stop feeling the pain of others. Both extremes might consider the difference between empathy and compassion. We need to keep hold of our compassion—our deep desire to help—while limiting our emotional absorption of others’ pain.
Our emotional and tangible resources are limited, so we aim to train our minds to focus on what we can do, not everything that should be done.
So, you can find a comfortable place to meditate in whatever position you prefer.
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No words can describe it No example can point to it Samsara does not make it worse Nirvana does not make it better It has never been born It has never ceased It has never been liberated It has never been deluded It has never existed It has never been nonexistent It has no limits at all It does not fall into any kind of category. --Dudjom Rinpoche on the nature of mind
Thanks to my dharma friend and fellow blogger Chodpa for reminding me of that quotation in his September 25 blog post, which you can read in full here. You can follow him on Substack here. The obvious questions are:
If the nature of mind can’t be described or pointed to, why do we Buddhists use so many words, metaphors, and concepts to point to it? And why bother? Why should we know the nature of our minds?
Let’s take the second part—the why—first. Buddhism teaches that our minds work hard from our first year or two of development to convince us that we’re unique individuals who stand apart from others and who must prioritize our needs and wants. That might be a healthy stage to pass through as we mature, but our minds don’t want us to.
Our minds resist going from me to we—seeing how interconnected we are to all beings—because that would mean near-extinction for them. From the non-dual point of view, once we recognize that we swim constantly in the sea of oneness, we no longer need minds preaching to us about how special we are. We no longer need a grasping ego.
That grasping ego is our Mara, the Buddhist demon who represents the cycle (Samsara) of birth, death, rebirth, and dissatisfaction and whose mission is to divert us from enlightenment. Like so much in Buddhism, we can recognize Mara as a trait within ourselves rather than an external demon, or both.
Either way, Mara is the voice telling us that the route to happiness is more money, a new job, a new car, a new romantic interest, a new flavor of ice cream, a gold medal, even though we know we’ll soon want the next thing. He’s that voice telling us our life will be more satisfying if we don’t live in the same neighborhood as those people, if we refuse to listen to that point of view even though we remain dissatisfied with our lives no matter who or what we succeed in avoiding.
The way out of the cycle of dissatisfaction is to stop the craving and aversion, but we can’t simply order our minds to shut up our grasping ego. Instead, we each must get to know our mind and befriend it—or at least let it know we’re paying attention.
That’s the why, so we’ll turn to the how. “No example can point to” the nature of mind, but maybe one can help us understand why getting to know it is crucial.
Imagine living in a culture of arranged marriages, and you begin living with a spouse you hardly know. You say good morning to each other, prepare and consume meals, have intercourse, and say good night, but you long for a deeper relationship.
We can’t get to know our partners simply by knowing what time they awaken and go to sleep, how they cook and eat meals, or even how they have sex. We won’t know them until we feel we know their nature—not just in words and data but experientially, a sense of understanding that comes nonverbally over time. Maybe that’s the love experienced in successful marriages.
At the risk of taking the analogy too far, I’ll suggest that we want a successful marriage with our mind. If not a marriage, a successful relationship. We want to observe what it does without trying to restrain it or being controlled by it.
Words like those I’m writing might help nudge us in the right direction, but it takes more than words to find the path to knowing our minds. That’s where the chanting, rituals, and meditation taught in Vajrayana Buddhism help—and especially Vajrayana’s emphasis on the relationship with a teacher. For me, Lama Surya Das showed me the direction and Yongey Mingur Rinpoche, along with my daily practice and sangha, took me the rest of the way to feeling as though I made friends with my mind.
If you’re interested in an experiential learning track with a teacher I recommend for Westerners, I say more about that, based on my own experience, in this post https://melpine.substack.com/p/how-to-become-enlightened-in-this
And in my last From the Pure Land post, I wrote and recorded a guided meditation designed to offer a taste of the nature of mind. That’s here: https://melpine.substack.com/p/finding-your-island-of-refuge
In closing, I share this prayer, The Four Immeasurables, translated by Anam Thubten:
May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.
May all beings never be separated from joy that knows no suffering.
May all beings abide in equanimity free from bias and hatred.
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I won’t claim that I invented the meditation I’m about to guide you through. It’s adapted from other sources. For example, here’s a video of an hour-long dharma talk called “Taking Refuge in the Island Within Ourselves” by Sister Chân Đức in the Plum Village monastery and retreat center in France: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5J4N989CeU
I’ve added a twist or two I haven’t seen before, even though I’m sure I’m not the first to think of them, and combined it all into a guided meditation. I’d appreciate any feedback you can provide via a comment on this if you’re receiving it as a blog post or, if you’re listening to the podcast, an email to [email protected].
Before we start the formal meditation, let’s pause and reflect on the simple Buddhist Refuge Prayer.
I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the dharma. I take refuge in the sangha.
* By the Buddha, we mean the historical Buddha Gautama, all the Buddhas of all time, and the innate Buddha Nature within us.
* By the dharma, we mean what the Buddha taught and how the world works—what our innate wisdom tells us about reality.
* By sangha, we mean our community of fellow worshippers and the sense of spiritual friendship we experience.
* By refuge, we mean where we go to feel safe and seek answers to life’s most difficult questions.
You may prefer other words for your island of refuge, but I hope this meditation helps you find it when needed. (If you are reading this post, you can click above to begin the recording or keep reading for text with instructions.)
Find a spot where you’ll be comfortable and uninterrupted. If you’re sitting on a chair or cushion, you can rest your hands on your legs or knees. If you’re lying on your back, rest your forearms on your body or at your sides. Whatever your posture, try to keep your spine straight but relaxed so air flows effortlessly into and out of your lungs.
Body, speech, and mind in perfect oneness, I send my heart along with the sound of the bell. May the hearers awaken from forgetfulness and transcend all anxiety and sorrow.
[Gatha adapted from the Mindfulness Bell.]
(Ring bell three times.)
As the sound of the bell fades, you remain at peace in the present moment. The past has vanished. The future is an illusion. In this moment, there’s nothing to do…nowhere to go. You are simply being.
(Pause)
You’re resting in open awareness, eyes closed or comfortably open, not squinting. Your eyelids are relaxed like the rest of your body. Your breathing is natural. You might scan your body for any areas of tension.
(Pause)
At any time, feel free to move around, stretch, change position, or take a drink while you remain in awareness. As long as you do everything in awareness, you are still meditating. When your mind drifts, as it will, simply come back into awareness. Noticing the drift and coming back into awareness is an act of awakening.
(Pause)
Now, in your mind, create a place where you can always feel safe and calm despite any turmoil around you. It might be a cabin in the woods or on a mountaintop. It might be a tropical island all your own. It might be a spot on an ocean beach. Whatever environment represents safety and calm, make it the way you want it, and go there in your mind.
(Pause)
The world around your island of refuge hasn’t stopped being a place of turmoil, but you see it as it is—just turmoil. The turmoil doesn’t change anything in your haven of safety and calm. Even your own distracting, monkey-mind thoughts are part of the turmoil out there. As long as you remain here in your refuge, you see them for what they are—merely turmoil. You can observe them without being carried away by them.
(Pause)
If this is a new experience for you, you might let my remaining words wash over you until I ring the bell three times to indicate the end of the meditation. If you have done this meditation or one like it before and feel comfortable with it, you might try one more step. You might try removing the mental image of a specific place and simply recognize that’s your mind—your innate Buddha Nature—seeing the world as it truly is. When you find that place in your mind without needing props to get there and know it, you are resting in your Buddha Nature.
I’ll remain silent for a few moments as you rest there with or without imagined walls or trees or water around you.
(Pause)
(Ring bell three times.)
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After three decades of practicing Theravada (foundational) and Mahayana (second wave) Buddhism, I was still confused about one thing. As far as I could tell, every form of Buddhism teaches that all beings have the Buddha Nature within or at least the potential for enlightenment, but it always seemed distant—not within reach.
I certainly didn’t consider myself a Buddha, but my meditative experiences had convinced me that Buddhahood or some form of enlightenment was closer than I had been led to believe. It was within reach. During the second half of 2015, I expanded my spiritual horizons and spent much time listening to teachings from several traditions on YouTube. I grew interested in learning more about Lama Surya Das.
Although Lama Surya is five years younger than me, we grew up in similar cultural circumstances—two young men from urban Jewish homes (I from Philadelphia and Jeffrey Miller from Brooklyn) navigating the turbulent 1960s. He had more chutzpah than I did, so after the Kent State massacre, he left the United States with a couple hundred dollars in his pocket and found his way to the spiritual teachers of Southeast Asia. He returned West decades later to teach without losing his Brooklyn accent, as I have never lost my Philadelphia accent.
As I watched him on YouTube, deciding whether to attend a retreat he was to lead in the first week of January 2016, this exchange with an interviewer most impressed me. Paraphrasing from memory:
Interviewer: Do you consider yourself enlightened?
Lama Surya: [Pause]…Yes.
How enlightened?
Enlightened enough.
Enough for what?
Enough for where I am right now.
In that exchange, he confirmed that enlightenment is within reach, even for gruff-sounding former urban Jewish kids. I attended the retreat and, on January 8, 2016, took Refuge and Bodhisattva Vows with him. He gave me the dharma name Urgyen Jigme (Fearless Lotus).
Lama Surya teaches in the Vajrayana (third wave) Buddhist tradition. That’s the school that’s almost synonymous now with Tibetan Buddhism. He uses primarily the Dzogchen approach with elements of Mahamudra woven in. Those are two slightly different styles of conveying to students the same view:
We all have a pure, innate, nondual, compassionate mind that is our Buddha Nature. We can find it in one lifetime and learn to rest within it.
After four or five years with Lama Surya, I needed more and began learning from Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, his Tergar organization, and other Vajrayana teachers. Mingyur Rinpoche uses primarily the Mahamudra approach, with elements of Dzogchen woven in, so he was a great complement to Lama Surya.
A couple of days ago, on September 16, I was among the hundreds of students worldwide who completed Path of Liberation Level 4 with Mingyur Rinpoche via Zoom. He had conveyed the full Mahayana and Dzogchen teachings on nature of mind, which is the heart of Vajrayana Buddhism. It felt like a completion, even though my learning and meditation practice will never end.
All of my meditation experiences, the books and articles I’ve read, the dharma talks I’ve listened to from dozens of teachers, the retreats I’ve attended, and the spiritual friends I’ve made contributed to that sense of completion, but it was Mingyur’s program that got me there. Sadhi in Pali or ziji in Tibetan means confidence, trust, or faith. My work now involves developing the ziji that allows me to rest in my Buddha Nature.
As Lama Surya says, “If I can do it, anybody can.”
I write From the Pure Land to help those in any spiritual tradition along their path to relieve suffering. If Vajrayana Buddhism feels like a good fit for you, Mingyur Rinpoche and his worldwide Tergar network have a program far more complete than anything else available for Westerners (like me) who are unable or unwilling to spend years living in an Asian monastery.
For beginners to Vajrayana, Mingyur’s Joy of Living program is the place to start. If it still feels right, the Path of Liberation takes students into the nature of mind. It can all be done via Zoom except for Path of Liberation Level 2, which involves an empowerment that must be done in the physical presence of Mingyur or another qualified rinpoche. I received that empowerment on June 15, 2023, when Mingyur taught Levels 1 and 2 in a St. Paul, Minnesota, retreat.
So, what exactly is enlightenment, and have I reached it? Can you reach it in this lifetime? Basic dictionary definitions refer to attaining knowledge or spiritual insight, but in Buddhism, enlightenment is an experiential state, not merely intellectual. And there are stages of enlightenment.
Early Buddhism recognized four: stream-enterer, once-returner, non-returner, and arahant (conqueror). Later classification systems vary over fine points, but in Vajrayana Buddhism we sometimes refer to 10 stages, each called a Bhūmi (foundation or ground). A scripture known as the Daśabhūmika Sūtra lays them out this way:
1) The Ground of Joyfulness (pramuditā);
2) The Ground of Stainlessness (vimalā);
3) The Ground of Shining Light (prabhākarī);
4) The Ground of Blazing Brilliance (arciṣmati);
5) The Difficult-to-Conquer Ground (sudurjayā);
6) The Ground of Direct Presence (abhimukhī);
7) The Far-Reaching Ground (dūraṃgamā);
8) The Ground of Immovability (acalā);
9) The Ground of Excellent Intelligence (sādhumatī);
10) The Ground of the Dharma Cloud (dharma-megha).
In other words, there’s enlightenment, and there’s…Enlightenment. If fully enlightened beings—Buddhas—are walking around in human form, I haven’t met them. We’re all at some distance from Buddhahood. We have that innate Buddha Nature, and we use verbal teachings and nonverbal methods like meditation and contemplation to find, feel, and get closer to it. How will we know when we’ve found it? I’ll use a phrase of Mingyur Rinpoche’s. When we can rest in:
Awareness without object, love and compassion without reason, wisdom without concepts.
Am I enlightened?
Enlightened enough for where I am on my path. I invite you to join me wherever you are on yours.
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In the 1980s or ‘90s, Thich Nhat Hanh and his longtime companion, Sister Chan Khong, turned a ritual called the Five Prostrations, with roots in Theravada Buddhism, into a profoundly healing meditation they called Touching the Earth—one easier for Westerners to practice. I’ve had the privilege of doing the meditation led once by Thich Nhat Hanh in Vermont and once by Sister Chan Khong in Virginia. It brings me into vivid touch with interconnectedness and my place in the world whenever I do it.
I've recorded this version for anyone who'd like to try it. Listen if you're willing to heal--at least internally--your relationships with your blood ancestors, your spiritual ancestors, your land ancestors, your loved ones, and those who have harmed you. May you find inner peace.
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The perfection of loving-kindness is the wish to provide for the welfare and happiness of the world, accompanied by compassion and skillful means; literally, it means benevolence. —Insight Meditation Center
Here's a 20-minute Metta (loving-kindness) meditation for beginners as well as the more experienced.
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