No place for our doubts to land

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The mind’s preference to fix things into a permanent form  even applies to how we see  our “flaws”.  We easily see ourselves as having enduring negative aspects to our personality – “I am very bad at ….” rather than recognizing the changing nature of our weaknesses.   That things are always changing is one of the fundamental truths which we try to understand at a deep personal level. The line from the Dhammapada – Anyone who understands impermanence ceases to be contentious – reminds us of a fundamental way to stop fighting with reality and with ourselves. We are continually changing. Our life path is continually changing. Sometimes agonizing about it only makes things worse.

The expounding, practising and realizing of impermanence

by the impermanent

themselves all must be impermanent

Dogen

Not dividing things into A and B

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The Western mind likes to categorize and put labels, defining what is and what is not. In Eastern approaches to life we often find that this “either-or” division is not as strong,  and that a more seamless acceptance of  opposites is the preferred way of seeing things. In this approach,  contrary energies and ideas can be seen to be complementary or interdependent. If we grow in this,  we develop a mind which does not need to form an evaluation of an experience immediately, to come to a quick conclusion about how things are going in our lives.  Most experiences are never clearly just black or white, and yet we long always for conviction, for things to be definitive, for solidity. However, it can be richer if we come to an edge in our lives and work at staying there, in the present moment, holding  an open space for how things will turn out,  not fixing on a particular outcome. This challenges us to find a sense of coherence  that is not based on a necessary result but on a relational sense with whatever is happening.   This flexible open space is what leads to greater freedom.

Things are not as they appear to be, nor are they otherwise. 

The Lankavatara Sutra

With thanks to Patrick Choucri at the Yakushido Centre in Geneva for prompting these thoughts.

Losing touch with the real

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A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts,

so he loses touch with reality and lives in a world of illusion.


Alan Watts

Another passing thing

Looking Outside

Clinging is weakened by the activity of meditation. For example, we sit quietly and experience the flow of feeling, the dependent and changing experience of our bodily form, and all the “I should do it” programs twitching in the mind. And through meditating we can unhook the reactions and reflex-activities by focusing on their changeability. This practice, although based on ethics and sense-restraint, doesn’t attempt to affect the topics that the mind is carrying in its perceptions and volitions….so that whatever our impulse or perception is, it’s just seen as another passing thing.

Ajahn Sucitto, Turning the Wheel of Truth

 

Beyond good and bad

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Our minds are continually splitting our experiences into “good” and “bad”, and coming to quick conclusions which can close down our openness to what is happening.

An extract from the visit of a small boy named Sin Hae to the temple of Hui Neng, the sixth and last Patriarch of Chan Buddhism, 638–713

Sin Hae stood up and bowed, saying, “Teach me.”

Hui Neng said, “You should not think of good and of bad; cut all thinking and all speech. Right now, what is it that teaches you?”

Sin Hae bowed, saying, “I don’t know.”

The Zen Master said, “Keep this ‘don’t know’ mind at all times, and you will understand what teaches you.”

Staying with the uncertainty

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Don’t surrender your loneliness
So quickly.
Let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice
So tender,

My need of God
Absolutely
Clear.

Hafiz