All Buddhist traditions invite taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. These Three Jewels provide a focus for commitment and reflection. In daily life, we are constantly looking for safety, refuge, in something—whether it is our ambition, career, house, money, neuroses or relationship.
We each have our measure of joy and of suffering, which the Buddha referred to as the Eight Worldly Winds: gain and loss, pleasure and pain, praise and blame, fame and disrepute. I suspect he named them meteorologically because, like these worldly winds, we are subject to the weather but cannot control it. Gentle breezes to gale force winds all unpredictably blow through our lives.
Today we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose teachings resound through time. He preached that each of us has the power to change the world and ourselves, to consider how one confronts social evil without creating further evil, division and enmity. This is not unlike Buddhadharma, both recognizing the universality of the human struggle for freedom.
What does it mean to say “not self?” I often hear the confusion of this penetrating teaching of the Buddha, ubiquitously described as the most transcendent and transformative aspect of his teaching.
It is important to train the heart to default to love. Working on undoing racism, I am increasingly aware both in my own heart and in my beloved culture, that aversion in our hearts may not lessen if we are unwilling to acknowledge it. Much suffering comes from our unwillingness to look at how conditioning has shaped our attitudes, beliefs and actions.
In these past days, sitting in a hospital room with my dearest one very ill, I have frequently recollected these words from Suzuki Roshi:
Annually at this time we pause to reflect and renew our determination to eliminate, or at least weaken, unskillful habits and to cultivate, develop and strengthen skillful ones. We call them “resolutions,” yet, because we are not permanent, unyielding or unchanging beings, nor are our circumstances ever permanent, perhaps they can be better seen as moment to moment shifting and changing responses, grounded in wise intentions. Our best possible resolution is to undertake a vigilant and compassionate practice of mindfulness, examining in every moment the intentions that drive our thoughts, acts and speech; to establish and act from those that are wholesome and refrain from acting from those that are unwholesome.
It has been cold and snowing in New York! And it feels appropriate in this season, which we often describe as the time to be “jolly.” Yet, there are many people who feel the sting of inequity and poverty in the world, even more at these times of year, when the hustle and bustle of consumerism is annually at its peak. One sixth of the world still experiences hunger every day. Need is great everywhere, including in our own communities.
All paths of practice must begin with a simple question. How do we know where to start? In the Cankī Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya 95), the Buddha debates a young Brahmin named Kāpaṭhika, who has faith in the Vedas, and only the Vedas, as his religious guide. In opposing the boy's approach, the Buddha gives a detailed overview of how he believes one is supposed to assess any proposed dhamma, and not be led astray. The question he raises is deep and profound. How do we choose the proper path? How do we ensure we aren't following false teachings? Most generally, how are we to discover the truth?
The first instruction for establishing Mindfulness is to know the body, and it begins with focusing on breathing. Even though it’s an essential part of our life support system, we normally give very little attention to the breath, unless there is a problem with it.
