So We Need Perfect Awareness?

(photo by Jacy)

My first contact with Buddhism was through a website called Zen Stories which I'm pleased to see is still online:Zen Stories To Tell your Neighbours

I was thinking about how many small stones I miss when I'm walking to work, because I'm thinking about the day ahead or behind, and it reminded me of one of the stories on that site:

After ten years of apprenticeship, Tenno achieved the rank of Zen teacher. One rainy day, he went to visit the famous master Nan-in. When he walked in, the master greeted him with a question, "Did you leave your wooden clogs and umbrella on the porch?"

"Yes," Tenno replied.

"Tell me," the master continued, "did you place your umbrella to the left of your shoes, or to the right?" 

Tenno did not know the answer, and realized that he had not yet attained full awareness. So he became Nan-in's apprentice and studied under him for ten more years.

So Tenno didn't recall where he left he put his wooden clogs - perhaps he was noticing the plum blossom blowing over the temple steps, or perhaps he was thinking about what to say to the great Zen master, I don't know.

Do we really need to know which side of the umbrella we left our clogs? I would be interested in your thoughts, do comment below...


We are always aware of something. What is the most useful thing to be aware of?

A version of this post appeared on my blog in the writing community writing our way home

Communicating with a) your unconscious b) universal archetypes c) angels and spirits....

(photo by Lawrence OP)

There are many ways of describing common experiences, many ways of understanding common experiences...

In ancient civilisations people believed that they were not only sent messages by Gods and Demons, but that these spirits had quite some power over them. Today, we still say I wasn't myself when we do something out of the ordinary... even though modern psychology often places those Gods and Demons inside our own minds.

Yesterday whilst tidying up my section at work (I work in a bookshop, and look after Religion, Philosophy and Mind Body and Spirit, among other things) I became curious about Ask and it is Given, a book by Esther and Jerry Hicks. Esther talks about receiving messages from a spirit called Abraham and it's his message that the book shares.

A few years ago I would have been not so much sceptical as convinced that Esther Hicks was deluding herself. Now I'm less concerned with how she describes her experience, than I am in how useful it is for her... and what we might take away from her experiences, as writers.

Damon Knight, in his book Creating Short Fiction, promises to tell the reader where he gets his ideas from. He calls it this miraculous thing. When Knight gets stuck, with a plot point, for example, he hands it over to his subconscious mind to work on. He calls his subconscious mind Fred. Fred works things out, and hands them back to Knight, who writes them down. In his book, he suggests some ways of training or working with Fred. Esther Hicks and Abraham's relationship developed over time too... as one 'trained' the other.

Years ago in an introduction to Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, I read that Louis Stevenson's stories came to him in dreams. He believed that some pixies (I think) would tell him the stories, and he would just write them down. I remember reading that he wished he could capture what they told him with better skill....

Sometimes when I'm struggling with something in life, I'll go and sit in front of a Buddha statue, and light a stick of incense. Often I'm given the answer that I need.

Whether you believe that we can really hear a message from God, or pixies, or whether you think that we're just accessing a deeper or more creative part of our brains, I think that the idea of handing something over can be a really good way of getting around our ordinary-small-selves and into something more creative.

I'd be interested to know if this resonates with anyone - do you hand things over to your unconscious? Or ask for help from somewhere? How do you do it? I know for me having a special place to go to helps...

Sometimes it's enough just to  believe that the answer will come - like the time Fiona and I both forgot the name of Canary Wharf, as we were driving though it, and it came to us an hour later, in the midst of conversation about something completely different.

How to get Enlightened.

A subject heading for an blog-post that promises a great deal, and much more than I can deliver on in a few lines. But I came across a good description of one sort of enlightenment the other day, and I wanted to share it with you.

I've been reading the literary critic James Wood's book How Fiction Works. When Woods is writing about sympathy and empathy he uses an example from War and Peace, Tolstoy's great work, and it struck me as the perfect example of a kind of enlightenment.

"When Pierre...begins to change his ideas about himself and other people, he realises that the only way to understand people properly is to see things from each person's view: 'There was a new feature in Pierre's realtions with Willarski, with the princess, with the doctor, and with all the people he now met, which gained for him the general goodwill. This was ... his recognition of the possibility of everyone thinking, feeling, and seeing things each from his own point of view ... The difference, and  sometimes complete contradiction, between men's opinions and their lives, and between one man and another, pleased him and evoked from him an amused and gentle smile.'" 

This is very much in line with Other Centered thinking that is talked about at Amida Trust, the idea that one's liberation can come about when one is able to see the other clearly. Dharmavidya wrote about this on his own blog recently: how when we we admit that other people and things have their own lives, they cease to be a prop in the drama of our lives and we become a little more liberated.

As Pierre begins to understand that other people exist in their own right, and as he lets them be more than he usually thinks of them, his own identity becomes freer and more flexible. He is able to have fellow feeling for the dilemmas of others and even, in his gentle smile, have some humour when he notices the complications and contradictions of life....life's like that.

The gentle smile, for me, shows a recognition that all our own lives are messy and complicated, that we are all full of contradictions, and that we habitually make others smaller than they are. It's all part of the human condition. Yet by allowing others their freedom, by respecting their right to be, we, incidentally, become a little more enlightened ourselves.

Namo Amida Bu

P.S If you are in or near Malvern and want to drop by we have a couple of gentle introductions to Buddhism, do drop me a line if you are interested, or about anything.

Coffee, Cake and Dharma
Saturday 29th January 10am - 12pm
Sunday 27th February 10am-12pm

P.P.S For more about seeing the other, log on to http://ariverofstones.blogspot.com, the writing project Fiona and I are running encouraging people to really look at the world.

Escape into stories, or escape into Life.

When I was young I read my way through the science fiction section of our small local library, and the fantasy titles, and then the westerns... and so on... devouring genre fiction.

Some of these were excellent books, the really good science fiction sticks in my head still, Huxley, Brian Aldiss, Heinlien. I could make a list as long as your arm.

I read because I enjoyed reading good books, and I still do. I also read as a way out of my own life and into other worlds. I'm sure this is why I was drawn to theatre too.

Looking back there wasn't anything grossly terrible to escape from, but each of our lives are full of enough little traumas, and some big ones, to impel us away from them.

This escape into a fictional reality can appear to be a kind of selflessness, or other-centered-ness. Entering into another world can snap us out of our own world for a little while. I can think of countless times when I was stuck in some emotional cycle and going to refuge in a book swept it away.

The kind of selflessness we are aiming for in Buddhism is not a retreat from the world through (although having a place refuge is vitally important) but an advance into the world. This kind of other-centered-ness can be more difficult. It's harder to keep thinking of a loved one, when they are really sick, or when they are upset with you (especially when they have good reason), probably because our own identity is wrapped up in how we think of these people, but this is the where the real spiritual work is.

It's also true that for many Buddhists, especially Pureland Buddhists, 'The World' includes the existence of Buddhas who are unconditionally wise and compassionate and remembering this, that we are loved, can be a source of strength.

"At the end of the day.Ring the gong. Twice."

I sometimes wonder if I should should give my posts a rating on how religious they sound, I remember how much religious language used to turn me off. This probably scores medium-high, but if you've got this far, I encourage you to read anyway.... ;)

Rev'd Mugo - from Jade Mountains posted a poem that she wrote yesterday. I hope she won't mind me quoting it in full, as I agree with the sentiment entirely.

Rev'd Mugo is ordained in the Order of Buddhist contemplatives, a Zen tradition started by Houn Jiyu Kennett Roshi, an English woman who trained in Japan. (Her diaries are wonderful). Kennett Roshi was also Dharmavidya's (my teacher) first Buddhist teacher, and his preceptor.

Zen and Pureland look very different from the outside. In Zen practice we sit in zazen a very quiet practice. In Pureland we recite the name of the Buddha over and over, a much more vocal practice - but they both point to the same underlying reality in the universe, that of a perpetually present, infinite light.

At the end of the day.
Ring the gong. Twice.

At the start of the day.
Ring the gong. Thrice.

If nothing else is possible
At least RING.
Bow
Clarify intention.

At the end of the day
Recite thus:

Hail to the Mandala
Let us so be engulfed within
its praises ever more that
By our own wills and vigilance
May we our fetters cut away
May we within the temple of our
own hearts dwell
Amidst the myriad mountains
Hail! Hail! Hail!

I just mentioned perpetual light, but yesterday Fiona noticed how much Buddhists also talk about listening, about hearing the Dharma. This underlying reality of love is declared and declared over and over by all the Buddhas, by the whole universe. The sound of the gong represents this call to wake up. It represents the voice of the Buddha which is calling to us over and over again.

Although Pureland Buddhists practice reciting the name the vow that Amida Buddha took was that anyone who hears his name shall be born in the Pureland. As we talked about in the comments to my last post, this is very much a grace. The music is always playing, we just have to clean our ears and listen.

The last verse of Rev'd Mugo's poem is from the OBC liturgy. We sometimes recite it in the evenings here. It encourages us to break ourselves free.  I don't know if we can really do this on our own. The most we can do, and all we need to do, is listen to the sound of the gong. It is the Buddha who rings it.

Form or spirit? Training or faith?

There is a paradox inherent in Pureland Buddhist training, which also appears when we are creative for creativities sake, like over on a river of stones. Should one focus on learning the skills to be a better writer, or a better person say - or just put ones heart in the right place?

In many schools of Buddhism emphisis is placed upon sila as the ground of training. Sila can be translated as discipline or restraint - consciously behaving in a good manner.  In Pureland Buddhism the emphasis is on faith as the first step.

Dharmavidya teaches that as one's faith grows, one's actions tend to come in line with the precepts. That is as one's faith grows one naturally becomes a better person, without willing oneself to behave in a particular way. We can use the precepts as a check of our faith, or to see if our heart is in the right place. For example if we are slandering someone, what that probably means is that we have had a mini-crisis of faith - in that person, and perhaps also a crisis of faith in "It's good to be good".

For me there isn't such a clear distinction between these approaches. What I have faith in is a vision in which being loving is at the centre. In Buddhism there are teachings about the mind, and about how we are in the world, that I can use to become better at loving.  In this sense it does begin with faith because without faith in that vision, without faith that it's good to be good, I wouldn't think about using the other teachings in my life.

The question it leaves me with is this - if I didn't have access to these other teachings, about how to practice being loving, would I still move in the direction of love, just from a mind of faith?

In theory I want to say yes! But I know that in practice I still cling to the other teachings, to duty and restraint - and this must come from not having a deep sense of love as the foundation of everything.

Just to bring back the example of creativity for a moment - I find parallel questions in art. In art I believe in both form and spirit together. I have seen in my work in the theatre how providing a form can evoke or feed the spirit of the artist. I often quote T.S Eliot who said that using a tight form can be a way of uncovering a deeper truth and I believe this is true.

I don't want to wrap everything up neatly in this post - I'm sure these are questions I'll return to. As I consider writing about the importance of spirit, I'm reminded of times when something has been transmitted through form alone - occasions when the actor wasn't 'feeling it' but some feeling or spirit is evoked in the audience. The exception doesn't prove the rule at all....

Can we see anew?

This post also appears on a river of stones  - international small stones writing month

There is a part of everything which is unexplored, because we are accustomed to using our eyes only in association with the memory of of what people before us have thought we were looking at.

Flaubert, quoted in preface to Pierre and Jean, in Maupassant's 'The Novel'

James Wood quotes Flaubert in How Fiction Works. Wood attributes the rise of the modern novel to Flaubert. But what interested me was the observation above, in a section where Wood is talking about the satisfaction of specific detail. I'll come back to that in another post.

Our minds are the repositories of stories. We tell stories about people we know, we imagine we know their lives, outer and inner. We tell stories about the places we live in, and about the jobs we do. The most powerful of these stories has to do with how we feel about ourself, "...this is the sort of person I am". This most powerful of stories tends to be at the heart of all the stories we tell.

Each time we encounter something in the world, a loved one, the view from a mountain top, a favourite book in a library, we receive it through the eyes of these stories. I am the person who loves you, we have this history together... and so on.

Flaubert's point is that we not only encounter the world through these personal stories, but that we encounter the world through the eyes and memories of others. We inherit stories, from our peers, from our parents and increasingly from the media.

When we see the Union Jack flying, we have a sense of history, of an Empire perhaps and whatever feelings that might bring up, pride or shame. We are full of stories. Who amongst us would only see a few red and blue triangles, printed onto a white rectangle of fabric?

There is a part of each thing which is hidden from us. We obscure with stories, as much as we enlighten with them.

The act of really paying attention is not to ignore these stories, but to see the transparency of them, to see them but to look beyond to the mystery too.

What mysteries will you uncover today?

The year is dead. Long live the year.

A year ago, I had a shaved head and only wore red clothes. I had special red robes that I wore during ceremonies, I lived with a dozen other people, all Buddhists and I was looking forward to returning to India in the spring and seeing old friends there.

I wasn't completely satisfied with my life, but when are we ever? I expected that in a years time I would still be ordained as a Buddhist monk, and living in community.

Now, my hair is long (too long, but the barbers were closed over Christmas), and I only have a few red clothes. I still have special robes that I wear for ceremonies but I only live with one other person, my fiancée. My great adventure this year is not travelling half way around the world to see friends in the slums of New Delhi, but learning how to live the householder life. To live the householder life, and to still be ordained as a Buddhist priest.

I moved out of community at the end of August this year. I have  felt layers of settling in to this new life, moving out marked an important step, finding this house marked another, but it's only now I have slowed down a little in the holiday period I have been able to see how rushed I was before. How much I was splashing around in the river, instead of letting the river hold me.

An enlightened person might be able to switch lifestyles without blinking, but for most of us big change takes time to sink in to our soul.

In December Fiona and I made the conscious decision to slow down, and give the change time to sink into our souls. Now, in the new year I have a natural optimism that has been given space to breath.

Fiona has chosen faith as her theme for 2011. I think that's a very good word. You don't need much faith to live, but you need it to flourish.

Here's to 2011.