Can love change people?

By Dharmavidya David Brazier

Can love change people?

Certainly. Love is simple, so when people come close to love they give up things less important.

Do you mean pure love? Some love is conditional whereas some...

All love is conditional.

All love is conditional?

In this world, yes. Unconditional love, you can say, belongs to heaven, to God's world, not to this one.

Why is it conditional?

Everything here is conditional, but the pure essence of love is inherent even in conditional love.

But conditional love creates conflicts.

Exactly. At the root of conflicts is love. People fight for what they love.

So at the root of all hate is love?

Yes. Love is not the elimination of conflict, but love can be more or less skilful.

So love is at the root of everything we do.

Yes, including the most stupid things.

But sometimes people are only aware of the hate.

The converse is also possible.

How so?

A soldier is aware, perhaps, of loving his country, but hardly sees the destruction he is inflicting. He is just doing a job.

But in other situations?

Similarly. In couples or in communities, for instance. Each fights for what they believe is right - what they love - but it does not co-incide with what the other thinks. The conflict then gets entrenched through self-righteousness. Fundamentally, each side of the conflcit is growing from a seed of love, but that does not prevent it becoming bitter. But this started with you asking about change...

Yes, how does one change such bitterness?

By, on the one hand, seeing the love in its simplicity and, on the other, seeing one's own propensity toward folly and realising how universal it is. The latter enables us to see that we are in a conditional world, the former to realise that in this very place we are blessed.

But to change one has to be willing.

Not necessarily. Not even commonly. People are changing all the time, mostly unconsciously.

So the fact that I want to change does not necessarily mean that I will?

Quite. We change when the conditions change. Also, mostly, we are not clear what we really want. People often think they want to change but do not want to change the conditions that keep them the way they are. When the conditions change in spite of themseves they change.

Not always for the better.

Correct.

But love changes...?

Because it is simple and fundamental. It is at the root of everything. It is like dying.

Like dying?

Yes, in love and death one gives up everything. Love and death together are enlightenment. Can you truly love at the point of death? Can you die in the midst of your love?

What does this mean?

To die in the midst of your love is to love more completely.

But still conditionally?

We are in the midst of conditions - there is nothing we can do about that - but to be aware of love is still liberating.

So some changes are due to change of conditions and some are due to love?

Yes, love, in its great simplicity, allows conditions to fall away. 'Let go of body and mind' the sages say. 'Return to the source'. Love is 'the spirit of the valley', like water naturally finding the lowest place. Where that place is depends on the conditions, but the water is always the same.

So understanding love and understanding our own conditioned nature will free us?

Yes, but not in the way that we initially expect. Initially we are like a person trying to make a bicycle stand up-right by using our own will. The bicycle does not stay up-right by our will. When the bicycle is in motion, we find we have a different kind of control. In the same way, understanding the human situation - love and our conditioned being - gives us a kind of balance that we did not expect but does not mean that we control things in the manner that we initially thought was essential yet so difficult.

So how can we gain this understanding of love?

Have the faith to love simply in your heart; do what needs doing in a loving way; notice one's own folly; smile at the human situation. We are all weak. we are all human. If we were not, love would be unnecessary. In effect, we change when we realise our weakness without losing sight of the love that enfolds us.

by David Brazier

image by nyoin

Introducing zazen to our evening service

I'm going to be introducing a more rigorous meditation practice into the regular evening service. In the space where we sit quietly I'll be leading Zazen, in the Soto-Zen style. In this kind of meditation we see the body/mind treated as a single thing, not two separate things. Zazen is a meditation of posture as much as it is about the mind. When the body is still and balanced the mind becomes still and balanced. 

The reason I'm warning you in advance is because you might want to bring your own cushion (see below).

I know we briefly talked about posture a few months ago, after one of our services, but I'm writing to mention it again. The ideal posture for this kind of meditation is full or half-lotus. You can also sit in what is called Burmese posture.

The aim of these three postures is to create a balanced tripod to rest the trunk of your body on. If you are sitting in one of these postures you may need a firm cushion to raise your bottom about six-inches off the floor. I use a couple of yoga blocks at the wheel of life, but there are not many there. If you have a yoga block or firm cushion, please do bring it with you. Or do what I have just done and order a zafu (mediation cushion).

You can also use a meditation bench, in a kneeling posture, which some people find very comfortable and produces the same balanced effect. You can also sit on a chair, some people use a wedge shaped cushion to help create the right balanced position on a chair.

That's my introduction, I wanted to leave you with a few words from Dogen, who created the Soto school in medieval Japan and introduced this kind of sitting to Japan:

"At your sitting place, spread out a thick mat and put a cushion on it. Sit either in the full-lotus or half-lotus position. In the full-lotus position, first place your right foot on your left thigh, then your left foot on your right thigh. In the half-lotus, simply place your left foot on your right thigh. Tie your robes loosely and arrange them neatly. Then place your right hand on your left leg and your left hand on your right palm, thumb-tips lightly touching. Straighten your body and sit upright, leaning neither left nor right, neither forward nor backward. Align your ears with your shoulders and your nose with your navel. Rest the tip of your tongue against the front of the roof of your mouth, with teeth together and lips shut. Always keep your eyes open, and breathe softly through your nose.  

"Once you have adjusted your posture, take a breath and exhale fully, rock your body right and left, and settle into steady, immovable sitting. Think of not thinking. Not thinking. What kind of thinking is that? Nonthinking. This is the essential art of zazen. 

"The zazen I speak of is not meditation practice. It is simply the dharma gate of joyful ease, the practice-realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the koan realized; traps and snares can never reach it. If you grasp the point, you are like a dragon gaining the water, like a tiger taking to the mountains. For you must know that the true dharma appears of itself, so that from the start dullness and distraction are struck aside."

You can read the whole text here: Fukanzazengi

Hope to see you all soon, although I know some of you will already be at Buddhafield on Wednesday, if you are going, I'll see you at the weekend!

With love, Namo Amida Bu

Your life right now: finding the wisdom you need

For the past week my desk has been hidden behind an obstacle course of chimney liners, fire-board and power tools. Despite having wiped everything down, I can still feel a faint trace of brick and plaster dust between my fingers and the keyboard.

We moved into our new house twelve days ago. For the past week we have had heating engineers pulling down the pastel-brick fire surround and the old gas fire and installing our beautiful new wood burner. Those particular moments of chaos have passed. Since they left yesterday afternoon I have been watching the edges of the damp plaster drying out. Its colour changing from a deep burnt umber to a pale baby pink. 


I am enjoying this pause between moments of chaos. The silhouettes of leaves cast onto other leaves as the desk lamp shines though the plant next to me. The dark cat purring at my feet. Even the warmth of the light on the textured wallpaper we inherited from the last inhabitants.

This is all the stuff of life. I was going to write something about my hectic work schedule. How I had to take on an extra shift at my part time job and how little time I had to write to you all, what with seeing clients and running Buddhist services and unpacking boxes... It all seems less important in this mid-day pause.

Both are true, of course. The tightness in my shoulders as I think about the emails I've not replied to, and the beauty of this strange tree-like plant that I don't know the name of, with its kitten-chewed leaf.

Dogen wrote about the genjo-koan. The universal truth that is to be found in this very moment right now. Whatever your life is, that is your practice. Learning how to live this life in the best possible way. Appreciating that it is reality itself. What our heart is searching for is right here.

A train rushes past at the end of our garden and the noise reminds me of the fireworks that kept me awake last night (even though they sound nothing at all alike). This is life - learning how to be with sleepless nights, and too-full schedules.

A few days ago I heard our friend Esther Morgan reading from her collection Grace at the Ledbury poetry festival. One of the themes of that collection is 'whilst life is happening elsewhere' - that sense that we are waiting for our lives to start. Waiting for something.

But this is it. We have to start from where we are right now - with all the chaos as well as the beauty. Learn to be with the plastic dust sheeting on the floor, and the too loud fireworks, in the same way as the flowering sage in the garden, and the splayed leaves of the young courgette plants. This is the stuff of life.




image: awakening by victor_nuno