conduct --> mindfulness --> conduct

About 5, maybe 6, years ago I was attending meditation and dharma sessions at a Theraveda Vipassana Sangha. At this particular Sangha we would sit for an hour practicing insight meditation, followed by a dharma talk. The way the meditation practice worked, was one would focus her attention on the sensations of the body and the breath and allow thoughts to pass through the mind, trying not to attach to them or be carried away by them.

(The specific instructions as given by this Sangha, if you are interested, can be found here: http://www.abqsangha.org/sitting_instructions.html )

This form of meditation can be very challenging, sometimes even startling. I've had anger from childhood come floating up as if the perceived wrongs had happen just the past day. I've found my mind ruminating on frustrations with myself and others for 15 minutes or more before I even realized I had been carried off. I've watched my mind drift to and stubbornly yank back to a pair of shoes I saw at the mall, wanted, but couldn't afford. It's humbling. In meditation, I wanted to be blissed-out, at one with everything, or at least heading that way, and I'm thinking about kicking puppies and gnawing jealously on thoughts of material things I want but can't have. And those are the mellow thoughts...

Sometimes, I would just get overcome by nameless panic, and the challenge was (actually, still is): do I give into the panic and stop my meditation? Or do I try to ride it out even though it sucks, frankly, to see my bliss-hour get trashed by this seemingly needless, meaningless fear.

Oh, meditation... so relaxing.

Not.

After several weeks of this, and much mental self-abuse, the teacher presented a dharma talk on conduct.

Now, at this time, I was not all that interested in hearing about conduct. I just wanted to liberate my monkey-mind from the great banana-chase with some mystical techniques of meditation and maybe some mantras if they weren't too weird or difficult. I wanted Nirvana without having to think about all those inconvenient ideas of Right Conduct, Right Speech, Right Livelihood, etc.

The teacher addressed just this idea of Buddhism and mental liberation from the side of mindfulness as the first steps in practice. He believed that since western practitioners of Buddhism or Buddhist meditation start first with mindfulness they unfortunately have a hard row to hoe.

In most eastern Buddhist countries, children are raised from birth as Buddhists rather than finding the practice as an adult. Their first instructions are all on conduct. They're raised to 'behave' as a Buddhist. During their childhood they are expected to learn to behave in a way that causes the least amount of harm to themselves and others. They spend their childhood in a society that believes 100% in the operations of karma. (Yep, more on karma in the future.) They are raised to believe (and be very careful about) the fact that every negative, neutral or positive action has a corresponding consequence. Right conduct is vital if you wish to live a compassionate life that is useful to others and, ultimately, to yourself.

In short, this teacher posited, they are raised to do less things that will cause trouble for their heart and mind. When you have less trouble in your heart and mind, you find it much easier sit on the cushion for an hour or more. It means less nagging, distracting, sorrowful, angry things for that monkey-mind to use to fuel the banana-chase. The banana-chase still happens, though. It just happens around less overwhelming things, and therefore it's easier to sit through.

So, to pull out the very not-Buddhist lingo, if you have spent your life in lesser or greater degrees of self-seeking, self-serving douche-baggery it is going to have an impact on your mind and your heart. (Yep, more on douche-baggery, I mean the Ego, in the future.) This impact isn't a punishment and it has absolutely nothing to do with a god who is angry at your actions. This is very simply cause and effect on an external and internal level. The only hell you go to, is one in tiny increments inside yourself as it gets harder and harder to live with yourself in the moment, free of extraneous bullshit.

(Nope, I'm not going to talk about reincarnation here, until I figure out more what I think on the subject. I don't consider it fully necessary to believe in the concept in order to benefit from Buddhist practices.)

I had always wondered how very young monks and lay practitioners in the east, like the 17th Karmapa, had become so wise and compassionate beyond their years, while western practitioners very near their 40s (ahem, like me) still felt torn and turbulent more often than peaceful and loving. What I was being told, is the these folks have a head-start in the conduct department. The more compassionate, guiltless and peaceful a person's conduct is, the more receptive the mind is to mindfulness training.

And I thought to myself, That sounds sensible. I'll think on that for a while.

Five years later, I'm just about convinced. Of course, now, I can't start my practice from the point of conduct, but I can try to integrate conduct and mindfulness together and allow them to work in synergy. And I have been trying to teach these principals to my daughter, so she can have better start than me.

The result has been, in this slow, half-assed journey of Right Conduct, is that mindfulness meditation, and other forms which I now practice, have become easier for me.

I'm still not ready to give up my Red Zinfandel or Petit Syrah. I did at some point finally realize that I just couldn't eat animals anymore. And now, when I'm on that edge of doing the right thing or the wrong thing, even on very small things, I get this stabby feeling in the center of my chest from the inside. I've learned that's called your conscience. I try very hard to listen to it.

~Tricia

P.S.

With Right Conduct weighing heavy on my mind now, I think I'll start talking about each of the 10 Precepts For Not Causing Harm and their corresponding right actions over the next couple of weeks. If you are interested in what they are, you can find a list very like what I work off of here: http://www.worldspirituality.org/tenprecepts.htm

P.P.S.

More on the 17th Karmapa here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogyen_Trinley_Dorje ... and yep, he has his own controversy. Even the peaceful Tibetans have their religious and political in-fighting.

no perfection

My big plan was to write these blogs at least twice a week, maybe three times. It's still my big plan -- I'm just very, very late on my second blog post. I'm going to be okay with that. If any of you know me at all, you'll know that one of my many challenges in life is that I am forced to operate within a linear time scheme.

The reason I haven't written has nothing to do with not having a subject to write about. I have had just the opposite problem. I've sat down many nights with a different angle, topic, dharma, trauma, what have you. Then another idea would pop into my head. Then I couldn't decide which idea was more... perfect. Then neither idea looked perfect at all. So, I would cut what I had started out of the new post box, save the start to a MSWord document titled "blog ideas" and usually make an extra strong cup of a sleepy, drowsy type of tea and go to bed. Frustrated. With nothing to post. Perfectly.

The upside to this writing "process" of mine: I have enough blog ideas to last me through a few weeks at this point. The downside to this writing "process" of mine: I have yet to post my second blog.

This is another theme in my life.

I very often let the monster named "Perfection" shut me down, freeze my momentum, and otherwise stop me from keeping on keeping on.

I named this blog "these training wheels" because I need training wheels when it comes to most of the concepts I want to talk about. (And I need them with my writing, too.) When I was a kid, I was the last one my age in my neighborhood to learn to ride a bike without training wheels. Seriously. I think I was in third or fourth grade. Yes, the social consequences were enormous. But part of why I didn't learn earlier, is I resisted riding my bike with those training wheels early on. So, I didn't practice enough. I didn't develop the internal balance you need to keep the bike upright and straight. I didn't learn to be courageous and fearless on that bike.

Finally, all my friends were riding off to places without me, so I just had to do it. I just had to learn or be left out. I had to look like a dork with those training wheels on my bike, too. (I also tried to ride my Huffy three-speed -- sans training wheels -- like a BMX Mongoose and nearly knocked my brains out over the lovely red Oklahoma dirt. But that's another story and another lesson.)

Training wheels equal imperfection. Admitting I need training wheels with life is admitting that I suck at a lot of things about life, but somehow, recently I've found myself more willing to admit that and face it and try to not suck. Or suck less. Or be okay with my sucky-ness. Or something. (Yes, I know. Not the perfect Buddhist lingo, but I refer you back to the title of this post.)

So here is my quote tonight, by Pema Chodron: "...I’m here to tell you that the path to peace is right there, when you want to get away. You can cruise through life not letting anything touch you, but if you really want to live fully, if you want to enter into life ... you’re definitely going to have the experience of feeling provoked ... You’re not just going to feel bliss. The message is that when those feelings emerge, this is not a failure. This is the chance to cultivate maitri (loving-kindness), unconditional friendliness toward your perfect and imperfect self."

I usually try to avoid things that show that I'm weak, incapable, less than talented, sometimes less than kind, sometimes less than smart, aging, fading. But ultimately, if I'm always seeking something better, if I'm frozen because my actions, my skills, my words, my heart, my relationships are not perfect in this moment, I'm rejecting my life. To quote Pema again, I am "living my life haunted by a fundamental dissatisfaction." Because this moment is my life. The question to ask is this: How many moments -- how much of who I am-- do I avoid, hide from, grouch at or rage at because it's just not what I want or it's not perfect. If it adds up to more moments than not, I'm spending my life avoiding my life (because it can't ever be perfect).

I don't want to do that anymore.

I need my training wheels. Nothing I write will ever be perfect. Nothing I do will ever be perfect. I will never be perfect. And not a single letter, action or thought may mean anything worthwhile at all. But, I want to ride that bike.

Right now.

Gorillas

I started to put this blog together in December, with the intent of documenting two things. First, I wanted to journal on my increased seeking into Buddhist teachings and the lovely sort of pinched feeling that had put me into. For instance, those moments where my heart understood that this was truly wisdom, but where on a daily basis my mind and will chose not cooperate AT ALL. Second, I wanted to chronicle my 40th year of life, being as on January 2nd of 2011 I logged in my 39th birthday.

I thought to myself, isn't this a nice, neat package? Trying become better at life, at the middle of my life (hopefully EARLY-middle of my life) and writing it all down. I mean, this could be some golden content here. I can't tell you how many times a day, a week, I make an epic fail of what my intentions were spiritually, philosophically, educationally, etc. I would have no shortage of material to write about. Beautiful! I would increase my writing practice, while at the same time developing some discipline about meditation, reading dharma and put the concepts into practice. The first blog was to be on my birthday.

Yes. I know. Today is April 20. (4/20 for you stoners out there.)

What happened? Well, I'm lazy as shit. I never got around to it. Oh, I would occasionally sketch out an outline for this blog post or that in one of several journal/notebooks I always have lying around half used. And to be fair, I am a teacher and a mother. And I paint. And I have a relationship. And I have a home. But, to be fair as well, I'm the sort of person that always has an excuse. It can take a great shock to my system to get me to move on something.

Like excruciating pain.

Or large sums of money.

Or horrible heart-break.

That would be a hint as to why I'm here now. And it has nothing to do with anything that rhymes with bunny.

During past month it has felt like my entire world has cracked. A big, jaggedy, gaping crack. I really have no idea if it is repairable. Things I thought were solid and firm have proved to be tenuous and fluid. I'm in a freefall without any knowledge of where I'll land. A lot of things look scary and frustrating and sad right now.

Tonight, I feel shattered.

There is a book by Pema Chodron I have been reading over the past couple of weeks. It has a passage that I keep going flipping to. Each time I do, it punches me in the stomach.

"It's too much. It's gone too far. We feel bad about ourselves. There's no way we can manipulate the situation to make ourselves come out looking good. No matter how hard we try, it just won't work. Basically, life has just nailed us.

"It's as if you just looked at yourself in the mirror, and you saw a gorilla. The mirror's there; it's showing "you", and what you see looks bad. You try to angle the mirror so you will look a little better, but no matter what you do, you still look like a gorilla. That's being nailed by life, the place where you have no choice except to embrace what's happening or push it away."

--When Things Fall Apart

I'm seeing that gorilla. I know I can be really skilled at pushing things away. I'm excellent at finding other things to do or think about rather than look at the messiness that my life can be. I also love looking outside myself to try and control situations or fix blame on others. Embracing what's happening and sitting with it as it is? This I don't know if I can do.

I might as well try, though. Nothing else is working.

I can say this: It made me write my first blog post.