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    What should I do?

    Categories: buddhism

    by Kaspa

    Image by Mathieu Vivier from Pixabay

    ‘These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,’ enter on and abide in them.

    The Kalama Sutta

    There are so many different kinds of suffering, and so many available teachers and teachings claiming to speak to that suffering. How can we know what to trust? How can we know what to do?

    At one time the Buddha visited Kalama and was asked about what teachings the people of Kalama should follow. They had various visiting holy figures, which teaching should they trust?

    The Buddha encouraged them to observe the result of practising those teachings, to test them and to observe the people who are practising them. If they lead to happiness for all beings, follow them. If they lead to suffering, reject them.

    I think this advice works on two levels. We can consciously observe the practices and results and think through the teaching and the situation we are in. This kind of working out can be very useful and valuable.

    There is also an intuitive process that becomes easier to access the longer we have been practising for.  As our meditation or nembutsu practise deepens we occasionally receive guidance from something outside of our own small minds: the wisdom of the Buddha appears spontaneously and we have a deep confident sense of the next right thing.

    Often this is so obviously the right direction that there is no need to question or test it. We can simply trust and follow the wisdom of the Buddha.

    Sometimes we may doubt what we receive, and then we can test it by asking is it in line with the precepts? Will it lead to happiness? Is it in the spirit of generosity and compassion?

    Rev Koshin Schomberg describes receiving wisdom at this deep level:

    “From this position of meditative effort, one can entrust every problem to the Eternal, waiting patiently for the teaching that will help the need…

    …We do not have to be any kind of special person to receive the Eternal’s Teaching. Nor is it ever far from us. Anyone who has sat down to meditate in some state of confusion about what is truly good to do in a situation, and got up from meditation less confused, has experienced the follow of Wisdom to need. — All we need to do is to settle down, stop running around in our head, and allow the Eternal to get a word in edgewise.”

    How to Grow A Lotus Blossom: Reflections by Rev. Koshin Schomberg

    In a complex world, where there are many difference teachings and many different kinds of suffering, knowing who to listen to, what to practise and what to do can be confusing.  Using these two approaches — careful observation and thought, and developing our connection with ‘The Eternal’ —can help us find our way.

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    Is This World a Pure Land?

    Categories: buddhism earth

    by Kaspa

    A painting of Amitabha in their Pure Land
    Amitabha in Sukhavati Paradise, Tibetan, circa 1700, Ink, pigments, and gold on cotton, San Antonio Museum of Art

    The Pure Land of Amitabha is described as a land without hell realms, without suffering. It is described as a place where enlightenment comes easily, where Amitabha sits radiantly in the centre. It is a land of jewelled trees, limpid bathing pools, giant lotus flowers and musical instruments that play themselves.

    It is called Sukhavati, which means place of joy.

    Some people take these descriptions literally; many take them as an attempt in words to evoke something transcendental: a realm of love.In classical Pure Land Buddhism devotees go to Sukhavati after their death. But could this world be the Pure Land?

    Amitabha’s Pure Land is a place of no hell realms and no suffering. The first noble truth of Shakyamuni Buddha was that of Dukkha — that to be born into this world one inevitably suffers. Is it possible to reconcile these differences?

    Buddhism often breaks suffering into two halves: in the first half the suffering in the world, the external conditions that change, loss and illness and death; in the second half our own response to that suffering. If we practise diligently we can transform how we respond to suffering.

    Perhaps that offers a way of seeing this world as the Pure Land? When we are enlightened, nothing we experience creates suffering. Is that really true though? Practice can ease anguish, and soften the highest peaks and deepest lows of our emotions, but it shouldn’t undermine the appropriate sadness, grief and recognition of real suffering in the world.

    I think the distinction between Amitabha’s Pure Land as a place of pure joy and our world is an important one. We stand here and are inspired by our vision of the Pure Land. We know there is a world that will receive us just as we are, and that a world where all beings are loved by each other is possible, even if it isn’t here.

    But Buddhism speaks of many Pure Lands, many Buddha fields, not just the world of Amitabha, and some of those do contain hell realms.

    Is this world the same as Sukhavati? No. Could it be a Pure Land? Yes.

    A Pure Land is any place with a Buddha in the centre. It is the field of influence around that Buddha. The land and the living beings around that Buddha are transformed by its presence: by its love.

    Amitabha lives in Sukhavati, but their light reaches to all worlds. If we centre our lives upon that light, we begin to experience the effects of being close to a Buddha, and a Pure Land begins to appear.

    If we strip out all of the Buddhist language where does that leave us? That there is a realm of pure love and joy that exists alongside ours, and that the more we let that love into our lives, the more the world around us comes to resemble that place.

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    Wild Meditation Diary 1

    Categories: buddhism earth

    by Kaspa

    two yellow crocuses in the temple garden
    Crocus in the Temple Garden

    Recently I’ve started practising outdoors now and again. I long to go out to a truly wild place and sit in meditation there, but under current lockdown guidelines we are only supposed to go outside for exercise including a short rest of up to a minute…

    As I wondered down to the bottom of the garden this morning I was conscious of the many human hands that cared for and curated this space as well as the non-human forces that have shaped it.

    It had rained overnight and everything was damp. I noticed the wetness of the lawn but not the quality of solidity of the earth beneath. When I was out meditating at the weekend the ground was frozen solid and the hardness of the earth. There must have been more give and softness to that solidity today, but I wasn’t paying attention. It’s easier to notice the unusual states.

    At the beginning of my practise I noticed the smell of damp wood. It could have been the deck I was sitting on, or dead branches stacked up beneath the hedge behind me. A little later I noticed the smell of fox, and then it was gone again, appearing and disappearing as the wind changed direction.

    My attention was drawn to the bird-song, and then to the rough bark of the silver birch tree, and then to our dogs playing on the lawn. I noticed some part of my mind wanting to make connections and to find some lesson or wisdom that I could bring out of the practice and share with you all.

    In that act of noticing my mind quietened and my body settled more deeply into the chair. I was aware of my weight and of the reliability of the earth supporting me.  Thoughts arose telling me that we could destroy the natural earth completely and yet there was still something deeply reassuring about sitting there.

    I was aware of the changes in the garden even in the last few days, buds growing on trees, the weather changing, and new flowers opening. In the midst of noticing all of that change, I also had a deep intuitive sense of something permanent or eternal.

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    ‘Proper’ Buddhism?

    Categories: articles buddhism

    By Kaspa

    Over the last few weeks I have found myself looking deeply into the Buddhist teachings and trying to discover what ‘real’ or ‘true’ Buddhism is.

    Lots of teachers through the ages claim that what they are teaching is real Buddhism, or that what they are teaching is exactly the same as what the Buddha taught, and in some historical cases even presenting their own words as the Buddha’s words (like some the later Sutras, for example, which scholars suggest were composed many years after the Buddha’s death).

    One approach to discover what true Buddhism is might be to look at how it’s taught and practised around the world right now. But with so many different styles and traditions, and teachings that occasionally diverge on essential points, making something coherent from all of this is an impossible puzzle to solve.

    Another approach might be to carefully examine the pali cannon, the closest thing that we have to the Buddhas own words. On Twitter I follow a sanskrit scholar who sometimes does just that. Reading his articles two things stand out to me. Firstly, that academics and teachers often subtly shift the meaning of pali or sanskrit words for two reasons: 1) to suit their own biases and practise styles and 2) to make sense of something that was originally incoherent. That second reason for changing the meaning of words during translation points to the second overall thing that stands out for me: that sometimes it’s difficult to make a coherent philosophy from these oldest of Buddhist teachings. In one place they appear to say this, in another place they appear to say that.
    In the face of all of this the one thing that continues to make sense is my practice.

    Sitting chanting nembutsu or the Quanyin mantra the many words of teaching fall away. I find myself relating to something that feels loving and wise and occasionally offers guidance. What else could I ask for?

    Despite their occasional incoherence there is much wisdom in those old Buddhist teachings, so I’ll keep reading and studying them, and I’ll keep listening to contemporary teachers. And rather than trying to point myself in the direction of ‘proper’ Buddhism, the heart of my practice will be my continuing relationship to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

    Sending love


    Kaspa

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    When the ground disappears

    Categories: articles
    A bell in the temple garden

    The face that looks back at me from the mirror this morning is not the same as the face that looked back yesterday, and is definitely more lined than the face that looked back at me from the mirror a year ago.

    If you hang around in Buddhist or Taoist circles long enough you will probably hear some talk of groundlessness. What does this mean? I think it’s an attempt to point out that everything is provisional. 

    The COVID -19 pandemic has offered lessons in groundlessness for me. From the closeness of death as friends of friends get seriously ill, to supporting friends on the front line, to noticing my own instability when I can no longer do the small things I used to rely on like having lunch at Be The Change in Worcester, or meeting friends in person.

    In this world there is no firm ground on which to stand.

    When we practice deeply with groundlessness we discover that as well as the impermanent, troubled nature of this world there is also a great unconditional love that we can rely on. This is the love of the Buddhas (and as Pure Land Buddhists, particularly of Amida Buddha).

    A couple of weeks ago a friend asked me how I was doing and I replied ‘untethered.’ I was reflecting on leaving the Amida Order and on how much of my life I had made sense of through that window, on how many of the choices I made were conditioned by my being a Buddhist priest in that organisation, and of how deeply I used that role to define myself.

    Through that time of being untethered I caught myself imagining various different futures and roles I might inhabit. Would it look like this? Or would it look like that? Part of this process was a genuine seeking of the right choice, but much of it was an impulse to become tethered again: to land in something more certain and stable. Human beings can manage some uncertainty but we all have a limit.

    When the trustees accepted the change of name of the temple I felt a distinct sense of relief. I was suddenly tethered again (more or less). ‘Here is a project I can get behind’ I thought, ‘and more than that, here is an organising principle: a way of thinking about myself that makes sense again.’

    When I first heard of groundlessness I thought that Buddhist practice would free me from needing worldly identities and ways of making sense of myself. Perhaps that it is true for cosmic Buddhas, but is not true for me yet. I need the lightness that practicing with groundlessness beings, and the solidity of worldly identities (even if they are inevitability temporary)

    I also thought that if dwelt in groundlessness I would be protected from the troubles of the world. Now I understand the deep wisdom of being connected to both.

    By our nature as embodied beings living in this world we are rooted in provisionality, in change and in grief. By our nature as spiritual beings we are held in great love.  When we deeply know our connection to both, compassion springs forth.

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    Moving Through the Dark

    Categories: articles

    by Kaspa

    This morning I was reading Robert Macfarlane’s Underland. He writes about walking through Epping Forest and talking to Merlin Sheldrake about fungi. Sheldrake describes how whole networks of fungi live in symbiosis with the trees: transmitting information and nutrients from one tree to the next, even across different species of trees. He calls it the ‘wood wide web.’

    Macfarlane describes a visit to Boulby Mine, speaking about testing out the rock-face, sending probes forwards, falling back, ‘questing in the dark’. Sheldrake responds:

    ‘It’s so similar to the way fungi work,’ [he] says, ‘always prospecting for the most resource-rich or beneficial region, pushing on where they sense benefit. The fan out and if they find a decent seam in one place they die back from the poor areas and concentrate their efforts elsewhere.’ He takes my notebook and pen and draws a diagram of the classic hyphal structure: a branching fan in which it is hard to speak of a main or originary stem, only of shots and offshoots.

    Robert Macfarlane, Underland (Hamish Hamilton, 2019), 160

    I couldn’t help thinking of my own journeying forward; reflecting on the time since leaving the Amida Order when I have tried on, in my mind, this future or that future, or this identity or that identity. When I have probed into the dark corners of my imagination and asked is this the right seam to be mining? Is this where the most nutrients are?

    Looking back we might trace a single route through the web of choices, and we might make sense of the journey based on where we end up, yet the experience of journeying is more complex and more hidden in the dark.

    Some of my probings and testings and imaginings happened consciously in the waking hours. Some of them happened away from my awareness making themselves known through dreams, or the edges of feelings or ideas.

    If I am one miner, there is whole community of miners around me testing out other rock-faces. If I am the growing tip of a thin strand of fungi there is a whole community of fungi around me probing for nutrients.

    Some of the miners talk to each other and build maps of the mine in their minds. Some only know their own routes in and out, to the face they are working on. It’s hard to see the whole thing.

    Histories are like this. Both our own personal histories where we only manage to catch sight of some of the choices we make, and the histories of our communities where it is just as difficult to see the whole.

    You might use this argument for undermining personal accounts of the truth. You might use it to justify fake-news. The Buddha said that every idea can be misused. If you want to use snake venom for medicine make sure you hold the right end of the snake or you may get bitten.

    You might take this as an invitation to forgo investigating the darkness. If it is all so complex, and so many of the choices we make happen out of sight, what is the value of looking?

    The dark tunnels of the mine are where the gold is. The dark rich soil is where the fungi find essential nutrients to feed the forest.

    There are important truths in the dark. There is value in tracing and appreciating the webs of connection and of the choices we find ourselves making.

    This is an invitation to honour complexity.

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    New Beginnings

    Categories: videos

    Here’s the video of the short talks Satya and Kaspa gave at their Bodhi day celebration, not long after leaving the Amida Order. Here they think about endings and beginnings.

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