Month: January 2025

Posted on by joseph mauricio

MEETING OUR MIND

IT’S BEEN HERE ALL ALONG

In meditation today, I noticed myself trying to push my mind toward where I thought it should be. This morning my mind most certainly did not comply.  As my focus wavered, ancillary stories began to surface — aging, memory, the need for better sleep. I started vetting strategies like caffeine or ginkgo. None of this was meditation. Then it struck me: my meditation had become an attempt to “fix” my mind.  Rather than simply seeing it as it is I was trying to change it. By stepping back and letting go of the pressure to fix, I allowed myself the space to simply see.

The ideal meditative state—clarity and acceptance—rests on the openness and settledness of the body, heart, and mind. However, life rarely offers us perfect conditions. For me, morning practice often begins with a scattered or resistant mind. The first step, then, is acceptance—meeting the mind as it is and not as I wish it to be.

Acceptance begins with recognition. We notice the mind’s current state— distracted, cloudy, resistant, or grumpy— and then acknowledge what we meet without judgment. This allows us to step away from struggle to control anything.  We open the door to meet our mind as it is. Instead of ego’splaining we listen. This acceptance is an act of love. We are opening our mind to accept ourselves in this very moment.  Once we accept, synchronization naturally follows. This isn’t something forced but rather a harmonious alignment that arises when we stop struggling and simply allow things to be.

Miraculously, we find ourselves in meditation.

From synchronization grows wisdom. Wisdom sees a larger process unfolding: the mind observing itself, guiding itself, and offering comfort and love to its own experience. Wisdom understands that all states of mind, even those we perceive as negative or incorrect, have value simply because they are part of us. Awareness embraces the distracted, discouraged, angry mind as colors in the painting of the present.

When we are frightened, our mind tightens in defence. When the mind tightens, it reduces what is sees to binaries such as good and evil, right or wrong. Thus triggered, the mind sections itself in order to reduce the landscape of reality into that which is controllable. Although rarely helpful, this narrowing is a natural process we need not fight. But if we don’t buy into the game, and simply listen or see, we connect to the space around the event. This allows the wisdom of awareness to resolve the binary. Wisdom never chooses a side as it holds the entire picture. Wisdom isn’t the opposite of confusion—it’s the space that contains it. This spaciousness lets us recognize, accept, synchronize, and ultimately return to the present, using tools like the breath or an object of focus with a light, precise touch. In this way, the mind naturally meets itself. And it will quite naturally allow itself to develop toward further awareness.

Once again, meditation isn’t about fixing; it’s about seeing. The mind of meditation arises in awareness like a point in space. And as the space of awareness is relieved of the pressure to fix itself or chose a side, it remains loving and supportive. It is a state of grace. By stepping into the grace of awareness, we don’t need to force change—we simply allow what we notice to be with us, remembering none of it is as real, solid or urgent as our fear suggests. Trungpa Rinpoche famously wrote, “good, bad, happy, sad – all thoughts vanish like an imprint of a bird in the sky.” Once we release ourselves from the grip of control, we see everything as ephemeral, diaphanous and in dynamic transition. Sakyong Mipham calls this the displaysive activity of mind. All of our worries are the mind revealing itself. Many of our worries are kid fears. And like kids, they need to be loved and accepted, but not always believed.

Meeting our mind is meeting our oldest ally. It’s been with us longer than any relationship we’ve had. Accepting it with the loving space of awareness we see its many colors and configurations. Sometimes it displays in black and white, and sometimes it opens into a rainbow painting.  When we return to present awareness, we are in a point in space where the colors of life become clear.

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

COMING BACK TO MEDITATION

Greetings on this bright and cold January morning.

It’s inaugural day in the US. Dharmajunkies will commemorate the occasion by remembering the lives and works of Doctor Martin Luther King. We also remember President Jimmy Carter. We honor their sacrifice, intelligence and compassion.

As well, we also remember the passing of David lynch the great auteur who was deeply dedicated to meditation. His children recommended that a perfect way to commemorate their father would be for the world to meditate today. So today we bring it back home to remembering those who have come before, our meditation practice, who we are, why we are here and what we can do to help bring love and sanity to our world.

Smrti in Sanskrit or Shi.ne’ in Tibetan can be transcribed as recollection. In meditation we are remembering to come back to the object of our meditation. Remembering to come back to the phrase or image in our contemplative meditation remembering to come back to the breath in Shamata or Zazen. On the deeper level it might be that we are remembering to come back to our essence. Different traditions look at our essence in different ways. It’s often referred to as being aligned with source. Or feeling source alive within us. The Buddhists refer to Buddha nature as an essential part of our being that is clear pure and undefiled. In the Shambhala tradition we talk about Basic Goodness, which both radiates from and evokes “True” confidence. True Confidence is not dependent upon material things, or social accomplishment but confidence that stems from a connection to our essential being. I’ve heard it referred to as a clear and pure running brook that we connect to within ourselves. Yet Basic Goodness, Buddha Nature, compassion and life are fundamental within the universe. Buddha Nature exists within and without us.

When we come back to the breath in meditation we are realigned with our fundamental being. Ideas of outer and inner, good or bad, right and wrong, seem crude in comparison to the experience of oneness or wholeness. That experience of personal unity with the universe, called nonduality in some traditions, is seen as our preternatural primordial state. It is who we are, will be and all we have ever been. The source of wisdom and compassion in the universe predated the existence of time or space itself and has been flowing ever since. The manifestation of the things of the universe are the displays of Buddha Nature. Every moment we are aligned with this, we are blessed. We are aligned with perfection. And everywhere around us are ways that that perfection is manifesting. Life is alive, and living in the trees, the brooks, the fields and also in the buildings, the cars and Elon’s rockets. We might decide that some of these things are more beneficial to our world than others, yet all of them are basically good because all of them are here and therefore deserving of out attention.   However, when we fall into forgetting we live a life selecting what we want to see, we trade the beauty of what is for a life of certainty. We trade a life of discovery, for a life where some things are everything we know. We grossly limit our spiritual and emotional potential. We are missing being at one with the universe and life itself because we are focused on the price of gas. Yet the price of gas is still basically good not because we think we it should be but because it is but because it is happening and because all things – whether we see them as good or bad or happy or sad – are subject to impermanence, change and reconfiguration. We are subject to impermanence, change and reconfiguration, whether we remember that or not. In fear, we live a life of narrow interpretations of reality. I suppose it serves the purpose of allowing a part of ourselves to feel in control. But the only way to effectively have control over life to reduce life down to a small enough space for us to control. Thus, most of  us are actively ignoring the 99.999% of everything else in the universe. Therefore, ego is ignorance from the Buddhist perspective.

Ego which can be seen as the very limited defensive nature of the mind, serves to reduce our world to a controllable space. Its logical extension is the propagation of surety, dogma and doctrine. The opposite of ignorance(ma-Rigpa) is knowing (Rigpa), and therefore, egoless being is sees and knows what is happening. And it always has. This is Buddha Nature – our natural state. Because it is accepting reality as it is, it is not at war. Thus, Buddha Nature is said to be indestructible. It has never changed. It is the life of the universe and the very life around us. And though our lives will pass into other configurations, our essential nature is said to be part of all of nature. Ego clings to temporal things in order for us to believe that temporary things give us solace and sustenance. We can squint our eyes and believe what we are happy but, inside us, we know that happiness is immaterial.  Material things are “like a banquet before the executioner leads us to our death.” Revenge, retribution, and displays of grandiosity masquerading as leadership are fleeting and meaningless. They are basically good, because they are there. But they are expressions of ego and ultimately fleeting.

Each time we return to the breath we come back from our preoccupations into the present, we are home. Sitting between hope and fear, between past and future, we find the middle way that encompasses all possibilities of the universe. Yet all we need to do is train the mind to recognize when it’s not present and develop the willingness to let go of fantasies and come back to what’s here. We don’t have to overstate that. It’s a very simple thing really. We’re just sitting. We’re just breathing. We’re a statue collecting snow in the monastery gardens. There is nothing to do, nothing to achieve, nothing to leave, nowhere to go, nothing to destroy. Only returning home when we stray. Remembering our basic nature, our ability to be present calm and accepting of ourselves and our world.

Revenge, retribution, and displays of grandiosity masquerading as leadership are fleeting and meaningless. They are happening. But they are the tiny grasping hands of ego and ultimately fleeting. What prevails is sanity, love, and service. When bluster and toxicity have dissipated, the love and service of Dr. King, Jimmy Carter and those many others who let their work speak for itself, still inspire and guide the life within our lives. That spirit of the universe is our source, the home we return to each time we remember.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

BRINGING THE DARKNESS INTO LIGHT

 

Deeply rooted pain causes great suffering in our life. And the intensity by which we experience pain varies from person to person. However, it is not a competition. We don’t have to argue over the fact that we all experience pain. Pain is our human heritage. Although our pain feels worst to us as it colors everything in life. Yet, as much as pain is a pain, it can also be the impetus for self-discovery. So let’s get to know this irritating, but useful old friend.

Physical pain awakens us to the possibility of danger or a need to heal. While few of us like pain, it serves a vital function. Some people have a rare genetic disorder, CIP, that prevents people from feeling pain. People with CIP may also have difficulty regulating their temperature and sweating. On a physical level pain is instrumental. However, it is our tendency to demonize pain and treat the discomfort rather than the cause. This is also true of psycho/emotional pain. We are averse to looking in to our pain because it is… well, painful. But this keeps us from understanding what the pain is telling us. 

Deeply personal psychological pain often come from a wounding event. This wound amplifies into suffering when we try to deny, change, or get rid of it. If we don’t know it we never learn to work with it. While some pain is universal and all humans experience it, some feels as though we were wounded personally. There is often a sense of embarrassment to this kind of wounding as though it had made us strange, or less than others.  And so we bury these feelings deep in the darkness of our heart. However, wounds that are not seen sometimes do not heal. In fact, unseen wounds can fester. The area around the hidden wound becomes painful as we infect places in our being and areas in our life where the wound is associated. The inflamed area around our wound becomes painful to the touch. In time, we begin to anticipate that pain and learn to avoid the people, places and things that we might bump into. Shadows in the past, beget blockages in the mind, that beget limitations in life. Our life becomes less than it might be because of these unseen influences. How often have we overreacted to circumstances without knowing why? How often did we operate on auto pilot as though following an unseen script?  How often have we sidestepped an important event? How often have we missed a kiss or failed to raise our hand? How much of our life has been dedicated to onanistic meandering rather than meaningful relationships?

There is nothing wrong with fantasies until they take the place of actual engagement in life. Fantasies allow us to journey into edgy realms with no real investment. By imagining pleasures of the flesh, we have no actual skin in the game. (Yes, bad pun intended.) We can live out fantasies at will in apparent safety. However, as they serve an important creative function, it may be that fantasizing only supports the solitude that allows wounds to fester. Sometimes we analogously recreate the actual wounding we are otherwise unable to look at directly.  People may act out abuse sexually by entering a “play space” that is an active dissociation of their primary personality.  The “play-space” is a safe space people can act out being unsafe. And whether this is working through their deep wounds or reinforcing them is unclear.

From a meditation point of view, a method for deep healing would be to gently encourage the wounded areas to come into the light of awareness before we act them out. It may be too painful to experience some wounds directly, but we can prepare a ground of acceptance for them to appear, as they will. And when they or their proxies (such as avoidance, addiction or other types of suffering) arrive, we can open to them and allow them to be in our unbiased, non-judgemental space. If nothing else, by simply allowing the manifestation of our pain to be as it is can be profoundly healing. Sometimes, as we approach the event horizon of our wound our impulse is to pull away. The method for working with that is to just gently learn to stay. Stay with the pain. Just be there. And if we pull away, so be it. If it pulls away, so be it. Recovery is a long slow road. Sometimes, rather than pulling away, we might lunge toward the pain throwing our heart on it’s altar. This act of egotism is not helpful. Other times, as soon as we feel the trigger of our pain, we try and fix it. This is a common mistake, for how can we fix something we haven’t seen?  That said, we don’t have to dig to the origin of the wound. We don’t need to know why or who in order to actually heal. With meditation we look at what is there now. When we talk about bringing darkness into the light, we are not extinguishing anything, we are not vanquishing anything, we are not changing anything. We are simply inviting the wounded being to reveal itself as it is. In Meditation theory, awareness is light and ignorance is darkness. But thjis does not correspond to :”good” and “evil”. Both darkness and light are symbiotic parts to the universe as well as our own nature.  While darkness serves it purpose, sometimes things are brewing there that are affecting 0our lives on the surface. Sometimes things have run their course in the darkness and are ready for birth into our awareness. Darkness is were things incubate, or fester. And light is where they are able to manifest or heal. However, light is a graded process. Sometimes it is less direct than other times. We allow what we allow, as we allow it. Each session in our meditation we may know ourselves a little more deeply.

The present moment rests between the past and the future. Specifically, how we could protect ourselves from this situation or how we can enact laws to protect our community in the future. Or, going deeply into the causes and conditions of what happened to us might lie in the past. Either of these examples might be helpful, but they are more the province of therapy. Meditation looks at what is happening now. That is what we mean by the light. Many of us were wounded so deeply in the past that there is little possibility of contacting the source of that suffering. But we can feel their effect right now if we remain conscious. And as we become more and more conscious of that which lies within us, we become more and more whole.

I have a prayer that I wrote for myself:

May the wounds of my past never be seen as weakness

For they are proof of my strength

And the tools of my compassion

The pictures accompanying this post are by Yayoi Kusama, a Japanese artist who lived through great personal trauma and incorporated her journey in art. 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

The FOUR BRAHMAVIARAS

With Sarah C. Whitehead

The Brahmaviharas, sometimes translated as the Four Immeasurable Minds, are early Buddhist heart practices that are still embraced by most major schools of Buddhism today. They are loving kindness, compassion, resonant joy, and equanimity. Tonight at Dharmajunkies we will discuss the Brahmaviharas; their Sanskrit origins, their roles in our lives, and their near and far enemies. We will start with meditation and loving kindness practice, sending loving kindness to ourselves, our loved ones, the natural world, and the unseen world. Then, after brief check ins, we’ll have a Dharma talk about the Four Brahmaviharas. Following the talk will be ample time for discussion on the talk and any Dharma-related matters. I look forward to seeing you there! -Sarah