Author: barryschade@gmail.com

Evolution is opportunistic. While evolution processes are constantly in motion, the evidence of evolution occurs when a niche occurs that evolution can fill. Adaptations to changes in the environment are indicators that evolution has been happening and it has siezed the opportunity to be expessed in a changed situation.

Evolution steps into the gap when extinctions occur. This has especially been true after major extinctions have taken place. When the world of the dinosaurs was changed by a huge rock from space, the dinosaurs were mostly destroyed. Only the survivors were able to advance into the new age, and they rapidly filled the newly created void when the large dinosaurs disappeared. The mass extinction was an opportunity for evolution to show its power and the amazing variety of animals that emerged from the catastrophe filled all the newly created niches.

There is some thought that we have entered a time of massive extinction. This could be an opportunity for evolution as the old assortment of living beings disappear and new niches appear for a regenerated planet. The future, post extinction planet will suvive and the life forms that populate it will be the products of the powerful forces of evolution.

I wonder what future form of humans will show up. Will a future world be populated by humans who have adapted to the changed environment? I think there is an emerging population of more aware, more adaptable humans showing up in the current population. My hope is that these humans with highly developed mindfulness will be the face of humanity in a post-extinction world.

Evolution will have its way, especially after a massive extinction. Perhaps the modifications of the planet will make way for a more highly evolved and aware presence of humans.

I don’t think I have been on a certain path. There has never been a time when I felt I knew where I was going or even wanted to go. The path beyond the step I was taking at that moment has mostly seemed vague and undefined. Even when I tried to give my path dimension or direction, it has surprised me again and again.

Even when I made promises and plans, my path hasn’t always somplied with my sense of direction. I’ve made vows, laying out a path of certainty. But things haven’t turned out as I anticipted or even planned. Most recently, my planned long-term relationships have shifted and the path I was on dissolved or certainly changed.

I thought my life of a monk was on a path of apparent certainty. From the age of 13, I knew where I was headed and what the path would look like. All I had to do was follow it. Even that path evolved and I discovered that the path I was on was much deeper and ill-defined than the clear path of a monk in robes. What I discovered while following the path of a monk, was that the path slowly, even subtly took me in a direction I and those around me scarcely anticipated.

Rather than living in a community of monks and teaching the tenants of religion, I found myself living on my own and generally outside the realm of religious teaching. Instead I found that the path I had been on had been secretely preparing me to run the State’s major water pollution control program with insights gained as a monk. I went on to run an environmental program for Dakota County, still walking the path of a monk though no longer resembling a monk.

No longer looking like a monk, I was in fact walking the path of a monk in a secular environment. It was a path not at all foreseen, planned or anticipated. It was not a path my superiors in the monastery had in mind for me. In many ways, it was a path that chose me, not a path that I deliberately chose.

For a time, my unplanned path took me into the community of St. Stephen’s Church where I was one of the forces and architects who reshaped the liturgy. It was a clear departure from the plans of the Catholic Church. But it had all the savor of the life of a monk who walked in the present, making each step real and genuine. I had no notion at all where it was leading, but even then I knew when it was time to step away and follow a changing path that beckoned me elsewhere even while it was unclear.

Soon after putting aside the robes of a monk, I was no longer walking in an alone and solitary way. I have found myself walking along side several close companions. We have supported one another and I often drew on the depth of awareness taught me in the monastery. I have learned that even in relationships, a promised future path is something of an illusion. I have learned that my enduring commitment has been to be fully present, to be real, to be genuine. While I am clear that I can be kind, honest and gentle with each step on the path, I can be less certain what the future holds for the path I am on.

Perhaps, it is simply futile to try to figure where my path is leading. I am not even sure that my path is going anywhere. I am simply on the path, and I have no path to follow. There is no path of the past or of the future. I cannot know where the path leads, nor is it useful to try to figure that out. I want to be aware as best I can of where I stand at any moment. I want to feel the full exprience of each step I take. But I don’t aspire to know where the next step will fall. I just know that I want to be fully there.

The path, perhaps, is real, but only in the sense that it exists beneath me. I know that I am on a path. Where it goes is not of great importance to me. It is important that I deeply feel the presence of the path on which I stand at any given moment. It is important to me that I am aware where my path is, not where it is going. I have no path to f0llow.

Knowing gives shape to most of my days. It is knowing that creates the appearance of the world around me. Knowing helps me to plan and gives form to my memories. It gives order to the progression of time and offers a framework to make sense of what I encounter. Knowing gives me a solid world of self and makes me see myself as distinct and unique. But it is feeling that opens me to the wide universe of infinite possibilities.

When I let go of what I know, I can relax into an experience that has no form or framework. I can divest myself of all the confining notions that give appearance not only to my surroundings but also to my sense of self. If I undress the world from what I know, I am able to experience a world without restrictions. If I undress myself, I lose the sense of self. My experience broadens, and I experience how I am connected to all that surrounds me.

Knowing gives me a sense of living in time. And when I let go of knowing, I am able to enter an experience of no-time. All that I imagined as shaped by time and given a defined dimension suddenly becomes an all-encompassing now. Not-knowing gives me an opening to an expanded experience of a fresh universe. Not-knowing divests me of my sense of self, and I blend with a vast world, I experience a connection to all things.

Knowing is a useful tool that helps me navigate my days. But by relying on feeling, by relaxing into a realm of not-knowing, I am allowed to plumb my experiences in an expansive way. The world becomes a more exciting place.

This is an outline of a talk given at the Blooming Heart Sangha on February 29, 2024.

A Cosmic Interbeing plunge.  

Thay came up with the word “interbeing”, and it is something I have struggled with.  

I now think that when Thay spoke of “interbeing”, he was doing more than teaching us a concept.

• He was giving us a way of plunging into a deep cosmic reality of which we are a significant part. 
• He was guiding us into an experience of our involvement in a vast cosmic event that is 13.8 billion years old 
• I want to share with you what it has meant for me to take a plunge into that cosmic event, guided and facilitated by what Thay has taught.

First, Join me in blowing into the palm of your hand.

• Feel the movement of the air, the energy of lungs pushing air out your mouth.
• This is energy that originated in the Great Fireball, 13.8 billion years ago in what we often call the Big Bang.
• This energy of our breath originated in the Fireball that erupted out of a field of infinite possibility,
• This breath is a part of the vast cosmic event that continues to unfold, shape and reshape everything around us, everything we experience.
• We experience the dynamic urging of the Fireball when we blow on our hand.  
• It is the energy that moves and shapes the whole world around us and inside us. 
• This push from the Fireball shapes and reshapes everything we experience.
• The evolving Fireball energy allows me to experience the substance and fabric of interbeing from the largest planetary body to the atoms you see in the tip of your finger.  
• Guided by Thay, Note the fabric of interbeing in your breath, in the tip of your finger. 

I like Science.  Science tells me that there is nothing in the tip of my finger and in today’s world that was not there at the first instant of the Fireball.

• Physicists, cosmologists, poets and biologists constantly tell me how this is so, and how that original pulse of energy continues to form and reshape the whole cosmos.  
• Science tells me how the energy of the Fireball moves and shapes every object, every presence, every interaction.
• Science constantly reminds me how all around me, in raccoons, in trees and in rocks, there is the living, energetic presence of the throbbing Fireball.  
• But it is Thay who has given me the notion of interbeing and the means to experience it. 

Mindfulness, as taught by Thay, takes me and my awareness into a deep plunge into the Cosmos, into my engagement with the Fireball.

• Without mindfulness, my awareness and interaction with the cosmos is validbut superficial.
• Without mindfulness, I see the world as I imagine it to be, not as it is.  
• Mindfulness allows me to plunge into interbeing, not just as a scientific concept but as a timeless, dynamic experience.
• Mindfulness allows a sense of wonder and awe to arise out of the universe.
• Mindfulness allows me to know what it means to be human, to see my relation with all other beings, to see my true dynamic relationship with the Fireball.  
• Mindfulness allows me to dispel the notion that I am a separate self in the Cosmos.

 Self-aware: Perhaps, the mindfulness I experience is actually the Cosmos reflecting back on itself, of being self-aware.

• That is for me, the deep meaning of interbeing as taught by Thay.
• Through mindfulness, I see that I am not a separate self, but I see that I am connected to all things.
• I think that humans may be uniquely capable of self-reflection, of being aware of our cosmic relatedness to all things.
• As an expression and manifestation of the Fireball, we are capable of self-awareness,  of self-reflection.   
• We are the universe being aware of itself. 
• We are an essential part of a great cosmic journey, that is the deep meaning of interbeing.
• Thru mindfulness, as taught by Thay, we recognize that we are not stowaways on that cosmic journey, but we are active agents of this evolving cosmos.

For me, interbeing is more than science, more than a simple concept of interconnectedness.

• It is more than a linear view of clouds becoming rain, more than seeing fungi making plants possible, more than understanding how the microbiome in our bodies allow us to live.
• More than the physical entanglement so evident in our world.
• Interbeing is a deep timeless plunge into the origins and unfolding of all things, a deep plunge into a web-like fabric of the cosmos, a deep plunge into no-time.
• We, and all the world around us, were there at the origin of the Fireball and we are there now.  
• We continue and experience that primal connection throughout all time, through no-time.  We have a way of stepping out of time.

Thay’s notion of interbeing, through mindfulness, brings us face to face with the cosmic dynamics.

• We see ourselves not just as witnesses to the dynamics of the universe; we are its self-reflective expression.
• Through mindfulness, we can experience the elements of the Fireball in us.
• Through mindfulness, we see that we are the individual presence of the Fireball, filled with its energy and its urgent purpose. 

The End:  This is the gift of Thay.   When we experience the air we blow on our hands, we experience the energy, the force of the cosmic Fireball.

• We experience the Fireball in the tip of our finger.
• We experience the Fireball that was there at the beginning, is here now, and will be in all the actions we choose to take.   All guided by mindfulness as taught by Thay.   

Clarity is the foundation of kindness. Even if my actions may appear to be kind, without clarity they lack the substance of my involvement. Without clarity, my action are not aligned with the forces of the universe.

Without clarity, I am acting based on my imagined view of my situation. Unless I have clarity, my actions will not be right actions, they will not be based on anything substantive. They will be based only my imagination.

To achieve clarity, I begin with fully experiencing my body. To understand my mind I first understand and enter into my body. A relaxed and fully possessed body allows me to come into intimate contact with my feelings, any one of which has the potential to hijack my mind. Clarity of mind emerges through the portal of my body and its attendant feelings. With clarity of mind I can see my way to acts of kindness. Without clarity, my actions are misguided.

Clarity allows me to act with kindness. Without clarity, my actions are at least hallow and often lacking in kindness. Thru clarity, I direct the energy of the universe into my actions. That is the fullest infusion of kindness.

Impermanence is a gift. Thanks to impermanence, all things are possible. I am not locked into a future of determined outcomes, goals or objectives. My own mind is not limited and confined by anything of my own making or by anything anyone else has done, is doing or will do.

You see, I want it all, and impermanence makes that available. All I have to do is surrender into an unformed free fall into the emptiness. The endless fall is my adventure into a contact with it all. I give up all that I think I have, and I realize that I am connected and part of everything. Nothing permanent, everything present, unlimited engagement. Impermanence is my gift.

This is a copy of a talk I gave on November 9, 2023 at the Blooming Heart Sangha

A Key to Liberation: The State of Jhana joy – take three

November 9, 2023

I would like to begin with breathing.

• I invite you to experience what it feels like to breathe and become aware of your breath.
• Pause to be aware of your breath…….
• Experience the breath as known
• Feel the joy of knowing your  breathing.
• Remember how you have experienced other moments of joy, pleasure and delight.

This is what happened to the Buddha

• Remember how the young Siddhartha ( who had not yet become the Buddha ) was resting in the shade of a rose apple tree
• Sitting there under the tree he spontaneously entered a state of deep concentration, satisfaction and ease.   
• He would later remember that pleasant experience.
• He decided he would cultivate those naturally occurring states as the means for awakening.
• He went on to teach his followers how to harness the power of a unified, happy mind.

I want to talk about my practice of cultivating and expanding those moments of joy.   Based on breath, the breath as known.

• It is the practice of the 5 jhana factors, the precursors and precondition for the deep state of absorption:  Jhana
• The 5 Jhana factors are the path of deep concentration leading to: Jhana, samadhi.
• I first talked about this several years ago, and said I had a 6 month plan to explore the 5 jhana factors.
• I’m still exploring.   I’m still on the path, I’ve experienced lot, but still practicing.  I constantly see and experience the path differently.  While this is my current experience, the core approach is the same.

Summary: The 5 Jhana factors are steps along the path to cultivating deep concentration.  = samadhi

• A path of deepening joy.
• I’ve seen Thay refer to Jhana, but I haven’t seen him discuss the 5 steps I’m talking about.
• Thay does talk about the factors and about the state of absorption.
• I have relied on authors like Shaila Catherine and Leigh Brasington  for clearly identifying the path as the 5 steps

The first two steps are the hardest.   You already know this.

First Step: Connecting

• I direct my attention to a chosen object: the breath as know
• Not the breath itself, but the breath as known.
• Connecting begins with the intention to know and become aware.
• Connecting relies first on relaxed, natural awareness of the physicality of the breath.
• Then moves to focus on the breath as known.  Focus on the occurrence of breath. 
• Equivalent:  the inviting of the bell.

Second Step: Sustaining

• Sustained attention on the chosen object:  sustained attention on the breath as known
• Starts getting harder
• This sustaining of attention allows concentration to deepen
• Equivalent:  the reverberating bell, the steading hands of a potter.
• May often have go return to the first step, Connecting
• Good news: Next step is easy: do nothing

Third Step:  Rapturous interest

• Surrender to entrance of inner bliss; allow it to happen naturally.  
• Natural feeling of lightness and pleasure when the first two steps occur.
• A sign that the first two steps have been taken, success.
• I said it is easy, BUT:  the first time it happened to me it scared me so much I was in my Doctor’s office the next day talking about the possibility of a stroke.   
• I’ve decided that this surrender to rapture is a developed skill;  I now do it multiple times a day, without fear.  It becomes easy with practice.
• Not some kind of random rapture; it is rapture out of attention to a specific object (for me: breath as known or some other tactile experience as known:  eg. Momentary touching the chair fabric, the top of the desk, the hand of someone next to me,  a deep hug)

Fourth Step:  Joy

• Enduring deep ease, pervasive contentment
• Mind is bright and undisturbed
• Sustain rapturous, but at lower level; not as intense as the third step
• Equivalent: settling into a warm bath.
• No urgency to finish…..nice

Fifth Step: One-pointedness

• A feeling of intimacy that rivets attention
• Sets the stage for absorption
• Can be experienced by focusing on the breath as known, by focusing on the hardness of the chair, by focusing on the touch of someone near you.  
• 5^th step has a feeling of certainty; stability of concentration. 
• I think: A summary of all 5 steps in one.  

These five are the 5 Jhana Factors

• Set the stage, are prerequisites for Jhana absorption……absorption that can support insight or action, but it is not the same as insight or action. 
• Admission: I still linger on these 5 factors;  They are where I am; still working on them, getting familiar with them.
• Jhana absorption is mostly out of my reach, though I sometimes think I see it in a distant mist.
• My experience of absorption is brief;  by definition, now quite jhana     
• I talked about the five as steps, and some authors, like Shaila,  present them that way:  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5
• In true Thay fashion: I think if you really experience any one of them, you experience them all. All at once. And that is very  nice.
• Like 5-sided dice. 

Wrap up:

The 5 Jhana factors are a way of deep concentration; also a way of deep joy.

• They are for me a key to liberation.
• Can move me in a couple of directions:  Concentration / no content ( samadhi) or insight  / content (vipassana)
• 5 Jhana factors rely on awareness of the breath:  the breath as know
• In my practice, I add many other tactile experiences that I become aware of as known.   
• However, for most, the breath is pivotal, the breath is foundational; the breath teaches what it is like to experience breath as known  

This is how I use the breath;   What about you?

• How do you use your breath?
• How does the breath fit into your practice.
• Experience?

Recognizing that my world is a social construction just went to a deeper level for me. I’ve been generally aware of how I am surrounded by countless forms of cultural forms and expectations. My awareness of what is going on around me is constantly shaped by expectations, mine and all those I have absorbed from my culture. However, listening to poet Clint Smith talk about the world being a social construction helped bring my awareness into sharper focus.

All the world around me has been shaped by social initiatives of humans. Nothing occurs or exists outside the social constructs shaped by humans. The very physicality of the world shows the mark of human social perspectives. If in remote places the shape of what I see doesn’t have the mark of human intervention, then the way I see it is shaped and focused through a lens of human perspective.

For me, it is not only the landscape that has the marks of social construction. For the most part, the landscape has been altered by social efforts to meet human aspirations and perspectives. Most strikingly, the whole life-supporting bubble to which we have evolved has been reshaped, constructed anew by human intervention. The impact of social construction is apparent in the climatic changes that promise chaos for humans. There is nowhere in the earth bubble, nowhere in our home, that any of us can go where the impact of human construction is not likely to be felt. This is tending to be disasterous.

Social construction is a huge force in the way humans interact. Hardly anything we do is outside the realm of social construction. The shootings, the robberies, the human suffering, the great accomplishments, the demonstration of compassion are all shaped by a mixture of social influences.

Nothing we do to one another is outside the realm of human intervention and influence. Every human interaction has meaning only when seen in the context of social construction. Nothing humans do to one another can be truly understood or has meaning apart from the inclusion of the social construction that has shaped that interaction.

It is a challenge for me to keep in mind the dominating influence of social construction. I am glad to have some appreciation of its influence.

A talk on “My Skeleton” helped me appreciate how my bones are a time capsule. I am aware that my bones capture a story of my past 82 years. They are my own personal time capsule. My bones also tell the story of the several hundred million years during which the configuration of my skeleton has evolved. My bones tell the story of the creature I have become, and perhaps hint of the future as well.

My bones capture it all, in addition to giving shape and support to what I have become. My bones tell a story that goes back to fishes swimming in an ancient sea several hundred million years ago. Paleontologists outline the bony traces of how the structures in those ancient fish foreshadowed my bones. Those ancient bones in fish gradually evolved into the many bones we see today in all bony animals including me. My skeleton tells the story that captures the millions of years bones have evolved. My skeleton is a time capsule that spans many millennia.

In my view, my skeleton captures time in such a way that time no longer has meaning to my mind. It is hard for my conceptual mind to understand what those hundred million years are like. The best I can do is think of the rapid changes that took place in my yet unborn body as I developed in my mother’s womb. I think of how those rapid developmental changes in the fetus hint at and reflect those dramatic modifications that took place in the evolution of bones in bony animals.

There are faint hints in my skeleton of what the future might involve. My knees are no longer functioning well and may need to be replaced. There is foreshadowing of the future in my bones, just as the fins of bony fish many millions of years ago foreshadowed all the unseen skeletal limbs yet to come.

It all blends together in my bones. My bones capture time, and they also capture my connection to all other creatures with bones. My bones bring together materials from the far reaches of the universe. All is inter connected, an expression of interning. My bones are not just a capsule of time. My bones are a capsule of all that time touches. My bones tell me a story of all that I can perceive.

Sometimes I feel like I am walking around in a bubble. This is an experience that mainly comes when I am focused on my legs and the pain that I feel.

I noticed this yesterday when I walked down Nicollet Avenue, slowly making my way along the 3 blocks from the bus stop to the light rail platform. Each step was a grumpy reminder that one or both my legs were not happy with what I was asking them to do. My focus on my legs and discomfort put my awareness squarely on my leg movement. I was only slightly aware of the activity around me. I walked in my own private bubble.

When I finally stood on the platform waiting for the light rail train, I noticed the family almost pressed up against me. All had brown skin and they spoke soft words of spanish. The young five year old boy and I exchanged looks occasionally. They otherwise were nestled in their own bubble. But my own bubble had somewhat dissolved.

I watched carefully as each new person came on to the platform. Almost all with skin tones darker than mine. Heads turned to see where the harsh and loud words were coming from, a loud and upset man walking behind us. I was more interested in watching the watchers.

On the train, a few students trickled in as we approached the university. I felt more and more immersed in a cultural and economic milieu I hardly ever experience in my limited corner of the world. The platform I stepped onto at the university east bank station was a mix of students, and I was aware that I had entered a whole different mix of humanity. Culturally and economically I had, in just a few steps, become aware of a new surrounding.

My legs still hurt, but my bubble had become less isolating. My bubble had begun to dissolve when I shuffled up the incline to the down town Minneapolis platform. I gradually became more attentive to people all around me. I may not yet be ready to fully embrace them, but I had become more aware of my people. Perhaps my bubble simply got a little larger.