Barry Garden Path

Interesting how my mind has been trained to focus on flesh, even the notion of flesh. When I hear anything about sexual abuse, assault or misconduct, my mind goes directly to the carnal. The image of flesh flashes, even for a brief instance, into my mind. Flesh becomes part of the problem.

Even the concept of sexual assault is outfitted with the image of whatever physical action may have taken place. My imagination is given a role to play without my even trying. I may quickly shift to the trauma, the nature of the abuse, the personal harm. But there typically is an imagined role for flesh to manifest itself, to become part of the event. Flesh gets intermingled with the assault, the abuse. Maybe even obscuring the abuse or assault.

When I recently heard a couple of references to the sexual abuses attributed to the leaders of the Shambala community, my whole notion of the situation seemed to center on the physicality, the fleshy part of what happened. There was a subtle notion of abuse, of misconduct, but the notion of “problem” seemed to fall largely on the flesh.

It took an effort to step back and discern the harmful aspect of what had taken place, without the concern for the flesh aspect. Sexual contact was not itself the problem. The problem was the misuse of power over other humans. The problem was the likely unequal relationship between individuals. The problem was the breaking of trust and expectations of the Shambala community. Fleshy contact was not the problem.

I easily get focused on the fleshy part when I would rather be looking deeper, at the real human harm taking place. I think a kind of voyeurism clouds discernment. It is easy to get distracted by the sexual part and see it as the problem. Instead, the abuse of human relationship is the problem.

When hearing of sexual abuse or assault, it is important for me to get beyond the imagined sexual activity. I want to get beyond the flesh and instead be attentive to the harm, to see the true nature of things. I want to see the problem clearly.

I have resisted calling myself a Buddhist, even though I have friends that have attached that name to me. I think it sounds too much like a membership in a club or organization.

The name does not capture much of the transformed part of me. It doesn’t say enough about my reality, the skills I have acquired.

When I was identified as a Catholic, the name said more about the organization to which I belonged, and that association was not something I welcomed. Being seen as a Catholic revealed little of the inside me, what went on behind the name.

Perhaps the name Catholic said something about the beliefs and behaviors Catholics were known or expected to embrace. For that reason alone, I was able long ago to shed the characterization of being a Catholic.

To say someone is a nurse says something about the skills that individual has acquired. It doesn’t really say anything about an organization to which they belong or whose identity they share.

I just heard yesterday a discussion of people becoming Buddhists and it was all about having acquired an identity. It was not about how they had undergone an inner change, acquired skills of concentration or developed an aptitude for insight. Perhaps those were implied in the small print, but the discussion did little to make that obvious.

I call myself a gardener because that is what I do. I resist the name of Master Gardener because that mostly says that I have joined and been admitted to a group that uses that name. The group is identified by the name.

Perhaps the name Buddhist does identify the aspirations and intentions that I have. It may say something about choices that I made and intend to make. But that is not enough for me. If I have a named identity I want it to say more about who I am and what I do.

For now, I just say that I am someone who meditates. That is enough.

So many places are given meaning by remembering what human activity took place there. A battle, a birth, a signing becomes the reason a spot on the earth, in the universe, is of significance.

Why not have the perspective of a cat or a dog and see places simply as they now exist? A cat or dog does not care what human venture happened in this or that spot along a road, in a field, in a city.

Why should I?

It has been some time since I began distancing myself from any expression of faith and decided to mostly rely on what I experience. For me, there was just too much imagination involved with faith, mostly someone else’s, and not enough observation and insight. Mostly I was becoming faithless in the arena of religion, a process rooted in my early 20’s.

I was mistaken to see faith as belonging only to issues of religion, and I’m noticing how much faith plays a role in so many areas of our lives. Today, I’m especially impressed by how much people rely on faith when it come to political views. Faith, not observation and insight, seems to guide the political decisions and actions many people take. I’m wondering about how faith affects my own political views.

My training and education in religion required that I have a hefty dose of faith to guide me along. In those days, faith charted out a world of unseen realities and promised a future with little observation or experience to support it. It went beyond the known and sometimes even pushed aside the known to reveal a world unsupported by anything I could see or did not want to see.

Religious faith enabled me to trust a reality that would support, sustain and save me. Relying as it did on the unseen, it was little more than imagination and superstition. Faith had no basis in my experience and relied heavily on the imagination of others.

Being faithless has given me a vantage point to notice how so many people rely on faith in the arena of politics. I see so much evidence of people going beyond the known and believing in a reality that is unsupported by anything they can see or want to see. Their political faith allows them to ignore the observations they can easily make and fashion a world of unseen, even false realities. Their political faith allows them to trust in a future that has little observation or insight to support it.

This is my way to make sense of a political environment clouded in so much untruth and imagination. The political arena has taken on the aspects of faith and superstition. Perhaps it has always been so, but it now appears more obvious to me. It is easier for me to think of so many people acting out of faith and superstition, rather than out of greed and malicious intentions. They just can’t see.

I prefer to live in a manner that is faithless.

There is space inside of me that encompasses and makes sense of all I encounter. This space reaches out and translates everything I encounter. In this space, I experience reality. It is where I encounter the essence of flowers and wind. It is where I absorb whatever comes to me or whatever I seek out.

This space has no definition or shape of its own, but is shaped by whatever I might absorb. Like the amorphous arms of an amoeba, this space reaches out and yields to what it encounters so that each essence might be intimately realized and absorbed.

Through relaxation and concentration, this space becomes pliable and flexible enough to be able to absorb. Then it is shaped by reality, and, being pliable and yielding does not shape what it encounters. This space, ideally has no definition or design, but takes on the definition and design of reality when allowed.

This space within me is infinite in proportion and in possibility. It is not limited by concept or time. It is with me at all times, but I am realizing its nature only in small ways.

This space is free to absorb when I allow my concentration to plunge in to the depths of focused and free attention. That is something that comes and goes.

From time to time I enter this space through brief attention to my nostrils and the breath entering and exiting. By allowing the representation of that breath to manifest, I find that I have entered this space within me, and it is a wonderful place to be. From this undefined space, I can drift into an awareness that comes through absorption. Realities that seemed to be outside me, are suddenly inside of me and part of me.

I think that this space is where I truly experience the world. For so much of my life, this space has been limited and shaped by my imagination and concepts. It is now possible for an older mind like mine to become pliable and able to be shaped by realities not my own.

The space inside me is slowly becoming not just my rigid world, but a flexible world surrendering to a realm of infinite possibilities.

I spent most of yesterday with people who share a similar attitude about mindfulness and the perception that mindfulness creates. I understand better how perceptions shape and highly influence how I see and interpret reality. My perceptions both affect what I see and shield me from seeing things that do not fit my perceptions.

How else could so many features of climate change present themselves and so many people are not able to see what is happening. Their individual perceptions of the natural world shape and restrict what they are able to see.

I notice how many religious groups have been in the midst of sexual abuse and exploitation by their leaders. And yet so many members of those religious groups are unable to recognize and internalize the reality of what is going on. Pema Chodron has finally pulled back, too late perhaps, from her role in the Shambala community because of that group’s inability to respond in a manner that the situation and their values might otherwise demand.

Tens of thousands, perhaps millions of Catholics have sat mute in their pews, inattentive to the sexual exploits of their leaders. Their perceptions have kept them from seeing what has been right before them. Yet they have not responded to, and often denied behavior of their leaders inconsistent with their common values.

So many people have perceptions that shape how they see the terrible behavior of political leaders. The do not recognize, even see behavior that is not only repugnant but also not in their own best interests. Their perceptions bend and shape what they are able to see.

I wonder who it is that can see clearly, independent of the distraction of social media, news casters and preachers? It is not easy to separate myself from these outside influence that would shape my perceptions. It is challenging to see clearly with insight, not influenced by my culture, my teachers, my on-going sources of information.

For this reason, I sit and free my mind from distractions, at least a couple times a day. I slowly learn to see without the guidance and distortions in perception coming from teachers, culture, and media. I sometimes sit with friends who also try to develop the skills of mindfulness, concentration and insight.

Perhaps this will help me see more of the world free from a multitude of distracting, distorting perceptions.

I am aware how words add to the clutter in my mind. So useful in communication, words become clutter when I intend to understand an experience, become more deeply aware of some reality, or see clearly what a situation demands from me.

Words actually interfere with insight. While they may on occasion guide me to an awareness, it is more likely that words will become so much clutter that distracts and interferes with awareness. Words obscure insight.

This is especially true when I consider rules and precepts. Rules add to the clutter. While rules are very useful in a cultural setting, their effectiveness is limited to how people might relate to one another. Rules are a way of setting expectations among people regarding the kind of behavior we want of one another.

Rules are effective and useful in defining how we “want things to be.” Rules are not so useful when they become personal, when they enter my mind and become the focus of my attention. They add to the clutter in my my mind, a distraction.

Rules may from time to time become a place of reference, a way of noticing “this is how things are.” However, on a personal level, rules that direct any activity are not so useful in helping me to understand how things are. Rules do not lead to insight, but they sometimes may arise from insight.

Rules are clutter if they function like the white line down the middle of the highway that becomes the center of my attention. They are a peripheral reference point, not a focus of awareness.

The lame effectiveness of rules is evident in how I might learn a new skill such as pruning trees Rulesare are very limited in being able to teach me how I might best become intimately familiar with a way of behavior or acting. If I have a teacher who praises me or corrects me based on how I am pruning trees, the voice of my teacher soon becomes the focus of my attention. I want to please them, conform to their words, avoid their criticism.

Rather than focusing and becoming more aware of my pruning behavior, I pay attention to the voice, the rules of my teacher. I want to learn the skill of pruning trees, not the skill of listening to my teacher. The rules of my teacher become clutter in my mind and obscure my focus. The rules actually interfere with my learning. Rules of my teacher become a distraction, an abject of attention, rather than an assist.

Insight demands the elimination of clutter in my mind, and rules add to the clutter. Insight does not come from words and is typically inhibited by words, the rules of thought. Insight is an awareness that might generate words, but it is an experience of reality that is unspeakable.

Rules and precepts do not capture the undefinable mystery of reality that is accessed without concepts and words. Even though they may have some usefulness in explaining how things are, rules do not tell me how to experience reality..

Rules may suggest how things are, but they are not helpful in telling me what to do. Rules that tell me what to do add to the clutter of my mind.

It use to be something infrequent and even startling. It could happen at the bathroom sink, behind the steering wheel of my car, or sitting on my bed. But it mostly happened next to my bed when I sat on my large pillow. Now it is more frequent and even reliable. I pause and notice my breath for a moment and in a flash I am focused on a representation of the breath.

Somehow my mind simply relaxes and the representation of the breath replaces the actual sensation of the breath.

With little or no effort, I find myself no longer in a sensory experience but in a slightly different and adjusted realm. The experience of breath is no longer in my nostrils but somewhere indistinguishable, nearly undefined. My whole body seems to become aware of breath, but it is a body without sensory stimulus to focus on. There is only the representation of breath.

Somehow my mind has opened up to an experience beyond simple sensory perception. The shift is both subtle and dramatic. The breath experience is no longer an isolated, tactile awareness of air flowing across nasal membrane. It is now more an awareness that the sensory experience is being known. I no longer know the breath but a representation of the breath. I know the breath as being known.

My focus is in the realm of my mind, not in the realm of breathing. The more I relax into an awareness of what it is like to breathe, the more the representation of breath comes into focus.

A release has taken place. I am no longer in possession of the sensation of breath but have surrendered my grip on that sensory experience. The sensory experience has dissolved and been replaced by a representation of what breath once was like.

I no longer have a hold on the sensory experience, the sense stimulus. In releasing my sensory experience, I allow the breath representation to become the focus, the object of my awareness.

The representation has no clear location but is expansive. It has no simple location like the end of my nose, such as the sensation of breath might have. It seems almost boundless and everywhere.

What had been limited by the feeling of moving air has been replaced by a representation that feels more like a vast void. This is no empty void but a void that holds whatever might arise. Anything and all things seem likely, even waiting to arise.

Thoughts and concepts seem almost alien in this arena of representation. However, thoughts and concepts might be allowed to enter if that becomes my intention. I might deliberately allow that to happen in times I am driving or sitting across from a friend. It might happen when I am trying to resolve a problem.

At that time, I know my concentration has deepened and my clarity of focus has increased because I have made the subtle shift from being aware of the sensation of breathing. I have allowed my mind to relax, to be released into the representation of breath.

Sometimes it is just plain difficult to recognize that I am part of a criminal species. I am a member of homo sapiens, a member of a species that I am certain killed many of its own kind last night. I haven’t seen the newspaper yet, but I am certain that I will once again receive the news of what we have criminally done to one another.

It is hard to be frequently reminded that I am one of those creatures who kill one another, cheat other humans and take advantage of the weaker members of our species. We are a species most capable of insight and compassion, and yet we use our advanced intellect to cause harm and havoc among our own species.

It is hard to daily hear more news of celebrated criminals whose political power allows them to do harm to many fellow humans. For this they are idolized and applauded. I live among many countrymen who are thrilled to have elected champions who punish the poor and shield us from those who might want to share in our abundance.

It is hard to be one of the criminals who participate in the destruction of parts of the earth out of greed and power and not out of need. How can I be comfortable to be part of a species made up of billions of people willing to ignore and even exploit an environmental disaster. We invite our own destruction and ignore our self-imposed fate.

It is hard to live among criminals, and it is especially difficult to recognize that, in my own way, I am one of them. I have my own individual role I play in the mob action that causes harm and havoc all across the world.

I have my own life of privilege that is built on the harm and deprivation of many others. Still, I rise each morning and take my part in this criminal drama that shields and comforts me in many ways.

I wonder who of us will be left. Who of us will survive to give and receive forgiveness for our criminal behavior? Who of us be left to repair and rise above what has been criminally done?

Last evening we talked in terms of becoming enlightened, mirroring the words of Thay in “The Other Shore.” To me it is a welcome experience to be enlightened, but it is more like becoming awakened. The dormant potential of being human emerges into being felt and ardently experienced.

Becoming awakened, enlightened, is nothing really extraordinary or exceptional. It is no elitist experience of those who spend quiet years in a secluded monastery. It is something that can happen in all of us and on a daily basis. We all have the seeds of enlightenment. We each have Buddha nature. We have within us the essence of being awakened, of being a Buddha.

Nothing needs to be added for us to become an awakened one. No water needs to be poured over our heads, no one needs recite prayers over us, no oil is needed for anointing. Nothing needs to be added from the outside, we have all we need within us. Awakening just needs the right conditions, just like any germinating seed.

I have found that I primarily need to allow the energy to flow and not impede it. The key to awakening is concentration, and that involves a total lack of effort. It involves a removal of the hindrances, the obstacles.

Concentration allows awakening to happen every day. It opens the way to insight and allows awakening to happen. Concentration makes evident a deep understanding of the true condition , the true situation. In the midst of concentration, there are no impediments, there are none of the distractions typically coming from religion, entertainment, politics , cultural artifacts.

I consider the most difficult obstacle to concentration and the experience of awakening is the “I”, or self. The “I” is a major obstacle to awakening, to enlightenment. Concentration can happen when the “I” is aside. When I step out of the “I” role, Buddha nature is able to awaken and emerge.

This recently has been most evident in how I employ the breath as a means of concentration. I have realized that it is not effective for me to tell myself ” I am knowing my breath.” Deep concentration happens when I tell myself “The breath is being known.” Mindfulness, concentration happens when the “I” is left aside.

For me, learning to put the “I” aside is key to awakening, to every day enlightenment. The effect is transformative, and is more than just allowing insight to occur. In addition to insight, this experience of awakening is an embrace, a release, a surrender.

Living awakened is a transformed, liberated way of living.