The quality of our character determines the course of our life.
Here in Western North Carolina, near the epicenter of the disaster, it is obvious. In a few days towns were destroyed, many people lost their lives, their homes, their place in the world. Moving around the destroyed roads and houses, snapped power lines and trees that had lived for centuries laying down, broken, people in the ruins of their homes, terrified, sad, gazing around not sure what to do. Needing water, without food, needing a dry place to sleep, something to tell their kids, a way to take care of them, without anywhere to go or any way to get there. It was the qualities of the character of people helping each other out that began to turn the tide. Cutting trees. Bringing supplies. Asking how did you do? What do you need? That spirit was sometimes heroic, sometimes neighborly, always beautiful. The trendline after the flood, was upward, pretty quickly. In the cities there was also looting, robbing. The natural world was the same world there as it was further out. But the qualities of character of some of the people turned the trendline in the wake of the disaster down.
Which is why we train our bodies and our minds our character and our relationships. So we can trend up, with our friends and neighbors, even when conditions are most difficult. So we are free to act with purpose and skill, because it is good to do. Even now, we are blessed. In the midst of everything else we need to do, we can still take a little time to train.
Last time we identified the mental states which obstruct the development of concentration. These are sensual desire, ill will, agitation, laxity and doubt. We went into detail about the nature of these states, how to let them go and remove them.
That way we can deepen our practice of mind training and develop a calm, clear, stable mind. Practicing this way gives us a solid foundation for deeper training. It is analogous to strengthening and stretching in physical practice. These make the body our own, unify it, stabilize it, connect it to our will, and give us the freedom to move spontaneously and skillfully.
That is what the development of stable, present-time attention does for our mind training. It is pretty easy to daydream and float through the training period. You will not get much benefit from that. I imagine we all have observed in our own practice, it is not too hard to float through training. It is easy to switch to autopilot and go through the motions without digging deep, moving around without real commitment, speed, power and presence. That habit is debilitating. The same holds true for mind training. That is why we learn to identify the obstructing factors, recognize that they are in our way, and do the work to overcome them. It is tempting to stay in them. Sometimes people float through the practice period, in the belief that just by sitting there that somehow “realizations” will come to them. It does not work that way. In our physical training there may be some who think that by going through the motions, somehow, they will respond to a threat with skill and power. Because they “know” a technique that they will be able to pull it off in the heat and pressure and chaos of conflict. That does not work.
So, as we do our mind training, we make consistent effort to detect the condition of our mind. If we detect obstructing factors, we let them go, apply the appropriate antidote, overcome them, and move on to good practice.
As we do this, our practice gathers momentum. We go deeper. We naturally encounter the factors which facilitate the development of good concentration. Strengthening the foundation of the deeper practice to come.
Those facilitating factors are
1. mindfulness – the present-time attention we are cultivating through attention to the sensation of the inhale and exhale at the nostrils or upper lip;
2. investigation – the attention to the condition of the mind, distinguishing wholesome states for unwholesome states;
3. energy – applying effort to what we are doing, not being lax, lazy or going on autopilot as we train;
4. joy – a sense of happiness that fills the whole body and mind as our experience deepens, our obstructions and turbulence subside, and we settle into present time attention without the mental habits of desire, attachment and aversion disturbing us;
5. tranquility – our peace deepens, and it becomes easy to experience more subtle joy and to detect more subtle remnants of disturbance and ignorance;
6. Concentration – here we can enter into absorption with the object of our attention so that the subject-object-action distinction subsides; we experience directly that we need not be attached to anything, because there is nothing we can be attached to;
7. then our minds come to rest in Equanimity, poised in the present.
Those seven factors facilitate concentration. They arise as we practice.
We should understand that this good practice has its foundation in the positive mental states which we cultivate in ordinary life, outside the practice period, outside the context of what ordinarily might be considered a special spiritual practice. Ordinary day to day experience is still mind-training.
Here are four positive states which we can use to orient in our choices and guide our lives:
1. Generosity: not mainly in the sense of giving things or making donations, but of thinking of other people, what they need, of their happiness and well-being, and seeing what we can do to give that to them, in the form of things, kindness, strength, protection, teaching, being polite;
2. Moral and ethical conduct: this means restraint of our own selfish or indulgent impulses, and restraint in our actions and states of mind directed toward other people. That means we don’t hurt people, deceive them, take their stuff, manipulate or exploit them. We do not indulge in behaviors which, although they may briefly provide pleasurable sensations, are addictive behaviors which degrade our lives, and separate us from a positive connection to the people in our lives.
3. Patience: not in the sense of passive waiting, but as forbearance, not getting angry when we are provoked. That does not mean that we should tolerate harm, injustice, or cruelty. It means we deal with those things skillfully, without rage. It is conventional to resort to anger, resentment, blame, abusive speech, and ill will, as mental postures which masquerade as strength. It is common for therapists to tell people who come to them for help to express their anger. To get it out. If that patient is someone with a weak will, who tolerates insult and injury, suppressing response out of weakness or mental illness or timidity, teaching them to indulge in rage and angry speech is not as effective as teaching them to not accept disrespect and mistreatment. That takes work. The mind is not a hydraulic system, from which you release overpressure to protect the container from rupture. If we cultivate patience in this sense, using skillful action to transform the outer condition and negative mental state, we become stronger, more balanced, more agile, and more able to address and remove the causes of the difficulty.
4. The fourth positive state which we can cultivate in ordinary life is effort. We do not withdraw and remain passive; we do not allow ourselves to be drawn into every temptation, argument or battle. We make energetic progress in what is right and good, train consistently, stay healthy, benefit everyone we can, and take our role as a practitioner and as a human being, seriously.
There is a myth that these four actions of a bodhisattva are a Mahayana innovation. That is not so. They are for everyone.
Here is some proof from the Samyutta Nikaya (1.8), which is included in the Khuddhakapatha collection: the Karaniya Metta Sutta, which lists the positive qualities that are the causes of spiritual ascent and liberation. And which, by the way, make life good. Beginning at the 12th line below is the chief simile used to describe the mind of bodhicitta, the cultivation practice fundamental to the Mahayana, but formulated in the earliest stratum of teaching:
This is to be done by one skilled in aims, Who wants to break through to the state of peace
Be capable, upright, and straightforward, Easy to instruct, gentle and not conceited
Content and easy to support, With few duties, living lightly
With peaceful faculties, masterful, Modest and no greed for supporters
Do not do the slightest thing, That the wise would later censure
Think: Happy, at peace, May all beings be happy at heart
Whatever beings there may be, Weak or strong without exception
Long, large Middling, short, subtle, blatant, Seen and unseen, Near and far, Born and seeking birth
May all beings be happy at heart
Let no one deceive another, Or despise anyone anywhere
Or through anger or irritation, Wish for another to suffer
As a mother would risk her life, To protect her child, her only child
Even so should one cultivate a limitless heart, With regard to all beings
With good will for the entire cosmos, Cultivate a limitless heart Above, below and all around
Unobstructed, without hostility or hate, Whether standing, walking or lying down
As long as one is alert, One should be resolved on this mindfulness
This is called a sublime abiding, Here and now
Not taken with views, But virtuous and consummate in vision
Having subdued desire for sensual pleasure, One never again Will be reborn in suffering.
This section references the cultivation of benevolence which motivates the Satipatthana mindfulness of the body practices, and which is their result.
There are two other methods we use to induce positive mental states:
1. setting our motivation at the beginning of practice, and
2. dedicating the merit of the practice as we finish.
Some wonder if mind training is self-centered, a withdrawal from the issues of life. It can be done that way. It is possible that people who are self-centered will reinforce their egotism. It is possible that all sorts of negative mental states can be cultivated. There is no guarantee that sitting quietly for an extended period of time will be beneficial, spiritual or good. You have to do it properly, with good motivation and sound technique. Just like any other serious undertaking. But done properly it is not self-centered or a withdrawal from the issues which matter most. It is focused on bringing benefit as widely as possible, and engaging deeply with life and the world.
One of the ways in which we assure a positive outcome of practice is to set as our motivation the wish to get the calm, clarity and insight to be of real benefit to the people we know, and maybe even to people we don’t. Wanting sincerely to help them keeps us on track with our training. We cannot really help the people we are responsible for if we are untrained. So, we are encouraged, for their sake, to train diligently. At the end of the practice session, we again remind ourselves of the needs of others – we dedicate the good effect of the diligent training we have just done to their benefit. Not by sending vibes through the air, but by the benevolence and strength we cultivate, which we share by our actions, words, and demeanor, with everyone we meet.
While guarding against negative mental states that impede our practice, we cultivate positive states that bring good results.
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Post copyright © 2024 Jeffrey Brooks, except as cited
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MountainKarateNC.com, Yamabayashi Ryu, Mountain Karate, Saluda, NC
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