“The vast accumulation of material wealth during the twentieth century has not led to human happiness.”, The Dalai Lama on a desk calendar.

Of course we do not need to throw out the material wealth to achieve happiness either, merely transform our lives in the way we employ that wealth.

“By making a profound and systematic effort at self-understanding, one enhances one’s natural human sensitivity.”, the Dalai Lama on a desk calendar.

Says it all really.

Yesterday

This morning there was the most beautiful sunrise. The sky was full of
low clouds that presaged a snow storm which came later. At first there
was a hint of red touching the bottom of the clouds over near the
horizon in the only part of the sky that was cloudless. Then as the
sun drew nearer to raising itself into sight the sky and cloud filled
with bands of every shade from pink to red and then this huge blood
red fireball appeared so slowly and gracefully. I lay there and
watched it all from my bed and was filled with it and the sun rising
in my heart from so much silence and time alone. I cried and cried,
tears of sweet joy pain, warriors tears. And when the tears stopped I
wondered what it would be like to lay in my bed with you there, and
saw you lying next to me with you head on a pillow and the sun rising
inside us both and outside in the sky. And I wanted it.

Today

This kind of wanting is such a beautiful feeling, full of potential for satisfaction and suffering. Is it really essential to let go of all such forms of relating to attain to the awakening the Buddha taught? Or can the attachments be seen through and awoken from whilst maintaining oneself in such pursuits. Are they essentially samsaric? Or do they have the potential to be awakening influences? I said a long time ago my ambitions in this life are few: to attain awakening for the benefit of all sentient beings, to find and be a good partner and parent. Is it too much?

Buddhism is called many things: religion, philosophy, a way of life. There has been a big move in the western world to link or equate Buddhism with psychotherapy. There are books about Buddhist psychotherapy, trainings and workshops galore. Buddhism is not psychotherapy.

This movement within Buddhism stems from the western over-identification with the mind. This can be traced back a long way in western philosophical thought. Perhaps a key moment was with Rene Descartes and his dualistic philosophy placing the mind and the physical worlds in different universes. Certainly his philosophy has had the greatest influence in the development of western thought over the last couple of hundred years.

Even the method of meditation taught by the Buddha and invented by him has been perverted by its arrival in the west. Vipashna meditation is often taught as a wide and open awareness, no longer focusing on a single object such as the breath but taking in the whole expanse of the meditators immediate experience.

Vipashna is the only truly Buddhist meditation - all other forms taught by the Buddha were pre-existing. It is about awareness of body and re-joining the body and mind in practice. By becoming aware to deeper and deeper levels of the body and it’s habits real physical changes take place in the practitioner. The body can change shape as myofacial tissues dissolve and reform and muscles begin to function fully. Old habits of laziness and fear, held in the body through the tensions of the myofacial tissues begin to dissolve. The meditator wakes up from the sleepiness that such habitual tensions engender and necessitate. Hence the oft quoted saying “with the awareness with which the Buddha lifts his foot”.

The body holds memory with the mind. In fact, the bodymind holds memory. Body and mind are not separate. It is only the egotistical self interest of false selves which think the mind so powerful and apart. As the practitioner re-engages with the body and discovers its reason and logic and methods he can quickly realise the fallacy of his mind and use this in a humorous way to help further weaken the false selves with which he identifies.

Psychotherapy is about creating workable false selves which are comfortable in their limited mental universe. Buddhism is about dissolving the duality between body and mind. It could be called Psychesomatherapy but frankly Buddhism is less of a mouthful.

My ability to relate to anything other than a certain New York gal has been severely restricted over recent days by her presence in my life. As we have not actually met in person, yet, this insanity of near obsession has to end. The only thing to do, I decided, is to take Shantideva’s advice published in my previous post and practice remaining like a log.

So for the next week I am on retreat undertaking the most important thing a Buddhist practitioner can undertake: a retreat. I shall not turn on the computer. I shall not tune in to TV or Radio. I shall not read nor write emails, letters or newspapers or books. I shall not answer the door (except on Thursday when there is a slightly ill timed delivery expected) nor entertain nor be entertained by friends. I shall try not think about Nicole and try not to criticise myself when I do.

For non-Buddhists this must look quite strange. It is easy to see why Buddhism is often portrayed as life-denying. Only when you have experienced the practice of retreat from the inside can you attain the knowledge that the opposite is in fact true. By denying the external stimulae and distractions of our busy world the practitioner experiences more fully than ever the processes of life in the bodymind.

By relating so intimately to one’s direct experience of reality here and now the habitual energies which we are so often following blindly are laid open progressively to examination, awareness and dissolution. If the practitioner undertakes this work well he will realise Buddhahood, full awake-ness. This is the religiousity of Buddhism. No Buddhist worships the historical Buddha for that is antithetical to his message in the extreme. He is a dead man and of no use to us except as an example of what a human being can become: Awake.

Wish me luck.