The Sound of One Hand Clapping

With the arrival of warm weather in Canada, it has again become possible to sit daily zazen outside, mornings on the front porch and evenings under a walnut tree in the backyard. Early on the path, sitting outside is not always an advisable thing to do. There are just too many external distractions (sounds, scents, the touch of the breeze, or mosquitoes red in tooth and claw) and the best of mediation intentions can easily be lost to the sense pleasures of simple relaxation. That's fine and nice, but it's not the same thing as doing practice.

Office politics, household management, it all rushes by

But later, as practice matures, sitting outside among the distractions can be very helpful because it gives you lots of opportunities to see how the mind generates reactivity, and how it desires and latches onto any excuse to drop the discipline of staying focused on practice. Sometimes that reactivity is positive, such a nice bell ringing off in the distance, and birds chirping. And sometimes the reactivity is negative, those inconsiderate and noisy neighbours (don't they know I'm trying to get all chill and tranquil here? Harrumph). Either way, it's still just reactivity being generated by the mind, with its attachments to how things "ought to be". There is nothing inherent in the situation that is positive or negative. It just is. Now there is birdsong. Now there is leaf blower. Now there is a wasp quite close to my arm. Now a wailing baby. Bit by bit, everything has it - everything is complete.

And so sitting outdoors teaches us to be grateful for noise and distraction. To not become attached to the "perfect" conditions of an uninterrupted retreat in a silent zendo at some remote mountain retreat. Everything is the perfect conditions for practicing. As the Zen teacher Seng-ts'an commented, the Great Way is simple - just avoid picking and choosing ("if you're choosing, you're losing"). Kites cannot fly without a strong wind to push against. And attachments are very hard to spot and free yourself from until they snag on something and jerk you around. Something like the noises outside.

So it can be a good practice to sit with awareness and attend to the arising and changing of ambient sounds during zazen. Provided we don't get attached to having them stay, or wishing they would leave. Just abiding and being present with whatever happens. And watching and noticing how the mind reacts.

Perhaps if you've done this outside sitting you may have noticed that it is usually much quieter in the early morning hours than in the late evening. In mornings, I sit in almost complete silence while much of the neighbourhood is still sleeping or is shuffling around in the bathroom. But in the evening every sound is present, even those from distant sources. In the evening I can hear the individual passing of each truck zooming down the Parkway. But in the morning, there is no traffic sound at all. In this difference a bit of a weird atmospheric phenomenon manifesting itself for us.

It seems that sound waves in the air tend to bend towards cooler areas (because the speed of sound is lower there, the wavefront drags behind, turning the direction of propagation). And the ground warms and cools during each day much more quickly than the air above it. So, in the evening when the ground quickly cools off, but the air above is still holding warmth from the afternoon, passing sound waves are bent downwards. Sounds of distant traffic, which might otherwise have escaped upwards, are bent down towards yard, tree, and meditator. The evening fills with distant noise. But in the mornings, when the air has had all night to cool off, while the ground is quickly warming back up from the risen sun, the same sounds are now bent upwards towards the cool air, away from porch meditations. The interplay and dance of ground and air. Present while we sit.

And cause of some pretty weird other phenomena.

What Happened in Roswell

The Truth is Out There.

In 1947 something mysterious crashed near Roswell USA (close to the famed Area 51). The first published newspaper report said it was a "flying disk". But that story was quickly denied by the local military, who said that what had crashed was just a weather balloon. It turns out both reports were false. And yet, both reports were true. Ah, now we're getting into comfortable Zen territory.

First puzzle piece: The atmospheric effects we notice in outdoor zazen had also been noticed by the US military. In particular, they noticed that the air generally gets colder as you go higher (no surprise to anyone who has hiked to a mountain retreat). But, if you keep going higher, the air starts to warm up again (something to do with the ozone layer absorbing certain solar radiation). Which means there is a particular altitude where, if a sound is emitted up there, the sound tends to stay up there (because we now know that sound bends away from cooler air). There is a "sound channel" up high in the atmosphere. Sounds cannot escape higher or lower, so they tend to propagate for a long way horizontally.

Second piece: Back then  the USA was greatly concerned about the Soviet Union developing and testing nuclear weapons of its own. The Americans really wanted to know if this was happening (and spy satellites did not yet exist). Fortunately, nuclear tests are really loud, and send explosions up very high in the atmosphere (into the sound channel).

Third piece: the best microphones back then were "disk microphones" suspended by springs. Even today many recording studios use the highly sensitive ribbon elements from disk microphones for vocal recording. Such disk microphones can be easily placed up into the sound channel by attaching strings of them to large weather balloons. Which should be kept highly secret as an important part of national security. And which sometimes crash.

This is a captive disk, not a flying saucer

Hear the Whales Singing

Not only is there a sound channel up in the air, there is also one deep in the ocean. But it happens for a slightly different reason. Sure, the ocean gets colder as you go deeper (which causes sounds initially heading upwards to bend downwards). But there is also a difference  the salinity (and therefore the density) of ocean water at different depths. This difference in density also causes sound waves to bend back upwards. The combined effect is to create a sound channel at one particular depth, where any sounds created there tend to stay there, propagating horizontally for a long distance.

Perhaps not surprisingly, whales have noticed this. And if you're a lonely humpback whale singing the blues, you head for this depth so that your song can be heard by many others. Maybe, over on the other side of the ocean there is an equally lonely potential mate for you?

I'm so blue

Even back in WWII the American military knew about this oceanic sound channel. Pilots who crashed in the Pacific Ocean and survived found on their life rafts a rescue device that appeared to just be a small steel ball. They were told to drop it overboard and they would be rescued (from the middle of nowhere) within 24 hours. And it worked!

The rescue balls were not some highly advanced communications technology. They were just hollow steel balls. But they were carefully crafted to withstand enormous pressure. So they would sink down into the sound channel before they collapsed (with a loud bang that could be picked up on underwater microphones at US naval bases all across the Pacific). The same idea as the underwater microphones that were later established in the Atlantic during to cold war to hear the sound of Soviet submarines that crossed the sound channel depths near Iceland.

Clap Your Hand

If you sit still enough and look deeply enough, everything is interesting. Even the sound of distant freeway traffic on a warm summer evening meditation.

Or conversely, nothing is boring. If you are experiencing boredom, that is on you, not in the nature of the situation. Boredom is something extra the mind adds.

The breath is endlessly fascinating. That's what my first meditation teacher claimed. And at the time I couldn't decide if that was just a lame sales pitch to try to get us to focus on something that was inherently boring (but somehow necessary for our own good). But it has turned out to be completely true. Early on the path, the breath was surprisingly interesting in its many subtle nuances and connection to the mind and body (e.g., how simple sound quickly becomes noise, becomes connotation, becomes imputed intention, becomes yet another chapter in the story of "my inconsiderate neighbour"). Later it revealed another level of interestingness (is that even a word?) in the relationships and attachments and expectations associated with even something so "simple" and unaffected as breathing.

So, weather permitting, go sit and meditate outside somewhere private - but not somewhere "undisturbed". Welcome your noisy teachers. Hear the sound of one hand clapping, of the grass growing all by itself. The sound is always there for you.

On Leaving Facebook

I am often exhorting people to try simple experiments: make a small change in your thoughts or actions about the world, and then pay close attention to whether it increases or decreases your level of happiness (i.e., be aware during zazen of what happens to the body, the mind, and the heart). I'm in the midst of one such experiment right now; I am liberating myself from Facebook. And now that I'm two months into it, I think it might be interesting to look at the results so far.

First off, this has nothing to do with the recent spate of privacy scandals at Facebook and other major social media sites. I've always been aware of the deal with Facebook: in exchange for free access to the platform and the networking benefits it provides, I have allowed them to collect all sorts of data about me (much of which could not be controlled by the "privacy" settings they allowed me to tighten) and to monetize that information in lots of subtle ways ("monetize?" - can you tell I have an MBA?). As they say, if you aren't paying for it, you are not the "customer" - you are the product.

Instead, what finally drove me away was the near constant negativity and outrage. Lots of greed, anger, and stupidity in the posts I was seeing. Some came from people that I knew. Sometimes egoposting and humblebragging (isn't it amazing that there is a need to coin words like these?). Sometimes by genuinely well-intentioned people trying to draw attention to one of the myriad injustices in the world using various types of slacktivism.

Additionally, some of the negativity and outrage came from people I didn't know, but that FB decided I needed to be exposed to. Psychology has shown that anger and fear are very powerful emotions when it comes to causing people to take actions - like clicking through ads or buying products. And so keeping users scared or outraged is an important part of a monetization strategy. If Dave isn't buying enough from FB advertisers then stir him up a bit more - show him more posts from his most outrageous friends and more disturbing ads in his newsfeed, and suppress the other nicer stuff.

And it works. I began to notice that after checking FB, I never seemed to be happier to get updates and news from my friends. I was always somehow more agitated then before I went online. Facebook wasn't making me happy by keeping in contact with friends. It was making me angry. And I didn't like that.

It turns out I am not alone in this dissatisfaction. It is now emerging that many of the Silicon Valley techies who have learned to create these highly addictive but dissatisfying features of social media are themselves dropping out of the platforms, locking down their smartphones, and more (here is an interesting article with some examples). Maybe a future post will be about social media as an addiction, a bond and fetter of our own making?

So, I tried to make my FB experience into something more positive. Knowing that FB was tracking what I liked or responded to, I would purposely click on positive items and ignore negative ones. And I tried in various ways to get some of my friends to be a bit more reflective and restrained in some of their posts - partly for my benefit, but also for their own benefit as I could see outrage and dissatisfaction building in them too. I posted a screed on the types of (mostly bogus) opinions found on FB (with the subtext: don't be like this). You can read it immediately below. Can you guess how successful this approach was?

Randall Munroe said it best

 

The Five Types of Opinion You Find on Facebook

“Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one. But no one wants to look at the other guy’s”

I was going to close all my social media accounts, because I was getting increasingly distressed at all of the ill-informed and divisive bullshit that is online (I chickened out because it would mean completely losing touch with some old friends). But I would like to at least point out the problem, which is the staggering volume of ignorant postings (many of mine included). It seems that opinion posts come in five types or levels of quality:

•  LEVEL ONE: Educated and well-informed. “I have read the original material or had access to the actual data. I have reached my opinion by reviewing and considering the facts directly.”
• LEVEL TWO: Reasonably informed. “I haven’t had direct access to the original data myself. But an educated person with direct access to it has explained to me what the data shows. Or, I have had direct personal experience (although I recognize that my case might be atypical).”
• LEVEL THREE: Idiosyncratic generalization. “I don’t have any direct access, and the person who explained it to me seemed to be a wingnut (or a guru). Based on that one experience, I have concluded that the whole of the topic area is crap (is Truth).”
• LEVEL FOUR: What some guy told me. “I don’t actually know anyone (crazy or not) who has had direct experience. My opinion is based on what I’ve heard second-hand through the media, or whatever showed up on my social media feed. 'Like' if you agree!”
• LEVEL FIVE: Drank the Kool-Aid. “I don’t trust the mainstream media. I get my info solely from second-hand sources that are obviously biased with an agenda (e.g., fringe media or politicians on either side, religious leaders, private think-tanks) or are neutral but cynically stirring up controversy to make money (e.g., talk radio). No, I’ve never heard of Snopes, why do you ask?”

Here are some illustrative examples of using this scale, from a couple of recent controversies I have heard people opining about.

The failings of socialism

• “I’ve read Marx and thought about his arguments. He has a good point about X. But I think he’s completely wrong about Y because he made an unreasonable assumption about...”. Level One
• “Marxists are stupid. I see them marching on campus with bullhorns demanding minimum incomes for everyone – even people too lazy to work”. Level Three
• “Being a socialist is better than being some greedy Randroid bastard on Bay St”. Level Five

The #metoo movement

• “I haven’t experienced harassment myself. But I’ve talked with people who have. And they are reasonable and intelligent people, not ‘strident man-haters’”. Level Two
• “A famous woman who complained about the extent of sexual harassment in workplaces once cheated on her taxes, so we should ignore whatever she is saying”. Level Three
• “The whole thing is a plot by strident man-haters to turn normal men into pussies”. Level Four
• “I heard on the Rush Limbaugh (John Oliver) show that...”. Level Five

I think the opinions that really count in a debate are Levels One and Two. Those are the people who have really considered the facts. And although they do not have to all agree with each other (and especially they do not have to agree with me), they should be carefully listened to. If you have a Level One or Level Two opinion about something, please speak up and share it so the rest of us can learn (thus we can develop a 'Level Two' opinion – whether or not we even agree with you). What a helpful thing to do about a pressing social issue! Wise speech, indeed.

OTOH, the opinions from levels Three to Five are pretty much worthless. In fact, Levels Four and Five are worse than worthless, as they actually harm public discourse by cluttering up the Level One and Two messages with a lot of noise. If your opinion is a Level Three or worse, perhaps you should just keep it to yourself. Maybe refrain from posting it, and just keep your eyes open for Level One or Two posts. I think this situation is where most of us are, most of the time. And the wisest speech we can make then is to shut up and listen until we are better informed.

Spreading a Level Five opinion is a socially harmful act. So, I’m going to try to live by this (and I wish others would too). If I have a Level One or Two viewpoint on the issue of the day, I’ll post it. Otherwise I’ll try to keep my opinion to myself (although I still reserve to right to call out when someone posts some L5 bullshit). No doubt I’ll fail sometimes. But I will at least try.

World-changing stuff, right? Yeah, right. At best, the effects of these efforts were very small and short-lived. The commercial interests vested in making FB polarized and outrageous (and profitable) are very strong.

So, I decided something more drastic would be needed (at least in my tiny little corner of the world). I decided to run a little experiment to see whether, on balance, using FB was conducive to more happiness or less. So, two months ago I quit Facebook cold-turkey. I downloaded all of my data, and then closed my account.

Experimental Results

At first the withdrawal symptoms are pretty strong. Imagine the horror of pressing the button for the elevator, and having nothing to entertain you for the next 30 seconds while you wait. Of wondering what your friends are up to, and not being able to see their recent posts. The Fear of Missing Out.

But there are interim crutches available. Buzzfeed and Diply have got you covered for snippets of inane humour. And Twitter lets you know your friends are still out there, but everyone is limited to 280 characters so they cannot rant too much. Instagram is even better (even as a FB company). There are a lot of joyous and inspirational photos floating around out there. And nobody is pushing other outrage-inducing crap onto your screen.

Within a couple weeks I had worked out a new modus vivendi. Quick observations or comments I'd like to make go on Twitter. Photos of moments of transcendent beauty (needing no commentary) go on Instagram. And substantive statements to share go on this blog. So it kinda works.

The goal isn't to get off of all social media per se, but just to escape the stuff that diminishes happiness. And it seems to be working. I no longer get outrage with my morning coffee, because I no longer check my FB feed. So I go into my morning commute more peacefully, and therefore tailgate one fewer fellow driver each day.

I still read the news to know what's going on in the world. And I still keep in touch with good friends (I've got this great new synchronous messaging app! It does voice-to-text conversion, sends the text stream to them, where it gets converted back through a high-quality voice synthesizer. It's called a "phone call").

So the interim results are pretty promising. The first week was unexpectedly difficult, with strong cravings at the oddest times (On the toilet? Really?). But to anyone with a regular meditation practice, this is actually good news - discovering attachments, so that they can be held in awareness, is always a productive thing. And lately I hardly even miss FB. Each day it becomes clearer and clearer what an unhealthy relationship it was.

DIY: Seating

There are many online sources of meditation benches and cushions you can purchase from. But it's cheaper and more satisfying to make one yourself. Here are some easy instructions if you feel inspired to take on a project.

Seiza Bench

Kneel on the floor with your calves parallel. Stick the bench in behind you, over your calves (and with the lower side of the slope towards the front), sit down onto it. This position is one of the most comfortable for sitting long zazen. And such a bench is quite easy to make from a plank of wood if you have basic tools.

This pine bench has been deliberately distressed before staining

I generally use boards that are 3/4" thick (2cm). Pine is very inexpensive and light, but it is easily damaged and a bit dull in appearance. Oak is very solid and has attractive grain lines. Or maybe something more exotic if you have access to it. Only don't use particle board, plywood, MDF, etc.

The top board is roughly 18" x 7" (45cm x 18cm). The two sides are 6 1/4" (16cm) wide. They are 6 3/4" (17cm) tall in the front and 7 3/4" (20cm) tall in the back. All of these dimensions are approximate. The only critically important thing is that the heights of the two sides be exactly the same. Stack the two cut pieces together to check, and adjust if necessary. If these two pieces are not identical, the bench will rock when you sit on it. This is not conducive to good mediation!

Round off all the edges of the top piece with a rasp/file and then sandpaper. Especially round off the long edges on the top where your butt is going to be hanging over.

Drill holes for the screws through the top board. Use a drill bit big enough that the screws pass through easily (I use #8 or #10 screws with a "Robertson head" - one of the benefits of being in Canada). If you are using flat-headed screws you can countersink the holes a little using a larger drill bit. But it is also fine to use round-headed screws (since you don't sit on the part where the screws are. The holes should be 3/4" (2cm) in from both the long and short edges.

If you want to stain the wood, do it now before assembly. Use a stain that will dry thoroughly and not come off on your pants during use!

Assembly

If you are using a hard wood like oak, it will be necessary to drill pilot holes in the side pieces before assembly. To do this, loosely assemble the top piece onto the side pieces (the top should overhang the front and back of the side pieces equally, and the drilled holes should be aligned with the centres of the side pieces). Press down through the drill holes with a nail or small drill bit, so that it leaves a mark on the top of the side pieces where each drill hole will be. Disassemble everything and drill the pilot holes into the side pieces: use a drill bit smaller than the size of your screws, and drill vertically down in the four places you have marked.

For the real assembly, first run a bead of wood glue along the top of a side piece. Then align the top piece over it, and screw it into place tightly. Wipe off any glue that gets squeezed out. Repeat for the other side piece.

Zebra wood with urethane. Very heavy and solid

Now is the time to apply any surface coatings you might like, such as linseed oil or polyurethane. Wipe on with a rag. Let dry thoroughly.

Check that the bench does not rock. If it does rock, a little filing of the bottoms of the feet can fix it. Bow to your new "workstation" and to the committed effort that went into making it. Inside you is some aspiration for freedom. Look at the material object it has manifested :-) And now take it for a test flight!

Zafu Cushion

This round meditation cushion is the most traditional seat for zazen practice. And it turns out that a very good version can be made from an old pair of blue jeans if you have access to a sewing machine.

Zafu in black canvas

Cut two large and matching circles from the jeans, about 8 - 12" diameter (20 - 30cm). You can cut this from the front or back of the hip areas (depending on the pockets your jeans have). If you cut from an area with a back pocket, you should remove the pocket patch material (it will not be comfortable to sit on). These circles will form the top and bottom of the zafu. Also cut one long and narrow rectangle from a leg (front or back). Make sure it has an even width along its whole length. This will form the cylindrical sidewall of the zafu (with pleats). Hem the short ends of this piece now.

Pinning and Sewing

All of the pinning and sewing is of course done with the "wrong" side facing outwards.

Form the sidewall piece into a circle (a short cylinder of great diameter) by overlapping the short ends together by about 4" (10cm). Pin this together. Pin one edge of this overlap to the top circle, at the "12-o'clock" position.

Now for the pleats. Find the midpoint of the sidewall cylinder, opposite the overlap. Pin this to the top peice at the "6-o'clock" position. This creates two loops of the the sidewall. Find the midpoints of these, and pin them to the top piece at "3-o'clock" and "9-o'clock". Your sidewall should now have four loops.

At this point, you face a design decision. You are going to keep subdividing these loops and pinning to the top piece. If you make many small loops, your zafu will have many small pleats and will tend to have a sidewall that stands up straight, making the zafu tall and firm. Conversely, you make only a few larger loops, your zafu will have few pleats and will tend to bulge easily, making the zafu shorter and less firm. Tallness and firmness can also be adjusted later by how you stuff the zafu, so don't worry too much about this. Settling for 8 to 12 loops is usually fine.

Now the loops have to be "folded over" to make pleats. This basically means collapsing the loop over to one side so that the loop top comes back into contact with the top piece and can be pinned there. Whether you fold them over going clockwise or going counterclockwise will be determined by how you overlapped the ends (back in the first step). Match that.

Few pleats, carrying handle, zipper closing

Flip the work over and attach the bottom piece by pinning it to the sidewall in the same way as the top piece is pinned.

Sew all around both seams (around the top piece, and around the bottom piece). Do not sew the overlap closed. Be careful to not break the sewing machine needle when sewing through many layers or sewing near a pin. Remove all the pins after sewing both seams (you don't want to discover one later). Reach inside the overlap and grab the far sidewall. Pull it inside out and you have a finished cover. Go drink some tea!

Stuffing

Kapok is the most common stuffing material. But you might consider anything that is firm enough (foam chips are generally not satisfactory) and that will not degrade with use (dry rice will soon be ground into a kind of rice flour very unsuitable for baking). People have experimented with dry beans, wood shavings, pistachio hulls, rags, and other materials. Feel free to try your own, since it's so easy to stuff or unstuff this cover.

The more stuffing you put inside, the more the cushion will become spherical and will be tall to sit on. Softer materials will need more inside to give you the desired height when bearing your weight. Firmer materials will need less. Again, you should experiment until you get the perfect zafu for your practice - one that will invite you to sit more and longer, and will not distract you with too many body sensations.

Stirring the Water

Maybe the first step towards happiness should be to stop stirring up so much trouble for yourself?

So, I'm trying to find out the truth about what is conducive to a happy life. Mind you, not "the Truth" - all polished and shined up, and placed onto a pedestal to be worshiped (with maybe a little glory reflected onto the guy who recognized it and placed it up there). I'm quite prepared to have any of the tentative truths I think I've found become overturned by new evidence. And I'm grateful to people who show me where I am wrong. As I say to students in my critical thinking class, there is nothing at all that I am 100% certain of. And I loved it when the Dalai Lama was quoted saying that if Science and Buddhism are found to disagree about something, it is Buddhism that must change. So, I want to try to see clearly for myself what are the root causes of suffering and dissatisfaction. And I mean the root causes. This life is getting shorter and shorter by the minute, and I don't want to waste any more of it on surface-level symptomatic relief. I want to pull it up from its causal roots. But to do that, one has to be able to see down to those roots.

This is one of the benefits of zazen practice - developing the ability to actually see what's in front of your nose, and to see it as it actually is, without fear, without delusion, and without force-fitting it into preconceived ideas and categories. To hold in awareness whatever is actually present, and to fully see it as it arises and as it changes or passes away. Early on the path, this might be the ability to see the difficulty of taming the "monkey mind" and disciplining it enough to stay on a simple task like following the breath or working on a koan. Later on the path, it might be the ability to see the tiny gaps in chains of thought or reactivity that previously seemed to be automatically linked and therefore beyond our control. Over time and with more experience with practice, we begin to see things that are more and more subtle, but that were actually there in front of us all along!

Now I'm suddenly going to change the metaphor (and without even using the clutch!): the effort to try to see to the root cause of suffering is sometimes described like floating on a raft or air mattress on a lake, and trying to see clearly to the bottom - through all the clouds of ideas, concepts and isms, emotions, and memories. Through zazen practice we discover the correct direction to look (down, duh) and how to focus our eyes to see whatever is there. But still, this isn't going to be enough if the water is very cloudy or silty. So, while step one to seeing the lake bottom is to learn how to look, step two is stop stirring up the mud!

Who knows what you might find down there?

The regular winds and vicissitudes of life keep whipping up waves on the surface of the lake. And if these waves are very big, they can even begin to roil the deeper waters and stir more mud up from the bottom. Some life winds can be very powerful. Traditionally, there are eight that seem especially able to cloud our vision:

• Pleasure and pain
• Praise and blame
• Gain and loss
• Fame and disrepute.

That's bad enough to struggle against. But we then further muddy the waters through our own unskillful actions. Without a regular mediation practice, it can be hard to see how the natural consequences of many of our actions either reinforce the roots of our own suffering, or at least muddy up the water so that we cannot see the roots clearly enough to eradicate them. (This topic is starting to wander dangerously close to ideas about "karma", which is a big topic best saved for another day. For now, I mean only the straight-up, cause-and-effect, inescapable consequences - and certainly not any woo-woo conceptions of cosmic scorecards and a referee who will intervene to make it all come out even).

What Stirs Up Mud?

So, here are five things to stop doing right now to stir up the mud (sounds like a clickbait headline, right?):

• Harm physically: If you  murder someone, you're probably going to PMITA prison. And even if you get away with it somehow, you'll still have to live with yourself (cue any number of 19th Century novels on how miserable that is). If you hit someone, they'll maybe hit you back. Even if you punch a Nazi in the face, the police will still arrest you. And then there's the whole vegetarianism thing. Let's not kid ourselves - each time I have a slice of that tasty, tasty bacon, some pig did get killed for it. And pigs are quite intelligent and clearly suffer a lot of distress on the way to slaughter. That's 100% on me.
• Harm verbally: Lying or other false speech obviously harms the person you lie to. But we also harm ourselves by loss of virtue, and even by just the extra effort needed to keep track of the tangled web we've woven. Not to mention the embarrassment of sometimes getting caught out. But are these harms also true for little white lies? What about exaggerations that are based in truth, but aim to mislead others? Sins of omission? Damning someone with faint praise? Truthful boasting to make ourselves look good, at the expense of others? The number and variety of subtle ways we lie can be quite astounding when you look carefully into it. George Carlin once asked, "do you ever talk to yourself, and then someone else walks in, so you have to pretend you were singing, and you really hope they believe there's a song called 'What does she think I am, a putz?'". More lying. (This time to try to preserve a false image that you are trying to foist onto the world.) Most of us seem to lie in big or small ways all the time. And there are some good techniques to try to reduce this (the 4 gates of speech - a topic for another day).
• Harm materially: If you steal something, you might get caught and punished. And even if you get away with it, you marginally contribute to the creation of a world where stealing happens. Do you really think that world won't one day turn around and steal something precious from you? How delusional. Is it okay if the thing is small (like supplies from the office cupboard)? If the thing doesn't have an obvious owner? What if it is shared ownership (you are perfectly entitled to some), but you take more than your fair share? That's the "tragedy of the commons" starting up, which will eventually bite you in the ass when the shared resource is completely gone (since everyone else decided to follow your example). More subtly, is it okay to take something that is only implicitly being offered to you? There's a candy dish on the counter at the dentist's office (an investment future business development, I guess) - is it okay to help yourself without asking? There are some practitioners who will not take anything if it is not expressly and explicitly given to them (even a glass of water set out on a table in a meeting). Is it harmful to borrow a friend's car and return it without topping up the gas tank? Cut across a neighbour's lawn to not miss the bus? The list of material harms can get into some pretty small things. Do such things really come back to cause us suffering? How so?
• Harm sexually: In a sexual relationship people can be particularly vulnerable physically and emotionally, and so it is easy to inadvertently harm them (and harm yourself). All kinds of actions will stir up the waters and impede your progress towards clear vision. Cheating, engaging in non-consensual relations of various types, or not disclosing exposure to STDs are all obvious. What about betraying the trust of intimate pillow talk? Withholding sex as a power game? The list goes on and on.
• Intoxication: Recuperating from a tough day at work with a bottle of wine or smoking a bowl, if you do it every night, is physically harming the body. Getting drunk at a party and then telling your spouse what you really think about your in-laws is going to be harmful speech (which you will learn all about the next morning). So the risk with intoxication is not so much that it clouds the vision in the immediate present (although, obviously it does do that), but moreso that it makes it much more likely that you will do one of the other four unwise things above. So how much partaking is okay? For some people, the rule is "not a single drop". Others are less strict. Is that wisdom, or just a cop-out from people with strong attachments?

Lots of other people who have walked the path before us have concluded that these things are very likely to cloud the vision, and thereby prevent anyone from spotting and eradicating the root causes of suffering and unhappiness in life. Now it's entirely up to you what you do with this information. Are you tired of the suffering in your life? Are you willing to attack the roots, or just continue papering over the symptoms? Are you willing to stop stirring?

The official "shit disturber"

Prove It!

Okay, that's a lot of unproven claims or assertions I just laid out. You may want to have some proof or supporting evidence before making some drastic changes or actions. Fair enough. But I'm not giving any. Sorry. Anything someone else gives you can just as easily be taken away from you. The only satisfactory proof will be proof that you provide yourself, through direct experience. So try some experiments. Try out the cessation of just one of the five things, even just for a week or two. See if it has any effect on your level of agitation or peace. Do you sleep any better? Does your body feel any different? Is your mind more at rest? Most importantly, does your vision during zazen get any clearer and deeper?

As always, if your own direct experience is different that what I'm spouting here, you should freely disregard me. Find out for yourself what is true. Free yourself. Don't just bind yourself to what is being spouted by me (or anyone else)!

This Ain't Zen

Right - well spotted! This is bog-standard Buddhist material (of a mostly Vipassana flavour). Some readers can safely skip this stuff. But some others might find it helpful to purify their own actions and stirrings a little (using teachings like this) before getting into serious Zen practice. Some people even believe that one should master purifications like this before embarking on any path of mediation or zazen practice. Your mileage may vary. Only you can figure out which group you are in.

For those who want the straight Zen, here is something with extensive commentary, and a clearly posed challenge question for you:

Nothing is Special

My Test

A few years ago, when I formally made a commitment to keeping the Buddhist precepts, the Master at my local Zen temple bestowed on me a "Buddhist dharma name". Everyone taking precepts that year got a dharma name that started with the letter K. Mine was Kuwon Shil Seng, which you can see written in Sino-Korean here (my wife got me a carved "chop" seal as a souvenir on her recent trip through China):

The Master told me it means "complete attainment since long ago" (which I am told is a pretty okay translation), and then he asked me: "What do you think of that?" Well, I've read enough Zen books to recognize an obvious trap when I see one. But I could only muster the weak response of "there is nothing to be attained".

For a while I wondered why I got such a name. A name like that is quite a burden of expectations -  so you'll think you're hot stuff or something. Very seductive to the ego of someone walking the path and trying to "get somewhere" with it. But I could sense that it would be a big mistake to think that way - that this was some kind of approval or certification. At the end of the day, I don't really give a shit what anyone else thinks of my practice. I only want to know the truth, first-hand and directly experienced. If that does or does not align with someone else's view doesn't really matter.

So I think that kind Master was only giving me a burden that he thought I could handle - to not make it into something Special. And I'm very grateful for the trust behind that challenge.

That lesson has generalized across lots of aspects of life. Have you noticed that any time we make something Special it always seems to create problems later? It doesn't matter if the something is an achievement or recognition, or a conceptualization or perception of the world, a self-image or story we tell ourselves (whether good or bad). Making into something Special, in the face of the inescapable reality of impermanence, will lead to suffering in some form or other. And by "making Special" I mean: putting it up on a pedestal to be admired, making into a myth to be retold to oneself frequently, telling the story to other people, creating a self-image as someone who always/never does X, or has Y happen to them, etc.

Your Test?

So that's the lesson for all of us - to be careful to not attach to the things that happen, to not make them into Special, to not shine and polish them and then put them on a nice display:

• Great Thing I Once Did
• Time I Fucked Up Majorly
• Great Injustice That Was Done to Me
• My Lousy Zazen Posture and Inability to Sit for Long Periods
• A Rare Quality that Makes Me Different From Other People
• Special Knowledge or Belief That I Have
• The Correct Political Opinion That I Should Share with Others
• Extra Special Buddha Statue I Have on My Altar
• Nice Possessions I Can Flash Around Town
• Time When I Was "Cool" and Admired

But how to not make Special? After all, these things do happen in most lives. And at the time they are pretty nice/crappy. Sit more zazen! In meditation we learn to see how this polishing up of Special creates suffering (sometime blatant, sometime subtle). We also learn to see the subtle mechanisms by which we inadvertently slip into Special-making (it's a slippery slope of very small individual steps). We also learn to see the tiny gaps in the chain of Special-making, to discover how to not take the next step down the slope. And we therefore learn to be prudent about the first steps, knowing how they can lead to Special and to suffering. Hey, ask me sometime about Great Awakening Experience that I once had on a 10-day silent retreat, when a single raindrop fell from the window sill. I'll be very reluctant to talk about it, because I can see the trap of creating a self-image of "that guy". Wow, so Special. An experience worth reliving over and over. And telling everyone about so they'll think I'm great. And getting frustrated over when I cannot replicate it on-demand when sitting zazen at home. And being disappointed over when it doesn't happen on my next meditation retreat.

What a complete waste of time and effort!

Future Topic?

The title of this post is very suggestive or provocative to me. Maybe one future post will take a different slant on the topic. After all, there is a huge difference between realizing that "nothing is Special" and that "Nothing is special". And I love that both are true at the same time

Generosity

The Paramita of Dana

A wise woman who was travelling in the mountains once found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveller who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveller spotted the precious stone and asked her to give it to him. She did this without any hesitation. The traveller then left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the jewel was worth so much it would give him security for the rest of his life. But a few days later he came back and returned the stone to the woman. "I've been thinking," he said. "I know how valuable this jewel is. But I want to give it back to you in the hope that you will give me something even more precious. Please give me what it is that you have inside you that enabled you to give me the jewel so easily."

The essential point of generosity as part of the path is to give without expectation of getting anything in return - no material thing, no obligation, no status or good reputation. Otherwise, it's just a commercial transaction in which you are buying something. And some of the most important things in life cannot work transactionally like this (although I have met a few people who apparently have not realized this yet). Giving dharma is an example of something that cannot work transactionally. A teacher who is charging for it is probably not in possession of the real goods. And a student who pays for it, even the real goods, is probably going to misunderstand because payment introduces ideas of comparison, and demanding value received.

So, let your generous actions be completely free of payback or transactionalism in any form. Intentions matter a lot. Carefully observe your own inner intention during the act of giving to see if there is any expectation of payback. It can be quite subtle. Maybe you hope someone is watching?

Therefore, conduct a small experiment today the day to give to someone - but do it entirely secretly. They don't know what you've done. And you swear to never tell anyone about what you done (which can be quite small and still have to beneficial effects). Try it today! But pay attention. Notice precisely how it feels to give in absolute secrecy. And notice how it feels later, to know that no one else knows. And if that proves instructive, try it again next week to investigate whether the effects are repeatable and reliable. Become a scientist of your own good mental states. Pay attention to the relationship between intentions and the result effects on you. This secret generosity is just a technique to discover something interesting. See for yourself what it is.

Maybe conduct a small series of experiments to see how changes in generous acts can have different effects on you. What happens if:

• The recipient knows you are giving to them? A third-party person knows? No-one at all knows that you were generous?
• You give many small things, or just a few very large things? Does size matter?
• You give something to a “difficult” person  (you know, that guy at work)?

See what arises in zazen when you experiment with allowing different types of generosity into your life. Sometimes generosity repays with instant karma joy. And sometimes it experiences great reluctance. That reluctance or resistance is a great thing to sit with and hold in awareness. I'm always grateful to discover places where I am still attached like this. It gives me something to practice with. Sometimes it might reveal to you what lies underneath the resistance. "I don't give because I'm afraid I won't have enough left for me." "I don't give because that person is not sufficiently worthy of kindness." "I don't give because maybe I'm being scammed." All of these (and other types of resistance) are great areas to explore in your practice!