David Nichtern2013-05-25T11:49:46-04:00David Nichternhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=david-nichternCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for David NichternGood old fashioned elbow grease.Work, Sex and Money -- The Dharma of Everyday Livingtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11700362011-12-29T11:36:43-05:002012-02-28T05:12:02-05:00David Nichternhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-nichtern/
I had been interested in Buddhism, yoga, consciousness expansion, you name it for several years, so it was a natural for me to seek out a yoga studio in Boston. I found the East-West Center under the direction of Patricia Harvey, who was a wonderful teacher and friend at the time. Coincidentally, she was one of the people who helped bring Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche to the United States, and so not long after he arrived here, he came to her studio to lead a workshop -- Work, Sex and Money. (These workshops are just now available in a new book called Work, Sex, Money: Real Life on the Path of Mindfulness.)
I had heard he was a high lama from Tibet and nothing could have been cooler at that particular time, so I signed up for the workshop. I was surprised to see him enter in a western business suit (not robes), and that first Friday night he gave a rather straightforward and somewhat "flat" talk. In no way shape or form was it spiritually "titillating," or even non-spiritually titillating (even though the title might have left the door open for some sizzle). As I remember that talk, it was reasonable but dry and maybe even a little bit boring.
As I walked home that evening, I thought to myself, "Hmm... I really am wound up on all this stuff and that guy just let the air out of my tires." I remember laughing at myself a bit as I had my first (but not last) experience of what Rinpoche would famously later call "cutting through spiritual materialism."
When I went back the next day, I began to really appreciate the quality of his presence, his directness, the subtlety of his mind and the depth of his training.
He gave each person one to one meditation instruction in a room upstairs from the yoga studio. I remember asking him for a mantra, saying that I was a musician, and that I thought I could relate to sound easily. He said that mantras are good but they are like medicine and you can use them but then you have to wean yourself off them, so maybe it was better just to relate directly with the mind.
He taught a very open style of meditation that is still presented In Level 1 of the program he created called Shambhala Training, which I later realized was a mixture of shamatha (mindfulness with effort) and dzogchen (a more open style of awareness practice). Many of his early workshops were, in a Buddhist sense, very advanced in terms of how he presented material to us. I think later on he cut back and taught the fundamentals of Buddhism in a 3 month seminary we all had to attend before being introduced to the tantric (more advanced) teachings.
For me to be able to present a workshop now based on these earliest teachings is a big thrill. (Ok, I'll try to be a little boring too.) This material at the time was so juicy, and it still is. It's about making everyday life the root of your dharma practice, not just some incidental events that happen while you're trying to get enlightened.
The Shambhala Centers are still here 41 years later, still thriving, and we're still here (most of us) relating to work, sex (occasionally) and money, trying to wrap our dharma framework around these things. But what Rinpoche was saying at the time and what we all still need to hear is that how we handle our lives is our dharma.
This quote from Rinpoche sums it up completely and I personally live by it:
There are many people who are more learned than I and more elevated in their wisdom.
However, I have never made a separation between the spiritual and the worldly.
If you understand the ultimate aspect of the dharma, this is the ultimate aspect of the world. And if you should cultivate the ultimate aspect of the world, this should be in harmony with the dharma.
(From Chogyam Trungpa's unpublished diary, 1966.)
David Nichtern is a four-time Emmy winner, two-time Grammy nominee -- a guitarist, composer and producer. He is known, among other things, as the composer of the classic song "Midnight at the Oasis." David is also a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage and director of Buddhist practice and study at OM yoga and has written a popular dharma column for the Huffington Post for the last two years or so.
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]]>5 Seducers That Steal Our Awareness and Contentmenttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10899922011-11-16T19:15:11-05:002012-01-16T05:12:02-05:00David Nichternhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-nichtern/
I took this opportunity to introduce, as further fodder for our conversation, my theory of the "5 Seducers That Steal Our Awareness and Contentment" -- a riff on a formulation that seems to exist in every major religion, philosophy and code of ethics since the beginning of human society. These are the things we are supposed to watch out for, that can lead to moral degradation and spiritual depletion. In my variation they are:
Fame
Money
Power
Sensual pleasures
Intoxicants
Actually the list doesn't sound that bad, right? Quite possibly many of us would pick out two to three items on this list and say, "Yup, that's what I'm going for in this life. That's when I feel most alive, most vital, most fulfilled."
Interestingly, in Buddhism and other religions, if you live the simplified life of a monk or nun, these are exactly the temptations that you are renouncing. But is it possible to live IN this world and relate to these seducers without having our peace, our presence of mind and our compassion for others destroyed?
The allure of these experiences is that they create a heightened state for us and thereby a craving to return to that state when our "ordinary" reality re-asserts itself. I have rarely heard anyone say, "Yes, I have enough fame, enough power, enough money, enough delicious food and drink." When we hear the siren's song, we want more.
So coming back to my friend the singer-songwriter, he admitted that he had always wanted more fame. But he also saw it as a toxic substance and couldn't think of anybody who had it who didn't seem messed up by it.
By the way, that was one of the most interesting aspects of the George Harrison film -- it seemed that toward the end of his life, he was less interested in fame than in practicing meditation and creating a beautiful garden around his house. George seems to have been a kind of worldly yogi -- mixing temporal success with spiritual growth.
As with fame, wealth and power also seem to create a kind of vacuum for those who have them. Honest feedback, a critical channel for personal growth, gets scarcer and harder to trust. Clear vision and open-heartedness can be trumped by ambition and pride.
Sensual pleasures can certainly be appreciated and enjoyed in the moment, but they also can tend to produce dissatisfaction and craving. It can be challenging to separate the memory of pleasurable experiences from the fantasy and longing to recreate them.
Our relationship to actual intoxicants can be moderate, but can also lead to a downward spiral of abuse and over-indulgence, often accompanied by a sense of denial and obfuscation.
In most spiritual traditions renunciation and austerities are considered essential practices to highlight and put our craving in perspective. Most religions (think Lent, Ramadan and Yom Kippur) have some period of fasting or abstinence or at least moderation as part of their portfolio for spiritual development.
In Buddhism, during retreats, we have oryoki (monastic style of mindful eating) and one bowl contemplative meals -- both intended to foster mindful eating and restraint.
All of us living in the world have to deal with these five seducers in one form or another. We may not be as famous as Lady Gaga, but somebody knows who we are and respects what we do. We may not be as rich as Donald Trump, but we do have to manage our finances and for sure there are others far worse off than we are. To them we actually appear to be rich.
We may not be as powerful as Barack Obama, Dick Cheney or Tim Geithner, but we do have to make decisions that influence the lives of other people, like our family or co-workers. We may not be as rich as the Sultan of Abu Dhabi, but we do regularly feast our senses by eating good food, making love, listening to music, going to the movies, taking a hike in the mountains or a walk on the beach.
And we may not be a substance abuser, but we do periodically ingest intoxicating substances, even if it is only the occasional cocktail, refined sugar desert, coffee or tea.
The $64 question is, can we maintain balance, awareness and open-heartedness while we engage fully in the activities of this world? Can we make the five seducers work for us or will we work for them?
If we work for them, our history tells us personally and collectively that we will be out of balance -- dreaming of future fulfillment instead of enjoying what we already have. That is exactly the Buddhist definition of suffering. Your thoughts?
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Some people get frustrated right away, but this is actually a great place to start -- just like going to the gym with our little pot belly and oxygen-deprived body is also a great place to start. We just have to be patient, kind to ourselves and willing to try.
To practice mindfulness properly, we have to cut through a kind of daydream quality in our mind. Often we are engaging in some activity -- riding the subway, driving a car, having a business meeting -- but our mind is somewhere else, lost in a daydream. If you look at people sitting on a bus or a train you can see this quality in their eyes. Whether we're having a pleasant or unpleasant daydream, we are cutting through all of that with mindfulness practice.
The awakened mind is sharp and clear. Sometimes the gateway to it can be an experience of irritation, or even shock -- not entirely unlike waking up suddenly from a dream. "My goodness, I'm on the subway here. That's a human being walking by with one leg and a cup ... and a strong smell". Suddenly we become completely present with whatever is actually around us -- whether it is pleasant or not. At these times, it's as if our world is shaking us and waking us up with a kind of sharp edge.
Our world can also wake us up in a peaceful and beguiling way. We might notice the details of a beautiful flower, or the delicious smell of a bakery as we walk by daydreaming about our troubled economy.
In either case, there is a regular and recurring invitation to bring our attention back to the present moment and relate to what is right in front of us. Practicing mindfulness is simply recognizing this invitation to be present, and being willing to accept the invitation when it comes.
In the Buddhist tradition, one recommendation for practicing mindfulness is to lean into its sharp edge -- so that we're not seduced into going back to sleep, back into our daydream. It's like the movie "The Matrix" -- the red pill or the blue pill -- one will wake us up and the other will let us continue in the dream world. Do we want to go back into that daydream, or do we want to wake up? When we become aware it doesn't necessarily mean we're waking up into a paradise.
Is this world a paradise? Well, yes and no, right? It depends on our attitude. But the point is, it's not a dull paradise where everything is perfect and comes easily. It's a sharp paradise, with edges and clarity. It's vivid and poignant.
When looking to see if somebody is trained in mindfulness, sharpness and wakefulness are the mark to look for -- more so than a blissful, spaced-out quality in which they love everybody, but don't remember exactly why. Mindfulness is the core practice of the Buddhist teachings, but it can be practiced by anybody --- and it has an edge.
To explore this practice further, here are basic instructions from an article I posted a while back.
As usual all comments are welcome.
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]]>The Debt Ceiling And The Law Of Karmatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9080332011-07-28T08:30:00-04:002011-09-27T05:12:01-04:00David Nichternhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-nichtern/
In Buddhism, the law of karma describes how causes and effects interact in our world. The point of understanding how karma works is to see the nature of things as they are, beyond any kind of delusion or wishful thinking.
What does the law of karma have to do with the current economic crisis? Maybe our national economic policy could use a good healthy dose of seeing "things as they are."
In our individual meditation practice, there is no magic bullet, no fantasy transformation, no gimmicks -- we have to work through our karma, brick by brick -- it is manual labor.
With meditation practice, we can see how our mind works -- what creates positive karma (compassion and wisdom), and what creates negative karma (aggression, attachment and ignorance). That is how we get clarity about how certain causes create certain conditions -- how did we get where we are and what we can do about it.
With the same approach, with real scrutiny, perhaps our current debt ceiling crisis can be seen to be nothing other than our national money karma coming to fruition. There are some basic principles at work here, immune from any kind of fancy talk or manipulation. Certain basic causes and conditions have created the current situation:
1. We have borrowed too much money.
Just as many of us have done as individuals, as a nation we have simply borrowed too much money, and now our creditors are knocking at the door. I don't think you need an advanced degree in economics to figure this out. Sometimes common sense is more valuable than intricate theories. It's time to pay some of this debt down, just as we would (and as some of us have) if this were our individual problem only.
2. We have been too greedy.
As a nation (and many of us as individuals) we have been willing to sacrifice long-term prosperity for short-term gain, over and over again. Many of us are addicted to a hyper-extended materialistic lifestyle (certainly by global standards) and have been willing to go deeply into debt to maintain it. Additionally, a tiny percentage of extremely wealthy people are now in a position to manipulate our entire economy to further their own self-centered, limited agenda, which they are now doing on a global level. Gordon Gekko said "greed is good," but now we will get to see if that will be his "final answer."
3. Our national political arena has become overrun with personalized agendas and bad manners.
We seem to have a chasmic divide amongst our so-called "leadership." Creative friction can sometimes be very effective in flushing out different points of view and perhaps reaching a higher fusion. But we seem to have gone well beyond that kind of creative friction in our national politics to the level of some kind of permanently feuding mentality.
Like the Hatfields and the McCoys, we now see our two "parties" immersed in an ongoing tit for tat, with nobody being very clear about the origin or the point of it all. There seems to be a crescendo of personalized agendas in the public sector. Temporal leaders, just like good spiritual teachers, could be invited to check their ego at the door. Wouldn't that be refreshing?
The solution? We need bigger vision.
Let's think about what would be good for ourselves and others. Are these really two completely different things? Perhaps we bring out the best in each of us and are also happier individuals when we have a feeling of contributing to a common cause beyond self-aggrandizement. If we are arguing about what would be the best outcome for the larger good, that could be a healthy argument to have. If we're going to keep playing the "me, me, me" game, we might be spinning on this particular wheel of karma forever --- like a giant Ferris Wheel with all of us on it.
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]]>Why We Need More Compassion and Less Greedtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8796142011-06-20T08:32:00-04:002011-08-20T05:12:01-04:00David Nichternhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-nichtern/
Hamburg is one of the biggest ports in the world (seventh to be precise) and is also a major center of commerce and culture. One of the highlights of our stay there was a boat tour of the docks, which gave us a close up view of the industrial shipping operation. Having never seen this setting before, I found the magnitude of it to be truly mind-boggling.
Even in this day of rapid fire information transfer and worldwide high speed air travel, there is really no other way to conduct the transfer of large scale goods around the world. When we buy Danish furniture in New York, toys or books made in China, put gas in our car from Saudi Arabia, drink Colombian coffee, eat kiwis from New Zealand, all those goods have been transported via freighters, much as they would have been 50 years ago.
The size and scale of the docks, the ships, the cranes, and all the technology for loading and unloading the crates is awesome. After exploring this elaborate and massive setting for a while, I looked over at our guide who was describing what we were seeing (in German, but we had a loose and occasional translation). He was a reasonably fit, normal-looking male human being, maybe 6 ft. tall. I looked at him and then looked back at these massive ships, cranes and platforms and thought "Yikes! This person, or people like him anyhow, somehow conceived of, built and are operating all of that." It seemed incomprehensible for a moment how such a thing could be possible.
Obviously at the physical level our species built all that with our relatively little bodies, but somehow it is really our big minds that enabled us to put such a massive and elaborate system together. If I were from another planet I would surely assume that this was a brilliant, clever, capable and resourceful species and that surely a civilization that could accomplish all this must have the resources, the capability, and the vision to solve any and all problems confronting their race and their planet.
It felt so clear to me that with the right motivation, the right intention, the right leadership, the right mobilization of resources, we could and would be able to solve all of humanity and this world's problems in time, and live a wonderful, creative and vibrant existence that could be shared by all. It just seemed completely obvious that this kind of positive outcome was within the realm of possibility for us (usually I'm a bit more cynical, but this was a clear burst of optimism!).
So that led to a contemplation about where are we missing the boat (so to speak) as our species marches forward into what could turn out to be the most innovate century in our history (think genetic engineering, virtual reality, nanotechnology, a universal translator and a complete revolution in information access and exchange). Where are we missing the ship? Why is there so much trouble, poverty, heartache, war, struggle, disease, ecological disaster, ideological conflict and outright lack of compassion and wisdom in our world? Why does our world appear to be in crisis?
I shared this musing with my friend and dharma brother Krishna Das who in the spirit of shameless promotion I will mention is on a U.S. tour this month and who I will be joining him on guitar for the last week of the tour. In any case, KD's email response said it all, summed it up, and brought it all together -- so I wanted to share it with you:
"Yes, isn't it amazing the amount of stuff that is actually moved around this world.. if only the motivation was compassion instead of greed!"
So simply and eloquently stated (I guess all that chanting can make you a man of few words!).
At this new frontier of our ongoing journey as the human race, we will need to pause and check our motivation. If we mix our technological capacity with our spiritual evolution as a species, we can turn this world into a beautiful place. If we don't, we might have a powerful nightmare on our hands. It is going to be up to us. Compassion and wisdom might be the most valuable commodities we can ship around the world in the coming century!
Your thoughts?
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]]>How to Meditate Through Strong Emotionstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8652582011-05-24T08:29:00-04:002011-07-24T05:12:01-04:00David Nichternhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-nichtern/ mindfulness meditation practice, we are instructed to rest our attention on our breathing as a way to focus and stabilize our mind. This is an ancient and time-honored approach that clearly has relevance for those of us living in the modern world -- who are often racing around, feeling stressed out, and having a hard time catching up with ourselves!
For those of us practicing in this way, several questions seem to come up over and over again -- one of them is usually expressed something like this:
"I see the point of trying to develop more steadiness and ease in my state of mind. I am now able from time to time to notice myself thinking and bring my attention back to my breath, but when strong emotions come up in meditation, I do not seem to be able to let go of those so easily. They are captivating and disturbing, and are compelling me to look more deeply at their history and meaning. Should we really be using our meditation practice to shut down and stifle our emotions?"
This is a great question, and there are several issues involved that are well worth discussing.
First of all, it is not recommended to use meditation as a way of repressing our emotions (or thoughts for that matter) by forcibly silencing them in order to achieve a superficially imposed sense of peace and quiet. Many meditators have found that they are never really able to completely pacify their mind and that holding that as the goal only produces frustration and disappointment.
The approach of "just sit there and quiet your mind," although commonly presented, is perhaps an over-simplification of the traditional method in which we:
1. Place our awareness on our breath.
2. Recognize what arises in our minds -- without trying to manipulate, judge or suppress anything.
3. Simply see what arises in our mind as it comes up. Just notice it.
4. Then let go of the thoughts and return our awareness to the breath thereby coming back to the present moment.
This sequence is what we initiate repeatedly in our meditation session -- as opposed to trying to stifle our thoughts and somehow magically hold on to that peaceful state. This more detailed method gives us some ground to work with -- that being our mind as it is rather than as we wish it could be. We might find this practice more realistic, more workable, and more compassionate to ourselves. Of course it is up to each one of us to determine how we will proceed.
When it comes to experiencing strong emotions in our practice, it can be helpful to notice that what we call emotions really has two major components. One is the "story line", which we do identify in our meditation practice as "thinking" and when we recognize it as such we are encouraged to let it go and return our awareness to our breathing and therefore to the present moment. The other component is actually energy that has a life beyond the "story line" -- the energy and physical sensation of anger, passion, envy, pride, etc.
In meditation practice, we are encouraged to simply experience this energy and physical sensations as they are and not get involved with manipulating the "story line" or "content." Just let the energy and sensations be there, be aware of them, without elaborating further. This way of experiencing our emotions is very powerful and may not map at all to our notion of peace and quiet.
These feelings, rather than being seen as problematic, can be seen to be completely natural and connected to what it means to be a human being. In more advanced meditation training the emotions can be "liberated" from ego-centric, repetitive "story lines" and experienced as a direct link to communication, appreciation of the inherent richness of our own being, and the penetrating quality of insight and wisdom.
So, we do not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Our emotions, rather than feeding stale and repetitive mental habits, can manifest as the very expressions of being alive and living fully in an authentic way. From that point of view we do not utilize our meditation practice to suppress our feelings and emotions but to liberate them, by becoming more familiar with how they arise, what they actually feel like beyond acting out or repressing them, and therefore working with them in a more constructive way.
Your thoughts?
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]]>Are Conflict and War Inevitable?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8593722011-05-10T02:44:00-04:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00David Nichternhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-nichtern/
To understand the basis of conflict, all you really need to do is study two people living together. Sooner or later, even if they have the best of intentions, situations will arise that emphasize their different outlooks and needs. When these differences are not addressed, conflict will inevitably follow.
In the course of healthy interaction, we can work together to resolve our disagreements and create understanding and sympathy for each other -- that is perhaps the definition of a good relationship, as contrasted with the more naïve notion that we can have endless romance or perfect harmony with no process or effort involved.
It may be impossible to create a world without conflict, but perhaps conflict is not the problem. It seems to be a natural outcome of the friction of people living together, sharing resources, aspirations and obstacles. Disagreement could be considered to be a creative process that leads to exploring other points of view, adjusting our expectations and becoming more sensitive and open to the needs of others.
The key to working with conflict creatively is the notion of resolution -- working to arrive at a "higher" integration, a creative fusion of the dynamic elements expressed in a dispute.
We often experience discord with other people -- at home, at work, in politics -- everywhere. But when these disagreements remain unresolved, when we need to win at any cost or when the situation becomes more and more divisive, then we will see the dawn of warfare -- at the personal level for sure, but also at the local, tribal, national and global level.
Once we abandon the idea of resolving conflicts, they will inevitably, sooner or later, flair up and expand into skirmish, into battle, into full-on combat. If you look closely at warfare, you will find its seeds in the abandoned process of conflict resolution.
War happens when we forgo the attempt to resolve our disagreements in a creative way and we feel there is no choice left but destruction. The "others" have now become our enemy and we try to eliminate them. Ironically, even in warfare, our enemies are still our partners. We are still choicelessly engaged with them. In a sense, even war is an attempt at conflict resolution, but it is a less desirable choice in that it leaves wounds and scars that will have to be dealt with again in the future.
Perhaps sometimes war is inevitable. The conflict is too strong, the rift is too wide, and the parties' interests are not reconcilable. Great healers, diplomats and leaders have the ability, conviction and charisma to bring the diverging elements in a situation together and appeal to the "higher" instincts of all concerned. However, it may not always be possible to do so, and sometimes this kind of leadership is not present.
If we can't resolve our differences, there is also the option of developing tolerance of others and acceptance of circumstances that are not going to turn out as we had hoped. It may be possible to let go somewhat of our expectations and the need to control every situation to map to our own fixed version of reality. Compromise is a cornerstone of healthy relationships and good diplomacy. Tolerance can be taught at the individual and societal level, and can serve as a buffer for those situations that are not so easy to resolve.
Once our attempts at resolving disputes have failed, we are heading down the road to either an imbalance in which dominance and submissiveness are the currency of exchange, or in the case where the power becomes more evenly distributed, open warfare.
If we can view conflict as a creative process and develop a strong capacity for exploration and resolution, we can quite possibly diminish the need for warfare in our world altogether. It is possible at the personal level and it is possible at the collective level.
Your thoughts?
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Follow David on his website (www.davidnichtern.com), Facebook (facebook.com/davidnichtern), Twitter (twitter.com/davidnichtern), or YouTube (youtube.com/davidnichtern)]]>The Ripple Effect of Common Courtesytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8532322011-04-26T09:00:00-04:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00David Nichternhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-nichtern/
If we look at nature, small seeds can have big results; for example, the tiny acorn, given the right causes and conditions, can produce the mighty oak tree. In a similar way, in the world of human interaction, small seeds can sometimes come together to produce large-scale results.
This is why, if we want to create a good world for ourselves and others, attention to detail can sometimes trump having a huge vision. In that attention to detail, if we can lean toward courtesy and consideration for others, there is no doubt that we will begin to generate a more positive overall outcome.
If we manifest grasping, aggression and ignorance in the smallest details of our interaction with others, these energies gather power and strength like an avalanche. If we lace our smallest exchanges with awareness, courtesy, consideration and compassion, we can create a ripple effect with a different outcome.
Sometimes this kind of consideration and attention to detail while relating to others is called common courtesy. Respect and concern for the people around us, as well as using good common sense, are the hallmarks of common courtesy.
Each day in our lives is made up of tiny and discrete moments. Every relationship is made of specific and particular interactions. The whole point of developing mindfulness (as in Buddhist training) is to actually begin to pay attention to those discrete moments and interactions so that they don't all just blur together. I believe that mindfulness laced with consideration for others executed at the smallest scale can actually change the world. Usually we tell people to think bigger, but in this case maybe thinking smaller could be very powerful.
Practicing mindfulness and consideration for others often translates to expressing common courtesy and good manners. We might be surprised to find that everything we want to build up from there -- like compassion, decorum, elegance, well-being, peace, harmony --- has these small gestures as its basis.
That's my thought for the day. What's yours?
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In ancient China, for example, the emperor could be held accountable for famine, plague, blight, pestilence, droughts, even natural disasters. The leader's role was to harmonize or join together 'heaven' (a vast or higher vision) with 'earth' (a grounded, everyday reality).
Of course to some of us, the assertion that we can influence the course of nature through our actions might appear to be the ultimate hubris of the human race. But in the Buddhist view, in many traditional cultures, and in synch with modern physics and science, the interdependence of all phenomena is considered to be a fact, including our minds, our emotions, our society, our politics and our environment, not to mention the full range of our actions with their inevitable consequences.
It appears that we live as part of a greater network, and it is all interconnected and interactive -- pretty much no matter what philosophical or religious view we might hold. By studying even a small eco-system, like a tropical fish tank, it is possible to see the effect of every individual action that occurs on the whole system.
You can see on YouTube a story about a floating island of plastic refuse that is twice the size of Texas. If we wonder how it got there, and feel no connection to that situation, we are unarguably asleep at the wheel as far as understanding its cause and effect. If we think of our environment and eco-sphere, at every level, from our individual room, household, neighborhood, town, city, state, nation, continent, world, solar system and universe, we can and will develop a different outlook for how to be mindful and care for the whole situation.
This mindfulness falls into the category of what we used to call, back in the day, consciousness raising. Consciousness raising has been, and still is, one of the primary roles of media. The other, of course, is entertainment -- but maybe we have overlapped these two functions too much in our modern world.
The term 'disaster porn' seems to have emerged from the recent Japanese natural and man-made catastrophes. Watching the powerful effect, in awe and amazement, of the recent earthquakes and tsunamis looks shockingly similar to various Hollywood "disaster" movies we have all seen. Possibly the effect is numbing us to the actual reality of these situations.
Even so, I'm sure we all can and will think about how to work more creatively with:
minimizing the causes and conditions for such horrific circumstances to arise (difficult to contemplate with earthquakes and tsunamis, but maybe more possible in relation to nuclear plant meltdown threats etc.),
reacting effectively and compassionately when disasters do happen, and
using the whole picture to actively stimulate contemplation of our relationship to our natural world, at the individual, group, regional, national and global level.
Your thoughts? What is your relationship to the natural world like?
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]]>Facing the Tsunami: Understanding the Strength and Fragility of Human Lifetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8362832011-03-17T08:50:00-04:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00David Nichternhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-nichtern/
At the very moment she was handing the customs officer her passport, the entire airport began to shake. The shaking continued and intensified for several long minutes. At that point, all the passengers were quickly ushered out into the parking lot and were asked to stay there for several hours.
Cyndi ended up spending the night sleeping on the floor in the airport, and in the morning, with the help of some new "earthquake friends," she was able to make her way to Tokyo and to her hotel there. In Tokyo there had only been minor damage from the quake, and in some sense life was mostly "normal" for a couple of days.
The first two days of the teacher training program at Tokyo Yoga went reasonably well (with most participants in attendance), but it became increasingly obvious that travel was getting more difficult for the students (due to closed roads, rolling power outages and gas shortages). Aftershocks were making everybody nervous, and the emerging crisis with Japan's nuclear reactors was creating a very unstable environment.
I was scheduled to join Cyndi in Tokyo on Wednesday March 16 to lead the meditation aspect of the training over the following weekend, but after much consideration, Cyndi decided to postpone the program, get herself back to terra firma in New York City as quickly as possible and re-schedule our programs there to continue in September.
Like most of us, I have been glued to HuffPost and CNN to see the latest evolution in this powerful drama that has been unfolding in Japan. People's lives have been transformed within minutes, sometimes even seconds. It seems impossible for us to understand all the forces at work here, and why one person is snatched away by a tsunami in the blink of an eye, never to be seen again, while in the same situation, rescuers can find a baby that has survived on her own for three days in the midst of all that turmoil and devastation.
As I watch these dramas unfold, I am struck once again by the strength and fragility of our human life. If we do not understand the one, we will not truly understand the other. There are such powerful forces that can take away our life at any time.
From the Earth's and ocean's point of view, these recent events are actually small in scale. It's like the shrug of a giant when asleep, slightly shifting position -- a very minor adjustment. Yet for us here in the human world, that shrug, that shift, can mean life or death in an instant, or at least a complete transformation of everything we held to be reliable and solid up until that very moment.
I can't really offer a clever Buddhist analysis to make sense of all these events, but I would like to note that we, as human beings, seem to have so much strength and wisdom to draw on -- even while our situation is so completely ephemeral and hazardous. How is it possible for us to reconcile this strength and fragility within our being and in the world we inhabit?
In the Buddhist view we talk about karma -- the chain of causality. Causes and conditions from the past come together and create the current circumstances we face. We choose our response to these circumstances and create the basis for further causes and conditions moving into the future.
But who can say they comprehend, in this powerfully interdependent world we all share, the deeper meanings of these catastrophic events in the natural world and the profound currents and shifts in human society that are brought about by them?
There is, however, in this vast ocean of uncertainty, one thing I think we all can agree on: In times like these, we do have a powerful choice to make. We can choose fear and panic, or we can choose mindfulness, love and compassion. Such is the power of our human heart and mind.
Our hearts go out to our friends in Japan. They have survived powerful obstacles in the past, and no doubt they will rise to this new challenge. We are connected to them in seen and unseen ways. Their fragility is our fragility. Their strength is our strength. Their suffering is our suffering. Their survival is our survival.
***
Follow David on his website, on Facebook or on YouTube.]]>Raising Power and Energy to Meet the Challenge of Livingtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8287692011-03-02T08:45:00-05:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00David Nichternhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-nichtern/
The image of a flying horse is a cross-cultural and ubiquitous archetype found in various places and times. It represents the "force" that we can harness to face all kinds of life challenges -- personal, communal and even societal.
A very wonderful second generation Tibetan lama, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, once mentioned that he felt that there was an almost all-pervasive, low level depression that many westerners suffered from -- a difficulty in finding the energy to counter the draining and stressful quality of our modern lives. His comment resonated with me.
A significant number of friends and colleagues are taking anti-depressants to counter this kind of depression -- it seems that psychiatrists recommend them fairly easily these days. Of these friends, most feel that the anti-depressants are helping them get through the difficulties in their lives and helping them cope and feel better about their day-to-day situations.
Without getting into a discussion of the merits of these medications (which I feel totally unqualified to comment on), I think it could be interesting to see what other approaches might be helpful for those of us who are feeling somewhat down, somewhat low in energy, somewhat "under" the challenges we face. Obviously physical exercise, yoga and such can help stimulate endorphins and create a feeling of well-being, but that alone doesn't seem to completely address the kind of low grade depression many people appear to be facing these days.
In Tibet, and other more traditional cultures, there are ceremonies, rites, and shamanistic rituals to restore spiritual energy and vitality. Our modern scientific mind might look at this kind of approach as primitive and outdated, but maybe we should look again.
The idea of raising our spirits, raising our windhorse, rousing our energy -- both individually and collectively -- goes back thousands of years. In the modern world we can get in great shape, take every vitamin and supplement known to man, have an amazingly high standard of living, a great job, good relationships and an astounding level of material comforts -- and still feel that there is something missing in our lives.
Maybe we can mix some of the wisdom our ancient cultures with our unprecedented modern knowledge and create the ground for happiness and fulfillment in our lives.
For me, understanding windhorse and certain traditional practices intended to boost the life force have been very potent. The essence of these kinds of practice is learning how to bring our awareness to this very spot, this very moment we are living in. Having gathered and focused our awareness in this way, we can radiate out a natural feeling of unconditional goodness and confidence to our surroundings.
These kind of practices can cut through layers of doubt, fear and hesitation, and invite the magic of our world and the melody of circumstances to manifest right then and there. It is actually possible to galvanize our energy in this way, even in the midst of challenging circumstances. Many traditional cultures have had some form of raising windhorse or something like it.
Going into further specifics here would be beyond the course of this blog post but if you're interested in exploring this topic further, I'm going to recommend "Shambhala: The Sacred Path of The Warrior" by Chogyam Trungpa -- particularly all the references to windhorse,
I'm also interested to hear your response to this train of thought and any experiences you might have had with these kind of traditional practices to increase confidence, power and energy in our lives.
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]]>Scheduling Your Lifetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8193492011-02-09T08:45:00-05:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00David Nichternhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-nichtern/
These days, time is, arguably, many people's most precious commodity. How we choose to "spend" our time is one of the most powerful decisions we can make. Learning how to master time, rather than letting time master us, is truly one of the key elements for living a good life.
When we decide to develop our spiritual practice (whatever it is), making time for it actually overcomes one of the most powerful and fundamental obstacles we will face. Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche (Trungpa's son and current head of the Shambhala Buddhist lineage) has whittled down the public recommendation for beginning meditators to 10 minutes a day. Even then, many people will have a hard time finding that time.
There are so many time-stealers these days. Here in New York, people are moving so fast that they are almost flying through the streets. But where are we really going? Sitting meditation practice can be a powerful antidote to the anxiety-provoking pace of modern life. In this practice, we can come to a full stop, allowing our mind to settle and develop natural ease and insight. Then we re-enter the fray.
These days, Tibetan lamas and western scientists, together and apart, are promoting the benefits of meditation. It is now clear that all kinds of positive results are attributable to cultivating mindfulness and awareness, and some traditional practices have been imported into medical and psychological disciplines, pain management, stress reduction, team-building, corporate strategic planning -- you name it.
Meditation practice, as presented in Buddhism, is perhaps primarily intended to help us attain enlightenment, which means many things, but mainly liberation from all kinds of suffering and confusion. Along the way, there are various benefits, ranging from becoming more peaceful, centered, kinder, more efficient and more compassionate and skillful in working with others.
But none of those benefits can be realized if we can't make time to do our practice, and "shed-you-ling" can be the key to finding that time.
So, for anybody who wants to explore this topic further, for the benefit of your practice or whatever other activities you want to make time for in your life, here are a few questions to contemplate:
Do I even have a schedule, or am I just bouncing from activity to activity, with some degree of random intensity and an underlying feeling of long lists accumulating and a slight edge of panic about getting it all done?
Do I prioritize my activities, or are they all equal in value, meaning sometimes the trivial tasks get done, while the most important ones remain unaccomplished? Have I seriously contemplated the relative value of all the aspects of my life, to place them into some kind of proper hierarchy?
Have I looked at my physical environment, at home and at work, to see what kind of structures I have created to support my schedule for living and working? What is reflected there when I do look?
Do I schedule in time for play, fun, new pursuits, loving and sharing, along with my seemingly endless lists of obligatory functions?
Do I have a long list of excuses why I never get to practice? Do I really believe that insufficient time is the true nature of my obstacle, as opposed to, maybe, laziness, fear, doubt, emotional blockages and rationalization?
In my life, studying the dharma and practicing meditation are absolutely key to finding balance and harmony amongst the rest of my activities. If my practice falls away, I can literally watch my little life boat start to rock and tip in the water.
In this sense, practice just means whatever is our way of leaving some time and space to achieve balance and harmony in our lives. Without "shed-you-ling" it in, our practice might remain on our list of the things we'll do when we get to them, some sweet day.
Sharing your thoughts and experience is what makes blogging fun!
What are yours?
***
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]]>Sudden Death -- A Buddhist View of the Tragedy in Arizonatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8080432011-01-12T13:09:31-05:002011-05-25T18:25:24-04:00David Nichternhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-nichtern/
It is considered a certainty that all of us will die one day and that we do not know the time or place of that occurrence. When we come to understand that everybody is going to die including ourselves, that realization can linger in the background of our mind as the mother of all fears, or it can become the ground for developing greater wisdom and compassion. The choice is up to us.
As the recent shooting in Arizona once again demonstrated, "death comes without warning, this body will be a corpse" (one of the "Four Reminders" that many Buddhists chant daily).
Death is always a challenging situation. We may have our ideas about it and we may have some experience with it, but I think most of us would agree (Buddhist or not) that we're not really completely sure what it actually is and what happens to us when we die.
Even when death comes gradually, there is so much shock and disappointment. We adjust our expectations gradually, saying goodbye to our loved ones and gradually loosening our grip on the things of this world to which we have become attached.
Our friends and loved ones are also given time to adjust and to loosen their attachment to us, finally letting us go and then gradually dissolving their sense of our presence into the new experience of our absence.
From a Buddhist point of view, sudden death can be particularly difficult, both for the person dying and for their loved ones. The contrast between the sense of presence and the sense of absence is so sharp and shocking. We have no time to process the transition from having our familiar friend in that familiar body, to not really having a clue what happened to them and where, if anywhere, they might be.
Especially in the case of the violent murder of someone like 9 year old Christina Taylor Green and the other victims in Arizona, there is the extra added horror of wondering how any of us (meaning the murderer) could get so far removed from love, from sympathy, from compassion, from basic common sense and decency that they could coldly and mechanically take life from other people in such a callous, unconscious and destructive way.
As we express our love and sympathy for the people who have lost their lives and for their friends and loved ones, we also might look deeply at the causes and conditions that create so much hatred and aggression. The Buddhist view of interdependence would encourage us to examine all the factors that came together to create this situation, both individually and at the more encompassing societal level.
For the individual who loses their life (gradually or suddenly), most Buddhists (as well as some other traditions) would say that certain aspects of the mind stream (consciousness) of that person continue after the death of the physical body.
There are many teachings about the nature of this transition, some in the public domain and some considered more appropriate for experienced meditators. I think this part of the discussion goes beyond the limitations of this particular blog post, but there are certainly many excellent readings out there for anybody curious to find out more about the Buddhist teachings on karma and rebirth.
No matter what we believe, it is a time for all of us to stand (sit) together, contemplate the meaning of life and death, arouse our love, compassion and sympathy and send it to the beings who departed, to their loved ones and friends who are suffering, and even to the killer himself.
Please join in this conversation and share your thoughts here if you like.
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]]>Cultivating Balance and Equanimity Through Life's Ups and Downstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8032402011-01-03T08:09:00-05:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00David Nichternhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-nichtern/
We sat and talked for a while, and then he looked right at me and said, "When things are going well, don't relax, and when they're not, don't panic." That comment has stayed with me from then to now. It defines the quality of equanimity, a state in which we meet all varieties of experience with an open and unbiased mind.
Years later, when I saw Rinpoche several months before he passed away, he looked up from his bed and asked me, "How's life?" Again, I had been having difficult times and said, "Life has had its ups and downs."
He looked at me for a moment, paused, and said, "Which comes first?" Those were literally the last words we ever spoke. Those words stopped my mind -- it was just not what I was expecting to hear, and not what I really wanted to hear.
What Rinpoche was telling me, of course, was that we get so invested in our own roller coaster ride -- we are so attached to our ups and downs, to the drama, the theatricality of it all. He was alluding to the idea that we can actually experience the ups and downs of life without getting totally swept away by them.
Have you noticed that as life unfolds, it has a kind of matter-of-fact quality to it? Things simply are as they are; they happen as they happen. If our mother is sick and dying, she is sick and dying. In Buddhism, the as-it-is quality is called suchness -- tathata in Sanskrit -- as it is.
As human beings, we sometimes project heavily onto this suchness. It is simply part of our nature to dramatize our existence, but actually equanimity is part of our nature as well. It has to do with developing balance and stability as things change. It has to do with relaxing with change, accepting and moving with it.
Many traditions generally encourage us to contemplate impermanence and change at the beginning of a new year. It is a good time to let go of old "stuff" (literally and figuratively) that we no longer need, and open to new opportunities and experiences -- hence the infamous New Year's resolutions.
Cultivating equanimity allows us to let go of our old stuff, open to new "stuff" and appreciate the space in which all our dramas come and go. Usually we don't appreciate this kind of space and only focus on the highs and lows -- sometimes it's literally all we notice.
So, if I may, here's a New Year's resolution to consider:
I intend to cultivate equanimity and balance in 2011 -- not to panic when things appear to be off track, and not to relax when everything seems to be going smoothly. I intend to cultivate awareness and presence and not focus too hard on the outcome -- paying more attention to the process and developing understanding and sympathy for myself and others.
Welcoming your thoughts, comments and resolutions. Cheerful 2011, everyone!
***
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]]>Are You Losing the Race Against Time?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.7987462010-12-20T09:21:00-05:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00David Nichternhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-nichtern/
We might also feel like there are a lot of things that we have to do, for ourselves or for others -- work, family, survival etc. Many of us are overbooked and running on a low tank or, in some cases, running on empty -- and racing against the clock at the same time.
Contemplation is a traditional Buddhist practice in which you hold your mind to a particular theme -- to explore and better understand your relationship to that theme.
Through contemplation, habitual patterns can be recognized and insights crystallize. You could contemplate compassion, impermanence, contentment, patience, kindness, even the nature of the mind itself.
I have been contemplating time lately -- trying to better understand what it actually is and my relationship to it. Time can be our master, or time can be our servant. It is really up to us. Herein I would like to offer several observations and suggest a contemplation that works with each. Even though contemplation takes time, it might save you time in the end!
If you'd like to try the contemplations, simply find a quiet place to sit and allow yourself the luxury of taking a look at your habits and to see what insights arise. FIve minutes should be a good length for each contemplation, but feel free to go shorter or longer if it feels right:
Observation: Our experience of time depends on our relationship to it.
Contemplate your relationship to time. Do you feel that you have enough time to do what you need to do? What you like to do? How much time are you wasting every day? Which parts of the obstacles you face are due to shortage of time, and which are actually due to other problems, such as laziness or lack of clarity?
(You can pick any of these singly or several together to contemplate.)
Observation: Running on empty? We may need to stop running to fill up the tank.
If we examine our energy bank, we can easily see that certain activities deplete us and some are restorative. I think many of us feel that we are engaged in so many activities that are draining and can't quite get to the ones that are restorative. When we feel good, rested, we seem to be able to handle all kinds of things and maintain a positive attitude. When we are exhausted and depleted, even walking across the room to put a dish in the sink can feel like a burden.
Contemplate your relationship to energy. How do you spend time depleting your energy and how do you spend time regenerating your energy?
Observation: Time seems elastic.
When we are watching a great movie, or having a good conversation with an old friend, time seems to race by. When we are waiting for somebody or something, when we are bored, tired or irritated, when we are engaged in an unappealing task, time seems to go by slowly.
Contemplate your experience of time in relation to various activities. When does time seem to go by slowly for you and when does it go quickly? What is the relationship between your experience of time and your sense of drudgery or enjoyment? How do you experience waiting and anticipation? What is your relationship to patience?
Observation: Meditation practice and time.
I believe that if we learn how to relax and open our mind to the present moment fully, we can experience time in a completely different way. My teacher, Trungpa Rinpoche, moved very slowly, was never in a rush and got a tremendous amount accomplished. I saw it with my own eyes and have seen other great teachers demonstrate the quality of mastering time. It is possible.
Contemplate working with our relationship to time. Can we change the way we relate to time? Can we balance our energy input and output? If so, how could we go about that? What should we change? What should we cultivate? What should we reject? What is the potential value of taking some time to learn about our minds and our habits and to perhaps change our relationship to time?
If you have the time and the inclination, maybe you could share some of your thoughts with the rest of us. It's about time!