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"As Buddhists, we capture and celebrate the most intimate nature of the present moment". To me, this is the essence of the Dharma in my study at the moment. This article explores some of the reasons for this and, in a way, serves as a 'diary entry' for my experience at the moment.
I'm a big fan of the 80's group the Police and particularly the song 'Every breath you take'. The song itself, doesn't have a very optimistic history as it was written by Sting during the collapse of his first marriage
However, I do like the song and it cropped up in my meditations the other day and therefore contributed to my thoughts here. I was contemplating the phrase above that I use to describe the Buddhist approach. I came up with this phrase during a discussion at our drop in centre in Letchworth. "As Buddhists, we capture and celebrate the most intimate nature of the present moment". Although I practise the Metta Bhavana I find the Mindfulness of breathing the most important meditation for me at the moment. Also, in my practise of Tai Chi, this phrase is key. Tai Chi is fundamentally a mindfulness exercise and unless I keep myself squarely in the moment, I find my Tai Chi unsatisfactory somehow.
When do I make progress? - in meditation or afterwards?
My meditation practise is to rise at 3.00am. I find this time beautifully quiet with most other people asleep and the house calm. It almost feels like a mini retreat each night. Also, there is less opportunity for my mind to raise any guilty feelings towards all the things I should be doing while I am meditating. After all, at 3.00am, if I wasn't meditating, I would be sleeping! I find the time extremely fruitful and although I have a long way to travel on my meditation journey I find it relatively easy to slip into a calm state. I enjoy the concentrated peace and quiet it gives me. But where does that get me. Yes, I am relaxed, calm and concentrated but what does that mean in terms of progress. Actually, I believe that progress isn't really made on the cushion. I'm no expert on the sutta's and the formal teaching of the Dharma so I can only go with what I feel here. But I do feel that my progress is made during the day following the meditation. When I have a calm, concentrated meditation, I find that in general, from the moment I open my eyes, I am more mindful and that in general this follows through the day. For me this is a very positive thing. Buddhism has a reputation for requiring heavy renunciation. The impression can be given that the only real way to make progress is to lock yourself away in a cave or forest retreat for months on end.
I find this a very pessimistic view given our modern life, a way of life which is not going to change. The world we live in today is not going to get quieter, less stressful and less loaded with potential conflict. So, I have a desire to find a way to make progress in the dharma here, in our modern, busy world.
Some of my work is in London. London is very busy, noisy place and the journey in is far from easy. I used to dislike the journey intensely and was never happy in London. Coming from a life where I spent much of my time living in quiet, rural villages and towns I find London exceptionally noisy and smelly. However, my practise of the Dharma has radically changed my perspective. I enjoy the journey in. The train is still packed and the people still avoid each others eyes and hide in their newspapers. But now, I no longer feel hostile and defensive. Actually, I experience metta on that train. I sit quietly and experience the people
The Journey, The Struggle
This is mindfulness in everyday life. In our noisy, busy world. I sometimes wonder if progress in the Dharma is tougher now than it was in the Buddha's day. The tests on us are more blatant and obvious. Mara is a great deal more challenging to us when we walk around and are assailed with unskilful images all the time. So we have to be even more concentrated in this situation. Paying attention to our constantly changing mind-state as we pass through our day. The breath is now a great friend to me in practising this. An emotional hook. Helping me to stay mindful by constantly drawing me back.
For me, this Dharma journey is critically important. Working in London I see some incredibly aggressive and unskilful behaviour going on. Even in the office environment I see lying and aggression. It is here that the challenge becomes a very real experience. No longer just some sort of academic exercise. That office environment seems to draw me in to unskilful behaviour. Customer deliveries, late for delivery and the company requiring me to refrain from admitting responsibility, to 'spin' the message. This hits me at the core. 'Right Speech'. Not just refraining from untruths, my understanding of the Dharma teaches me to measure my progress by the depth of my truthfulness. So my core belief knocks up against the requirements of my work and I have to reconcile this.
In a way this is hard, but it is also fortunate. The very nature of this busy working environment highlights the importance of the Dharma for me. I experience directly what a lack of right speech can do. My organisations' Karma is visible.
In this way, my time on the cushion becomes even more important. Staying mindful and battling against Mara in the office and on the streets is hard work. At 3.00am in the morning, each day, I go on retreat. Just for 45 minutes I sit and watch my breath and experience peace and calm. This allows me to really see the nature of my daily life, to really understand the hectic nature of it. The unskilful actions that take place become more obvious. This time is a window on the truth of my day. It shows me how I am acting, the effects on my karma are palpable, tangible. Sometimes this is a hard journey but worthwhile. I feel more connected with life now. Less cloudy and uncertain.
But this is a massive journey. The Dharma, to me, is a very experiential journey. It isn't just a journey of faith. It is direct experience that takes me forward.
There is something else that is different in our modern world I believe, and I experience during mindful moments in my day. Our level of knowledge of the world. Our knowledge is incredible. Modern teaching methods mean we have a deep knowledge of science and nature that I'm sure was not available in the Bhudda's day. The observation I made when I was considering this was related to dependence arising. I was walking through a forest, considering the nature of the forest with the perspective of dependent arising. In a forest, plants and trees die, rot and new life springs. Water is constantly re-cycled. Creatures feed on the forest and other creatures feed on each other. "The flowers and seeds of tomorrow are in the seeds of today" in so many ways. It is a massively complex system. But despite all its complexity, we understand it to an extent because of our education. We learnt this level of science in the primary school classroom. So we are able to rationalise the dependent arising in a forest with science and it no longer scares us. BUT, we don't feel it in a deep experiential way. I believe the Bhudda did. I believe that he understood the nature of the forest because he experienced it at a very intimate level. Possibly because he had experienced his own interconnection with it. This is fascinating to me because the Buddha understood the nature of the forest, possibly to a deeper level than us, without access to the science we have today. This is insight. And I wonder if our huge encyclopaedic knowledge actually gives us an additional hindrance, a wall to break through to insight, that the Buddha didn't have. We are used to studying and learning in our particularly scholarly, scientific way. But I think that this may get in the way of our path to insight. Because as soon as we see something, we categorise, we theorise and we understand, to a limited extent, based on our existing knowledge. So, to get past this, we have to let go to an even greater extent, and see behind our own acquired knowledge. We have to start feeling the truth. This is a tall order.
Andy Spragg is an experienced Tai Chi instructor with 16 years of teachning experience. Andy is the owner of Re-Vitalise, a company specialising in weekend breaks and retreats in Tai Chi and meditation. These are full board retreats held in tranquil locations throughout the UK.
Andy is a Buddhist and focusses on the synergy between Tai Chi and Buddhist meditation in his teaching.
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