Burlington Buddhist Sangha

We often seek out individual dharma teachers as guides along the path— wise figures on the face of the planet. But what happens when we reverse that perspective and accept the planet itself as dharma teacher?  

We can realize great truths without the use of words simply by walking in a redwood forest, or gazing into the vastness of the Grand Canyon. Equanimity, humility, a vanishing sense of self arise almost immediately, as all encompassing feelings, rather than ideas or thoughts, and we are touched, changed.  

Don guided our explorations of this possibility this week, drawing on a dharma talk by Brian LeSage.

You can listen to Brian’s talk here: https://dharmaseed.org/talks/78651/

In the Dhammapada, the Buddha says: “All conditioned things are impermanent.  When one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering” (v 277).

Jack Kornfeld says: “There is some sense that when you know that things change, and accept it, or you find composure in it … you find yourself in Nirvana.”  

The changing seasons are perhaps a wonderful teacher for how to delight in the present while being acutely aware of  impermanence.

At Sunday’s Sangha Margaret guided our reflections as we explored the close connection between fully accepting impermanence and being in the present with joy and awe.

She played excerpts from the following talks:

 Jake Dartington:     https://dharmaseed.org/talks/44728/

Christina Feldman:  https://dharmaseed.org/talks/4478/

She read the following little verse by William Blake

He who binds to himself a joy
Doth the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses a joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sunrise.

The following two poems featured in Christina’s talk:

The poem The Summer Day by Mary Oliver can be found here: https://wordsfortheyear.com/2015/06/21/the-summer-day-by-mary-oliver/

The poem Adios, by Naomi Shihab Nye can be found here:https://wordsfortheyear.com/2018/02/07/adios-by-naomi-shihab-nye/

If you want to hear the music by the Paul Winter consort, it can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtZhk9fpSb4

At the foundation of the Dharma is an ever-shifting relation to Dukkha.  Though simply being human means that dukkha will be a part of our life, the ways in which we meet it vary widely.  Even recognizing it can be a challenge, not to mention dealing with it, practicing with it.  And if we vow to free all beings from suffering — the first Great Vow — what have we signed on for?

This week we explored the the nuances of this fundamental aspect of our lives, as Steve guided us through its ins and out, drawing a well on the wisdom of dharma teacher Gil Fronsdal.

A link to Gil’s talk is forthcoming.

Somewhat surprisingly, the Buddha listed the Four Dignities of the Human Being as Sitting, Standing, Walking, and Lying Down.  Sitting and Walking have been extensively explored as meditation postures. What of the other two?

     Suzuki Roshi (of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind) encouraged his students to study Sensory Awareness of Standing and Lying Down as ways of bringing a spontaneously concentrated mindfulness to all life’s activities. Chogyam Trungpa made sure that courses in Sensory Awareness were offered from the very beginning of Naropa Institute.  

     This pat Sunday, Michael shared explorations of Standing and Lying Down as Sensory Awareness activities which can bring natural insight and concentration to our practice.

The Mula Sutta is a very concise teaching by the Buddha about the root (mula) of all the diversity of human behavior, and the insight by which we may wake up in virtually any situation. Guiding our session this Sunday, Ellen used a talk by Thanissara to frame our conversation.

You can listen to the talk here:

https://dharmaseed.org/talks/47371/

Here are two translations of the Sutta:

“All things are rooted in the will (born of desire).
All things come to actual existence through attention.
All things arise from contact.
All things converge on feelings (pleasant, unpleasant or neither).
Of all things the foremost is concentration.
All things are mastered by mindfulness.
Of all things the highest is wisdom.
In all things the essence is liberation…..”

and another translation

“Rooted in desire, friends, are all things.
Born of at­ten­tion are all things.
Arisen from contact are all things.
Converging on feeling are all things.
Headed by concen­tration are all things.
Domi­nated by mindfulness are all things.
Surmountable by wisdom are all things.
Yielding deliverance as essence are all things.”

Drawing on the work of poet, naturalist, translator David Hinton, Sam guided our reflections on the role of the body as a key stage for the first Noble Truth (dukkha), and for the fourth Noble Truth, the Path to liberation, as well.

In addition to Hinton’s translations from the great Daoist Chuang Tzu, Sam shared excerpts from several dharma talks that bear on the subject of embodiment.

https://dharmaseed.org/talks/player/69732.html

Mindfulness Directed to the Body; Greg Scharf,  2/29/2016

https://dharmaseed.org/talks/player/26004.html

Embodiment of Insight; Christina Feldman,  11/10/2014

https://dharmaseed.org/talks/player/47554.html

Towards Embodiment; Christina Feldman, 9/27/2017

I read from:

“Hunger Mountain” by David Hinton, (2012),  (Chapter titled “Unborn”) p.110:

[Chuang Tzu] describes a little band of crazy sages who are celebrating their friend’s death as a return to his true form.   They have mastered the unborn, and he describes them as “cultivating __,” that originary dance of Absence, as “wandering the one ch’i that breathes through all heaven and earth.”   Then he continues:

    “On loan from everything else, they’ll soon be entrusted back to the one body.   Forgetting liver and gallbladder, abandoning ears and eyes — they’ll continue on again, tumbling and twirling through a blur of endings and beginnings.  They roam at ease beyond the tawdry dust of this world, wander without themselves, boundless and free through the selfless unfolding of things.”

Another version, from “The complete works of Chuang Tzu” translated by Burton Watson (1968).   Ch. 6., p. 86ff.

After some time had passed without event,  Master Sang-hu died.   He had not yet been buried when Confucius, hearing of his death, sent Tzu-kung to assist at the funeral.   When Tzu-kung arrived, he found one of the dead man’s friends weaving frames for silkworms, while the other strummed a lute.   Joining their voices they sang this song:

Ah, Sang hu!

Ah, Sang hu!

You have gone back to your true form

While we remain as men, O!

Tzu-kung hastened forward and said,  “May I be so bold as to ask what sort of ceremony this is — singing in the very presence of the corpse?”

  The two men looked at each other and laughed.  “What does this man know of the meaning of ceremony?” they said.  

  Tzu-kung returned and reported to Confucius what had happened.  “What sort of men are they anyway?” he asked.  “they pay no attention to proper behavior, disregard their personal appearance and, without so much as changing the expression on their faces, sing in the very presence of the corpse!  I can think of no name for them !  What sort of men are they?”

  “Such men as they,” said Confucius, “wander beyond the realm; men like me wander within it.  Beyond and within can never meet.   It was stupid of me to send you to offer condolences.   even now they have joined with the Creator as men to wander in the single breath of heaven and earth.   They look upon life as a swelling tumor, a protruding wen, and upon death as the draining of a sore or the bursting of a boil.   To men such as these, how could there be any question of putting life first or death last?   They borrow the forms of different creatures and house them in the same body.  They forget liver and gall, cast aside ears and eyes, turning and revolving, ending and beginning again, unaware of where they start or finish.  Idly they roam beyond the dust and dirt;  they wander free and easy in the service of inaction.   Why should they fret and fuss about the ceremonies of the vulgar world and make a display for the ears and eyes of the common herd?”

And another version,  from “The Wisdom of China and India” Lin Yutang, ed. (1942).   p. 663.

These men,” replied Confucius, “play about beyond the material things;  I play about within them.  Consequently, our paths do not meet, and I was stupid to have sent you to mourn.   They consider themselves as companions of the Creator, and play about within the One Spirit of the universe.   They look upon life as a huge goiter or excrescence, and upon death as the breaking of a tumor.  How could such people be concerned about the coming of life and death or their sequence?  They borrow their forms from the different elements, and take temporary abode in the common forms, unconscious of their internal organs and oblivious of their senses of hearing and vision.   They go through life backwards and forwards as in a circle and without beginning or end,  strolling forgetfully beyond the dust and dirt of mortality, and playing about with the affairs of inaction.   How should such men bustle about the conventionalities of this world, for the people to look at?”

I read, from part of the Rohitassa Sutta (Anguttara Nikaya 4:45), a quote of the Buddha:

The end of the world can never
Be reached by walking. However,
Without having reached the world’s end
There is no release from suffering.

I declare that it is in this fathom—
long carcass, with its perceptions
and thoughts, that there is the world, the
origin of the world, the cessation of the
world, and the path leading to the cessation of the world.

A big part of the Buddhist teachings concerning suffering is the discovery that real life has pain, discomfort, sadness, and other events that we cannot avoid. The other part is the discovery that suffering coming from our relation to these events is often larger than the experience itself. But it seems so natural to fear and hate that discomfort. How are we to live wisely? This week, Payton examined the fundamental topic of suffering using a talk by Gil Fronsdal.

You can listen to the talk here: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/18230

This Sunday Ron guided our reflections, launching our discussion from a talk by Jack Kornfield, who offers us the invitation to change the perspective in which we view the phases of our lives, and the ways we discover and re-shape meaning as time unfolds.

As he so often does, Jack reframes our approaches to our own goals, plans, and aspirations in the larger rhythms of generational history, bodhisattva inclinations, and even planetary epochs, somehow making the vast into something intimate and relatable.

You can listen to Jack’s talk here:

https://dharmaseed.org/talks/69147/

While the past couple weeks we’ve discussed the elevated ideas about the nature of self, it is important to remember the importance of turning our concepts into intuitive wisdom.  To borrow a phrase from the yogic tradition:  lifting energy combined with groundedness leads to spaciousness.

Dharma Teacher Michelle Macdonald explores this shifting balance in an insightful talk, excerpts from which will be the prompt for our discussion this coming Sunday.  

She begins boldly: when we open our hearts, we open to everything.   And we don’t get to decide what comes in.  This can be painful, and our aversion to that pain leads to dukkha.  

So we practice.  We practice wisdom and compassion.  We keep coming back to the present moment, anchoring to what is safe when we need stability, and, feeling stable, we can then explore, arriving at an embodied, grounded, present moment practice.

You can listen to the talk here: https://dharmaseed.org/talks/33249/

At last week’s Sangha, we reflected on the notion of non-self in Buddhist thinking. This Sunday Margaret guided our continued exploration of this teaching, drawing on talks by Joseph Goldstein and Christina Feldman. We reflected on ways that recognizing the fabricated and shifting nature of what we think of as the self can lead us out of dukkha.

Here are the talks Margaret took excerpts from:

Joseph Goldstein:

https://dharmaseed.org/talks/48731/

Christina Feldman:

https://dharmaseed.org/talks/49244/

In the excerpt played from Joseph Goldstein’s talk, he refers to instructions to be given the next day on how to practice with seeing that consciousness is not self.  Here is the talk to which he is referring:  https://dharmaseed.org/talks/48725/