Thinking II

What is thinking? Most of us tend to identify thinking as discursive activity: an ongoing internal monologue along with its labeling. We identify with the monloguer and consider the object of our discursiveness as “other.” These are the main features of our sense of duality, the split between “this” and “that.” Emotions link the two, and confirm the sense of separation.

But what are the objects of our discursive thoughts? Aren’t they our concepts? Isn’t that also thought?

Thinking I

When you think about something or someone, the object seems to actually be present. Whether it is a past thing or a future thing, something in the room or far away, an animal, a vegetable, or a mineral, it seems to be right there. Usually it seems to be in front. Sometimes it seems to be in some other direction.

When you think about something else, the first thing disappears and the new thing appears. How does that happen?

Lessons from a New Car

Last summer, when our 1995 Lexus developed an unhealthy affection for the repair shop, I started looking for something nice to replace it with. We finally got our new (to us) car at the end of last month. I had assumed that we would be in for the usual dharmic reminders that such major purchases provide: that an actual car never lives up to the anticipated dream-car; that what is new, fresh, and exciting, rapidly becomes a source of dukkha because of overlooked drawbacks and defects; that with the first scratch, impermanence would be rearing its ugly little head.

I had not counted on receiving a completely different type of teaching. It had been a really busy period when the car was delivered, and I barely had a chance to drive it around town. A week later, my wife Wendy and I headed out in the new car to Boston, New York, and Albany for two weeks of teaching, and visits with family and friends. After a couple of hours on the road, an intermittent squeaking sound from the heater fan became too obvious to ignore.

Wendy and I discussed whether to take the car into a dealership in Boston or New York, or wait until we got back to Halifax to get it repaired. I checked the Canadian warranty to try to figure out if the repair would be covered in the States. As we drove through New Brunswick worrying about what to do, Wendy observed that the irritating noise sounded like a bird chirping. For some reason, I said we should give the bird a name. Wendy said let’s call it Henry.

Soon we were talking about “Henry taking a nap,” when the sound disappeared; “Henry worrying about getting lost,” when we got off the highway and weren’t sure which way to go; “Leaving Henry at the motel parking lot,” when we started off the next morning with a quiet fan. Finally, we worried about getting the car repaired and hurting Henry!

It is amazing how changing our thoughts about a sound can completely change our experience of it. This is the principle behind the Vajrayana practice of visualizing oneself as a deity, and the environment as the deity’s palace: if we can get into the spirit of the game, we can transform our experience of samsara into the experience of a pure realm.

Are We There Yet?

Today is April 4th, 2008, the twenty-first anniversary of the parinirvana of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Twenty-one is the age when we are definitely considered to be adults in Western society, but have we students of Trungpa Rinpoche reached adulthood yet? I wonder.

I always imagined that there would be some clear experience of having arrived at spiritual maturity, a Buddhist bar mitzvah, or some sort of collective birthday party. Now I’m not so sure. I feel strongly connected with my gurus and the lineage, and surrounded by sangha, family, and friends, but I also feel very much alone, floating in space, with no planet in sight, and no umbilical cord to attach me to the mother ship.

Maybe twenty-one is the time to give up dreams of getting somewhere and just be. Maybe this is it.

Contemplating Reality 10 Week Course

They say that meditating without studying the view is like trying to travel to a distant city with no eyes, no guide, no map; and studying the dharma without practicing meditation is like trying to make that journey without arms and legs. We need both study and practice to make the journey to enlightenment. That's basic to the logic of the path.

I wrote Contemplating Reality to help practitioners join study and meditation. Now, Deborah and Joe Szostak have created an excellent syllabus for a ten week course based on the book. Teachers can use the syllabus to present weekly classes on the stages of the view. Students can use it to organize study groups of that material.

Please feel free to download the syllabus and see if it meets your needs.

The Seventeenth Gyalwang Karmapa is Coming to America

The first visit of the Seventeenth Gyalwang Karmapa to the United States was officially announced this week by my guru and friend, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. His announcement, and the tentative schedule of the tour, is available here.

In 1974, at the invitation of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the Sixteenth Gyalwang Karmapa hoisted the victory banner of the Tibetan Buddhist teachings on Western soil. At the time of his first visit, I was a clueless twenty-five year old student of Trungpa Rinpoche’s living in Boulder, Colorado. I can confidently report that I was dazed and confused by the spectacle. Trungpa Rinpoche’s sangha, “the scene” as we called it, was turned on its collective head. Our brilliant, folksy guru suddenly manifested the dignity and humbleness of his tradition, basking in the Karmapa’s radiance. I felt more insignificant than ever!

With time, intimidation gave way to appreciation. The warmth of the Dharma King was irresistible. Friends who traveled with the party recounted that even stony-faced state troupers escorting him, eventually melted in his presence, and asked for his blessings at his departure.

Years later, my appreciation of the brilliance of the lineage of Karmapas deepened when Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche taught a group of us mahamudra from the Ninth Karmapa’s instruction manual, Mahamudra: the Ocean of Definitive Meaning; gave extensive teachings on the Third Karmapa’s Profound Inner Reality; taught us madhyamaka from the Eighth Karmapa’s Chariot of the Dakpo Kagyu Siddhas; and periodically dipped into the Seventh Karmapa’s Ocean of Texts on Lorik to teach us Buddhist theories of valid cognition and perception.

For Buddhists everywhere, the 21st Century began dramatically when the Seventeenth Karmapa suddenly surfaced in Dharamsala, at the side of the Dalai Lama, after a dramatic escape from Tibet. Nearly three years later, I had the great good fortune to be included in a small delegation that met the Gyalwang Karmapa at Gyuto Monastery in India.

When we entered the room I had some unusual experiences. There were no fireworks, visions, or flowers falling from the sky, and the Karmapa did not tell me my mother’s social security number or anything like that, but the experiences were unusual, nevertheless. The most memorable one was feeling that I was sitting at the feet of all the Karmapas, not just the seventeen-year-old who was the Seventeenth in that line.

The first thing he said to us was, “For a long time it has been my wish to meet the students of Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche. This is a great and joyful occasion. It has fulfilled my aspirations.” He went on to say that he looked forward to working with us when he made his first visit to the West. That was more than five years ago.

Well, here we go!

Some Diet Advice for Myself

Other than the exceedingly rare story of someone’s humble and virtuous actions, one of the few enjoyable experiences reading the daily newspaper is seeing the mighty get their comeuppance—obviously the Sheriff of Wall Street’s self destruction, and Lord Black of Crossharbour’s arrival at a Florida prison, come to mind.

Righteousness is a tasty emotional treat, but an unhealthy diet. Less appetizing, but much more nutritious, is recollecting your own failings. When I remember to chew on the bitter morsels of recollections of my own crimes, misdemeanors, and deceits, my projected bubble, in which I am always virtuous and right, gets a little punctured.

One nice thing about this diet is there are all sorts of opportunities to fill up. If a friend, colleague, or relative harms you, try a bite of your own imperfections. It is not as tasty as schadenfraude (pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others), but it will definitely deflate your ego. That’s the point of dharma, isn’t it?

PS. That reminds me of a quote that my friend Derek Kolleeny is fond of: “Before you criticize someone, try walking a mile in their shoes. That way, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes.”