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| Mayan meditator sits cross-legged in earth-witnessing gesture (news.discovery.com) |
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| World knows (indianetzone) |
Buddhism came to America long enough ago to affect the various empires that ruled what is now Mexico and Central America -- the Maya and Aztecs, possibly the Olmecs, Toltecs, and other predecessors as well.
"Impossible! Preposterous!" those who have not read How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America (Rick Fields, Shambhala) will say. But those who have read it will understand that the country Guatemala may derive from the name Gautama (the Buddha's surname) + mala (meditation beads, rosary).
"Maya" (Mayans) comes from the Buddha's beautiful mother, Maya. The word literally means "illusion," a nod to her illusory/unreal/too-goo-t-be-true beauty. So much of our Western culture is doubly influenced by Buddhism without most of the Western world noticing. (Scholars in the past may well have discovered this, but they buried the finding to prop up Christendom and exaggerated the East-West divide).
Buddhism entered ancient Greece, the cradle of Western civilization, before going to China.
Buddhism entered ancient Greece, the cradle of Western civilization, before going to China.
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| What will 12-21-12 mean? A new cycle. |
Democracy and the atomic theory, which the Buddha taught as the Monastic Order's Disciplinary Code (the parliamentary procedures regulating the Sangha) and kalapas or the theory that qualitatively different elementary particles form the basis of materiality. That is only the beginning.
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| "Do not let craving for pleasure distract you from meditation or the Path. Free yourself instead from both pleasure and pain" (H-K-D/flickr.com). |
All of this may seem impossibly difficult to accept. But it is in line with the Buddha's claim that there are Four Imponderables, the first of which is the extent of the influence of a samma-sam-buddha (a supremely awakened teacher of liberation from all suffering).
The Mahayana message -- having formed in India and been imported by China, which sent missionaries to the holy land to gather more of this marvelous Dharma -- took Eastern teachings attributed to "the Light of the East" out into the world.
But by this time the Dharma was already successfully being supplanted by Brahmanism (later folded into Hinduism) ideas the Buddha had troubled himself greatly to correct.
Therefore, Mahayana Buddhism, early Christianity, and modern Hinduism have a great deal in common. It is not coincidence. They all took and blended the historical Buddha's message combining it with Vedantic Brahmanism and Mithraism (Zoroastrianism of Thus Spake Zarathustra fame).
Meditation
Okay. That's the backdrop. Now the question is, How to meditate? There is an old-timey Southern Christian saying: "Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die."
How can we enter the new without leaving behind the old?
The New Age awaits. And we ourselves are ready to go. But, oh, the baggage! Let go, let go, let go, repeating "letting go" is not letting go. We CANNOT let go as a simple act of will. However, here is something we can do, something the Buddha recommended.
It was a brilliant realization Siddhartha had under the Bodhi tree. Why not reflect on the unsavory aspects of the things we are attached to that hold us behind? All things have multiple aspects, savory and unsavory, a flipside, a hidden danger. We struggle to keep the pleasant in mind, fall into depression not being able to ignore the unpleasant. But there is a better way, even better than Spock-like dispassion. Let's look at the repulsive (asubha) with a view to letting the mind/heart shake itself free of all bonds.
Lust, Lust, Lust
What are we attached to? Bodies? Lust for form, beauty, sensuality? Most of us are attached to something as basic as this.
(A recent scientific study found that Americans like Sex, Alcohol, and other distracting pleasures best. Science can be fun if this constitutes a study. Of course, pleasant distractions are no solution).
Pleasure is fun, and we've had tons of fun, not only in this life but in countless lives before this. The pain has been enormous. At some time it gets to feeling pointless and unprofitable. Things can happen so that great suffering comes our way, we forget what we've learned, and we swirl out of control on a downward spiral. That is a danger during the good times.
Becoming a partial "saint" (stream entry and beyond) in Buddhism is not the end of pleasure. Sakka, ruler of the devas, lives in the Sense Sphere space world enjoying a great deal of sensual pleasure. And yet, for all that, he is destined for complete freedom (nirvana) without ever being reborn below the human plane. Why? He is a stream-enterer assured of complete enlightenment within seven lives.
Reflecting on the 32 parts of the body instantly cures craving and pining for sensual lusts. (The way to bring lust back is unwise reflection on the attractive aspects of bodies, but neglect and carelessness also work very well).
Moreover, reflecting on the inevitability of death -- or better yet contemplating the death that is happening right now and cannot be stopped or slowed down, which is the knowing-and-seeing of anicca or "radical impermanence" -- has a wonderful healing effect:
For a moment, maybe only an instant, the mind/heart lets go!
It opts not to cling to the (partly) repulsive, the utterly futile, the insidiously painful.
Don't worry; ignorance and illusion quickly reassert themselves, and we can know something full well in the mind without being affected in the heart: We just ignore until we forget, and the veil comes over our eyes us again. So this is a very safe meditation.
The only way to get it to work permanently is to develop neighborhood-concentration or full-absorption (jhana) first followed by insight-practice (vipassana) based on the at purifying-intensifying meditative foundation.
Reflecting on Death
(10 Mindful Recollections, Path of Purification, VII)
''Recollection of death, developed and frequently practiced, yields great reward, great blessing, has deathlessness (nirvana) as its goal and object. But how may such recollection be developed?
"As soon as the day declines, or as the night vanishes and the day is breaking, the meditator reflects: 'Truly, there are many possibilities for me to die: I may be bitten by a snake or stung by a scorpion or a centipede, and thereby lose my life. This would be an obstacle for me. Or I may stumble and fall to the ground, or food eaten may not agree with me; or bile, phlegm, and piercing bodily gases may become disturbed, or people or ghosts may attack me, and I may lose my life. This would be an obstacle for me.' Then one has to consider: 'Are there still to be found in me unsubdued harmful, unwholesome things which, if I should die today or tonight, might lead me to suffering?' If one understands that this is the case, one should use the utmost resolution, energy, effort, endeavor, steadfastness, diligence, attentiveness, and clear-mindedness in order to overcome these harmful, unwholesome things" (A VIII, 74). More
Therefore, Mahayana Buddhism, early Christianity, and modern Hinduism have a great deal in common. It is not coincidence. They all took and blended the historical Buddha's message combining it with Vedantic Brahmanism and Mithraism (Zoroastrianism of Thus Spake Zarathustra fame).
Meditation
Okay. That's the backdrop. Now the question is, How to meditate? There is an old-timey Southern Christian saying: "Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die."
How can we enter the new without leaving behind the old?
The New Age awaits. And we ourselves are ready to go. But, oh, the baggage! Let go, let go, let go, repeating "letting go" is not letting go. We CANNOT let go as a simple act of will. However, here is something we can do, something the Buddha recommended.
Star Trek's Spock, the West's idea of exotic Eastern "cool" (anhedonia)
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| Spock and Modernism (Age of Intuition) |
WARNING: Foul! Not suitable for any age! Meditators only!
Lust, Lust, Lust
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| "Lust, lust,lust!" |
(A recent scientific study found that Americans like Sex, Alcohol, and other distracting pleasures best. Science can be fun if this constitutes a study. Of course, pleasant distractions are no solution).
Pleasure is fun, and we've had tons of fun, not only in this life but in countless lives before this. The pain has been enormous. At some time it gets to feeling pointless and unprofitable. Things can happen so that great suffering comes our way, we forget what we've learned, and we swirl out of control on a downward spiral. That is a danger during the good times.
 |
| (death skull/tumblr.com) |
Reflecting on the 32 parts of the body instantly cures craving and pining for sensual lusts. (The way to bring lust back is unwise reflection on the attractive aspects of bodies, but neglect and carelessness also work very well).
Moreover, reflecting on the inevitability of death -- or better yet contemplating the death that is happening right now and cannot be stopped or slowed down, which is the knowing-and-seeing of anicca or "radical impermanence" -- has a wonderful healing effect:
For a moment, maybe only an instant, the mind/heart lets go!
It opts not to cling to the (partly) repulsive, the utterly futile, the insidiously painful.
Don't worry; ignorance and illusion quickly reassert themselves, and we can know something full well in the mind without being affected in the heart: We just ignore until we forget, and the veil comes over our eyes us again. So this is a very safe meditation.
The only way to get it to work permanently is to develop neighborhood-concentration or full-absorption (jhana) first followed by insight-practice (vipassana) based on the at purifying-intensifying meditative foundation.
 |
| A beautiful death? (Zemotion.Deviantart.com/Zhangjingna.com) |
Reflecting on Death
(10 Mindful Recollections, Path of Purification, VII)
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| (KenLeePhotography.com) |
"As soon as the day declines, or as the night vanishes and the day is breaking, the meditator reflects: 'Truly, there are many possibilities for me to die: I may be bitten by a snake or stung by a scorpion or a centipede, and thereby lose my life. This would be an obstacle for me. Or I may stumble and fall to the ground, or food eaten may not agree with me; or bile, phlegm, and piercing bodily gases may become disturbed, or people or ghosts may attack me, and I may lose my life. This would be an obstacle for me.' Then one has to consider: 'Are there still to be found in me unsubdued harmful, unwholesome things which, if I should die today or tonight, might lead me to suffering?' If one understands that this is the case, one should use the utmost resolution, energy, effort, endeavor, steadfastness, diligence, attentiveness, and clear-mindedness in order to overcome these harmful, unwholesome things" (A VIII, 74). More
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