Within or without?

I had lunch with a friend today and he was telling me about his stays at a Vipassana meditation center. It sounded pretty interesting if a little heavy handed with the rules and regulations. What I wondered about was the emphasis on self examination. Can we ever know ourselves? I don't belief we have that capacity. Can we know others? I don't believe we can. Can we know anything? I think not.

Having said all that, I do believe that as I understand Buddhist teaching, universal compassion is what we should practice. It seems to me that this involves opening ourselves outward to encompass all that we can. I like to use the word 'empathy', meaning feeling for all things, including ourselves. I realize that with our delusive perceptivity our 'empathy' may be foolish and unhelpful. If I were a cynic, and unfortunately I think I am, I could say that at least then my delusions would not be directed completely inward.

Levels of sentience

I have a friend who has ants in her house. One day I put some plates with food on them in the ant zone. When we discovered the plates seething with ants I attempted to wash the ants down the drain. My friend stopped me. 'Let them eat,' she said. For several days I watched as the food congealed and hardened and the ants continued to feast.
During a recent snowstorm I found an Audubon Warbler floundering on the snow. I brought the beautiful bird into the house and attempted, unsuccessfully, to save it. At the same time I was trying to come to a decision about the phalanx of mice who had invaded my house. If they had stayed on the floor I wouldn't have cared, but their tiny feces were everywhere, especially on my kitchen counter. I know there is an allowed maximum of mouse feces in the flour that we eat, but I did not fancy mouse turds in my cheese sandwiches. Reluctantly I put out traps. The mice gorged merrily on the bait. Live traps seemed even more cruel and also ineffective. The mice are still here, but their population has declined at least for now. Procrastination has its uses.

Justifications can be made for killing.

Where do we draw the line?

A Buddhist's Diary November 14th 2009

I started this diary with the intention of doing an entry a day. Idiotic considering that (1) I didn't have internet access at home, and (2) I spend half the time wandering around in my van, and internet does not figure high in my list of priorities.

But I think there is a better reason for not trying to write about Zen Buddhism every day, especially for me. I do not particularly want to get into the esoterica of the philosophy. True, I could have listed one of those amazing Sanscrit or Hindi words each day and explained them, to myself as well as my diary, but why?

Like Christianity, the essence of Buddhism is simple. Old texts are stacked to the dim, smokey ceilings of Tibetan Buddhist temples, and there are scholar monks who spend their lives studying them. Have they found any priceless wisdom in their studies? I can recite a short version of the Heart Sutra, but the entire Heart Sutra is enormous. Part of the reason is the number of repetitions, which made sense in the days when most people had to rely on their memories, but surely not now?

I could have written about the daily challenges of applying both detachment and universal compassion to every-day life, but I think we all perceive differently, so that the struggle to be a dispassionate Zen Buddhist is a completely personal thing.

A monk and his teacher walked by a stream on a freezing cold day. The monk said 'The poor fish are cold'. The teacher said 'You cannot know whether the fish are feeling cold or not.'

The monk was suitably reprimanded. But couldn't he have said to his teacher 'You cannot know whether I know the fish feel cold or not'.
Well I call this the intellectual fox-trot. It is much simpler to walk carefully, think carefully and take careful action.

I find that the bells and whistles of Buddhism are alluring but not necessary.

A Buddhist's Diary. On the Road Again.

It is hard to think consciously about Buddhism when on the road. When spending the night in a wrecking yard and clearly observing illegal activity and trying very hard to prevent the dogs from barking and announcing our presence, one does not think of Buddhism. This must be the acid test of ability to practice in life what is believed in theory.
Why was I spending a couple of nights in a junk yard? It is a very long story.

Life is so interesting. It is hard not being attached to it!

My camera was destroyed when I was caught in a soaking rain storm, so I have no picture.

When I am through visiting family and friends, I will seek out a warm, peaceful, safe spot to spend at least a week meditating and practicing my painting and taking the dogs for long walks and seeking wisdom.

I think seeking wisdom is like looking for America.

A Buddhist's Diary Sept 22nd 2009

I have just returned from walking part of the pilgrim road to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. I did not travel the road as a pilgrim, but because I wanted to hike by myself in relative safety in a beautiful place where I wouldn't have to rely on a tent to sleep in.
My favorite part of each day was the early morning when it was still dark and I would shoulder my pack and take off in either moon or flash light. I don't know why I liked this so much, except that it was very peaceful. It was especially nice when after a few km I would happen upon a cafe and enjoy a cafe con leche before traveling on. I was told that I would not be the same after walking this way, and of course I am not the same because as a Buddhist I know that I am instantaneously and continually not the same, but I can't say that I am radically different in any way from when I first stepped on the road at Sarria. This is probably because I did not spend days holed up in my tent in the high Pyrenees waiting for the rain and fog to clear as some people did.
There is a tradition of withdrawing to the wilderness in Buddhism and Christianity and probably other religions. People come out of the desert or from under the Bodhi tree blazing with insight. Are the thoughts that come to us when we are solitary and perhaps dehydrated or starving any more valuable than the thoughts that come to mind when driving to work or changing a diaper?
Or is it simply that people are more willing to listen to and respect the words of the strange ones?
Could it be that we modify our thoughts and even beliefs when we function in a crowd and intuitively feel that if we don't 'fit in' with the conventionality around us, we will be shunned, not respected?

And so we become obediant pilgrims, following the well marked road.

Help!

One of the hazards of increasing age is that even in the U.S. where being old is considered a serious disability, people start asking advice.

I think I would have given better advice when I was twelve and my mind was pure and clear.

Sometimes it is easy to help because a person may already know perfectly well what he or she is going to do, and has no interest whatsoever in any counsel one might bestow. They just feel the need to bring decisions out of their heads to share.

The difficulty lies when a person with enormous problems dumps them on my lap. What do I say? "There is no hope for you because you choose not to stop getting high every day"?

I choose to interpret Buddhist philosophy as while acknowledging the mutual beingness of us all, compassion should be disinterested as well as universal. One of the Four Vows is to save all beings. In inscrutable Buddhaspeak does that mean saving one's self?

To get down to brass tacks: I help and advise to the best of my ability without compromising myself, and I expect no miracles.

A Buddhist's Diary July 11th 2009

Today I did it. I released Bird in the area where I found him. I've decided that Bird is male and although I refused to give Bird a name, I used the name Bird when I addressed him. This morning when it was still dark I stuffed him with shreds of meat, wrapped him in a soft flannel shirt and drove him home. He flew straight up into a mulberry tree and disappeared. Later, when I walked the dogs there were a whole lot of his family and friends flying about and calling to each other. I think I may have heard him still sitting in the tree calling for someone to come and put out a nice meal for him.

During the time that I had him I was stunned by his perfection. Everything about him was functional and beautiful. As he grew he acquired what had to be reflexive skills in flying, pecking and following flying insects with his eyes. Oh well, he's on his own in the world of tooth and claw now. Oh yes, he also liked to tear sunflower leaves to bits and he definitely ate what he tore off. Like the flycatchers I observed, he preferred the part of the leaf around the stem end. I may be wrong about their being Western Flycatchers, but my 1968 Peterson indicates that's what they are.