Tag Archives: Thich Nhat Hanh

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after praise and blame

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The blossom that opens in the morning
is scattered by the evening breeze,
and the dew, condensed in hours of darkness
before dawn, is dispelled by the rays of the morning sun.

Heedless or willfully ignorant of this
procession of changes, we dream of prosperity
all through life and, without understanding
the nature of transience, hope for longevity.

All the while, across the face of the earth
moves the restless wind of impermanence,
dissolving all that it touches.

— Hōnen (法然 1133-1212) (from Tumblr)

In email conversations with colleagues, we’ve been exploring the arising and fading of praise and blame (misunderstanding?  misperception?).  Ultimately, it doesn’t matter because it will all go to ground and become something else.   Yet, despite this understanding of impermanence of praise and blame, it’s been fascinating to watch my own mind drawn one way then another through a garden that got more and  more tangled as the week progressed.

It is inevitable that anything which emerges into form immediately will be seized and split by the grasping mind.  Accomplishments and failures are great opportunities to observe this.  Thankfully, impermanence makes drifting petals of all of us – and everything – we grasp at.  And yet we cannot resist creating mental activities that drag us across the landscape of confusion, grasping and rejection.  I love this quote:

“Mara (delusion) provides the road, and the hungry ghosts show us the direction.”

Thich Nhat Hanh in Understanding Our Mind describes mind consciousness as the ground from which the three kinds of actions (karma) arise: actions of body, speech and mind.  Mind consciousness constantly evolves and from it arises two kinds of action: leading action draws us in one direction or another.  The second action is ripening action which is the process of cultivating wholesome or unwholesome seeds already in our store consciousness.

The store consciousness is often described as the earth – the garden where the seeds that give rise to flowers and fruits are sown.  The mind consciousness is the gardener, the one who sows, waters, and takes care of the earth…  Mind consciousness can submerge us in the hell realms or lead us to liberation, because both hell and liberation are the result of the ripening of their respective seeds.  Mind consciousness does the work of initiating, and it also does the work of ripening.

The gardener – mind consciousness – has to trust the earth, because it is the earth that brings forth the fruit of understanding and compassion.  The gardener also has to recognize and identify the positive seeds in the store consciousness, and practice day and night to water those seeds and help them grow.  The garden, store consciousness, nourishes and brings about the result.  The flower of awakening, understanding, and love is a gift from the garden.  The gardener only has to take good care of the garden in order for the flower to have a chance to grow.

Thank you for practicing,

Genju

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anti-dis-attachmentariansim

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Continuing with the twists and turns of attachment…

It was an interesting week, last week.  I received the journal and reprints of an article I had submitted to Counselling and Spirituality which outlines the basis of the treatment program Frank and I developed 7 years ago.  Drawing from my spiritual practice, I had been using meditative techniques as part of the treatment of various psychological difficulties for a number of years and when the Mindfulness-Based-(fill-in-the-blank) began to take hold in conventional Western psychology, I decided to get some paper cred for what I was already doing.  That involved training over a couple of years with people I came to respect highly.  But the early days of trying to work with a Westernized model of an Eastern concept were really tough and I will admit to feeling like I had sold out to a commercialization or corporatization of the Dharma. Adding to these feelings of discomfort was the aversion Western psychology has to a discussion or integration of a practice of ethics in its treatment models.  And since we saw this as a crucial part of mindfulness-based interventions, it (and using the Dharma to earn money) really put us out on the fringes of our communities.

There was also a lot of censure for my Evil Ways from factions of sanghas where I was practicing who saw the fee-for-service aspect of our work as taking advantage of the Dharma.  Apparently I will burn in some realm of Buddhist Hell for this.  There was also a lot of nay-saying from my professional colleagues who saw this as a poisonous cocktail of religion (read: values) and treatment.  Worse, this was treatment that had yet to build an evidence-base of research outcomes.  No one was on side but the poop really got churned in the small bowl when I decided that Thich Nhat Hanh’s Five Mindfulness Trainings and the Four Foundations of Mindfulness made a great 5 x 4 practice grid to drive home the fact that mindfulness is about practice and practice – especially a mindfulness-based-(fill-in-the-blank) practice – is meaningless without an ethical framework.

Mark end of this part of career here.  Western psychology has no truck with ethical frameworks!

Mark end of sangha life here.  Eastern spiritual communities have no truck with an apparent watering down of the dharma and yoking it to behavioural psychology.

Regardless, the program evolved over the years and many people kindly listened to me ramble on about our model.  But it stalled more than it sputtered onward.  At my most optimistic, I wrote the chapters of the clinic Guidebook; at my lowest, I threw away a few of my vows and wandered aimlessly in the bad neighbourhoods of my mind.  Then one of those random events happened that lead to a presentation, which lead to a submission for a proceedings for the conference, which (and I don’t know what sequence of dominoes had to fall for this) lead to a publication in Counselling and Spirituality.

When I opened the package last Tuesday and saw the reprints, I sat down hard.  In my hands was the path laid by seven years of just putting one foot in front of the other.  I know, I know… non-attachment… But,ya know, looking back, it was non-attachment that made it all happen.  Non-attachment to the criticisms, the rejection letters, the silence of no replies to emails, the turning away at conversations, and so on.  It was also non-attachment to the encouragement in the sense of wanting the supporter to do it for us (I’m fundamentally lazy).  It was non-attachment to praise so that it didn’t become resentment when rejection followed from a different source.

And, it was unswerving attachment to really, really needing to foster this: practice is naught outside the precepts.

In my crazy joy, I sent out the article to the professional listserves and one sangha listserve.  The feedback has been deeply positive from the professional side of the fence.  Apparently, the time has come for an ethical framework in the practice of Western Buddhist Psychology and some of us are deeply attached to making this happen.  Whoddathunk?

The cats, of course, are singularly unimpressed.

OK, seriously… I’m overwhelmed by the generosity of everyone who contributed to getting us to this point.  The over-400 participants in the 7 years of programs we ran actually get all the credit.  What is wisdom except courage to transform suffering?

Thank you for practicing,

Genju