Releasing a Burden

"Abba John the Little said: We have abandoned a light burden, namely self-criticism, and taken up a heavy burden, namely self-justification."- Philokalia

Interesting juxtaposition here, self-criticism vs. self-justification. An important question to ask is who is being criticized and who is being justified? Abba John appears to be telling us it is important to be able to monitor what we do and what we intend in our wills in choosing to act. He also appears to be telling us that we have an inclination to expend great energies of the mind in defending and justifying what we do, outwardly, and what we intend inwardly.

My commentary is that a beginning point is to make a distinction between what we are, in our essence, and what we do, what we think and intend in our consciousness and will. After all, didn't Yeshua say that sin begins first in the mind. Hence consciousness itself must be observed if we are to change it. In our essence we are spirit, and remain ever hidden in God in our origins and in our end. The Divine is our beginning and end, our origin and our home. Someone has said, "We are not human beings on a spiritual journey, we are spiritual beings on a human journey." Hence the real work of transformation is not in our being, but in our consciousness and behavior. Another word for consciousness is "soul." Soul is the ground of our transformation and passage in life. To bring soul into utter unity and harmony with spirit is our lifetime's inner work. The unitive life can only be realized in this. The Ten Ox-Herding pictures of Zen are pictographic representations of this process of human development of consciousness. But we must return to Abba John's proposition.

The true task of transformation is to awaken and to surrender and unite our consciousness to "That Which Is" in every aspect of our humanity. To awaken we must learn to train our consciousness to "see" what the spirit sees. So observation of the arising of the ego-self is necessary. This brings me to a very concise saying of Dogen, the 12th century Zen master. "To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things." Here to "study" is to see, to observe the arising of the ego-mind in all its manifestations. In our "study" the criticism is self evident in all the dissonances, deceptions, and illusions of the ego-mind in its attempts to define and justify a separate existence.

To "see" then means there is space and growing detachment with the ego-self. This detachment allows for a conscious inward turning to the spirit for our "abiding." We learn to dis-identify with the history, personality construct, and totality of conditioning of the self-made self and rather see it as the consciousness with which we practice and bring healing and transformation and growing spaciousness. Abiding in the Heart or Spirit, we find growing limitless freedom as we release from the burden of our identification with and entrapment in the ego-self. As Dogen says, "In this Limitless Life where every step is Home." And it all begins with learning to "see" the ego-mind. In another post I will speak to the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures and their teaching to us about this Way.
blessings on your Way,
Bill Ryan
cmpnwtr@earthlink.net

Learning to be Silent

"It was said about Abba Agathon that for three years he carried a pebble around in his mouth until he learned to keep silent." -Philokalia

Friends,

I've never tried this(pebble in the mouth), but perhaps it's worth a shot. Learning to keep silent here is not just about talking, but about interior silence. One of the reasons people go to structured silent intensive meditation retreats is so they can put themselves in a situation where not only are they not required to talk, but they are required not to talk. They find great relief in being somewhere where talking can be put aside.

We place great importance on our opinions. We continually reinforce our view of the world, our judgments of what's happening in the world, and our prescriptions for how the world should be through our speech, but even before that, through out thought. Yet the spiritual life of meditation is about meeting the world the way it is, being present with loving kindness in the conditions that are before us. Yet in speech we often proclaim and attempt to gain support from others in our insistent view of the world. In today's culture this process has reached a point of deification where individuals and groups are given deference if they can shout down other points of view. There is no respect or place for listening for understanding.

The most important form of listening is the listening we do at the center of our own being, the Heart. Listening to the "still, small, voice" that speaks to us in the language of silence. In the context of my present extended retreat I sit in silent meditation ( sans pebbles in my mouth) in order to do precisely that, listen, to give the fullness of Attention and Intention to a Life and Presence that is the font of my own life. This can be both difficult (because of our life long patterns) and also liberating. It is liberating to cease from the compulsion of placing one's own opinions and thought forms on the altar of veneration and to defend them. So I learn to listen. I learn to listen in the midst of my daily work, my writing, my walks with my dog, and riding my bike. To listen you must keep silent, receptively silent and present within. The opinions, thoughts, and emotional reactions are allowed to slide by with no place to attach in my soul. That is my practice, I hope.

When I do talk these days, it is mostly to my wife, Jeanette. Hopefully I am learning to listen to her as well. And in the days ahead when I resume a more active pattern of interaction with my friends and the world at large, I shall learn to listen more, and be less insistent about my opinions.
Blessings on your day,
Bill Ryan
cmpnwtr@earthlink.net

Alien Thoughts

"One of the abbas said: 'Just as it is impossible to see your face in troubled water, so also the soul, unless it is clear of alien thoughts, is not able to pray to God in contemplation.' Philokalia

Friends,

My Zen teachers often used the phrase, "mind like water," to describe meditation practice. Water flows over rocks and sticks without attaching to anything. Such is the mind of meditation. Thoughts themselves are not a problem. It is the attachment to them that is problematic. When we are sitting in meditation or when we are working mindfully. We are just present to what is. "Alien thoughts" are thoughts that the ego-mind intrudes, either re-running something unfinished from the past, or anticipating something in the future, but not really rooted in here and now awareness. The judgment of the ego- mind is an intrusion as well. Something is added. "What is here is not enough, what is here isn't what should be here, or isn't right for me.. " and so on....... When we are just here, just present, natural thought may arise, but we just release it, like the water flowing over pebbles.

So what is the point of all this, this releasing and non-attachment? As the abba says, to see our face, in a soul or consciousness that is unmuddied and undisturbed, so we can see clearly. I use the soul here to signify our consciousness. And indeed it is the soul that is the medium of our inner work in this life. Throughout our life, and most especially at the end of life it is our soul, our consciousness aflame with Divine Life that is the gift we offer. The Zen koan says, "Show me your true face before your parents were born." Ah, this is the work of the spiritual journey! The true spirit is our true face, the unborn and uncreated spark of the Divine living in us. Christians know this as Christ, Buddhists know it as Buddha nature. The Jewish Kabbalists know this as "Sparks" of the Godhead. As our soul, our consciousness is stilled and freed from attachment to alien thoughts, the water becomes clear enough that the Living Flame of our true spirit can shine through and we can see It. This is the moment of illumination, and Illumination becomes transformation as we harmonize our humanity in emotion, behavior, and intention as reflection of our True Face, the Face that eternally is, since even before our parents were born. In this way we realize the true meaning of salvation, which means to heal, and redemption, which is to retrieve what was lost or hidden.
Many blessings,
Bill Ryan
cmpnwtr@earthlink.net

Patterns

Friends,

Our lives are held together by patterns of behavior, reinforced by patterns of thought and intention. This is not a bad thing. What is not helpful is that our patterns are too often unconscious, and held together by the cement of unconscious values, beliefs, and motivations. The purpose of a contemplative/meditative spiritual discipline is to "wake up." We begin by cultivating our attention, turning the light of awareness on all we do. This is no small task since every human being I know has made a great study of living life unconsciously, on a kind of autopilot. And the ego-mind, or control panel of this life has great investment in keeping these patterns hidden and untampered with, the way they are. After all, the voice of the ego-mind says: "We've gone this far, right? It may not be a great life, but it's survival." This is the ego-self and its motivations for private personal survival, albeit based on some very flawed information and premises.

The Heart has its own desire, that our humanity live out, bring forth what is deepest and truest in us, LIFE with a capital L. We can call it God, Buddha nature, Christ, or XY Zen. It is the ISNESS that IS, the I AM that is the burning bush in each of us, LIFE that is both intensely intimate and personal, and oceanic, transcending a privatized self. Hence the agenda of the ego-mind and our heart's desire are continually in tension. That tension is only resolved when the mind, when all our human faculties are brought into utter alignment and harmony with the One Desire of the Heart. This desire is the Great Way of all beings. We are only truly happy in this life when we are fully given to the Great Way. The ten Ox-herding pictures of the Zen tradition illustrate this process beautifully.

To give our human energies to the Great Way we must have a disciplined life, because the patterns of the ego-mind are so entrenched, and so desirous to remain unconscious, and the ego-self, a creation of ego-mind is so fearful of the freedom and spaciousness of LIFE fully given, fully lived. Bring this all together and you have the makings of the spiritual journey, in whatever tradition, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Native, or whatever.

Therefore to have a serious retreat for this year, or for whatever length of time, the idea is not to create a "special experience." Rather it is to find a new way to live the Unifed life, human life fully given to the divine LIFE that emanates from within and without each of us. There are names for creating these new patterns: Vows of Practice, A Daily Rule of Life. Whatever name you give it the process of transformation involves a relinquishment of old patterns and a commitment to new patterns where the center of our life is the Center. There is no longer any room for diversions, inattention, every behavior and every thought, every emotions is the grist for the mill of an awakened Attention, and a consecrated Intention. This is how we create the space and the awareness that nurtures and sustains our participation in the Great Way.

Blessings to all,
Bill Ryan
cmpnwtr@earthlink.net