“… it is as if most people have only a very small proportion of their energies available to them, while the rest lie dormant.  Part of the reason they lie dormant is that there is no cause to interest them.  It is as if we live on the surface of life whilst in caves deep underground the kings and queens of our energies, the magicians, the dancers, the heroes and sages, remain quietly aloof, unable to raise any interest in our desire to become a junior manager, to live happily ever after with a librarian from Surbiton, or to captain the pub’s darts team.  Even our goals of becoming more relaxed or finding a bit of peace of mind do not excite them.  But if we aspire to reach the heights, then all of a sudden, in those caverns far below, ageless heroes will start up once more at the sound of distant trumpets, and reach for their unfailing weapons, and goddesses will weave afresh the old spells which protect the daring.”

Vessantara

(from ‘The Bodhisattva Ideal’ in the booklet ‘Puja and the transformation of the heart; An Introduction to Bodhisattvas and Devotional Practice’, Windhorse Publications, 1987.)

My love of garrets dates back to when I was about eight, and my sister Mary gave me  Frances Hodgson Burnett’s book ‘The Little Princess’.  My favourite bit was when SaraCrewe ends up all poor and is banished to the garret as a servant.  In the book, her imagination is the truly magical thing and she makes the whole experience of losing everything and ending up in an attic seem very appealing.

The’Hermitage’ part of it owes a lot to Bhante Sangharakshita’s Teacher Yogi Chen who lived in a room, or a couple of rooms, right by the bazaar in Kalimpong and this was his ‘hermitage’ where he lived for many, many years – apparently never going out.  There’s a lovely description of Bhante going to visit him there with Khanitpalo on Yogi Chen’s website.  Just scroll down the page of this link to read about his hermitage.

The ‘myth’ of being in the heart of the city, yet also up in the clouds (almost literally and certainly metaphorically speaking) has held a lot of appeal for a long time.  My first garret was as a student when I lived a few minutes from where I live now .  That garret was on the end of Berkeley Crescent and I had a wonderful view of the Wills Memorial Building tower out of my little window.

When we were taking the pictures for the header, the sun suddenly went it - and the conrrast with the pic we finally got was huge. I was reminded of Vajradarshini saying "Seeing beauty has a lot to do with how light falls – so perhaps that’s a metaphor – we’re trying to shine a light in such a way the beauty is revealed."

Taking forward a long lineage of writing as spiritual practice...

Wolf at the Door writing workshops were created by Ananda and Manjusvara over 15 years ago now. They – and the work I’ve learnt from them – have been a significant part of my own life and spiritual path since 1998.  After Manjusvara’s unexpected death in June 2011, Ananda has asked me to work with him to take Wolf at the Door into the next phase.  Of course it won’t be the same without Manjusvara – but so much of how I approach things I learnt from him, so that he won’t be far away either.

Vijayadipa (then Valerie Witonska) interviewed Manjusvara for Dharmalife magazine a few years ago.  In this interview he talks a lot about the Wolf – and the door – as well as his book ‘Writing your Way‘, which he describes as a ‘Wolf at the Door’ Cookbook.  In 2010/11 he published a second book - ‘The Poet’s Way’ - which takes his reflections on writing and spiritual practice further.

I’ve been wanting to post this poem, which is co-incidentally about Wednesdays, for a while.  The first stanza was written on a Dhanakosa Wolf at the Door retreat in 2001.  When Manjusvara was writing The Poet’s Way he went through all the old anthologies of writings from those retreats and fished out my poem ‘An Average Wednesday’.  After his death, I realised it was 10 years exactly since that retreat, and so wrote the final stanza, i.m. Manjusvara.

Two Wednesdays

An Average Wednesday (June 2001)

And the usual number of poem images
went by like buses.
And again I forgot
to stick out my hand.

Another Wednesday (June 2011)

Full-moon, lunar eclipse, invisible
behind a bank of cloud and you,
my friend, fading, faded, far away
then passed. I raise my hand.

A child, head full of music,
you raged at the toy piano.

An adult, you shop at Sainsbury’s to fly,
and know a Berlingo from a Leyland Daf.

You taught the importance of knowing/
when to stop: with a poem, with a love affair.

America, India and the rainy streets of Britain:
you travel on, giving your gifts.

Satyalila
(Written to celebrate his 50th birthday, 26 June 2003)

It is 5.22 am.  I’m propped up in bed with a tray of tea beside me.  The almost-midsummer morning light comes in at the window behind me and I can hear the seagulls and the comforting chunter of the fridge’s motor from the kitchen a few feet away.  Once I’d accepted that I was really awake it became clear that what I needed to do was to write.  To write for Manjusvara.  To write about Manjusvara.  To write because of Manjusvara.  To write with a strong sense of Manjusvara ‘at my elbow’,as it were – tho’ he left us, most likely some time between Monday and Tuesday.

Now I want to cry again.  Yesterday morning I was just finished meditating and had set out to walk to the Bristol Buddhist Centre, where I work, when I got a text – “Text or ring when you put your phone on.xx”  a few feet further along the pavement of Trenchard Street and another arrived, sent an hour after this first one “Bit much by text but I wanted to let you know quickly that Manjusvara has had a bad stroke last night.  He’s unconscious in hospital in Scotland and may not live.  Send metta of course.”  The news went through me, physically, like a wave – I guess because I was so open from meditating.  I think I gasped.  I remember muttering over and over and over ‘Oh my god.  Oh my god. Oh my god’… and then howls and sobs erupted and I realised I couldn’t stand.  I sank down onto the orange plastic road barrier by the building site fence that blocks the road cried my head off.  I’d never experienced anything like it.  I wanted to howl to the skies and I did.  I didn’t care who heard or what they thought.  I didn’t care how long I sat there or what happened.  After a while two girls came along and stopped to ask if I was OK and later a chap.  I was moved that they stopped – people so often don’t. I must have sat there for almost an hour, feeling unable to stand.  I remember thinking that I felt very real, very ‘joined up’, in that moment.  And that he’d have appreciated that image of me – the ‘bag lady’ we’d joked about – almost collapsing in grief for him on a Bristol pavement.

I talked to Jvalamalini on the phone – she’d texted the news – and I sent a message saying I didn’t know if I’d make it to the Buddhist Centre.  Eventually I walked to the café on the corner and sat drinking a large latte and eating a flapjack – sugar for shock, I guess.  Alex, who runs the café, was very kind and I sat in the corner at ‘his’ table and I talked to him about Manjusvara and we went on to have one of those comforting conversations where you have to talk about a lot of ordinariness for a while.

Later I realised I wanted to meditate and I needed to write.  I learned that Khemajoti and Achalavira were going to lead Tara mantras for Manjusvara at the lunchtime class at the Buddhist Centre and had put his picture on the shrine – where there was already a Green Tara rupa.  I went to sit in Queen Square where I sat on the grass amongst the office workers in their lunch hour.  Those not eating their sandwiches were playing petanque or boules.  I meditated, and the wrote this:

For Manjusvara, Queen Square, 14 June 2011

You saw Green Tara
in traffic lights.
I think of this, and you,
as I sit among the trees
of Queen Square silently
chanting her mantra for you.
Earlier, deep in metta
flowing your way,
I sensed – or imagined –
it little matters which –
the dark of electrical confusion
in your brain.
You’re back in Edinburgh –
hospital, not airport, this time –
what you wrote is with me
and will remain:

Writing Poetry at Edinburgh Airport

Li Po said: ‘To read poetry is to be alive twice.’
At the airport it is easier to see how everyone is equal.
There is only one human story: it ends in leaving.

In the day or so since this, so many memories and impressions and poems have crowded into my heart-mind.  I looked out a postcard from Sutton Hoo you’d send me as a birthday greeting a year or two back, with a poem:

Sutton Hoo

When this detail in life is over,
Have your pockets lined with stones
So you can float through the earth
in one long dream,
Still hearing the roar of the shingle beach
Where we once landed full of hope.

It seemed to speak to me of you sinking, sinking away from us.  It reminded me, too, of you saying more than once in a workshop “know when to end a poem, know when to end a love affair”.  And writing yesterday, I realised that could be applied to your knowing it was time to let go of life.  You didn’t hold on, didn’t linger.  Like so many of your poems I read yesterday, it felt like an epitaph.  And of course, ‘Leaving Prayer’ came to my mind:

Leaving Prayer
After Faiz Ahmed Faiz

What certainty in miracles?
I have none.  Yet when the shadows
And dreams of this great world
Are no longer mine,
When I no longer glimpse you
In the mask of strange cities,
I still hope to return one last time
And stand by your door,
To be certain someone is with you
Sharing your torment,
Your smallest pain.  Only then,

Only then will I be free to depart
-    never to return –
-    for the unknown direction.

(Based on the English translation by Agha Shahid Ali of the Faiz Ahmed Faiz poem ‘Desire’.

Your poems have that quality of coming to mind – none more so than your Ghazal – Buddha which I must have known almost as long as I’ve known you – since 1998 when I first met you on my first-ever ‘Wolf’ weekend at the Croydon Buddhist Centre.  A weekend where I felt I’d been re-tuned like a radio and saw my whole everyday world through different eyes after doing workshops with you and Ananda.  In 2007 I did a three-month retreat in the mountains of Spain.  I spent a fair amount of time grappling with the thorny issue of ‘contentment’ – not least because I was still trying to extricate my heart from complex emotional entanglement (something you’d been very sympathetic about.)  Awake late at night with my struggles I suddenly started to hear these lines “Even if we can’t see it/we bow down in our own perfection” and for a while I couldn’t place them.  I thought they were from a sutra or Dharma text I had forgotten.  Eventually – maybe next morning – I’d remembered and realised I had almost the whole poem by heart and remembered it was yours.  But I wanted to be sure I ‘had’ it all and hunted the retreat centre for a copy, which I found:

Ghazal – Buddha

Even if we can’t see it,
we bow down in our own perfection.

The world is this mirror: our constant
re-telling of the image before us.

Time only serves the lament of the world.
there can be no shadow without the lust for shadow.

Fire placed on the highest ground.  A golden thread
of sympathy connecting us through all darkness.

Surely this is reason enough to smile?
Trust in our goal; let things happen as they should.

It was such a teaching to have received.  A few months ago you came to lead an evening at the Buddhist Centre, launching your book ‘The Poet’s Way’.  You’d asked if we could do a familiar ‘double act’, with me acting as ‘your ears’, as you’d say.  (This meant my sitting beside you, on your left, always, and catching any important things you might not have heard, and relaying them, or responding).  This was the plan for the second half of the evening.  And we discussed how to do the first half – usually a 40 minute Mindfulness of Breathing or Metta Bhavana meditation.  You said you’d like it to be ‘meditation with a poem’ and would I lead it? I immediately knew I’d like to read your Ghazal and share my story from Akasavana, so I asked if we could do this, tho’ you’d had another poem in mind, I think.  You agreed – delighted I think (characteristically you).  This last day or so, I’ve been thinking of that and felt so grateful that I had that opportunity to share, in your presence, my deep gratitude and appreciation of you – though I know you already knew.

There are so many dimensions to that gratitude – and such a lot of things we’d shared.  At first it was almost like I couldn’t quite get them all in the frame at the same moment.  I remembered the International Retreat last year, when, again, you’d asked me to be your ‘ears’.  We’d travelled up together from Bristol, you driving.  For the first time, almost ever, I think, going to Taraloka, I left Bristol going up the Avon Gorge.  I remember thinking ‘this is the poet’s route out of the city’ – not the most direct, but certainly the most beautiful.  On the way we stopped at a huge Tesco in Kidderminster and for some reason I remember your delight in the fried breakfast we shared.  And the three hours of deep and wide-ranging conversation, including your concern for and interest in many folk in our Sangha.

Like many of your women friends, I think, I felt that possibility that we might have become lovers.  We even ‘had that out’ at once stage, a few years ago – always a tricky conversation to have.  But you handled it with such grace, sensitivity and warmth.  I was saying to my chapter last night, that one of my vivid memories of you from a few years ago was your coming round for tea at the garret (where I live).  You respectfully left your shoes at the door and we sat on the sofa.  At some point (it must have been summer) I remember you taking off your socks, rolling them into a ball, and throwing them in the direction of your shoes.  This memory has stayed with me, I think because it felt like such an ‘at home’ thing to do, somehow.  I suspect you were at home pretty much anywhere, in a way.  But to me there was an intimacy in that momentary gesture that said something about our friendship.

I guess it IS hard to get all my memories of you into one frame – to global scale of your friendships and the vast extent of your activity and influence is boggling, actually.  Just thinking of your different spheres – through Wolf at the Door writing workshops and the Karuna Trust I realise there are hundreds and thousands of us whose lives you have affected.  And so many friends that you’ve made.  I found what you’d written for the Karuna Trust website about your passion for fundraising as a spiritual practice – so much of you in a few lines, as ever:
“I did my first fundraising appeal (for Dhardo Rimpoche’s ITBCI school) in 1985. It was supposed to be for experienced fundraisers only, but I managed to talk my way on it. (This followed a dream I had had about Dhardo.) The key for me was when one of the trainers advised me to ‘just be myself’, since an authentic presence on the doorstep helped whoever you met respond in the same way. Who this ‘self’ might be is, of course, open to interpretation (interpretation by circumstances, which change all the time); to expansion (how often we limit ourselves); and thus consequently to revision.

I have been involved with fundraising ever since because it is one of the most effective transformative tools I know. Indeed I regard it as the ‘secret’ or ‘tantric’ teaching of the FWBO, and I am sure I would not have joined the Order without it. It is a practice embodied by Green Tara: reaching out into the world, whilst remaining in touch with your own inner world.

These days my role with fundraising teams is to bring the creative mind into the equation, drawing on material from my book ‘Writing Your Way’. For example if you are able to imaginatively put yourself in someone else’s position you are more likely to build empathy with them. Similarly if you allow yourself to feel like you are ‘gliding’, ‘flying’, or ‘dancing’ down a suburban street you open up all sorts of possibilities within yourself. Am I talking metaphorically? Not entirely. Fundraising is a magician’s hinge, the passage between worlds. Yours and other people’s.”
I think of your loyalty to Ivy, your Mum.  Your regular holidays with her and how many of us you’d introduced to her.  Talking with Nealy on Tuesday, she was concerned for Ivy and said that after she’d had dinner with you both, Ivy had knitted her some gloves to wear while she was out and about doing door-knocking for Karuna.  I guess your loyalty to your roots, your family – and to the boy you once were – is another very lovable thing about you.  We were talking last night about your love of trucks, which continued unabated from childhood.

Then, late on Tuesday night, I was writing and I suddenly though of Kim Stafford (William Stafford’s son) and Robert Bly and how you’d want them to know that you were sick.  Your friendships with both of them were very important to you, I think – and you were proud of those connections too.  I found their email addresses on the internet and wrote to them.  Last night, Kim Stafford replied:

“I’m very sorry to hear this news, but thank you for letting me know.  If our Manjusvara wakes, please give him my love.  He has brought much good into the world, and that work will continue to spread like rain.”

Last night I replied, telling Kim of Manjusvara’s death, and he wrote back:

Dear Satyalila,
Thank you, for reaching out to tell me this news.
I wish I could be with you all to celebrate this life.
His work is not finished, though he has stepped away.
Other hands to the tiller now, of his fair craft.
If he taught us anything, it’s time to show we were good students
by listening to one another.

Love to all,
Kim Stafford

Manjusvara Is Here When the Weather Turns

When the rain comes we will remember how his words
each took a careful step from a high place to just here
for the quick light of morning that lifted his writing hand
and then set down the sign for peace and spirit rest.
When we gather words to make psalms we will remember
how he held open his hands, and words came together
into books there, the affection of one right thought for another
on the pages he was wise enough to love as if they were faces.
And other faces opened those pages, and found what he
showed us how to be kin to–the pointvierge of first dawn,
utterly small glimmer, earlier than knowing, the nick of feel
at the back of the mind where his lamp went dark
from too much love. When the weather turns, we
will think of our friend, who brought lumination
to the darkest days, taught us to crawl by weatherlight
toward what waits beyond the door, and would say, were he
here among us, Let this hour not be dark in spite of all.

There’s more to write (there always is) but for now I’ll leave my reflections there and hopefully pick them up another day.  Go well, my friend.

PS Many thanks to Alex at Cafe Oophaga for tea, sympathy and the use of broadband.  It’s a great little cafe. xx

I sent the following text to Sangha friends in my phone address book:

“Dear Friends, this is a bit mad, but I’m having a day of playing creatively with the struggle of life and had the idea of texting all the Sangha friends in my phone to see what yr current favourite pith Dharma teaching is? I think mine is “I do not have, I do not understand, I do not know.” Love, Satyalila

And they replied:

“’How can the precepts of the Buddha ever deceive?’ (Life and Lib) and ‘The most important thing for a spiritual practitioner is to guard the sources of inspiration.’ (Dhammarati)
From V in London (7.35 am)

“Today I am struggling to keep metta at the heart of my relationship with my daughter.”
From S in Bristol (7.41 am)

“Blimey, bit random for 7.30 in the morning; good for you. Mine is ‘holding to nothing whatever.’”
From T in Bristol (7.45 am)

“Ditto! But also “Ascend with the conduct Descent with the view.” Thank you for making me smile. Metta.”
From P in Bristol (7.47 am)

“Dearest Satyalila thank you for your question. How about this. ‘My barn having burned to the ground I can now see the moon.’ This hits the spot this morning. Xxx”

From V in Cambridge (7.51 am)

“I love Stephen Batchelor’s teaching 2 live life as question using the Korean zen koan or phrase ‘what is this?’ xx
From S in Bristol (7.53 am)

“Buddha is a shitty stick” – Ummon.
From S in Somerset (7.58 am)

“I’ve been reflecting on the nature of mind and that the true nature of mind & reality are the same. x “
From C in Bristol (8.08 am)

“Mine’s ‘with mindfulness strive on!’
From P in Bristol (8.10 am)

“Animosity does not still animosity, only by loving-kindness are the seeds of hatred eradicated. This law is ancient and eternal. Love”
From J in Bristol (8.14 am)

“Hiya. All the best with that. I’m on move to Newcastle today! Exciting and nervous. Not sure what my fav pith teaching is right now but where would be b without friendship. X “
From S in transit (10.17 am)

“’Call forth as much as you can of love of respect and of faith.’ Thanks for giving me the opportunity to think this.”
From V in London (10.18 am)

“Dhammasena says ‘The holy life is not practiced to get out of difficulties in controversy nor that one be known as such and such by others. It is practiced for the controlling of body and speech, the cleansing of corruptions; the detachment from and the cessation of craving.’ Anguttara Nikaya. Phew.”

From V in London (10.18 am)

“In the seen, only the seen.”
From K in Bristol (10.18 am)

“’Even monkeys fall out of trees’ – a Japanese proverb.”

From S in Wales (10.18 am)

“It is the thought that thinks, there is no thinker behind the thought. Love..”

From M in Bristol (10.19 am)

“Only love dispels hatred. X”
From S in Bristol (10.20 am)

“Not sure I have a pith teaching – yours comes close 2 part of it, another might be ‘all beings are from very beginning Buddhas!’”
From D in Croydon (10.21 am)

“Three images: wheel, spiral, Buddha. Hope that helps,”

From J in Bristol (10.22 am)

“Hatred does not cease through hatred, hatred ceases through love. This law is eternal.  “
From P in Bristol (10.22 am)

“Mine is ‘I am free when I am within myself’ – not strictly Dharma, it’s Hegel but so relevant to being mindful.”
From C in Bristol (10.22 am)

“No, that’s not mad, should happen more often! Erm, it’s ‘Poor Tu Fu, must be the poetry…’ X “
From R in Scotland (10.22 am)

“Whatever grounds there are for making merit… All these do not equal a sixteenth part of the liberation of mind that is loving kindness.X”

From K in Bristol (10.23 am)

“Naturally mine is, ‘In the seen, only the seen. Etc’ “

From B in Spain (10.23 am)

“Hello Satyalila. ‘Don’t live in the past or long for the future. What’s past is gone and the future’s not here. Look into just this truth of what is dependently arisen. Knowing it practice it steadfast unshaken.’ Love “

From D in Cambridge (10.24 am)

“If Dharma means – The Way to Liberation. Here’s something Larry said @ Dhanakosa: ‘Enlightenment is not perfection – many calls to adventure, none are perfect!’ X “
From M in Bristol (10.24 am)

“Hi Satyalila, bit difficult to choose but I think it may be something to do with renunciation…. Maybe the other key teaching for me is from Pema Chodron that where the most painful bits are is where the Bodhicitta lies too, yep, that’s the one, bit relevant right now as it always is….”
From L in the French Alps (10.24 am)

“’All is aflame’ xxx”
From L in Bristol (10.25 am)

“I appreciate the spontaneity! One comes to mind ‘Everything’s going for refuge’ xx”

From R in Bristol (10.30 am)

“’Good though passive forbearance may be, the patience we are looking to develop is not a stolid indifference but a dynamic force, powered by loving kindness.’ Vessantara”
From K in Newcastle (10.47 am)

“I keep in mind 2 favourite poems that might not be strictly dharmic. ‘The human body at peace with itself is more precious than the rarest gem, it is yours this one time only’ and Rumi’s Guest House ‘greet them all at the door laughing’ about one’s moods. And I loved a talk given by Ram Dass where he spoke of how awareness helps you to clean up your act.”
From J in Bristol (11.15 am)

“Letting go… all is impermanent.”
From M in Bristol (11.16 am)

“’Form is only emptiness, emptiness only form.’x”
From D in Saltford (11.24 am)

“How do we know what we do is the Dharma? Because is always has the same taste: Freedom.”
From A in Leicester (11.25 am)

“Mine is ‘Don’t try to fix Samsara’ ”

From S in Bristol (11.33 am)

“Hi Hun, Sounds interesting. I have two at the moment my current practices. ‘I’m okay I just need to deal with what comes up’ and ‘Can I relax around this, whatever this is at the time!’ love…”
From I in Devon (11.38 am)

“That’s a lovely thing to do, Satyalila. I am currently trying more to be a ‘being’ rather than my habitual kind of ‘doing’ kind of person. Go well, and with joy.”

From K in Bristol (11.45 am)

“When I think about communicating the Dharma the four right efforts always come to mind.”

From R in Bristol (11.45 am)

“Hi Lovely x Favourite Dharma thing at moment is Bhante saying we need to find middle way between individualism and authoritarianism. I see this can be applied to current stuff around his recent letter.x”
From V on train from Clacton (11.54 am)

“Awakening is not far away, it is nearer than near.”

From K in Bristol (12.46 pm)

“Blue sky.”

From P in Bristol (2.01 pm)

“Nothing is certain.”
From S in Bristol (2.04 pm)

“Hmm – tricky – quite into Bhante’s ‘the activity of emptiness is compassion’ at the mo…’”
From D in Somerset (2.14 pm)

“’Those who do not live in the single Way fail in both activity and passivity.’ Xx”
From K in Penzance (3.19 pm)

“Hi me dear! I tink mine would be: ‘let present experience be your teabag.’ Sorry. I meant teacher. (If that doesn’t sound too pompous.). Much love…”

From A in Bristol (5.19 pm)

“Something I just came across, from private preceptors retreat: ‘great need for dialogue in conflict situations… Take the initiative and initiate without polarizing.’”

From A in Bristol (5.33 pm)

“By living in company with the spiritually immature one grieves for a long time.”

From J in Bristol (5.45 pm)

“Ooh you got me thinking… on the training reading about embodiment…..’look, feel, let life live through you.’ Hokusai.”
From A in Bristol, 2 July

“Hi Satyalila. Thank you for adding some Dharma magic to my morning! I’ve been thinking what teaching appeals to me at the moment – probably something like seeing my difficulties as my practice. Difficult people as precious jewels!”

From B in Bristol, 2 July

“Hello u. I have absolutely no idea BUT your one grabbed me so if you don’t mind I’ll hang on to the tail of that one for a while.”
From P in Bristol, 2 July

“Hi Satyalila. Lovely idea and a nice text to start me day this morning  Hope you got some interesting and inspiring replies. No exactly a specific teaching but just the act of noticing the thoughts that lead me to disconnection from people and the practice of letting them go is a strong and inspiring practice for me at the mo.”

From S in Bristol, 2 July

“I notice that I often don’t want to be with my experience. So I’ve been dropping in the question ‘Do I want to be here?’ every now and then. (Interesting to be with resistance and also discover potential for contentment in every moment even uncomfortable ones).”
From P in Sussex, 3 July

“ Fav pith teaching from Canto 37(?) {103?} of L & L of P, probably misquoted ‘Again and yet again lay bare that which gets in the way of meditation.’

From K in Bristol, 3 July

“Hello, you! ‘Abandon all hope of fruition.’ Lojong. Happy Dharma Day… and Bristol Festival.”
From S in Norwich, 3 July

“’The firm earth patiently bearing the weight of both good and bad..’ But my most helpful is yours!”
From N in Bristol, 3 July

“’There is in fact only one need of one’s own that has to be fulfilled before one can preoccupy oneself effectively with the needs of others, and it is not a physical or material need, but simply a matter of emotional positivity and security. We need to appreciate our own worth and feel that it is appreciated by others, to love ourselves and feel that we are loved by others.’ This is the Bhante quote for you if you want to add it to your website, which if I may say is great, having all those quotes on it. Well done!”
From S in Bristol, 6 July

“Virtue and kindness may be unfashionable, practice them anyway. The path to enlightenment may be far and difficult, start walking towards it anyway. Human beings are selfish and self-centred, love them anyway. People are often ungrateful, help them anyway. Society may be bigoted and ignorant, educate them anyway.”

From S in Bristol, 6 July

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
Things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen: people get hurt
Or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

William Stafford.

Even before I knew there was such a thing as an Urban Retreat, I wanted to do one. I wanted to live that way. To live, being in touch with the real thread of my life…. The golden thread that I found when I first glimpsed the Dharma over 25 years ago now and which I want to follow for the rest of my life, no matter what.

This is “life with full attention”… a way of living that is really, truly alive, aware, kind.

{This was why I spent six years working in a Wholefood Shop by a flyover in Croydon, but that – as they say – is another story…….}

The Urban Retreat is about Following the thread…

It’s not easy to follow this thread – a thread that we’ve all come into contact with, whether we’re aware of it or not… but it’s not difficult either. We simple have to practise mindfulness, to come back again and again to what is important and to re-establish a heart connection with that again and again. And our Urban Retreat is about exactly that – about saying “right, I’m going to take this week of my ordinary life and turn it into a retreat”… in a way it’s still ordinary, but in another way it’s extra-ordinary… and we could live like that all the time, if we chose, but it takes quite a bit of practice to do that… so it’s good to begin with a week, in company with other people here and across the world and just see what happens, if you really give yourself to your practice during this week. To really explore and practice mindfulness and see what happens

It could be a turning point in your life…

I was looking at the website of the other Centres who‘re running Urban Retreats the other night, and one of them was the Sheffield Buddhist Centre, which is where the idea of Urban Retreat in our movement first started. I was struck by the fact that they said…

“This is for some a turning point in their lives. You decide what you want to do to make the coming week a focus for practice while going about your usual routine. Particularly for those who find it difficult to get away on retreat, and who want to make their everyday life a crucible for change.”

I loved that. I love the idea that we can choose to make our everyday lives the context for the most extraordinary unfolding of our potential… if only we set up the conditions and stick with our intentions…

We connect with the “thread” when we glimpse the Dharma…

So, going back to the “thread” image… When I say “we’ve all come into contact with this thread”, what I mean is that we’ve had a glimpse of the Dharma which has affected not just our minds but our hearts as well and which has led us to some kind of action, to some kind of following…which has led us to do something – even if the something is simply chosing to come along to the Buddhist Centre for the first time and then to come back – like today, when we could have been shopping or mowing the lawn or tidying up our sock drawer….
There are many ways of approaching and describing mindfulness and, as this talk is short, I’m just going to draw out two which are my favourites this morning:

The first is to do with aesthetic appreciation

The second is to do with continuity of purpose.

There are posh Buddhist words for both these two and I like that. I like the fact that there is a root in the Buddhist tradition to which my threads of inspiration and practice connect.

Aesthetic Appreciation – seeing the “golden-ness of the thread”

Aesthetic appreciation is something we can practice – noticing things and becoming aware of their intrinsic beauty… There is a Sanskrit word, – vidya – which is sometimes translated as wisdom which has what I think of as a richer, more helpful translation, which is aesthetic appreciative understanding…. And the reason why this is relevant to us starting our Urban Retreat today is that aesthetic appreciation is something which is available right here, right now to us at ANY point… we simply need to remember that. Look around at any moment and you can find something to appreciate… it might be the way the sunlight comes through the window, and falls on the shrine at a particular time of day, it could be appreciating the sensation of washing your hands with soap in warm water, it could be the sudden sound of a blackbird. A few months ago I came out of my flat after meditating one morning and I was almost transfixed by the beauty of a pile of rusty old scaffolding on a truck outside our side gate…. All really ordinary things… things that are there around us all the time, tho’ we often don’t notice them. And to some extent we’ve probably all realised that these moments of aesthetic appreciation happen more often when we’ve been meditating – and especially if we’ve been meditating on retreat…. The dandelions are brighter after a few days on retreat… I’m sure you can bring to mind a moment when you suddenly really saw and appreciated the beauty of something utterly ordinary.

The thread of aesthetic appreciation can lead to wisdom…

And it’s very important not to underestimate the importance of these little moments of aesthetic appreciation which are mindfulness.. They are a tiny blossoming of awareness, they are the end of the golden thread which leads to wisdom, to aesthetic appreciative understanding of the world…. The poet, William Stafford wrote about this in relation to the art of writing… and what he said is very relevant to the practice of mindfulness. “He believed that whenever you set a detail down in language, it became the end of a thread… and every detail – the sound of the lawn mower, the memory of your father’s hands, a crack you once heard in lake ice, the jogger hurtling herself past your window – will lead to amazing riches.” [the poet Robert Bly, talking about Stafford and the golden thread]

The origin of Stafford’s thread image is back with the English poet, William Blake, who wrote the famous lines

I give you the end of a golden string,
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate
Built in Jerusalem’s wall.

Now I know that talk of Heaven and Jerusalem makes it all sound very Christian and might put some people off, but the image of the golden thread also works brilliantly as a way of understanding how mindfulness can lead us to wisdom.

So I’ve talked about the importance of mindfulness in terms of aesthetic appreciation and how it’s something that comes from the utterly ordinary fabric of our every day existence. I suppose, to extend the image, I’m talking about us catching a glimpse of the glimmer of gold and being drawn towards it, being drawn into being present for that moment when we really see and appreciate the rusty scaffolding in the truck….

Continuity of Purpose – the “thread-ness of the thread”

The second aspect of mindfulness which I wanted to talk about is what I described as “continuity of purpose” or recollection. You could see this is as the “thread-ness” of the thread… there’s the gold-ness of the thread and then there’s the thread-ness… the fact that it leads somewhere, if you choose to follow it.

Bhante Sangharakshita talks about “continuity of purpose” in his book on the Noble Eightfold Path and the posh Sanskrit word for this aspect of mindfulness is samprajanya.. which does literally translate as “mindfulness of purpose” (and there’s another word for it, which is smrti or “recollection“). And I love this passage where he describes the opposite of samprajanya: [Vision and Transformation, p 133]

“Suppose, then, that you are writing a letter, an urgent letter that is imperative should go off by the next post. But as so often happens in modern life the telephone rings, and it is some friends of yours wanting a little chat. Before you know where you are you are involved in quite a lengthy conversation. You go on chatting maybe for half an our, and eventually, the conversation completed, you put down the phone. You have talked about so many things with your friend that you have quite forgotten about the letter, and you have talked for such a long while that you suddenly feel quite thirsty. So you wander into the kitchen and put the kettle on for a cup o tea. Waiting for the kettle to boil you hear a pleasant sound coming through the wall from next door, and realizing it is the radio you think you might as well listen to it. You therefore nip into the next room, switch on the radio, and start listening to the tune. F After that tune is finished there comes another, and you listen to that too. In this way more time passes, and of course you’ve forgotten all about your boiling kettle. Whilst you are in the midst of this daze, or trance-like state, there is a knock at the door. A friend has called to see you. Since you are glad to see him you make him welcome. The two of you sit down together for a chat, and in due course you offer him a cup of tea. You go into the kitchen and find it full of steam. Then you remember that you had put the kettle on some time ago, and that makes you remember your letter. But now it is too late. You have missed the post.”

Bhante says that he uses this example of un-mindfulness because we’re more familiar with un-mindfulness than we are with mindfulness… and it’s easy to see the threads that didn’t get followed in this example! This week is the opportunity to practise the opposite….

In his book “Know Your Mind” Bhante writes: “As a spiritual practice, recollection may be said to be about remembering what is really important, what life is really about and what one is really supposed to be doing. ‘Why am I here? What I am I doing this for?’ Recollection is often about waking up to the fact that one has strayed away from where one really wants to be.” (p108)

For myself, I know that I am happiest, most aware, most able to be present and to give of my best when I’m in touch with what’s most important to me, in terms of overall purpose, and at the same time when I‘m feeling very present, very “in my body“, aware of myself. There’s an almost physical sensation of energy coming together at such times.

Being Really Alive

There’s a great talk on the Urban Retreat website by Maitreyabandhu from the London Buddhist Centre – he was one of my very first teachers when I first got involved in 1993. His talk is called “Life with Full Attention” and he’s also written a book – we’ve got part of it as a free hand out for this retreat. I’d really recommend this talk, it’s only about half and hour and he manages to say a lot in it, in a very engaging way which I think is both deep and witty.

The main point he makes at the beginning is that mindfulness is about LIVING, it’s about being REALLY ALIVE, alive in your experience, not letting it all just drift past and then you’re dead. He says the whole of Buddhism is about moving from being less alive to being more alive, which I really loved. I loved it because it spoke to me of those moments we’ve all had, which are there all the time if we can only remember to set up the conditions to become aware of them – to meditate, to slow down a bit, to remember to breathe, to become aware of our bodies, to let go of the millions of things which distract us from being present….

I’m always quoting this Mary Oliver poem, which I know is a favourite of Jvalamalini’s too, and I’m not going to to resist the opportunity to quote it again here (because, after all “non-repetition is the canker of the spiritual life”!)

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver

Conclusion

And that brings me right back to why I feel so passionately about things like being on this Urban Retreat, because we can do it, right here, right now. We can help ourselves and each other in very do-able, practical ways to become more and more alive and aware.

We’ve got a whole week.

We’ve got a plan.

We’ve got each other

We’ve got a whole host of resources

All we need to do is to begin!

We’re going to have a 20-minute teabreak next, so you can make a start right there are and then… become aware of your body as you get up and moving about, noticing your breathing. When you get your tea, see if you can really notice drinking it and enjoy it….

Then we’ll gather in the reception room for a practical workshop to start to identify what we can actually do to start to live “Life with full attention” – we can look at what prevents us being mindful, as well as what helps and hopefully, by the end of it, you’ll start to have to some ideas for specific things you might undertake to do (or NOT to do!) during the next week on retreat together…..

So I’m starting by cheating! This talk is about Chapter 8 of the Dhammapada (verses 100 – 115) – “The Thousands”, but the verse I’ve chosen as the title of my talk is actually from Chapter 12 (“The Self”). It’s the last verse of that Chapter and I’ve been very taken with it all this term, since I first came across it (which was actually on a postcard pinned to a notice-board in the studio of an artist friend of mine). It feels like it sums part of the “why” I like the “Thousands”… but I’m not going to spell that out now, I’ll just leave it hanging as a question which will hopefully be answered by the time we get to the end.

I knew, as soon as we started to talk about having the Dhammapada as the theme for this term that this was the Chapter I’d like to explore. It’s always been my favourite. When I worked in the Wholefood Shop in Croydon, each morning we’d have a morning meeting, salute the shrine, read some Dharma… I remember often hearing this verse and every time feeling inspired by it.

Why I like it

So why do I like it.

First of all, I like it because it gives me hope. I have spent a lot of the last 15 years that I’ve been practising fretting about all the time I waste, how I’m not “doing enough” and wishing to be more wholeheartedly engaged. Why I feel that way says a lot about my conditioning and habits… and I won’t go into that now!

What this chapter says to me, to put it very simply, is “don’t focus on/fret about what you haven’t done, don’t spend time dwelling on time you’ve wasted… focus and make the most of the times when you are engaged, inspired, able to be wholehearted in your practice.”

Years before I became a Buddhist I had quite a fascination with time management and how our attitudes towards our time (and our energy!) are profoundly affected by how we think about them. Back in about 1990 I was reading a book on time management by John Adair and I came across the “Pareto Principle”. Simply put, it states that we get 80% of our “results” from 20% of our effort… It was something studied in the workplace, looking, for example, at teams of Sales People – 20% of them would often bring in about 80% of the business. And intuitively I could sense that this was probably also true in terms of my own time and energy – that actually a lot of what I’d achieved (eg in studying for my degree) was probably done in about 20% of my time! In the past I’d always fretted about the 80% of time I’d “wasted”, but coming across the Pareto Principle (and later, the Dhammapada’s “Thousands”) I began to see that I could take a different attitude to that.

At this point I should mention that I’m a poet and not a mathematician, so it bothers me not one jot that the Pareto Principle compares 80% with 20% whilst the Dhammapada compares “one day” with “a thousand years”…. what interests me is the principle underneath – never mind about the “other” 80% of your time or the 99 years and 364 days… “Better” is the “single day” that “brings peace” – focus on that. (I’ll unpack the meaning of “better” in a bit, by the way.)

Meanwhile, there are two more reasons (both poetic) why I like the “thousands” – when I was reflecting on and reading the verse at the weekend I realise that it reads a bit like a “list poem” – a fairly well-known form of modern poetry which Ananda and Manjusvara teach sometimes on their Wolf at the Door writing workshops (indeed, Ananda has a whole book about list poems)…. I’ve always liked lists (it’s one of the reasons I’m a Buddhist – that and tea-drinking…) and reflecting on why that might be I realised that, at least in part, it’s to do with the way that a list sounds quite like an incantation or almost a spell. There’s something slightly mesmerising about the repetition… a bit like in music, Bach, say, when you get a gorgeous cycle of notes that repeats harmonically, but within that one bit changes and it evolves… well, a list poem is like that. The “thousands” chapter is like that.

Mentioning the words “incantation and spell” makes me think of magic, I also wanted to say something about the (slightly) magical process of writing this talk. I’ve been mulling over in my mind all term, but it’s only been this last weekend that I’ve sat down to look at it systematically…and when I did, it was a bit like pulling a rabbit out of a hat…. As I say, I’ve always loved and been fascinated by this chapter in a slightly woolly-poetic-intuitive way, without really ever delving very deeply or systematically into it. When I did start to look more fully at these 15 short verses, lo! I found that hidden in it (well, not that hidden, but I really hadn’t been looking that hard!) is the whole of the Noble Eightfold Path AND the Threefold Way!

So, I’ve begun by telling you why I like the thousands. Why my heart engages with it….what fascinates me about it. I like it, I enjoy it… now I’ll say a bit about how I’ve gone on to engage with it for the purpose of writing this talk and to tell you about the rabbit I found inside, as well as the hat…..

How I’ve approached this talk

One of the things Bhante has always been very “hot” on is our use of language. As you know, he’s made his own translation of the Dhammapada, the better to bring out the meaning of the words in the light of his own understanding of the Dharma. In many, many of his talks he takes time to clarify exactly what is meant by a particular word – and it’s not just semantics. If “our lives are the creation of our minds” the words we pick up can be like the tools we shape them with… and it’s good to be clear exactly what tools we’re using and how, and not use them indiscriminately.

So, the word that’s repeated again and again in this Chapter is “better”… I asked my friend, Dhivan (who’s a Pali scholar) what the actual word is that’s translated as “better” and what it really means. He said:

“the word translated ‘better’ in the thousands chapter in the Dhammapda is ‘seyya”, meaning “better” or “good” or “happiness”. So in Pali, the verses are slightly more powerful than when translated into English because the word has a wider range. For instance, taking verse 100 (the first one) it literally means,

So not only is one meaningful word better than a thousand meaningless words, but it is excellent and good in itself. There is the same positive ambiguity in the word “seyyo” in many of the verses….”

Next I decided to look at a number of different translations in order to get a “poet’s eye view” of what was being said in each of the verses… because “factual truth” is not everything in the spiritual life… poetic truth is also important.

I looked at:

Juan Mascaro- – the Penguin translation and the one I am most familiar with. Interestingly it’s a translation from Pali into English by a Spanish man….

then I looked at Bhante’s translation (and was interested to notice that he introduces a fair few extra words (in square brackets) to make clear the context in which the Buddha was speaking these verses, ie in the context of Hindu, Vedic culture… that the Dhamma at the time is being spoken into a culture where vedic verses and practises are the familiar norm.

I also looked at Buddharakkhita’s (fairly literal translation) published by the Maha Bodhi Society in Bangalora – I like this version as it has a parallel pali text on the left-hand page, so you can get an idea of what the actual original pali word was, which has helped in getting a sense of the overall structure of this chapter.

then I looked at the translation in the Shambala pocket classics edition by Thomas Byrom (as recommended by Jvalamalini) – I like the translation for its poetic quality (and there’s a delightful introduction by Ram Dass evoking how it would be to hear the Dhammapada if you’d been walking across India for weeks trying to track down the Buddha before you heard it….). There are some bits where this translation is loose to the point of being a bit-misleading, but there’s a lot that’s good about it – not least the verse I chose as the title for this talk!

and finally I looked at a “rendering” of the Dhammapada by Ajahn Munindo, a friend of Dhivan’s who’s a monk at the Aruna Ratnagiri Monastery in Northumberland. This is not a literal translation, but a “Dhammapada for reflection” that “aims to communicate the living spirit of the text, unencumbered by rigid adherence to formal exactness”. In the introduction to this edition, Dhivan writes:

“The book that you hold in your hands is a sparkling basket of light, full of illumination of the human situation”

(My only reason for quoting this is gratuitous pleasure… I think it’s such a fantastic image that I wanted to share it – and also, it’s not always how we see the Dhammapada…!)

So I looked at these five translations (and the key pali words) and compared what they had to say about each verse and then, inspired by Sagaravajra’s talk a few weeks ago, I began to look at the structure of the Chapter to see what, if anything, that might reveal. This wasn’t something I’d probably have thought of doing, but I was very taken with the way that he saw a whole “mandala” structure in the Chapter 9 (Evil) (I think it was that Chapter!).

The Structure and the Teachings Contained in the Chapter

What became fascinatingly clear, when I started to look more closely into how this Chapter was put together, is what a huge amount of Dharma there is packed into it! Now that might sound daft… but let’s go through and look at it systematically, a bit at a time:

100 Better than a thousand meaningless words collected together (in the Vedic oral tradition) is a single meaningful word on hearing which one becomes tranquil.
101 Better than a thousand meaningless verses collected together (in the Vedic oral tradition) is one (meaningful) line of verse on hearing which one becomes tranquil.
102 Though one should recite a hundred (Vedic) verses, (verses) without meaining, better is one line (or: a single word) of Dhamma on hearing which one becomes tranquil.

It seems to me that these verses relate to the experience of “Perfect Vision” (in terms of the Noble Eightfold Path) or, we could say, to the “Fourth Sight” (the sight of the holy man) in the Four Noble Truths. Either way, we can see them as relating to a moment of true contact with the Dharma – and I imagine that many if not all of us can remember the significance of the moment in our lives at which we really first heard the Dharma, the point where some of it really “went it”… and that that single moment stands out amidst the thousands of other moments which surrounded it….

The next three verses bring in the “battle” imagery and are, I think, about helping us to establish what the “real battleground” of the spiritual life is:

103 Though one should conquer in battle thousands upon thousands of men, yet he who conquers himself is (truly) the greatest in battle.
104 It is indeed better to conquer oneself than to conquer other people. Of a man who has subdued himself, (and) who lives (self-)controlled,
105 neither a god nor a celestial musician (gandhabba), nor Mara together with Brahma, can undo the victory – the victory of a person who is (subdued and controlled) like that.

Now. I’m going to take us on a bit of a diversion at this point to explore what the point is that’s really being made here. I think it links straight back to the very first verse of the Dhammapada – “our life is the creation of our mind” (v1, Mascaro translation). Just as we can get distracted from engaging with our spiritual practice by fretting about all the time we’ve already wasted, we can also get distracted by blaming other people (or engaging in conflict with them)… by feeling that “if only we can get so-and-so to do or be some different way, then we’ll be able to get on with our practice”. This is a red herring. We need to name and recognise that we are our own biggest distractions in the spiritual life.

There’s a wonderful essay by the poet Mary Oliver called “Of Power and Time” and in it, she’s explicitly talking about the process of writing, but she makes the point that what she’s saying applies to “creative work” of any kind – and that includes spiritual practice. She’s talking about how easy it is to get distracted from the task in hand, and she says:

“But just as often, if not more often, the interruption comes not from another but from the self itself, or some other self within the self, that whistles and pounds upon the door panels and tosses itself, splashing, into the pond of meditation. And what does it have to say? That you must phone the dentist, that you are out of mustard, that your uncle Stanley’s birthday is two weeks hence. You react, of course. Then you return to your work, only to find that the imps of idea have fled back into the mist.

It is this internal force – this intimate interrupter – whose tracks I would follow. ” (Blue Pastures, p 1)

As I say, she’s talking specifically about the process of writing and distracting herself from writing, but it’s easy to see how this applies, for instance, to sitting on the meditation (and being able to stay there are not get distracted and get up and do something “more important”).

At the end of the essay, she evokes that wonderful feeling, when one has broken free of the gravitational pull of teeth, mustard and Uncle Stanley’s birthday….

“On any morning or afternoon, serious interruptions to work, therefore, are never the inopportune, cheerful, even loving interruptions which come to us from another. Serious interruptions come from the watchful eye we cast upon ourselves. There is the blow that knocks the arrow from its mark! There is the drag we throw over our own intentions. There is the interruption to be feared.

It is six A.M., and I am working. I am absent-minded, reckless, heedless of social obligations, etc. It is as it must be. The tire goes flat, the tooth falls out, there will be hundred meals without mustard. The poem gets written. I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame. Neither do I have guilt. My responsibility is not to the ordinary, or the timely. It does not include mustard, or teeth. It does not extend to the lost button, or the beans in the pot. My loyalty is to the inner vision, whenever and howsoever it may arrive. If I have a meeting with you at three o’clock, rejoice if I am late. Rejoice even more if I do not arrive at all.” (Blue Pastures, p7).

I hope this conveys something of the spirit that I feel connects the “battle” verses of the Dhammapada and the work of Mary Oliver… There’s a quote from Thoreau – a suitably battle-ish quote – where he talks about following the beat of “a different drum”. I think these two first “chunks” of the “Thousands” Chapter are in the same territory… they talk about hearing the Dharma and then “conquering” oneself sufficiently to be able to follow the “beat” of that drum, not getting distracted by hearing (or reciting) irrelevant verses or unnecessary battles with other people….

The next “chunk” of verses relate to reverence and worship and the importance of having the right object of devotion – and again, there is reference to the Hindu/Vedic traditions from which the Buddha was endeavouring to help his followers to be free.

106 If month after month for a hundred years one should offer sacrifices by the thousand, and if for a single moment one should venerate a (spiritually) developed person, better is that (act of) veneration than the hundred years (of sacrifices).
107 Though one should tend the sacred fire in the forest for a hundred years, yet if he venerates a (spiritually) developed person even for a moment, better is that (act of) veneration than the hundred years (spent tending the sacred fire).
108 Whatever oblations and sacrifices one might offer here on earth in the course of the whole (Vedic) religious year, seeking to gain merit thereby, all that is not a quarter (as meritorious) as paying respect to those who live uprightly, which is (indeed) excellent.
109 For him who is of a reverential disposition, four things constantly increase: life, beauty, happiness, and strength.

Reflecting on this, I feel the verses are about positive emotion – the second limb of the Noble Eightfold Path. It’s making a distinction between the common (Vedic) practices at the time of making offerings with the motivation of gaining merit and the much more positive consequences of veneration, paying respect and having a reverential disposition to “those who live uprightly” (ie practice the Dharma) simply because they are “worthy of respect”. The list of the “benefits” which result from such other-regarding reverence at the end reminds of that list of benefits which result from practising the “metta bhavana” – another form of cultivating positive emotion. We can see this verse as reminding us that worship and reverence are practices whose aim is to enable us to develop positive emotion, to change ourselves rather than as some semi-superstitious rite carried out in the hope of “gaining merit”.

In verses 110 and 111 we have the whole of the 3- fold path(!)…

110 Though one should live a hundred years unethical and unintegrated (asamahita), better is one single day lived ethically [that’s ETHICS!] and absorbed (in higher meditative states). [that’s MEDITATION]
111 Though one should live a hundred years of evil understanding and unintegrated, better is one single day lived possessed of wisdom and absorbed (in higher meditative states). [that’s WISDOM]

So in verse 110 with its mention of ethics, we cover the 3rd to the 5th stages of the Noble Eightfold Path – perfect speech, perfect action and perfect livelihood. I won’t go into this in more detail here, now, but move on to verse

112 Better than a hundred years lived lazily and with inferior energy is one single day lived with energy aroused and fortified.

And so this verse is about cultivating energy or virya which connects with Perfect Effort – the 6th limb (or stage) of the Noble Eightfold path. As I said earlier, I find this chapter inspiring when I’m getting despondent about wasted time and energy and so I can take it quite literally.. that OK, I might have wasted an awful lot of days “living lazily and with inferior energy”, but hey, I’ve (finally) noticed and now I can give my full attention and energy to making the most of the next day or bit of time – and who knows what good might result from that. (I can’t resist repeating here – as I so often do – my favourite quote from Bhante’s teacher Dhardo Rimpoche – “If you work hard, in the right way, the effect will spread like light.” I guess that’s kind of how I feel about the “seizing the moment” feel that this verse gives me…OK, I’ve wasted time, but I’ve still got this very next moment and who knows what might result from this if I can only apply myself “with energy aroused and fortified”….)

The final three verses cover the last two stages of the Noble Eightfold Path and the culmination of the spiritual life:

113 Better than a hundred years lived unaware of the rise and fall (of conditioned things) is one single day lived aware of the rise and fall (of conditioned things).

So the focus of this verse is awareness or recollection, often translated as ‘mindfulness’. The fore-going stages or limbs of the path have been about establishing a basis of perfect vision, emotion, ethics and energy), which can then enable us to turn our minds (really to turn our minds) to conditionality, to pratitya-samutpada, the central teaching of the Buddha – that all things arise in dependence on conditions and, in the absence of those conditions, cease. I think it’s worth re-stating here an important point which Bhante makes about the Noble Eightfold Path – and that is that it isn’t a linear path. In pali it’s the arya astangika marga. “Arya” means noble, “asta” means “eight” and “anga” means limb. (“Marga” is way or path). The importance of this word “anga”, meaning limb, is that it opens up idea that actually it’s much more like growing a tree with 8 limbs, rather than plodding in a step by step way from one to the next, leaving each behind as one “progresses”. As I was writing this, I was thinking “Oh yes, and how our practice goes is that we do get little bits of each “limb” at different times…” and that made me think about how that ties in with what I see as the overarching “message” of this Chapter of the Dhammapada, which is “don’t discount small amounts of time, energy, little glimpses of the truth and little acts of kindness”. Each moment we turn our minds to the Dharma, each time we practice the ethical precepts, each time we become just that little bit more aware, we’re adding droplets of practice, tiny bits to each of the “limbs” of the Noble Eightfold path.. and it’s all cumulative. It all has an effect. None of it is ever wasted. So there’s no need to spend precious time berating ourselves for all that we don’t do or haven’t done…

Which brings us to the final two verses:

114 Better than a hundred years lived unaware of the Deathless State is one single day lived aware of the Deathless State
115 Better than a hundred years lived unaware of the Supreme Truth (dhammana uttamam) is one single day lived aware of the Supreme Truth.

The final limb of the 8-fold path is samyak-samadhi – which Bhante says is only inadequately translated by the phrase “perfect meditation”. He doesn’t offer a particular alternative, saying “As a general rule the more advanced the stage of spiritual development, the less there is to say about it.” But he does tell us that the word “samadhi” literally means the state of being firmly fixed or established. So I think we can understand these last two verses to be talking about us gradually having our awareness firmly fixed or established in the state of the deathless or supreme truth.

There’s a whole other talk about what that might be (or even a lifetime of talks!), so instead I’m going to end with a poem which is a poetic leap connecting with what, for me is the spirit of this Chapter of the Dhammapada – which in essence is to say “make the most of every moment you can (but don’t fret about the ones that get away).

Before I read it I just wanted to express my gratitude for having the opportunity to give this talk – I’ve learnt such a lot in the process. I’d like to thank Saccanama for suggesting that we study the Dhammapada this term. I’d like to thank Sagaravajra for inspiring me (with his talk – he doesn’t know he’s done it (yet)!) to dig a bit more deeply into what’s going on in this Chapter and I’d like to thank Bhante for dreaming up the Order and the Movement as a context in which I feel I can live my life out more fully than I would ever have imagined possible.

/continued over

When Death Comes

Satyalila
Bristol
23/11/08