Buddha Letter No. 2: One year on the cushion
There is something to be said for forgiveness.
Dear Friend,
So, as it gets said these days, “I did a thing.”
To be clear, that 40 minute duration above is deceptive. I only reached that in the past few months. This whole I will sit every day for one full year thing I have been doing began with just ten minutes a day of my mind screaming until the app went bonngggg.
My body still twitches and itches some as I sit. My ability to just watch that happen has improved, some. There are also times I can rest in the middle of the see-saw for a minute, or a few seconds, gently adjusting my mental hips to keep from tipping off. Until I do, again. Then, get back on, again.
Reset, begin again.
Sometimes the time is all half-crazed misery. Other times it opens into warm views laced with insight. The teachers tell me to avoid fusing my cognition with any thoughts that arise, even the pretty ones. So, in all the moments, I try to stay aware that there is just breath moving through the holes in my face, every moment, all day, every day.
It seems to help. Steadiness grows slowly, but it grows. Same goes for insight.
One of my Sufi teachers told me long ago I should hang with Tibetan Buddhists “because they think the same way” that I do. So I have, off and on, more or less, for fifteen years or so.
I now believe her comment was a subtle reference to my background in traditional, catholic/orthodox Christianity. This childhood faith offered a total worldview, albeit one that asked me to believe in a prime-moving creator god out there somewhere planning everything. A big man intervening in seemingly random ways to make things happen as they do with no explanation beyond “it’s His will.” Christians say He is ultimately responsible for everything, so do not worry or ask too many questions. God has a plan for you.
Ok.
On the other hand, the Buddha said to just keep our eyes on cause and effect, all the way forward and all the way back, all the way up and all the way down, with no beginning or end. Also, that because our most subtle mindstream has been endlessly reborn, and will be again, what happens in life is the result of our own causes. And, that this responsibility for our causes comes with power.
When I was 12, I argued over dinner with my famously catholic godfather that it makes no sense when Roman Catholics claim only the can go to heaven. It has always been hard for me to accept the Christian claim there there is, or was, precisely one and only one son of this prime-moving creator god available to serve the spiritual needs of all sentient beings scattered among the 2 Trillion galaxies which we know exist, because that creator gave us the intelligence to build telescopes.
He held his ground. I held mine.
Are we supposed to use this intelligence we are given, or not? As someone born in the 20th century, not the first, and then raised with an education including high school physics, I see … logistical problems … behind the notion that universal salvation across two trillion galaxies depends on knowing of a man born in a suburb just south of Jerusalem, on planet Earth, wherever that is. This problem leaves several core Christian dogmas looking nonsensical. Nonsense Christians say I must accept on faith alone, or be damned.
Five hundred years before Jesus of Nazareth was assassinated for speaking up against the religious and political leaders of his day, Siddhartha Gautama (“the” Buddha) was teaching people while also telling them to question everything he said, and not believe a word of it unless and until it made sense. The Dalai Lama has said many times that if science provides Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism must change, not science. So, I respect Buddhists for asking questions like: “yes, it appears the universe began with a big bang; but, what happened just before that bang? What caused that effect?”
The physicists have theories, but no answer, at least not yet, and likely never. Many of them, including a winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, say that a “big bounce” happening repeatedly between endlessly recurring bangs is as likely to be true as any other theory. Or, perhaps a variety of bangs among adjacent but vast trans-galactic clusters, which could account for visible acceleration in our own. Either of which theory in turn means that ongoing cause and effect, of some form or another, across beginningless and endless time, is a scientifically reasonable theory.
Beginningless and endless cause and effect, all the way up and all the way down, from galactic clusters to quantum particles, is a central tenet of Buddhist belief: the Law of Karma.
If I have to take something on pure faith, I would rather it be rooted in a scientifically sound theory. Particularly if the alternative is to believe that “the only Son of God” was born three hundred miles northeast of Cairo, and that “believing in Him” is the only way for two trillion galaxies worth of beings to be saved from eternal damnation.
The Buddhists go on to notice that all sentient beings are inherently good. We just need to see this, in ourselves, and others, and wisely act on it. Which makes more sense to me than the notion of an eternal hell run by devils who “made me do it.”
I can make my own hell, thanks. My own heaven, too. Even if it may require some good choices made across several rebirths.
One year of making myself sit until the app goes bonggg has been cheaper and more effective than any therapy I have tried. I am kinder to myself and others. I twitch less. It is easier to set down my phone and go for a walk, even if my doom-scrolling dopamine addiction still catches me at times. Beauty seems more available. Emotions feel smoother and more sanely integrated with the stories and experiences triggering them off in my body.
I will also cop to enjoying a simple feeling of win for having met a slow goal.
When we talked not long ago, I quipped a phrase to describe what works for me: “sous vide (underwater, slow-cooking)” meditation.
Years ago, I was motivated to go to the gym. Some guy had dumped me and I felt ugly. But, I did not really want to. So, the agreement I made with myself was to just show up and get into my gym clothes. I was free to immediately remove them, once they were on, and get back into my street clothes to go do something else (like browse Powell’s for yet more books, or get stoned and listen to Joy Division or Dead Can Dance, back in those days). Sometimes I did. Most times, though, I left the locker room and walked the running track a few times, sometimes faster than others. Then I might climb on the Stairmaster for a while or jump around in an aerobics class led by a guy who was easy on the eyes.
Eventually weights were lifted. Over time, my workout built up and I slowly got into the best physical shape of my life. Because I was kind to myself. Because I gave myself credit for just showing up with a vague intent for even a couple of minutes.
I gave myself all the participation trophies I needed to build momentum, so long as I kept showing up.
Our bodies are going to die, not our minds. We do not get out of here so easily as that. The subtlest part our mind continues on an endless trajectory, whether up, down, or sideways. Buddhists do not call this our soul, though, due to theological baggage attached to that term. Still, there is an esssence which continues with a momentum and direction we have a chance to adjust, if we are fortunate to be born into a body that has any freedom at all to make good choices and act on them. I can start as small as I need. I just need to be ready and willing to endure the effects I cause for myself, because time is endless. It will catch up to us, over and over, until we start again.
Knowing I can take as little as one mindful breath brings me peace. Perhaps I will take one after that, and another. Forgive, reset, and begin again.
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