2012 Mayan meditation on Death

Dhr. Seven, Amber Dorrian, Xochitl, Wisdom Quarterly (COUNTDOWN CLOCK: -8)

Mayan meditator sits cross-legged in earth-witnessing gesture (news.discovery.com)

World knows (indianetzone)

Buddhism came to America long enough ago to affect the various empires that ruled what is now Mexico and Central America -- the Maya and Aztecs, possibly the Olmecs, Toltecs, and other predecessors as well. 

"Impossible! Preposterous!" those who have not read How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America  (Rick Fields, Shambhala) will say. But those who have read it will understand that the country Guatemala may derive from the name Gautama (the Buddha's surname) + mala (meditation beads, rosary). 

 

"Maya" (Mayans) comes from the Buddha's beautiful mother, Maya. The word literally means "illusion," a nod to her illusory/unreal/too-goo-t-be-true beauty. So much of our Western culture is doubly influenced by Buddhism without most of the Western world noticing. (Scholars in the past may well have discovered this, but they buried the finding to prop up Christendom and exaggerated the East-West divide).

Buddhism entered ancient Greece, the cradle of Western civilization, before going to China. 

 

What will 12-21-12 mean? A new cycle.

Moreover, Alexander the Great created a united Indo-Greco empire that included parts of northwestern India as a Hellenistic realm (Bactria, Scythia, Sogdiana, Parthia, etc.). This occasioned a great cultural exchange, East (India and beyond) and West (now called Central Asia but once ancient Greece), planting many of the precious ideas we take as uniquely Greek contributions:

Democracy and the atomic theory, which the Buddha taught as the Monastic Order's Disciplinary Code (the parliamentary procedures regulating the Sangha) and kalapas or the theory that qualitatively different elementary particles form the basis of materiality. That is only the beginning.

 

"Do not let craving for pleasure distract you from meditation or the Path. Free yourself instead from both pleasure and pain" (H-K-D/flickr.com).

 
All of this may seem impossibly difficult to accept. But it is in line with the Buddha's claim that there are Four Imponderables, the first of which is the extent of the influence of a samma-sam-buddha (a supremely awakened teacher of liberation from all suffering). 

The Mahayana message -- having formed in India and been imported by China, which sent missionaries to the holy land to gather more of this marvelous Dharma -- took Eastern teachings attributed to "the Light of the East" out into the world.

But by this time the Dharma was already successfully being supplanted by Brahmanism (later folded into Hinduism) ideas the Buddha had troubled himself greatly to correct. 

Therefore, Mahayana Buddhism, early Christianity, and modern Hinduism have a great deal in common. It is not coincidence. They all took and blended the historical Buddha's message combining it with Vedantic Brahmanism and Mithraism (Zoroastrianism of Thus Spake Zarathustra fame).

Meditation
Okay. That's the backdrop. Now the question is, How to meditate? There is an old-timey Southern Christian saying: "Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die."

How can we enter the new without leaving behind the old? 

The New Age awaits. And we ourselves are ready to go. But, oh, the baggage! Let go, let go, let go, repeating "letting go" is not letting go. We CANNOT let go as a simple act of will. However, here is something we can do, something the Buddha recommended.

Star Trek's Spock, the West's idea of exotic Eastern "cool" (anhedonia)

 

Spock and Modernism (Age of Intuition)

It was a brilliant realization Siddhartha had under the Bodhi tree. Why not reflect on the unsavory aspects of the things we are attached to that hold us behind? All things have multiple aspects, savory and unsavory, a flipside, a hidden danger. We struggle to keep the pleasant in mind, fall into depression not being able to ignore the unpleasant. But there is a better way, even better than Spock-like dispassion. Let's look at the repulsive (asubha) with a view to letting the mind/heart shake itself free of all bonds.
  

WARNING: Foul! Not suitable for any age! Meditators only!

 
Lust, Lust, Lust

"Lust, lust,lust!"

What are we attached to? Bodies? Lust for form, beauty, sensuality? Most of us are attached to something as basic as this.
 
(A recent scientific study found that Americans like Sex, Alcohol, and other distracting pleasures best. Science can be fun if this constitutes a study. Of course, pleasant distractions are no solution).

Pleasure is fun, and we've had tons of fun, not only in this life but in countless lives before this. The pain has been enormous. At some time it gets to feeling pointless and unprofitable. Things can happen so that great suffering comes our way, we forget what we've learned, and we swirl out of control on a downward spiral. That is a danger during the good times.

(death skull/tumblr.com)

Becoming a partial "saint" (stream entry and beyond) in Buddhism is not the end of pleasure. Sakka, ruler of the devas, lives in the Sense Sphere space world enjoying a great deal of sensual pleasure. And yet, for all that, he is destined for complete freedom (nirvana) without ever being reborn below the human plane. Why? He is a stream-enterer assured of complete enlightenment within seven lives.

Reflecting on the 32 parts of the body instantly cures craving and pining for sensual lusts. (The way to bring lust back is unwise reflection on the attractive aspects of bodies, but neglect and carelessness also work very well). 

Moreover, reflecting on the inevitability of death -- or better yet contemplating the death that is happening right now and cannot be stopped or slowed down, which is the knowing-and-seeing of anicca or "radical impermanence" -- has a wonderful healing effect: 

For a moment, maybe only an instant, the mind/heart lets go!

It opts not to cling to the (partly) repulsive, the utterly futile, the insidiously painful.

Don't worry; ignorance and illusion quickly reassert themselves, and we can know something full well in the mind without being affected in the heart: We just ignore until we forget, and the veil comes over our eyes us again. So this is a very safe meditation. 

The only way to get it to work permanently is to develop neighborhood-concentration or full-absorption (jhana) first followed by insight-practice (vipassana) based on the at purifying-intensifying meditative foundation.

A beautiful death? (Zemotion.Deviantart.com/Zhangjingna.com)

Reflecting on Death
(10 Mindful Recollections, Path of Purification, VII)

(KenLeePhotography.com)

''Recollection of death, developed and frequently practiced, yields great reward, great blessing, has deathlessness (nirvana) as its goal and object. But how may such recollection be developed?

"As soon as the day declines, or as the night vanishes and the day is breaking, the meditator reflects: 'Truly, there are many possibilities for me to die: I may be bitten by a snake or stung by a scorpion or a centipede, and thereby lose my life. This would be an obstacle for me. Or I may stumble and fall to the ground, or food eaten may not agree with me; or bile, phlegm, and piercing bodily gases may become disturbed, or people or ghosts may attack me, and I may lose my life. This would be an obstacle for me.' Then one has to consider: 'Are there still to be found in me unsubdued harmful, unwholesome things which, if I should die today or tonight, might lead me to suffering?' If one understands that this is the case, one should use the utmost resolution, energy, effort, endeavor, steadfastness, diligence, attentiveness, and clear-mindedness in order to overcome these harmful, unwholesome things" (A VIII, 74). More

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World is ending: Countdown to Extinction

Xochitl, Ashley Wells; sutra translation by Yogi Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

What is meditation? It is stopping (jhana) then practicing for insight (vipassana) (M7)

 

Mayan meditating by calendar (Discovery)

The world is ending. This Mayan cycle wraps up in three weeks. And we aren't enlightened yet.

What to do, what to do?

What would a supremely wise person do? What can be done but to buckle down and commit?

WISDOM QUARTERLY: "Buddha, how long does it take to become enlightened to at least the first degree, to awaken knowledge-and-vision of the liberating Dharma?"

THE BUDDHA: As I state at the end of the "Fourfold Setting Up of Mindfulness Sutra" (DN 22), meditators, whoever is steadfast PRACTICING these four methods of mindfulness in this manner for seven years, one of two results is certainly to be expected of such a person -- full enlightenment in this very life or, if there yet be any trace of clinging remaining, the state of non-returner.

  

Wait let alone seven years, meditators, whoever practices steadfast for six years... for five years... for four years... for three years... for two years... for one year...

  

Let alone one year, meditators, whoever practices these four methods for seven months, one of two results is certainly to be expected -- full enlightenment in this very life or, if there yet be any trace of clinging remaining, the state of non-returner.

 

What is stopping? It is purification of the mind/heart by absorption. What is insight? It is the systematic contemplation of four sets of things/personal phenomena (Bumbui/flickr.com)

 

Let alone seven months, meditators! Whoever practices these four methods for six months... for five months... for four months... for three months... for two months... for one month... for half-a-month...

 

Let alone half-a-month, meditators! Whoever practices these four methods steadfast for seven days, one of two results is certainly to be expected -- full enlightenment in this very life or, if there yet be any trace of clinging remaining, the state of non-returner.

It is because of these beneficial results that I declared at the beginning [of this sutra]: Meditators this is the one sure route to purification of (hearts/minds of) beings, for the overcoming of all sorrow and lamentation, for the complete undoing of (physical) pain and (mental) suffering, for attainment of the noble paths-and-fruits, and for the realization of nirvana. That way is the steadfast practice of these four methods of mindfulness."

Thus spoke the Enlightened One.

• Maya long-count calendar "end date" confirmed

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Is "Satori" Enlightenment?

GROWING UP MARA with Mara Schaeffer, Dhr. Seven, and Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly

Q: Is satori enlightenment? 

A: I was just listening to Joseph Goldstein talk about this yesterday in his outstanding "Abiding in Mindfulness" series. (I'm up to Talk 39.) He says they're pretty much the same thing.

• But of course they are technically different: Satori is an "epiphany" in Zen, whereas kensho is the deeper realization. Buddhist enlightenment means bodhi (fully awakening from the illusion of existence independent of the Five Aggregates of Clinging); this is a permanently liberating insight not the commonly mentioned realization of "oneness" (nonduality).

Mara: Same thing, more or less.

• No, very different. This may seem like quibbling. This may be quibbling. But it is the central disagreement between the two main Buddhist schools today, the more orthodox Theravada and the more reformed Mahayana. (There are no "Hinayana" schools still in existence, the last one being the ancient Sarvastivada).

Mara: People call Theravada a Hinayana ("Smaller Vehicle") school. I guess that's a mistake. But Mahayana is the true way, what the Buddha implicitly meant even though he didn't say it.

 

"Buddhism" (the Buddha Dharma) was reabsorbed by Brahmin priests into their religion. Vedic Brahminical teachings had quite a different view of "enlightenment" (samadhi) and "liberation" (moksha). The sense of oneness with Brahman (GODHEAD), the universe, or every living being everywhere is NOT enlightenment. 

  

Melting into the universe (reversing our sense of separation), merging with the "great reality behind the illusion" (which is one description of Brahman) is NOT enlightenment. The Buddha corrected that view and explained to the Brahmins on many occasions that they were mistaken. Those are wonderful spiritual things and surely worthy of attaining, but they are not the final enlightenment the Buddha was talking about. They are not what the historical Buddha called nirvana, the ultimate.

  

Some Brahmins listened and directly saw what the Buddha was talking about. But Brahmanism co-opted Buddhism, subsumed it into their outlook, and incorporated the Buddha into their pantheon as yet another god-man, merely an incarnation of Vishnu out to deceive people away from the Truth. 

   

(One hears today how great it is that Hinduism and Buddhism get along so well, each revering the Buddha. The fact is, Hinduism lessens then essentially disregards the Buddha, who opposed the ultimate authority of the sacred Vedas and many other Brahminical teachings).

 

Brahmins developed Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. Theravada held on as closely as it could to what the historical actually Buddha taught -- how he went against the stream of convention -- avoiding the assumptions and additions of the Brahmins.

  

"Just sitting" (zazen) is only one part of Zen training (Elheiji Zen monastery, Japan/Art.com)

   
Many Mahayanists today seem to have no idea that this happened, and they sound like Hindus using slightly different terms for the same things. That's beautiful. But that's not Shakaymuni Buddha Gautama's Dharma (teaching, message, dispensation). 

   

Moreover, this Brahmin Mahayana-Hindu philosophy went on to serve as the basis for Christianity. (Christianity pulls from traditions all over the world, taking everything Pagan that ever stood in its way and making it its own).

   

If the Buddha had just arisen to agree with Brahmins, to support the Vedas, to be an incarnation (avatar) of the God trinity, Buddhism would be Hinduism. As alike as they seem, they diverge radically as to what constitutes enlightenment (bodhi) and liberation (nirvana).

   

The Brahmins always assumed that rebirth with the God Brahma, or more impersonally merging with the godhead Brahman, is the ultimate.

   

These are not enlightenment

The Buddha showed that all else fell short of ultimate liberation: rebirth of any kind, life in heaven(s), psychic powers, being God, oneness with all, concentration (kinds of samadhi), bliss, and epiphanies all fall short of stream entry (the first stage of Buddhist enlightenment) and the ultimate, nirvana.

  

Much meditative bliss may arise, but Four Signs keep one on track: aging, sickness, death...

   
The absorptions (jhanas) -- as important as they are to the goal -- do not lead to enlightenment. They lead to rebirth in those exalted states Brahmanism would call "nirvana" or liberation. All rebirths are impermanent; they are not-self; they are unsatisfactory (dukkha, disappointing).

   

The end of suffering through Buddhist enlightenment is final. It is nonclinging by liberation of the heart/mind to all that it clings to. What does it cling to most? It clings to the Five Aggregates of Clinging -- body, feelings, perceptions, formations such as volition, and consciousness. 

   

Ancient Brahmins and modern Hindus believe consciousness is the true self, the immortal or permanent soul, the unchanging "witness," the watcher, the knower behind the knowing. But Shakyamuni Buddha went to great pains to show that this was NOT the case. Consciousness is an impersonal aggregate, a heap, a constituent group, a transient process. It is not any kind of "self" that can actually be clung to.

Mara: How does one go beyond satori to actual Buddhist enlightenment?

• Stages of Buddhist enlightenment progressively eradicate the ten fetters (samyojana) that bind one to samsara, the otherwise endless round of rebirth and disappointment. Traditionally Buddhism speaks of four stages. Actually the texts divide them in different ways for different reasons. The best explanation is found in the ancient commentarial The Path of Freedom (Vimutti Magga). Abhidharma scholars looked at these stages in different ways.

Mara: Is satori one of them?

   

A series of epiphanies may make one very wise, conventionally speaking, but one would be no closer to actual enlightenment and final nirvana if the fetters were not being uprooted. If Zen Buddhism means such an uprooting, then satori would be a stage. But that is not how satori is used. Kensho could be. But let's look at the fetters to be uprooted.

   

The first and most difficult fetter to uproot is at the very heart of the problem -- the one it never seriously occurs to us to actually question: "self view" (sakkaya ditthi), the sense that we are some unchanging self or soul (atta) independently willing, worrying, and having the experience, the homunculus behind the knowing, the "little man" in our head looking out of the eyes and working a control panel.

  

Mara: Goldstein -- the founder of Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts [whom Wisdom Quarterly believes to be at least a stream enterer, along with Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg, trained as they were in the Burmese and Thai Theravada tradition and by Dipa Ma in India] -- discussed the question, "Does enlightenment happen all at once in a 'flash of insight' or gradually over time?"
  
He says that some masters hold to one view, and equally reputable masters hold to the other view. Both are correct.

• Yes. It happens one way for some, the other for others. Yet on reflection it is always gradual, that is, based on causes and conditions that were cultivated over time, sometimes many lives. How then is the other true? If efforts in previous lives come to fruition with no effort in this life, enlightenment will seem sudden and unprompted -- "a flash of insight."

Mara: Adyashanti talks about this also in his "The Nature of Enlightenment" series.
   
Satori
My experience? A person has that one profound mystical experience that hits like a lightning bolt and totally rearranges the psyche [personality, heart, mind, spirit, "soul"]. 
  
One experiences a shattering of the individual ego as one realizes a transcendental self existing not only within the personal self but in all beings everywhere.

• This is exactly the popular view Brahminism/Hinduism clings to, which the Buddha rejected as a definition of enlightenment or liberation. Brahmin priests and Jain ascetics (brahmanas and shramanas) -- those temple priests who hold the Vedas as the ultimate authority and those wandering ascetics who, like the Buddha, reject them -- hold the wrong view that consciousness is the soul, the self, the thing to be identified with, the shared essence connecting everyone.
• The Buddha understood that ALL constituents of soul or self (atta) are actually impersonal (an-atta, "not-self"). 
• Clinging to Brahman (GOD, Godhead, the Universe, the All) or consciousness is not enlightenment, not liberation from rebirth and suffering.
• However sublime the experience or subtle the defilement, it shows that one has NOT broken through to the first and foremost liberating insight taught by the historical Buddha.
• This is probably why Mahayana Buddhism sees such a de-emphasis on the historical Buddha (Shakyamuni) and an emphasis on a pantheon of "Buddhas" -- just like the pantheon of Hindu "gods" it reflects -- with one True Buddha (like True Brahman). Instead of the avatars Brahmanism/Hinduism reveres and awaits, bodhisattvas become the focus of Mahayana.

Mara: I don't know much about the Hindu view.

• Few Mahayana Buddhists do. They talk like Hindus without realizing it, and they call that Hinduism they're talking about all the time "Buddhism" without realizing it.

Mara: Give IT any name you like. As one's meditation practice grows, there continue to be flashes of insight, chutes and ladders of expansion, loss, and growth within the new perspective over the years. This is the spirit [prana, spiritus, subtle energy, chi, breath, fine-material] path.
  
As one's dreamwork practice grows, the Dream-maker within becomes an active source of visionary insight and understanding. With brilliantly articulated images that are amazing in their depth and wisdom, one learns to work with them daily and translate them into meaning.
   
This is the soul path. For me, both practices are essential for wholeness, the head and the heart, like two eyes, each complementing the other, one looking inside and one outside to see one panoramic world extending beyond the limits of the seen, rich, and complex in depth, breadth, and height. 

• That yogic experience of Brahman (union), samadhi, and nonduality must be nice that you speak this way. Hooray! It formed the basis of the Indus River Civilization that a buddha eventually arose in. (See "A Higher Teaching").

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