AN EXTENSION OF THE EYE

Siddhartha was a man. A human being. Meditation is a beneficial practice. I am certain that the Buddha did not stop bathing either.

Learn to silence the chatter in your mind. Learn to allow thoughts to pass by without engaging them. Learn to recognize ego and the illusions of the senses.

How exactly did Siddhartha Gautama, known in his time as Gautama, the Sage of the Sakyas, plan to keep his promise to spare us from “sickness, old age and death”? He was either lying to us, speaking figuratively or, something else.  In the West, with the prophets and even Jesus they take the “allegory” route. They didn’t mean those stories as actual fact but to have some deep spiritual meaning. Some Buddhists do this too since many of the stories and fanciful and full of gods and goddesses and the thirty-three heavens.

Except, the Buddha left some science behind along with the stories.

This new science detailed the complex relationship between thought and emotion and thought and the physical body. These were practices designed to train the subject in increasing awareness and control of thought over the body and emotion. The goal is equanimity, an untroubled heart, complete NONREACTIVITY to all externals, all things outside our control. Not uncaring detachment, We remain always compassionate, always dedicated to helping others but we are internally unmoved even as our own deaths approach.

That these practices arose thousands of years ago in a religious context does not change the fact that it is science before science was a thing. In the West science was just beginning to flower.  The ancients did not have our understanding of how the brain and nervous system functions, but he knew that if you did (a), (b) and © that (d) would happen.  It makes no difference if you talk of chakras, meridians, chi, prana, or nerve clusters what remains is, it works and has worked for thousands of years. If it did not, we would not still be teaching it. It does not matter if you believe that an airliner flies because it is held up by fairies or the laws of aerodynamics the fact is the damn thing flies and that is all that matters.

Our emotions and our thoughts are tied closely together through a nerve called the “vagus nerve”.  The vagus nerve is a thick  T1 cable between our neo-cortex and the enteric nervous system located in our gut and solar plexus where we “feel” emotion. If you have ever had a “gut” feeling, an experience which was “visceral,” or you have “butterflies” in your stomach … well you know what I am talking about. Emotion and thought are bound tightly together. If you can control thought, you can control emotion and you CAN control thought.

Next Section: Real Practice  

Let us experiment.  The next time you feel loss, sadness or anger go to your meditation space or some quiet place. Sit down.  Back straight and begin your yogic breathing. Slow, regular in and out through the nose.  Focus on this feeling.  Tell yourself, in your inner voice, “I am feeling this.”  Try and detach your “self” from the feeling.  Now, let us say you were upset because you just lost your favorite ring. You feel “sick” over it. (Notice these expressions). The truth is we do feel nauseous when afraid, sad, or feeling a keen loss. It is this “gut brain” of ours. Now, think about the lost ring … does the feeling increase? While remaining as detached as possible … try and make the feeling grow stronger and then weaker. Just say “I’m feeling this right now” and “I understand what is happening within my mind and body.”  “I am just feeling loss (or anger or sadness). Focus on the actual physical sensation, note its location, note the intensity, note changes in intensity. The key here is not just to “make it go away” but to develop a “feeling” of connection between conscious thought and the negative emotion so that it can be controlled. You will become familiar with this connection, and it will eventually become like a garment you can take on or off at will.

In this way you familiarize yourself with the separation of the mind’s experience from the body’s experience. Practice this every single time you experience a powerful negative emotion.  Eventually, you will come to have a little control over it, then more control until you could, though your conscious mind to control this ordinarily, uncontrollable emotional experience.  

Submitted by our friend and sangha member sadeous. Thanks!

Written by Thanissaro Bhikkhu © 2000

“He showed me the brightness of the world.”

That’s how my teacher, Ajaan Fuang, once characterized his debt to his teacher, Ajaan Lee. His words took me by surprise. I had only recently come to study with him, still fresh from a school where I had learned that serious Buddhists took a negative, pessimistic view of the world. Yet here was a man who had given his life to the practice of the Buddha’s teachings, speaking of the world’s brightness. Of course, by “brightness” he wasn’t referring to the joys of the arts, food, travel, sports, family life, or any of the other sections of the Sunday newspaper. He was talking about a deeper happiness that comes from within. As I came to know him, I gained a sense of how deeply happy he was. He may have been skeptical about a lot of human pretenses, but I would never describe him as negative or pessimistic. “Realistic” would be closer to the truth. Yet for a long time I couldn’t shake the sense of paradox I felt over how the pessimism of the Buddhist texts could find embodiment in such a solidly happy person.

Only when I began to look directly at the early texts did I realize that what I thought was a paradox was actually an irony — the irony of how Buddhism, which gives such a positive view of a human being’s potential for finding true happiness, could be branded in the West as negative and pessimistic.

You’ve probably heard the rumor that “Life is suffering” is Buddhism’s first principle, the Buddha’s first noble truth. It’s a rumor with good credentials, spread by well-respected academics and Dharma teachers alike, but a rumor nonetheless. The truth about the noble truths is far more interesting. The Buddha taught four truths — not one — about life: There is suffering, there is a cause for suffering, there is an end of suffering, and there is a path of practice that puts an end to suffering. These truths, taken as a whole, are far from pessimistic. They’re a practical, problem-solving approach — the way a doctor approaches an illness, or a mechanic a faulty engine. You identify a problem and look for its cause. You then put an end to the problem by eliminating the cause.

Buddhists have several words for JOY. Piti is the active energetic happiness such as we might feel seeing loved ones arriving at the airport for the holidays. Mudita is the joy we take the accomplishments of others, our child’s graduation or the success of one of our students.

Sukkha is the calm, sedate joy which is the opposite of dukkha, the suffering which is the first of the Four Noble Truths of the Buddha.

Nope. Not in Buddhism.

We can just drop them off our radar. Forget about them entirely but you don't want to carry them around in your head like a sack full of rattlesnakes. Drop them. Drop them or they will keep poisoning you.