the season of giving

I went out for chai and a meander into the early Sunday morning downtown Petaluma fogbound quiet. The guy with the dog on a string leash and the several layers of pants and jackets and the rolling suitcase [still in good shape] asked me for 50 cents for a cup of coffee. I gave him the quarters I'd started accumulating for the next trip to the laundromat.

I noticed how young he was-- in his teens, probably; I noticed how I usually avert my eyes, as if taking in others' troubles was going to hurt me in some way. I reflected that although my own means are modest, I am living in the same apartment I moved into 13 years ago; I can make tea, or even chai, at home; the going out for it is the pretext to wander and interact with the folks down at Peet's who have become familiar. I'm going to start practicing giving a dollar away every day; and meeting the gaze of the person I give it to. Paying attention is the least I can do.

I suggest a play on this, too - "give" something each day not only to a person you perceive as needing something (perhaps because they are begging or appear poor or miserable), but also to someone who appears to you to need nothing, perhaps so much so that you usually resent them for their status, wealth, arrogance, sense of entitlement, etc.. That "thing" can be a kindness, a smile, a courtesy, or just a thought of goodwill.

A good idea, Ona.

This subject made me start ruminating on the whole dynamic of giving/receiving and the perception of generosity. There's a certain grace to being a 'good' recipient [or giver]- that is, one who enlivens the interaction. I got to remembering Monsieur Ibrahim, one of my favorite movies. In the movie, Omar Sharif plays a Sufi who takes a scuffling street kid in Paris under his wing; the first real interaction they have is when OS, as the shopkeeper, catches the kid shoplifting. I won't put any spoilers here for anyone who has yet to discover the movie, but I will say, it's a refreshing take on various virtues.

I was thinking about the guy who wanted/needed a cup of coffee-- or whatever. And what an opportunity for 'intimacy' anyone willing to make a request offers-- one that those of us who think we've got it together less frequently give to our fellow beings.

I'm going to wander off topic a bit, but this has been on my mind recently. Not only because I've had to make multiple trips to NYC to deal with bureaucracy, but also because we all seem to have such a tendency to want to sort things into little boxes. And that reminded me of that very simple metta practice I've been taught where you offer lovingkindness to people you like, then to neutral people, then to people you dislike. There's so much more to that practice than just trying to train yourself to be nicer to people you don't like. It points to our constant sorting of things into special vs not special and deserving of my attention vs not deserving. We naturally pay more attention to things which are novel, unusual or potentially hazardous, rather than common things. That's probably animal instinct. But to consider that everything - from the perspective of buddha nature, the Absolute and so on - is equal means that annoying politicians, reality TV show celebrities, or the guy who arrogantly cuts us off in traffic is no more or less "deserving" of metta than the ragged guy shaking a coffee cup or the crying child or the grief-stricken family on the nightly news whose house burned down.

Thoughts?

But it can work as a tool to uncover our tender spots, too. By trying to do the practice you'll see where you feel a flinch at the thought of lovingkindness towards that person. Then you've discovered a sticky spot to explore.

"But it can work as a tool to uncover our tender spots, too. By trying to do the practice you'll see where you feel a flinch at the thought of lovingkindness towards that person. Then you've discovered a sticky spot to explore." -Ona

Excellent point, Ona. I believe this is the approach taken by Ken McLeod in his teaching on the Four Immeasurables. From what I've learned from his work, one way to approach these sticky spots is to say (quietly or aloud) a statement that points to, say, Equanimity; such as, "May all beings see me just as I am." Then, pay attention to experience by way of body, speach, and mind. If there's reactivity, just sit with it. If there's equanimity, just sit with it. Basically, just sit with it.

This is one way that McLeod suggests may dismantle reactive emotions, resulting in their decrease over time.

And this really isn't that off-topic. Generosity and metta are both ways of opening ourselves to others.

Would you say this is on two levels? 1- that by training ourselves, we become more aware and of our patterns, and can try to be less reactive from an intellectual understanding of the way the habit arises (therapy type techniques can help with this sort of thing, too); 2- that eventually and in its own time the fruit of practice (non-reactivity) arises spontaneously, in a way that no amount of #1 can make happen? Or do you find the distinction not useful or not true?

I might need help figuring out precisely what you mean in the second level.

Perhaps there are two benefits to the first level. First, by looking into the process leading to reactivity, we may discover ways to take action in different ways, so as to get a new result. This could be called using the mechanics. The other benefit - which is more profound, I think - is that by seeing the process, we're not longer caught up in it; at least not in the same way. If we catch the process occuring in awareness, we can simply switch the type of activity being managed by voluntary consciousness. Choosing to watch seems to short circuit the volition behind blind habitual processes, which allows them to dismantle on their own.

So, perhaps the latter is sort of like what you meant in the description of the second level?

No - and to be clear I don't mean levels as in one being above the other or below the other or one better than the other. I could have used the word "ways" instead.

But no, I feel like both of what you are describing are voluntary (by my will) processes. I am talking about the way in which non-reactivity (equanimity) can arise spontaneously without any will on the person's part. For example, you are waiting in a traffic jam. This usually annoys you really badly.

Because of your practice:

1) you can say "I remember my teacher saying to practice equanimity. I am now focusing on my practice. i am noting. I am breathing. I will find calm and peace and not let this traffic jam get to me." That's great. That's applying your practice. It might help, or it might help only some times; either way it's all effort.

2) you can automatically notice the manifesting of the annoyance as sensations, etc, see the way the pattern happens, and think "ah, but I don't have to go there do I?" and voluntarily take advantage of your insight to choose not to grab hold of that annoyance, breath, smile. This comes from deeper/longer practice and the insights that have revealed that process. The ability to see that process was a fruit of practice.

3) or at times you might find yourself saying "whoa, what a surprise, usually sitting in a traffic jam makes me pissed off, but today I'm not at all." This is not done by any effort or choice, but is just a spontaneous non-reactivity that arises by itself as a fruit of practice (tending to spontaneously occur more often and for longer periods the deeper a person's practice goes, but even brief experiences of it can occur quite early in practice, in my experience and that of people I know)

Does that make sense?

Ona - I think I understand you now. Yes, I think your point #3 is definitely worth noting, and I know the experience. It happens a lot for me in traffic situations, or when I'm at the grocery store. Situations that would normally frustrate me - at least ones that frustrated me in the past, more often than not - don't give rise to the same reaction. Usually it's like a little wave of arousal that fades as quickly as it arrives. I think, "Oh, that's interesting." When this happens, there aren't any feelings of ill-will toward the person or thing involved. The lack of reactivity can almost be just as startling as the reactivity itself.

This isn't always the case for me, though, of course. It's nice that it appears to be happening more often. There's something about longterm practice that allows us to let go of things much sooner than we would have before. Sometimes it's nearly instantaneous.

Are we talking about similar stuff, here?

Yeah , Jackson, now we are.

And this was just to clarify what Chris said, to point out that there's a distinction between that which we "do" or "practice" and that which happens "by itself."

You (Jackson) do seem to imply that this is about "us letting go of things sooner...sometimes it's nearly instantaneous" which still implies that you are doing something by your own will and effort.

This might be a matter of our style of practices coloring our view of things and perhaps isn't particularly important. But I think it is important to point to what seems to me to be a non-effort and non-doing because pointing to this helps people stop constantly trying to make things happen and get out of the way.

Thoughts?

Ona, I think I get what you're saying. Let me re-phrase it in context of my own experience and understanding and tell me if it resonates.

Basically, those reactions, while natural enough for beings constituted as we humans are at first and for the most part contingent on biological and social conditioning in addition to personal choices and life experiences, those reactions are basically being *added* to experience in a sense.

My understanding is that reactions like fear and anger and desire arise and function in a deeper context, call it buddhanature or innate clarity.

1) They can arise in a way that completely eclipses innate non-reactive clarity, having "their" way with body speech and mind..

2) They can arise along with a "rider" of cultivated observation, a sort of bystander that's just noticing "oh, wow, there's anger doing it's thing". This "noticer"-self is less personal than the "angry-self" and when it arises alongside the angry-self it can neutralize it somewhat or open other options, like waiting for the strong angry reaction to pass without acting it out, or becoming more familar (noticing more details) of how that reaction coalesces and functions. Some forms of practice really rely on cultivating this impersonal noticing and training the mind to produce this neutral reaction whenever a strong positive or negative reaction arises, and the better one gets at this, the smaller the gap between "anger" and "neutrally-noticing-anger", and thus the more leverage one has to choose which reactions to perpetuate or express.

3) Through training appreciation of buddhanature or innate clarity, one relaxes the very propensities for these reactions to occur (since they are initially formed in the context of a failure to appreciate innate clarity and freedom) [eta: or better said, these propensities just start to relax on their own through this appreciation of effortless innate freedom]. So sometimes in situations when they would have been triggered, they simply aren't triggered at all. That 'angry-self' just doesn't even coalesce and sometimes one notices this, since one expects it to coalesce, and it's surprising that it didn't and Mind just stayed open, clear and present instead of coalescing into the reaction. I consider this a form of calm abiding, or a fruit of a certain approach to calm abiding (within a View of buddhanature).

4) Through training appreciation of innate clarity *plus* investigating the nature of reactivity, and seeing how reactivity doesn't actually negate innate clarity but in fact actually depends on it in order to exist (or not exist) at all [eta: or more precisely, all "efforts" whether naively reactive as in anger or efforts in cultivating noticing, however refined and reflexive they become, depend on something in our nature that is already present and free in an effortless way, whether this is appreciated or not...], it's also possible for the reaction to arise explicitly within the context of innate clarity without any loss of that innate clarity and freedom and openness and thus exert no push or pull on body, speech or mind at all, by far the most mysterious (and intriguing, to me personally) of these possible forms of equanimity. "Anger" and other reactions can even show a completely different face in these moments, which I find deeply inspiring and amazing, but difficult to articulate. I'd call it an experience of the potential fruit of a buddhanature approach to insight practice.

Well, the line between intentional and unintentional is kind of blurry. One way that one of my professors talks about it is in terms of implicit and explicit behaviors. Most of the behaviors we do are implicit, in that we don't have to think about how to do them while we're doing them. In fact, if we concentrate on the mechanics of, say, walking, we'll probably walk less well than if we just got up and started walking.

Often times what appears to be spontaneous is that action which seems to take care of itself at the right time. Behaviors tend to start out in the explicit, deliberate category, and drop into the implicit category over time. So, the intentional letting go, over and over again through practice, eventually leads to a spontaneous letting go when the right conditions arise. After a while, our body-mind just knows what to do, so it does it.

I like this idea, because it seems to work well with other types of training. First we learn, and then we unlearn, which frees us up to learn some more, which can later be unlearned in the service of something else that couldn't be achieved without having first laid the groundwork, which is now largely implicit.

That's kind of how I understand this process currently. I'm sure there's more to it, though.

@ jake - that last one is really stunning when it is first encountered, in particular. It does give you a remarkable new perspective on experience.

@jackson - i was suspecting you were drawing on a science background a bit. It's perfectly possible that neurologically or mechanically this is true. However, experientially, I feel like there's a big difference between finally having learned something so well that it becomes second nature, and the (to me) mystical shifts in perception, experience and consciousness that happen to us. In part I think this is important because if a practitioner takes the view that it's all about training and training until they can make things work a certain way, they can end up in a really grasping, struggling kind of practice.

"... if a practitioner takes the view that it's all about training and training until they can make things work a certain way, they can end up in a really grasping, struggling kind of practice."

Amen to that!

And back to my recurring point -- there is such a thing as Knowing. It is not taught and it is not intellectual. It is not the product of repetition, although repetition may indeed induce it, or help to induce it. We generally call it insight, but it becomes a permanent part of our moment to moment experience. It is the product of seeing, deeply, the true nature of things.


-cmarti

Now I understand what you've been saying the last three posts. and I agree completely.