Those who wish to keep the trainings
Must with perfect self-possession guard their minds.
Without this guard upon the mind,
The trainings cannot be preserved.
- Shantideva
Dear dharma friends,
We are in the midst of examining the 6 Paramitas, the 6 transcendent actions that turn us into our wisdom emanations. We begin with generosity because it opens the heart. With the practice of generosity the ego can come along for the ride. We aren’t muscling our way to transcendence, which doesn’t work anyway. Instead, the ego is invited as a friend to practice with us. Ego can say, oh yeah! I’m so generous! I’m so good! Who else can I help? In this way the dharma is a path inclusive of all our parts. We do not exile anything.
Classically, after generosity, we practice ethical conduct, tolerance, and joyful effort. These four are the transcendent actions of all humans, regardless of denomination. I believe all faith traditions praise these qualities as virtues. Secularly, too, having morals, a generous nature, not taking life too personally, and cultivating persistence are decent, bedrock values. One of the reasons I enjoy my new-ish life in Pennsylvania is this grounded quality of decency. In the four years I’ve been here, I find people to be refreshingly un-neurotic and close to this ground of common human values. Not for nothing is this the Keystone State.
This generous, ethical, tolerant, and diligent ethos is what Americans have been known for. It’s what’s in danger in this time of American leaders practicing a larger version of a tantrum. They want what they want now. They’re right, and people who disagree are wrong. They sound like the tyrants in Roald Dahl’s Matilda. It would be funny except for the consequences of such actions with such power. I was born and raised in Thailand, a country long ruled by monarchy and military dictators. Having seen this story before, I can say that it is reckless to underestimate the blitz against American democracy. We are watching the light of freedom go out before us.
And how are we reacting? Mostly, with silence. So many of us Americans are numbed by social media. We are disembodied routinely. Some of us stay like that for most of the day. Whether the habitual pattern is to live within Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, X, Instagram, Substack, or some other clickbait rage, we are so practiced in numbing out. Almost none of us are present for the wreckage.
I’ve been doing this too. Lately, I’ve been pondering why I have been publicly silent on the massacre of Palestinians by Israel. Is this where I say that I have a lot of Jewish friends? I can say that I am under-informed, that I have no words to match the slaughter. That is intellectual training. Excuses of the mind. What lies underneath is my own flinch from the scale of the suffering. It feels like if I were to let the slaughter of Palestinians in, I might explode. Or dissolve. Or die.
That is what immense suffering can trick us into thinking. I’ve been reflecting on the immense suffering of Palestinians from the cushion. In meditation, I have seen my own lack of courage in witnessing. I have found a spaciousness that can hold the numbers of dead, the hospitals bombed, the callousness of the world’s silence.
We need to go towards ego’s certainty of death. When we explode, melt, and dissolve, that is no-self realized in the body. When we give up our spiritual safety we can start to be the bodhisattvas that we are destined to become. The Buddhist wisdom practices like equanimity and compassion, tonglen, and Chod transform what we think is possible.
How do we begin that transformation?
Meditation.
Mind Down Time
Dhyana, meditation, is the fifth transcendence. Normally it’s taught only for Buddhists, alongside Prajna, Wisdom. I am going to revise that order. The dharma must adapt to this time of great intelligence and spiritual laziness. An example: how many of my Ivy-educated peers applaud my ordination but exempt themselves from the spiritual workout that it takes to sit on the cushion? Almost all of them. Humility is not high in our personal qualities.
What we need in this time of breakage and fear is to embody. We must abide in this uncomfortable world from inside our bodies. I have a working theory that in our agrarian pasts, filled with slavery, the domination of women, and more— so I’m not saying we should return there— we were often in our bodies. I read a lot of Tolstoy. Maybe we were singing in the fields as we hoed. Cantering from one village to the next. Maybe we were riding elephants. Tilling the rice fields with water buffalo. Walking from one village to the next.
We had Mind Down Time, where we could unwind in our bodies so that the everyday qualities of generosity, ethics, tolerance, and diligence could emerge and percolate to the top of our action.
We do not have that luxury any more. If we have Phone Down Time at all, it is an anomaly. So we must adapt. We must make a firm commitment to a daily embodiment ritual.
Please Sit
I am going to advocate for silent sitting meditation. So basic, not sexy, but can I tell you that it is extremely good and effective? I feel like I am trying to market breathing to everyone. If we are alive we are doing it, but, uh, guess what: most of us are not using breath for all that it can unlock!
I was a little worried, when I was ordained about a year ago, that somehow the transformation of my suffering on the path was a dharma fluke. Who knows! What if I got the placebo pill? One of the great privileges of the past year has been the avalanche of personal suffering I have been honored to witness. We have held hands. We have cried. We have prayed. And we have tried practices, tweaked them, and come back for feedback.
In just one year, a scant time in the normal measure of a human life, I have gotten such resounding positive feedback. This isn’t about me. And I’m not sure that I, nor the dharma, can, you know, transform everything. But with all appropriate caveats, let me say that the most abject suffering, the states that we shudder to consider, that we whisper to our spouse with the thrill that it is not us going through it— these are the states that have moved for people. It begins with meditation.
Sit in the fire
So much is unbearable in this life. Sometimes samsara is annoying. Sometimes samsara is pleasurable. And sometimes to be here is to be in a hell realm while in this human body. It is as if being burned alive. It is as if awake while being buried. It is to watch your death unfold, and begin again.
The way out is to embody. To hold the vessel within the largest spaciousness that can witness it all. Meditation is your access route. No one can make you do it. It is entirely too mundane for anyone to force you into a consistent practice. That’s where joyful effort comes in!
Don’t talk about sitting. Don’t write about sitting. Don’t social media claim-credit-for-it. Don’t resolution. Just sit. Quietly and consistently. Meditation is the best way to avoid being kidnapped by the samsaric mind.
Samsaric mind is loud in the collective right now. That kind of energy is catching. Build a fortress of mind training. Develop a resiliency of the mind.
Everything flows out of this daily practice. It is so simple it makes the teeth ache. Show up to the cushion. Show up to the teaching. Show up for your wisdom self.
Whatever it wants to be is beautiful. It is waiting right there, within you, to be born.
With lots of love,
Sunisa
Friends, that was the last dharma talk through the summer.
- I am teaching retreat in Philadelphia on Sunday June 1, if you can join us.
- The teachings will start back up after Labor Day.
- Heart Sangha will be adding Zoom to every live teaching. We will record and share the talks to Heart Sangha members. If you have been enjoying these write-ups, and live sits and videos are for you, please sign up for emails on the Heart Sangha website. All practice information goes out there.
It has been an honor and a pleasure to spend this time with you. Thank you. 🩵
No dharma fluke. Connection. Once, walking down the street in L.A. with Lama Tharchin Rinpoche, we passed this woman going the other way. She was maybe 50, blonde, slight. He stopped walking and turned his head for a moment, then turned back and held my hand as we walked. I asked him what that was about and he said "She was once my teacher." Our connections are sometimes recognized by those who can recognize. You were recognized.