Ha, ha, it’s not really 4:00 a.m. as I write this. I just wanted to echo the title of the first post I wrote, a year ago this month. Normally at 4:00 a.m., we are starting our first meditation session (thun) of the day. Each morning between 4:00 and 5:35, we must complete 100 each of the preliminary practices: prostrations, Dorje Sempa (Vajrasattva), the mandala offering, and Guru Yoga, now that we have finished the intensive accumulation of 111,111 of each of those practices. The other three meditation sessions of the day are devoted mostly to our current main practice.

On the main practice front, we recently finished two weeks of intensive calm abiding (shinay) meditation, using a sequence of techniques similar to the ones we practiced at KSC based on the presentation in Bokar Rinpoche’s book Meditation: Advice to Beginners. Our manual in retreat is one of Bokar Rinpoche’s sources, the Ninth Karmapa’s Ocean of Definitive Meaning.

Now we have begun two weeks of intensive taking and sending meditation (tong len), which we also studied and practiced periodically at KSC. It is quite wonderful to be able to practice for several hours each day with no other interruption than our own internal distractions. These, of course, are no small thing, but retreat provides the leisure and incentive to really work with them and learn to see them as part of the practice rather than an intrusion. We are taught not to try to block thoughts or think our meditation is unsuccessful if thoughts arise. Instead, we aspire to see through whatever arises in the mind; to rest in its essence, the nature of mind, instead of engaging in our usual habit of following thoughts into long bouts of distraction or disturbing emotions such as anger, desire, jealousy, and pride, thus further obscuring the mind’s naturally peaceful essence.

September 30 will be the first anniversary of my move to Kagyu Thubten Chöling Monastery. A year ago, I was in the midst of sorting and packing my belongings, and anticipating how much I would miss people and places while in retreat. I do miss people; and sometimes at odd moments I find myself mentally revisiting familiar scenes, often from the vantage point of driving: passing the peach orchard on Young Road in Barrington (it’s peach season right now!) or driving on Roller Coaster Road in Strafford; traveling Route 4 in Nottingham and Northwood; waiting to make a left turn at the traffic signal in front of the main entrance to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine.

Especially during taking and sending, these memories, and any associated emotions, provide more fuel for practice. We spend all day (ideally, anyway) visualizing ourselves taking on the suffering of others, both specific individuals and sentient beings in general, and exchanging it for our own happiness and merit—breathing in everything painful or unwanted, breathing out everything positive and desirable. Anyone who comes to mind becomes a target for this practice. May all their suffering come to me, and may they experience all my happiness, good deeds, merit, and prosperity of the past, present and future. May they enjoy complete freedom from suffering and attain full awakening. Right now!

Realized practitioners are said to be able actually to accomplish this exchange, as in the classic story told by Kalu Rinpoche in his book Luminous Mind. Maitri-yogi, a teacher of the eleventh-century master Atisha, was giving a teaching, when suddenly he cried out in pain. Someone had just thrown a rock at a dog nearby, and Maitri-yogi instantly took the dog’s suffering upon himself, sustaining a large bruise on his back.

When contemporary aspiring bodhisattvas first learn taking and sending, someone always asks, a bit anxiously: what if I really start to feel the other person’s pain? Kalu Rinpoche’s famous answer: “Think, ‘Oh good, it works!’” But most Lamas just say not to worry about it, it’s not going to happen, except possibly in our overactive imagination. At this stage, the practice is really for our own mind training and operates mainly at the level of aspiration. Though some positive energy is surely dispatched in the other person’s direction, our real goal is to begin to lessen our own ego-clinging, our reflexive sense of me-first, the true source of all our own pain and suffering, through mentally reversing one of our deepest habitual patterns: seeking pleasure and fleeing pain, taking the best for ourselves and leaving the dregs for others.

We are supposed to continue the practice all the time—while walking, eating, going to sleep, any time we are able to remember to do it. Breathe in the bad, breathe out the good. In the Torch of Certainty, the nineteenth century master Jamgon Kongtrul advises us, “Even on your deathbed when you cannot perform any other practice, use your time sending and receiving for as long as you can breathe.” Truly, this is a practice we can do any time, anywhere!

October 5 will mark the beginning of our tenth month of retreat. The outside world has definitely faded, though I often think of family and friends and keep in touch as much as I can by mail. I haven’t heard a phone ring or a new song, read a newspaper, or seen a movie in almost a year. I am finding that, aside from my loved ones, there’s not that much I miss. What does it matter if I know who said what about whom, which movie is an Oscar contender, whether Britney is still in the news. It’s all just more fuel to keep the cycle spinning, the same old laundry going round and round.

In retreat, as the cacophony of outer phenomena recedes, you start to notice more inner space, more peace and quiet, more opportunity to catch a glimpse of what’s real and unchanging at the heart of all the relentless commotion of this world. In fact, at the moment, the only things happening outside my immediate mind (“outside” being of course a relative concept): a pair of yellow-shafted flickers are pecking at the ground under the picnic table, a squirrel is making a great racket peeling a walnut, and the groundhog is getting wicked fat.

September 2008

One of the great things about being a Buddhist is that no matter where you are or what you’re doing, and no matter how bleak—or how perfect— things may look at any given moment, there’s always something you can do to improve the situation. (This is no doubt true of other spiritual paths as well—I just happen to familiar with Buddhist methods.) Below is a concise guide to a few of the techniques we can pull out in any setting to calm our own mind or send some positive energy to someone in need. Each of them is best cultivated in regular sessions on a cushion or chair; that makes them easier and more effective on the spur of the moment. But if you aren’t able to organize yourself to practice formally, any engagement with them is helpful.

• Calm abiding (shinay) meditation. The basic instruction for this technique to settle the mind is: don’t engage in any thoughts of the past, present or future. Instead, whatever thought or emotion arises in the mind, rest relaxed and alert in its essence. You don’t need to analyze what this means; in fact, it’s beyond the grasp of the intellect. It will become clearer only through practice. You never actually need to know’what it means,” it works anyway. In short, neither banish nor follow the content of any thoughts that arise, but let the mind rest in the midst of whatever comes up, relaxed and aware. Don’t worry about whether you’re doing it “right” or not. Just do it, fearlessly. It’s that simple!
  
  Within this overall technique, you can use a device to anchor your awareness, so you know whether you’re distracted or not, such as counting your breaths, just noticing your breathing, or being aware of visual, auditory, tactile, or inner sensations; or you can just keep your mind wide open. It’s easiest to do when you’re not engaged in conversation or a demanding activity. I find it’s a good way to make use of time waiting in line or on hold or at the computer, driving, or doing tasks that don’t require mental effort. With practice, you can apply it almost any time, unobtrusively, without looking like you’re doing anything at all. You can do it for a few minutes or a few breaths, or just flash on it for a second or two. The only hard thing about it is remembering to do it.
• Taking and sending (tong len) meditation. This is another simple, literal technique that doesn’t require much preparation or effort and allows for endless variations. For our present travel purposes, we’ll cut to the chase: You see or bring to mind someone whom you know or suspect is suffering physically or emotionally; you generate the intense wish to free them of this suffering by taking it upon yourself and to give them all your happiness in return; you put this wish into action by visualizing their suffering as hot black smoke that you breathe in from their heart center, through your nostrils and into your heart center, where it dissolves harmlessly into emptiness, and then visualizing your happiness as cool white light that you breathe out from your heart center, through your nostrils, and into their heart center. You continue this for as many breaths as it takes, and through this exchange, you imagine that they become free of suffering and filled with happiness. Your own happiness does not get used up, but is inexhaustible, constantly replenished by your compassion and good will and the innately joyful nature of mind.
  
  As I mention elsewhere this month, Jamgon Kongtrul urges us to do this practice even on our deathbed, when we are unable to do anything else but breathe. Keeping impermanence in mind, knowing that our last moment—our deathbed— could come without warning at any time, perhaps we had best practice it as much as possible! It’s a great way to take your mind off your own problems; and if you are suffering, you can even do it for yourself, adapting the visualization accordingly. You can try it as an antidote when you are caught up in anger or an argument, following a slow driver, or just got up on the wrong side of the bed. You can pull out taking and sending in an instant, any time you observe someone suffering, whether you are able to help them in some other way or not. There may not be any evidence that it provides relief (perhaps you will never know, and Chogyam Trungpa, in Training the Mind, says not to even think about it), but it raises our awareness and compassion and helps diminish our preoccupation with our own concerns—a major objective of all Buddhist practice.
• Mantra recitation. Even if you don’t do formal meditation practices that involve visualization and mantras, you can recite mantras any time as you go through your day. The best all-purpose mantra is om mani peme hung (oh-m mah-nee pay-may hoong, in the Tibetan pronunciation, with each syllable equally stressed). This is the mantra of compassion, and saying it serves two principal purposes: it awakens our own compassion, which exists in each of us as a potential to be developed; and when other beings hear it, it is said to make a connection that will lead to their awakening as well.It is considered best not to impose our mantras on other humans, who may not wish to hear them; when we recite them in public, it is best to do so quietly and imperceptibly, for the benefit of tiny animals and invisible beings who may be near enough to hear, and for the general positive energy they disseminate. Like taking and sending, it is something positive we can do whenever we see someone suffering. When Kalu Rinpoche visited KTC in the 1980s, he was often observed walking the grounds and stopping to say mantras for any small animals and insects he encountered.Mantras can also be used as a focus for calm abiding meditation in the same way we might use our breath, to anchor our awareness as we rest our mind, thus combining two techniques for training and calming the mind.Each of these techniques can be further explored through numerous resources, or learned from a qualified teacher. But it’s fine to just try out these simple instructions. And if you remember to renew your motivation to practice for the benefit of all beings at the beginning and to dedicate any benefit from the practice to all beings at the end, whatever practice you do will become much more powerful, even if you only have a moment.

Programs and books for further exploration:

• Kagyu Thubten Chöling Monastery’s Dharma Path Program, www.kagyu.com
• KTC’s East Coast affiliated centers, www.kagyu.com
• Kagyu Samten Chöling, KTC’s affiliated center in southeastern NH, www.nhkagyu.org
• Meditation, Advice for Beginnings by Bokar Rinpoche (calm abiding)
• The Joy of Living by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche (calm abiding)
• The Great Path of Awakening by Jamgon Kongtrul (taking and sending)
• The Seven Points of Mind Training by Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche (taking and sending)
• Training the Mind by Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche (taking and sending)
• Start Where You Are by Pema Chödron (taking and sending)
• Chenrezi, Lord of Love by Bokar Rinpoche (om mani peme hung)