My 4 poisons of escape

In my Buddhist journey, I've done a good job with greed and anger. I'm not very materialistic. I don't get angry or offended easily.

But that doesn't mean I don't get caught. And my biggest way of getting caught is to look for escape.  These are my 4 poisons and the color coding I give to them.

Green poison; chess. Other mindless habits, like netflix?

Red poison; sexual and sensual desires, sometimes food

Blue poison; grandiosity

Black poison; escape

These aren't mutually exclusive. For example, I often have Green+Black together.

I'm pretty good at seeing the poisons. But that doesn't stop.me from taking them. It's like part of me is craving numbing out. And I get convinced to numb out.

I no longer trick myself into pretending these aren't poisons. I used to say that sex is natural. Yes, the urge is natural. But the indulgence in it needs to be skillful and careful. Not wishful thinking. Not heedless and making a mess. I used to say grandiosity was necessary, to dream big. Grandiosity can be helpful, sometimes. But the helpfulness is just a small part; the majority is "if only" thinking.

The antidotes to poison are where I should be focusing. Pleasures not of the flesh and skillful pleasures, like Jhana as tuaght by Ajahn Geoff. Or Metta meditation and practice. Or the looking at drawbacks.

The biggest impediment to abandoning the poisons is my impatience. It's like junk food. Yummy and filling in an immediate way. You pay for it later, or it's empty calories. And it crowds out other more skillful things, and habituated oneself to crave the unskillful things.

I've given up Junk Food sex. There, I had a long list of messes that sex created that I felt I needed to clean up. But I haven't given up Junk Food escape. Or junk food mindlessness. Those are solo affairs, so my desire to not get entangled with others (helpful in those cases) doesn't work with solo cases. Or, I should be more precise: it doesn't work reliably enough. It works sometimes. Like right now I had an urge to Netflix or watch porn, and instead I am recollecting Dhamma and writing this post.  But I am fairly certain I will succumb a few times this week. Escape, escape, escape... A dangerous friend. (Which is not actually your friend)

In praise of bed bugs, as training for the mind

The house I bought has bed bugs. Not an insane amount active, but when removing trim and ceiling tiles, I saw their telltale stain.

They have been good training for the mind.

I recall a passage where a well trained mind can have a mind not disgusted in the face of what is disgusting. And all combos of <reaction, trigger>, including being disgusted by what is attractive.

Bed bugs are definitely not pleasant. They itch. It is easy to get obsessed with them. There is a stigma. And there is a harm if I accidentally pass them on to others. It would be awful to cause an infestation in some other house.

But I gotta think about scale. They don't carry disease like mosquitoes. They are a nuisance. I am the itch, but also bigger than the itch (a la Thich Nhat Hanh). In the grand scheme of things, if I cannot even put up with the discomfort of an itch of a bed bug, what possible chance do I have against greed or delusion or the itches of addiction?

I'm also not just rolling over. I'm washing clothes, vacuuming, and caulking gaps. I'm replacing or refinishing floors.

But the training is to not get hijacked by needing the outside world conform to my vision of it. Or, to use that quote from Lou Reed /Laurie Anderson in rolling stone magazine:

To feel the pain but not be the pain.

Update april2023: not bed bugs. Probably mites or rat mites.  Even trickier (and smaller).

Good mind training.

30 minute video about the dangers of Getting What you Want

 I have a 30 minute video on the dangers of Getting What You Want.

It touches on getting what you want, transitory happiness, safety, and growth.

It uses graphs.

It uses Buddhism and hedonic treadmill ideas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwRmOor9VbU

Slidedeck link is https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1z6YZniHnAoASdjYuWwtX3uO-r1XNbfyRwFBbbfCuXN8/edit?usp=sharing

4 functions of meditation: CLIF

 In my own meditation, I've looked at my mind over many years and with many techniques in mind. There are many different ways to approach it. The Satipatthana sutta has 4 frames of reference and about a dozen lists. Those 4 frames are helpful, but they are ways of looking.

The 4 functions of meditations are frameworks of activity. These are mostly my own invention (to the best of my knowledge), though they mirror tetrad 3 of Anapanasati.

1. Concentration or Focus

2. Listening, Careful Observations

3. Insight, or different ways of looking

4. Fabrication or Creation. This is making the mind do things or see things.

In concentration, one is trying to keep the mind on one object. This is planting a deep pole into the ground. Stay here is both the intention and the result. It's okay to wander, but one is supposed to not focus on the wandering, but simply come back. It's like training a dog. It's about doing one thing over and over and, when needed correcting. And our minds are unruly dogs... They must be corrected over and over and over. The object of concentration can be the breath, an idea, a vision, or a mantra.

Somatically, I teach students to imagine grabbing a stick and sticking it in the ground, and then identifying with that stick and their object of meditation.

In listening, one is trying to make a careful observation of what arises, as quickly and as detailed as possible. This is the heart of awareness meditation, which is what Joseph Goldstein teaches to beginners. Watch it arise, name or note it, then begin again. Don't follow the storyline. If you feel an itch, name it and note it and then just watch it. Don't scratch immediately. Watch it and then, if you must, scratch it slowly, ie mindfully. One is not trying to do any analysis in the sense of picking any thought process apart, or trying to see connections.

Somaticizing listening, I suggest people hold out open hands and wiggle their fingers. Imagine being a spider in the middle of a spider web, and get super sensitive to the web. And notice anything that gets caught in that web.

In insight, the point is to see in a different way and to see connections. Insight comes mostly after listening. You can't have much insight if 90% of the story is in your blind spot. Listening let's you see the story and the blind spots. Now that you can see all the individual objects, you start seeing connections. A useful analogy might be that listening is snapshots/stills and insight is video clips. You see A happen first, then B happen next, and then you add C by choice, and then D happens.  Listening might mean sometimes you see B only. Or sometimes just D. Insight is seeing the patterns.  The Satipatthana sutta (4 frames of reference for mindfulness) is another form of insight. Instead of trying to look at time sequences or co-arising, one looks at individual moments, but from different perspectives. Suppose we mostly look at a person and see the face. Satipatthana suggest we look at the back of the person. And maybe zoomed in to the feet, then legs, etc (component parts). Then maybe zoomed out as one person in a large city or room. And then maybe with a boroscope like in a colonoscopy. Satipatthana, in all 4 frames, also says to look at it as arising and passing away (over time, or over the lifecycle) and also as a non personal observation ("independent and unsustained")

This can be passive, but it can also be active. Like in Satipatthana #3, we can look and ask specific questions. Is there greed, or no greed, or half-half greed? The active is setting the frame. Then we listen.

Somaticizing this, I suggest people get a rock or a mug or a pencil. And then I have them turn it over, put their eye really close, close there eyes and "look" with their hands, etc. This gets into the detail side of insight. And then, imagining the life cycle. The item breaking. But also the component parts. This is related to the Tangerine meditation made famous by Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.

Finally, there is Fabrication. This isn't the final method, in that you need to do the first three to reach the 4. They can come in any order and loop. I just list it last. It is the most active element. At it's heart, fabrication is getting good at arising or extinguishing any mental state. At it's perfection, anger is something you can turn on and off like a light switch. So is Metta/loving kindness. So is desire.

Sharon Salzberg encourages people to start with Metta meditation. It's a good technique for many (but not all). Metta meditation fabricates Goodwill for all people. Kindness is another term that is used. By doing Metta meditation, we are fabricating Goodwill and extinguishing ill-will. We wish nobody to be poisoned or wronged, even if they are "bad people" who cause lots of harm. Fabrication is the main part, but in the course of fabrication, we develop the focus element (#1). And the listening element (#2), because we notice places where it is hard to generate Metta. For example, many people have trouble generating Metta for noisy neighbors or other bothersome people. Probably more have problems generating Metta for themselves. Third, insight is developed, sometimes naturally or by accident, because we start seeing the arising of Metta and its passing, or the arising of ill will and its passing.

Fabrication (including fabricating Metta) is fully active. Hence, there is the possibility of "steamrolling" our emotions. Our emotions might be grief and sadness. Rather than sitting quietly and listening, we might force ourselves (inadvertently) to do Metta. This is what I call "yanky", like yanking the leash of a dog. It works, but it's not skillful. Sometimes we need to yank, but often we don't. The experimental mode of fabrication is to experiment... How can I use the minimum yank to generate Metta? How can I generate Metta with a lot of force because I want it quickly? How can I generate Metta by just allowing it to appear, rather than pushing for it to appear?

We want to get good at fabrication, but the Buddha was quite clear that the end of suffering requires the end of fabrication. We use fabrication as we need to, especially to keep our defilements and destructive habits in check. Convincing ourselves we don't need that 5th piece of cake is a fabrication exercise. We have to take that step first, so I'm not deriding people who take such a step. But I'm giving you a foreshadowing. At some point, you'll have to look at the urge for that 5th piece of cake. Seems impossible to stop the urge... It seems like you can only respond to the urge. But it is very possible to cut off urges before they become actionable. Hint: it requires insight. One tip is that it's possible to notice a pain in the body as just a pain in the body, before it becomes a pain in the mind. And then that pain generates it's own urges, mainly aversion and possibly ill-will and blame.

Somatically, I would give people a set of 10 stones and maybe a piece of paper with 4 quadrants. Fabrication is the arranging of the stones of our mind.

My annoyance of western reductionist approaches to meditation is that they tend to focus on just one of these 4 functions. Some emphasize focus. Some emphasize listening. Some emphasize insight (and fabricating insight is not possible... any fabricated insight is mostly false). Some emphasize fabricating things, like kindness or equanimity.

These are 4 beautiful tools. They are interrelated. In some sense, focus is fabricated. And insight leads better focus. Which leads to better insight. And that can allow us to disentangle processes, which means we can fabricate more adeptly. In the processes of these 4 functions, they all have arrows to every other one. So, in a technical sense, every teacher is right. Focusing on any 1 can get you all 4. But focusing on 1 can also get you only that 1. As early as possible, I think people should be given a taste of all 4.

Tetrad 3 of the Anapanasati has all 4.  Sensitive to the mind is listening. Gladdening the mind is fabrication. Steadying the mind is focus. Relinquishing and releasing the mind is insight, maybe with some fabrication.

Meditation and these 4 functions are value-free in that they can be used for skillful or unskillful purposes. If you want to manipulate the world and become all powerful (like Devadatta), you can use meditation for that defilement-filled purpose. But, to follow the Buddhist path requires adopting Right View, which is clarity on what is helpful and unhelpful, but also how things arise and pass away. Insight that is skillful is right view. But insight all by itself could be unskillful. You can see how things are fabricated, but maybe you are blind to the harmful consequences. Or you are greedy and care only about yourself, willful or oblivious to harming others.

May you explore and master all 4 functions. May you experiment and see for yourself. And may you use them to decrease suffering and increase deep happiness and contentment and peace.

UUDR 

On how to repay a teacher, not disappearing, and the problems of sarcasm.

I am incredibly indebted to Thanissaro Bhikkhu and the phrase of "Practicing the dhamma in line with the Dhamma, not in line with your preferences".  It paints a sharp line. If you know better, a follower of Buddhism is duty bound to not disrespect the Dhamma. One can make mistakes, even 100s of mistakes. But the transgression of the rule is to lie to oneself: to pretend one is earnestly practicing the Dhamma when one is just messing around, often using it for entertainment.

The phrase, "if you know better" is key. For years, I was using Buddhism is a way I would now see as questionable. I was dabbling with Buddhism and picking and choosing the bits that "resonated" with my beliefs that made me feel good. But, eventually I realized that the bits that "resonated" were often the bits that resonated with my bad habits, with greed or anger or wishful thinking. Or with self aggrandizement or some myth of "I am right (and ready to fight)" (see other blog post on the folly of fighting others for what is right).

The below text message is with a new friend who is inconsistent with communication, and hence, I mistook them as someone it's not helpful for me to interact with around Buddhism. But his email to me (that I am not including) reflected back that he had deeply absorbed and explored what I taught him, about being careful of being sucked into backstories (the "second Arrow" story in Buddhism). He just never reported back.

A student is never never never obligated to report back to the teacher. There is no "owing". But a student, especially in the modern informal age, should know that the majority of students (and even of monks) don't put into practice what a teacher teaches. In that information vacuum, a teacher has two quandaries: (1) they can't tell if you are putting in effort or, like the majority, just going through motions, and (2) they don't know what to teach you, since what is taught, especially in Buddhism, is tailored to the student's aptitudes and deficiencies. So help your teacher and help yourself: keep notes on what you do and don't do. And share the poignant parts (which are sometimes dull parts, by the way), so they can better guide you.  Otherwise, don't be shocked that a teacher writes you off or gives you generic fluff.

(NOTE: this is not how things were in olden days, in a full-time training center, or on an intimate retreat. The process of sharing the daily meal, watching how chores are performed and even just looking at nonverbal body language... a good teacher can grok/read a lot from just being in shared space with another person. So there, it's not as important to verbalize, because your actions will speak louder than your words. Some teachers (like Ajaan Maha Boowa, famously) are said to be able to read minds. But not all can, or some can only do so vaguely. So, it is helpful to speak up when you are having issues with practice or with an idea. But realize, also that a skilled teacher will not often give a direct answer. There is a lot of "try this or that", or "this works sometimes", or the dreaded, "work on it yourself and see what you can come up with" (!)".)

As for how a student can repay the teacher: I like the Thai response (Ajaan Fuang? Chah? Both?). A student repays the teacher by trying out and putting what the teacher taught into practice. Hence, it's fine if a student never reports back. The wish is only that the student put the teaching to good use, to develop helpful and skillful habits.

I'm happy to help you (and everyone) who earnestly approaches Buddhism.

I'm wary of two things (not just you): 1) people who jump to Buddhism only when they feel like it or in crisis. (This is like people who pray only when they want help). 2) and people who don't put in the work. In general, 1 hour of meeting should be linked to at least 1 or 2 hours of homework/personal practice. It's unfortunately common that people go to talks like they go to a movie, for some relaxation, and do 0 homework.

It's helpful whenever you report back to me what works and what you have tried, what ideas you've worked with. Like what you wrote in this text. You get just as much credit when you earnestly work with an idea as when you report back that it doesn't work for you. (I e., Don't pretend something works if it doesn't ). But you get no credit or negative credit when you don't report back at all. Hence, I had mostly written your earnestness off since you haven't reported back. until this message, which sets you more square.

As a slogan: don't disappear without a word.

If you do want to disappear, just send a note, like "I'm dropping Buddhism."

The person also is very sarcastic and I said to him that I will push him to not use sarcasm around me. He related this to an issue of disrespect to Buddhism (which it sometimes is, but sometimes isn't). And that sarcasm might be treating Buddhism as entertainment, not a serious and useful path.

My distaste for sarcasm is about sarcasm being 50% of the time a bad habit, a habit that promotes cynicism but also avoiding tough conversations. It can be useful as a stress reliever when things are very fucked up (like gallows humor), but the popularity of sarcasm is more indicative that most US society is very fucked up, and sarcasm is rarely a reliable sign that someone is clever. It mostly signals that they like appearing clever.