The Selfless Self

The Second Noble Truths points to the primary cause of suffering, misperception, and suggests that because we don't know ourselves clearly we relate to the world with attachment and aversion.

The primary thing we are misperceiving is the self. It is the one thing we are absolutely sure of, that we have a self and that we exist intrinsically or from our own side.

The self essence or instrisic-ness is expressed through three subjective qualities: Permanence; Singularity; Separateness.

Ask yourself these questions:

Are you the same person you were yesterday? And the day before? Did "you" get out of your bed yesterday morning? When you look at a picture of yourself when you were a child, do you feel that that is you? This is the perception of permanence, that we have an intrinsic self that persists over time despite all apparent changes.

Now ask yourself how many selves do you have? How many of "you" are there? This is the perception of singularity, that we are only one person, unified, autonomous and whole.

Now ask yourself if you are a separate entity? Do you exist outside and apart from other living things and people? Are others outside and apart from yourself, while you are inside yourself? This is the perception of separateness, that we exist independent from others and the world around us.

Now stabilize your mind, calm your nervous system and apply deep analysis and penetrative investigation to the self that you hold as intrinsically real, permeant, singular and separate.

There is no part of you that is unchanging. Your body, sensations, perceptions, mental constructs 9thoughts, emotions memories etc.) and consciousness are not static but change. All of the components that make up the so called self are in constant flux, arising, persisting for a short time and transitioning into something else. Modern science has shown us that the molecular building blocks that make us up are in a constant state of change and that no cell in the body exists after a set period of time. Our mind and thoughts change in the same way. Therefore, there is no self that is permanent.

Now how about the fact that you feel there is just one of you? Is there really? Are you the same person to your mother as you are to your father? The same person to your boss as you are to your colleague? The same person yesterday when you won the lottery as you were 10 years ago when you were broke. Even in the same day are you the same person when you are happy as when your are sad? Even in the same moment are you the same person once you received or extended kindness to another person? There are many selves, many face, many people who show up each day looking like you but acting, thinking and feeling different. Which one is the real you? No single one of these selves is the "real" you they are all only the relative appearance of you.

Now examine your sense of independence and separateness. That you feel self contained apart from the world. Again, here, beneath the immediate appearance, lies a deeper reality. A reality that is difficult to perceive with the ordinary eye, but opens to the calm eye of meditative analysis. On a molecular level you are in constant interdependence and exchange with the environment. The air, heat, light and energy you take in comes from outside yourself and has been shared by other living organisms. Biologically, you are the product of your parents and gene pool, connecting you with others in a familial lineage and to a species. Psychologically, there is nothing in your mind that hasn't originated or been shared with another mind. In the grand scheme of thing you are not that different or that separate. You are actually more related and interdependent than you can ever imagine!

Now that you have dissolved the misperception of self, contemplate how much damage, suffering, dissatisfaction, stress and alienation it has caused you, operating under the instinctual programming of your permanence, singularity and independence?

What would life be like if you intuitively experienced your impermanence, multiplicity and interdependence?

This is the selfless self that the Buddha encourages us to experience by deconditioning our misperception, attachment and aversion through trainings in lifestyle, contemplation and insight.

We are free, completely free, not bound by any self imposed limitation, free to learn grow, change, relate and enjoy all things around and within us.

Four Noble Truths (2.0)

The Four Noble Truths provide the fundamental framework for Buddha's psychology of freedom and happiness. A traditional medical model describing the symptom, etiology, prognosis and treatment for suffering, the Four Noble Truths are presented in two causally linked dyads: 1) suffering and its causes; 2) freedom and it causes.

Suffering is to be understood
The Cause is to be abandoned
Freedom is to be realized
The Path is be cultivated
-The Buddha


Short Outline:

I. Truth of Suffering
A. Ordinary Suffering
B. The Suffering of Change
C. The Suffering of Conditioning/Habit

II. Truth of the Origin
A. Attachment
B. Aversion
C. Misperception

III. Truth of Cessation
A. Complete freedom is our nuature
B. Suffering is created by mind, thus the mind can learn, self-correct and experience its true nature


IV. Truth of the Path
A. Three Higher Trainings
B. Three Types of Learning
C. Three Reliances of Learning


Explanation:

I. First Noble Truth: Suffering
The unconscious or unawakened life leads to unavoidable suffering and dissatisfaction. The nature of suffering is threefold:

A . Ordinary Suffering: Birth, illness, old-age and death, separation from loved ones, having to be with difficult ones, and the loss of objects of desire are unavoidable and painful because we experience them unconsciously or mindlessly.

B. Suffering of Change: All things are impermanent, temporary and fleeting. Even people and experiences that provide some measure of happiness eventually become the source of suffering because we do not relate to them accurately.

C. Suffering of Conditioning: Our experience of suffering and stress is conditioned by our patterns of biological and psychological reactivity based on our misperception of the self and world. As current stress research suggests, our mind/body process has evolutionarily (genetically and biologically) been conditioned by fight-flight reactivity. In other words, stress (our response to perceived threat) is somehow “embedded” or programed into our nuero-biology in order to ensure survival. Our psychology or personality is similalry conditioned by our past, particularly by traumatic experiences, which occurred during childhood when we were particularly vulnerable, dependent, and impressionable. These traumatic events and memories create and reinforce schemas or core beliefs about our selves, others and world and condition patterns of interpersonal relating that contribute to our continued experience of suffering, dissatisfaction and alienation. If we do not consciously override our biology and reprogram our psychological scripts we will continue to experience stress and trauma.

II. Second Noble Truth: Cause of Suffering
Buddhist psychology is based upon a rational and empirical science of causality and avoids two extremes of theism (the belief that a God figure or external presence determines our life and events) and materialisms (the belief that things are random and without causal determinants). Buddhism asserts that one’s current experience of suffering or happiness is the direct result of one’s previous actions (karma) conditioned by disturbing emotions (klesha) or inaccurate perceptual filters.

There are Three Causes of suffering (two secondary and one primary):

A. Desire/attachment: The untrained, unconscious mind compulsively pursues pleasure in objects, experiences and people outside of the self, unaware of their impermanent nature. Desire is due to a perceptual exaggeration of the positive qualities of an object, while attachment is the inability to let them go.

B. Aversion/Avoidance/Anger: The untrained, unconscious mind compulsively avoids, rejects or resists unpleasant objects, experience and people, unaware of the causal process of their arising. A desire thwarted, lost or unattained leads to disappointment and anger. Anger is due to a perceptual exaggeration of the negative qualities of an object.

C. Delusion/misperception: The primary root cause of the other two secondary causes is our habitual state of unawareness, which erroneously misperceives reality. When we are unaware of the salient characteristics of reality (ie. emptiness/interdependence, impermanence, and suffering) we cannot accurately respond to our situation. At the heart of our desirous attachment and aggressive avoidance is the incorrect belief that a self, within us and things, exists as an intrinsically real, separate, independent, fixed and permanent entity. This is our fundamental misperception. Because of the minds instinctive tendency to reify (making something real that it not) the self, we become self-centered, preoccupied with gratifying the self, and hostile about protecting the self.

C.2. Three Characteristics of Self and Phenomenon:

1) Emptiness or No Self: There is no intrinsically real, unrelated, enduring, separate, autonomous self within us or things. This does not mean that no self exists at all, as is asserted in nihilism. Our self and objects do exist in an interrelated, interdependent, constantly changing matrix based on causes and conditions. According to Buddhism nothing exists absolutely; everything exists relatively or interdependently. Things that are fixed or absolute by definition cannot be related to, as they theoretically lay outside the causal matrix of interdependence. The flip side of emptiness is that because all things lack intrinsic reality or a fixed self, they can change. We could not learn, grow and change if we were really as fixed as we unconsciously believe ourselves to be. When you hear “all things are empty” this does not mean they don’t exist, it simply means they are empty of inherently existing from their own side. Ultimately, the “self” is a mere consensus designation of language, falsely reified and superimposed over a causal arising of interdependent phenomenon or parts, themselves lacking any inherent, intrinsic reality. Another way of thinking about selflessness or emptiness is as unlimited potential. The self we are attached to or identified with is our limits, concrete unchanging and reified, when in fact our nature is pure and unlimited potential. The minute you reify, hold, fix or make permanent, the self or world, you create suffering, because you are going against its true nature.

2) Impermanence: Because things are empty and lack inherent autonomy/existence they are impermanent and non lasting. The molecules and sub-particles that comprise things and the sub-processes that constitute the life systems are empty of any lasting core, thus come into being, persist for some time and eventually decay. Change, the flow of life and the passing of time is contingent upon emptiness.

3) Suffering: Because things lack inherent existence (emptiness) they are subject to change and do not endure (impermanence). As a result of this constant change process (birth, death and rebirth) some measure of suffering is unavoidable. It is the price of being part of an open interdependent system. Some amount of pain is built into the fabric of existence because it is not static, rather an open system. The question is how much extra suffering do we create by misperceiving, attaching and avoiding this natural process. As they say, “pain is inevitable, suffering is optional”. Other sources consider the third characteristic to be Freedom. Phenomenon are impermanent because they lack an essential essence, and because they lack any essential essence their nature is "free" to learn, grow and change. The most fundemntal characteristic of mind is its potential for enlightenment or complete freedom.

III. The Third Noble Truth: Freedom
It is possible for a human being to be completely free of the causes of suffering. The word Buddha means “Awakened”, and represents the full flowering or peak potential of a human being. The word freedom means “free from something” as in “sugar free” and “caffeine free”. There are two things an awakened person is free from: afflictive emotions (kleshas) such as greed, hatred, delusion, pride, envy, jealousy etc; and compulsive habits/actions (karma). Nirvana means to cease, to end. What ends for the awakened mind are the emotional afflictions and the compulsive habit actions that emerge from the afflictions.
Habits here are threefold and include any action of body (behavior), speech (words) and mind (thoughts) that are done with unawareness or inattention. Karmic results and consequences are determined by one’s intentions and actions. Good karma is the result of actions of body speech and mind done with a positive mental state, realistic perception and altruistic intention, while bad karma results from actions committed under a negative mental state, unrealistic misperception of self and reality and self-centered intention. Since current intentions are so vital in producing future outcome and experience, in Buddhist psychology a premium is place on decreasing afflictive emotions that obscure pure perception of reality in order to create wholesome actions.

Since the causes of suffering lie within the mind through afflictive emotions, unconscious habits and misperceptions, than freedom also lies with in the mind, through sublime emotions, conscious and altruistic habits each based on accurate perception of self and reality.

The Third Noble Truth asserts a generous and optimistic view of the mind and its potential. In order to say that all minds can eventually become free, it is understood that an innate inborn potential for freedom is already present, albeit obscured by misperception, habit and afflictions. The path of Buddhist psychology becomes the process of removing the misperception, bringing the cessation of actions and afflictions, and consciously developing virtues (paramitas) such as generosity, morality, patience, effort, concentration and wisdom that will lead the mind to full awakening. The fully developed or awakened mind is characterized as infinitely “clear and knowing”.

IV. The Fourth Noble Truth: The Path to Freedom
The Path to freedom entails Three Higher Educations, Three Types of Learning, and Three Reliable Sources of Learning.

Three Higher Trainings:
1. Ethics or Virtue:
Right Actions, Speech, and Livelihood
2. Mental Discipline:
Right Effort, Mindfulness and Concentration
3. Wisdom:
Right View of reality and Intention

Three Types of Learning:
1. Wisdom born of “hearing” includes listening to, reading about and studying the Dharma using one’s intellect.
2. Wisdom born of “reflection” takes the concepts one has studied and applies critical reasoning, reflection, discussion and debate in order to come to a more correct and intuitive understanding.
3. Wisdom born of “meditation” takes ones intuitive understanding and applies it in an analytic meditation in order to come to an experiential insight. An analytic meditation does not necessarily occur on the meditation cushion, but can be any moment in everyday life when you apply learning and self-correction to your experience.

Here meditative learning is just one aspect of the contemplative path. Ideally we should not overemphasize meditation practice to the exclusion of studying correctly and reflecting accurately about contemplative principals. Time for studying and discussing is as important as time on the cushion.

Three Reliances of Learning (aka Triple Refuge):
A realistic reliance or reliable refuge is where one goes for safe direction during times of difficulty. There are three reliances:

1. Teachers. The Buddha or one’s mentor. The source of knowledge acquisition in the Buddhist tradition comes through a long lineage of masters that trace their origin directly back to Shakyamuni Buddha. Role modeling is essential, as knowledge is passed directly from mentor to student. But the ultimate teacher, is Reality itself, one's innate potential for freedom and happiness. When one bows to a statue of the Buddha, one acknowledges the potential for awakening that exists in all living beings.
2. The Teachings and Methods. In order to develop along the contemplative path one not only needs a teacher, but also the precise science, methodologies and arts that lead to awakening.
3. The Community. Traditionally the community is constituted by those who have experienced awakening, ie. the realization of selflessness/emptiness. It can also mean anyone who values and upholds the teachings and methods that lead one to Reality. Because contemplative learning is largely counter intuitive and counter cultural, strength and support is often found in numbers.

Guidelines for Starting a Meditation Practice (repost)

Contents:
I. Space: Where to Meditate
II. Posture: How to Sit in Meditation
III. 5-Point Instruction for Mindfulness Meditation (as taught in class)
IV. 5 Stages of Meditation (Traditional Formulation)
V. When and How Much to Meditate


I. Space: Where to Practice Meditation
The following are guidelines for those who would like to begin to meditate on their own at home, in addition to the guidance of teachers and the support of a community.

1. Choose a quite space in your home or in a safe environment.
2. Create some privacy, close the door or ask others for some alone time.
3. Turn off any cell phones and other electronic devices such as radios or TV’s.
4. Clean and tidy the space, as this will help put the mind at ease.
5. Make the space pleasing to the senses, meaningful or sacred by arranging flowers, lighting candles or incense, setting up pictures or statues of inspiring people or places and making offerings and gestures of gratitude. This helps to demarcate the meditation space from ordinary space.

II. Posture: How to Sit in Meditation (from the 7 point Vairochana Posture)

In the beginning comfort is more important than form. The form includes:

1. If seated on the floor, place your legs in full or half lotus position or just crossed them in front of you. The right hand is placed in the left hand, palms facing upwards, with the tips of the thumbs gently touching. If seated in a chair, place your feet flat on the ground and hands folded in your lap.
2. Eyes are half open gazing softly at the space a foot or so in front of you. This will help prevent you from falling asleep. If restless, trying closing the eyes completely to help the mind begin to relax.
3. Keep your spine erect like a stack of coins, upright but not ridged. This will help keep you stay alert. Position your meditation cushion beneath your rear to raise the spine and tilt forward the pelvis. If in a chair come forward slightly with your back away from the back of the chair and your rear at the front half of the seat.
4. Shoulders are even and relaxed. Be mindful of hunching and slouching.
5. Dip your chin down slightly.
6. Keep a relaxed space between lips and teeth, and do not clench the jaw.
7. Rest you tongue softly on the roof of your pallet.

III. 5-Point Instruction for Mindfulness Meditation

1. Begin with reflecting on your spiritual aspiration for your life in general and clarifying your intention to meditate in particular. The more specific your intention the clearer the direction for your mind.
2. Select the object upon which you will focus your awareness (ie. the breath, sensations, emotions, sounds, consciousness, a specific theme, a visual object etc.)
3. Breath diaphragmatically in order to trigger the relaxation response. After a short period you can allow the breath to settle into a natural rhythm.
4. Once you realize you have been distracted from the mediation object, return your awareness back to the focus with an attitude or disciplined determination and non-judgmental care, patience and friendliness.
5. Seal your meditation with a dedication, recommitting your energies toward your initial aspiration. Here again, be specific as to what you will dedicate your energy towards during your between meditation period in everyday life.

IV. 5 Stages of Meditation (Traditional Tibetan Buddhist Approach)

1. Preparation: The mind is prepared by a number of activities including reflection on refuge, aspiration, four-immeasurables, visualizing the field of merit, seven-limb prayer, mandala offering, and other prayers.
2. Contemplation: Reflecting on a particular theme from the Stages of the Path Literature (Lam Rim) such as the “preciousness of human life” that motivates your practice. Select an object of meditation based on the contemplative theme or stage in the progression.
3. Meditation: Can include any combination of techniques: Analytic contemplation, single-pointed concentration, and visualization.
4. Dedication: Dedicate the positive force or energy (aka merits) generated by the practice to one’s own or to another’s spiritual awakening, before the potency is destroyed by afflictive emotions.
5. Between Sessions: Reflect on and try to assimilate the meaning of the particular meditative theme or topic as it relates to your daily activities and life.


V. When and How Much to Meditate

1. In general it is advised to meditate first thing in the morning when the mind is fresh and well rested. Practically speaking however, consider when your own energy level is optimal and when you have the time in your schedule.
2. In the beginning, commit to slightly less meditation time than you think you should do. Once you’ve decided on length of time, follow through without exception. Quality, consistence and follow through are more important that duration. Ideally you should end meditation while you are still enjoying it so that you desire to return to practice the next day. This is called ‘developing a taste for the practice’. If meditation becomes a drag to early, chances are you will abandon the practice altogether. Try starting with 5-10 minute intervals working up towards 25-30 minute periods. Most research suggests that 30 minutes of daily practice over 8 weeks results in various health benefits.
3. Consistency is important. Better to do a little meditation every day than to do a long stretch once or twice a week.
4. Remember that meditation alone does not constitute the entire contemplative path. Balance your meditation practice with readings, attending lectures, participating in discussions and debate with others, and spending time reflecting on the significance of spiritual themes in your own life. For more on this see the Fourth of the Four Noble Truth in an earlier post.

The Three Principal Paths

The Three Principal Paths (Lam-Tso Mam-Sum) is a very concise presentation of the entire Gradual Path (Lam Rim) teachings composed by Lama Tsongkapa (1357-1419). Tsongkhapa is considered one the greatest philosopher-contemplative-scholars Tibet has ever produced. The Three Paths of Renunciation, Spirit of Enlightenment, and Correct View of Reality—are the essential knowledges one cultivates to achieve full awakening.

The 12-week Gradual Path Towards Contemplative Living course taught at Tibet House is based on the Three Principal Paths; one month of four classes having been assigned to each of the three principals. The entire path from misery to complete freedom and happiness can be traced over the course of these 12- weeks.

Weeks 1-4 covered Renunciation, the abandoning of compulsive living that results in our experience of suffering. The Four Noble Truths showed how we suffer due to attachment and anger based on misperception of reality, and how happiness and freedom are possible if we adopt a contemplative life based on ethics, mental training and wisdom. The key skill taught during the first month was mindfulness meditation, used to calm the mind from its compulsive reactive patterns, in order to create the opportunity for choice in how to respond to experience with discrimination and care.

Weeks 5-8 covered the Spirit of Enlightenment (Bodhicitta), the wish to attain freedom for the benefit of all sentient beings. The Four Fold Exchange of Self and Other showed how we are fundamentally no different from all other beings, the downfall of our self-preoccupation and the joy of altruism. Through this framework we see how the cultivation of wisdom, particularly of interdependence, naturally gives rise to compassion for others. The key skills taught during the second month were loving kindness meditation (metta) and giving and taking meditation (tong-len), used to reverse self-centeredness into care for others. Here we used compassion as the ultimate medicine to destroy the misperception of separateness at the root of our own suffering, thereby allowing us to taste the happiness born of our interconnectivity.

Weeks 9-12 covered the Correct View of Reality, discussed negatively as the emptiness or lack of inherent existence in phenomenon and positively as the interdependence or co-arising of the appearance of things. The Seven-limb Prayer showed the possibility of growing past self-imposed limitations by exposing our minds and hearts to the optimal care of our mentor. The fact that we can learn, grow and change is possible because of emptiness, the lack of any fixed, inherently real notion of self or things. The key skills taught during the last month were the Jewel Tree and Mentor-boding visualizations. Here we exposed the mind to emptiness by dissolving ordinary appearance and reconstructing optimal guides and environments based on active imagination. Once in a safe healing environment and in the presence of our mentor guides we are able to project and introject our innate goodness, confidence and optimal healing capacity. For more on the psychodynamics of mentor-bonding see an earlier post.

The Three Principal Aspects of the Path
Fourteen verses written by Lama Tsong Khapa
http://www.lamrim.com/lamayeshe/threepaths.html

Respectfully I prostrate to the Exalted Mentor.

1. As far as I am able, I shall explain the essence of all high teachings of the Awakened, the path that all warriors of love commend, the entry point for the fortunate seeking freedom.
2. Listen with a pure mind, fortunate ones who have no craving for the mundane pleasures of life, and who to make leisure and fortune meaningful, strive to turn their minds to the contemplative path, which pleases the Awakened.
3. There is no way to end, without pure renunciation, this striving for pleasant results in the ocean of life. It is because of their mindless yearning for life as well that beings are bound, so seek renunciation first.
4. Leisure and fortune are hard to find; life is not long; think of this constantly, that will cease compulsivity for this life. Think over and over how cause and effect never fail, and how endless suffering is for those living habitually; that will cease compulsivity for the future.
5. When you have meditated thus, and feel not even a moment's desire for the good things of mundane life, and when you begin to think both night and day of achieving complete freedom, you have found Renunciation.
6. Renunciation, though, can never bring the total bliss of matchless Awakening, unless it is motivated by the highest aspiration; and so, the wise seek
the the high wish for the Spirit of Enlightenment.
7. They are swept along on four fierce river currents; chained up tight in past deeds, hard to undo; stuffed in a steel cage of grasping "self"; smothered in the pitch-black of misperception.
8. In a endless rounds of habitual and mindless living, they are born, and in their births, are tortured by three sufferings without a break; think how all your countless mother beings feel; think of what is happening to them; try to develop this highest wish to achieve enlightenment for their sake.
9. You may master renunciation and the wish, but unless you have the Wisdom perceiving reality, you cannot cut the root of compulsive living. Make efforts in ways, then, to perceive interdependence.
10. A person has entered the path that pleases the Awakened when, for all objects, in the mundane existence or beyond, he sees that cause and effect can never fail, and when, for him, they lose all solid appearance.
11. You have yet to realize the connection between the mere appearance and emptiness of things.
12. At some point they no longer alternate but come together; just seeing this connection never fails to bring realization that destroys how you mindlessly attach to objects,
 and then your analysis with view is complete.
13. In addition, mere appearance prevents the non-existence extreme, while emptiness prevents attachment to inherent existence; and if you see how emptiness manifests in cause and effect, you will never be persuaded by extreme views.
14. When you have ascertained the essential points of each of the three principal paths explained, then go into deep contemplation, noble friend, make mighty efforts,
and quickly attain freedom.

Psychodynamics of mentor-archtype-bonding (guru-yidam-yoga)

Mentor Tsongkhappa

The following are three psychodynamic principals that describe some of the proceess involved in the mentor-bonding visualization. Typically these are unconscious processes or defenses that occur automatically outside of awareness in order to preserve the integrity of the ego. As all defenses they become overused or outgrown, and end up causing more suffering rather than relief. During the mentor-bonding these process are consciously implemented in order to cultivate the minds potential to learn, grow and change past rigidly defined limits or self-perceptions.

Idealization:
When an individual is unable to integrate difficult feelings, specific defenses are mobilized to regulate these unbearable feelings. The defense that helps in this process is called splitting. Splitting is the tendency to view events or people as either all bad or all good. When viewing people as ‘all good’, you are using the defense mechanism idealization: a mental mechanism in which the person attributes exaggeratedly positive qualities to the self or others. The counterpart of idealization is devaluation: attributing exaggerated negative qualities to the self or others. When this happens unconsciously we can end up being disappointed with those we idealize or inappropriately alienated from those we devalue. In the mentor-bonding, we select a mystical or healing archtype to form a relationship with. We consciously exaggerate their positive attributes, filter out any negative qualities and expose our mind to our optimal or ideal qualities that we seek develop in ourselves. Here we are consciously feeding our mind all the nutrients without any toxins.

Transference:
Transference is a phenomenon in psychology characterized by unconscious redirection of feelings of one person to another.
For example when a patient unknowingly transfers their unresolved anger towards their parent on to the therapist. In psychology these feelings can be positive or negative, but either way they occur outside of awareness.
In the mentor-bonding we consciously direct positive feelings towards the ideal mentor, accessing our inate resevoir of loving connection, hope and optimism, and feelings of being safe and cared for.

Projection:
Psychological projection is a defence mechanism in which one attributes ("projects") to others, one's own unacceptable or unwanted thoughts or/and emotions. Projection reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the unwanted subconscious impulses/desires without letting the ego recognize them. In the mentor-bonding we consciously project any positive, desired for aspects, onto the ideal mentor. Any love and care you've ever experience by someone, you direct them toward the mentor and feel completely connected and cared for by them.

Internalized introject
To introject is to unconsciously incorporate characteristics of a person into one's own psyche. In the mentor-bonding we consciously take-in or "reabsorb" any of the "nutrients" we have projected onto the mentor and the bonding relationship. The love and wisdom we initially ascrib to the idealized other, we take in and allow to become part of our own character. In fact it was always part of our psyche, but here we are consciously accepting and cultivating it.

7-Fold Mentor Bonding Process

Preparation Stage

Find a comfortable posture.

Reflect on the reliability of your mentor and teachers; the teachings and methods; and, the support of those committed to the contemplative life.

Reflect on your spiritual aspiration: the humble aspiration to attain some measure of peace and happiness; the medium aspiration to achieve complete freedom from suffering; or, the highest aspiration to attain complete freedom in order to benefit others.

Begin breathing meditation to calm and center the mind. Purge your mind of afflictive emotions and tendencies. Let go of filters such as desire and clinging, anger and defensiveness, and alienation or shame-based isolation. Experiencing the taming of your behavior, opening of your heart and connecting to the vast potential of your mind.


Dissolving and Re-envisioning your Self-World

Reflect on the meaning of selflessness. Imagine that your ordinary self-sense as fixed, permanent and unitary, dissolves into its primal elements of earth, air, water, fire and space and merge into the natural flow with the rest of the universe. This helps to release attachment, ownership and identification of “I”, “me” and “mine” with the body and mind. Out of this dynamic, changing, interdependent, give-and-take flow, imagine that you arise in your “breath-body”, a person shaped bubble made of pure breath and awareness. This is a “virtual” or “meditative body”, similar to the one you have in a dream state because it’s made of subtle mind, rather than material. Your body takes on a light quality like a bubble floating in a sea of primal luminous energy. In your meditative body, you rise up above the stress realm of fear and alienation, feeling open, connected and free.

Now reflect on the meaning of Emptiness. Imagine that your ordinary view of the universe as fixed, permanent and unitary, dissolves into its natural flow of primal energy and luminance. Because the nature of the universe is empty of intrinsic reality, it is free, dynamic, changing and interdependent, allowing you to creatively reconstruct a healing environment of your choosing. Visualize a space in which you feel safe, supported and inspired to conduct your meditative practice and mentor dialog. There are no limits to the scene you can create, make the space as beautiful as your imagination permits.

Invoking your Mentor, the Ideal Healer

From the place of feeling light, clear and safe, call upon your mentor or ideal healer to join you. The mentor can arrive in full form spontaneously or in stages. If in stages, in the space before you, imagine arising out of the vast energy flow of the universe comes a luminous disk or cushion, like a moon reflected in a dark sea. Feel the presence of your mentor, like a friend sitting close with you in the dark. Out of the luminous disk arises the seed symbol, imbued with the affirmation, prayer or positive message, which captures the essence of your ideal such as: “you are safe to grow and change”, or “you are lovable enough or worthy enough”, “anything is possible” or “everything about you and the world is perfect as it is”.

Then imagine the seed symbol emits an aura that transforms into the actual form body of your mentor. Begin with the face and then pan out to include the body, filling in the details to heighten his or her presence. Breath into the image until it is fully constructed, appears to you as real, and feels like your mentor is right there with you. Recognize it takes time and practice to stabilize these images and to enhance their vividness.

Then invite the spirit of somebody real to inhabit the form of your ideal mentor. Think of an actual person that you admire, who represents some of the ideal qualities of your mentor. Identify someone who is “on their way” to growing towards that positive direction, who can act as a bridge to help you relate better to the ideal. Allow the energies and spirit of your real person and those of the ideal mentor to intermingle and become one.


7- Fold Mentor-Bonding Process

Now begin the inner therapy and dialog. Facing your mentor and feeling he or she are present for you…

1.Admiring
Admire the positive qualities of your ideal mentor that you seek to cultivate in your own life, such as love, peace, wisdom, calm, equanimity and courage etc. Think, “how nice it would be if I had those qualities”.

2. Offering
In the spirit of generosity and admiration, imagine making offerings to your mentor by giving him/her flowers, precious items, your self and/or the world. Think, “what I would give to be like that”. Imagine your mentor accepts these gifts with gratitude. Feel close to your mentor and entitled to ask for support.

3. Confessing
Feeling close with the mentor, allow yourself to disclose any real or imagined limits, blocks, or insecurities. Unburden yourself of guilt/shame, unworthiness, and fear. Think, “Mentor, I don’t feel that I’m worthy of happiness or that it’s possible for me to change”. Sharing these secrets helps bring you closer to the mentor and exposes perceived limitations so that they can be removed. Experience a deep sense of acceptance by the mentor. Imagine that the mentor has a vision of you beyond any limitations, at the end of your spiritual journey, fully realized and at your best! Have a feeling that the two of you are more like equals.

4. Rejoicing
After you’ve tasted vicariously the mentors acceptance and vision of you in your optimal state, allow yourself to celebrate! This marks a turning point in the dialog, when you have your first glimpse of actually achieving your highest potential for health and happiness. It is a wonderful vision, and the basis for motivating and guiding the rest of your life. Think, “how wonderful it is to know that it is possible for me to be like my mentor”. Commemorate and acknowledge the power of teamwork between you and your mentor. Recognize that in essense the mentor and you are made of the same stuff, that he or she is just a little ahead of the game than you. Imagine the heavens open with wonderful lights, sounds, rainbows etc. reflecting the celebratory nature of the moment.

5. Requesting Guidance
Now acknowledge that this is just the beginning, just a taste of possibility, and that your development along the path will take time, energy and guidance. Ask your mentor for the help you need to fully realize your optimal self, which helps to overcome shame for asking for help. Delighted to be asked, imagine the mentor sends from his or her heart all the blessings and intuitive realizations you need to actualize your potential. Envision rainbow waves of positive energy coming to your heart and filling you with optimism, energy and hope. Allow this energy to resonate in your heart, melting fears and insecurities, and then send this positive healing energy out into the ends of the universe and have it come back in rainbow waves of confirmation.

***** if we are meditating as a group, we pause at this juncture to receive and share actually teachings and guidance. Try to retain your vision of yourself in your meditative body and envision the actual teacher as your ideal mentor. The instructions during class represent the actual guidance you have requested along the path*****


6. Requesting Presence
Revive your vision of being in dialog with the mentor. Reflect on the teachings and guidance you have been given, so that they become metabolized. Now recognizing that the mentor is already enlightened, has completed the path, and could easily abide in their own happiness, ask for their continued presence in your life, that they stay with you. Request that the mentor never abandons you and is always available to you for support and guidance. Thrilled to be asked, and respecting your request, imagine the mentor begins to dissolve into pure light. From their crown to the tips of their toes, they dissolve inwards towards their heart, until all that remains in a luminous drop, like a tear for joy, that coalesces their entire being. Now imagine that that tear drop, floats above your head, passes into your crown, past your throat and slips into your heart. It dissolves there and mixes with your own inner chemistry, like a drop of water merging with the ocean. Imaging that the essence of your mentor dissolve inseparably with the essence of your own inner guide and healing intuition. Allow that merger to resonate with optimism and healing potential that inspires and uplifts you. The healing energy exudes out in a ripple effect from your heart out to the ends of the universe. It then ripples back like a tsunami of love, touching all the hearts and minds of beings in the universe, kindling their own sense of hope, and finally comes back to your heart where it dissolves again.

7. Dedicating
Now that you have tasted the power of hope and optimism provided to you by the mentor, and have recognized your own innate potential for health and happiness, commit yourself to achieving that potential and sharing it with all other beings. Commit your life and energy to actualizing your inner mentor and providing guidance to all those living beings in need.


Therapeutic Antidotes of the 7-Limbs:

Each limb provides and antidote that works to correct a negative quality in the mind.

Admiration => Pride

Offerings => Attachment

Confession => Shame

Rejoicing => Envy

Requesting Guidance => Hopelessness

Requesting Presence => Fear

Dedication => Self-centeredness


The Actual 7-limb Prayer:

Respectfully I prostrate with my body, speech and mind
I present clouds of offerings, actual and imagined
I confess all negativity accumulated since beginningless time
I rejoice in the merits of ordinary and enlightened beings
Please mentor, remain as my guide
And provide the teachings of reality until suffering ends
May I dedicate myself to awakening for the benefit of all living beings

Emptiness the Womb of Compassion

Working definition: The lack of inherent or intrinsic reality of phenomenon.

Caution: Not to be confused with nothingness or the lack of reality all together.

Reminder: Things do exist, however they do not exist inherently or intrinsically.

How then do things exist? Things exist in relation to causes and conditions (dependent co-arising) and as merely imputed labels and concepts of language designation.

Analogies: A reflection in a mirror, a mirage in the desert, a dream. All of these appear to us as truly real, when in fact they lack inherent existence.

The concept of inherent existence includes the notion that “things” have an essence or core that is substantial, independent, permanent, fixed and maintains itself from its own side beyond the perceiver.

Thought experiment: Take the chair you are sitting on and ask yourself if it exists? Most likely your initial reaction will be, of course this chair exists! The chair is stable and I am sitting in it! The chair is not a reflection, a mirage or a dream, its right here underneath me, I can touch it and perceive it! – Ok. You have now established the chair exists with certainty and conviction.

Now lets analyze and contemplate. If I were to remove the back of the chair, and hold it up to you asking, is this the chair? You would respond, no that is the back not the chair. And if I were to remove the seat from the chair leaving only the frame and ask, is this the chair? You would respond, no that is not the chair. And if I were to remove the screws from the frame and hold them in my hand, leaving the frame to collapse in pieces, and ask you are these screws the chair? You would respond, no that is not the chair. Finally, if I asked you if the pile of frame parts scattered on the floor were the chair, you would respond, no that is not a chair. So if the back, seat, screws and frame are all not the chair individually, than where did the chair, that you were so certain existed, go?

Lets rebuild the chair, uniting the frame with the screws and replacing the back and seat. Now the chair appears again, and your certainty returns. Ask yourself what’s missing in this picture? The missing element is the mind that perceives and labels the chair. There is a frame, screws, seat, and back over there and concept or designation “chair” coming from our perception over here. The chair over there is empty. It does not exist intrinsically or essentially from its own side. The chair exists as a co-arising of parts (frame, screws, seat and back) and as a mere label, concept or designation of language originating in our mind.

The thought experiment highlights how our mind’s constantly misperceives reality. To slow down the process, what occurs is: perception of an object => conceptual labeling => imputation of realness/reification of the object. This last part of the sequence, mistaking our concepts to be the object, is the heart of the problem.

The concept of Selflessness refutes the misperception that an intrinsically abiding, unchanging, fixed, permanent, essence or soul exists within a person. Upon examination of the five Life Systems (skandhas) of material form, sensations, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness, no such Self, I, or Me can be found. The self of selflessness is an open system of interdependence and change.
Selflessness is to the self, what Emptiness is to phenomenon.

Emptiness is a medicine. According to the Second Noble Truth, the root cause of suffering is misperception aka delusion (avidya). Because we mistake the appearance of phenomenon to be more real and substantial than it is, and because we mistake our imputed concepts for reality, this leads to desire, aversion, confusion and eventually to suffering. The mind has a habit of mistaking the self and phenomenon to be more real than they actually are. The projection of a greater ontological status on to an object is known as reification. Emptiness is a medicine for the subtle mental habit of reification. Emptiness is a tool of language and analysis, when intelligently applied, decreases the mental tendency to concretize things. Emptiness is a reminder that we should not confuse our imputed labels and concepts with the objects of our perceptions. While we must use labels and concepts to navigate the world, the automatic or unconscious assumptions we make about those labels and concepts, creates a massive distortion.

Emptiness is a tool. It is a tweezers that removes the thorn or reification from the mind. Emptiness is a doorstopper that keeps the door of our mind open to possibilities rather than succumbing to automatic and erroneous certainties. Emptiness is a set of glasses that corrects distorted vision, so that we can begin to see reality clearly beyond our misperception.

Do not reify Emptiness: Emptiness is a negation, not a thing in it self. Emptiness negates the essentialness, substantiality and certainty of things that we perceive. Emptiness exists only in relation to an object or phenomenon, whose essence is to be negated. The chair is empty, it lacks intrinsic reality. The chair exists conventionally, as an appearance or co-arising phenomenon and as a designation of language. But upon further analysis, no “chairness” actually exists. For this reason, Emptiness is also empty. To reify emptiness as a thing in and of itself, is said to be the greatest downfall of them all. This is why great caution is often taken when teaching about this concept, because the tendency of the mind to grasp and reify is so strong, it can easily misperceive the medicine, rendering it poison.

Emptiness and Ultimate Reality: Emptiness negates a view of ultimate reality that is static, fixed, independent or intrinsically real. Instead it proposes that reality is a flow of appearances, based on causes and conditions, mutually arising and fading in a constant dance, interrelated with all other things, completely free and open to change. The moment we solidify a perception of others and things as inherently fixed and real, thereby closing off their essential flow and connection, is the minute we create our own difficulty and suffering. This is the therapeutic use of language and perception that Mayahana Buddhism offers. It is the basis or womb of compassion.

The Bodhisattva: Soldier of Love

Definition
Context
Ideal
Vow
Training

Bodhisattva:
Is a yogi who has vowed to achieve the full awakening of Buddhahood, motivated by love and compassion for all sentient beings. The Bodhisattva can be seen as a soldier in the army of love and a champion of the contemplative path.

Context:
The Hinayana or “Lesser Vehicle”, represents the original phase in the development of Buddhism, which occurred during the life of the Buddha and in the years after his passing. The Hinayana tradition is characterized by monasticism and renunciation, whereby an individual renounces the stresses of compulsive living, drops out of the world to study and meditate with other contemplatives and yogis, and eventually achieves enlightenment. The Mahayana or “Great Vehicle” represents the second phase in the development of Buddhist thought and practice. Mahayana teachings arose in the 1st century of the Common Era, roughly 500 years after the Buddha. Central to the development of the Mahayana were the prajnaparamita or perfection of wisdom scriptures, which present the notions of emptiness, relativity and non-dualism. These concepts help to establish that no difference inherently exists between the compulsive world (samsara) and freedom (nirvana). As a result, Mahanyana teachings shift their emphasis from individuals renouncing and retreating from the world in a spirit of detachment, to reengaging and transforming the world in the spirit of love and compassion.

Ideal:
The ideal of the Hinayana is the arhant or liberated saint, who has given up compulsive life, followed the Four Noble Truths, and achieved liberation. In the Mahayana, the ideal shifts to the bodhisattva or warrior of love. Rather than solely cultivating renunciation, there is a greater emphasis on the development of bodhicitta, or spirit of enlightenment. Bodhicitta has two parts: the ultimate non-dual insight of emptiness/relativity; and, the conventional application of compassion that arises naturally from that insight. The Bodhisattva’s motivation is to engage in self-development in order to refine the skills (upaya) necessary to help teach all beings how to become happy and free. Arhants focus on their own liberation, while Bodhisattva’s work towards the liberation of others. The purpose of the Mahayana movement is to reverse not just an individual’s central preoccupation, but the social order of the world, from egocentric and disconnected into altruistic and harmonious.

Vow:
The Bodhisattvas, can be seen as urban yogis, who take the contemplative education and stress-free lifestyle out of the monastery or ashram, and into the market place. They do so by taking on spiritual commitments and vows of conduct to help train their mind’s in the midst of the inevitable adversity of worldly life. The Bodhisattva vow is to achieve the full awakening of a Buddha, in order to benefit all living beings. Nothing short of full Buddhahood will suffice to accomplish such a vast aspiration. It might be helpful to examine the lifestyle and behaviors of people like the Dalai Lama and Tich Nat Hanh, who represent the bodhisattva ideal and vows. Far from monastic recluses, each of them remains committed to worldly activities, social engagement and and endless teaching schedule, designed to help beings transform adversity into opportunity and hatred into love.

Training:
The Bodhisattva trains in the Six Perfections or Transcendent Virtues (paramitas): Generosity, Ethics, Patience, Diligence, Concentration, and Wisdom. The trainings all aim fundamentally to uproot the self-habit (atmagraha), the root of suffering, and develop positive qualities of mind in its place. In the Hinayana approach, represented in the Four Noble Truths, liberation is achieved using wisdom as an antidote to misperception, concentration or mental development as an antidote to disturbing emotions, and ethics as an antidote to harmful behavior. To these core trainings, the Mahayana add generosity, patience and diligence in order to achieve full enlightenment and social transformation. Generosity is necessary to build positive karmic energy (aka force, merit) that fuels the engine of altruism; patience is necessary to endure the hardship encountered when dealing directly with the anger and afflictions of living beings; and, diligence is required because the process of social transformation on the scale envisioned by the Mahayana will take countless lifetimes. The six perfections are expounded in the 8th century classic training manual, the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life (Bodhicaryavatara), written by Master Shantideva.

Four-fold Process of Exchanging Self and Other

1. Equalizing Self and Other
2. Contemplating the Limits of Self-Preoccupation
3. Contemplating the Benefits of Altruism
4. Exchanging Self and Other

Contemplate:

1. Equalizing Self and Other
All living beings want happiness and wish avoid suffering.
Ultimately there is no real difference between myself and others.
From our DNA all the way up to our basic psychology, when the surface "differences" are analyzed not much distinction between living beings can be found.

2. The limits of Self-preoccupation
All suffering comes from I, me, mine.
The most fundamental misperception is our separateness into "self" and "other", which leads to clinging/attachment to objects that are "mine" and aversion/aggression when the "I" is threatened or unsatisfied.
While fight-flight, self-protection, is innate to our biology, so to is love-growth, social instinct, empathy and care, which were essential in the evolution as mammals and human beings. We can override our evolutionary animal instinct of self-protection and develop out mammalian love-growth instinct of cooperation. The Tibetan word for Buddha, Sangye, actually means eliminate/cultivate as in to completely eliminate negative qualities and completely cultivate positive ones.

3. The Benefits of Altruism
All joy and success is a result of the care and concern we received from another living being.
Everything you've learned, every moment of happiness you've experience, every opportunity for growth that has arisen, has done so in relation to, and through the kindness of, other living beings.
The social instict for love and care is our highest evolutionary potential.
Once we intuitively experience no distinction between ourselves and others, than care and compassion are effortless and spontaneous. Like a hand that moves away from the fire when one finger is burned, a mother too acts selflessly and automatically, not perceiving any distinction, when her child in in danger.
Ultimately kindness, care and the connection they produce feel good, provide meaning and lead to true happiness.

4. Exchanging Self and Other
Exchanging self and other is a process of deep empathy, of reconnecting ourselves with others, by dissolving the misperception of separateness.
Empathy for others has a two fold benifit: First, it connects us to people when they are suffering, so from thier side they feel more safe and cared for; and, two, from our side, it reverses and dissolves our own self-habit or instinctual self-preoccupation, the root of suffering and alienation.
When people feel safe, cared for and connected, they are free to achieve their highest potential; therefore love is essential in optimizing the social ethos and bonds between beings.
Seeing things from another persons perspective is "freeing", it loosens our automatic and ridged view of the world and situation and people from our own side. This is why therapy can be helpful, because the relationship acts as an opportunity for a patient to see things from outside the prison of their misperception.


Meditation on Giving and Taking (Tonglen):

• As usual begin with aspiration, particularly the altruistic aspiration to achieve freedom for the benefits of others.
• Do some breathing meditation to settle the mind.
• Select a loved one, neutral one, difficult person, or group of people, to visualize and contemplate upon.
• Reflect on their current experience of suffering.
• Imagine taking on their suffering, in the form of a black smoke mounted on your in-breath.
• Imagine that this black smoke dissolves your own self-habit at the center of your heart.
• Imagine that you are capable of metabolizing negativity, like a good parent who can tolerate the tantrum and trauma of a child.
• Allow your empathy for the suffering of the other to arouse love and compassion.
• Imagine sending love and care to the other in the form of white light mounted upon your out-breath.
• Imagine that they receive this care and that it purifies the destructive self-habit at their heart.
• Imagine that through care both you and the other are freed from the self-habit, the root cause of suffering. Rejoice in this activity.
• Continue giving and taking.
• Dedicate the positive energy to the welfare and liberation (from the self-habit) of all living beings.

The meditation on giving and taking is not a mystical practice that heals others from afar. It works primarily on your mind to: 1) reverse the automatic pattern of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, and 2) dissolving the inner terrorist, the self-habit, at the root of suffering. With a mind firmly rooted in compassion our experience and exchanges and with other living beings in the world inevitably transforms for the better.

More on Giving and Taking (Tonglen):
http://www.naljorprisondharmaservice.org/pdf/Tonglen.htm

Overcoming the Five Hindrances

The following is taken from Nyanaponika Thera
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nyanaponika/wheel026.html

The Five Hindrances are the major psychological impediments to mindfulness (present center awareness) and the deepening of concentration into sublime states of consciousness.

The Five Hindrances are:
1. Sensual Desire/Attachment
2. Anger/Aversion
3. Restlessness
4. Dullness
5. Doubt

1. Overcoming Sensual Desire
Six things are conducive to the abandonment of sensual desire:
Learning how to meditate on impure objects;
Devoting oneself to the meditation on the impure;
Guarding the sense doors;
Moderation in eating;
Noble friendship;
Suitable conversation.

2. Overcoming Anger
Six things are helpful in conquering anger and aversion:
Learning how to meditate on loving-kindness;
Devoting oneself to the meditation of loving-kindness;
Considering that one is the owner and heir of one's actions (kamma);
Frequent reflection on it Cause and effect
Noble friendship;
Suitable conversation.

Also helpful in conquering ill-will are:
Rapture, of the factors of absorption (jhananga);
Faith, of the spiritual faculties (indriya);
Rapture and equanimity, of the factors of enlightenment (bojjhanga).

3. Overcoming Dullness
Six things are conducive to the abandonment of sloth and torpor:
Knowing that overeating is a cause of it;
Changing the bodily posture;
Thinking of the perception of light;
Staying in the open air;
Noble friendship;
Suitable conversation.

Also helpful in conquering sloth and torpor are:
The recollection of Death
 and impermanence.

4. Overcoming Restlessness
Six things are conducive to the abandonment of restlessness and remorse:
1. Knowledge of the Buddhist scriptures (Doctrine and Discipline);
2. Asking questions about them;
3. Familiarity with the Vinaya (the Code of Monastic Discipline, and for lay followers, with the principles of moral conduct);
4. Association with those mature in age and experience, who possess dignity, restraint and calm;
5. Noble friendship;
6. Suitable conversation.

Also helpful in conquering restlessness and remorse is:
Rapture, of the factors of absorption (jhananga);
Concentration, of the spiritual faculties (indriya);
Tranquillity, concentration and equanimity, of the factors of enlightenment (bojjhanga).

5. Overcoming Doubt
There are things which are wholesome or unwholesome, blameless or blameworthy, noble or low, and (other) contrasts of dark and bright; frequently giving wise attention to them — that is the denourishing of the arising of doubt that has not yet arisen, and of the increase and strengthening of doubt that has already arisen.
(note: the first three and the last two are identical with those given for restlessness and remorse. Only the fourth is different)

1. Knowledge of the Buddhist scriptures (Doctrine and Discipline);
2. Asking questions about them;
3. Familiarity with the Vinaya (the Code of Monastic Discipline, and for lay followers, with the principles of moral conduct);
4. Firm conviction concerning the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha;
5. Noble friendship;
6. Suitable conversation.

Also helpful in conquering Doubt are:
Reflection, of the factors of absorption (jhananga);
Wisdom, of the spiritual faculties (indriya);
Investigation of reality, of the factors of enlightenment (bojjhanga).

The Four Noble Truths

The Four Noble Truths provide the fundamental framework of Buddhist psychology. A traditional medical model describing the symptom, etiology, prognosis and treatment for suffering, the Four Noble Truths are presented in two causally linked dyads: 1) suffering and its causes; 2) freedom and it causes. The significance of this teaching is that by studying, reflecting and realizing its meaning, one obtains everything one needs to become free and happy.

Suffering is to be understood
The Cause is to be abandoned
Freedom is to be realized
The Path is be cultivated
-The Buddha


Short Outline:

I. Truth of Suffering
A. Ordinary Suffering
B. The Suffering of Change
C. The Suffering of Conditioning/Habit

II. Truth of the Origin
A. Attachment
B. Aversion
C. Misperception

III. Truth of Cessation
A. Complete freedom is possible
B. Suffering is created by mind, thus Freedom is created by mind
C. Learning and personal effort are the conditions of freedom

IV. Truth of the Path
A. Three Higher Trainings
B. Three Types of Learning
C. Three Sources of Learning


Explanation:

I. First Noble Truth: Suffering
The unconscious or unawakened life leads to unavoidable suffering and dissatisfaction. The nature of suffering is threefold:

A . Ordinary Suffering: Birth, illness, old-age and death, separation from loved ones, having to be with difficult ones, and the loss of objects of desire are unavoidable and painful.

B. Suffering of Change: All things are impermanent, temporary and fleeting. Even people and experiences that provide some measure of happiness eventually become the source of suffering because they do not last.

C. Suffering of Conditioning: The five-fold mind/body life-systems (body, sensations, perceptions, intentions, and consciousness) that constitute the appearance of “self” are conditioned by disturbing emotions (kleshas) and compulsive habits (karma). This is consistent with current stress research that suggests that our mind/body process has evolutionarily (genetically and biologically) been conditioned or determined by fight-flight reactivity. In other words, stress and suffering are somehow “embedded” in our psycho-biology if left as is.

II. Second Noble Truth: Cause of Suffering
Buddhist psychology is based upon a rational and empirical science of causality and avoids two extremes of theism (the belief that a God figure or external presence determines our life and events) and materialisms (the belief that things are random and without causal determinants). Buddhism asserts that one’s current experience of suffering or happiness is the direct result of one’s previous actions (karma) conditioned by disturbing emotions (klesha) or virtues (paramitas) respectively.
There are Three Causes of suffering (two secondary and one primary):

A. Desire/attachment: The untrained, unconscious mind compulsively pursues pleasure in objects, experiences and people outside of the self, unaware of their impermanent nature. Desire is due to a perceptual exaggeration of the positive qualities of an object, while attachment is the inability to let them go.

B. Aversion/Avoidance/Anger: The untrained, unconscious mind compulsively avoids, rejects or resists unpleasant objects, experience and people, unaware of the causal process of their arising. A desire thwarted, lost or unattained leads to disappointment and anger. Anger is due to a perceptual exaggeration of the negative qualities of an object.

C. Delusion/misperception: The primary root cause of the other two secondary causes is our habitual state of unawareness, which erroneously perceives reality. When we are unaware of the salient characteristics of reality (ie. emptiness/interdependence, impermanence, and suffering) we cannot accurately respond to our situation. At the heart of our desirous attachment and aggressive avoidance is the incorrect belief that a self within us and things exists as an intrinsically real, separate, independent, fixed and permanent entity. This is our fundamental misperception. Because of the minds instinctive tendency to reify (making something real that it not) the self, we become self-centered, preoccupied with gratifying the self, and hostile about protecting the self.

C.2. Three Characteristics of Self and Phenomenon:
1) Emptiness or No Self: There is no intrinsically real, unrelated, enduring, separate, autonomous self within us or things. This does not mean that no self exists at all, as is asserted in nihilism. Our self and objects do exist in an interrelated, interdependent, constantly changing matrix based on causes and conditions. According to Buddhism nothing exists absolutely; everything is relative and interdependent. Things that are fixed or absolute by definition cannot be related to, as they theoretically lay outside the causal matrix of interdependence. The flip side of emptiness is that because all things lack intrinsic reality or a fixed self, they can be related to, and can change. We could not learn, grow and change if we were really as fixed as we unconsciously believe ourselves to be. When you hear “all things are empty” this does not mean they don’t exist, it simply means they are empty of inherently existing from their own side. Ultimately, the “self” is a mere consensus designation of language, falsely reified and superimposed over a causal arising of interdependent phenomenon or parts, themselves lacking any inherent, intrinsic reality.

2) Impermanence: Because things are empty and lack inherent autonomy/existence they are impermanent and non lasting. The molecules and sub-particles that comprise things and the sub-processes that constitute the life systems are empty of any lasting core, thus come into being, persist for some time and eventually decay. Change, the flow of life and the passing of time is contingent upon emptiness.

3) Suffering: Because things lack inherent existence (emptiness) they are subject to change and do not endure (impermanence). As a result of this constant change process (birth, death and rebirth) some measure of suffering is unavoidable. It is the price of being part of an open interdependent system. Some amount of pain is built into the fabric of existence because it is not static, rather an open system. The question is how much extra suffering do we create by misperceiving, attaching and avoiding this natural process. As they say, “pain is inevitable, suffering is optional”. Other sources consider the third characteristic to be Freedom. Phenomenon are impermanent because they lack an essential essence, and because they lack any essential essence their nature is "free" to learn, grow and change. The most fundemntal characteristic of mind is its potential for enlightenment or complete freedom.

III. The Third Noble Truth: Freedom
It is possible for a human being to be completely free of the causes of suffering. The word Buddha means “Awakened”, and represents the full flowering or peak potential of a human being. The word freedom means “free from something” as in “sugar free” and “caffeine free”. There are two things an awakened person is free from: afflictive emotions (kleshas) such as greed, hatred, delusion, pride, envy, jealousy etc; and compulsive habits/actions (karma). Nirvana means to cease, to end. What ends for the awakened mind are the emotional afflictions and the compulsive habit actions that emerge from the afflictions.
Habits here are threefold and include any action of body (behavior), speech (words) and mind (thoughts) that are done with unawareness or inattention. Karmic results and consequences are determined by one’s intentions and actions. Good karma is the result of actions of body speech and mind done with a positive mental state, realistic perception and altruistic intention, while bad karma results from actions committed under a negative mental state, unrealistic misperception of self and reality and self-centered intention. Since current intentions are so vital in producing future outcome and experience, in Buddhist psychology a premium is place on decreasing afflictive emotions that obscure pure perception of reality in order to create wholesome actions.

Since the causes of suffering lie within the mind through afflictive emotions, unconscious habits and misperceptions, than freedom also lies with in the mind, through sublime emotions, conscious and altruistic habits each based on accurate perception of self and reality.

The Third Noble Truth asserts a generous and optimistic view of the mind and its potential. In order to say that all minds can eventually become free, it is understood that an innate inborn potential for freedom is already present, albeit obscured by misperception, habit and afflictions. The path of Buddhist psychology becomes the process of removing the delusion, bringing the cessation of actions and afflictions, and consciously developing virtues (paramitas) such as generosity, morality, patience, effort, concentration and wisdom that will lead the mind to full awakening. The fully developed or awakened mind is characterized as infinitely “clear and knowing”.

IV. The Fourth Noble Truth: The Path to Freedom
The Path to freedom entails Three Higher Educations, Three Types of Learning, and Three Sources of Learning.

Three Higher Trainings:
1. Ethics or Virtue:
Right Actions, Speech, and Livelihood
2. Mental Discipline:
Right Effort, Mindfulness and Concentration
3. Wisdom:
Right View of reality and Intention

Three Types of Learning:
1. Wisdom born of “hearing” includes listening to, reading about and studying the Dharma using one’s intellect.
2. Wisdom born of “reflection” takes the concepts one has studied and applies critical reasoning, reflection, discussion and debate in order to come to a more correct and intuitive understanding.
3. Wisdom born of “meditation” takes ones intuitive understanding and applies it in an analytic meditation in order to come to an experiential insight.

Here meditative learning is just one aspect of the contemplative path. Ideally we should not overemphasize meditation practice to the exclusion of studying correctly and reflecting accurately about contemplative principals. Time for studying and discussing is as important as time on the cushion.

Three Sources of Learning (aka Triple Refuge):
1. Teachers. The Buddha or one’s mentor. The source of knowledge acquisition in the Buddhist tradition comes through a long lineage of masters that trace their origin directly back to Shakyamuni Buddha. Role modeling is essential, as knowledge is passed directly from mentor to student.
2. The Teachings and Methods. In order to develop along the contemplative path one not only needs a teacher, but also the precise science, methodologies and art to practice for one self.
3. The Community. Those that value and uphold the Teachings and Methods. Because contemplative learning is largely counter intuitive and counter cultural, strength and support is often found in numbers.

Guidelines for Starting a Meditation Practice

Contents:
I. Space: Where to Meditate
II. Posture: How to Sit in Meditation
III. Instruction for Mindfulness Meditation
IV. 5 Stages of Meditation (Traditional Formulation)
V. When and How Much to Meditate


I. Space: Where to Practice Meditation
The following are guidelines for those who would like to begin to meditate on their own at home, in addition to the guidance of teachers and the support of a community.

1. Choose a quite space in your home or in a safe environment.
2. Create some privacy, close the door or ask others for some alone time.
3. Turn off any cell phones and other electronic devices such as radios or TV’s.
4. Clean and tidy the space, as this will help put the mind at ease.
5. Make the space pleasing to the senses, meaningful or sacred by arranging flowers, lighting candles or incense, setting up pictures or statues of inspiring people or places and making offerings and gestures of gratitude. This helps to demarcate the meditation space from ordinary space.

II. Posture: How to Sit in Meditation (from the 7 point Vairochana Posture)

In the beginning comfort is more important than form. The form includes:

1. If seated on the floor, place your legs in full or half lotus position or just crossed them in front of you. The right hand is placed in the left hand, palms facing upwards, with the tips of the thumbs gently touching. If seated in a chair, place your feet flat on the ground and hands folded in your lap.
2. Eyes are half open gazing softly at the space a foot or so in front of you. This will help prevent you from falling asleep. If restless, trying closing the eyes completely to help the mind begin to relax.
3. Keep your spine erect like a stack of coins, upright but not ridged. This will help keep you stay alert. Position your meditation cushion beneath your rear to raise the spine and tilt forward the pelvis. If in a chair come forward slightly with your back away from the back of the chair and your rear at the front half of the seat.
4. Shoulders are even and relaxed. Be mindful of hunching and slouching.
5. Dip your chin down slightly.
6. Keep a relaxed space between lips and teeth, and do not clench the jaw.
7. Rest you tongue softly on the roof of your pallet.

III. 5-Point Instruction for Mindfulness Meditation

1. Begin with reflecting on your spiritual aspiration for your life in general and clarifying your intention to meditate in particular. The more specific your intention the clearer the direction for your mind.
2. Select the object upon which you will focus your awareness (ie. the breath, sensations, emotions, sounds, consciousness, a specific theme, a visual object etc.)
3. Breath diaphragmatically in order to trigger the relaxation response. After a short period you can allow the breath to settle into a natural rhythm.
4. Once you realize you have been distracted from the mediation object, return your awareness back to the focus with an attitude or disciplined determination and non-judgmental care, patience and friendliness.
5. Seal your meditation with a dedication, recommitting your energies toward your initial aspiration. Here again, be specific as to what you will dedicate your energy towards during your between meditation period in everyday life.

IV. 5 Stages of Meditation (Traditional Tibetan Buddhist Approach)

1. Preparation: The mind is prepared by a number of activities including reflection on refuge, aspiration, four-immeasurables, visualizing the field of merit, seven-limb prayer, mandala offering, and other prayers.
2. Contemplation: Reflecting on a particular theme from the Stages of the Path Literature (Lam Rim) such as the “preciousness of human life” that motivates your practice. Select an object of meditation based on the contemplative theme or stage in the progression.
3. Meditation: Can include any combination of techniques: Analytic contemplation, single-pointed concentration, and visualization.
4. Dedication: Dedicate the positive force or energy (aka merits) generated by the practice to one’s own or to another’s spiritual awakening, before the potency is destroyed by afflictive emotions.
5. Between Sessions: Reflect on and try to assimilate the meaning of the particular meditative theme or topic as it relates to your daily activities and life.


V. When and How Much to Meditate

1. In general it is advised to meditate first thing in the morning when the mind is fresh and well rested. Practically speaking however, consider when your own energy level is optimal and when you have the time in your schedule.
2. In the beginning, commit to slightly less meditation time than you think you should do. Once you’ve decided on length of time, follow through without exception. Quality, consistence and follow through are more important that duration. Ideally you should end meditation while you are still enjoying it so that you desire to return to practice the next day. This is called ‘developing a taste for the practice’. If meditation becomes a drag to early, chances are you will abandon the practice altogether. Try starting with 5-10 minute intervals working up towards 25-30 minute periods. Most research suggests that 30 minutes of daily practice over 8 weeks results in various health benefits.
3. Consistency is important. Better to do a little meditation every day than to do a long stretch once or twice a week.
4. Remember that meditation alone does not constitute the entire contemplative path. Balance your meditation practice with readings, attending lectures, participating in discussions and debate with others, and spending time reflecting on the significance of spiritual themes in your own life. For more on this see the Fourth of the Four Noble Truth in an earlier post.

Defining Contemplative Psychotherapy

What is Contemplative Psychotherapy and how does it differ from conventional psychotherapies?

Contemplative Psychotherapy is the integration of aspects of contemplative theory and practice common to the Indian Yogic and Indo-Tibetan Buddhist traditions, with aspects of clinical theory and practice of Depth psychotherapy common to psychodynamic and humanistic traditions.

What Contemplative traditions offer:
1. Advanced stages of human development from adulthood to enlightenment.
2. Identification of mental mechanisms that obscure perception of the true nature of reality and the awakening of the self.
3. Methods of introspection and change based on self-awareness practices such as meditation and hatha yoga.

What Depth psychotherapies offer:
1. Preliminary stages of human development from early childhood to adulthood.
2. Identification of ego defense mechanisms that prevent the genuine expression of self and from maturely securing one’s needs.
3. A method of introspection and change based on an interpersonal relationship that evaluates and addresses transference projection and counter-transference issues.

Philosophical Assumptions Underlying Contemplative Psychotherapy:

Based on Walsh (2007). Contemplative Psychotherapies. In Current Psychotherapies 8th Edition.

1. Our usual state of mind is significantly underdeveloped, outside of our conscious control and dysfunctional.

2. This state of dysfunction goes unrecognized because:
a. It is so common to human beings that it is considered ordinary.
b. There are a number of defense mechanisms within the mind that mask and conceal the level of dysfunction from oneself and others.

3. Psychological suffering, from mere dissatisfaction to psychopathology, is a function of the untrained or dysfunctional mind.

4. It is possible to discipline and train mental functions such as attention, awareness, cognition and emotions.

5. The mind that is trained produces states of positive emotions, wellbeing and exceptional capacities for wisdom, compassion and happiness.

6. The mind that is fully trained or supremely developed achieves a state of awakening (nirvana). This mind no longer is subject to negative emotions (klesha) or unconscious habits that propel actions (karma).

7. Beneath the dysfunctional mental faculties of inattention, unawareness, unrealistic thoughts and negative emotions lies a deeply ingrained misperception known as the evolutionary self-habit (atmagraha). The self is falsely reified (assigned ontological realness), from which self-preoccupation, fear-based attachment, aggressive fight-flight defensiveness and ultimately all suffering derives.

8. Contemplative traditions such as the Indian Yoga and Tibetan Buddhist Mind Science offer useful and effective techniques for dealing with mental dysfunction.

9. These systems are not faith-based religions, but rather sophisticated self-healing psychologies that require a person to undergo an inner transformation through personal effort.

Principals of Positive Psychotherapy

Western Psychology in general and psychotherapy in specific, have been around for only about 60 years. Growing out of the medical model, psychotherapy has focused almost exclusively on psychopathology, mental illness and the reduction of negative symptoms. Very little attention has been paid to fostering human flourishing, peak potential, positive emotions and happiness. It is refreshing to witness the emergence of Positive Psychology to meet these needs. While Indian yogic and Indo-Tibetan Buddhist psychologies have for centuries focused on the full range of human experience from misery to enlightenment, our own tradition is perhaps finally ready to consider how to optimally develop a human's being innate capacity for health and happiness.

The essential principals of Positive Psychotherapy summarized here are based on Seligman, Rashid, and Parks (2006), article entitled "Positive Psychotherapy", found in American Psychologist.

The authors describe 3 types of happiness and the 3 types of lives:

The Pleasant Life
• Hedonic approach to happiness, ie. to have as many pleasurable experiences as possible. Developing skills to amplify and intensify the experience and duration of pleasure.
• Positive emotions about past memories such as satisfaction, fulfillment, and pride are developed by gratitude and forgiveness exercises.
• Positive emotions about the future include hope, optimisms, faith, and trust, are developed through optimism exercises.
• Positive emotions about the present, include satisfaction derived from immediate pleasure, and are developed through savoring the present moment exercises such as mindfulness of eating.
• Studies indicate that positive emotions counteract the causal process of depression and contribute to resilience to crisis.

The Engaged Life
• Engagement, involvement or absorption in three realms of life: work, relationships and leisure.
• “Flow” is the subjective experience of engagement in which subject-object dualisms dissolves; time passes quickly; attention is concentrated on the activity; sense of self is lost.
• Engagement is enhanced by identifying core or “signature” strengths and then seeking opportunities to use them. (ie. client with creative talent is encouraged to take an art class).

The Meaningful Life
• Meaning is derived by using one’s signature strength or talent in the service of something bigger than one self (ie. altruistic activities in family, community, religion, society).
• Those who are able to use meaning to convert crisis or adversity into opportunity achieve the greatest benefits.
• Lack of meaning is not just a symptom, but a cause of depression, thus cultivating meaning will relieve depression.


Human beings are evolutionarily primed (biologically and genetically) to remember the negative, attend to the negative and expect the worst. This has ensured the survival of a species. Negative emotions are primarily driven by negative memories, negative expectations and depressed people exaggerate and generalize this natural tendency. Therefore, it is in one’s best interest to learn to override this automatic tendency towards the negative by cultivating positive emotions, realistic expectations, and to transform the traumas of the past into the fodder of meaning.

The three types of happiness and the three areas of life should all be valued and cultivated. The happiness of engadgement and the happiness of meaning are said to be foundational, while the happiness of pleasure is an added bonus. From the perspective of Positive Psychology the pursuit of pleasure, engagement and meaning form a coherent path of living that leads to lasting happiness.