ENLIGHTENMENT FOR DUMMIES Newsletter – Issue #4 – The Holy Grail of the Buddhist-Fueled Mission to End Suffering: THE NOBLE EIGHT-FOLD PATH

 

In issue #3 of this newsletter, I noted that although the universe is filled with nouns (things both natural and man-made), it’s verbs that are crucial to injecting life and meaning into those nouns. Likewise in the Buddhist world, the Holy Grail isn’t a thing but rather a number (8) of interconnected dimensions of being or what I call wise practices or if you prefer, enlightened psychological behaviors and actions.

When developed together, this leads to the end of one’s suffering. Here are the eight steps on the Noble Eight-fold Path:

1) Right View (or Right Understanding)

2. Right Intention (or Right Thought)

3. Right Speech

4. Right Action

5. Right Livelihood

6. Right Effort

7. Right Mindfulness

8. Right Concentration

Covering two steps per newsletter issue seems like a good number. Then after all eight have been presented, then we will look at how the steps work together as a system. Taken as a whole, one can think of the eight steps as a route planner or the results of a Google Map search. The key difference is that enlightenment or Nirvana isn’t a place. It’s a state but it’s a state of being.

One of the recurring themes in this Buddhist-centric blog is “We make it up as we go along”. In keeping with that philosophy, instead of thinking of our Journey of Life as an endless series of trips that takes us from one place to another, one can, given the importance of truly being present in each moment, think of each moment not as a step leading to a far-off destination but as itself being a destination (albeit a temporary one).

 

 

Step #1: Right View: Viewing reality as it is, not just as it appears to be. ON the surface, it

appears we all separate but the truth of unity says otherwise. We do indeed have separate physical bodies. However, spiritually we are unified and each of us is part of the One Life.

It’s easy to see why this the first step. If a person has the wrong view – which is buying into the “every person is an island” mentality – then they will continue to suffer because they will be unable to lose their attachment to their desires. The idea that everyone and everything is separate from one another leads to the attachment to desire because there’s a presumed distance between the observer and what’s (or who’s) being observed.

And if one really thinks about it, even the most basic things – food, drink and sex – which involves very tangible physical nouns such as meat, fruits, vegetables, desserts, juice, sodas, ice-cold water, and the flesh of another person’s body – are nothing until the verbs come in. Food is experienced by eating, which results in pleasurable sensations of taste, smell and the feeling of being full. Drinks impart taste and smell as well plus slake a parched throat. And then we have sex (hopefully): the body of another person, by itself, means little until there’s an interaction with another person’s body in an intimate way.

The point is surface appearances are deceiving. On the surface, it appears the nouns in the universe – people, places and things – have solid, separate, sort of clunky and inanimate vessels. But as we know and physicists have proven, beneath the surface, there’s a frenzy of flowing, pulsing energy. Atoms, quarks, and molecules are orbiting around, moving this way and that. Blood flows through the vessels of animals and humans.

Step #2: Right Intention (Right Thought) : Intention of renunciation, freedom, and harmlessness. Right Intention means a person has the right emotive state to go with the right/correct cognitive state. In the realm of Buddhism, the mind and heart, like everything else, are not two distinct aspects but rather inextricably intertwined. They’re two strands in the tapestry of the Wisdom Path. Thought (intellect) and emotion (feelings) can’t be hacked off by some metaphysical cleaver and separated into two distinct halves, although many people try to do just that. Thought and emotion exist simultaneously, like a hand in a glove.

For example, when a person donates money to the Nature Conservancy, he or she believes, in their heart and mind, that it’s important to to protect the environment. Their intellect tells them our planet is our home so it’s important to protect it. Their emotions (heart) say we should help protect the animals and human beings who live on Planet Earth. The two facets of our being work together.

It’s like riding a bicycle. We use our mind to tell our hand when to switch gears (unless it’s an old-fashioned one speed, which is what I have, and in that case, the mind tells us when we need to stand up so we can make it up a steep hill), when to turn the bike to avoid an obstacle, what route we need to take in order to return home, and so on. In order to complete a lengthy bike ride, we require the necessary motivation and energy to keep going even after our body begins to tire. This is where emotion or heart comes into play. Many people listen to upbeat music while riding their bike but you really don’t even need to wear a headset attached to an iPhone or iPod or whatever. You can simply recall the words and tune of your favorite songs. In either case, your mind (Right View) and heart (Right Intention) work in tandem, a perfect pair of aspects that can’t be separated.

 

In “Overcome Any Personal Obstacle, Including Alcoholism, By Understanding Your Ego”, I present my unique Seven Insights of Enlightenment recovery system. The seven insights form a cognitive framework that can be used to minimize or eliminate any undesirable, harmful and obsessive behavior. To order and/or obtain more info, go to http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/leewriter.

ENLIGHTENMENT FOR DUMMIES Newsletter – Issue #3 – Beginning to Understand the Solution for Ending Our Suffering

 

 

In the previous issue of this newsletter, I posed the question, “Why do people suffer?” And I offered what the Buddha had for an answer: We suffer because we are attached to our desires. And I explained exactly what that means (http://wordpress.com/post/41777780/2803). 

 

In this issue, we explore a solution to address the suffering we cause ourselves. From The Buddha, here are the 3^rd and 4^th Noble Truths:

#3 – The Cessation of Dukkha is achieved, not by belief, but by the contemplation, understanding, and elimination of desire and attachment.

#4 – The Noble Eight-fold Path is the way to achieve the cessation of Dukkha.

Alright, first #3. This Noble Truth really sets Buddhism apart from almost every other religion because of three words: not by belief. Every other major religion has a set of rituals theat are to be performed, many on a regular basis, and beliefs about the nature of God and what God wants you as a human being to do in order to think and behave like you should. In Buddhism, there isn’t a god that you worship. Buddhism is more of a philosophy than religion. Philosophy is a mechanism, a perspective, from which to perceive and interpret the world around us. Two key aspects of Buddhism are immediacy and unity.

IMMEDIACY: Buddhism is extremely practical. The most enlightened people are focused on the here and now, the Present moment. We do our best work, create the most masterful art, perform the best in sporting competitions and develop the best relationships when we are truly present, not only with body but with mind and heart as well. In other words, when we truly pay attention, there’s no time or opportunity for hidden agendas.

UNITY: Compassion, loving, gentle, relaxed, humorous and creative people are considered to “have it together”, which is appropriate because Buddhism is about all unity. Not only amongst people but with the individual and the objects they perceive. Clinging, longing and attachments result when the person believes they are separated from the object of their desire. Separation is synonymous with division while unity equates to intimacy or closeness.

So if belief (in a higher power, in a deity and related set of dogma) isn’t the answer, then what is? Per the second part of the Third Noble Truth, it’s the “contemplation, understanding, and elimination of desire and attachment.”

Contemplation occurs during one’s meditation sessions, when the individual, during quiet, uninterrupted times, has the opportunity to really and truly consider the nature of what the Buddha was talking about in regards to desire and attachment. The wanna-be enlightened one considers, on both an intellectual and emotional level, the relationship between the two things and how that relationship impacts their level of happiness.

 

 

 

 

The understanding piece of the equation begins during meditation and goes hand in hand with contemplation. However, it doesn’t really sink in until one experiences what it feels like to base one’s happiness on the fulfillment of one desire (extreme want) after another. For most people, life is like one giant all-you-can-eat buffet. You look forward with great anticipation to chowing down on all the food; during the meal, initially you experience a sort of high as you fill your plate with any manner of food; you devour the heaping plate of tasty treats with glee; you repeat previous two steps until you’ve had your fill; and then after it’s all done, although your stomach is obviously full, you may feel empty in a spiritual sense. You may ask, “Is this all there is to life?”

And although right after the buffet’s over with, you may say, “Oh my god, I’m not going to eat anything the rest of the day,” the odds are about five or six hours later, you’ll be ready to eat some more. So although you are generally content and enjoy satisfying your desire to consume food, you think, “That’s not enough. My belly’s happy but other parts of me aren’t.”

In this case, I’m using food as a metaphor. It’s not only that we become attached to the desire for food. We become attached, in a general sense, to the desire for a variety of objects and experiences that fulfill some desire of ours. Other examples include:

• Sexual gratification

• Power (ability to control and manipulate others into doing what we want to them to)

• Altered state/high from drugs and/or alcohol

• Attention and admiration (puffs up ego-generated pride)

• Success (however one defines that term) at work, at home or in a sporting event of some kind.

It’s like we become enslaved to a seemingly endless litany of desires. We’re never happy for long because we’re chasing to fulfill one desire or another. When we step back and see how what’s really happening, that’s the understanding part.

 

Then comes the really hard part: eliminating the attachment to desire. It’s important to realize you’re never going to eliminate desire. Your mind and body will always create desires for your consideration. Hunger, thirst, lust, power, wealth, and so on, will hover about you all your life, temptations that are part of the tapestry of life. The key is eliminating your attachment to those desires. That lies within your potential to achieve.

And it’s a, like everything else of any value, a process. It’s not like you can snap your fingers and Presto!, you’ve eliminated your attachment to desire. Well, at least not initially you can’t do the snapping-fingers-Presto thing. But after you’ve spent a certain amount of time in contemplation, and then experienced what it feels like to be base your happiness on fulfilling one need (desire) after another and then honestly intended to change your thinking in this regard, then it’s possible, with that background, to one day be able to flip the switch.

However, it’s temporary. So one must keep flipping the switch day after day and hope one can continue to be free of their tendency to attach themselves to desire. It’s a fair amount of work but I believe well worth it.

In my Buddhist-centric self-help book, “Overcome Any Personal Obstacle, Including Alcoholism, By Understanding Your Ego”, I lay out the Seven Insights of Enlightened Recovery System. Insight #1: BECOME AWARE OF YOUR BREATH AT LEAST ONCE A DAY. It’s #1 because in addition to giving us life, the breath is the most mystical thing known to humanity. That’s because we don’t know where it comes from, nor how exactly a thing so ephemeral and fleeting can sustain us and finally, we don’t know where it ends up after it leaves our body.

 

And the breath also symbolizes the essential nature of Life itself: it flows. It moves. It’s not a noun. It’s verb. Life, although it’s full of nouns – people, places, animals, man-made creations (buildings, cars, computers, smartphones, HD-TV systems, etc.) – those things are meaningless without two verbs: BREATHING and FLOWING (ENERGY). And verbs mean change, which is another word for temporary.

In the next issue, we get into the meat of how we stop our suffering: “The Noble Eight-fold Path is the way to achieve the cessation of Dukkha (suffering).”

Harold Ramis’ Buddhist Pocket Guide, Item #15: Step Seven on Eight-fold Path – Right Mindfulness

Right Mindfulness, per Wikipedia, means “Awareness to see things for what they are with clear consciousness; being aware of the present reality within oneself, without any craving or aversion.”

To me, this means one is able to resist the temptation to make everything about one’s self. In any given situation, instead of first looking for ways to manipulate the perception of the situation to make themselves look better, the individual looks outward first. They honestly and genuinely examine the people, surroundings and the interactions (expressions of energy) amongst the people and with their surroundings. Cleansed of the ego’s “me” fixation and freed from the weight of having to live up to a preconceived, narrowly defined self-image, the individual’s significantly increases the odds they will correctly perceive the situation.

For example, have you ever been on a committee, either at work or on a nonprofit group such as a church or charity, and noticed how many, if not most, of the committee members are more concerned about trying to get the committee to adopt their own ideas instead of truly trying to find the best answer to whatever issue(s) the group is trying to resolve? Perhaps in the beginning they had the best intentions but often as the committee gets deeper into the project and each committee members develop their own special, unique idea of what the best approach is, the group loses its sense of unity, and thus teamwork and cooperation are replaced by rivalry and dissension. The ego-generated pride of the members cause clashes between different individuals.

As to the last part of the 7^th Noble Truth – “…being aware of the present reality within oneself, without any craving or aversion” – this means having the discipline and focus to keep yourself from being distracted by wants (attachment to desire) and being able to perceive something accurately even though some part of the phenomena is distasteful, unpleasant or unsettling (or some combination or even all of three).

In this case, craving refers to the desire to enhance your sense of worth by distorting your view of a situation to suit your ego’s need to make yourself look good. Basically it’s taking credit for something you had little, if anything, to do with. In the cartoon strip Dilbert, the title character’s boss is an expert at this. He takes Dilbert’s great ideas and claims them for his own. I’m sure we’ve all had managers and supervisors who’ve, at one time or another, done this much to the dismay and chagrin of the people who came up and developed the ideas.

 

As for the second part,the aversion piece, an example of this would be, in my case because of all the pain and misery alcoholism has wrought in my life, is if a good friend of mine has a severe drinking problem that he (she) isn’t addressing. And maybe they are having problems very similar to the ones I had when I was in the depths of my Alcohol Hell. In that instance, my first inclination might be to distance myself from my friend because their situation is so reminiscent of my own that it brings back unpleasant, and ultimately (because my wife Amy died from long-term abuse of alcohol when she was 41 years old) tragic memories.

But if I truly have Right Mindfulness, I will see my good friend’s situation for it is really is, free of my own emotional baggage. That clear seeing, combined with insights from my own experience with alcohol addiction, allows me to reach out to my friend in a non-judgmental, compassionate way and say something like, “If you ever want to talk about anything, including drinking, I’m there for you.”

Also, it’s worth, I believe, emphasizing the first part of Right Mindfulness: being aware of the present reality within oneself. This means the individual is aware of their own issues and egocentric tendencies that have the potential to distort their ability to perceive the truth of a given situation. AND THEY SEE PAST THAT TO THE ESSENCE OF THE TRUTH.

For example, based on my upbringing, stereotypical portrayals in the media (TV, movies, magazines, books, etc.), and isolated personal incidents, I may have formed the belief that people of a certain ethnic background are inferior and untrustworthy (I haven’t but let’s pretend for illustrative purposes that I have). If I don’t get past the bias, then every time a person of with ethnicity comes through my line at Wal-Mart, I’m likely to treat that person with less respect than they deserve. And that barrier will likely keep me from having a pleasant, genuinely positive experience with them.

And what happens if a really funny, interesting and amicable person, who happens to have that same ethnic background, comes through my line? If I don’t set aside that personal bias, I am likely to rob myself of what could be a really cool experience because I’ve already labeled the person as just “another one of those people”. But if I am aware of my prejudices, and am willing to admit I may have been wrong to hold that bias, then I see past them to the truth.

In a nutshell, Right Mindfulness is SEEING WHAT’S REALLY THERE INSTEAD OF SEEING WHAT YOU’D LIKE TO BELIEVE IS THERE. Enough said.

Next blog: Right Concentration.

My Buddhist-like book, “Overcome Any Personal Obstacle, Including Alcoholism, By Understanding Your Ego”, is available at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/leewriter

My Buddhist-Christianity blended novel, “Dead Man’s Plan”, is available at http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-0060704049/Dead-Mans-Plan.aspx .It’s also available on Amazon.com..

ENLIGHTENMENT FOR DUMMIES Newsletter – Issue #2: Why do we suffer?

Why do people suffer?

In some cases, it’s obvious. Those living in abject poverty who don’t get enough to eat, have no access to sanitary drinking water, and may not even have a roof over their heads are suffering for obvious reasons. So are people with chronic pain from a traumatic injury or illness. And those in prison who won’t be getting out for a very long time. A spouse whose husband or wife dies, especially unexpectedly, is another example.

We could go on and on but we won’t. The people I want to focus are the ones who don’t have any major, obvious issues that negatively impact their happiness level. They have plenty to eat and drink. They live in a nice house/apartment/condo. They have a loving family. They have more than a few friends. Their level of income is at least middle-class level. This might very well describe you. And me.

So why do you and I suffer? What’s our problem? We all have plenty of “stuff”. Why do we suffer?

The Buddha would tell you and I that we suffer because WE DON’T UNDERSTAND THE NATURE OF THINGS. Because we don’t understand the true nature of the universe, most notably human beings, including and especially ourselves, we suffer because we become attached to our desires.

The first of the Four Noble Truths that the Buddha taught is, “Life is characterized by impermanence and suffering, or Dukkha (insatiable thirst). The second one, which I blogged about at http://wp.me/p2Pija-BD, is, “The Origin of Dukkha (suffering) is attachment to desire”.

We’ll get into the last two Noble Truths in the new issue of this newsletter. In this issue, I want to focus on the first two Noble Truths. So let’s consider if the Buddha really knew what he was talking about in regards to first two Noble Truths. What the Buddha meant is that people suffer because they believe they can possess pleasurable experiences like sexual gratification, the sensation of tasty food, feeling of accomplishment after reaching a goal, excitement from watching a well done movie or high from drugs or alcohol, and so on.

Intellectually we know that it’s impossible to hold onto these experiences forever but there’s an irrational part of us that overrides our intelligent, rational self. It says, “I don’t want to let go of this because it’s pleasurable”.

Look at the flip side of the starving person, an obese person. Do most of the obese people you see and/or know personally seem happier than other people? Do they seem happy period?

Personally I am not or never was obese. However, I, along with my wife Amy, were at one time raging, out-of-control, card-carrying (okay, we didn’t actually carry cards but you get the idea) alcoholics. So we were addicted to drink, not food, but the results were similarly as unfortunate as being addicted to food. For Amy, the result was beyond unfortunate. It reached the level of tragic when she died on November 24, 2006, at the age of 41. She died from internal-organ failure caused by excessive drinking. She, over the course of about ten years, literally drank herself to death.

And as noted in my book, “Overcome Any Personal Obstacle, Including Alcoholism, By Understanding Your Ego” – http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/leewriter – I wasn’t far behind Amy. I lost two jobs in the space of two months (one full-time, one part-time), I lost my wife of over 19 years, I lost our town house to foreclose, and yet I continued to drink. There was no sane, logical, rational reason for me to keep drinking but I did. I was so attached to the desire for drunkenness that it bypassed and overrode my better judgment.

So my personal experience confirms the wisdom and truthfulness of Buddha’s teaching about why we suffer. In your case, you may not be or never was an alcoholic or drug addict yet you probably have periods when you’re unhappy (you suffer). It’s my belief that you suffer because of your attachment to some kind of desire. Examples include:

• MONEY (feeling of power that comes from wealth)

• GAMBLING (desire to obtain money/wealth without having to work for it)

• OBTAIN HIGHER-LEVEL JOB (feeling of having power to control others and have associated higher level of compensation/more money)

• FOOD (pleasurable sensation of taste and of feeling full)

• MATERIAL THINGS LIKE EXPENSIVE CARS, HOMES, ELECTRONIC DEVICES SUCH LATEST SMARTPHONE, HD TV, GAMING SYSTEM AND SO FORTH (feeling of excitement and prestige of having items most others can’t afford)

• AN IDENTITY THAT’S SEPARATE FROM EVERYONE ELSE (you can’t stand being like everyone else, you’re obsessed with being different and therefore better and more important than everyone else)

Undoubtedly I’ve missed some (or many) others. The point is, in general, people make themselves unhappy (they suffer) because they don’t understand they can’t possess things (really it’s experiences) that, by their nature, cannot be possessed. They base their happiness on identifying with (attaching themselves) to things/experiences they really want (desires).

It makes perfect sense to me. If you “don’t get it”, if you don’t understand your own nature, if you fail to comprehend the rules of the Game of Your Life, it’s natural that you won’t succeed. You’ll make yourself unhappy because you’ll be chasing things that you’ll never catch.

The epitome of what the Buddha taught about attachment to desire being the cause of our suffering is Charlie Brown’s futile attempts to kick the football Lucy holds for him. Holds for him until the last instant and then pulls it away.

Human beings in general are like that. A part of us knows what we’re trying to get is impossible but another part says otherwise. The allure of obtaining whatever shiny object crosses our path is too great to ignore. So we try to own the experience of <INSERT SHINY OBJECT HERE>.

And sometimes what we’re trying to possess (hold on to) is a definition of ourselves. We consider ourselves a great guy/gal who <INSERT CAREER OR PERSONALITY TYPE OR TALENT OR SKILL HERE>. And then we add a bunch of demographic facts (age, height, weight, birthplace, place of residence, etc.) and we call that “me” or “I”. We then envision that there is some kind of entity out there in the cosmos that’s got our name attached to it. My challenge to those people, and this includes the vast majority of the citizens of Planet Earth, so we’re talking about billions of adults, is this: CAN YOU LOCATE THE YOU THAT YOU ASSUME IS OUT THERE? Can you find and point out the spot in the ether where “you” are floating?

To learn more about my Buddhist-inspired, Buddha-esque self-help book, please go to http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/leewriter. To learn more about my other writing, including my Buddha-centric screenplay, “After The End”, go to http://leeman999.wix.com/copywriterandauthor.

Enlightenment for Dummies Newsletter — Issue #1 (Introduction)

There’s a “Dummies’ Guide” for many other things. Why not to the hallowed, reverential, sacred, and elusive state of enlightenment?

First off, a definition of enlightenment:

Per Wikipedia: enlightenment refers to the “full comprehension of a situation”. It is commonly used to denote the Age of Enlightenment but today is often used in Western cultures (such as the U.S.) in a religious context. It’s a translation of several Buddhist concepts, most notably the following:

Satori: In Zen Buddhism, it refers to kenshō: “seeing into one’s true nature”.

Bodhi: In Buddhism, it is the understanding by a Buddha about THE TRUE NATURE OF THINGS. It’s normally translated into “enlightenment” in English and means to be awakened. Bodhi is the knowledge of the causal mechanism by which beings incarnate into material (physical) form and experience suffering.

Okay, so this newsletter is, like every publication, especially newsletters and blogs, a journey. In a journey, one moves along, the landscape constantly changes. After awhile, there will be times when the landscape you experience seems very much like the landscape you previously encountered. And it may well be similar but it’s never identical. Your egocentric, limited, unenlightened mind may be telling you it’s the same but don’t be fooled. It’s really not.

And that’s one of the keys to experiencing a period of enlightenment: You become aware of the true nature of each situation on your life’s journey instead of relying on your intellectual, rational and limited mind to tell you.

Awareness of the true nature of things requires you to dissolve the illusion of distance or separation between the observer (you) and what is being observed (the particular landscape you observe at any given time along your journey). A key to becoming aware of the true nature of things is to practice meditation.

Meditation is normally practiced by sitting alone in a quiet, fairly dark room. The goals are (in my opinion) threefold:

1. QUIET YOUR EGO’S MISLEADING, HUNGRY, DISTRACTING VOICE: This is done by thinking less and just being present in your quietness. By not thinking as much, that allows you to focus on your breath, which is often taken for granted but if one become aware of the breath, it becomes obvious the breath doesn’t come from anything the personal ‘you” does. It’s a gift from God, however one defines that term. No one knows where the breath comes from or how exactly the breath keeps our bodies alive but it does so in a most magical, mysterious and lovely way.

   2. LOSE ATTACHMENTS: Per the Buddha, the primary cause of most human beings’ suffering is the attachment to desire. People with an egocentric mindset wrongly believe they can possess experiences (sexual gratification, excitement over achieving a goal, enjoying a really well-done movie or book, etc.) and material goods (cars, houses, entertainment systems, food, drink, and so on). By going beyond the personal “me” and contemplating the true nature of what it means to be a human being, you gradually comprehend the true nature of things, which includes yourself.
   

   3. Ari Goldfield, a Buddhist teacher at Wisdom Sun and translator of Stars of Wisdom, summarizes these two aspects of “emptiness” as follows:

 

The first meaning of emptiness is called “emptiness of essence,” which means that phenomena [that we experience] have no inherent nature by themselves.” The second is called “emptiness in the context of Buddha Nature,” which sees emptiness as endowed with qualities of awakened mind like wisdom, bliss, compassion, clarity, and courage. Ultimate reality is the union of both emptinesses.

                                                                        

CONCLUSION

Even though the idea is simple, it’s amazingly challenging to not only become but continue to be enlightened. That’s because one can never banish the unenlightened tendency. It’s not like one day you achieve enlightenment and then boom, that’s it. You’re automatically the Zen Buddhist Master from then on. No, the “we’re all on our own spiritual island” mentality is a persistent illusion that’s easy to buy into IF we rely on strictly surface appearances that our rational, scientific self uses as a basis to interpret reality.

And it’s important to note that, on one level, in a way, the separateness view – you and I and everyone else in the universe have an inner, permanent identity that’s separate from everyone and everything else – is true. But it’s only true if you buy into the delusion. It’s the best, and most destructive, example of the self-fulfilling prophecy, in the history of the world.

So be careful what you believe. It is the most important determiner of the quality of your journey on The Road of Life.