Peace Isn't What We Tend To Think It Is

Photo credit: krosseel from morguefile.com

There's nothing that does not grow light
through habit and familiarity,
putting up with little cares,
I'll train myself to bear with great adversity.

I've been working with these lines from Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life for many years now. In order to keep them with me daily, I chant them silently to myself as I brush my teeth every night before bed.

Sitting here now, I can see where this teaching is a gateway into an utter calm and peace. All of those "little cares" that arrive in our lives have the ability to muck things up greatly, if we can't meet them as they are in the moment. Meeting them, however, isn't mere acceptance or some kind of resignation. It's not putting up with; it's allowing flow. Accepting what is in one breath, and then doing what you're called to do in the next.

In the cycle of samsara, the pain in your back during meditation, for example, can easily lead to tension, and then irritation, and then some kind of acting out. A few nasty words from some passerby on the street can easily lead to your own shouting, an escalation of conflict, and in some sad cases, violence and even death.

Many people come to Buddhism seeking calm and peace, but don't really understand what calm and peace actually are. And so whenever something disrupts what we've deemed to be calm and peace, we get upset and our lives are overturned.

I used to meditate like mad, associating calm with boredom, and thinking zazen was kind of an endurance contest I had to win somehow. Seems to me the "peace" I sought was otherworldly, some hyper chill state that couldn't possibly be located in the middle of this chaotic, suffering filled world.

In this, there was no room for the world to fully enter, to be "confirmed by the ten thousand things" as Dogen once said.

Things "growing light" does not depend upon outer conditions. As a social activist, I seek a more just, eco-centric, and peaceful world. However, if I get too attached to whatever is "lacking" now, or whatever vision I have for "the future," the flow of fully living stops. And the synergy of accepting what is and taking the next called for step can't happen.

Zen Lay Practitioner's Longing

(I saw in the mist a little village of a few tiled roofs and joyfully admired it.)

There's a stream, and there's bamboo,
there's mulberry and hemp.
Mist-hid, clouded hamlet,
a mild, tranquil place.
Just a few tilled acres.
Just a few tiled roofs.
How many lives would I
have to live, to get
that simple.
Yuan Mei, 1716-1798

I think it's easy to get attached to desired external conditions. I love this poem, but the longing is palpable.

Yuan Mei was, it seems, a fairly busy guy.

Like many of the great Chinese poets, Yuan Mei exhibited many talents, working as a government official, teacher, writer, and painter.

He eventually left public office and retired with his family to a private estate named "The Garden of Contentment." In addition to teaching, he made a generous living writing funerary inscriptions. Among other things, he also collected local ghost stories and published them. And he was an advocate of women's education.

Who is the one that isn't busy? Maybe you've heard that question before.

Conventional busy is the new normal these days. Even those of us who don't have a lot of required stuff on our plates often run the busy default, filling every moment with some activity or another.

But when you consider Yuan Mei's poem, longing for simplicity, while living busy, isn't anything new.

Regardless of external conditions,there are always going to be things ready to fill your days, distract you from your life's true calling.

What is it that you were called here to do in this life? Return there, again and again. The true "place" Yuan Mei - and you and I - long for.

Seeking Peace and Calm

There's nothing that does not grow light
through habit and familiarity,
putting up with little cares,
I'll train myself to bear with great adversity.

I've been working with these lines from Shantidevafor about four years now. In order to keep them with me daily, I chant them silently to myself as I brush my teeth every night before bed (for the most part).

Those "little cares" that arrive in our lives have the ability to muck things up greatly, if we can't meet them as they are in the moment. The pain in your back, for example, easily can lead to tension, and then irritation, and then angry acting out of some kind. So it often goes.

Many people come to Buddhism seeking relief from all of this. Seeking something they call peace and calm. But how many of us really understand what calm and peace actually are? It's easy to mistake "relaxed dullness" found through things like television, drinking, eating, and other such commonplace activities, as peace and calm. In fact, such dullness can become so pervasive in your life that you fail to notice the presence of actual calm and actual peace.

I used to meditate like mad, trying to break through the dullness, thinking zazen was kind of an endurance contest I had to win somehow. In this, there was no room for the world to fully enter, no room for the peace and calm that comes when being "confirmed by the ten thousand things" as Dogen once said.

Calm is Not Boring

To some extent, in our culture, we associate calm with a certain relaxed dullness, like lying in a hammock on a summer afternoon after a hard day's work. On the other hand, we are often alert but tense, as when we face danger or financial problems ... We associate alertness with a crisis mode. But this polarization is not intrinsic to human consciousness. What we are gradually learning in this practice is utter calm that is highly alert, like the frog that Suzuki Roshi used to talk about, sitting on a lily pad.

Larry Rosenberg, Breath By Breath: The Liberating Practice of Insight Meditation

I experienced this utter calm during our weekly class at the zen center last night. As people talked about their experiences, or ideas about the teacher's talk, I found myself listening simultaneously to what was being said and what was coming up within. I took in the visuals - the lights outside our zendo, the piles of dirt from the road construction, my dharma brothers and sisters, the jagged crack along the floor. And I sat with the rising and falling of my chest, the entering and fading away of every breath. Until a few lines from Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life arose, I experienced the familiar anxiety that comes before wanting to share, and then I spoke them:

There's nothing that does not grow light
through habit and familiarity,
putting up with little cares,
I'll train myself to bear with great adversity.

I've been working with these lines for about two and a half years now. In order to keep them with me daily, I chant them silently to myself as I brush my teeth every night before bed.

Sitting here now, I can see where this teaching is a gateway into that utter calm I experienced, and Rosenberg and Suzuki were speaking about. Because all of those "little cares" that arrive in our lives have the ability to muck things up greatly, if we can't meet them as they are in the moment. The pain in your back, for example, easily can lead to tension, and then irritation, and then angry acting out of some kind. So it often goes.

Many people come to Buddhism seeking calm and peace, but don't really understand what calm and peace actually are. And since it's easy enough to get to that "relaxed dullness" through things like television, drinking, eating, and other such commonplace activities, some of us fail to notice the presence of actual calm and peace.

I know I used to meditate like mad, associating calm with boredom, and thinking zazen was kind of an endurance contest I had to win somehow. In this, there was no room for the world to fully enter, to be "confirmed by the ten thousand things" as Dogen once said.

Can you be like the frog, taking it all in, ready in a moment's notice to eat the meal that comes?