The Best Buddhist Writing 2010 - Melvin McLeod [37]
I once read of a Zen master who became enlightened like this: “When I heard the temple bell ring, suddenly there was no bell and no I, just sound.” Imagine no distinction between yourself and the bell, the sound and the universe. Sometimes when I’m swimming, the waves don’t feel separate, the water’s history and my history melt together, and I sense my particles breaking apart and scattering, returning now and then like a school of fish to form what appears solid, pattern, thing, but happens only to be a temporary sack of cells turning together. As sunlight hits the prismatic water, the walls and floor of the pool become a luminous cage holding nothing but thought. Ever since I was a child, for whole minutes at a time, I have effervesced out of my self in an ecstasy of communion with the cosmos at the level of atom and leaf. And yet, I also spend most of each day not in that state, with my zaftig “I” sprawling all over the mind furniture, a slovenly and selfish guest. So, is enlightenment sustainable? Jack Kornfield, of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in northern California, explains that enlightenment isn’t continuous; one still has to do the laundry. But surely how one does the laundry is what matters? Fine, but one still has to go to work, not always with equanimity. Unless one lives in a monastery, it’s not easy to prolong a calm, serene, cheerful equilibrium, which one nerve-jangling phone call can quickly convert to anxiety. In the stir of the world, I’m glad to find slender moments of dawning, when the ephemeral cape of being simply fits.
In the end, life is the best koan—not the word, but the process of living. An endlessly mutating koan created by water, minerals, and heat in the cold furnace of the atom, without meaning or purpose. From that evolved creatures stricken by meaning, afflicted with purpose. But it has always been about rust, the ancient, unknowable, nearly unthinkable rust that created all life, and the rust that obliterates us, intimately, one by one.
Natural Wakefulness
Gaylon Ferguson
Enlightenment is such a big word. It feels like a far off goal, probably unreachable for people like us. But in fact we are naturally awake, and flashes of enlightened mind happen to us all the time. The path then is one of recognizing, understanding, and deepening what is always present but usually unnoticed. Here is a clear and helpful presentation of this view from one of the most eloquent Buddhist teachers in the West today.
In meditation retreats over the years, I’ve been asked many times: “Why is it natural to ‘wake up’?” After some conversation among the group, circling around the deeper meaning of “awake” as our natural state of being, someone will occasionally grow bolder still and raise a hand to wonder out loud: “If it’s so natural, why do I need to meditate?”
Meditation is the natural path of spiritual awakening. The Buddha discovered a “middle way” of developing our innate human potential, an approach to meditating that avoids the twin traps of trying to force the mind to be still or letting it run wild. Right meditation skillfully joins our basic awakened nature with the practice of gently training the mind and heart.
The word “buddha” means “awakened one.” Imagine that one day, walking among the fresh vegetables of your local farmer’s market, you suddenly see someone with unusual presence—calm, compassionate, clear. What are the signs of this? It might be the graceful way the person moves: body and mind in easy harmony with each other. It might be the person’s gentle tone of voice, the friendly way of speaking to the checkout person. It might just be the bright clarity and steady kindness of the gaze; the eyes can be the windows of wakefulness.
Seeing such a person, we might wonder: Who is this? Where did this wise person come from? How is it that someone could be radiating such peace and sanity in the midst of so much anxiety, aggression, and speed? The most