Seeing That Which Is
Nestled here at the confluence of
the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, the air around my hometown is often laden
with moisture rising up to become part of the clouds that form over the region
and then rain back down again. This summer has been an especially wet one here,
and when it hasn’t actually been raining, or storming, there have been
beautiful billowing cumulus clouds streaming past overhead like I haven’t
noticed in a long, long time. They’ve actually reminded me of very pleasant
times during my childhood when I’d lay back on the cool grass, alone or with a
friend, holding to my nose a wild onion freshly plucked from the earth while watching
clouds slowly form and change and slip away against a backdrop of brilliant
blue – pulling me with them deeper and deeper into the joyous reverie of
watchfulness without separation.
Unfortunately, even as I’m reminded
of this joyous childhood reverie – and slip into some adult approximation of it
from time to time in the here and now – I’m also vaguely haunted by the specter
that this display of natural wonder is made all the more dramatic on account of
climate change making the atmosphere warmer, thereby allowing it to hold ever
more moisture, thereby making clouds all the more beautiful and plentiful, and thereby
making rains and storms all the more unpredictable and powerful. Those clouds
are no less beautiful than they were when I was a child, it’s just that their
story, and my own, has become more complicated over time.
Buddhism has grown “more
complicated” over time as well. There once was a time when all one need do was
cultivate the four foundations of
mindfulness in order to enjoy freedom from suffering.
Mindfulness of the body:
Breathing in a long breath, [a monk] knows, "I am breathing in a long
breath"; breathing out a long breath, he knows, "I am breathing out a
long breath." … and so forth…
Mindfulness of feeling:
[A] monk when experiencing a pleasant feeling
knows, "I experience a pleasant feeling"; when experiencing a painful
feeling, he knows, "I experience a painful feeling." … and so
forth…
Mindfulness of consciousness:
[A] monk knows the consciousness with lust, as
with lust; the consciousness without lust, as without lust; the consciousness
with hate, as with hate ; the consciousness without hate, as without hate. …
and so forth…
Mindfulness of mental objects:
[A] monk knows, "There is sense-desire in
me," or when sense-desire is not present, he knows, "There is no
sense-desire in me." He knows how the arising of the non-arisen
sense-desire comes to be; he knows how the abandoning of the arisen
sense-desire comes to be. … and so forth…
Indeed, the Buddha himself is
reported to have said:
This is the only way, monks, for the
purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, for the
destruction of suffering and grief, for reaching the right path, for the
attainment of Nibbana, namely, the four foundations of mindfulness. (Majjhima Nikaya 10)
Ah, those were the days, right! But
then things got all complicated with the evolution of Mahayana Buddhism’s bodhisattva ideal of saving all beings.
How does one save all beings, anyway, without cultivating a depth of wisdom
that essentially amounts to God-like omniscience? That is the depth of
wisdom that the Buddha attained under the Bodhi tree, isn’t it? So now when I
see those beautiful clouds forming overhead, I not only have to be aware of the
pleasant sensation of the “joyous reverie of watchfulness without separation,” I
have to also be aware of the fact that the climate is changing, and I am
contributing to that climate change with my burning of fossil fuels, and by
doing so I am causing the suffering of all beings by making it harder for them
to survive; indeed, I am causing them to die; and yet I’ve made a vow to save
them all…
What do you think? If the Buddha
were to have been born in this fossil-fueled age, albeit without the scientific
knowledge that we presently enjoy, would he, while sitting under the Bodhi tree,
somehow spontaneously become aware of the fact that our actions are warming the
planet and causing suffering to all beings? And now that I am aware of
this reality, what should I do? Should I follow that teaching of 2,500 years
ago and simply focus on my body, feelings, consciousness, and mental activity;
or should I cultivate something as close as I can to an omniscient awareness of
the plight of all beings, and a willingness to act on their behalf?
We modern Buddhists have the
benefit of 2,500 years or so of teachings, spanning entire schools of thought,
plumbing the cumulative depths of meditative practice engaged in by sincere
practitioners over the millennia. We needn’t view these varied teachings as being
contradictory to one another. Perhaps these teachings can best be viewed as
tools in a spiritual toolbox available for our skillful use, the skill that
comes with the development of wisdom – prajna,
in Sanskrit.
As I’ve reflected on this apparent
quandary over the last couple of weeks, I’ve come to realize that the development
of wisdom, prajna, involves both subtraction
and addition. The teaching related to the four
foundations of mindfulness is essentially the development of wisdom via the
subtraction of inaccurate conceptualization. Cultivating mindfulness of what is
going on within the body/mind of “our” experience allows us to relinquish our
attachment to the conceptualization of individual and permanent selfhood – a
relinquishment that is of utmost importance when it comes to alleviating “our” individual
suffering as Buddhists understand it. Accompanying this attainment of wisdom
via the subtraction of inaccurate conceptualizations is the attainment of
wisdom via the addition of awareness. We can’t be taking our vow to save all
beings very seriously without being open to awareness of the reality that they
experience, their difficulties, their sufferings. For this we must maintain openness
to continued learning, openness to the news of the world, openness to social
realities, openness to new developments within the scientific realm.
It is painful to contemplate global
warming and all of the suffering that it will entail – that, in fact, it already
entails. However, one does not accept the bodhisattva
vow to save all beings without being willing to take on such suffering even
while maintaining awareness of the transcendent beauty that is within and all
around.
References
Majjhima Nikaya 10. Satipatthana
sutta: The foundations of mindfulness" (Nyanasatta Thera, Tr.). Published
by Access to Insight, 14 June 2010, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.nysa.html
Copyright 2013 by Mark Frank
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