Crossing Nebraska

I hadn’t fasted in over a year. That’s probably reason enough to conclude that life has been just a little bit too hectic of late. Combine that with the difficulty I had choosing a day on which to fast once I’d made up my mind to do so, and the evidence became conclusive. A life too busy to accommodate a day on which to fast is a life in need of simplification. Once I’d made up my mind, though, things fell into place quite nicely. No, I couldn’t find my special fasting tea – it must have gotten discarded in the move – but I did find a ginger and licorice root variety in the cupboard that would suffice. No, I didn’t prepare ahead in order to have some nice green juice or carrot juice on hand, but I did find some grape and orange juice in the fridge that would suffice. And, anyway, isn’t that what fasting is all about: gaining greater understanding of that which is sufficient? It is for me at least. My last “solid” food was a bowl of soup at around 7:00 p.m. This smaller...

By now all of us Buddhists have weathered well over a month of what is commonly referred to as “the holiday season.” It starts with the dominant culture storming out of the gate the moment the Halloween decorations come down and gathers momentum as Thanksgiving approaches. By Black Friday the sprint has begun. Whatever pace each individual can muster is then maintained by whatever means necessary until everyone collectively collapses into a physically and emotionally exhausted and overindulged pile of debt-burdened human wreckage on New Year’s Day! Jizo statue How are you holding up so far? Have you gone stir-crazy yet from hearing Christmas carols nearly everywhere you go? Is the ubiquity of wasteful and distasteful lawn art finally wearing you down? Has workplace pressure to pony up for an offering of useless crap for the “white elephant” gift exchange put your principles of simplicity to the test? And how many times have you lamented to friends and family the ...

Okay, the topic of this week’s post was “supposed” to be loving-kindness – the last of the four sublime abodes to be addressed in this series. Regular readers will note that during the course of my exploration of the other three (compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity) I also delved into their respective near enemies (pity, comparison, and indifference). And so it was that I fully intended to eventually address attachment, the near enemy of loving-kindness (Kornfield, 1993). As I sat down to start writing, however, I immediately realized that attachment really deserves top billing here – if only by virtue of it being one of the most misunderstood of all Buddhist concepts. I’ve actually spoken with people who have “tried to get into Buddhism but just couldn’t get past the whole non-attachment thing.” Apparently non-attachment, for many, means living a passionless existence – devoid of romantic love, deep caring, pleasure, and commitment. So, please bear with me; I’ll be gett...

Compassion, equanimity, sympathetic joy, loving-kindness – these states of mind are sometimes referred to as the brahma-viharas – the “Four Sublime Abodes” (Sangharakshita, 1980, p. 141). Literally translated, brahma-vihara refers to “divine states of dwelling” (Schuhmacher & Woerner, 1994, 46) or the “dwelling place of brahmas” (Thanissaro, 2011), reflecting the belief that the cultivation of these properties will bring rebirth in the higher heavenly realm of the Brahmas. Figuratively speaking, however, the brahma-viharas are those “sublime attitudes” (Thanissaro, 2011) or “the four immeasurables” that the bodhisattva must cultivate in order to aid in the liberation of others (Schuhmacher & Woerner, 1994, 46). Funny thing, though, whenever we strive to cultivate something that we’re not already intimate with, we tend to look for evidence of its fruition in places where it might not yet exist – like when we cover a handful of seeds with carefully prepared soil...