Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) wrote a pivotal book called The Hero with a Thousand Faces where he pointed out commonalities between various religious stories. The idea taken from that of the Hero’s Journey seems to fit many “coming of age”- type fictional stories like the Ramayana, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, various superhero stories, etc. It doesn’t fit others such as tragedies and comedies like Hamlet and Oedipus. Also, I’m not sure it fits Gilgamesh or Beowolf either, though they are ancient heroic epics. The Hero’s Journey, however is clearly an archetypal story and part of our human collective as Jung described, and is a useful story-structure to consider for our own life-story. We might even look at our relationship with meditation in this way. How did you first encounter the idea of meditation? What made you decide it was something you needed to do? As you learned to meditate when did you stop searching here and there and realize you just needed to practice? What was your impossible challenge that you overcame? how was your first experience of jhana? then after that how did you see yourself as a different person? Did you share your new experience with those who were with you when you started the journey? Personally I’ve gone through the full circle with Chapel as my starting/ending point. Maybe I’ll write my own little epic someday. Think about writing yours, even just for yourself.
11/20/23
A basic message of Buddhism is that our attachments create our suffering so we should meditate. But why? It’s because meditation is training to develop our relationship with our own wants and don’t wants. That is, how do we act, feel, think about the things we want to have or want to avoid in our life? It could be that we feel greedy, needy, unworthy, pessimistic, entitled, or any other form of not so healthy relationship. So what is a mature relationship then? Well, we’re happy when we encounter good things and unhappy when we encounter bad things; that’s simple enough; mature and healthy you might say. But when we are seeking, exerting our effort, and working for our goals that we have some expectations positive or negative based on various things. Here it makes sense that patience/persistence (khanti) is a good thing. Generally speaking, we can be happy in our goal-oriented efforts and at the same time not insist on getting a result. In a sense it’s like being respectful of the Universe to respond as it will to our efforts, and recognizing that we are not in absolute control. Should we create the life we want or discover the life we should have? Neither. Forcing life to meet your expectations is bound to fail, and allowing life to pass you by is also bound to fail. The answer is that the question is incorrect. Instead of asking ,”should you create or discover your life?”, how about, “what attitude shall I have as I strive for what I want?”. There are a lot of ways to think about your relationship with what you want to have or avoid. Generally a conscious pause can help you see how you are holding your mind. Meditation is just such a pause.
11/13/23
I learned an Ancient Greek phrase today watching a history documentary: “Kalos/Kales Kai Agathos” = he/she is beautiful/noble/handsome and good/virtuous/dutiful/brave of character. How do we be that? What about “Find Your Bliss”? This common phrase started with Joseph Campbell (famed for the idea of Mythical Archetypes) and is nicely explained in this Psychology Today link: “Sometimes people equate bliss with being in a state of euphoria, but in reality, being blissful is the state you’re in when you’re doing whatever instills a profound sense of joy within you” It was initially referring to finding your life or career path. So I might replace “bliss” with purpose or better yet contentment: find your contentment. Commonly we work to attain circumstances that match our vision and if we succeed for a time, then we feel content for that time. But don’t we try to do this in meditation, despite circumstances? So I’d also replace “find” with “create” because it’s not a passive or lucky thing at all. Circumstances require some luck, but in the long run “create your contentment” is how we can grow to be a content person regardless of circumstances. How? by holding your mind steady. That’s fundamental to the process. It could be while jogging, watching the sunset, meditating, etc. The other things we do in meditation that are helpful are: refrain from effort, pay attention to now, wake up, relax and let go, etc. As we practice and develop a greater capacity to be a content person, we become more aligned with our personal purpose and values, and that brings out the best in us. We become kalos/kales kai agathos: beautiful and virtuous.
at Delphi, 1990
11/6/23
After this weekend’s retreat I’m thinking about 3 things that meditation typically does for you. 1) After an exciting or upsetting day, meditation settles us down. In my experience, that can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours of zazen, depending on your day and how your life is going. Years ago the first hour of my two-hour practice was always a settling time, but I’ve gotten better at it and now typically I’m settled even before I ring the bell. 2) The next thing meditation does for you after you are settled down, is re-center your perspective. I find this happens after a day or two on a meditation retreat. It takes time to fully disengage our mind from all the efforts we are juggling – both consciously and subconsciously. But when we do, things stop getting blown out of proportion. 3) Then what do we get out of a longer meditation retreat? I’ve found that most people hit a point of difficulty after about 2 days (maybe 1 to 3 days) where continuing is very difficult. This is confrontation as Sensei often said. This is when specific personal issues and crises arise. Our mind is working perfectly by bringing the most urgent things to our attention. And when we give it a couple days focus and spaciousness on a meditation retreat, we might suddenly start crying and not understand why until later.
Of course we might be living daily with this confrontation already. These are our personal koans, like a conflict of values; which way do we go? what can we say? How can we help our suffering loved one? what “should” I do? Facing it in our mind is a requirement for getting through it; of being resolved in how to proceed; of ending our internal struggle. Maybe there actually is no solution as we’ve framed the problem. In some cases we can’t help our loved one, but we can be present with them so they are not alone. When we realize this is the truth for those cases, then we feel confident, clear and strong with how we move forward.