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Continuing to look at famous teachings about meditation to support confidence in your search for the answer. Here’s an introduction to the Upanishads, prompted by Noreen. I recommend a little Penguin book of excerpts. First, some rough context in time: Earth is 4,000,000,000 years old; life is 3,000,000,000 years old; the dinosaurs went extinct around 60,000,000 years ago; Hominid species like ours are about 5,000,000 years old and perhaps Homo Sapiens are 2,000,000 years old; written language started 5,000 years ago (=3,000BC); the first book was the Epic of Gilgamesh from ~2,500BC. Second, some context on early civilization: the main centers were along 4 rivers: The Tigris-Euphrates rivers and ancient Persian/Sumerian cultures, the Yang-Tze/Yellow river and ancient Chinese culture, the Nile river and ancient Egyptian culture, and the Indus river and ancient Indian culture. Lastly, from the ancient Indian culture we have the Vedas: writings from ~1,500 BC and the Upanishads: perhaps poetic summaries of the Vedas from between 800 and 200 BC. The Mahavakyas [Sanskrit: maha=great, vakya (from which we have the word “vocal”), so “great sayings”] are short phrases from the Upanishads. Ghandi revered the Isha Upanishad above all of them, and we have already gone through the Katha Upanishad. Today shared some excerpts from the Chandogya Upanishad including a favorite that I think spans Hinduism, Christianity and Buddhism:
“It is true that the body is mortal, that it is under the power of death; but it is also the dwelling of Atman, the Spirit of immortal life. The body, the house of the Spirit, is under the power of pleasure and pain; and if a man is ruled by his body then this man can never be free. But when a man is in the joy of the Spirit, in the Spirit which is ever free, then this man is free from all bondage, the bondage of pleasure and pain.“

Continuing to look at famous teachings about meditation to support confidence in your search for the answer. The Heart Sutra is perhaps the most famous across all of Mahayana Buddhism. Read English translation Sensei helped me write in 1994. We chanted it together in Japanese syllables (Maka Hannya Haramita Shingyo). Intruduced Hakuin Zenji and his commentary on the Heart Sutra. It may seem irreverent, but that’s just pointing out our inescapable hypocrisy: The Heart Sutra says all forms are empty (of no particular significance) including sutras such as the Heart Sutra. Same idea as UCI professor Derrida’s deconstructionism of all written words, which he expressed in his book, ironically. The point is we can only know truth through expression in forms. It’s the same dichotomy as in the Vedic Purusha and Prakriti, the Japanese Ri 理‎ and Gi, and even perhaps the ancient Egyptian Ba (personality soul) and Ka (immortal soul). Some music using the Heart Sutra: in Sanskrit, and in Mandarin from Gg.

Continuing to look at famous teachings about meditation to support confidence in your search for the answer. The Dhammapada is a nice famous collection of 423 short paragraphs from the Buddhist cannon. “Show and tell” based on Zen Mind Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi (1904-1971). History of Zen in the US, Suzuki Roshi’s lineage, and how to meditate videos from SFZC. I chatted about the couple dozen places/books/and people I’ve known, in particular KannonDo where I started practicing Zen in 1990 with Les Kaye Roshi and Misha Merrill Sensei, a retreat in New Rochelle with Susan Postal Sensei in 2006 and my visit to Suzuki Roshi’s home temple Rinsoin in Yaizu, Japan with his son and heir Hoitsu Suzuki Roshi in 1994.

Continuing to look at famous teachings about meditation to support confidence in your search for the answer. The Buddhist Pali Cannon is the Tripitaka/3 baskets. The 2nd basket has the teachings/suttas and is divided into 5 collections/nikayas. The Anapanasati sutta is in the 2nd “middle-length”/majjihma collection: number 118 out of 152 suttas. So the reference is MN118 (Majjihma Nikaya #118). In these 4-pages, you can see the Four Foundations of Mindfulness (i.e. four frames of reference) discussed as well: body, feelings, mind, mental qualities. The Satipathana sutta (MN10) is similar to the Mahasatipathana sutta (DN22 = “digha nikaya” = long collections #22), and actually goes over anapanasati as well. So the two are very much interwoven, just written in slightly different words. Sensei summarized the Satipathana sutta nicely in his book Wakeful on pp 30-32 where we apply 4 steps to each of the foundations/frames: 1) clear perception (attained through practicing meditation), 2) observation (over a long period of time), 3) tranquilization, 4) liberation. The way I like to put it is from Patanjali’s Yoga sutras. We learn to quell the waves that represent disunity, disharmony or irresolution in each of the koshas/foundations/skandas/or however you care to divide yourself, during meditation AND throughout our life.
Also: a nice NPR story on perceptual time versus time as we look through memories based on work by a neuroscience professor. Same as Sensei’s subjective and objective time. Sensei coined the term “absolute time” as that which is experienced in jhana when we are fully present.

Why did I become a Buddhist? I sought the experts in how to meditate. Although Buddha said in the Kalama sutra that we shouldn’t believe things just because they are written/etc, being familiar with famous teachings can provide some confidence as we search for the answer. So I want to go over some famous ones and invite you to suggest others to examine. Here are 4 famous Buddhist teachings. Shared Sensei’s simple translation of Anapanasatisutta.

• Anapanasati sutta (In and out Breathing Meditation), ~500BC
• Satipathana sutta (Four Foundations of Mindfulness), ~500BC
• Maka Hannya Haramita Shingyo (Heart Sutra), ~660AD
• Hsin-hsin Ming (Faith in Mind), ~800AD

“What do you do to relax each day?” Walk in nature, have a beer, watch TV, exercise, another spiritual practice, daydream, a hobby, etc. All good ways to recover after a day’s hard work. Meditation is the most direct path to recover yourself. What about sleep/a nap? That’s a really good way too, but in meditation you can settle yourself even deeper, because you can choose to let go rather than wrestle with things in your dreams. These are all effective because they help you let go of the attachments that you’re stuck on that day. If you were enlightened, you’d have no attachments and so no need to recover yourself after effort. These activities help you let go, often by giving you something else to focus on. Same thing in meditation: you focus on your body’s breathing in order to let go of the attachments you’re currently stuck on, for the time you are meditating. If you were enlightened you wouldn’t need to focus to get jhana. Remember, it’s more valuable to develop the ability to let go and recover yourself than to just recover yourself that one time; that’s why we practice. So settle your body sitting not sleeping, your emotions walking if you can’t sit, and thoughts by continuing to let go of what arises and return to focus. It’s hard until it suddenly becomes easy.

“With whom do you meditate?” It’s a common question you get when visiting a new Zen center (Whom do you sit with?) or yoga studio (Who is your teacher?). On the up side, it’s a common conversation that is a good introduction to a new place – nothing special. On the down side, you can suffer by how you answer in different ways including: being attached to practicing with your teacher which may not last, being prideful and judgemental of your teacher’s superiority, or even being deluded in thinking that a fictional mystic transference is occurring from them to you. I shared my story of visiting the Frederick Lenz “meditation club” at UCLA and his fictional mystic transference of enlightenment. I’m not enlightened and don’t claim any such process. We crave such mystical things, yet the mystical is in the details of every experience and you get it with deep meditation (jhana).

Lucky to see a beautiful sunset? “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” some people like this others like that. “All flowers are beautiful” Sensei’s message to us. Things are not beautiful, rather we have capacity to experience beauty sometimes. Therefore meditate to change your mind, to expand your capacity to experience love and beauty and to be happy and strong.

ISA Upanishad poem in celebration of YULE. Questions to check your koshas. 5th and 4th for life. 1st and 2nd for meditation. 3rd and time: objective time, subjective time, absolute time. Mindfulness in the present is a tool to know what you are doing. Jhana is a tool to find yourself and wake up into your life.

Why is a PhD valuable? Because it’s hard to persist. Same for meditation: feel your breath, see a candle, notice how settled you are. But to persist in any is difficult. Meditation is developing ability to persevere. Mind and circumstances swirl in alluring chaos; learn to hold steady.