RIGHT SPEECH
The practice of Right Speech is wholehearted expression. It is being silent when that is the right thing to do, and it is also speaking without holding back on behalf of others when called on to do so. It also means not failing to express the beauty and poetry of life. It is not, as some seem to propose, a practice of being consistently soft-spoken and never saying anything controversial. It includes being both fierce and yielding, as conditions warrant.
We’re in particularly demanding times. Our media, both social and civic, is now largely designed to deceive and confuse, and communication in general is increasingly unkind. The points of view of women and of other disenfranchised people are too often absent or distorted. We can create violent language, thoughts, and actions, which will mingle together and amplify each other. Or we can practice peace-generating, clarifying, and inclusive words, thoughts, and actions, which will support one another and life itself. The latter is the practice of Right Speech.
As recorded in the Pāli Canon, the historical Buddha taught that Right Speech had four parts:
1.Abstaining from false speech—not telling lies, deceiving, or leaving out essential details.
2.Not slandering others or using words in ways that cause enmity.
3.Not using rude or abusive language.
4.Not indulging in idle talk or gossip.
These cautions also have another side: using language truthfully and honestly; using language with goodwill, in the direction of the greatest truth.
We also cannot really practice Right Speech if we don’t practice right listening; the two are interdependent. Our speech is not ours alone: It happens between and among all of us. How deeply we hear, as well as how we choose to speak, reflects and creates reality. What reality will we choose to create?
RIGHT ACTION
Right Action is one of the three ethical conduct aspects of the Eightfold Path. The word for action is karma and means volitional action—things we choose to do. When we act “rightly,” we act without selfish attachment to our own agendas. Right Action means being accurate or skillful, and it carries a connotation of coherence or wisdom.
Right Action often is supported by making vows to take up the Buddhist Precepts. Different schools of Buddhism have different lists of Precepts (often in Zen training The Sixteen Bodhisattva Precepts are studied, for instance), but in common to all the schools are these five:
1.Not killing
2.Not stealing
3.Not misusing sex
4.Not lying
5.Not abusing intoxicants
Most teachers, myself included, have expanded the ancient Precepts to have a positive edge, not just what looks like a list of don’ts. These are Vietnamese Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh’s Five Mindfulness Trainings, which correlate to the five Precepts listed above:
1.Respect life. In awareness of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, work to protect all living things.
2.Be generous. Give freely of one’s time and resources where they are needed, without hoarding anything. Promote social justice and well-being for everyone.
3.Respect sexuality and honor the body. Also, be aware of the pain caused by sexual misconduct, honor commitments, and act to protect others from sexual exploitation.
4.Practice loving speech and deep listening. Through deep listening and Right Speech, tear down the barriers that separate.
5.Consume mindfully. Nourish oneself and others with healthful food, media, art, and entertainment, while avoiding addiction, overconsumption, and agitation.
Please be encouraged to take up these Precepts, letting them support you, and to study them with a Zen teacher and community, if possible, to help refine your practice. Consider taping them on your mirror as a daily reminder of waking up and the commitment to be in the world with a deepening sense of harmony and responsibility, letting your life express compassion for all beings.
RIGHT LIVELIHOOD
Right Livelihood is a way of making a living that doesn’t harm others: It is, in one sense, impossible, and yet it is also of the gravest importance. Speaking to people of his time, the Buddha cautioned against five types of vocation—selling weapons, trafficking in human beings, selling meat, producing or selling intoxicants, and distributing poison. Taken in its wider interpretation, this list can help us today to reflect on whether our work would be considered Right Livelihood and, if not, to move our practice in that direction. Are we putting poison (thoughts, words, things) into the world, feeding people’s various intoxications and excesses, participating in disrespect for living beings? What might beginning, or taking a step toward, our real work look like?
Thich Nhat Hanh again, with a reminder: “Our vocation can nourish our understanding and compassion or erode them. Being conscious of the consequences, far and near, of the way we earn our living is Right Livelihood.”
Again, the teaching also has a positive side; it’s not just about avoiding doing harmful things. It is the imperative to find a way to make a living that truly supports life. How can we engage our work with our deepest intentions, with the understanding that all beings are interconnected, so that we honor, respect, and protect one another and the life of our planet?
RIGHT EFFORT
The traditional definition of Right Effort sounds old-fashioned: It is to exert oneself to “develop wholesome qualities and to release unwholesome qualities.” Sometimes translated as Right Diligence (in Pāli, samma vayamo), its spirit is that we apply ourselves wholeheartedly, but also without falling into a hyper-vigilance that is hurtful. It is not about being hard on oneself, but points instead to the importance of reenergizing our practice again and again with fresh, calm commitment.
The Buddha taught four considerations as part of Right Effort. Essentially, they are a reminder to get started, work with whatever gets in the way, attend to the things that help, strengthen those things, and keep going:
1.Make the effort to prevent unwholesome qualities—especially greed, anger, and ignorance—from arising.
2.Exert effort to extinguish any unwholesome qualities that already have arisen.
3.Make the effort to cultivate skillful, or wholesome, qualities—especially generosity, loving-kindness, and wisdom, the opposites of greed, anger, and ignorance—that have not yet arisen.
4.Exert effort to strengthen the wholesome qualities that have already arisen.
Seeing that this “effort around effort” could be misunderstood and do harm, the Buddha gave an example to his students. He said the effort one brings to practice should be akin to tuning a string instrument. If we let the strings get too loose, there won’t be any music—we just plunk and plod along. But if we keep it all too tight, the strings will break . . . as will we. Finding that balance—not too tight, not too loose—is Right Effort.
RIGHT MINDFULNESS
Given that mindfulness has become such a confusing buzzword lately, let’s clarify a bit what it is not. It is not simply attention—we are always paying attention to something, but we are not, therefore, necessarily mindful. It is not just consciousness itself—if you’re alive, experiencing, and not under anesthesia, you are conscious but not necessarily mindful. Nor is it just intentional attention—we can direct attention without being especially mindful. Mindfulness is also not simply “the present moment.” All mental events—whether memory of the past or imagination of the future, whether spiteful or forgiving—take place in the present. So what, then, is mindfulness?
Andrew Olendzki, scholar and teacher, has said it well:
Mindfulness is an inherently wholesome or healthy mental factor, so it cannot function at any moment when the mind is under the influence of greed or hatred, even in their mildest versions of favoring and opposing. Anytime you want or don’t want things to be a certain way, the mind is not being mindful.
—Andrew Olendzki, Lion’s Roar online magazine (June 2017)
So, to clarify: Right Mindfulness is based in the intimacy of all things, the non-dual, a
nd thus expresses selflessness. As a practice, Right Mindfulness means we take up “the whole catastrophe”—the body, senses, thoughts, and surroundings—as ripe places for realization. Leaving nothing out, being inclusive to the utmost, rejecting no one and no thing: This is Right Mindfulness.
WHAT IS MINDFULNESS?
Mindfulness involves focusing on the breath and noticing thoughts as they come and go. In the process, we learn not to identify with each passing thought. When we direct attention to our experience in the present moment with kindness and without judgment, the mind settles.
With a plethora of studios popping up all over the place to cash in on the “mindfulness” craze, many issues have arisen around what capitalism is bringing to this ancient Buddhist practice. Companies are attracted to reducing their health care costs by destressing their workers via mindfulness training, but there’s often no commensurate attention paid to the unkind working environment generating workers’ stress. Corporations have enhanced productivity as workers learn how to focus better with mindfulness, but is making more widgets faster actually what the world needs? Well-intentioned schools are introducing mindfulness to help adolescents with anger management, but they may not be paying equal attention to addressing the systemic injustices that cause that anger and frustration.
A recent CDC report affirms that the number of Americans who’ve tried mindfulness meditation has tripled since 2012. The practice is being offered in many schools, prisons, corporations, and health care facilities to improve well-being. Do people become kinder, more compassionate, just by practicing mindfulness? Not necessarily. The Zen stance is that we usually also benefit from a social vision, a big view that creates a call to compassionate activity.
RIGHT CONCENTRATION
The Pāli word translated into English as concentration is samadhi. Daido Loori explains it like this:
Samadhi is a state of consciousness that lies beyond waking, dreaming, or deep sleep. It is a slowing down of mental activity through single-pointed concentration and the realization of complete intimacy moment by moment.
—John Daido Loori, Eight Gates of Zen
It is often said that samadhi is “oneness with the object of meditation”—in other words, there is no distinction between the act of meditating and the object of meditation. But in Buddhism, Right Concentration is also sometimes called objectless samadhi. This deep meditative state has a rich detailing in the history of teaching, with levels and aspects that complement (and can seem to contradict!) one another. Samadhi, as one of the Eightfold Path practices, indicates a meditative practice of extraordinary depth.
The word samadhi derives from the root words sam-a-dha, meaning to bring together. One important point to appreciate is that, in the Buddhist path teachings, all concentrative states are not necessarily samadhi. We can concentrate on anything, including many horrible and harmful things. Right Concentration is, along with Right Effort and Right Mindfulness, associated not only with the kind of discipline we can bring to the mind, but it also implies that natural compassion is at play.
We’ve briefly explored a few key ideas and concepts associated with the worldview of Buddhism and the practice of Zen. What does any of this indicate, though, for those interested in practicing in their everyday life today? How does one actually enter practice?
In my book of dharma teachings, Winter Moon, I also wrote about what “entering practice” involves:
In Zen, to be a student is to explore the threshold, the place where old and new meet in this very body . . . It is to explore the “liminal”—the realm in which we’re touched beyond personality, beyond the limits of what we understand or may have assigned ourselves as our life. A practitioner of Zen is most basically one whose life is awakening each moment to that threshold, the still point where all the possibilities exist. To practice is to release oneself from the momentum of the past, the karma of what seems to be indicated as the only next step. It is to turn one’s face toward the unknown as a way of life.
WHAT IS NIRVANA?
Nirvana is often translated as “blown out” or “extinguished.” It refers to the state of having blown out the fiery energies that cause our suffering and dis-ease (dukkha). We all get burned by what are called “the triple fires” that create dukkha. In Buddhism, the fires are identified as greed, anger (or hatred), and ignorance of what’s real.
As the Third Noble Truth reminds us, the fires are conditioned states, having a cause—so they can also be brought to an end. (Whatever has the quality of starting also has the quality or condition of ending, by definition.) What remains after the fires are blown out is nirvana. The Buddha taught that our most natural state is nirvana; it is the reality we return to when we stop feeding the craziness of our ideas and habits.
Let’s look at what happens as the fires begin to calm down. The Buddhist understanding is that by realizing and practicing the teachings (the dharma), specifically the Eightfold Path, we essentially cool down and stop living as much in reactive, deluded patterns. Still, the embers remain warm, though perhaps not as hot as the flames we had previously allowed to keep us hopping around. Even those who are enlightened are cautioned to remember the residual heat “in the embers” and to keep practicing.
Nirvana, then, is a state that has never been absent—but is only brought to life through practice that happens moment by moment.
TWO
Zen Mind, Awakening Heart
It is helpful not to confuse what we know about Zen with Zen practice itself. In Zen, we call this Beginner’s Mind (bodhicitta), Awakening Heart, or student mind. It’s the basic position of spaciousness, an open-mindedness that is essentially curious and humble, willing to keep engaging the process of waking up. Waking up to—or as—what? Here we can say any number of things, none of which is “It”—our true nature, life as it is, wisdom, and compassion. The key is that whatever “answer” forms, we keep that process of awakening going. That is all, and of course, that is everything.
Now it is raining, but we don’t know what will happen in the next moment. By the time we go out, it may be a beautiful day or a stormy day. Since we don’t know, let’s appreciate the sound of the rain now.
—Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice
I love this bit of wisdom from Shunryu Suzuki. It comes back to me often when I hear the rain (or find myself in or anticipating a storm of whatever kind). Suzuki is better known for another saying from the same collection of his talks: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few.” They both point to the same place—our capacity to come fresh to the moment and to not make a buffer between ourselves and the world. Also, they’re a reminder to not let even our confidence and intelligence limit our possibilities.
Awakening Heart (bodhicitta) functions when we encounter pain in our life and remember that others also hurt just as we do. Also, it functions when things are pleasant, and instead of just focusing on ourselves, we consider others. It is particularly available to us when we are touched by gratitude or love. In any moment of tenderness, bodhicitta is always here. It is available each moment as we care for the small things—the dirty dish, the cell phone that connects us to the whole world, the snowfall, the muddy boot. When we drop the habit of resenting and complaining, it is very present. As we practice acknowledging these experiences, no matter how feeble this Awakening Heart may seem, it will, over time, grow stronger.
Beginner’s Mind
Awakening Heart and Beginner’s Mind can be used interchangeably—heart and mind are seen as one in Zen. They both refer to bodhicitta. What if instead of shutting down, thinking we know what’s present or coming, the mind-heart remained ready, genuinely open for anything? Once Beginner’s Mind becomes a reflexive practice, we’ll more easily notice when the thought I’ve got it now; I have attained something starts blocking the view, sucking the air out of the room. Conversely, we’ll notice when thoughts of I’ll ne
ver get this; I’m a failure likewise block the view. (One of my teachers used to call me out when I’d express a lack of confidence, saying, “You know, putting yourself down is just as self-involved as thinking you’re great.”) To practice, we let these thoughts—and their thousands of variations—float down the stream of consciousness . . . just noticing them, without building a house on top of each one, moving in, and making an identity of them. So, the next moment arrives. It’s the one where your practice lives. You notice.
Does this mean always pretending that you’ve never met the person you’re with or that you’ve never sung this song before? Of course not. But it does mean becoming aware of how self-centered thoughts and precluding attitudes limit us. When we try to alleviate the altogether human background noise of vulnerability and lack by turning up the volume on our self-ideas, we’re employing a failing strategy. It’s not unlike how we keep our earphones in, music blasting, head down staring at the phone, looking for likes . . . while missing our only-happens-once life. “If you miss the moment, you miss your life,” John Daido Loori used to say. Beginner’s Mind is that: not missing the moment and not missing our lives.
A note while we’re here: Zen is also not anti-intellectual. Though it emphasizes that enlightenment comes not through conceptualization but rather through direct insight, direct insight is also to be supported by study and understanding. The Zen tradition actually produced a rich body of literature which has become a part of its practice and teaching. Influential sutras are: the Platform Sutra, Vimalakirti Sutra, Avatamsaka Sutra, the Shurangama Sutra, and the Mahaparinirvana Sutra. There are also Chán transmission records, such as The Records of the Transmission of the Lamp; the recorded sayings of masters and encounter dialogues; and the koan collections, such as The Gateless Gate and The Blue Cliff Record. See here and the Resources section for further examples.
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