Loving Kindness

Tomorrow is Visaka Bucha Day.

THE THREE MOST IMPORTANT holy days of the year for Thai Buddhists all include the word "Bucha", which means to pay homage. Asahara Bucha commemorates the day the Lord Buddha preached his first sermon. Makha Bucha marks both the occasion when 1,350 of the Buddha's disciples gathered without prior notice and listened to the Buddha elaborate some of his most important teachings in a sermon, as well as the day he foresaw his own death and attainment of Nibbana (Nirvana). But the most auspicious of the three is Visakha Bucha, which simultaneously commemorates three important anniversaries in the life of Siddharta Gautama, the Lord Buddha: his birth, his enlightenment, and his death.

This time last year I was in Bangkok. I had gone to spend Vesaka Bucha Day with Thich Nhut Hanh. So much has changed since then. But not really. What does that mean?

My life goes up and down. All the time. Sometimes it goes rather calmly. Other times it takes huge dips. I guess in some ways I am lucky that there are not swings from those lows to unmaintainable heights. None the less, I try to lear

I have found that meditation is distinctly helpful. Meditation is not a technique that is restricted to Buddhism. My fist experience with it was in the Christian tradition where I am most comfortable. Meditation here is just a much more acceptable tool.

The week that I spent in Bangkok this time last year was a week of reflection. I was by myself most of the time. And each day I had an incredible teacher guiding me to look at the content of each moment. Not spending time looking at yourself and your problems is refreshing. Just looking at how you breathe and considering the complexity of that task and the miracle that it happens without you. The operation that keeps you alive does not need your conscious participation. Breathing continues whether you are good or bad, lazy or busy, happy or angry. It doesn't judge. It just does what it is supposed to do.

Today I was talking with a friend of mine who was struggling with some bad times in his life. He is fasting with me for the IAct Fast for Darfur. He was having a hard time and was blaming his bad mood on not eating. It was so clear to me that his bad mood had nothing to do with not eating. I dug out the link to the TED presentation by Mathieu Ricard that I had dug out for John P. earlier in the week in another thread. In getting it for him, I found another video link to a talk that Mathieu Ricard gave at Google. And there I found a link to a talk also given at Google by Jon Kabat-Zinn. (This is an outside link to the video below) That is how I have spent the last 3 + hours of my day.

What a refreshing time. In the Ricard Google talk, he presents some evidence on meditation actually being reversely related to depression. I really should have known that deep inside me. Maybe I did.

The second point I am focusing on right now is Kabat-Zinn's presentation of meditation and being gentle with yourself. Not judging but just being aware. Knowing that the real problems come when we keep our focus on I, me, mine rather than just being aware.

My greatest successes with meditation have been with the control / coping with chronic pain. I have lived with chronic pain most of the last 15-20 years. I have had severe arthritis in my hips. I have severe bone spurs in both of my heels that go into the Achilles tendons. Then there is a torn ligament in my right knee and a torn rotator cuff in my right shoulder. It has been of immeasurable value to me to realize that the pain is a pain of my body, not a pain to me. This has allowed me to release the pain so that it does not (usually) influence my attitude. That makes an incredible change in my life. All of these things though create a spiral of deterioration. favoring my right knee puts undue stress on my hips, all of them limit my mobility and my exercise which makes keeping weight off nearly impossible which increases the stress on the knee and continues.

This downward spiral is not unlike the downward spiral of depression. And the time today reminded me that like physical pain, the pain of the depression is most acute when I focus on the me. When I can remember that the depression is not me, that the depression is a physical response to stimuli that are usually a function of focusing on "ME" and why is everyone so cruel, and why can't someone help me, and yada yada yada... When I can turn the focus out and work toward loving kindness, I cope and I smile and I forget the pain of the body and the mind.

This video is 72 minutes so be forewarned. But I believe I can promise you that the last 3 minutes make it worth listening to the talk in its entirety. (an aside - can you imagine working at a place that has these kinds of lectures as part of the work day? I kind of do! :-) . )

EDIT - fixed the link location

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