The Four Antidotes

In a previous post (August) I wrote quite darkly of "The Five Poisons"--greed, ignorance, hatred, denial, and despair--that have come to dominate our public life, and certainly our public discourse, in this country. Here I would like to draw, once again, on Buddhist wisdom to offer four antidotes to these poisons--four ways to practice being what Thich Nhat Hanh once called "a lotus in a sea of fire" during his years in war-torn Vietnam. In Buddhist theory, these antidotes are called the four "Brahma-Viharas"--that is, dwelling places of the Divine, immeasurable states of mind or (more colloquially), useful attitudes to develop toward everyone until they become habitual. These are as follows:

1. Maitri (or in Pali, Metta)--the mind of love
2. Karuna--the mind of compassion
3. Mudita--the mind of empathetic joy
4. Upeksha (or in Pali, Upekkha)--the mind of equanimity.

Thay (Thich Nhat Hanh) quotes Nagarjuna, the second-century Buddhist philosopher:

"Practicing the Immeasurable Mind of Love extinguishes anger in the hearts of living beings. Practicing the Immeasurable Mind of Compassion extinguishes all sorrows and anxieties in the hearts of living beings. Practicing the Immeasurable Mind of Joy extinguishes sadness and joylessness in the hearts of living beings. Practicing the Immeasurable Mind of Equanimity ex­tinguishes hatred, aversion, and attachment in the hearts of living beings."

Let's look at these four useful mind states in a bit more detail, trying to see beyond the connotative static that often accompanies words such as "love" and see, instead, how we can make them real in our everyday lives.

1. Maitri (Metta), often translated as "love" or "loving kindness" can be understood more colloquially, with less connotative baggage, as friendliness. An easy way to practice cultivating this state of habitual friendliness is to soften, deliberately, the muscles around your eyes, which often tighten up out of stress or defensiveness, and allow your mouth to relax into a gentle smile. Remarkably, when you deliberately take such simple physical actions, they have an immediate effect on your mental disposition toward the people you encounter. You feel friendlier toward them, and remarkably enough, they often smile back. It is important to practice this friendliness without any attachment whatsoever, without an agenda. It is easy, particularly for men, to smile at beautiful women, for example, but there is always, even unconsciously, an agenda attached: "Maybe she will take an interest in me!" Therefore try the same easy, relaxed smile when you see other men, homely old women, young children, or anyone else. Try it even with people you are inclined not to like, and you will find that your hostility toward them begins to dissolve--that you become more generally accepting of other people.

2. Karuna--"Compassion," the usual translation, literally means "suffering with" someone. But as Thich Nhat Hanh points out, Karuna involves, "the intention and capacity to relieve and transform suffering and lighten sor­rows." Once you have developed a firm foundation--a good mental habit--of Maitri or genuine, unaffected friendliness toward others, it is quite easy, and very healing, to become aware of others' suffering, and to be ready, whenever possible, to be there for them in their need, whether literally, through donations, or in spirit.

The challenge here is to cultivate such awareness without giving rise to a corresponding resentment of those who cause the suffering, for such resentment leads all too quickly to the poison of hatred. This is why the Tibetans, for example, encourage us to cultivate compassion for both the perpetrators and the victims of the ongoing Chinese oppression of Tibet. The powerful Tibetan practice of Tonglen--breathing in your own and others' pain and suffering, and breathing out love and healing--can be a powerful way of developing compassion for victims and perpetrators alike, and thereby decoupling compassion for victims from resentment of perpetrators.

But it takes lots of practice, and I can't pretend that I am there yet. When I see pictures of oil-soaked sea birds, victims of our Iraq or Afghanistan invasions, sick people without health insurance, or displaced homeowners who have been evicted through foreclosure, it is still very difficult for me to resist the co-arising of compassion for these victims with bitter resentment for BP, the Bush regime, the insurance industry, or the financial services industry...I need to remember, in such instances, the wisdom of Alice Walker's mother when she asked her how she managed not to hate the KKK and other racists who afflicted her. Her response was classic: "If they knew better, they'd do better." So when we encounter greedy or hateful people or their victims, the practice, taking a cue from Alice's mother, is to practice Karuna for the ignorance that gives rise to the perpetrators' greed and hatred, as well as Karuna for those who suffer its consequences. Not an easy task, but I'm working on it.

3. Mudita refers to joy, not just for ourselves, but for others as well. It is a natural outgrowth of Maitri or a friendly disposition, and it arises naturally as well from learning to abide in the present moment. A good translation might be "the ability to enjoy"--that is, the ability to feel a shared sense of gratitude and well-being, an awareness of beauty, in whatever we perceive. I find that a good place to practice Mudita is at the periodic TCC graduation ceremonies that we attend each semester. Despite the tedium of the ceremony--all the citations and pontificating--I love to sit on the side of the arena where I can see the radiant faces of all the students who have just received their diplomas, and share their joy. It is a good, healthy thing to do.

4. Upeksha, or equanimity, comes from the roots upa meaning "over" (cognate, through Indo-European, with the Greek prefix hyper- and the Latin prefix super-) and iksh which means "to look." So the etymology points to the core meaning: the ability to overlook--to let go, particularly, of perceived insults or slights. Thay likens it to climbing a mountain and "looking over"all sides. It involves nondiscrimination and nonattachment--the ability to empathize with, and understand, both sides of any given dispute or conflict. And like Karuna, it is difficult to cultivate toward those people or ideas that you don't like. As with all these other healthy habits of mind, it is best cultivated through the "essential discipline," in all circumstances, of breathing, observing, and letting go.

Finally, these four healthy attitudes all reinforce and give rise to one another. Maitri and Mudita are easy to cultivate, because they bring immediate rewards, both to ourselves and to others. Karuna and Upeksha are more of a challenge, because they both involve overcoming our own habitual resentments and attachments. But both are easier to cultivate if we establish a firm foundation of Maitri--an open, gracious, friendly attitude toward all whom we encounter, and Mudita--the ability to enjoy, selflessly, the beauty of the present moment. In time, all four "abodes" become available for us for meeting any person or situation we encounter: Maitri as a baseline attitude toward everyone we encounter; Karuna whenever we encounter or hear of people who are hurting or suffering, Mudita whenever beauty manifests, and Upeksha whenever people get ugly.

The Soul of a Cat

Today is my 61st birthday--an event I greet with little more than a yawn and a sigh:

"I am of the nature to grow old; there is no way I can avoid growing old."

This being the case, it is well, I think, to devote more of my attention, not to politics or other pernicious public follies well beyond my control, nor to future plans, since the future is getting smaller and more dubious with every passing day, but rather to the wonders of the present moment, and to being there for all others; that is, to cultivating mindfulness and compassion.

This morning as I walked into the bedroom after breakfast, I saw my cat Anthony--himself 16 years old and showing many signs of feline impermanence. Seeing me come in, he paused and coiled up like a spring at the food of the bed, intending to jump up and enjoy the cuddling and attention I generally lavish on him. But then, he reconsidered, turned around, and led me to the back door, so he could go outside instead and enjoy the crisp, cool morning for a while. Being an old cat, he seldom stays out long any more, especially since there is a strapping young alpha male red tiger cat, Boots, right across the street, and in any feline political turf struggle, Anthony would come out the worse.

But what caught my attention is how obviously he reconsidered. At that moment he was obviously weighing the alternatives between investing the energy (now depleted with age) necessary to jump up on the bed for my attention, as opposed to using that energy to step out for a refreshing, but wary look around the yard. In other words, he was evaluating his options--that is, thinking.

It all brought back a debate I had at the age of 13 with my junior high science teacher, a mean old battle-axe by the name of Mrs. Campbell. One day, in keeping with the anthropocentric ideology that then was accepted as "science," she explained how humans alone have the ability to reason, while all other animals (she simply called them "animals" as if we were not!) are driven by "instinct." I raised my hand and begged to differ, citing the example of our family cat Richie evaluating the distance from one branch to the other in a tree by triangulating (though I did not know the word then)--raising and lowering his head--before deciding whether or not to risk a jump. Mrs. Campbell ridiculed me ruthlessly for suggesting that Richie was showing "judgment" (which, in fact, he was) repeating once again that it was merely "instinct" (and thus something totally different from human reasoning). Naturally, she did not define "instinct." To her, the difference was self-evident, however unexamined. Despite her ridicule--quickly picked up by the other students--I stood my ground, insisting that Richie's behavior showed a form of "judgment" analogous to decision-making by humans. From then on, my fellow students sneered at me day in and out, saying things like "Have you talked to your cat, lately, Ellis?"

I was right, of course, but I did not have the intellectual tools to support my argument fully until some 20-odd years later, when I first read Gregory Bateson, a philosopher/biologist of phenomenal intelligence who completely deconstructed for me the Cartesian dualist ideology on the basis of which Mrs. Campbell had made her categorical distinction between human "reason" and nonhuman "instinct." Bateson observed, among other things, that the word "instinct" is what he called "an explanantory concept"--that is, an empty signifier that simply covers up a gap in our understanding. In this case, he pointed out, we simply don't know how other animals process information or make decisions, since they have no language to explain it to us, so we bracket and conceptualize our ignorance by giving it a name--"Instinct."

The Buddhists, as usual, know better, and have been knowing it: that mind is something shared by all sentient beings, but that humans are simply lucky because we happened to have been born with the unique gift of language, which not only allows us to process conceptual information far more precisely, but also to practice the Dharma--that is, practice conscious breathing, observing and letting go of those concepts themselves, and thereby to realize the emptiness that underlies all of these artificial distinctions...including the so-called distinction between "reason" and "instinct." Thereupon we realize, yet again, what William Blake meant when he said, "Everything that lives is holy."

Thank you, Anthony, for that insight. And thank you, Mrs. Campbell, for creating the causes and conditions that made me seek out that insight. May you, likewise, awaken to the Dharma in some future rebirth.

The Five Poisons

As most thoughtful people are aware, the political culture in the US is becoming very toxic these days. Traumatized by the landslide election of a charismatic black liberal President, two major corporate-backed right-wing media monopolies, Fox "News" (sic) and ClearChannel (sic) Radio are shamelessly poisoning the airwaves with the pervasive, strident ranting of scurrilous, paranoid, pernicious, lying demagogues like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, and far too many others. They have already convinced a sizeable chunk of the population of blatant lies--that Obama is either a Muslim, a "furriner" born in Kenya, a "socialist," a "Nazi," a black nationalist who "hates white people" (Beck's actual words) or--quite simply--the Antichrist; someone who hates God and America alike and must, in their shared view, be destroyed "by any means necessary." And Republican politicians, never much noted for integrity, have been all too quick to pander to just such paranoid, hysterical nonsense in order to gain votes.

This pervasive "prolefeed" (Orwell's coinage for such venal and pervasive media lies and distractions to keep the masses in the dark) has the Democrats running scared and backing off from their initiatives, while the Republicans have just had a landslide sweep in the Midterm Elections, bringing many of the looniest of these "Tea Party" crazies right into the Senate and House. Such a terrifying outbreak of media-manipulated collective insanity is reminiscent in so many ways of the rise of the Nazis to power, the more recent Serbian genocide campaign against the Muslims, Pol Pot in Cambodia, and the Rwandan Genocide. Is this where we are headed?

The bodhisattva Franklin Delano Roosevelt, coming into office in a similarly crazy and unhinged time (the Great Depression) said it best: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Taking my cue from this insight, I wish to review some useful Buddhist wisdom, putting my own spin on it as always.

The Five Poisons begin with the Big Three poisons from the Buddhist tradition: Greed (Attachment), Ignorance, and Hatred (Aversion). But to these three, I would add two equally toxic spin-offs: Denial and Despair. All these poisons are pervasive in each of us and all of us--they are the wellsprings of Samsara, of the cycles of endless suffering in which we are trapped.

Greed, of course, is everywhere--it is the central organizing principle, or so it seems, of our modern Glomart society. "More is always better," and "To be is to buy;" these are the two messages we see and hear on television, all day every day. We are brainwashed, day in and day out, never to feel that we have enough, but always to want more stuff. Greed is also, of course, the central theme of Republican political discourse: "It's Your Money" the slogan popularized by Bob Dole, is the Republican mantra--that is, "Don't you dare take any of MY money to do ANYTHING for anyone else!"

Ignorance is, of course, the root of delusion, the root of both greed and hatred. The fundamental ignorance, according to Buddhist thought, is the illusory belief in a separate self, apart from everyone and everything else; the common belief we all have that we, somehow, are more important than anyone else. Hence "Looking out for No. 1" was the recurrent, hackneyed slogan of a flood of aggressive, mean-spirited self-help books, starting in the Reagan era--the Greed Society, as it was called.

But ignorance also arises from the loss of any ability to think, to distinguish truth from falsehood, about anything else. And such willful ignorance is also an epidemic in the US today: most people believe whatever they see and hear on TV or the internet, while our corporate media, competing for audience share with ever more sensationalism, have essentially abandoned their traditional investigative role of separating fact from fantasy or holding public officials accountable for lies. And so, increasingly, we live in a time of "universal deceit" when, as Orwell said, "telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

From greed (or sanctified selfishness) and ignorance naturally arises Hatred--the most malignant poison of them all. "If I can't get what I want, I will hate all those who deny it to me." Hence the right wing hatemongers trade on the fact that most people are easily swayed to hatred, so they openly and hysterically encourage the demonization of Muslims, contempt for the poor, racism, and generalized hatred of "big guv'mint" as the root of all evil--especially when the government tries to use taxpayers' money for decent, charitable purposes. They have no problem with the government squandering billions to invade and destroy Iraq and Afghanistan, because there they are (somehow) "protecting our freedom from the ter'rists." But try to spend one dime to create new jobs, curb carbon emissions, or provide health care to the indigent, and they raise the hysterical cry of "Socialism" and tell their followers to stock up on guns to "take our country back."

The problem is that the average ignorant TV-watching Joe out there loves his employer, however exploitive, because he pays him, and hates the government, because it taxes and regulates him or his employer. And nobody likes to be taxed or regulated. For this reason, such ordinary, unthinking people are easy prey for the hate-spewing demagogues to stir them into a frenzy of anti-government paranoia. This serves the agenda of Big Business perfectly, for it makes our elected officials terrified of regulating their emissions or raising their taxes, for fear of the wrath of the hate-intoxicated multitudes.

And the prime target of all this toxic hatred, on whom they focus it like a laser beam, is, of course, President Obama, the (negro) Muslim/Furriner/Socialist/Fascist/Dictator/Antichrist of their most feverish, media-induced nightmares.

The fourth Poison is Denial, the absolute refusal to admit the truth of a disturbing proposition when it is staring you in the face, and the consequent loathing (amplified, of course, by the Right Wing Hate Machine) of anyone who dares to speak these truths. The obvious examples today are the continuing, widespread denial of global warming, even by political leaders, despite overwhelming evidence from climate scientists worldwide, and the absolute refusal of the entire corporate media to allow anyone to question the (transparently absurd) Official Story of 9/11. If any one in the public eye even dares to raise such questions--to ask, for example, how it is possible for the top sixth of a steel frame building to disintegrate and simultaneously pulverize the lower 5/6ths at freefall rate without encountering any resistance--that person is instantly marginalized, smeared, and often subject to job loss and worse.

All of this spiraling madness in our country has opened up a vat of the Fifth Poison, Despair. Indeed, if the Republicans have become the party of Greed, Ignorance, Hatred, and Denial, the Democrats are now the Party of Despair, vainly trying to appease the howling mobs and hold onto their seats by watering down or compromising every principle they ever may have stood for, all while pathetically sending out desperate fundraising alerts to their despondent and disheartened base.

How did we ever fall so far, in such a short time, from the triumph of Election Day 2008? It is hard to say--President Obama is partly to blame for not being more aggressive and hitting back hard when attacked from all sides by the Lying Machine. He made the classic Machiavellian error of trying, as a leader, to be loved, rather than feared. He also made the huge mistake of trying to reach compromises with the vipers of the Republican party, rather than simply using his sizeable majority in both houses to push through his agenda and make them like it (as Roosevelt or Truman would have done). And as a consequence, his initiatives were so watered down that by the time they passed, they were worthless--and the Republicans simply amped up their well-funded hate campaign in response. So now his power base has eroded altogether, while his enemies surround him on every side like rabid hyenas. It is hard, under such dire circumstances, to feel anything but despair, for our country and for the planet.

So OK, what are antidotes to these poisons? I'll save that for the next blog...

The Essential Discipline: Breathe, Observe, Let Go

In his Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing, as rendered by Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddha offers to his disciples a 16-step guided meditation sequence, on the breath, to help them train their minds. It begins with deceptive simplicity: "Breathing in, I know that I am breathing in; Breathing out, I know that I am breathing out." The subsequent instructions guide us through gradually expanding that basic awareness of breath to include, and calm, the body, feelings, mental formations, and mind. The last four instructions begin with awareness of impermanence, and this expands toward the steps to enlightenment--the disappearance of desire and cessation (of all attachments to self). But the final instruction sums it all up:

"Breathing in, I observe letting go. Breathing out, I observe letting go."

This is, as Thich Nhat Hanh frequently observes, the "essential discipline"--the seed of all practice, from which everything else grows. The rest--all the rest--is commentary.

Breathe. Observe. Let go.

Breathing in, observe letting go.

Breathing out, observe letting go.

We breathe in order to observe, we observe in order to let go, and we let go in order to breathe. And we repeat as often as necessary.

That is the essential discipline. So let's observe it a bit more deeply.

1. Breathe:

As Lao Tzu puts it,

"Empty yourself of everything; let the mind rest at peace.

The Ten Thousand Things rise and fall, while the Self watches their return.

They grow and flourish, and then return to stillness, which is the way of nature..."

Our breath, that is, is our home base. The minute we directly observe our breath, we reconnect body and mind, and re-enter the present moment. This is deeply healing, no matter what is going on in our inner or outer world; this is why rescue workers, dealing with frazzled and hysterical accident victims, routinely tell them to "Take three deep breaths." They recognize instinctively that the simple act of breathing restores equanimity.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the entire body of Dharma teachings and insights grows directly out of this simple, testable fact: breathing restores equanimity when our minds are agitated.

2. Observe:

Breathing consciously--that is, "I am aware that I am breathing"--leads quite naturally and effortlessly to observing. What do we observe? First, the fact that we are breathing. Then, anything else, either in our minds or in our surroundings that happens to draw our attention. The strong foundation of our breath gives us a solid platform from which we can simply observe any sights, sounds, words, thoughts, perceptions, or feelings that draw our attention, rather than getting caught up in them--that is, obsessing about them, or wishing they were otherwise. With the equanimity that is the natural consequence of conscious breathing, we gain the ability, gradually, to observe whatever arises in our heads or in the world around us, without getting frazzled or hung up.

There are, in general, three things we can do with any afflictive emotion, such as anger, jealousy, despair, sloth, frustration, fear, resentment, or whatever.

The first is simply to indulge it--to let it control us. This generally makes everything worse.

The second is to repress it--to tell ourselves "you shouldn't think that (or feel that, or want to do that)" with our stern, parental inner voice. This can work for a short while, but repressed thoughts and feelings fester, and will re-emerge, often in unpredictable and highly unpleasant ways.

Most people believe that these are our only two options for dealing with afflictive emotions, but the Buddha (along with other enlightened beings throughout all space-time) offers us a third option:

Observe it. Just keep breathing, and acknowledge the existence of whatever bad stuff has just come up, whether within or outside of you. Take note of it and name it. Watch it, as if you were watching a movie. Investigate it with curiosity--"Where is this coming from?" "What might it lead to?" And then--but only when you are ready to do so--

3. Let Go. It is easy for us to dupe ourselves into thinking we have let go of something when we're still hanging on to it. That is another form of repression and self-deception. So how do we know when we have really let go?

Thich Nhat Hanh often alludes to the iconic half-smile of the Buddha in this regard. And it is true: when you have really let go of something, you can smile quite naturally. Not a big, toothy smile--that is just another form of self-deception. But rather, a relaxation of the lips and jaw, a softening of the muscles around the eyes, a smile that arises as naturally as a flowerbud opens in the Spring.

And here is the remarkable thing: it is reciprocal. We smile naturally as a consequence of actually letting go, but we can also deliberately smile (but only with authenticity--not deceptively) in order to let go. So we smile by letting go, and let go by smiling.

Here is a good exercise to try in this regard. Note how much your facial expressions and your emotional states give rise to each other reciprocally. When we are angry or threatened, we frown and tighten our eye muscles, which normally makes us even angrier and more frightened or inclined to violence. But conversely, when we deliberately soften the muscles around our eyes and relax into a half-smile, we feel calmer and gentler. One way of testing this is to imagine that you have just seen an adorable newborn child--your own, or someone else's. Quite naturally, a gentle, loving, sympathetic smile will bloom on your mouth and your eyes will soften.

Congratulations: you have just learned to let go.

The rest--ALL the rest--is practice. So to paraphrase that wonderful man in Hampton who posted the signs saying "No matter what, trust God" all over town, my closing advice is this:

No matter what, breathe, observe, and let go. It all--always--comes back to that. If you don't believe me, ask the Buddha. Or better still--just try it.

Axioms for Clearing the Mind

Several years ago, I developed a set of axioms to help my students at TCC overcome their various hangups about undertaking college classes. These were based on my immersion in the writings of Vietnamese master Thich Nhat Hanh, who is still very much my heart teacher. They were, in effect, a digest of everything I had learned from Thay (which is the honorific title that Dharma teachers are given in Vietnam) thus far, rendered in a practical form accessible to students. I still use these today, and students have often expressed their appreciation of them. Moreover, occasionally I use these axioms as well as an antidote for my own neurotic episodes.

This evening, for example, while studying Italian vocabulary prior to our upcoming trip to Italy, I suddenly found myself wallowing in self-flagellatory remorse about not having used the free time I've had in abundance this summer to apply myself more systematically, and in a more disciplined way, to learning the Italian language, as I had earlier resolved to do. This is an old, familiar demon in my store consciousness that I'm sure most of us experience fairly routinely: the "Why am I so...?" demon--whether we call it remorse, self-flagellation, or simply neurotic self-loathing. It always involves living in the past subjunctive--wishing we were other than we are, and--more insidiously--wishing we had done what we didn't do when we could have done it.

Years ago, I was gifted with the insight that "Hell resides in the Past Subjunctive," the realm of "If only I had..." It is Hell because it involves preferring what never was to what was and is, and hence, in theological terms, it involves turning away from, and denying, God's will-- That that is. (I am sure Dante would agree; this is the central theme of the Inferno). In short, as long as we are caught up in self-flagellatory remorse--tormenting ourselves with questions like "Why am I so?" or "Why didn't I?" we are, in effect, denying God's will and roasting in our own private Hell, with no visible escape.

Based on Thay's teachings, I therefore developed these Axioms, in part, as a form of therapy, both for myself and others, to help overcome such episodes of neurotic remorse and return to the present moment. And I have found, as my students have, that they work quite well. So here they are:

1. The present is all there is. The past is gone, and the future hasn't happened yet. So it is best to honor and learn from the past, plan for the future, but live in the present.
2. That that is, is. So it is best to avoid the Present Subjunctive as well, and accept what is--including, above all, our own weaknesses, and "play with the cards we are dealt" as the old saying goes. I tell my students that if they are religious, they should join their hands and say "Thy will be done" and if they are not religious, they can try the old Walter Cronkite sign-off--"That's the way it is."
3. Nothing you've done, suffered, or failed to do in the past has any necessary effect on what you choose to do in the present moment. This is the heart of the matter. Our past behavior may influence, but never actually determines, our present choices. In the present moment, we are always free to choose to act wisely, diligently, or compassionately--no matter what we did or didn't do yesterday. In Christian terms, this insight was beautifully expressed by Meister Eckhart when he said "God is the god of the present." This was the heart of his luminous understanding of the Christian concept of redemption. Once again, same stuff--different cultural idiom.
4. There are really only two states of mind: mindful or distracted. In tune or out of tune. Here now, or somewhere else, then. We have many different names for emotional states, but they really boil down into various forms of distractedness--of living somewhere other than the present moment--in the past, in the subjunctive, in the future, or in our own mental formations.
5. Therefore, there are only two ways of doing anything: mindfully or distractedly. That is (as Thich Nhat Hanh puts it) doing it in order to do it, or doing it in order to get it done.
6. Everyone gets distracted, most of the time. So if you are feeling distracted, you're not alone.
7. Therefore, we all need find some good, reliable techniques for overcoming distraction and returning to mindfulness. There are many such techniques, from cultures and faith traditions throughout the world. Whichever techniques work best for you, work with them.
8. Here is one such technique. This one--my Dharma Gaia mantra--works very well for me; try it if you wish, and feel free to improvise:

Phase One: (Reclaiming the Present Moment): Breathe, Observe, Let Go. Repeat as often as necessary. This is what Thay calls the essential discipline--all the rest is elaboration and commentary.

Phase Two: (A generic daily agenda): Be well, Do good work, Keep in touch. This was coined by Garrison Keillor, to whom I express gratitude, as the sign-off to his radio program "Writer's Almanac." As a daily agenda, it is all we need--ever.

Phase Three: (A generic life agenda): Learn, Teach, Heal, Create. These are the only four things worth doing with our lives, and a job or profession is "right livelihood" to the exact extent that it involves one or more of these activities--preferably, all four. By repeating them on the breath, we remind ourselves of what is really important for our lives and for the lives of all others as well. Here is one way of unfolding these four injunctions:

1. Everyone you see, and everything you experience, is your teacher, so be ready at all times to LEARN;
2. Everyone you see is potentially your student, and may need your instruction or guidance, so be ready at all times to TEACH (even if only by example);
3. Everyone you see may be hurting in some way, so be ready at all times to HEAL;
4. Everyone you see may need your special gift--the knowledge and skills that you uniquely possess--to help them solve problems or to inspire them. So be ready at all times to CREATE.

Using the Mantra

Recently in Hampton, a man has been putting up signs all over the neighborhood saying "No matter what, trust God." This has created some bickering among the citizens, but I have no problem at all with it--it is a healthy, rather than toxic, Christian spiritual practice. Whenever I see one of his signs, however, I often translate it into my own Buddhist terms: "No matter what, breathe, observe, and let go." Two culture-bound metaphors for the same thing--a quick uplink to the Sacred, whenever you need it.

My own uplink to the Sacred, which I call the Dharma Gaia mantra, can be used in a variety of ways, and of course is open to improvisation by anyone; as the Buddha himself said at the end of his life, "Be a light unto yourself." So if you wish to experiment with the mantra, here are a few approaches I have tried:

1. A simple guided meditation: Assuming your preferred formal meditation pose (lotus, kneeling, sitting, or whatever) and ringing a bell to quiet your mind, simply inhale slowly, focusing your attention on your breath, and on the exhalation say (aloud or to yourself in silence) "Breathe..." Do likewise, on each exhalation, with the other injunctions: Observe, Let Go, Be Well, Do Good Work, Keep in Touch, Learn, Teach, Heal, Create. Repeat as often as you wish.
2. A shorter form: Here is another approach you can try. If your time is limited, and you don't have time for ten full, conscious breaths, you can condense the whole mantra into three breaths, as follows: On the inbreath, say "Breathe." In the pause before exhalation, say "Observe," and on the outbreath, say "Let Go." Do likewise for the next triad: (inbreath) Be well; (pause) Do good work; (outbreath) Keep in Touch." For the final tetrad, try "Learn" and "Teach" on the inbreath, and "Heal" and "Create" on the outbreath. Experiment, and see how different approaches feel!
3. The long form: This is good for a deeper exploration of the mantra. The basic guided meditation is stretched out over 30 breaths, with an added injunction woven in, as follows: For each of the ten injunctions, you first contemplate the value and importance of the injunction on the first breath, reflecting, perhaps, on various teachings you have encountered relating to that injunction, or using your imagination to visualize it. For example, you could contemplate the importance of "Breathe" by visualizing the trees breathing oxygen out as you breath it in, and then breathing your CO2 in as you breathe it out; I call this "dancing with trees." Then on the second breath, you practice breathing in the present moment, focusing your full, undivided attention on the actual act and sensation of breathing in and out. Finally, on the third breath, you vow to make your breath your "home base" throughout the rest of your life, no matter what stresses and challenges you encounter. So that's it: First breath, contemplate; second breath, practice; third breath, vow. Do likewise for the remaining nine injunctions. In turn, on three separate breaths, contemplate, practice, and vow to observe, let go, be well, do good work, keep in touch, learn, teach, heal, and create. This takes 30 breaths, but you can stretch it out even longer by taking three silent breaths between each injunction. It is a good way of improving your concentration.
4. Group Practices: Any of the above approaches can be practiced as a guided meditation within a Sangha, by having participants take turns vocalizing each injunction, and ringing the bell at appropriate intervals. The guided meditation can also be mixed in with periods of silent practice, or with walking meditation, or whatever.
5. Mixing and Mingling: The mantra can also be readily blended with other techniques, such as Tonglen (i.e. the powerful Tibetan practice of "giving and taking"--breathing in your own and others' pain, and breathing out love and healing energy, first to yourself and then to everyone else). For each Tonglen breath, on the inhale, you breathe in the pain and anguish of yourself and others, observe it on the pause, and let it go on the outbreath, transforming it into radiant love and healing energy.

Finally, whenever any of this becomes too complicated, just let it go, and return silently to your breath, resting in Alaya...

Once again, feel free to experiment and improvise, in accordance with your own traditions or practice.

The Practice in a Nutshell

What is Dharma Gaia?

If someone asks me, "What is Dharma Gaia?" my short answer is as follows:

DHARMA is the Sanskrit word, the core concept of all religions rooted in the Indian subcontinent, which is etymologically defined as "that to which we adhere." It has many shades of meaning, which have changed and broadened throughout its history, and of course no one definition will be adequate, but another way of understanding it is that it simply designates "that that is." Above all, it is universal--not restricted to any one tradition or ideology, but rather the truth principle reflected in all of them. And it cannot be grasped intellectually alone. For this reason, the Dalai Lama defines the Dharma as a principle, a precept, and a practice simultaneously.

GAIA is the living Earth, understood in ancient times as a Myth, a Greek name for the primordial Earth Mother Goddess; in modern scientific terms as a Model (developed in the 1970s and 80s by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis), but more broadly, as a Metaphor for a new/old understanding of humanity as a part of, rather than apart from, the natural world, and as a worldwide Movement based on this new metaphor. Gaia is thus the outward manifestation of the Dharma, and hence the name Dharma Gaia, coined by Thich Nhat Hanh, is a bicultural pun on the Buddhist concept of Dharmakaya--the Body of the Dharma.

So what is this Principle, Precept and Practice?

What follows is a digest of all the wisdom teachings I have ever encountered, boiled down to their essence. For these, I quote directly some of my heart teachers, or the Bodhisattvas who have inspired me the most:

PRINCIPLE: "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." --Martin Luther King, Jr.

PRECEPT: "Take care of everyone and abandon no one. Take care of everything, and abandon nothing." --Lao Tzu.

PRACTICE:

"Breathe, Observe, Let Go." --The Buddha.

"Be well, Do Good Work, Keep in Touch." --Garrison Keillor.

Learn, Teach, Heal, Create. --me.*

*Well--I can't take complete credit here either, except for the word "heal." The triad "Learn, Teach, and Create" is one that I learned from a would-be guru I met out in Oregon years ago, named John David Garcia, but I felt it was incomplete without another verb, so I added "heal."