This post is just a link to the resources you’d need to sew your own zafu. I have a sudden hankering to try this out, and maybe you do, too!

Two sites with instructions* on how to do it (in case one disappears (impermanence and all that)).

http://www.michiganbuddhist.com/zafu/
http://www.finecraftguild.com/how-to-zafu-meditation-pillow/

Source for Kapok and/or Buckwheat filling: http://www.zafu.net/buckwheat.html

Update 8/31/16:  Before my retreat, I used some material (from the timer bags) and sewed the zafu cover. When I got back, the Kapok had come from Carolina Morning and Lucy helped me stuff the zafu, which was a little crazier than I’d expected – that stuff is seriously fluffy!!!

*The instructions above and illustrations were originally published by John Daishin Buksbazen in a book called “To Forget the Self: An Illustrated Guide to Zen Meditation.”

The news of my Grandmother‘s passing wasn’t shocking. She’d been in a home for years, and I’d already known that she had been moved to hospice care. I’m happy she was finally able to let go. She was a real fighter, and her final years were full of confusion, delusion, and struggle.

I began doing metta practice for her. The phrases that typically express a wish that a living person is happy, healthy and free still work fairly well for someone who has passed on, but there were some modifications that seemed better suited to metta for the recently deceased.

To orient myself, I could add a thought like, “Wherever you are…” “Whether you have taken form or are formless…” before reciting the metta phrases. This allowed me not to assume too much. I don’t know the nature of one’s being after they have passed. I don’t want to create or posit a certain entity – but rather wish peace and freedom in a more abstract sense, however it may apply.

May you be happy. Happiness is a light, uplifting feeling. Happiness is joyful and free from sorrow and worry. All beings wish to be happy. Getting a sense of my Grandmother, freed from her old and worn body, but still embodying happiness, felt easy. The wish flows simply and brings a sense of lightness, and indeed, light.

May you be peaceful. Peace is another universal quality that benefits all beings, no matter their state. Peace, serenity, quiet, tranquility — these are all aspects of experience where one is undisturbed and at rest.

May you be clear and free from confusion. Typically, I’d use “…healthy” here, but now that the body has been abandoned, that brings some conflict to the mind. My Grandmother suffered a great deal of confusion in her later years, so now that she’s free from her body, I wish her a similar freedom from that confusion. Perhaps she’s free to experience phenomena with clear knowing, or clear comprehension, with a clarity she’s not known for years. Wishing this through metta allowed me to picture clarity and embody it more and more fully.

May you be free from suffering. Whatever experience you may be having, let it be free from fear, free from struggle, free from doubt, free from pain. Not knowing “where” she is, I wish her safety and well being. I picture her with loving connections to those who have gone before her.

May you have ease of being. Much like peacefulness, ease of being suggests positive feelings associated with the arising of phenomena, with little or no effort required to sustain a sense of well being, or function in whatever situation one finds oneself.

May you be free. May you be free from attachment, aversion, and becoming. May you be free from the bonds of samsara, at last. May all past karma be released, may all suffering and struggle come to an end.

Great concentration can be attained through Metta practice. Metta also establishes the mind in wholesome states of freedom, of letting go, of positivity and well being. Maybe, just maybe, there is some connection to the recipient of metta and some guidance that allows them to let go a little more as well, or makes their transition easier, or allows them to become completely free. It was a nice way to connect to my Grandmother, even though we were thousands of miles apart. I guess distance is no longer relevant, anyway.

In my ongoing pursuit of understanding the first noble truth, I wanted to link to an article I just read in the very excellent Lion’s Roar web site. The article is entitled “Are We Really Meditating” and includes the following paragraph [emphasis mine]:

The Buddha, in his very first teaching, said, “There is suffering.” Sometimes we mistakenly interpret this to mean that we are doomed to suf­fer. I take the Buddha’s words as an invitation to practice nonviolence toward my inner and outer worlds. In this simple but powerful statement, the Buddha suggests that suffering is not some­thing we can fix, ignore, or get rid of. Rather, he is intimating that practice provides the ability to make ourselves big enough to include both the pain and beauty of the human condition—not only our own but also that of others.
Our ability to bear witness to suffering with­out pushing it away or getting overwhelmed is linked to liberation. What is experience before we shrink from it, try to subdue it, or manipulate it? This is thequestion for practitioners.

Typically, I think of accommodating suffering and experience as having to do with equanimity, but choosing to look at it as making oneself “big enough” is interesting to me. For one thing, it’s very simple. For another, it echoes the contrast between being small, tight, solid and being big, expansive, open and available.

In my worldly circumstances lately, I’ve been trying to better understand how practice can help with the stresses in my life. Something as simple as ‘being big enough to include the pain and beauty’ of life is a great answer to this question. I’ll have to sit with that tonight.

I noticed a pattern of thought a few years ago whereby my mind would constantly try to have the big “aha” breakthrough that would then secure my worldly independence. I searched and scrambled to find the one big invention so that I’d be set for life — or come up with a concept so fresh and marvelous that I could share it with others and be ensured a future of well being and abundance. Lottery tickets. Thoughts of becoming this or that; starting a company; changing careers; even winning a settlement or being given a lucky break so that my struggles would be over! I’d literally examine every experience and item that arose in experience looking for some kind of twist – some kind of clever insight – some kind of magic ticket that might somehow land me on easy street. I started to see that this was underlying so many of my thoughts. It was a hidden obsession.

I’m sure lots of us experience this type of mental formation. I’d bet that most aren’t aware of it as a pattern. It took me a long time to see it. The mind trying to get ahead of the struggle – to solve the problem of constantly working to survive, to provide, to make it. Jobs aren’t guaranteed. Relationships aren’t guaranteed. Life itself isn’t guaranteed. Whatever we do.. we’re still at risk. However much we manage to make it seems like we’re just getting by — and never saving enough for our kid’s college, our retirement, our future!! So we continue to struggle. The mind continues to spin out on idea after idea about how we can finally solve this never-ending quest for relief.

Isn’t this all just a perfect definition of Dukkha? Didn’t the Buddha have something to say about Dukkha? What was that all about, anyway? 25 years studying the Dharma and here I am spinning out about life and work and money and having enough and making enough and saving enough and knowing that it’s all based on fear. I’m swimming in Dukkha!

At least I’ve come to see it for what it is. Now what?

The four noble truths start with Dukkha: There is Dukkha. Dukkha should be understood. Dukkha has been understood. Those are the insights of the first noble truth.

A friend at Sangha last night said to me regarding Dukkha: “It’s not a mistake..”. It’s not a mistake that this is the way it is. It’s not a mistake that all conditioned things have this unreliable, dissatisfying quality to them. It shouldn’t “be some other way”. This is life. This is Dukkha.

As much as my finally figuring out that the mental flips and twists I go through trying to “solve” the unreliability of life is itself more Dukkha… at least I feel like I’m making a tiny bit of progress on insight #2: Dukkha should be understood.

The more I learn, the more I see that I have a lot of work to do.

The thought occurred to me today that I wish to be awakened, unbound, free. The thought had the form “I want…” and I quickly saw the quality of craving in the thought. Craving freedom is a somewhat paradoxical stance and can only serve as a hinderance. The thought was truly a wish with a wholesome intention, though, and something else occurred to me then: “May I be free”. May I be free is one of the very common Metta phrases… it is formulated to avoid the craving, but expresses the same wholesome intention.

I tried out all of the phrases in my typical metta series — with enlightenment as the overtone for each and came up with an interesting ‘second meaning’ for each of the phrases.

May I be happy [may sukkha arise]
May I be peaceful [may I be full of equanimity]
May I be healthy [may I choose right action and right effort]
May I be free from inner and outer harm [may I cease to create the conditions that cause harm or continue to feed the wheel of samsara and the cycle of dependent co-arising]
May I have ease of being [may I be free of past conditioning & causes of suffering]
May I be free [and know remainderless fading; release]

I did Metta practice on the cushion this morning, allowing these secondary meanings to arise with each phrase. Inviting sukkha, equanimity, right effort, right understanding, compassion and release in this repetitive series was interesting. On my commute, I used the same sequence, but included my fellow commuters, as I often do.

I will have to play with this more. Given some time, space and effort, this practice could really help manifest these wholesome and helpful qualities and do so in a way that doesn’t involve clinging or grasping.

Typically, I take the Noble Truth of Dukkha or “There is Suffering” to be a statement of the Problem (with a capital P) and it’s importance in the Buddha’s teaching is simple: this statement of the problem allows the Buddha to then state a cause for the problem, a solution to the problem and a  path to the solution. This problem, cause, cure and prescription is a classic understanding of the Four Noble Truths. This problem, cause, cure and prescription way of seeing the Four Noble Truths is why the Buddha is sometimes called “the great physician”.

Doesn’t this understanding of Dukkha, however, still see Dukkha itself as a problem to be avoided? Isn’t it avoiding pain and seeking pleasure that causes Dukkha in the first place? There is a paradox built in here that needs a little unwrapping. In order to avoid suffering, we have to stop avoiding suffering. That sounds problematic. What’s going on?

A basic insight into Dukkha can help free us from this cycle. A deep insight into Dukkha might just free us from Samsara all together.

Often we experience dukkha and not only recoil from it (in the form of aversion) but unconsciously go seeking an alternate experience. We use our minds to avoid the experience at hand by creating a fantasy version of reality – we wish things were different; we escape into our thoughts. We feel the pain of the present moment and immediately begin blaming something, wishing for the cessation of the pain, fantasizing about something pleasant, distracting ourselves with something totally irrelevant, creating an alternate reality all together — in short, we’ve jumped on the train of thought.. no longer present, no longer being with what is, no longer being with the truth of reality. This pushing and pulling in order to avoid the Dukkha that already is, itself, the cause and condition for the arising of Dukkha in the future.

Aligning ourselves with the truth of Dukkha

Anushka Fernandopulle, at the Spirit Rock retreat this January (Waking Up in Every World) likened the truth of Dukkha to the law of gravity. Gravity is. We discover this as babies. We don’t need to know the scientific ‘why and how’ to know that if I drop something, it will fall. Knowing this basic truth is essential for us to live our lives. Only someone deeply deluded would act in ways that ignore this truth — and they’d pay the price: falling down stairs or jumping off of the roof has consequences. Acting in alignment with this truth of gravity means that we set our glass down gently on the table; we don’t let go of things in mid air, etc. Knowing about gravity allows us to be more aligned with the way things are; to be with things as they are; to be with what IS, to be aligned with the truth. Understanding Dukkha is just like this! Understanding Dukkha is aligning ourselves with the truth of how things are.

Accepting that there will be some pain allows us to experience that pain without thinking something is wrong. Being aligned with the fact that life has it’s rough spots (measured on any scale: years, days, moments, lifetimes) allows us to experience these rough spots AND STAY PRESENT FOR THEM. Knowing that doing our work is going to involve some effort, some level of discomfort, some boredom, or some uncomfortable challenges allows us to do that work without recoiling when these unpleasant feelings arise. We can be less distracted when these feelings arise. We expect them instead of experiencing each feeling as a little push or pull, tossing us constantly this way and that. There is a little bit of FREEDOM from knowing and allowing a measure of dukkha to be present in experience.

Reacting to experience, through aversion and clinging, is to continue spinning the wheel of becoming; to continue on the cycle of birth, death and suffering. Alignment with the truth of Dukkha allows us to stay present. This staying present, with more equanimity is the very definition of mindfulness!  Being with what is, without craving and clinging is to break the cycle of dependent co-arising: the very process by which suffering itself arises. We can be with the difficulties that are already manifest, while simultaneously not creating the causes and conditions for more suffering in the future. In this way, we can slow the wheel. We can eventually step off of the wheel all together.

I’ve been practicing Metta in the mornings on the cushion this week. My decision was based on the increased interest in Metta after reading more about it last week for class.

Specifically, one aspect of the benefits of Metta (of which there are many) really appealed to me. Practitioners of Metta are said to enter easily into states of concentration, ie. the Jhanas.

For this past week, I’ve been doing some Metta for myself, and bringing Lucy to mind to get the metta feeling flowing, then going through friends, neutral people, and difficult people, then spreading out geographically or directionally. This, I’ve come to see, keeps many aspects of the mind quite busy. Consider Shinzen’s breakdown of mental activity into ‘talk’ and ‘image’, then add the aspect of Vedena, or feeling tone, and you have 2 of the four foundations of mindfulness activated with thoughts of loving kindness. Non-harming, goodwill, wishes for well-being and liberation are being mentally spoken (talk), projected in widening circles or specific directions (image) and creating a feeling tone of joy and well being (feeling).

All the while, the mind is getting more concentrated, more collected, and more joyful. Piti (one of the jhana factors usually translated as ‘energy’) also arose for me this morning during Metta practice.

It is quite easy to see that all of the jhanna factors are being developed. What I’m starting to see is that the four foundations of mindfulness are also at play here.. but it’s not mindfulness as we typically think of it — in it’s equanimous receptive mode — but rather these aspects of our being are being generated or filled with skillful qualities — qualities that are in alignment with right intention, right effort, right action, and right concentration.

Metta is serving to prepare the ground for concentration by strengthening all of it’s aspects by providing wholesome content while simultaneously softening the mind’s grasping and aversion. The next step would be to drop the phrases and move into samadhi practice to see if all of this preparation does in fact lead to an easier entry into the jhanas. I think I’ll stick with Metta for a while longer. I do want to keep in mind and remember this two-fold combination, though. After all, it has it’s roots directly in the Metta Sutta.

Teaching the Insight Meditation class had some real benefits in terms of study and practice. Brushing up on the fundamental concepts of Buddhism, leading guided meditations for groups, and delivering dharma talks were all very beneficial to me, “as teacher” and “as student”.

This process of researching and reading lead me to some written material on the practice of Metta. The following proved very interesting. Metta: The Philosophy and Practice of Universal Love by Acharya Buddharakkhita.

I know Metta practice can be considered a concentration practice. In fact, the guided Metta meditation during the 2014 concentration retreat proved to be a huge heart-opening experience for me and gave me a glimpse into the power of Metta. This article (book?) expounded upon that theme and gave me more background for and insight into the practice and it’s effects.

Metta practice opens the heart and mind through meditating on Universal Love: an all pervasive wish for well-being and happiness that does not differentiate between any beings whatsoever. The Universality of the practice strengthens our ability to hold different beings in mind without discrimination. The practice of Metta allows the meditator to go beyond the barriers that typically restrain us.. allows us to get a taste of the limitless expansion of mind.. allows us to radiate goodwill outwardly, thus (at least temporarily) obliterating any sense of ill will or aversion. A mind that has been trained in Metta is a mind that settles down easily and is not agitated easily. A heart that practices Metta is easily concentrated and can more easily access the jhanas. Metta becomes a means to purify the mind and the heart. A mind free from hinderances is in a wonderful position to access insights and be fully liberated.

Intentionally creating mental fabrications – radiating goodwill methodically in all directions and to all beings – is a very skillful way of working on the problem of suffering from within. Vipassana is a way of working with phenomena — the sensations of the body, arising thoughts and feelings — slowly allowing us to see all phenomena’s true nature: impermanent, insubstantial, not self. This leaves us with ever increasing degrees of freedom as our clinging falls away, as our self definition loosens and softens, as our reactions weaken. Metta is a whole ‘nother vehicle whereby we expand ourselves as love to the very extremes of being.. and find ourselves equally empty of clinging and bondage, equally free, equally happy. Dipa Ma says the two methods are the same. I think she may be onto something.

Tonight was my first official Dharma Teacher gig. I enjoyed teaching quite a bit. While I’ve had a lot of planning mind in sittings and daily life, and tension and nervousness about remembering everyone’s names and what I was going to say and whether someone would ask impossible philosophical questions; when it came time to teach, it felt easy and natural. 

The feedback I got from my co-teacher, Mary, was that I was a bit, how did she put it: exuberant. Perhaps I was leaning in a bit much or trying to teach too much — not giving people enough space to ‘figure it out’. She also thought we needed to communicate a little better between us and seek a little more balance or give and take. She did say that I know my shit. I appreciate her feedback. I’ll try to slow down more and let it all unfold more slowly. I was concerned I might get carried away and try to share everything I’ve learned — with too much enthusiasm. I guess I did… But not too badly!

All in all I was very happy — and so happy to be connecting with real people in a fairly formal dharma setting and really sharing the dharma. 

I lead the guided meditation. I was surprised at the softness in my voice. I had no problem leading the sit. If anything I said too much but I felt very good about what I said and how it went and everything came from the heart. I got some good feedback, especially about “feeling the texture of the breath” and “getting closer to the breath”. That helped a few people.

How interesting to receive Dana. I’d surely teach for free, but receiving Dana is special in its own way. 

Next week I give the talk: Four Noble Truths. Hopefully that goes just as well. I have a feeling it will; a pleasant feeling.