puppet
The older I grow, the more I come to realise I am actually like a puppet: I am at the mercy of my psyche and hormones. I am subject to their swings,…
tags /suffering /
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a review of Wintering by Katherine May
Every now and then I would browse the new arrivals section of the national library’s e-book collection. I was surprised to discover quite a few interesting books there, books that I wouldn’t…
To experience the everyday sublime
To experience the everyday sublime requires that we dismantle the perceptual conditioning that insists on seeing ourselves and the world as essentially comfortable, permanent, solid, and “mine.” It means to embrace suffering and conflict rather than to shy away from them, to cultivate the embodied attention that contemplates the tragic, changing, empty, and impersonal dimensions of life, rather than succumbing to fantasies of self-glorification or self-loathing. This takes time. It is a lifelong practice.
finding freedom in prison
Someone recommended a book, “A Buddhist on Death Row” on reddit – I was immediately drawn to the title, but something in me was hugely skeptical. I am personally uncomfortable when religion…
Only we can save ourselves
each of his teachers had given him permission to interpret Buddhism in whatever way worked for him. He’d seen how Buddhism meets you wherever you are and lets you take what you can from it at that moment. In fact, it was unlike other faiths in that there weren’t rules, and even its most fundamental precepts were infinitely flexible. But in spite of all that, he still envisioned the Buddha as a kind of deity sitting on a mountaintop, having transcended suffering. He wanted Buddha to lift him up out of San Quentin onto that mountaintop, high above his suffering—to save him. That’s the Buddha he had to kill—the illusion that anything outside ourselves can save us. What he learned is that Buddha can’t save us. Jesus can’t. Allah can’t. Only we can save ourselves.
the more one accepts suffering, the less one suffers
Rinpoche led Jarvis forward in other ways. He’d given him permission to take from Buddhism what helped him and reject his own and others’ preconceptions about what a Buddhist should be. He showed Jarvis that Buddhism is replete with paradoxes and contradictions because life itself is. And he pointed him toward the central paradox of the faith: that the more one accepts suffering, the less one suffers.
learn to see the perfection of all beings and yourself
The lama spoke again. “You may not understand now, but it is your karma to be here,” he said. “I said you are fortunate. As hard as it is to accept, this is where you have to be now. You may not see it, but you are fortunate to be in a place where you can know humanity’s suffering and learn to see the perfection of all beings and yourself. Learn to see their perfection.”
She marveled at his story
She marveled at his story. Beyond the solid writing, she saw it as a remarkable testament to how far he’d come since they’d met. Then he’d had no self-awareness, never mind the ability to see others. He cared about no one and nothing but himself. Now he recognized others’ suffering, responded with compassion, and connected others’ pain with his own. Melody had a thought that made her smile. On his own and without knowing it, Jarvis had arrived at the heart of Buddhism.
The journey forward isn’t linear but cyclical
The journey forward isn’t linear but cyclical, and it’s hard. I learned something else that was even more profound: that the process and goal are different from what many of us expect. Instead of working to change our true nature, we must find it. Instead of running from suffering, we must embrace it.
The Buddhist on Death Row
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