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The Hunting Trip

by Jeffrey Brooks

The early collection of the teachings of the Buddha is known as the Pali Canon. In it are a set of stories known as Jatakas. These are parables about the things the Buddha did during his past lives. Many of these stories describe acts of self sacrifice motivated by compassion.

These are the acts which put an end to suffering, and they are the causes of enlightenment.

In some later sutras the explanation for the way in which these acts function are treated philosophically, and demand a high degree of technical training and study.

In the Jatakas this sophisticated doctrine is presented in the form of folk tales. They are accessible to anyone who has a warm heart and a curious mind.

One of the Jataka stories begins as three princes ride out from their palace into the countryside to hunt. Soon they come upon a lush valley, thick with woods, fields of flowers and a river meandering through it. As the three brothers were admiring the view they noticed some tiger cubs playing in the grass near their mother.

The mother tiger was very thin. The brothers could see that she was starving and her milk had dried up. The mother tiger just stared at her cubs as they tried to drink milk from her.

The oldest brother felt sorry for the tigers, but he did not know what to do to help them. The middle brother had an idea. They would ride back to the palace and bring back some fresh meat for the mother tiger to eat. Then, if they could save her, her milk would flow again and the cubs would live too.

The three princes turned their horses back toward the palace. As they started to ride the youngest of the brothers, who was named Mahasattva, reconsidered. He thought: to get back to the palace will take half a day, and to return to this spot with the meat would take another half day. By that time this tiger will starve to death.

He decided that the only way to save the tigers was to give his own life to them so that they could live.

He told his brothers “I am not feeling well. I’ll stay here and rest until you come back.”

His brothers rode off.

Once they had disappeared Mahasattva took off his clothes and lay down in front of the tiger. The starving tiger licked him. But she would not bite him because he was alive, and she was only able to eat meat that was already dead. The tiger just put her head down on the ground and sighed, and lay there motionless.

Mahasattva realized his mistake and walked up to a cliff just above where the tigers were laying. There he made a spear of bamboo and stabbed himself in the throat. As his blood drained away he fell from the cliff and landed in front of the tiger, right where he had been laying a few moments before.

The starving tiger seized his body and devoured it, lapping up his spilled blood and gnawing on his bones. Her breasts filled with milk and the cubs drank and drank as much as they could hold.

Revived, the tiger and her cubs left the valley.

The next morning, when the two brothers returned to the valley with their load of fresh meat, they were surprised to see that the tiger and her cubs were gone. They saw nothing in that spot but some bones and a neat pile of clothing.

They recognized their brother’s clothes immediately and knew then that the bones were his too. They realized the real reason why their brother had not returned with them to the palace. They knew he stayed behind to sacrifice his life so the tigers would live.

His parents, the king and queen, were heartbroken when they heard the news about the death of their youngest son. They traveled to the spot where his bones and clothes were left. They decreed that a stupa, a memorial structure, be built in the spot where their son made his sacrifice.

There is a stupa that stands today, about 35 miles from Islamabad, Pakistan, built two thousand years ago, which memorializes this incident.

Of course this incident was not during the life of the historical Buddha, 2,500 years ago, but during one of his past lives. So it might have been many thousands or millions of years ago. But still, people remember this incident.

In later Buddhist scriptures it is mentioned that the original group of disciples taught by the historical Buddha 2,500 years ago in India, were these same tiger cubs, reborn as wandering monks. They had the extraordinary karmic ripening to once again meet an extraordinary person who could save them from suffering and death. This time this person, now a fully enlightened Buddha, could save them not just temporarily but forever, this time by feeding them on his teaching.

It is understood that the Buddha, because of the depth of his compassion and the completeness of his skill, can do this for all of us.

Some of us, as modern people, may be horrified by this story. Others may be inspired. But we need to understand the parable in perspective if we are to make use of it.

The Dalai Lama in a commentary on the 8^th century Buddhist teacher Shantideva says this:

“…as long as our compassion is not completely pure and our realization of emptiness is not perfect, it is not proper to give away our wealth and merits. We need to protect our bodies while we purify any selfish motives we may have and increase our altruistic attitude. If we do this we will be able to accomplish the wishes of all beings. Meanwhile we should not give our lives too hastily. Instead, we should cultivate the aspiration to be able to sacrifice ourselves, until such time as doing so is truly beneficial.”

This is a warning against spiritual pride which would cause us to exceed our capacity and waste what we have. It is at the same time a warning against spiritual complacency that just goes with the flow.

No matter what our capacity is, no matter what our level of development, we are encouraged to gauge our ability honestly, acknowledge our faults, cultivate our good qualities, and follow the path of the Bodhisattva.

Storm Shelter – Part 2

by Susan Downing

In my last post, “Storm Shelter,” I wrote about how stepping up your practice – whether that’s Reiki or yoga or meditation or another healing or contemplative practice – can help you weather life’s turmoil.  But I also noted that sitting tight as emotional tornados (whether your own or others’) swirl around you can sometimes be difficult, or unpleasant, since doing so usually involves exercising patience in the presence of psychological, emotional or physical discomfort and distress (or all three!)  So, this week, I’ll talk about how learning to go through this process benefits us, in both the short and long runs.

Let’s start by considering the premise that we all want to be able to meet whatever comes our way in life with at least a small degree of calm.  I think it’s probably accurate to say that from time to time we all find ourselves in challenging situations – times when anger or despair or desire or jealousy arise in us.  Sometimes we may even feel these emotions are threatening to overwhelm us, and we wish we could find a way to minimize their effects on us. As I detailed in my previous post, we can learn to recognize an approaching storm and use our practice elements more intensively to ride it out.

As I also mentioned last time, this process is not necessarily easy: although using your practice in this way is less painful than being helplessly tossed about by anger or any of those other powerful emotions, it is still no cake walk.  That’s because once you get yourself into the storm shelter of intensified practice, what you’re mainly doing there is sitting as patiently as you can – while meditating, doing Reiki, etc. – until the skies clear.  You’re being present with whatever distressing emotions or physical sensations you’re experiencing, without running from them or railing against them or reacting to them in some impulsive way, or distracting yourself from them.

I think that one reason this can be so difficult to do is that we simply aren’t used to responding to discomfort or distress by what seems like doing nothing.  Representatives of mainstream medicine and psychology tend to encourage us to respond to discomfort immediately by doing all we can to alleviate it, whether we’re advised to take a pill or let our anger out so that it doesn’t fester inside us.   This gives us the impression that any experience of discomfort is a bad thing and also that it won’t go away unless we actively do something to dispel it.  But as I mentioned last time, these types of storms follow a pretty predictable arc and are generally self-resolving – they’ll wear themselves out and dissipate on their own if we give them the chance.  That means that our only job is to take cover – by taking refuge in our practice – and allow the whole cycle to play itself out instead of trying to stop it or outrun it.

The tornado analogy I used last time is applicable here.  If an actual storm comes up outside, you don’t stand there shaking your first or yelling at it; you do your best to make your way to a place of safety.  And you stay there, managing your worries or fear as best you can until the winds die down, even though you might hear branches or debris flying around outside.  If you find yourself in the midst of a bad storm, you just find something as stable as possible to hold onto and bear up until the danger is past.  And that something stable to hold onto is your Reiki – or meditation, or yoga, or breathing, or prayer – practice.

Now, if you able to approach things this way and tolerate the discomfort of this process, you will see the storm wear itself and lose steam all on its own, without any active participation from you. And you will be left feeling relieved and calm or, and this is usually the case, extremely happy.   The first time you experience this, you’ll be amazed that you managed to get to a state of such happiness by not doing anything except sitting tight and engaging in your practice.

At first this outcome seems so counterintuitive as to be impossible.  But once you see for yourself that turning to your practice as soon as you sense the first signs of a storm will bring relief and joy, you’ll feel encouraged by your newfound ability to weather storms, instead of being overwhelmed by the distress and pain that can arise with them.  Once you see that tolerating a state of discomfort can bring a positive outcome, doing so becomes less of a challenge, And each time you’re able to use your practice in this way, the easier it becomes to be patient with that discomfort, more patient as you go through the cycle.  In other words, you become more confident, because you know that if you persevere in this approach, you will feel things shift to a place of calm and relief.

So, don’t be afraid of allowing yourself to experience some discomfort in situations like this.  By taking refuge in your practice and letting it help you stay calm, you’re developing skills that will enable you to move through life’s challenging situations with less and less disturbance.  You’re establishing the habit of remaining calm in the face of the most challenging situations in your life.

So, keep practicing, and although the tornado warnings will continue to sound in your life, you’ll be able to use them as a way to strengthen your practice, reduce your suffering, and invite more and more happiness into your life.

(This week’s post is adapted from a chapter from my forthcoming book, The Heart of Reiki.)

Why Study the Works of Je Tsongkhapa

by Jeffrey Brooks

If we carve out a half hour of peace in the midst of a busy day it can be very healthy and good. But if we are only spending the half hour trying to feel better then the effect of the time will dissipate quickly, will leave us longing for more peace and dissatisfied with the rest of what we do.

If we have a greater purpose, a purpose to which we apply our experience of peace in that half hour a day, a purpose which encompasses not only that practice period but our whole day and our whole life, then the effects of practice, instead of dissipating, will accumulate. Then we can have the life we want and put an end to suffering.

Staying sequestered in a monastic retreat setting, high in the mountains, surrounded by nothing but sky, light, rocks and trees, if you are prepared and can practice well, you can sustain a feeling of exaltation and profound peace.

You may sense that this is a feeling. You may see that although this is a good feeling, this is a feeling that can pass, because it is produced by conditions and which, when those conditions change, will dissipate. You may remember that down the mountain there are people who have never even imagined such a feeling. Who are trying to make themselves happy in a way which is inadequate, which is producing dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and suffering. You may want to offer these beings something to help them if you can.

You better know what you are doing. Because most of the beings you have all that compassion for have no particular interest in your assistance and are pretty sure they are on the right track already. And anyway, what makes it your business to butt in?

If we take Buddhism seriously and we study it we will learn what to do and what to avoid. We will be advised to avoid killing, stealing, lying, intoxicants and sexual misconduct and we will be advised to take care of other people, and see deeply into the way things exist.

If we study well, both the scriptures and our own heart and mind, we can learn that following this advice leads to happiness and ignoring this advice leads to misery. If you do see deeply, through persistent meditation and study, you can’t help but want to help other beings who do not know about these ideas and methods.

Example: One human may startle awake, open his eyes which are hurt by the light, with a pulsing headache behind them, and see inches away from his face a crumpled, open, half empty Fritos bag that says Good Fun! on it in happy, red letters.

He does not notice it and instead goes in search of the pipe he used last night or this morning or whenever it was, in the hope that there will be a little rock left in it, or at least some residue, just enough to get him going. His mind is feverish and he is in a rage. He finds the pipe. Lights it up. Nothing.

He gets in the car. It is filled with junk. He checks the mirror and backs out. He catches a glimpse of his face. To others he looks sallow and sunken with bad teeth and sores but to himself he just looks tired. He backs out. He rolls down to a subdivision he knows well. He used to know a kid that lived there. He rolls slow, looking in windows, looking at driveways, looking at doors. He knows what to look for. He pulls down a driveway and his car disappears behind a line of trees. He knocks on the door. If someone comes to it he asks for Jason. If no one comes he kicks it in or pries it open or walks around to the back and uses the slider. Whatever.

He walks in. He goes right to where he knows that people keep their stuff. Fuck them if they are so stupid to not take care of it, he thinks to himself as he goes through the closets and the drawers. And fuck them if someone is in here and shoots me because it would not feel any worse than I feel right now – a thought he has but not quite consciously.

He walks out with a bag in each hand and gets in his car and drives away with a billion bugs crawling under his skin.

It wasn’t always like this.

It used to be he would scope a neighborhood carefully. Watch the houses and watch which ones were empty when and for how long. He really knew his business.

And he would get high and he would be bulletproof and fearless and it was fuckin perfect and he would go out again.  He was untouchable. He would hit ten or twenty houses in a day or two and then party. Then he started getting sick. Then he got into a personality conflict with someone which was only about the money, not about anything else. Then his friends turned against him.

Then he got caught. It was totally unfair, because the time he got caught was a chance thing. Some people came home when he was inside and then the po pos was just everywhere.

“I didn’t even know they had that many cars. They could have talked to me. I never hurt anybody.”

It’s easy to feel sorry for a self centered predator if you would like to do that. Look how he grew up. Look at the songs he listened to and the games he played. Look at the people he surrounded himself with and look at a world that ignored what they thought, and tolerated the way they behaved, until it was way too late.

It’s easy to feel sorry for the people he preyed upon. Who restrained themselves when tempted, who were kind and generous when they could be, who took care of their children, regretted their shortcomings, and worked hard every day. Or who didn’t, but were scared to death anyway when they came home to their door kicked in and their precious things gone: people who are targets not only of addicts and thieves but of sophisticates who make points by mocking them and artists who make a living by shocking them; people whose decency is out of style at a era of social decline.

So what do you do? First train yourself thoroughly in what to do and what to avoid. And then, when you are ready, leave the training hall and see what you can do. Teach the ignorant, heal the sick, protect the innocent. Have a purpose that encompasses your training period and extends through every hour of the day and permeates every word every gesture every act every thought.

Then the exaltation of the mountaintop and the agony of the pit are united within your purpose and all of it will be available for the benefit of beings. But, according to Buddhism, you better know what you are doing.

This week’s post is adapted from a chapter from my forthcoming book, The Heart of Reiki, which my publisher has just told me will be available by the end of February.

Storm Shelter

by Susan Downing

I grew up in northern Illinois, in tornado country.  This is the way I remember my childhood summers: the sky would darken with storm clouds and the winds would come up.  We’d check the TV or radio, and if they’d announced a tornado warning, we’d take refuge in the basement and ride out the storm in that safe space, coming back out only when the danger was past and the sky had cleared.

Similarly, in the course of our daily lives, emotional storm clouds or even tornados can come upon us, either with or without advance warning.  Just as my family would ride out atmospheric disturbances by taking cover in the basement, making more intensive use of our given practice – whether that’s Reiki or meditation or another concentration- or healing-based practice – can help us make it through emotional storms.

But if our practice is going to help us in this way, we need to notice an approaching storm early enough that we can seek the safety of our practice before we’re swept away by emotions that can harm both us and others.  Each of us has our own warning signs that can clue us in to an approaching storm, but two of the most common signs that some kind of emotional upheaval is building up are that you suddenly experience either: a strong negative emotion or irritability or antsiness, often seemingly for no reason, a response so unexpectedly strong that you might even ask yourself, hey, what’s that all about?; or growing muscle tension or physical pain that seems to have come out of nowhere and can’t be attributed to any injury or unusual activity.

Although you might not feel highly distressed when you begin to experience these sensations, they often signal that a larger emotional storm could be bearing down on you.  If you hunker down with your practice now, instead of waiting until you’re feeling more upset, your discomfort might fade without escalating. I think this is the biggest challenge – recognizing the warning signs before you feel like a total basket case, when you can still have the presence of mind to take steps to help calm your body and mind.

Assuming you’ve found yourself in this pre-storm state, what can you do to help yourself move through it so that your own discomfort will be at a minimum and you can avoid drawing others into your turmoil?  The basic idea is simple: take refuge in whatever practice skills you’ve developed that help soothe and calm you.  If you know Reiki, now’s the time to step up your practice and do more Reiki for yourself than usual, even lots more than usual, as much as you need to do in order to gain some calm. The same goes for meditation or yoga or any other physical practice you engage in regularly.  You probably have an idea of what helps soothe you, so do that.  Take a long walk, take a hot bath. Call a friend for some moral support. Call your therapist. If physical pain is involved, call your doctor and ask whether you should get checked out.  Ask a friend to send you some Reiki or do some hands on.  If you go to someone for Reiki or massage or other energy healing sessions, now’s the time to make an appointment and go!  Don’t wait!  In other words, take extra good care of yourself.

Now, these are all great ways to respond when you feel a storm brewing inside you, but it’s not always easy to do.  First of all you have to remember that you have your practice – or friends and skilled practitioners – to help you.  I can’t tell you how often my Reiki friends, students and clients have been really upset about something, and when I ask whether they’ve been doing Reiki for themselves, they stop and think and say, “Oh.  No, I haven’t. I didn’t think to do that.”  So, remembering you have tools that can help you is the first step.  Actually using them is the second step.

What you’ll find when you’re able to do this is that these storms have a predictable cycle.  There’s the initial emotional or physical tension that tends to build to the point where you can feel really lousy – you may feel so angry or hurt or despairing or uncomfortable that it’s hard to believe that any of this could possibly help, because everything seems so intense that it’s hard to imagine it will ever end!  But if you trust your practice and give it the chance to help you, what you’ll find is that the feelings that are distressing you naturally rise and fall in a cycle.  Although you might worry that they would never end on their own, you’ll see, as you go through this cycle a couple of times, that the feelings generally start out mild, then get stronger and then eventually fade away.  And the more intensively we practice, the more quickly we go through the whole process.

But we rarely notice the fading part of the cycle, because we generally don’t have the patience to just sit there in the middle of discomfort.  We tend to want to run away from it or do something to get rid of it.  Medicate, self-medicate, distract ourselves with television or some other mind-numbing activity.  But by sitting quietly with your discomfort as you give yourself Reiki – or meditate or do yoga –  you’re not only allowing that discomfort to fade: you’re also beginning to form the habit of tolerating uncomfortable sensations.  (I’ll write next time on why this is a useful skill to develop.)

Now, even if you have a practice to fall back on in the midst of turmoil, it’s not always easy to move through a period of discomfort or unhappiness or anger in this way, especially if you haven’t recognized it early on and it’s gotten more intense.  If this happens, you might be so emotionally or physically uncomfortable that you feel you just have to do something to bring some kind of resolution. But what will help most at this point is hunkering down in your metaphorical storm shelter of Reiki or meditation or contemplation and doing your best to allow the discomfort to be there without trying to resolve or change anything.  Tolerating the discomfort and allowing yourself to ride out the entire cycle of rising and fading negative emotions will actually help you get to the point where you’ll feel your disturbance fade and see relief and happiness replace it.  It will happen on its own if you can just hold tight and stick to your practice.

In my next post I’ll talk about what’s to be gained by allowing yourself to go through this uncomfortable process instead of resisting it.   But for now, I hope these hints will help you begin to recognize approaching storms and think about how to weather them more easily using whatever practice skills you already have in place.

Nature

by Jeffrey Brooks

Cities are filled with obstacles and places we can’t go. Buildings and bridges, people and cars, lights and signs, almost all are restricted and strange, separate from us. For the most part there is nothing we want in them, and nothing they want from us. So these things and people are not meaningful to us. At best they are background or obstacles.

They are not meaningless in and of themselves. They are just meaningless to us until we want something from them or they want something from us. If we recognize this we can see a divergence between the true nature of reality and the way we experience reality.

If you stand at the edge of a field and look down where the land slopes away to the tree line in the moonlight you may be transported by the beauty of what you see. You may think how marvelous it is that such a sight could just appear, without anyone making it.

If you see it in contrast to the built environment of a city its beauty may be overwhelming to you. You may see an eagle soaring against the sunset sky, swooping low toward the ground where you stand and feel stunned at the power and the grace of living creatures that somehow miraculously appear in the world.

Let’s say it comes close enough so that you can hear the wind move across it wings. So beautiful.

This field you walk across has nothing growing in it today. It is autumn and cold. That makes it easy to walk across. You can feel the contours of the land and feel a connection to the earth beneath your feet in a way you never can on a sidewalk or a paved road.

A while ago someone hungry walked here. There was no food for them. The land that looks like a miracle of creation to you looked barren and forbidding to them. Just more empty land to walk across as their strength ebbed away.

The land has no nature of being beautiful or ugly. But the condition of the mind and the life of the observer may see it as glorious or grim, or anything else. By noticing this we can see the divergence of the true nature of the world from the way in which we see it.

We can pass beyond this limitation. We can see the true nature of reality. By learning how to do this, and then doing it, we can be free of suffering. This is because our suffering comes from acting on the basis of a fragmented reality; a reality which is distorted by our habits of mind and does not exist in fact. Like trying to get to our destination using a road map that has some pieces missing and some pieces wrong.

You walk across this field and you get to the tree line and see a squirrel picking up an acorn. If you were very hungry and tired you might feel envy for the little fellow, finding so many tasty things to eat, things which for you are not food at all.

If you were on a nature walk you might see the squirrel as cute and busy, with thick gray fur and an essential ecological niche.

If you were looking for something down there, something no one would believe was there, something carefully hidden, something no one should even know is there, you would not even see the squirrel.

If you were an eagle swooping low you might instantly silently shift your angle of descent, reach out and grab the squirrel from behind with your claws and carry the terrified, desperate, helpless dinner away.

Then you would feel happy that your belly would be full and your offspring could live another day.

Nowadays most modern people relate to the squirrel. They think it is terrible when something like this happens. We might ignore the eagle and want him to be a vegetarian. In olden times it seems people more related to the eagle. Praised his power and emulated it. Native American peoples for example, often imitated the eagle and used his feathers. They rarely dressed as squirrels. Eagle power gave them the hope that they and their children could live another day. Nowadays, modern people, who feel comfortable, fear predation not starvation. So, many people relate to the squirrel.

It was a specific frame of mind that led the Indians to their perception of the world and it is a specific frame of mind that leads modern people to theirs, and neither is complete. Neither corresponds to the true nature of reality. In this sense ignorance of the true nature of reality exists in the hearts and minds of most of us, and it is this fragmentary and distorted understanding which causes us to act in ways which produce results which differ from what we hope.

People will do all sorts of things we think will make us happy but which have unexpected consequences. Animals cannot decide to create good karma or bad. They eat or they don’t.  They are eaten or they are not. They feel desire which is satisfied for a moment or it is not. That is it for an animal.

For people it does not have to be that way. We can learn to see more deeply and have a wider view of the interrelationships of life. We can see that skill and virtue and taking care of people provide a self confidence and spiritual nourishment for us and everyone we meet; this is something that self serving cruelty cannot do.

It is good to know the difference between virtue and non virtue. Even though now, in our decadent society, the difference is obscured. It is good to know what to do and what to avoid and to get the presence of mind to recognize them as the choices appear. It is good to surround yourself with good people, and to fill your heart with good purpose.

Because when you look out on any landscape, or into any face, in the city or in the country, at home or on the road, there will be infinite possibilities. We cannot always choose what conditions we will face. But if we know the difference between right and wrong, between truth and deception, we can decide what to do when we face them.

Jeff Brooks has been teaching Buddhism and martial arts for more than 20 years. His law enforcement career has included assignments in patrol, as a police instructor of firearms, defensive tactics, anti-terrorism and use of force; and in criminal investigations.

Joining Our Group

by Susan Downing

I don’t always stay up until midnight on New Year’s Eve, but tonight I definitely will, because tonight I’ll be ringing in the new year with about 150 other people – at my son and new daughter-in-law’s wedding reception.

Before coming out to Omaha for Mike and Laura’s wedding, Mike’s dad and I had met Laura’s parents only once, when the now newlyweds graduated from college together.  Laura comes from a very large family – she is the oldest of 8 children, and her parents also have many siblings, so in the receiving like today after the ceremony, we met cousin after cousin after cousin, plus more aunts and uncles than we could count.

Our family, on the other hand, is small – Mike has only one sister, and both his dad and I have only one sibling each.  So, what a joy it has been to be so warmly welcomed by Laura’s parents and her brothers and sisters, to be congratulated by her aunts and uncles and grandparents.  And to realize that we are all family now.

That sounds, maybe, a little too cliched, but that is the way it feels to me.  As Laura’s mom and I got ready for the ceremony, we hugged each other, both of us expressing our joy at the uniting of our families.  And as we stood waiting to for Mike to escort each of us down the aisle in turn, we paused and silently clasped each other’s hands.  A lot was communicated silently in that moment between us – two mothers about to watch our oldest children marry.  I can’t speak for Laura’s mom, but I can say that for me, there is something both marvelous and bewildering about that, about seeing my first child set off with a spouse in this way. And so, it was so moving to be able to experience this event – through this simple maternal embrace – not as a separation, but as a blossoming and strengthening of a family.

The deacon who married Mike and Laura noted that by expressing their love and devotion to each other, they will serve as a beautiful example to those around them.  And indeed, they are already doing so – they have brought together all of us who were at their wedding today and all those on both sides of the family who were unable to attend but who are here in spirit.

A few years ago, long before Mike and Laura were talking about getting married, Laura came to visit us in Massachusetts.  After meeting her, my mom, who passed away just a couple of weeks later, announced to Mike and me, “I can tell she wants to join our group.” We laughed at her strange phrasing, and when Mike and Laura got engaged, I knew that my mom – a Midwesterner who always touted the supremacy of Midwesterners – would be thrilled that Laura would, indeed, be joining our group.  But now that we are in Omaha, it doesn’t seem so much like Laura joining our group or Mike joining hers.  It is a very natural coming together of everyone.  Maybe you could say that all of us are now Mike and Laura’s group.

What a blessing it is to be able to begin the new year as part of this new extended family that has blossomed along with Mike and Laura’s love for each other.

I wish them – and you, too – all the very best in the new year.

Dharma Prayer

by Jeffrey Brooks

We are always in the presence of enlightening beings.

Whether we notice them or not, they are always trying to help us, in any way they can.

The further we go in our practice the more we will see that the universe is one vast conspiracy aimed at putting an end to our suffering and the suffering of all beings forever. When we face pain we can remember that this experience is a result of my own past non virtue; this suffering will exhaust the seeds of suffering planted by me in the past; and I will now act in a way which will create the causes for happiness in the future.

If we place our emphasis on learning how to take care of beings and then take care of them, we we will be gradually freed from obstacles. When we place our emphasis on personal ambition we encounter greater and greater obstacles.

The enlightening beings throughout all space and time are not separate from us. They suffer when we suffer. They are joyful when we succeed. But they can only be of help to us when we know what to do with what we encounter.

Here is a start:

Every day as you wake up

Think:

I am fortunate to wake up

I am alive

I have a precious human life

I am not going to waste it

I am going to use all my energy to develop myself

To expand my heart out to others

To achieve enlightenment for the sake of all beings

I am not going to get angry or think badly about others

I am going to benefit others as much as I can.

Jeff Brooks has been teaching Buddhism and martial arts for more than 20 years. His law enforcement career has included assignments in patrol, as a police instructor of firearms, defensive tactics, anti-terrorism and use of force; and in criminal investigations.

A Pail of Sand

by Susan Downing

Just for today, be kind to people.  That’s the last of the five Reiki precepts Usui Sensei taught his students nearly a hundred years ago, and that Reiki practitioners today, too,  strive to uphold. On the surface it seems like common sense – why wouldn’t you be kind to people?  But if being consistently kind to others came easily to us, Usui Sensei wouldn’t have needed to include it in his list of precepts.  Certainly we have all run across people who seem to delight in being unkind.  And we ourselves have all treated others unkindly at some points in our lives, sometimes through carelessness, sometimes through misunderstanding, sometimes to further or protect our own interests. Sometimes we’re unkind even when we have told ourselves that we will, from this very moment, be super nice to everyone all the time.  Unkindness can come in many forms.  It turns out that kindness can, too.

A few weeks ago, my daughter Emily told me a story about the day care children she works with.  Several little kids had been playing in the sandbox when one took a toy from the other.  The little boy who’d lost the toy promptly began crying.  Nearly inconsolable, he took refuge on Emily’s lap. As she sat comforting him, his tears continued to flow. But after a few minutes, one of the other children  - a boy Emily said is always sweet to everyone – walked over with a small pail full of sand and set it down next to Emily and the injured party.  Then he made several more trips, bringing another pail of sand each time.  Before long, the tears stopped, and a smile came to the little guy’s face.  A few minutes later he was back playing happily  with his friends.  And all because of a silent offering of a pail of sand.

Emily was struck by the effect of that simple act of kindness she’d witnessed.  Telling me this story, she remarked that everyone can use a pail of sand now and again.  She also lamented that as one gets older, disagreements or hurtful situations sometimes seem harder to remedy than they do when you’re three, when such a small gesture can make everything right again.  True, difficult life situations in adulthood can seem much more complicated than a sandbox tiff, but when you come right down to it, if we were all to use the same approach that sweet toddler did, everyone would be better off.  What I mean is this: the crying boy’s friend didn’t go whack the toy thief with the pail – there were adults present who could handle the infraction in an appropriate way and let the offender know that his actions were not acceptable and assign a time out .  Instead, he put his effort into showing kindness to his friend who was unhappy at the moment.

And the boy on Emily’s lap didn’t shove the pails away – he accepted them.  Really,  he responded to one act of kindness with his own.  Before I began studying and practicing Buddhism, I never used to think of accepting others’ offerings – whether of kind words or actions or actual tangible gifts – as a kind act in its own right.  It always seemed to me that the important thing was to offer such things to others, not to accept them.  But then, as I read about the acts of bodhisattvas, about how they constantly practice generosity, I understood that in graciously receiving a sincerely offered gift from another being, a bodhisattva is giving that being the opportunity to practice generosity.  In this way, receiving becomes a gift in itself, and a very necessary gift, I think. It completes a circuit that allows kindness to flow freely in two directions, between both parties.

I’ve been thinking of this the past week or so because my father told my sister the other week that Christmas gifts to him were strictly forbidden this year.  He has always told us not to make a fuss over gifts for him. I do think he truly does not want us to agonize over trying to find a good gift for him, and it’s true that in the past there has been lots of agonizing on our part, because it’s never been particularly easy to choose gifts for him.  But this year I found something a couple of months ago that I thought he’d actually like. So, I was particularly disappointed to hear about the moratorium from my sister.  As I thought about it, I realized that it was because it pained me that he seemed not to want to accept the sincere offerings of our gifts, for whatever reason.  I decided to broach the topic with him.  The phone conversation went like this:

“I heard that we’re not allowed to send you presents this year.”  (I said it with a smile.)

“That’s right.”

“I know you don’t want us to go to any trouble, but I have a dilemma.  I have something that I’d already gotten for you, before you issued the moratorium.  It was something I saw that I thought you might like.  What should I do?”

A pause.  ”Well….. if you already have it…… go ahead and send it along.” I think I heard a smile in his voice, too.

I hadn’t gotten into talking with him about bodhisattvas or about completing a circuit of kindness.  But I think he understood that I was just wanting to do something nice for him, and he decided he could see his way clear to accepting that.  I don’t think he sees that as any big act of kindness, but I do – I see it as a real gift, every bit as kind as that toddler’s pail of sand.

Language as Symbolic Act

by Jeffrey Brooks

Buddha was known as the Enemy Destroyer because he fully defeated his true enemies: the mental disturbances and wrong views which chain beings to suffering. These are the true enemies of all beings.

Mental disturbances can be crude or subtle. Just as intoxicants distort perception so envy, jealousy, hatred and desire disturb our minds, distort the impressions we receive from the world around us, cause us to experience suffering and to behave in a way that perpetuates our suffering.

Sometimes we carry negative emotions from the past around with us. These produce a disturbance in our mind and we seek a way to relieve the disturbance we feel. If we are unwise about the way this works, instead of relieving our mental disturbance, we can make our situation worse.

Late one Friday night a call went out for a domestic disturbance. I went to the address and met up with another officer a few houses away. Even before we got to the door I could hear the shouts from inside. Screams of outrage and frustration, shouts and howls from people who had argued the same things a hundred times before, reaching their breaking point for the hundredth time. It’s a bad sound. Each volley would start “You said…” and crescendo from there… “How the hell can you…” “You can’t tell me…” These folks had practiced.

I looked through the small vertical window by the door and couldn’t see anyone but I could hear someone hit someone and someone cry out and go back at it again, and something went flying and cracked against the wall.

I said “Come on…” The officer I met was newly out of the academy. She did not want to go in. She said “No. We need to wait for back up. It’s an officer safety issue.” It was an officer safety issue. But then it was a citizen safety issue too, and I did not want to stand there while someone got killed. So I went in. She followed.

Inside we found five pissed off drunks who had probably never agreed on anything in their lives but suddenly came together, united in the conviction that I was not needed. Two of them were still shouting at each other and the others were grumbling at me. A busted cell phone was laying in pieces on the floor.

I just had to go for it. Get them all separated but keep them in sight. Sometimes cool heads prevail. Sometimes just keeping your composure in the midst of chaos works wonders. This was not one of those times. Perhaps I appeared nuts to them.  Somehow I was able to convince them that I was about to snap. One by one I persuaded them that it would be best if they would to go to separate corners until we all could talk. They went.

I picked one to speak to first. Through her tears, her mouth contorted by hurt and frustration, face flushed with memory and hate, I got a story. When another member of the party began to chime in, counter a statement, argue or comment, I told them they would get their turn shortly. This was not their time.

In a minute medics and more officers arrived, and each member of the group got the chance to tell their side of the story to their own officer. We conferred. We photographed injuries, took statements and collected evidence. The couple both went to jail. The rest called a cab.

The stories were venomous. They were each other’s victim. It had been going on for years. He said. She said. On and on. They had all been insulted, ridiculed, disrespected and cursed. They were outraged and they wanted to fight back. Against each other. Against us. Against whoever had disrespected them in the past. It wasn’t about the drinking, they agreed about that.

How was all that history going to be resolved? The cops come when society says it’s gone too far: when people injure each other and break their stuff.  The years of simmering and barbs and rage are a private matter. Until it boils over.

This fight is an example of crude mental disturbance. There are subtle forms that afflict us every moment. But, although we act on them, we rarely notice them because our minds are occupied and our understanding is limited.

Two of the vows we take as Buddhists, two of the “ten prohibitions” which, if we follow them, restrain us from acting on impulses which will perpetuate our difficulties, are to refrain from harsh speech and from divisive speech. Speaking directly, even sharply may be necessary. But speaking to wound people or to degrade them or to maliciously set people against one another is not.

If a therapist tells you to vent your emotions then you can help the therapist by telling them that you are not a pneumatic system. And venting does not work any better than bloodletting did, in the centuries when that was considered sound and scientific therapy. Hollering your angry feelings at people deepens those emotions, it does not reduce them.

To allow our minds to settle down so that we can observe the subtle disturbances we need to train to eliminate the crude ones. Then we can choose what we do instead of being slaves of impulse. As we remove more subtle disturbances we can begin to see how our mind works and examine the ways in which our mind participates in the fabrication of our experience. By continuing this process we eliminate both disturbing thoughts and wrong view – we too become Enemy Destroyers. We then can get the skills we need to also save others from suffering.

That couple that got arrested that night were in love when they got together a few years before. So in love they thought nothing else in the world would matter as long as they could be together.

But a few harsh words and a habit of resentment and hurt takes everybody downhill fast if you don’t know what to watch out for and what to do about it.

Government leaders use harsh and divisive speech to pit groups against each other. They inspire envy and resentment and produce mental disturbance in the mindstreams of the people that they lead.  Soon people who have lived side by side as friends and neighbors for generations or centuries are hanging each other and shooting each other.

All the great miseries of the last few hundred years were precipitated with harsh and divisive speech. That kind of speech produces mental disturbance and it also produces wrong views. Because although each individual has their own characteristics, flaws and virtues, people whose leaders persuade them to hate a type of person set that fact aside and attribute identical characteristics to every member of the group. So instead of having an undistorted view of an individual they project a mental fabrication upon that individual and hate them and want to kill them.

It’s happened in Europe, the Middle East and Asia and it is happening here. But no one has to fall for it. If we are aware of the poisonous nature of harsh and divisive speech and understand how to avoid getting caught in it. Then we are free to act as vigorously as necessary to save people from suffering.

Some details in this police incident have been changed.)

Jeff Brooks has been teaching Buddhism and martial arts for more than 20 years. His law enforcement career has included assignments in patrol, as a police instructor of firearms, defensive tactics, anti-terrorism and use of force; and in criminal investigations.

Just For Today, Devote Yourself Diligently To Your Work

by Susan Downing

Mikao Usui Sensei’s fourth Reiki precept came to mind yesterday when I was watching the birds at my birdfeeder.  The chickadees would flit up, pick out a seed or two, and fly off to another part of the bush. But the red-headed woodpecker had a different approach: he would land on the feeder, extract a sunflower seed, then pound it against the railing to crack it, before flying off.  A couple of minutes later, he’d be back, and the whole sequence would repeat.    So much effort for one tiny seed.  And yet, he and the chickadees  persisted. Of course, it’s that effort that stands between them and starvation. Even so, these birds seemed to me to exemplify Usui’s fourth precept.

This precept has often been presented as “Do your work honestly” and “Be honest in your work.”  However, a Japanese speaker explained to me that the  Japanese words that are translated as “work” might more properly be thought of as meaning “calling, vocation, business, trade or profession.” The verb itself expresses the idea of “applying or devoting oneself assiduously.”  So, although Usui Sensei would undoubtedly have encouraged his students to work honestly, the essence of the precept lies in the idea of focused, devoted attention to a task.  For the birds I was watching, this was the crucial work of gathering food to nourish and sustain themselves.  Similarly, Usui Sensei encouraged us to devote ourselves not to just any work, but to what will nourish and sustain us – in other words, to our practice.

For Reiki practitioners, the fourth precept reminds us that when we commit ourselves to the transformative path that a Reiki practice offers us, we’re doing more than taking up a casual pastime. We’re expressing our belief that practicing can help us transform our lives and enable us to help others, too. Just as those birds know that they’ll never get through the winter and live to raise a new brood in the spring unless they focus on nourishing themselves now, we understand that our practice will bear fruit only if we approach it with diligence.

At the core of this process lies a commitment to doing self-Reiki, for it’s this part of our daily work which sustains and nurtures us and makes it possible for us to offer support to others. I’ve had students tell me that sitting down at the end (or beginning!) of a long day and giving themselves even ten minutes of Reiki can seem like a selfish luxury, given all the demands on their time. It’s certainly easy for any of us to fall into seeing things that way, especially when we’re talking about family, about people we love and want to take good care of.

But we are not really so different from the chickadees and the woodpecker I saw this week.  Although any babies they hatched this spring are out of the nest now, these birds need to pour everything they have into preserving their strength and health through the long winter, so that when spring comes again, they’ll have the energy to care for their new chicks.

When we humans put our energy into a practice that nurtures and sustains us – whether it’s Reiki, or meditation, or yoga or karate or prayer – we gain the strength and endurance to face whatever challenges come up.  But that’s not all.  When we devote ourselves diligently to the work of our practice, we ensure not only that we ourselves will be strong, but also that we’ll have the energy to take good care of all those who depend on us. When we practice inspired by this loving motivation, we grow stronger and happier, and as we do, it becomes ever easier and more joyful for us to give of our strength and happiness to others.  That’s what this practice is really about, what it is really designed to do for us and those with whom we interact.

I think that’s why the chickadees reminded me of the fourth precept, and why I found them inspiring.  At first glance, they seem to be just going about the business of making sure they get enough food. Certainly they’re not thinking about trying to benefit others. But in the simple act of eating at my feeder, and in their beautiful flight and song, that’s exactly they are doing: I get so much joy from watching them float to and fro, chirping brightly as they go.  And so, they take in the nourishment they need, but at the same time – naturally, without even trying – they sustain not only themselves, but me, too.