Author: Forrest Hill

The Tale of the Bodhisattva Fly

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by Jeff Schwamberger

I have to confess I’ve always been utterly baffled by the Buddha’s teaching on the Five Skandhas—the so-called “aggregates” that trick us into thinking we have a self when we really don’t.

Okay, worse than baffled. Totally, teeth-grindingly annoyed.

For starters, the English words used to translate the Pali terms seems hopelessly abstract, and different traditions and different teachers use different abstractions—the term “sanna” alone is translated as perception, conception, apperception, cognition, and discrimination. Worse, the English words are such a grab bag of approximations, my everyday intuitive understanding of the words not only gets me nowhere, it just confuses me even more. And when I think I’ve finally got some sort of inkling about the sort of experiences that fit into each of the skandhas, it’s still all so totally arbitrary I can’t get the model to map either neatly or completely to what I’m experiencing in my head.

So when Forrest gave his talk last week on the Skandhas, I once again found myself at the end of the evening with clenched jaw and knitted brow.

But after wrestling with the skandhas for a few days, I think I finally got a tiny little glimmer of insight into what they’re all about. The key was Forrest’s wonderfully simple definition of the skandhas as “the stuff that makes up our concept of the self.” I realized I was so distracted by my inability to grok the Buddha’s abstract model of the skandhas that I was missing the whole point, namely, what they do. The Trick They Play.

The trigger was my remembering an experience I had about three years ago that I’ve taken to calling “The Tale of the Bodhisattva Fly.” It was just this time of year, a beautiful May day, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, there was a gentle breeze wafting through the tree tops. I settled on my cushion for a blissful half hour of meditation, just let my body breathe, and all was right with the world. For about five minutes. Then bzzzzzzz. This dang fly started buzzing around. Then it would alight, I’d go back to my breath, and a minute later bzzzzzzzzz. Effing fly, I’d think. Gosh darn it. Then it would alight, I’d go back to my breath, and a minute later bzzzzzzzzz. But after about the fourth or fifth time, suddenly I realized, wait, wait, wait—

There’s a fly.

The fly’s wings beat, setting up sound waves in the air.

The sound waves hit my ear.

My sense perception of the sound waves sends a signal to my brain that rightly interprets the sound and recognizes that there’s a fly in the room.

PERIOD.

I’m the one who’s adding the annoyance. The annoyance is extra. There’s just fly, sound waves, sense perception, accurate mental image.

That little insight seemed so significant to me that I wove a little tale so I wouldn’t forget it — The Tale of the Bodhisattva Fly: Some bodhisattva somewhere allowed himself to be reborn as a fly and made a point of finding its way into my room just so I could have that tiny little photon of insight.

What Forrest’s wonderfully simple definition of the skandhas did was let me make another connection that I’ve been feeling myself on the edge of but just couldn’t quite get a handle on. To wit:

Just as I’m adding the annoyance, the annoyance is adding the “I”.

There’s no annoyance without a “me” to be annoyed. A concept of self evolves when the totally natural Object to Perception to Mental Image process picks up momentum and sets off the totally unnecessary chain reaction “I” Find That Unpleasant > “I’m” Annoyed > “I’m” Gonna Fix It, “I’m” Gonna Kill That Fly.

In Thundering Silence (maybe “buzzzzing silence,” in my case), Thich Nhat Hanh says, “There is a simple and general way to explain no-self, which is that there is no single entity whose identity is changeless. All things are constantly changing. Nothing endures forever or contains a changeless element called a ‘self’.”

The metaphor that works for me is to think of this moment-to-moment experience as like a heads-up display in a fighter jet, constantly changing, accurately reflecting what’s going on out there, letting the pilot control and navigate the craft. Just as the body simply breathes in and out, the mind is simply aware moment to moment. Oh, there’s a pilot all right, very real, totally alive, but he simply arises in each moment and changes in the next just like the ever-changing readings on the display. Neither would be of any use otherwise.

So there’s a pilot, but there’s no need to get tricked into imagining there’s a hero, a drama, a crisis, Tom Cruise. That’s all extra.

And it somehow maybe sheds a photon or two of light on that unfathomable admonition that when we sit, there’s no one to be.

The Power of Generosity

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According to the Buddhist tradition, we can’t experience the really profound, transformative effects of meditation if our practice isn’t grounded in an ethical or moral ground. Without such a ground, meditation is little more than a kind of mental exercise. We may experience a bit more peace, a bit more stability, but true contentment, true joy, true confidence will elude us.

I have seen this often in my own life. I try to meditate 30 – 40 minutes every morning, which almost always helps brings a real sense of peace, spaciousness and awareness to my life. But if I get up and leave my practice on the cushion, tuning into my worries, fears and cravings for things to be different, it is like I never sat at all. Ten years of practice and numerous residential retreats vanish into thin air and I am consumed with my own small minded suffering.

Remembering to practice generosity during the day, even the smallest acts of kindness, helps me to readily reconnect to my practice – opening up my heart and dropping some of my “self-centered” stories. I believe the inherent joy we humans find in connecting with our innate generous heart is why generosity is the primary foundation of all Buddhist practice, and it is the first teaching the Buddha gave to new students.

Generosity in Buddhism is traditionally divided into three different types. The first is the most familiar to those of us in the west. It involves giving material assistance, like food or money, to those in need. This form of generosity can also extend beyond material assistance to include giving emotional sustenance. Sometimes this means offering comfort or encouragement to someone who’s having a difficult day, a difficult week, a difficult month, …, a difficult life.

The second type of generosity involves helping and protecting those whose lives are threatened in some way. There are many individuals who engage in this kind of activity, offering assistance to elderly people and the sick, working at shelters that protect women who have been abused, teaching children from poorer neighborhoods in after school programs, volunteering to work with prisoners to help them reenter society, etc. This form of generosity is an expression of an inner attitude of compassion. As the Dalai Lama says, when one desires to alleviate the suffering of others and to promote their well-being, then generosity – in action, word, and thought – is this desire put into practice. It is important to recognize that this type of generosity refers not just to giving in a material sense, but to generosity of the heart.

The final aspect of generosity involves offering understanding, compassion and friendship to others we meet in our daily lives. A smile, an acknowledgement, a listening ear. So simple yet, if we all did this practice on a regular basis it would have the power to stop wars and change the world. Generosity practice challenges us to kick our practice to a higher level without bringing in judgment. It is not about comparing our efforts with others, but looking into our hearts and seeing how we can stretch ourselves, given our unique life circumstances, to help cultivate greater joy in the world.

I invite you to take some time this week to consider how you might start to expand your generosity practice. You might find the following questions, offered by Tsoknyi Rinpoche, a good place to start your inquiry:

  • How often and how far can you go out of our way each day to be kind to others?
  • How does practicing generosity affect your own sense of well-being?
  • How does it affect the environments in which you live?
  • How does it influence your meditation practice?

As we become more mindful of our generous nature, our capacity for generosity begins to occupy a central place in our lives. As our capacity for generosity grows, so too, does our capacity for love and happiness. With practice, we may find that we feel more inclined to contribute to the greater good than our own self-betterment. This inclination is the seeds of Sangha and at the root of the beloved community.

‘Tis The Season To Take Refuge

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Each holiday season, as winter approaches, I often find myself drawn to reflect upon what supports us in staying centered within ourselves throughout this busy season. While the world swirls in gift purchases, holiday events and social plans, I often find myself longing to move inward vs. outward, to balance the busy with the quiet, to reflect upon and recommit to the values and intentions I choose to live from, this holiday season and beyond.

If it fits, I invite you to carve out some quiet space this week to explore what helps to center, nourish and support you throughout the holiday and winter season. In Buddhist terms, “What will you take refuge in?” Or, said another way, “What activities or practices help point you back to awareness, your own inner goodness, the way things actually are, the truth of interconnection?” Practices might include certain helpful views or personal mantras that you hold in your mind. Perhaps something like, “All things are of the nature to change… this, too, will change” or meditation teacher Sylvia Boorstein’s mantra, “May I meet this moment fully, may I meet it as a friend.” Our personal mantras, like the whisper of a quiet wind on a summer’s day, can be gentle, kind reminders to the mind to lean back into our refuge again and again.

Other practices and wholesome activities might include: exercise, talking with a kind friend, practicing generosity, enjoying time in nature, meditation, yoga, experiencing your body and sound as you sip a cup of tea, being mindful of your sense experiences while doing the dishes or preparing a meal, noticing the goodness in others, taking in the sound of the birds outside your office window, connecting with a spiritual community that supports your spiritual practice, gardening, taking a few deeper breaths each time you come to a stop light, etc.

If you currently have a refuge practice, you might explore whether it still fits or what deepens your commitment to it. What do you take refuge in now? If you don’t have a current refuge practice and would like to create one, you might explore what your intention is for this season. Your intention might even become the mantra you whisper to yourself: “Peace, peace, peace”, “Let” (on the in breath) “Go” (on the out breath), “Just” (on the in breath) “Here” (on the out breath), for example. What will you take refuge in?

May all beings know peace and their own inner goodness.
May all beings be well.