DIALOGUE WITH VICTOR

Join our online talking circle! Do you have a question about meditation, the dharma, your practice? Just email it to our teacher, Victor Byrd, and we'll post both your question and his answer, right here. Let us know if we can use your name or if you prefer to remain anonymous. Talk on...

March 7, 2008

EMAIL TO VICTOR:
Namaste Victor! I just wanted to let you know what an incredible experience I had today at the beginner's class. It was my first formal buddhist meditation session and it was incredible. I didn't think I could sit still for so long and not have my mind wander off to a million places. I often joke about it with my Buddhist friend. The 15 minutes actually went by pretty fast.

One of the most empowering things was when you began guiding us, telling us essentially that "if you're mind wanders, that's o.k., make a note of it and return to the rise and fall of your abdomen".

You also said this with many other things, but it was when you said that statement, but in regards to boredom, that it really struck a chord with me. You said, "That's o.k., just make a note of it, and tell yourself it's just a state of mind and return to your breathing". But boredom is just like any other "feeling" such as fear, anxiety, insecurity, attachment and you made it sound like it was something that we could easily write off by focusing on breathing and not on the emotion itself. As if the state of our mind is our choice. WOW!

An important process for me recently because I've been living alone in Long Beach for about 1.5 years and had been burglarized at one house, moved, and just a few weeks ago was home when two men tried to break in. I've been feeling intense fear on some days and a little on others, and have been trying to get over it. While some of it may be normal due to the incidents, there were times when the fear was so intense I almost checked into a hotel for the night.

I just wanted to say thank you. The idea of looking at our experiences as an observer helps me to keep in mind that whatever negative feelings that I may have are only a state of mind and that I can change that state by focusing on breathing. That's pretty darn empowering if you ask me! Marilyn

VICTOR'S RESPONSE: Hello Marilyn and thank you so much for your comments and feedback. I am so sorry that you have had to deal with being burglarized and then have two men try to break in. Some introduction to Long Beach!

In my office, I have a beautiful poster on the wall that quotes one of the Buddha's most famous sayings: "It is our mind that creates the world." I was thinking of that as I read your letter. How far one takes his meaning is up to discussion (for instance, does our mind even create the things that occur to us from the outside?) I don't know if we want to go that far! But for sure, it is our mind that creates fear, not events from the outside. And fear can can paralyze, as you well know.

Yesterday at the dharma talk, I made a joke (sort of) saying that we all need to buy a T shirt that says "It's Your Mind Stupid!" meaning that everything we think and feel is generated by our own mind. It is the most fundamental truth and yet a truth that almost everyone denies.

Anyway, I am delighted that you found us and hope that you come back again and again. Someone sitting near you wrote me and said it felt like home to her. Blessings and much Metta,Victor

March 3, 2008

Brad emailed and said that he would like to write him, and I am including part of Brad's letter, where he also mentions something he said in response to a question that Teresa asked.

I like this a lot and thought we might just add this to the question and answer page, sort of expanding it to include a forum for general comments, including his joke, which you may enjoy:

LETTER: Embracing Buddhism has taught me about the one reality/truth in the Now, and how all the other stuff of life is our creation, and therefore as meaningful as we say it is. I was thinking about yesterday’s talk and Theresa’s question (regarding living in the ‘real’ world and applying the awareness of the observer to our lives), and I realized that in this game we’ve created for ourselves our perceived knowledge is important to play in the game (driving would be dangerous without the knowledge of what to do at a red light), but that’s very different from accepting that the core of who we are is unknowable.

It works for me to call it ‘the game’ since the Dharma Truth and the Now are between what came before and what is to come, between the thoughts, between the emotions, and are the Nothingness to what we normally see as the ‘reality’ of our lives; the matter and the mind. It is, and it is not. It is no-thing. It is unknowable.

To me the choice of accepting that is like the choice to forgive. I don’t have to choose either, and for a long time I didn’t, yet I couldn’t see either of those things as a choice until I accepted that who I am is the ‘observer’ of the game and not the ‘player’; the guy who felt ‘at the affect’ of life, and a ‘victim of circumstance and of others’ (there’s an interesting intersection between Buddhism and The EST Training - which I did at the age of sixteen - in those realizations). Discovering all that led me on the path I’m on now, and to Long Beach Meditation.

It is now within my Awareness that inside the game (and outside of the Now) that I choose to be happy or sad, humble or egotistical, and whether to react or observe. Something that was said near the end of the EST training shocked me in the way I try to attach permanence to what is meaningful to me, and that was, “The Truth is obviously what’s so, and not so obviously so what.”

Take care,
Brad

January 24, 2008

QUESTION & COMMENT: I had a strange reaction to the dharma talk yesterday. I had been having the most lovely meditations, feeling openness, oneness, joy and happiness. And all the instruction on noting left me cold. I realized it is necessary, but there seemed to be such a vacuum in the gaps that noting creates. Emptiness is really empty!

Maybe I told you about the American couple I met who had been living in India for 30 years. They were sun worshippers. The woman told me she had been to a Vipassana retreat and hated it because there was nothing to love (like god).

I remember a woman who spoke as a peer leader several years ago at LBM. She said she was missing something inspirational in this practice, it was too dry, she wanted to live it, she wanted to be inspired.

The fear you talked about is the edge, is it not? To move past the edge we need to be inspired. I am usually very inspired by you. Is this the meat of Vipassana instruction?

Maybe this is reasonable doubt. Maybe it is my reaction to sharing with you. But it is a question. Why would I want to clarify my mind for emptiness? Maybe it is your talk for next time! Much love and respect, Peggy

ANSWER: My first thought is to remind you that we are all from different "tribes." Although I like to work with Jung's personality types (particularly the fact that we experience reality through the lens of introversion or extroversion) I most like the four spiritual types as described by Ramakrishna and Vivekananda (all the way back to Patanjali). In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna advises Arjuna to perform good karmas without expecting any good fruit from his actions. (Easier said than done!) This is the essence of a Karma Yogi. "Consecrate all action to God."

When you think about it, Karma Yoga describes most people practicing most religions.

Raja Yoga is basically the path of meditation: developing strong concentration and eventually experiencing the bliss of samadhi. Many forms of Buddhist meditation are closely related to the last stages of raja yoga.

Now we come to Bhakti Yoga the path of devotion. In many ways, it has always felt to me that you are very drawn toward the path of selfless love. This is the path of union with God. It is the path that teaches love for all beings. It is the path of Metta, and the Buddha very clearly stated that disciples can find the Way through faith and devotion. My feeling is that many people who are drawn to Tibetan Buddhism are, at least initially, drawn to a certain teacher from their Bhakti heart.

You mention the couple who had been living in India for 30 years, and woman who needed something to love. This is the heart of a Bhakti.

I want to say that if we had the ability to look inside the deepest heart of people in our sangha, we would find a little of all these inclinations in everyone, but we would probably find a stronger tendency toward one of these types in each person.

As to your question about the dharma talk. you ask: "Is this the meat of Vipassana instruction?" Sorry to admit, It think is was. It was certainly a "hardcore" talk about Vipassana, and for sure there was more than one person who had a difficult time with it.

Vipassana belongs in the fourth category of spiritual practices: the path of the Jnana Yoga. In Sanskrit, jnana means knowledge, and I believe that the meaning of Vipassana (insight) is what the Hindus mean by knowledge. Vipassana includes moving toward insight from the practice of serenity (Raja Yoga) or devotion (Bhakti) or dedication of one's actions to God (Karma), but the Buddha was extremely clear about this: All paths that lead to liberation eventually must merge in a relentless contemplation of the moment to moment awareness that this (whatever "this" is in each moment) is 1) not satisfactory, 2) will not last, and 3) has no "me" experiencing it in the first place! You may remember, at the All Day, I asked, "What kind of idiots are we to spend all day looking to see pain in each moment, the impermanence in each moment, and the fact that there ain't anyone here in each moment! (You should be surprised that you found it a little dark or unsettling?) One person who came to most of the All Days last year said to me: "I found the entire day to be dark." I apologized to her, and she added: "I was not complaining."

This is certainly why Vipassana is called "the dry path."

I love your question about why one would "clarify" her mind for emptiness. Do you remember Nisargadatta's wonderful words: Wisdom teaches me that I am nothing. Love teaches me that I am everything. And between the two my life flows.

That is the best answer I could ever give to your question. We are both wisdom and love. Remember that the word "emptiness" has a negative connotation in English but really, what is it that can merge with God? The ego? The sense of a separate self? In the Upanishads there is an expression "the self abiding in the self." I love that. Could that not be seen as the ultimate expression of emptiness?

To me, "emptiness" is what was left when I dumped all that stuff out of the singing bowl. The bowl did not disappear, in fact, it was able to make its most beautiful sound when completely empty.

I think the fear of emptiness is psychological, not spiritual. But fear is something that I too often forget to talk about.

Yes. To move past the edge, we need to be inspired. "Inspire" is a lot like breathing in. When a teacher has energy that we can breathe in, it gives us the courage to move into the unknown. I remember how much I needed to be inspired many years ago at the long retreats. I was deeply grateful to the teachers who could inspire me. Too often now, I forget that. And sometimes my energy is simply not good. Thank you for reminding me. Blessings to you,VB

January 17, 2008

QUESTION: When I was doing the corpse pose, I can't physically place my right hand palm up (small birth defect, twisted right arm). My left hand that just had surgery is perfect palm up, so will the Goddess accept a modified pose? (ha ha). I can bend my elbow so that my right hand palm is up, or place my right hand palm down on my belly, or on the floor beside me, or does it make any difference at all (am I nit picking)?

2nd question-comment: I love the idea of the Silent Witness, and what you said yesterday that the Silent Witness cannot be the "Teresa" personality (judging etc.) really helped my understanding. I was upset when you replied to that man in last week's sit that the Silent Witness is a dangerous concept for the ego to pretend with, but I hope I can recognize that ego trip now. I have been doing pretty good at recognizing that shame is not the Silent Witness. With love, Teresa

ANSWER: During the yoga, I saw that you were having a hard time figuring out how to place your right hand while lying in savasana. One thing for sure, the Goddess is extremely accepting of modified poses! I lean in the direction of trying to place your arm on the floor only because it is very hard not to feel the hand touching the belly which tends to draw the mind to that spot. Also, have you tried to place a flat cushion (even towel) on the floor beside you and see if, by supporting your arm, the palm will comfortably turn toward the ceiling? But if all else fails the palm on the belly will do.

Actually, I was a little nervous in responding to his question about the "little Buddha sitting on top of his head." This was the first time he had sat with us and I didn't want to come across as too oppositional.

The way I think of it is this: Initially we identify with our body. I feel bad if my body feels bad, I feel good when my body feels good. Some of us, through our psychological/spiritual development move to a more subtle level of identification. I am what I think. In other words, we identify with our mind. Clearly, most of us know how profoundly this identification traps us. If the mind is depressed: I am depressed!

Beyond this (and probably many people in our sangha have moved to this deeper level of identification): I am neither my body or my mind, I am the witness of my body sensations, and the feelings and thoughts of my mind. This is what you have been working toward for some time.

Last Sunday, I wanted to remind everyone that ultimately this too is the trap of identification, however subtle, even "superior" it may be. The ego has to identify with something in order to maintain its sense that it really does exist; that it is real; that it is alive. So it identifies itself as "the silent witness."

You asked me how you could tell if it was the ego masquerading as the silent witness, and my response was that for sure, there is no judgment in the silent witness. It only watches. It has no dog in the hunt.

But beyond all this, what is awareness? Surely it is not a "person.' It has no form, no shape, so color. It was not born when Teresa or Victor were conceived nor will it die when these little bodies disappear. Any sense of "I am the witness" is by definition false.

Freedom begins when "I" melts away . When this happens, it is like an enormous burden that we have carried all of our lives is put down and we are as light as a feather.

January 12, 2008

QUESTION: I know that I have the unfortunate defect of unwittingly posing my actual emotional discomfort as intellectual, philosophic, or ethical dilemmas; so I am not too worried about the relative truth of the Buddha Dharma right now. At this point I am instead pondering what it is in me that has caused the doctrine of "enlightenment" to feel so much like the simplistic Christian "salvation" that I rejected so many years ago? I wonder, am I supposed to act my way into right thinking or think my way into right acting? Please forgive my skepticism here. You truly are a blessing to me and many others. Love, Corey

ANSWER: One paragraph that I was reading in the Bare Bones last week:

"Many of us sit in order to calm our restless minds or to learn how to concentrate. Some of us sit because we believe deeply that meditation is a key to happiness and a few of us even sit because we want to become enlightened and drop the illusion of self. But perhaps the Buddha had a far more practical purpose in mind when he taught his disciples to meditate. Through steadfast meditation practice, he trained himself to stay with a problem. In fact this is the true meaning of contemplation: – not to run away, deny or try to fix something: just to stay with it. In the radical transformation of his consciousness, the Buddha must have realized that all humans have the capacity to transcend the animal monkey mind, so used to suffering, by developing a human-spiritual mind capable of staying with the truth of dharma long enough to be transformed by it.

This week a client said to me, "I guess you cannot change anything if you can't stay with your uncomfortable feelings long enough for something to change." This has been my core belief for many years now. We first have to be able to bear ourselves. You know that (probably) all addictions come as a result of our inability to bear the pain in our mind and body. And thinking is perhaps the most deceptive and destructive addiction of all.

I think it boils down to one simple question: Do I experience (not believe, but really experience) that sitting meditation has some kind of healing effect on my mind and body? If one has not experienced that, I don't think all the faith in the world will keep them coming back to the cushion. If they have experienced it, what difference does all the philosophy, dharma discussions or deciding how many enlightened beings can sit on the head of a pin make? In the few years that you have been sitting, there is no question that you have experienced a huge shift in your relationship with yourself. I have witnessed it as have many people. As for "believing' in enlightenment, or from the Christian perspective, salvation" listen to these wise words by Shunryu Suzuki-roshi:

"I have discovered that is it necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is we have to believe in something which has no form and no color - something which exists before all forms and colors appear."

This is a very important point. No matter what god or doctrine you believe in, if you become attached to it, your belief will be based more or less on a self-centered idea . . . In constantly seeking to actualize your ideal, you have no time for composure. But if you are always prepared for accepting everything you see as something appearing from nothing...then at that moment your will have perfect composure.

I have sat for well over 30 years and have witnessed a slow fading away of deep narcissism over those years. As you know in the past five years I have managed to do two months a couple of years but at least one month of silent sitting each year. In other words, I have devoted so much of my life to this practice only because it has delivered in spades. I have not done one damn thing based on belief or something the scriptures said or because I want to be enlightened.

As I have done this practice, suffering has silently decreased. This seems to have been a byproduct of practice.

You still need to think - and you described it perfectly. Your emotional discomfort (pain) causes you to try to think your way out of your condition. Thinking only digs a deeper hole. I admire and respect your untiring effort, Corey. VB

December 24, 2007

QUESTION: I just finished hearing {your dharma talk about} "the ten fetters." I wondered why fear is not among them? If these are in fact the chains that keep us in the bondage of self it would seem to me that fear would be prominent among them...or is it a list only of the (imagined?) objects that the fetters attach to and not their actual--or virtual--substance, their mechanism? Corey

ANSWER: The Buddha does not talk much about fear. If you believe the legend about him, that he left a life of luxury, a beautiful wife and little baby boy and went off into the wilderness to seek complete liberation - well maybe he didn't have the fear that most of us live with every day of our lives.

By the way, the Buddha was from the warrior caste in India, not the priestly caste. So there is that tinge of the fearless warrior in his teaching. Many of his analogies are warrior-like. For instance he said that it would be better by far to die trying to be free than to live a lifetime wandering around lost in our games.

The reason that I like the 10 fetters is that they are a little sermon on the Buddha-dharma. If you really understand each one and the logical sequence from one to ten, you really have an understanding of his "word teaching." And from that, you understand the sequence of the stages of enlightenment (stream enterer, once returner, non- returner and arahat). I mean, why not understand this stuff? What do we have better to do?

One last thought, I think that fear is the ultimate result of being tied down by the 10 fetters. To believe in personality creates fear. ("I've got to protect myself at all cost.") To believe in rites and rituals, creates fear. (I depend on some force or deity to save me.) To have skeptical doubt creates fear. To be stuck in desire creates fear. To be stuck in aversion creates fear. (Of course!) On and on. So your point is well taken. Fear is the byproduct of the 10 fetters.

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