Day Five: The Water Settles Again

I took an unintentional news fast yesterday and spent the day in community, meditating and teaching Zen. As part of ‘Buddhism 101’ course here at Boundless Way Temple, we were looking into the teaching of the Third Foundation of Mindfulness.

This third foundation points to the possibility of paying attention to the state of our heart/mind. (The language in which these teachings of the Buddha were recorded, these two were not yet separated.) While it is obvious that there are many different qualities that arise in the mind, we are often so focused on the content of our mind, that we don’t notice the changing quality of the field in which the thoughts and feelings appear. In the sutra which contains the original teaching, there is a lovely list of different states of mind that sounds familiar today, nearly 2,500 years later: shrunken (constricted) mind, scattered mind, enlarged mind, collected mind, released mind, the mind of ill-will, the mind of desire, the mind of lostness.

Many of us have experienced the range of these states and more over the past five days since the election. The teaching is that all of these conditions of the heart/mind come and go like the weather. Though we would like to control them, we cannot. The invitation is to begin to see them as they are. So in the constricted mind-state of fear, we can know we are in the constricted mind-state of fear.

This awareness does not necessarily change what is present, but it does give us just a tiny bit of perspective on what is happening. One of our teachers yesterday referred to these mind-states as rooms that we pass through. Each room of the heart/mind has a particular quality to it and all the thoughts and feelings that arise in the room have this same general sense. Knowing this, we can perhaps not struggle against what is here.

When we can begin to be conscious of the arising, abiding, and passing away of states of mind, we may find a new freedom—right where we are. In the shrunken state of mind (my current favorite) we can know we are in the shrunken state of mind. In this awareness, there is the possibility of not being carried away by what is appearing. We can be with what is happening as what is happening. We can even begin to get curious about this particular state of mind. What is it like to be here? What are the contours of this landscape? How can I act wisely as I pass through this state of being?

This awareness of the impermanence of the state of my heart/mind is not, however, a call to relativism and quietism. The purpose of being present with our own experience is not to call everything a passing state of mind and proclaim there is nothing that needs to be done.

The Buddhist teachings are clear that we are interdependent and each called to honor our connection by acting in some way to relieve the suffering and injustice we see around us. As Melissa said yesterday, each one of us is called to do something. You may not yet know what it is that you are called to do, but don’t doubt that what you say and do in the coming weeks and months and years is important and will be necessary.