Meditation

K.I.S.S – Keep It Simple Stupid

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Image of Ryokan the Zen poet sitting in a single windowed hut in a forest
Ryokan the Zen poet epitomized the simple life living as he did in a single windowed hut in a forest of bamboo

Acronyms are useful because they help you remember things. Things that are useful and things that have outlived their usefulness. One acronym I have always found useful is K.I.S.S

Keep it Simple Stupid.

I have applied it to almost every situation I have been in.

It works for Self-Protection, Meditation, Martial arts, Engineering, Weapons Handling and Life itself.

Keeping things simple creates room in your busy brain that will allow you time to think. To re-position yourself in the world. To be aware.

It gives you time to reflect and opens you up to just being in the moment. No matter where you are, you can create space. Space to breathe and embrace life as it happens. The good, the bad and the ugly.

After all these are only your perceptions and what is bad to one person is good to another. It’s all relative, as they say! In the middle of a busy city or in the wilds of Scotland it’s your perception that creates the problem. The way you talk to yourself, the way you see and hear the world and what you feel about it.

Simplicity is a state of mind… nothing more.

There has always been talk of leading a simple life, of having little in the way of possessions and keeping life stripped down to the basics. That’s good, but I don’t think it’s the answer. I know people with nothing and they are inherently miserable. I know people with everything and they too are miserable.

I had one NLP client who said: “I’m financially rich but emotionally poor”

She thought having money was causing the problem. Well, it was her attitude and beliefs about having wealth that caused the problem. Her perception was making her unhappy. I taught her how to reframe her perceptions and now she gets more out of life and has even started sharing some of her wealth with others less fortunate.

The problem arises when these people believe that having things or not having things will bring happiness.

Let’s get rid of our cell phones and computers.

Let’s get rid of our cars and motorcycles.

Let’s dispense of materialistic possessions.

That’s all well and good, but sadly we live in a world where we are bombarded by stuff, material possessions, people, ideas and the desire for happiness. Surrounded on all sides by things, advertising encourages us to upgrade to the latest technology, fashions, cars or subscribe to current ideologies.

To think that you can be happy simply by ridding yourself of these things is a myth. Happiness is a myth. That constant search for the ideal state that exists only in your mind. Once you have “happiness” life events inevitably step in and take it away. Like clouds blown away by the wind of change.

It’s not the objects that are the problem, but our attachment to them that makes you unhappy or feeling out of balance.

I happen to like stuff. I like swords; I love books and I like ideas but over the years I have loosened my attachment to them so that when the objects, the ideas and the people move on or vanish that’s fine. That recognition that the thing you desire will be gone… including yourself… allows you to live your life in a more balanced way. To me, dropping attachment is the key to living the simple life. You can have your cake and eat it but realise that this state is subject to change and embrace it.

Once you have this realisation you begin to exist in a state of unperturbedness. The Greeks called this ataraxia and this is what the soldiers feel in the midst of the confusion of battle. It’s a state of equanimity that allows you to respond in an appropriate manner.

Recently, as many of you aware, I have also been dropping attachments to my long-held beliefs too. The liberation I felt when they vanished was palpable. Using the maxims of Pyrrhonism has helped me on this path.

Reading Robert Anton Wilson and his use of E-Prime has also been instrumental into me leading a simpler approach to life too. I intend writing something on this subject soon.

If I purchase a new book, I cherish it and enjoy it, then put it down. I know that at some point it may be gone and that’s fine too.

I know that some of my most cherished beliefs will change, and that’s OK.

Living simply does not mean clearing out everything you own. It means clearing out your attachment to these things.

For 64 years now I have seen friends adopting new beliefs, amassing large amounts of possessions only to be distraught when they have gone.

I know someone who went to Sikkim to get away from the world but sadly took their problems with them. The solitude only heightened her sense of panic and she returned with a realisation that wherever you are, you are simply here, wherever you are. With or without attachments.

It’s that simple… Really.

Keep your perceptions in check. Embrace whatever is happening for you… Now.

Loosen your grip on your attachment and the normal reactions you have will cease, to be replaced by a simpler way of looking at the world.

Things become clearer and you don’t have to run away to feel good.

You can feel good for no fucking reason and remember that “Beliefs are the Chains of the Free”.

Even that belief!

You can always find your balance with whatever you have or wherever you are.

In the words of the great Zen Poet Ryokan:

Don’t say my hut has nothing to offer

come and I will share with you

the cool breeze that fills my window

Ryokan (1758-1831)

Ryokan was known as the “Great Fool” and lived very simply in a one window hut surrounded by bamboo. He got his water from a spring and invited people to join him.

My book “Beyond Beliefs” is coming along well, and I may publish some excerpts soon.

Going On An Online Meditation Retreat

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Octagonal retreat house at Samye-Ling Tibetan center Eskdalemuir, Langholm, Dumfries photographed in May 1980
Octagonal retreat house at Samye-Ling Tibetan center Eskdalemuir, Langholm, Dumfries May 1980

Ever since I went on my first Buddhist meditation retreat, I had a keen interest into how these events were structured and what their aim was for the different types of people who would frequent them.

I would hear participants say that it was a time to consolidate their practice and for others it was a chance to get enlightened and find themselves! I also think for some it was a chance to get all religious and pious and feed their hungry egos. Replacing one dogma with another!

For me it was a time to reflect and ask questions not just of myself but of the teachers too. I wanted to know as much as possible and was hoping to find whatever it was I was looking for! I guess you could say I wanted to work out what the hell my life was all about!

Needless to say, once I had returned to the world of shipyards and the industrial northeast, I was even more confused. A retreat is an insular thing and some would say one is being selfish by cutting oneself off from the world, but I disagree with that sentiment. When you face up to yourself and admit to having insecurities and frailties it makes you more compassionate to others. You realise that we are all in this together.

You may remember me to talking to Zen Teacher Jiyu Kennet Roshi, and she questioned the term “retreat” by exclaiming:

“Just what is it you are retreating from? We are here to face life head on!”

That statement changed my understanding and redefined my approach to meditation practice. I looked at it from a different angle and have continued to fine tune it to this day. I have been sharing these ‘tunings’ to a wider audience with the Tuesday night meditation sessions and have now decided to run a Weekend Online Retreat.

On an actual weekend retreat you turn up and you are given an introductory talk and a brief explanation of the format of the weekend. A very basic timetable is available and you may be taught the rudiments of meditation. Most timetables were strictly adhered to, and some retreats are conducted in silence. More often than not, there will be a work schedule with everyone being allocated tasks.

I remember staying at Samye Ling Tibetan Monastic Centre and being asked to look at the central heating boiler (due to my engineering background). I repaired it luckily with minimum tools. Others worked in the kitchen or tended to the gardens.

In the Tibetan tradition the discipline seemed very relaxed and everybody just got on with things until the lunchtime bell or meditation bell sounded. Even then some didn’t turn up for meditation especially at 6am!

It was a little like a Tibetan mini break for me.

Throssel Hole Priory (Soto Zen tradition) had a much tighter structure and everything was done by the book. The rules were strictly adhered too, and the work schedule was tightly structured with everyone having a specific task for the period of retreat. I found that approach kept me a lot more focussed, and I came away from it more resolved to practice meditation and use it on a daily basis. It felt very practical.

It was at Throssel Hole Priory that the teacher told me that she thought it strange we called these periods retreat.

From the conversations I had with fellow participants, it seemed that many were trying to escape from something. From their day to day suffering, their neuroses, their family, their situation and even their spouses. In fact, what they found was that there was no escape because these concerns were in their heads, anyway. It was all about their perception. What they thought about their thoughts.

No one gets out of here alive!

At least that’s what I realised.

For example, thoughts about the past and the future were just thoughts. Thoughts with no inherent truth to them. Like phantoms of the mind that only have power and influence when you attach importance to them as they drag you down the rabbit hole.

On a retreat you usually have an opportunity to speak with the teacher at a preordained time to discuss what has been going on whilst you have been on retreat. I can’t speak for others, but I never found these very useful. It was usually some pithy remark like:

“Just sit with it.”

“Take it back to the cushion.”

And whilst these zensplanations might have worked for a few in some cases, they only seemed to compound the meditator’s problems. The needs of the meditator were never resolved, and more often than not, that weekend would be the end their practice of meditation. You would never see them again.

I always thought this was sad, and I noticed that the turnover at these centers was large. More people would often give up their practice of meditation than continue with it.

As well as being a teacher of meditation, I have also been involved in NLP and other cognitive-behavioral models of therapy. Firstly, to help myself and then to help others. I found that some of the problems that my students came up with during meditation were things I could help them with. Some of the problem and behaviours were traumatic, and being told to just sit with their problem made their situation worse. I like to be pragmatic and sort out the actual problem so that the student can go back to the cushion and simply focus.

When you have a question, it implies you would like an answer and whilst you can’t get answers to everything, having more tools available makes the task more achievable.

So how will an online weekend retreat experience work in practice?

The retreat will be run in as similar a format as it would if it was at a real venue. The first day would start at 8am with a two meditation sessions interspersed by a talk until lunch at 12.30pm. We can then eat together until 1.30pm.

We would then have a break for 2 hours where you could do tasks around the house mindfully in silence and read a short passage from some texts I would give you. Don’t worry, you won’t be tested!

At 3.30pm we sit again for 20 minutes and then discuss the texts until 4.30 and sit for another 20 minutes. This will be followed by a 2 hour break and a final evening session from 7.30pm until 8.15pm.

The event will be delivered via Zoom with only those registered to the retreat receiving links to all recordings of the talks and the manual that will accompany the retreat.

Look out for further news on the retreat in the email newsletter in the next few weeks.

Buddhism & Pyrrhonism – Liberation Through Skepticism

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Greek Philosopher Pyrrho of Elis poses in a 17th century drawing
Greek Skeptic Philosopher Pyrrho

I’ve just been spending the week putting together a meditation seminar for this weekend, and it suddenly struck me how my attitudes to practice have changed since I first picked up a book on Buddhism and practiced meditation in the early 70’s.

My journey on the path started with three distinctly different schools of Buddhism. The Tibetan tradition, the Japanese tradition and the Thai Tradition.

The Tibetans love elaborate rituals, incense, horns, bells and whistles. Tibetan Monks and Lamas were clad in heavy dark red robes with flashes of yellow in places. Some senior Lamas wore heavy brocade and had amazing hats balanced precariously on their shaved heads. Massive rosaries and artifacts of all kinds were sometimes carried around in their hands. The highly decorative shrine rooms amazed me, festooned in candles and images of gurus and bodhisattvas and enormous images of the Buddha in a variety of styles. The deeply intoned chants of their voices made it other worldly. Not to mention the Guru worship that went along with all this. It sort of reminded me of a catholic mass that I had once attended.

So much of Buddhism appeared to be heavily invested in supporting fixed beliefs about Karma and reincarnation. I am surprised I didn’t pick up on it at as being the opposite of what the Buddha had spoken about in his early words written down later in the Pali Canon. I guess, like many followers, I got swept away by how fantastic it all seemed. It was sensory overload! I didn’t have the head space to think!

In fact, when I questioned beliefs about Karma and the after death plane, I was simply told to meditate. There were never any straightforward answers to my questions. No help with the doubts I harboured.

Then, there was the Soto Zen tradition, with its focus primarily on ‘just sitting.’ I would sit for hours on a black zabuton (mattress) and a zafu (cushion) placed on top. Sitting still and upright like a mountain, immovable and steady.

I would sit facing and staring at a blank wall in a sparsely decorated Zendo (meditation hall), with the slightest hint of ritual and no dependence on any belief systems that I can remember. You were there alone with your thoughts and little else.

It was quite liberating and made more sense. It was honestly much tougher because there were no distractions and the teachers attitude towards my questions were more pragmatic and made more sense.

I remember saying to Roshi (Teacher) at the time, that I was coming up for a weekend retreat and she said we don’t call them a retreat. “We are not here to retreat from the world,” she said, “we are here to face things head on!”

I liked the Zen attitude to life and it’s aftershocks have remained with me long after the Tibetan symbolism, dogmas and guru worship had gone. Having said that, I still admire Tibetan art and the symbolism, but it means little to me philosophically as a westerner.

The system that seemed to straddle both traditions was Theravadin Buddhism. This is the school of Buddhism practiced mainly in Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand. I spent some time practicing Samatha and Vippasana techniques and found them to be very good. In fact, I still use these methods from time to time.

In Thailand the approach I took was from the Forest Tradition and is similar to what the Buddha probably practiced. The idea that you would go off into the forest alone and practice appealed to me, but it still had chanting, relied on beliefs and had a hierarchy which I wasn’t comfortable with. (By the way I do enjoy listening to the chanting and even learned some of them by rote).

As the years rolled by I found myself being drawn towards what the Buddhist academics were writing about with regard to Buddhism, and realised I was becoming more and more secular in my approach. Following the publication of some of Stephen Batchelors early works and those of Robert M Ellis, I drifted away from the more Traditional Schools of Buddhism and spent time researching the historical background in India around the time of the Buddha.

Doors started opening for me.

I read Trevor Ling’s book on The Buddha and it gave me a historical perspective I had never thought about. He discussed the issues of the time, the development of agriculture and the rise of a new type of political structure. Things I had never considered before. I needed more information! He spoke about the Buddha as a man living in a time of great social and political change and it set me on a path.

I wanted to know more about the Buddha as a man, for that was all he was; and how he had learned to be more awake to the world. Not some god-like figure to be worshiped, but a man with a plan. With ideas and techniques to help people flourish, to create a better society.

I realised I was living out a life based on a variety of belief systems that I felt I had to justify. That I was searching for a TRUTH that couldn’t exist. These beliefs were holding me back and I decided to take stand against them; and you know what? For the first time it seems, I was having personal breakthroughs, both on and off the meditation cushion.

It’s not a new idea and I wasn’t the only one having personal breakthroughs.

The Greek Skeptic Pyrrho posited these ideas around the time when the Greeks were expanding their empire and had invaded North Western India. Some academics theorise that Pyrrho may have picked these ideas up when he was in India with Alexander. There are some Academics who think that he was influenced by the local Sramanas (Ascetics) and Gymnosophists (naked yogis)  and that the ideas he brought back to Greece may provide us with important insights into what was being taught in India at that time. (This is the period shortly after the Buddhas death).

Who Knows?

Whatever the practices Pyrrho was following and one of his students wrote about (Sextus Empiricus: Outlines Of Pyrrhonism) made sense to me, and fitted in with my meditation practice. I started reading about the Greeks and their philosophies. Pyrrho stood head and shoulders above the other Greek philosophers in that he talked about suspending judgement on beliefs about non-evident things.

The evident and the non-evident are something I want to explore in another post. Suffice to say his ideas struck a chord with me and I immediately put them into practice. They were unlike anything I had practiced before, and so different to meditation.

Consequently, whenever I sit now I use a simple principle of picking one of my strongly held beliefs and attempt to suspend judgement about whether it’s right or wrong until I find that there is no argument either way. This puts me in a very different state to that which I experienced previously and creates what the Greeks called aphasia (speechlessness). It is not possible to describe the experience, but many of you will have experienced this at some time in your life when you drop all thoughts of past and future whilst meditating. It is quite liberating. At its best it creates a certain tranquillity so thoughts no longer create a disturbance. This Pyrrho calls Ataraxia. It was a condition actually experienced by Greek soldiers in the midst of battle and can be roughly translated as unperturbedness. It is about being in the present moment, wherein you can have an appropriate response and therefore act effectively in the world.

My search continues…

In the next post I will report back on how things are progressing and talk a little more about the techniques I am using in more detail.

In the meantime…

Keep sitting and drop off those ideas!

The Practice Of Zazen Or Just Sitting Meditation

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Image of meditating Buddhist monk in red robes sitting with hands in lap

Just sitting…

When I first got into meditation, it was back in the late 60s and there was little or no instruction available. I attended my first formal Zazen session at a small gathering of middle class Buddhists literally ‘just up the road’ from my family home.

I visited Throssel Hole Priory where I eventually took Jukai and also attended formal training sessions with Kalu Rimpoche at Samye Ling Monastic Centre in Eskdalemuir. I was fully intending to take ordination as a novice at that point, but life got in the way and I married had kids etc, etc.

Although the approaches were different, they all had the same effect (if you can call it that). They taught me awareness and concentration that have proved invaluable in my day-to-day life.

There are many approaches to meditation and we have explored a couple of those at our regular training sessions. We are currently working with concentration on the breath and of course, my favourite ‘just sitting’.

Just sitting, or Zazen as I know it, was taught to me at Throssel hole Priory, near Hexham by Jiyu Kennet roshi, and is known as Shi Kan Ta Za in the Soto Zen tradition (more about that later).

Here is the method in the way that I was taught and echoes the words of Soto Zen Teacher Dogen Zenji in the 13th century

1)   Find a quiet spot and cast aside all involvements and cease the 10,000 things.

2)   Early morning practice is good

3)   Sit on a zafu (cushion)

4)   Keep spine straight

5)   Eyes open “neither wide open, nor half-closed”

Remember, Zazen is not a spiritual practice. It is the effort of mind and body.

The 4 points of Zazen 

The first thing I asked was what should I be thinking about.

“Good is not considered, bad is not considered. It is beyond mind, will, or consciousness and beyond mindfulness, thought or reflection”

  1. Hi Shi Ryo – Non thinking.
  2. Sho Shin Tan Za – Sitting up, right making the body right.
  3. Shin Jin Datsu Raku – Dropping off body and mind.
  4. Shi Kan Ta Za – Just sitting.

The word Hi Shi Ryo means non thinking.

“What the hell is that?” I asked the question and was told just “think non-thinking”

In other words, start paying attention to your thought processes. The processes and not the actual thoughts. Thoughts don’t just go on continually and there are little spaces between them. Observe the gaps.

You could say that there are two types of thoughts:

The trivial thoughts that pop up and disappear and the complex thoughts that grab out attention and take us along for a ride.

So…

To practice thinking not thinking, ignore the first lot and learn not to foment the second lot. Just look at the natural spaces between all of them .

Dogen spent a great deal of time addressing the physicality of Zazen.

Sho Shin Tan Za means right posture and regulated sitting. Posture is a great measure of how well your meditation is going, so pay attention to how you are sitting and watch what happens.

Are you relaxed or tense?

So sit up and not down!

Shin Jin Datsu Raku, or the dropping off of body and mind.

The famous Soto teacher Gudo Nishijima calls it the balance of the autonomic nervous system, or the balance between thought and feeling.

In Buddhism we make no distinction between the mental and the physical. Both are connected.

Finally, we come to Shi Kan Ta Za, or just sitting. Mind you, that doesn’t mean to just sit around aimlessly.

Shi kan means earnestly, or intently, and the first character in the second word Ta means hit or strike.

The final character Za means sit.

The image when I first heard this description evoked the hitting of the cushion as you sat down. Really meaning it with pure intention.

With action!

No bells, no whistles or mystical trances.

No search for ‘enlightenment’ or daft attempts at self-improvement .

Zazen is simply sitting there…

So… Off you go!

Don’t forget to join me every Tuesday evening at 6.00 PM (UK time) for our online meditation and discussion session.

Click here to register for the Higherway Code Meditation Group

 

 

Turn and face the strange, ch… ch… ch… changes

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Bob Spour poses in his robes in Broughton Road South Shields circa 1973

Ch… Ch… Ch… Changes…..

Was one of my favorite songs when I was a teenager. If you don’t know it, you should be ashamed of yourself. It’s one of David Bowie’s great songs and for me meant a lot more than just its surface structure. It’s not just a nice tune!

The lyrics were about impermanence. Impermanence of the self and the environment. It’s one of the driving principles of Early Buddhism and is central to its main teaching that life is Dukkha.

“Still don’t know what I was waiting for

And my time was running wild, a million dead-end street and

Every time I thought I’d got it made

It seemed the taste was not so sweet

So I turned myself to face me

But I’ve never caught a glimpse

Of how the others must see the faker

I’m much too fast to take that test”

“Bloody brilliant”

I thought when I first put my all-time favourite Bowie Album on the turntable. The Album I am of course talking about is Hunky Dory. Check out Quicksand, yet another great track. Maybe I will chat about that on another day.

So before this post turns into the David Bowie Appreciation Society; back to the task at hand. Writing this blog…

I realised at an early age that everything was subject to change.

My early life was peppered with what some people would consider catastrophic changes.

The certainty of my childhood was shattered when my father left my mother for another woman and I still think that  remember it clearly. My mother was left with 6 kid, of which I was the eldest, and the family went through some sort of crises.

I was 12 and just getting into my study of Zen Buddhism and it was meditation and reading that actually helped me make sense of it all. My mother attempted suicide and I vaguely remember her being taken to hospital as I was packed off to my grandmothers a mile away.

Her house always seemed large and spacious compared to our little two roomed terrace. She had a big black range with a constant fire burning in the grate. I used to love making toast on a fork in front of it. She had butter and jam to go on the crisp white bread. At home we used margarine! My grandparents also had a front garden and a large backyard with a shed! Very posh!

She even had an upstairs. It was great and I could lie in bed and listen to the town hall clock chime on the hour, every hour with its deep resonant tone. Even as I write this I am transported back to Broughton Road and I can smell the faint whiff of mothballs. A smell you no longer have in houses, but the thought takes me back to the 60s.

So change for me was the norm, and I embraced it. If I hadn’t, I would probably have ended up with all sorts of neuroses. Which some of my siblings did suffer. I tried to explain my ideas to them over the years, but my attempts fell on deaf ears sadly.

I now tell my students to Embrace change and let go of the reactive habitual responses they have. When they do they achieve what can only be described as Freedom.

Freedom though is never an absolute and is always relative to something else.

“Freedom from Debt”

“Freedom to Grow”

“Freedom to believe”

“Freedom for others”

and so on…

My  understanding of freedom was that once I realised that things weren’t permanent, were not fixed, I was released from self-centred confusion. These confusions were the chains that would bind me. I never believed  that the ego, my sense of self, was real. I never felt I had a fixed identity and still don’t.

“I still don’t know what I will be when I grow up!”

In the words of Mr Bowie:

“So I turned myself to face me

But I’ve never caught a glimpse”

I think I live my life simply, having a response appropriate to the situation I find myself in without judgement and having no fixed pre-conceived ideas or opinions. I have opinions that I share but go to great pains to understand that they too are subject to change.

If that makes sense?

These attitudes allow me to realise the possibilities of creating an authentic path through life unhindered by attachments and cravings.

I realised that reactive habits are the chains of the free.

This is why I use some NLP in my work as it gives me the tools to help people intervene when the shit hit the fan. It’s a quick fix that allows you to move on.

We lose our freedom by clinging to ideas, and beliefs that we believe have permanency. Usually we hang onto them because they’re familiar and safe. Confusion and Fear fill our minds and all because we need to hang onto our sense of self. A self we believe exists independently of impermanence.

Self-Help and positive thinking play on that fear, which is why people go back to it time and time again. Which is exactly why the Self-Help industry makes so much money!

It’s a great model for creating wealth because you get trapped by thinking you are going to be free.

For me this is where the Meditation crossed over with the NLP and Hellenistic philosophical thought.

Meditation is not the be all and end all to end your unhappiness. If you think that, you have missed the point.

We simply use meditation to cultivate awareness of this moment in time.

The present moment.

When we do that, we can think clearly. When we meditate we have no expectations, no desire and then we suddenly find that the chains fall away.

We are Awake as the Buddhists say!