DharmaSpring Volume1 Calameo

A
DHARMA SPRING
Reader
Including writings by
THICH NHAT HANH PEMA CHODRON BHANTE HENEPOLA GUNARATANA
SHARON SALZBERG KHENCHEN THRANGU RINPOCHE JOHN DAIDO LOORI
ABOUT DHARMA SPRING

Dharma Spring was created by a small group
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passionate about the path of meditation and
the teachings of Buddhism. Digital media and
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A DHARMA SPRING READER

VOLUME ONE
Autumn 2015
Edited by
Peter Turner and the editors
of Dharma Spring
Photographs by
Andy Karr, Julie DuBose,
and Michael Wood
DHARMA SPRING
Cambridge, Massachusetts
A Note to the Reader

If you decide to purchase any of the books you find featured here, please consider buying directly from the publisher using the link provided at the end
of each book extract. By doing so, you are supporting these publishers more
generously than if you made your purchases from other online retailers.
Wed like to thank go Andy Karr, Julie DuBose, and Michael Wood [[TO CONFIRM]]
for gracious use of their photographs. Thanks also go out to the publishers whose books
are excerpted here.
DHARMA SPRING
45 Prospect Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
Cover and frontispiece photographs by Michael Wood. (Used by permission.) To see more
of Michaels work go to http://openingthegoodeyebook.com/.
Editing copyright 2015 by Dharma Spring. All rights reserved.
Design and typesetting by Laura Shaw Design, Inc. www.lshawdesign.com
Contents
Part One Where We Begin
Our True Home 11

SHARON SALZBERG
Why Meditate? 15
SAYADAW U PANDITA
The Play of Feelings 19

MARTINE BATCHELOR
Leave No Trace 21
SHUNRYU SUZUKI
Overcoming Our Resistance to Practice 23

TULKU THONDUP
Part Two The Awakened View
26
Its Already Broken 29

AJAHN CHAH
The Good News 33

ETHAN NICHTERN
Dont Blink 35
DAININ KATAGIRI
Your Practice is to Eat Your Life 39

ELIZABETH MATTIS-NAMGYEL
Developing a Different Attitude Toward Problems 43

LAMA ZOPA RINPOCHE
Already Buddha 45
JOSHO PAT PHELAN
Part Three The Path of Meditation

Stopping, Calming, Resting, Healing 51
THICH NHAT HANH
Mindfulness of the Breath 55

JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
Antidote for a Distracted Mind 59

BHANTE HENEPOLA GUNARATANA
Meeting Self-Criticism with Lovingkindness 63

AJAHN SUMEDHO
A Still, Peaceful Mind 67

JOHN DAIDO LOORI
On Being Off Balance 71

JOHN TARRANT
Training the Mind 75

THUPTEN JINPA
Be Grateful to Everyone 81
PEMA CHDRN
Quiet Mind and Thinking Mind 83

KHENCHEN THRANGU RINPOCHE
We are Identical with the Buddhas 85

LAMA PUTSE PEMA TASHI
48
PREFACE
Welcome to Dharma Spring. And welcome to our first e-book anthology
of excerpts from some of our favorite books by Buddhist teachers and
writers.
For us at Dharma Spring this book celebrates the beginning of a journey as we put the finishing touches on our new website (www.dharmaspring.com), which will be available in October. Our site will provide
an array of book excerpts, interviews, book reviews, book round-ups
on specific topics as well as original essays and interviews with authors
and teachers whose works we feature. Our online bookstore will offer
a broad selection of books for those new to meditation and long-time
practitioners of Buddhism alike, from publishers large and small.
This e-book is also a gift to thank you for joining us on this journey. This
particular e-book covers a lot of ground, introducing you to the breadth
of topics well explore on our website. Future e-book anthologies will
focus on specific topics such as working with emotions, specific meditation practices, common obstacles to practice, and more.
If youre interested in Dharma Spring and want to get advanced access
to our sitea private viewingplease let us know. Were open to your
ideas and suggestions about how we can improve the website. Tell us
what you think at info@dharmaspring.com or contact me directly at
peter@dharmaspring.com.
Were looking forward to hearing from you.
Yours,
Peter Turner
Co-Founder
PART ONE
Where We Begin
Previous page: Photograph by Michael Wood. (Used by permission.) To see more of Michaels
work go to http://openingthegoodeyebook.com/.
Our True Home

The Path of
Lovingkindess
Sharon Salzberg
EDITORS NOTE: We often feel a deep sense of isolation from ourselves and
from others. But that is not our true nature. Our true nature lies in our deep,
subtle connection with others, a connection born out of a truly felt sense of our
own fundamental goodness. This quality, while inherent, requires cultivation
and a path to follow. This path, as Sharon Salzberg so beautifully describes in
Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness, leads to the liberation of
the heart which is love.
hroughout our lives we long to love ourselves more deeply

and to feel connected with others. Instead, we often contract,
fear intimacy, and suffer a bewildering sense of separation. We
crave love, and yet we are lonely. Our delusion of being separate
from one another, of being apart from all that is around us, gives
rise to all of this pain. What is the way out of this?
The Buddha taught a systematic, integrated

path that moves the heart out of isolating
contraction into true connection.
11
Spiritual practice, by uprooting our personal mythologies

of isolation, uncovers the radiant, joyful heart within each of
us and manifests this radiance to the world. We find, beneath
the wounding concepts of separation, a connection both to ourselves and to all beings. We find a source of great happiness that
is beyond concepts and beyond convention. Freeing ourselves
from the illusion of separation allows us to live in a natural freedom rather than be driven by preconceptions about our own
boundaries and limitations.
The Buddha described the spiritual path that leads to this
freedom as the liberation of the heart which is love, and he
taught a systematic, integrated path that moves the heart out
of isolating contraction into true connection. That path is still
with us as a living tradition of meditation practices that cultivate love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. These
four qualities are among the most beautiful and powerful states
of consciousness we can experience. Together they are called in
Pali, the language spoken by the Buddha, the brahma-viharas.
Brahma means heavenly. Vihara means abode or home.
By following this path we learn to develop skillful

mental states and let go of unskillful ones.
The brahma-viharaslove, compassion, sympathetic joy,
and equanimityare a precious gift, and the opportunity to
practice them is the legacy of the Buddha. By following this path
we learn to develop skillful mental states and let go of unskillful
ones. The integrity we develop on a spiritual path comes from
being able to distinguish for ourselves the habits and influences
in the mind which are skillful and lead to love and awareness,
from those which are unskillful and reinforce our false sense of
separation. The Buddha once said:
12
Abandon what is unskillful. One can abandon the

unskillful. If it were not possible, I would not ask
you to do it. If this abandoning of the unskillful
would bring harm and suffering, I would not ask
you to abandon it. But as it brings benefit and happiness, therefore I say, abandon what is unskillful.
Cultivate the good. One can cultivate the good. If
it were not possible, I would not ask you to do it. If
this cultivation were to bring harm and suffering,
I would not ask you to do it. But as this cultivation
brings benefit and happiness, I say, cultivate the
good.
From Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness, by Sharon Salzberg, Forward
by Jon Kabat-Zinn (Shambhala Publications, 1995) Copyright 1995 by Sharon Salzberg.
All Rights Reserved.
13
Why Meditate?
Its a Fair Question
Sayadaw U Pandita
EDITORS NOTE: Why should we meditate? Its a question that arises

consciously or notevery time we sit down to practice. In a sense, its an ethical question in that it speaks to our relationship with other beings. We do not
practice meditation, Sayadaw U Pandita says, to gain admiration from anyone. Rather, we practice to contribute to peace in the world. We try to follow
the teachings of the Buddha, and take the instructions of trustworthy teachers,
in hopes that we too can reach the Buddhas state of purity. Having realized
this purity within ourselves, we can inspire others and share this Dhamma, this
truth.
There are many forms of meditation in the Buddhist tradition, but all of
them have as their root the cultivation of concentration, or one-pointedness
of attention. In his book In This Very Life, Sayadaw U Panditaa renowned
Burmese meditation masteroffers his basic instruction for those new to meditation. That said, even seasoned meditators will find subtle insight and nuance
here that is anything but basic.
o achieve peace of mind, we must make sure our body is at

peace. So it is important to choose a position that will be
comfortable for a long period of time. Sit with your back erect,
at a right angle to the ground, but not too stiff. The reason for
sitting straight is not difficult to see. An arched or crooked back
will soon bring pain. Furthermore, the physical effort to remain
Photograph by Michael Wood. (Used by permission.) To see more of Michaels work go

to http://openingthegoodeyebook.com/.
15
upright without additional support energizes the meditation

practice.
Close your eyes. Now place your attention at the belly, at the
abdomen. Breathe normally, not forcing your breathing, neither
slowing it down nor hastening it, just a natural breath. You will
become aware of certain sensations as you breathe in and the
abdomen rises, as you breathe out and the abdomen falls. Now
sharpen your aim and make sure that the mind is attentive to
the entirety of each process. Be aware from the very beginning of
all sensations involved in the rising. Maintain a steady attention
through the middle and the end of the rising. Then be aware of
the sensations of the falling movement of the abdomen from the
beginning, through the middle, and to the very end of the falling.
In this meditation it is very important

to have both effort and precise aim.
Although we describe the rising and falling as having a
beginning, a middle, and an end, this is only in order to show
that your awareness should be continuous and thorough. We do
not intend you to break these processes into three segments. You
should try to be aware of each of these movements from beginning to end as one complete process, as a whole. Do not peer at
the sensations with an over-focused mind, specifically looking to
discover how the abdominal movement begins or ends.
In this meditation it is very important to have both effort
and precise aim, so that the mind meets the sensation directly
and powerfully. An essential aid to precision and accuracy is to
make a soft mental note of the object of awareness, naming the
sensation by saying the word gently and silently in the mind, like
rising, rising . . . falling, falling.
There will be moments when the mind wanders off. You will
start to think of something. At this time, watch the mind! Be
aware that you are thinking. To clarify this to yourself, note the
16
thought silently with the verbal label thinking, thinking, and

come back to the rising and falling.
The same practice should be used for objects of awareness
that arise at any of what are called the six sense doors: eye, ear,
nose, tongue, body, and mind. Despite making an effort to do so,
no one can remain perfectly focused on the rising and falling of
the abdomen forever. Other objects inevitably arise and become
predominant. Thus, the sphere of meditation encompasses all
of our experiences: sights, sounds, smells, tastes, sensations in
the body, and mental objects such as visions in the imagination
or emotions. When any of these objects arise you should focus
direct awareness on them, and use a gentle verbal label spoken
in the mind.
During a sitting meditation, if another object impinges
strongly on the awareness so as to draw it away from the rising
and falling of the abdomen, this object must be clearly noted.
For example, if a loud sound arises during your meditation, consciously direct your attention toward that sound as soon as it
arises. Be aware of the sound as a direct experience, and also
identify it succinctly with the soft, internal verbal label hearing,
hearing. When the sound fades and is no longer predominant,
come back to the rising and falling. This is the basic principle to
follow in sitting meditation.
In making the verbal label, there is no need for complex
language. One simple word is best. For the eye, ear, and tongue
doors we simply say, Seeing, seeing . . . Hearing, hearing . . .
Tasting, tasting. For sensations in the body we may choose a
slightly more descriptive term like warmth, pressure, hardness,
or motion. Mental objects appear to present a bewildering diversity, but actually they fall into just a few clear categories such as
thinking, imagining, remembering, planning, and visualizing.
But remember that in using the labeling technique, your goal is
not to gain verbal skills. The labeling technique helps us to perceive clearly the actual qualities of our experience, without getting
immersed in the content. It develops mental power and focus. In
17
meditation we seek a deep, clear, precise awareness of the mind

and body. This direct awareness shows us the truth about our
lives, the actual nature of mental and physical processes.
Labeling helps us to perceive clearly the

actual qualities of our experience.
Meditation need not come to an end after an hour of sitting.
It can be carried out continuously through the day. When you
get up from sitting, you must note carefullybeginning with the
intention to open the eyes. Intending, intending . . . Opening,
opening. Experience the mental event of intending, and feel the
sensations of opening the eyes. Continue to note carefully and
precisely, with full observing power, through the whole transition of postures until the moment you have stood up, and when
you begin to walk.
Throughout the day you should also be aware of, and mentally note, all other activities, such as stretching, bending your
arm, taking a spoon, putting on clothes, brushing your teeth,
closing the door, opening the door, closing your eyelids, eating,
and so forth. All of these activities should be noted with careful awareness and a soft mental label. Apart from the hours of
sound sleep, you should try to maintain continuous mindfulness throughout your waking hours. Actually this is not a heavy
task; it is just sitting and walking and simply observing whatever
occurs.
From In This Very Life: The Liberation Teachings of the Buddha, by Sayadaw U Pandita (Wisdom Publications, 1995). Copyright 1991 The Saddhama Foundation. All Rights Reserved.
18
The Play of Feelings

At Rest in Neutral
Martine Batchelor
EDITORS NOTE: If you watch closely, calming your mind, you can see how
feelings arise and interact. Soon patterns emerge: we seem to gravitate toward
the extremes of pleasure or pain and ignore whats in between them. In her book
The Spirit of the Buddha, former Buddhist nun Martine Batchelor presents her
favorite selections from the Pali canonsuch as this one on pleasant, painful,
and neutral feelingsaccompanied by her own commentary.
Pleasant feeling is pleasant when it persists and

painful when it changes. Painful feeling is painful
when it persists and pleasant when it changes.
Neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling is pleasant
when there is knowledge of it and painful when
there is no knowledge of it.
(Majjhima Nikaya, 44)
pleasant feeling will continue to give us pleasure if it lasts,

but if it stops it will be transformed into an unpleasant feeling. A painful feeling will be perceived as painful the longer it
persists but will be felt as pleasant when it stops.
Neutral feelings are pleasant when we are aware of them and
unpleasant when we are not. If nothing special is happening to
19
us, nothing specifically joyful or painful, we do not feel much. If

we were aware of a feeling that is neither pleasant nor unpleasant, it could be deeply restful, because we actually feel calm and
tranquil.
Sometimes it seems that we prefer to have painful

feelings because they are somewhat exciting.
Because nothing special or extreme is happening, we can rest
and just be aware of being alive in this moment and do whatever
is required. We might feel this way at work or at home. It might
be easier to do our work in that state as nothing will interfere,
we will not be too anxious or excited, but stable and open in this
moment. At home we can use these moments to rest and breathe
for a short timewith nothing special to do, nothing special to be.
But if we do not cultivate mindfulness and we feel a neutral feeling, it can turn into an unpleasant feeling because of its
association with boredom. We will feel that nothing special is
happeningnothing especially good, nothing especially bad, and
from that we will often generate painful stories about being a
boring person, having a boring life, the world being boring, and
actually end up in a painful place. Sometimes it seems that we
prefer to have painful feelings because they are somewhat exciting and we seem to feel more alive in them than with neutral
feelings that we equate with nonexistence. The problem is not
with neutral feelings but with our relationship to them and our
interpretation of them.
From The Spirit of the Buddha, by Martine Batchelor (Yale University Press, 2010).
Copyright 2010 by Martine Batchelor. All rights reserved.
20
Leave No Trace
The Practice of Zen
Shunryu Suzuki
Editors Note: People who are new to meditation sometimes think its about
getting rid of our thoughts or at least not letting thoughts carry us away. Of
course, we have to thinkits the nature of the mind. But right thinking, writes
Shunryu Suzuki, does not leave any shadow of your relative confused mind.
This shadow or trace is what amplifies your thought, setting up a barrier
between your mind and the things you experience. When you do something,
Suzuki write, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving
no trace of yourself.
hen we do something with a simple, clear mind, we have

no notion or shadows, and our activity is strong and
straightforward. But when we do something with a complicated
mind, in relation to other things or people, or society, our activity becomes very complex.
Most people have a double or triple notion in one activity.
That kind of thinking always leaves its shadow on their activity.
The shadow is not actually the thinking itself. Of course it is often
necessary to think or prepare before we act. But right thinking
does not leave any shadow. Thinking that leaves a shadow comes
out of your relative confused mind. Relative mind is the mind that
sets itself in relation to other things, thus limiting itself. It is this
small mind that creates gaining ideas and leaves traces of itself.
21
When you do something you should burn yourself

completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace
of yourself.
If you leave a trace of your thinking on your activity, you will
be attached to the trace. For instance, you may say, This is what
I have done! But actually it is not so. In your recollection you
may say, I did such and such a thing in some certain way, but
actually that is never exactly what happened. When you think
in this way you limit the actual experience of what you have
done. So if you attach to the idea of what you have done, you are
involved in selfish ideas.
In order to not leave any traces, when you do something,
you should do it with your whole body and mind; you should be
concentrated on what you do. You should do it completely, like
a good bonfire. You should not be a smoky fire. You should burn
yourself completely. If you do not burn yourself completely, a
trace of yourself will be left in what you do. You will have something remaining that is not completely burned out. Zen activity
is activity that is completely burned out, with nothing remaining
but ashes. This is the goal of our practice.
From Zen Mind, Beginners Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki (Shambhala Publications, 2009).
Protected under the terms of the International Copyright Union. All Rights Reserved.
22
Overcoming Our
Resistance to Practice
Tulku Thondup
EDITORS NOTE: When we first begin to practice meditation, we may feel

great enthusiasm and inspiration. But sooner or later the excitement and
novelty wear off. We might lose our motivation and feel like giving up. Here
Tibetan Buddhist teacher and scholar Tulku Thondup offers gentle, encouraging advice on keeping going.
hen we start to do something meaningful and important,

such as meditation, excuses always come up that prevent
us from giving it our whole heart and attention.
We can fritter away days and nights on mindless diversions,
but when it comes time to meditate, suddenly all sorts of obligations, false expectations, or doubts arise. We might think, I
should be with my family, or I need to concentrate on making money, or I should be doing some social work. Or else we
doubt the meditation: Im not equipped for this. Maybe theres
a better method, and so forth. The self-deluding excuses are
endless.
Obstacles like these, both in daily life and in meditation, can
start as innocent imps but turn into destructive demons if we
are not careful. A few years after arriving in India as a refugee
from Tibet, I began to learn English. Whenever I picked up my
English reader, my concentration was always broken by such
23
If we feel resistance, one approach is simply to be

aware of the resistance, without judgment or guilt.
thoughts as, Its more important to pray and meditate than to
study English. Before I can learn English, I might be dead. At
death, nothing but positive habits of mind will benefit me. But
then when I prayed, messages would come into my head, such
as, Life is long, refugee life is hard, and in order to survive, I
must learn English.
I indulged in all kinds of feasts of laziness to avoid what was
good for me. It took a lot of time and effort to overcome my resistance to learning English when I was supposed to study it and
saying prayers when I was supposed to pray.
Overcoming such habitual tendencies, reprogramming my
mental habits, came as the result of long and consistent discipline through two methods: (1) vigilant mindfulness and (2)
applying the whip of right messages.
Mindfulness is the term Buddhists use to describe the giving
of oneself to the moment. Instead of worrying about the past or
planning for the future, we learn to feel at home in the present.
It is the most wonderful guardian of our well-being if we live this
way. So, no matter whether we are cutting the lawn or meditating, we should give ourselves completely to that. Our minds are
really most at home living fully like this, but it can take practice
before we learn to be in the present moment without chasing
after cravings or worries.
If we feel resistance to something, one approach is simply
to be aware of the resistance, without judgment or guilt. Then
we can ease into the activity slowly, with an open-hearted feeling that we will simply give ourselves to doing that. Its surprising how much we can learn to enjoy what were doing if we are
patient and open and if we just live in the present.
From Boundless Healing: Meditation Exercises to Enlighten the Mind and Heal the Body, by
Tulku Thondup (Shambhala Publications, 2001). Copyright 2000 Tulku Thondup Rinpoche.
All Rights Reserved.
24
Photograph by Michael Wood. (Used by permission.) To see more of Michaels work

go to http://openingthegoodeyebook.com/.
PART TWO
The Awakened View
Previous page: Photograph by Michael Wood. (Used by permission.) To see more of Michaels
Its Already Broken

The Cessation
of Suffering
Ajahn Chah
EDITORS NOTE: Great spiritual teachers often have an ability to convey

essential truths using the simplest of words and metaphors. Buddhist master
Ajahn Chah (19191992) had this gift. He was revered in his native Thailand,
where he founded nearly 200 monasteries, and he was instrumental in bringing Theravada Buddhism to the West, having inspired and mentored many
Western Buddhist teachers including Ajahn Sumedho, Ajahn Amaro, and Jack
Kornfield. Ajahn Chahs teaching, wrote Kornfield, was done in the reality of
the moment, by example, by metaphor, by the aliveness of dialogue. His teaching was direct and honest, with no holds barred. It is hard to wholly capture the
vitality of his teaching in words.
an you prevent something thats breakable from breaking?

You say, Dont break my glass! If it doesnt break now,
it will break later on. If you dont break it, someone else will.
The Buddha says to accept this. He penetrated the truth of these
things, seeing that this glass is already broken. Whenever you
use this glass you should reflect that its already broken. Do you
understand this? The Buddhas understanding was like this. He
saw the broken glass within the unbroken one. Whenever its
time is up, it will break. Develop this kind of understanding. Use
29
the glass, look after it, until when, one day, it slips out of your
handsmash!No problem. Why is there no problem? Because
you saw its brokenness before it broke.
Whenever you use this glass you should reflect

that its already broken.
But usually people say, I love this glass so much, may it
never break. Later on the dog breaks it. Ill kill that damn dog!
You hate the dog for breaking your glass. If one of your children breaks it, youll hate them too. Why is this? Because youve
dammed yourself up, the water cant flow. Youve made a dam
without a spillway. The only thing the dam can do is burst, right?
When you make a dam you must make a spillway also. When the
water rises up too high, the water can flow off safely. When its
full to the brim you open your spillway. You have to have a safety
valve like this. Impermanence is the safety valve of the Noble
Ones. If you have this safety valve you will be at peace.
If we really see uncertainty clearly, we will see that which is
certain. The certainty is that things must inevitably be this way,
they cannot be otherwise. Do you understand? Knowing just this
much you can know the Buddha, you can rightly do reverence to
him. As long as you dont throw out the Buddha you wont suffer.
As soon as you throw out the Buddha you will experience suffering. As soon as you throw out the reflections on Transience,
Imperfection, and Ownerlessness youll have suffering. If you
can practice just this much its enough; suffering wont arise, or
if it does arise you can settle it easily, and it will be a cause for
suffering not arising in the future. This is the end of our practice,
at the point where suffering doesnt arise. And why doesnt suffering arise? Because we have sorted out the cause of suffering.
For instance, if this glass were to break, normally you would
experience suffering. We know that this glass will be a cause for
suffering, so we get rid of the cause. All dhammas arise because
30
of a cause. They must also cease because of a cause. Now if there

is suffering on account of this glass here, we should let go of this
cause. If we reflect beforehand that this glass has already broken,
even when it hasnt, the cause ceases. When there is no longer
any cause, that suffering is no longer able to exist, it ceases. This
is cessation.
From Not for Sure: Two Dhamma Talks by Ajahn Chah, (available in its entirety free
for use) translated from the Thai by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, from A Theravada Library, edited
by Access to Insight. Access to Insight (Legacy Edition), 30 November 2013.
Copyright 2005 by Access to Insight. All Rights Reserved Under the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International.

31
The Good News

Ethan Nichtern
EDITORS NOTE: We are all weary commuters in search of the road that leads
home, restlessly seeking what it turns out we already have. The metaphor is not
at all new, but Ethan Nichterns approach to exploring the road map of the Buddhist path feels original and alive. Nichtern, a senior teacher or Shastri in the
Shambhala tradition, has written a new book brimming with freshness, new
angles of perspective, and a provocative and culturally relevant lens through
which to see this map of the road home.
ur lives and societies certainly generate a lot of bad news

for anyone brave enough to pay attention. Its a mark of
great maturity to realize that we cant become properly optimistic
about life, and cant take responsibility for the state of the world,
until were willing to very honestly face the confused side of our
situation. This honesty is where the road home has to begin. The
historical Buddha first taught about the truth of dissatisfaction
that comes from not knowing how to deal with our own mind to a
group of intensely depressed spiritual seekers who were literally
torturing themselves in the pursuit of happiness.
Given this context, Ive always thought that the Buddhas
description of our dissatisfaction with the commute through
life was simply meant to create a moment of honesty and relief
in which his students could admit that they were having a hard
time. This is my favorite phrasing of the first noble truth: Its

33
Its always okay to admit you are struggling.

always okay to admit you are struggling. Why are we struggling
so much? To reinterpret the second noble truth in the language of
home: people struggle because we dont know where we belong,
and we always assume that home lies somewhere other than
here and now, a mistake that sets us on an exhausting commute.
From The Road Home: A Contemporary Exploration of the Buddhist Path, by Ethan Nichtern
(North Point Press, 2015). Copyright 2015 Ethan Nichtern. All rights reserved.
34
Dont Blink
Facing Impermanence
Dainin Katagiri
EDITORS NOTE: There are some Buddhist teachers who have a knack for
putting words together in a way that is especially potent. Think of teachers
such Chgyam Trungpa with phrases like spiritual materialism and idiot
compassion, or Pema Chdrns start where you are or dont bite the hook.
Zen master Dainin Katagiri (19281990) has a different sort of language style
when it comes to teaching. Though he was not a native English speakeror
maybe partly because ofhe puts words together in a way that can seem odd
at first, as if they dont quite make sense. But yet they do.
aybe you think that if you practice zazen, you will find paradise. This is just your mind. When you do zazen, dont have
any expectations. You dont know what will happen. Zen masters always tell you, Dont expect enlightenmentjust sit! But
have you experienced doing zazen in that way? You always look
at your zazen and say to yourself, Whats the matter with my
zazen? Hey, dont sleep! But sleep is always waiting for you; a
dizzy mind is always waiting for you.
It is the momentary structure of time that makes you talk
to yourself that way. Impermanence creates a gap that makes
your mind blink, so you want to escape. When you find it difficult
to practice zazen, youre blinking. But dont escape! You cant
escape the cruelty of impermanence, which is always cutting off
35
your life, so watch yourself carefully when you realize that youre
blinking. Try to face impermanence directly, with a way-seeking
mind. I dont mean you shouldnt blink your eyes in zazen; thats
okay. But, as much as possible, try to go ahead. Take one step
without blinking your mind. Turn your mind away from the gap
you sense from impermanence, and turn toward true impermanence. Stare at reality face-to-face, without blinking, and become
yourself with open eyes. This is the Buddhas practice.
Impermanence creates a gap that makes your

mind blink.
When you practice zazen, no matter how you feel, just concentrate on breathing, without thinking, My concentration is
good, or My concentration is poor. Whatever you feel, dont
worry about it. Take care of your breathing with wholeheartedness. Thats enough. Just to follow this practice is to live a significant life. Maybe you dont think so, but its true. After you understand this point, if you are willing to practice zazen, thats good;
I recommend that you practice. At that time you can settle on
yourself with dignity, like a big mountain, and start to walk, stepby-step. But if you dont understand the fundamental nature of
impermanence, and think there is something you can get from
the practice of zazen, you will find despair.
Zazen doesnt give you somethingits the complete opposite! In zazen you will find many things about yourself that you
never noticed before, things you did not want to see, so you hid
them under many layers of decoration. When you start to practice zazen, something leads you to gradually take those layers off.
What leads you to take off your layers day in day out? Impermanence takes them off. Whether you like it or dislike it, the more
you practice, the more layers of decoration you remove, without
any reservation. Sometimes you feel sad or pensive when you
36
remove decorations and see zazen in its naked nature, because

you realize the gap between your mind, which wants or expects
something, and zazen itself. But thats all right. Just try to take
one step forward without blinking, without falling to the ground.
If you plunge into zazen and experience something unexpected,
dont attach yourself to what you feel from that experience. All
you have to do is take care of your posture and breathing with
a kind, considerate, and thoughtful spirit. If you practice hard,
and one by one remove the layers that cover you, finally there
is nothing left to take off and nothing that separates you from
other beings.
Without your layers of decoration, you are a person who is
completely transparent, you have no form. You cannot say who
you are, because there is nothing there: no concept of you, no
concept of zazen. When there is no concept of you or zazen, there
is just transiency, just time. So you are not you, you are time.
Thats all! You may be surprised or upset. But if you just watch
yourself with a calm mind, you can see the truth that everything
changes moment after moment. At that time, you can realize
yourself as a human being who exists in the domain of impermanence, attain enlightenment, and save yourself from suffering.
From Each Moment is the Universe: Zen and the Way of Being Time, by Dainin Katagiri
(Shambhala Publications, 2007). Copyright 2007 by Minnesota Zen Meditation Center.
All rights reserved.
37
Your Practice is
to Eat Your Life
Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel
EDITORS NOTE: Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel has a fresh, clear, no-nonsense

approach to the Buddhist teachings. She is a longtime student and teacher of
Tibetan Buddhism under her husband, the Tibetan master Dzigar Kongtrul.
Here she boils the teaching down to one core instruction: learn how to digest
your life.
s we study the life of the Buddha we realize that he asked

basic human questions about happiness, suffering, freedom
from suffering, compassion, interdependence, death, life, and
the nature of things. But if we were to pare all these questions
down into one essential question, we might come up with something like this: how do we take in the world of things? That is,
how do we process the continuous stream of occurrences that
arise in our life? How do we digest experience?
When we eat, we ingest, process, and eliminate food. Our
bodies use food as fuel for life and eliminate what is no longer
useful. It would be great to say that we digested our experience
with such ease. But there is something about being human that
doesnt come naturally to us. We cant seem to take experience
in, let it work on us, and then let it go. Either we refuse to ingest
experiencein which case our life doesnt nourish usor we

39
hold on to experience until it turns toxic. The struggle we have

with experience gives us mental and emotional indigestion.
Life presents itself to us, but wed often prefer to live in fantasy. Wed rather not ingest our experienceeat our lifein the
way that it presents itself to us. Wed rather be someone else,
somewhere else, having a different experience. We may wonder:
Why should we take in the fullness of life? That means we have
to take in sadness, uncertainty, and fear. Why cant we just take
in whatever makes us comfortable? Yet this very attitude toward
our experience points to the struggle we have with our world.
All the disappointment we encounter when

nothing special comes our way directs us to
the point of practice.
There is no life without experience. Life and experience are
synonymous. Life just unfolds, so we cant reject experience the
way we can food. But we can fight it tooth and nail. And this is
what I am talking about here. We can turn on the news and not
really hear the names of the soldiers who died in Iraq that day.
We can blame others for all the conflict in our lives and never
learn to self-reflect or resolve a situation creatively. We can vent
our emotions all over the placeand in doing so we may imagine
that we are responding directly to life. But do we really let life
in this way? Or, in reacting, are we keeping life at bay? And if
we keep our life at a distance, how can it nourish us? How can
it move through us? How can we absorb it and let it work its
magic?
When we look at any of the accomplished masters of our lineage, we never see them struggle with conceptual or emotional
indigestion in the way we do. They take in all experience with
one taste, utilizing everything as food for realization. Experience
moves through their bodies, through their awareness, and nourishes them. The great masters are always eating, and whatever
40
they eat generates boundless energy, intelligence, and compassion. It turns out that practice accomplishment is nothing more
than learning to be natural with our experiencenot unlike the
bodys natural ability to digest food.
As practitioners we might wonder: What would it be like to
be so natural, so ordinary? We should ask this question again
and again, because it does away with all the fluffy fantasies we
have about spirituality; all this waiting for something special to
happen; all the excitement we feel when something unexplainable occurs; all the disappointment we encounter when nothing
special comes our way. It directs us to the point of practice: finding contentment in being fully human, natural, and ordinary.
From The Power of an Open Question: The Buddhas Path to Freedom, by Elizabeth
Mattis-Namgyel (Shambhala Publications, 2010). Copyright 2010 Elizabeth
Mattis-Namgyel. All rights reserved.
41
Developing a
Different Attitude
Toward Problems
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
EDITORS NOTE: Heres a deeply encouraging teaching from Tibetan Buddhist master Zopa Rinpoche on learning to welcome our problems because they
are actually the source of our awakening.
n this challenging modern time with many problems and much

unhappiness, human beings are especially overwhelmed by
suffering, and their minds are not resilient. This is because they
are unable to recognize as beneficial the problems and harm
they experience and to see these problems as causes of happiness. Human beings who have not encountered the Dharma are
unable to recognize this and unable to train their minds in this
recognition.
Instead of seeing all the problems you experiencewhether
caused by living beings or by situations and circumstancesas
problems, you need to develop the habit of recognizing them all
as beneficial conditions supporting happiness, and in fact being
causes of happiness. But you cant change your perception all at
once. You must begin by trying to recognize small problems as
beneficial, then gradually, as you become more accustomed to
Photograph by Julie DuBose. Used by permission. To see more of Julies work, please
visit http://effortlessbeautybook.com/.
43
this, you can start to recognize larger, more serious problems as

good, even pleasurable, and ultimately necessary for your happiness. You will see everything that disturbs you as essential for
achieving happiness.
When you feel happy to have problems, they no

longer become obstacles to enlightenment.
But make no mistake: The practice of thought transformation
is not intended to eliminate problems but rather to enable you to
use the problems you experience to train your mind to move step
by step along the path to enlightenment and ultimate happiness.
It is not that you will no longer receive harm from other people,
or from circumstances, or from disease and old age; you will simply not be disturbed by anything that happens. The events that
the untrained mind perceives as problems cannot in and of themselves disturb your practice of the Dharma; they cannot prevent
your attainment of the realizations of the path to enlightenment.
In fact, when you practice thought transformation, not only do
problems not disturb you, they actually help you to develop your
mind and continue your Dharma practice.
How do you use problems in support of your Dharma practice and your attainment of happiness? You have to train your
mind in two ways. First, you stop the thought of complete aversion to suffering, and, second, you generate the thought of welcoming problems. When you have accomplished this and actually feel happy rather than unhappy to have problems, problems
no longer become obstacles to generating the path to enlightenment within your mind.
From Transforming Problems into Happiness, by Lama Zopa Rinpoche (Wisdom
Publications, 2001). Copyright 2001 Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche. All rights reserved.
44
Already Buddha
Josho Pat Phelan
EDITORS NOTE: Most of us come to meditation hoping to fix something about

ourselves or our livesto become calmer or better in some way. Zen priest Josho
Pat Phelan, abbot of the Chapel Hill Zen Center in North Carolina, reminds us
that in the Buddhist view theres no need to improve ourselves.
ost of us are drawn to practice meditation out of a sense

that something is missing from our lives. We may feel a lot
of stress or tension and want to become calm. We may have a
bad habit, like smoking, that we want to stop, and we think that
sitting meditation may give us the support we need. Or we may
come to practice out of mental or emotional pain or frustration.
When we practice, we are just expressing our

awakened quality of being.
I would be suspicious if someone told me that they had a
strong conviction that they were Buddha, and they wanted to
begin practicing meditation in order to realize their Buddhaness. From our human point of view, most of us are motivated to
practice out of pain or a deep need to change our lives. But, from
Buddhas point of view, we are already Buddha, and when we
45
practice, we are just expressing our awakened quality of being.

We have unconditioned nature, we are unconditioned nature;
but at the same time, most of us are ignorant of our unconditioned being.
In order to actualize the Buddha we already are, or to complete the activity of being Buddha, we need to practice. We dont
have to be in a meditation hall to practice. Our practice is not
even dependent on meditation. Since we are already Buddha, we
can never leave the environment of practice.
From Polishing a Tile, Actualizing a Mirror, in Receiving the Marrow: Teachings on Dogen
by Soto Zen Women Priests, edited by Eido Frances Carney (Temple Ground Press, 2012).
Copyright 2012 Temple Ground Press. All Rights Reserved.
46
Photograph by Michael Wood. (Used by permission.) To see more of Michaels work go to

http://openingthegoodeyebook.com/.
48
PART THREE
The Path of Meditation
49
Previous page: Photograph by Julie DuBose. Used by permission. To see more of Julies work,
please visit http://effortlessbeautybook.com/.
Stopping, Calming,
Resting, Healing
Thich Nhat Hanh
EDITORS NOTE: Shamatha (calm abiding) and vipashyana (looking

deeply, or insight) are often described as the two wings of a bird, two fundamental qualities that must be cultivated and balanced in the practice of meditation. Here, Thich Nhat Hanh focuses on shamatha and how it functions in
creating the environment for insight. While shamatha is sometimes translated
as stopping, its not so much about completely ceasing having thoughtsthis
would be impossible. Shamatha, Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us, means stopping
in the sense of not being carried away by our emotions and habit energies every
time a thought arises.
uddhist meditation has two aspectsshamatha and vipashyana. We tend to stress the importance of vipashyana (looking deeply) because it can bring us insight and liberate us from
suffering and afflictions. But the practice of shamatha (stopping) is fundamental. If we cannot stop, we cannot have insight.
We have to learn the art of stoppingstopping our thinking, our habit energies (vashana), our forgetfulness, the strong
emotions that rule us. When an emotion rushes through us like
storm, we have no peace. We turn on the TV and then turn it off.
We pick up a book and then we put it down. How can we stop this
state of agitation? How can we stop our despair, anger, and craving? We can stop by practicing mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful smiling, and deep looking in order to understand.
51
When we are mindful, touching deeply the present moment, the

fruits are always understanding, acceptance, love, and the desire
to relieve suffering and bring joy.
We have to learn the art of stoppingstopping

our thinking, our habit energies, our forgetfulness,
the strong emotions that rule us.
But our habit energies are often stronger than our volition.
We say and do things we dont want to and afterwards regret it.
We make ourselves and others suffer, and we bring about a lot of
damage. We may vow not to do it again, but we do it again. Why?
Because our habit energies push us.
We need the energy of mindfulness to recognize and be present with our habit energy in order to stop this course of destruction. With mindfulness, we have the capacity to recognize the
habit energy every time it manifests. Hello, my habit energy, I
know you are there! If we just smile to it, it will lose much of its
strength. Mindfulness is the energy that allows us to recognize
our habit energy and prevent it from dominating us. The first
function of shamatha is to stop.
The second function of shamatha is calming. When we have a
strong emotion, we know it can be dangerous to act, but we dont
have the strength or clarity to refrain. We have to learn the art
of breathing in and out, stopping our activities, and calming our
emotions. We have to learn to become solid and stable like an oak
tree, and not be blown from side to side by the storm. The Buddha
taught many techniques to help us calm our body and mind and
look deeply at them. They can be summarized in five stages:
1. R
ecognitionIf we are angry, we say, I know that anger is
in me.
2. AcceptanceWhen we are angry, we do not deny it. We
accept what is present.
52
3. E
mbracingWe hold our anger in our two arms like a
mother holding her crying baby. Our mindfulness embraces
our emotion, and this alone can calm our anger and ourselves.
4. Looking deeplyWhen we are calm enough, we can look
deeply to understand what has brought this anger to be, what
is causing our babys discomfort.
5. InsightThe fruit of looking deeply is understanding the
many causes and conditions, primary and secondary, that
have brought about our anger, that are causing our baby to
cry. Perhaps our baby is hungry. Perhaps his diaper pin is
piercing his skin. Our anger was triggered when our friend
spoke to us meanly, and suddenly we remember that he was
not at his best today because his father is dying. We reflect
like this until we have some insights into what has caused our
suffering. With insight, we know what to do and what not to
do to change the situation.
After calming, the third function of shamatha is resting.
Suppose someone standing alongside a river throws a pebble in
the air and it falls down into the river. The pebble allows itself to
sink slowly and reach the riverbed without any effort. Once the
pebble is at the bottom, it continues to rest, allowing the water to
pass by. When we practice sitting meditation we can allow ourselves to rest just like that pebble. We can allow ourselves to sink
naturally into the position of sitting resting, without effort. We
have to learn the art of resting, allowing our body and mind to
rest. If we have wounds in our body or in our mind, we have to
rest so they can heal themselves.
Stopping, calming, and resting are preconditions for healing. If we cannot stop, the course of our destruction will just continue. The world needs healing. Individuals, communities, and
nations need healing.
From The Heart of the Buddhas Teaching, by Thich Nhat Hanh (Harmony, 1999).
Copyright 1998, 2015 by Unified Buddhist Church, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
53
Mindfulness
of the Breath
Joseph Goldstein
EDITORS NOTE: In his brilliant recent book, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide

to Awakeninga commentary on the Satipatthana SuttaJoseph Goldstein
singles out this line from the text: Unify the practice of meditation with its
goal, and one abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world. This
line encapsulates the entire path. Satipatthana, which Goldstein translates as
The Four Ways of Establishing Mindfulness, is a key text in the Theravada
tradition and fundamental to understanding vipassana, or insight meditation.
Here, Goldstein unpacks the first of the four foundations, the body (the others
being feelings, mind, and phenomena).
n the Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha gives a series of progressive instructions regarding the breath, which is the first of the
contemplations on the body.
Here, and in many other discourses, the Buddha is pointing us to an invaluable, and often overlooked, treasure: our own
breath.
Bhikkhus, when mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated, is of great fruit and great
benefit. When mindfulness of breathing is developed
and cultivated, it fulfils the four foundations of
mindfulness. When the four foundations of mind-
Photograph by Julie DuBose. Used by permission. To see more of Julies work,

55
fulness are developed and cultivated, they fulfil

the seven enlightenment factors. When the seven
enlightenment factors are developed and cultivated,
they fulfil true knowledge and deliverance.
The humble breath is such a good object of meditation
because it is always present and it is a suitable object for all
personality types. It leads to both deep concentration and penetrative insight. It is the antidote to distraction and discursive
thoughts, and it is a stabilizing factor at the time of death.
The refinement of the breath can become the

vehicle for a further refinement of mind.
We start the practice with the simple awareness, I know Im
breathing in. I know Im breathing out. Were not forcing or controlling the breath in any way. As we breathe in, we know were
breathing in; when we breathe out, we know were breathing out.
Its very simple, although perhaps not so easy at first. The mind
will have a tendency to get carried away by plans and memories
and judgments and commentsall kinds of mental proliferation.
But each time we notice that were not on the breath, in this part
of the practice, we simply gently let go and begin again.
In the second set of instructions on mindfulness of breathing, the Buddha says, Breathing in long, one knows, I breathe
in long. Breathing in short, one knows, I breathe in short. The
idea here is not to control the breath in any way, but simply to
notice how it is. Just this exercise can help to decondition the
pattern of controlling the breath. We are just being mindful
of how each breath presents itself, whether long or short. The
instruction is a reminder that this is not a breathing exercise, but
a training in mindfulness. Any kind of breath will do.
56
At times the breath can become very refined, sometimes even

imperceptible. We shouldnt try to make the breath stronger in
order to be able to feel it. Rather, let the breath draw the mind
down to its own level of subtlety. It is like listening to someone
playing a flute as they walk off into the distance. The refinement
of the breath can become the vehicle for a further refinement of
mind. At those times when it really does disappear, and we cant
feel it at all, simply be aware of the body sitting until the breath
appears again by itself.
From Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, by Joseph Goldstein
(Sounds True, 2013). Copyright 2013 Joseph Goldstein. All rights reserved.
57
Antidote for
a Distracted Mind
Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
EDITORS NOTE: Regardless of whether we are new to mindfulness meditation or are seasoned practitioners, we all experience distractions that break our
concentration and our ability to cultivate mindfulness. Actually, losing our concentrationbecoming mindlessis an inevitable part of the practice of meditation. Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg, says Beginning again and again
is the actual practice, not a problem to overcome. Here, Bhante Henepola
Gunaratana, a monk and revered meditation teacher in the Theravada tradition, offers one of his favorite techniques for working with the distracted mind.
t some time, every meditator encounters distractions during

practice, and methods are needed to deal with them. Many
useful strategies have been devised to get you back on track more
quickly than that of trying to push your way through by sheer
force of will.
Concentration and mindfulness go hand in hand. Each one
complements the other. If either one is weak, the other will eventually be affected. Bad days are usually characterized by poor
concentration. Your mind just keeps floating around. You need
a method of reestablishing your concentration, even in the face
of mental adversity. Luckily, you have it. In fact, you can choose
from an array of traditional practical maneuvers.
Some thoughts just wont go away. We humans are obsessional beings. Its one of our biggest problems. We tend to lock
59
onto things like sexual fantasies and worries and ambitions. We

feed those thought complexes over years of time and give them
plenty of exercise by playing with them in every spare moment.
Then when we sit down to meditate, we order them to go away
and leave us alone. It is scarcely surprising that they dont obey.
Persistent thoughts like these require a direct approach, a
full-scale frontal attack. Buddhist psychology has developed a
distinct system of classification. Rather than dividing thoughts
into classes like good and bad, Buddhist thinkers prefer
to regard them as skillful versus unskillful. An unskillful
thought is one connected with greed, hatred, or delusion. These
are the thoughts that the mind most easily builds into obsessions. They are unskillful in the sense that they lead you away
from the goal of liberation. Skillful thoughts, on the other hand,
are those connected with generosity, compassion, and wisdom.
You can find a specific antidote for any troubling

thought if you just think about it awhile.
They are skillful in the sense that they may be used as specific remedies for unskillful thoughts, and thus can assist you in
moving toward liberation. You cannot condition liberation. It
is not a state built out of thoughts. Nor can you condition the
personal qualities that liberation produces. Thoughts of benevolence can produce a semblance of benevolence, but its not the
real item. It will break down under pressure. Thoughts of compassion produce only superficial compassion.
Therefore, these skillful thoughts will not, in themselves,
free you from the trap. They are skillful only if applied as antidotes to the poison of unskillful thoughts. Thoughts of generosity can temporarily cancel greed. They kick it under the rug long
enough for mindfulness to do its work unhindered. Then, when
mindfulness has penetrated to the roots of the ego process, greed
evaporates and true generosity arises.
60
This principle can be used on a day-to-day basis in your own

meditation. If a particular sort of obsession is troubling you, you
can cancel it out by generating its opposite. Here is an example:
If you absolutely hate Charlie, and his scowling face keeps popping into your mind, try directing a stream of love and friendliness toward Charlie, or try contemplating his good qualities. You
probably will get rid of the immediate mental image. Then you
can get on with the job of meditation.
Generosity cancels greed. Benevolence and

compassion cancel hatred.
Sometimes this tactic alone doesnt work. The obsession is
simply too strong. In this case youve got to weaken its hold on
you somewhat before you can successfully balance it out. Here
is where guilt, one of mans most misbegotten emotions, finally
serves a purpose. Take a good strong look at the emotional
response you are trying to get rid of. Actually ponder it. See how
it makes you feel. Look at what it is doing to your life, your happiness, your health, and your relationships. Try to see how it
makes you appear to others. Look at the way it is hindering your
progress toward liberation.
This step may end the problem all by itself. If it doesnt, then
balance out the lingering remainder of the obsession by once again
generating its opposite emotion. Thoughts of greed cover everything connected with desire, from outright avarice for material
gain, all the way to a subtle need to be respected as a moral person.
Thoughts of hatred run the gamut from pettiness to murderous rage. Delusion covers everything from daydreaming to fullblown hallucinations. Generosity cancels greed. Benevolence
and compassion cancel hatred. You can find a specific antidote
for any troubling thought if you just think about it awhile.
From Mindfulness in Plain English, by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana (Wisdom
Publications, 1991). Copyright 2011 Bhante Henepola Gunaratana. All rights reserved.
61
Meeting Self-Criticism
With Lovingkindness
Ajahn Sumedho
EDITORS NOTE: We tend to bring high hopes and expectations to our meditation practice. We come looking for greater peace of mind, greater happiness.
Theravadin monk Ajahn Sumedho explains that if everything goes right, you
will meet all kinds of mental states in your practice, including self-hatred and
anger. Meditation offers us a new way of facing those feelings we normally
avoid or repress.
e always start metta (or loving-kindness) practice with

ourselves. We say, May I be at peace. May I be happy or
contented. May I be at ease with whatever is going on in my mind
and body. It is not difficult to be at ease with ourselves when
everything is going well, but when things are not, we tend to try
to annihilate the things we dont like in ourselves.
People come to me all the time asking, How do I get rid of
anger? How do I get rid of jealousy? How do I get rid of greed
and lust? How do I get rid of fear? How do I get rid of everything? I could go to a psychiatrist, maybe; he might help me get
rid of it. Or sometimes we practice meditation to get rid of all
these awful things, so that we can achieve blissful states of mind
and bodhisattva-like visions. We hope we will never have those
nasty feelings ever again. On the one hand, there is hope and

63
longing to be happy. On the other hand, there is resentment and

the reaction of disgust and aversion to our hellish, unpleasant
mental states.
People can be very self-critical, very self-disparaging. When
I ask, Do you practice metta? the people who disparage themselves the most, who really need to practice metta, are the ones
who say they cant stand it. This ability to criticize ourselves
sounds like we are being terribly honest, doesnt it? We have intelligent, critical minds, so we think about ourselves in very negative
ways. We criticize ourselves because a lot of the things we have
done in the past come up in the presentmemories, tendencies,
or habitsand they dont live up to what we would like them to
Through acceptance the mind goes through a kind

of catharsis in which all the negativity manifests
and passes away.
be. Likewise, we dont live up to what we think we should be.
When I was trying to be a good monk, I was desperately
trying to live up to an ideal. I could do that to a certain degree.
Through the life we live as monks and the restrictions on it, we
are restrained from involving ourselves in heavy karmic activities. However, we still have to face the repressed emotional fears
and desires of the mindwe really cant get away with anything
in this life. As monks, we must also be willing to allow even the
most unpleasant, awful things to attain a conscious state, and we
must confront these things. In meditation, we allow things that
weve turned away from or rejected to take conscious form. In
order to do this, we must develop metta, the attitude of patience
and kindness toward these repressed fears and doubts, and
toward our own anger.
When I was newly ordained, I thought of myself as a very
good-natured person who wasnt very angry and didnt hate people. But after ordination when I started meditating, I began to
feel vast amounts of hatred for everybody, and I thought, This
64
meditation is making me into a demon! I had thought, Ill go

and meditate, live out in the jungle alone, get very calm, and be
able to communicate with celestial beings and stay in a high state
of bliss. Instead, when I first started meditating as a novice, the
first two months were nothing but unmitigated aversion. I hated
everyone I could think of. I even hated the people I loved, and I
hated myself.
I began to see that this was a side of myself that had been
repressed, expelled from my consciousness, by the ideal image
of myself that I had tried to hold on to. I had never allowed real
hatred, aversion, disappointment, or despair to be fully conscious; I had always reacted to them.
Before I was ordained, I had a general weariness and despair
with regard to social situations that arose because I had been living on the level of smiles and pleasant greetings. I had been getting along socially in a superficial way, so I had never allowed the
fears and hatred to take a conscious form. In meditation, when I
could no longer stop them, all these repressed feelings began to
arise in consciousness.
There was resistance to them, of course, because that was
the way I had always dealt with those conditions: How do I get
rid of them? How can I stop them? Oh, I shouldnt be feeling
like this; its disgusting! After all theyve done for me, and I
still hate them. These feelings made me hate myself. So instead
of trying to stop them, I had to learn to accept them. And it was
only through acceptance that the mind was able to go through
a kind of catharsis in which all the negativity manifestedand
passed away.
From The Mind and the Way: Buddhist Reflections on Life, by Ajahn Sumedho (Wisdom
Publications, 1994). 1995, 2011 English Sangha Trust. All rights reserved.
65
A Still, Peaceful Mind

The Practice of Zazen
John Daido Loori
EDITORS NOTE: There have been hundredsmaybe thousandsof books

published on Zen practice, the Buddhist tradition that Bodhidharma famously
declared as a special transmission outside the scriptures . . . not relying on
words or letters. That said, if youre going to read one book on Zen, you cant
go wrong with Daido Loori Roshis Finding the Still Point. Its short, practical,
to the point, and from the heart. Heres an excerpt from Daidos introduction.
here are many schools of Buddhism and a vast array of

teachings on how to realize our true nature. Some schools
focus on the rules of conduct. Others concentrate on academic
study and debate. Still others use visualizations and chanting of
sacred sounds and words. In Zen, the emphasis is on zazen, or
sitting Zen. Zazen is the heart of the Zen path.
To practice zazen is to study the self. In its early stages, zazen
has the appearance of what is normally called meditation. But we
should understand that zazen is more than just meditation. It is
not mere contemplation or introspection. It is not quieting the
mind or focusing the mind. Zazen is sitting Zenone aspect of
Zen. There is also walking Zen, working Zen, laughing Zen, and
crying Zen. Zen is a way of using ones mind and living ones life,
and doing this with other people. No rule book has ever been

67
written that can adequately describe Zen. You have to go very

deep into yourself to find its foundations.
The great Zen Master Eihei Dogen said:
To study the Buddha Way is to study the self,
To study the self is to forget the self,
To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten
thousand things.
To study the self is zazen. To forget the self is zazen. To be
enlightened by the ten thousand things is zazenit is to recognize the unity of the self and the whole phenomenal universe.
Zazen is a very simple practice. It is very easy to describe
and very easy to follow. But like all practices, it takes doing in
order for anything to happen. And what happens with zazen can
transform our lives.
A still mind is unobstructed always open

and receptive.
Most of us spend our time preoccupied. We are constantly
carrying on an internal dialogue. While we are involved in talking
to ourselves, we miss the moment-to-moment awareness of our
life. We look, but we dont see. We listen, but we dont hear. We
eat, but we dont taste. We love, but we dont feel. The senses
are receiving all the information, but because of our preoccupations, cognition is not taking place. Zazen brings us back to each
moment. The moment is where our life takes place. If we miss
the moment we miss our life.
When the mind is at rest, the body is at restrespiration,
heartbeat, and metabolism slow down. Reaching this still point
is not something unusual or esoteric. It is a very important part
of being alive and staying awake. All creatures on the earth are
capable of manifesting this stillness.
68
In zazen, as you practice letting go of your thoughts and

internal dialogue, and bringing your mind back to the breath,
the breath will slowly get easier and deeper, and the mind will
naturally rest. The mind is like the surface of a pond. When the
wind blows, the surface is disturbed. Then there are waves and
ripples, and the image of the sun or the moon or whatever the
surface is reflecting is broken up.
When the wind quiets down, the surface of the pond becomes
like glass. The stilled mind is like a mirror. It doesnt process, it
just reflects. When there is a flower in front of it, it reflects a
flower. When the flower is gone, the reflection is gone. When a
fire engine goes by, we hear the fire engine. When the fire engine
is gone, its reflection is gone. The mind returns to that original smooth surface. A still mind is unobstructed always open
and receptive. It doesnt hold on or attach to anything. At any
moment in time, it is free.
From Finding the Still Point, by John Daido Loori (Shambhala Publications, 2007).
Copyright 1996, 2007 Dharma Communications. All rights reserved.
69
On Being Off Balance

An Invitation to
Koan Practice
John Tarrant
EDITORS NOTE: What is the heart of koan practice? One reasonable answer
is found here in John Tarrants charming account of how he got started at it
simply by noting and refusing to let go of the unanswerable questions that arose
for him from life. When I was off balance, Tarrant writes, koans pushed me
further off balance and into unknown territory. I liked that.
t twenty-two I was an occasional secretary and live-in gardener to the Australian poet Judith Wright. In her garden,
butterflies swirled; satin bowerbirds built bowers and danced
with flowers and blue clothes pegs in their beaks; lorikeets and
small wallabies passed through on their separate roads. At the
foot of the paddock the leftover rainforest begangreat festooned trees hanging in the sky like branching neurons. When
the neighbor died, his wife buried him down by the creek and
dared the timidly inquiring police to find him. I had a desk in
the basement, and bush rats ran over my toes. The hallucinatory mushrooms I occasionally took seemed hardly necessary to
make life more numinous.
Still, there were questions that would not go away. None of
the usual solutions to life that were on offer meant much to me
71
and, like many young people, I didnt at first expect to live for a
long time. When I continued living anyway and needed to make
a life, I found myself yearning to make sense of things. I had
noticed, as almost everyone does, moments of great and apparently everlasting beauty followed by standard-issue miseries and
found the incongruence hard to deal with. I wanted to be loyal to
that beauty while not dodging the dark bits.
What is the universe made of? How does it all

go together? Can it come apart? What are we
doing here?
But what is the universe made of? I asked. How does it
all go together? Can it come apart? What are we doing here? It
seems odd now that I didnt ask, Why are we unhappy? Perhaps I took happiness as secondary, a corollary of answering the
whats it all about? questions. My question was urgent, but I
wasnt sure what it was. I wasnt certain if I had one question or
many. And I didnt want an answer in the conventional sense.
Instead, I wanted a magic key to a realm in which the insoluble,
and even indefinable, questions made sense. One of the good
things about Judith Wright was that, while she was herself passionately involved in the outer, political tumult of that time
over war and Aboriginal land rights and saving the Great Barrier
Reefshe knew immediately what I meant.
You probably need to go to India for that, she said, without
apparent irony, and turned back to her typewriter. It was as if I
had asked where she kept the paper clips.
Oh, I said, slightly let down. I had hoped she might be able
to tell me herself.
I took her reply to mean that for certain kinds of knowledge
you have to undertake a journey. It isnt like pouring water into
a bucketa process by which neither water nor bucket is much
changed. It seemed that if I took this journey I would be utterly
changed. And before setting out, I couldnt predict what that
72
change would be. That was interesting to me. It encouraged me

to set off with only the vaguest directions.
It might give plausibility to my account to say that I was led
to koans by a blinding flash, but I just stumbled across them in a
book. They looked to be a kind of Chinese poetry. It was at a time
when managing my mind had come to seem like a really good
idea, and I needed a method. I knew immediately that koans
might help. It was as if I held out my hand to see if it was raining and a yellow ball fell into my palm. I didnt understand the
koans, but they made my life seem beautiful, even the painful
and miserable parts, and that changed the value of everything.
When I was off balance, koans pushed me further off balance
and into unknown territory. I liked that. I was always struggling
to have things make sense, and koans allowed me, or required
me, to work with life more the way an artist would, loving especially the material that didnt make sense. They were keys to
another realm where even serious problems had a different and
lesser valence.
From Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life,
by John Tarrant (Shambhala Publications, 2008). Copyright 2004, 2008 John Tarrant.
All rights reserved.
73
Training the Mind

An Introduction to Lojong
Thupten Jinpa
EDITORS NOTE: The lojong practice of mind training is based on a set of 59

slogans or aphorisms which serve as the focus of meditation and recollection.
The practice, part of the classical Tibetan Buddhist tradition, goes back to the
12th century. Here, renowned scholar and translator Thupten Jinpa discusses
the history and relevance of the lojong.
ithin the vast body of Tibetan spiritual literature, one

genre stands out for its inspirational power, universality,
and down-to-earth practicality, qualities that have made these
teachings dear to the Tibetan people for generations. I am referring to a collection of texts and their associated contemplative
practices known simply as lojong, or mind training, which rst
appeared in the land of snows almost a millennium ago. At its
heart the Tibetan mind training teachings represent a profound
celebration of the spiritual ideal of genuine altruism, a deeply felt
compassion for all beings and a dedication to serve their welfare.
This is an ideal shared across many of worlds great spiritual and
humanistic traditions. By the twelfth century lojong had become
a most cherished spiritual heritage on the vast Tibetan plateau,
with attendant myths and legends associated with its origin and
development.

75
The Tibetan term lojong is composed of two syllables. Lo

stands for mind, thought, or attitudes, while jong connotes several interrelated but distinct meanings. First, jong
can refer to training whereby one acquires a skill or masters a
eld of knowledge. Jong can also connote habituation or familiarization with specic ways of being and thinking. Third, jong
can refer to the cultivation of specic mental qualities, such as
universal compassion or the awakening mind. Finally, jong can
connote cleansing or purication, as in purifying ones mind of
craving, hatred, and delusion.
Broadly speaking, all the teachings of the Buddha

can be characterized as mind training.
All these dierent meanings carry the salient idea of transformation, whereby a process of training, habituation, cultivation,
and cleansing induces a kind of metanoesis, from the ordinary
deluded state, whose modus operandi is self-centeredness, to a
fundamentally changed perspective of enlightened, other-centeredness. Today, thanks to research on neuroplasticity, we have
a much better appreciation of the brains capacity for transformation and change.
Broadly speaking, all the teachings of the Buddha can be characterized as mind training in the senses described above. However, the genre called mind training or lojong refers to specic
approaches for cultivating the awakening mindthe altruistic
aspiration to seek full awakening for the benet of all beings
especially through the practice of equalizing and exchanging of
self and others as found in Shantidevas eighth-century classic,
A Guide to the Bodhisattvas Way of Life.
There is no denying that, historically, the mind training
teachings evolved in the context of Buddhist practitioners whose
primary goal is to seek enlightenment, in fact buddhahood, for
the benet of all beingsthe highest aspiration of a Mahayana
76
Buddhist. This said much of the popularity and success of mind

training teachings lie in their universality, their relevance to the
everyday lives of people from all walks of life, not just serious
meditators. Furthermore, since the order in which the various
aspects of mind training are enacted depends principally on
where we are as spiritual aspirants, as the early lojong teachers would say, there is something in mind training practice for
everyone.
A central theme of mind training practice is the profound
reorientation of our basic attitude toward both our own self and
fellow sentient beings, as well as toward the events we experience. In our current nave everyday attitude, we not only grasp
at an intrinsically real self as being who we truly are, we also
cherish this me at the expense of all others. We feel hurt when
someone insults us, disappointed when someone we love betrays
us, outraged when provoked for no reason, pangs of jealousy
when others are successful, and all of these tend to strike us
more intensely the stronger our self-cherishing.
The mind training teaching challenges us to question this.
By deeply understanding others as friends more precious than
A central theme of mind training practice is the

profound reorientation of our basic attitude toward
both our own self and fellow sentient beings
a wish-fullling jewelas Langri Thangpa puts it in his Eight
Verses on Mind Trainingand recognizing that our true enemy
lies inside ourselves, we overturn our habitual self-centeredness.
It is self-cherishing that opens us to painful and undesirable
experiences. Mind training teachings admonish us to instead
Banish all blame to the single source. / Toward all beings contemplate their kindness.
The masters of the mind training teachings extend this principle to all possible situations. They speak of taking onto the path
77
both good luck and bad, both joy and pain, both wealth and poverty. In a beautiful stanza, the Kashmiri master Shakyashri, who
came to Tibet at the beginning of the thirteenth century, writes:
When happy I will dedicate my virtues to all;
may benet and happiness pervade all of space!
When suering I will take on the pains of all beings;
may the ocean of suering become dry!
Today, as our world becomes ever more complex, with the
consequence of making even our everyday lives a source of stress
and constant challenge, I believe that these practical insights of
Tibetan mind training can bring great benet to many. In my
own life, during now more than two decades living in the West
amid all the complexities of modern existence, I have come to
appreciate more deeply the value of the Tibetan mind training
teaching. Confronted with the common question of how to maintain a healthy balance between parenthood, marriage, and work,
and, more specically, having to deal with the critical challenge
of how to stay sane and rooted against all the social and cultural
forces pulling us in so many directions, I have found the clear and
poignant wisdom of lojong, especially the advice on maintaining
a joyful state of mind, a tremendous source of personal inspiration and strength. So by making these Tibetan mind training
teachings available for a general audience, it is my sincere hope
and wish that many readers will be able to share in the wonderful insights of the mind training teachings and experience their
profound rewards.
Excerpted and condensed from Essential Mind Training, translated, edited,
and with an introduction by Thupten Jinpa (Wisdom Publications, 2011).
Copyright 2011 The Institute of Tibetan Classics.
Photograph by Michael Wood. (Used by permission.) To see more of Michaels

78
Be Grateful
to Everyone
Pema Chdrn
EDITORS NOTE: Be grateful for the people in our lives who drive us nuts? It
may sound counterintuitive, but Pema Chdrn shows the wisdom of the logong slogan be grateful to everyone. It certainly requires re-orienting the way
we relate to the difficult people around us, but doing so is profoundly transformational and spiritually rewarding.
he slogan Be grateful to everyone is about making peace

with the aspects of ourselves that we have rejected. Through
doing that, we also make peace with the people we dislike. More
to the point, being around people we dislike is often a catalyst for
making friends with ourselves. Thus, Be grateful to everyone.
If we were to make a list of people we dont likepeople we
find obnoxious, threatening, or worthy of contemptwe would
find out a lot about these aspects of ourselves that we cant face. If
we were to come up with one word about each of the troublemakers in our lives, we would find ourselves with a list of descriptions
of our own rejected qualities, which we project onto the outside
world. The people who repel us unwittingly show us the aspects
of ourselves that we find unacceptable, which otherwise we cant
see. In traditional teachings on lojong it is put another way: other
people trigger the karma that we havent worked out. They mir-

81
ror us and give us the chance to befriend all of that ancient stuff
that we carry around like a backpack full of granite boulders.
Be grateful to everyone is a way of saying that

we can learn from any situation, especially if we
practice this slogan with awareness.
The people and situations in our lives can remind us to catch
neurosis as neurosis, to see when were in our room under the
covers, to see when weve pulled the shades, locked the door, and
are determined to stay there.
Theres a reason that you can learn from everything: you have
basic wisdom, basic intelligence, and basic goodness. Therefore,
if the environment is supportive and encourages you to be brave
and to open your heart and mind, youll find yourself opening
to the wisdom and compassion thats inherently there. Its like
tapping into your source, tapping into what you already have. Its
the willingness to open your eyes, your heart, and your mind, to
allow situations in your life to become your teacher. With awareness, you are able to find out for yourself what causes misery and
what causes happiness.
From Start Where You Are by Pema Chodron (Shambhala Publications, 1994).
Copyright 1994 by Pema Chodron. All rights reserved.
82
Quiet Mind and

Thinking Mind
Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche
EDITORS NOTE: The Tibetan Buddhist practice of Mahamudra allows us

to investigate the true nature of mind. Here, meditation master Khenchen
Thrangu Rinpoche shares simple instructions and exercises for those who wish
to explore this practice.
he customary attitude is that thinking of something and

being free of thought are entirely different states. We tend
to prefer one state over the other, but training in Mahamudra
is to go beyond this. When feeling quiet, look into what it is that
feels tranquil: What is it that knows this calm? What is the very
identity of this state? What is it made out of? Look into what the
very quality of stillness is. Then, when a thought moves, rather
than taking for granted that there is some thinker, something
thought of and an act of thinking, look into what those aspects
actually are. Where did the thought come from and where does
the movement of thought occur? What is its nature? How is it
different from the quietness?
Lets question the vague assumption that there is a big difference between our mind while quiet and while thinking. It seems
obvious that when quiet, there is no thinking, and when we are
thinking then there is no quietness any more. But we should now
83
investigate whether or not there is an actual difference in substance between the twonot superficially, but in reality. Is one
good and superior, and the other evil or inferior? Is one empty
and the other not?
When we look directly into the nature of the

calm mind and then the mind in motion, we
discover that there is no real difference.
What exactly is going on?
When we look directly into the nature of the calm mind and
then the mind in motion, we discover that there is no real difference in quality between the two. They are both empty and
intangible. The identity of the quietness is not identifiable; there
is nothing to grasp; and when looking into the thinking mind,
you are unable to pinpoint any real thinker, any concrete object
that is being thought of or a tangible act of thinking. In this way,
we find that there is no real difference between these two states.
They are essentially alike, as they are both intangible. Even then,
we should again look into exactly what this identical nature consists of. Are they really identical in nature? Or is it merely that
they are similar and there is still some difference?
From Crystal Clear: Practical Advice for Mahamudra Meditators, by Khenchen Thrangu
Rinpoche (Rangjung Yeshe, 2004). Copyright 2003 Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche
& Rangjung Yeshe Publications. All rights reserved.
84
We Are Identical
with the Buddhas
Lama Putse Pema Tashi
EDITORSNOTE: We tend to think of awakened or enlightened beings as so

much better than uson a level unattainable by our humble, lowly, confused
selves. But our true nature, as Lama Putse Pema Tashi tells us, is the same as
that of the awakened ones. This excerpt is from Dzogchen Essentials: Confusion Dawns as Wisdom, a wide-ranging compilation of Dzogchen teachings that
includes writings from Padmasambhava to Chgyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
mong the synonyms for buddha nature arepotentialandelement. A poisonous snake has the potential to
be poisonous; when it bites, it can instantly inject the poison. In
the same way, we possess the potential for, or basic element of,
enlightenment, and that is why we can awaken it.
Right now, we have the basic element of disturbing emotions
because we have not abandoned the emotional obscuration.
Since we have this potential, when we encounter difficult circumstances we become angry, attached, or proud. Nevertheless,
we also have the potential for enlightenment. If we remove the
obscurations, we can immediately realize the awakened state.
This is like extracting gold from gold ore. The ore possesses the
basic element of gold, so if it is smelted, the gold will appear.
Similarly, milk has the basic component of butter, and if it is
churned, the butter will appear. Water, however, does not have
85
the potential to yield butter. We can churn water for as long as

we want, but it will never produce any butter.
In nature, we are identical with the buddhas. It is

only that in our case, this nature is presently veiled
by obscurations.
Buddha nature is unformed, which means that it is not created due to causes and conditions. It is like spacechangeless.
If you praise space, it doesnt feel delighted; if you blame space,
it doesnt feel sad. Our basic nature does not improve when we
become enlightened, nor is it worsened when we are deluded. It
is unchanging because it is unformed.
We should really understand and acknowledge that all of us
possess this basic awareness. We should not think of the buddhas as always up there in the enlightened state while we sentient
beings are always down here far, far below, so that the difference
between us is as vast as heaven. In nature, we are identical with
the buddhas. It is only that in our case, this nature is presently
veiled by obscurations. Nonetheless, these obscurations can be
removed.
From Dzogchen Essentials: Confusion Dawns as Wisdom, Compiled and Edited
by Marcia Binder Schmidt (Rangjung Yeshe Publications, 2004) Copyright 2004
Marcia Binder Schmidt & Rangjung Yeshe Publications. All rights reserved.
86

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ABOUT DHARMA SPRING

A DHARMA SPRING READER

A Note to the Reader

Our True Home 11

The Play of Feelings 19

Overcoming Our Resistance to Practice 23

Part Two The Awakened View

Its Already Broken 29

The Good News 33

Your Practice is to Eat Your Life 39

Developing a Different Attitude Toward Problems 43

Part Three The Path of Meditation

Mindfulness of the Breath 55

Antidote for a Distracted Mind 59

Meeting Self-Criticism with Lovingkindness 63

A Still, Peaceful Mind 67

On Being Off Balance 71

Training the Mind 75

Quiet Mind and Thinking Mind 83

We are Identical with the Buddhas 85

Our True Home

hroughout our lives we long to love ourselves more deeply

The Buddha taught a systematic, integrated

Spiritual practice, by uprooting our personal mythologies

By following this path we learn to develop skillful

Abandon what is unskillful. One can abandon the

EDITORS NOTE: Why should we meditate? Its a question that arises

o achieve peace of mind, we must make sure our body is at

Photograph by Michael Wood. (Used by permission.) To see more of Michaels work go

upright without additional support energizes the meditation

In this meditation it is very important

thought silently with the verbal label thinking, thinking, and

meditation we seek a deep, clear, precise awareness of the mind

Labeling helps us to perceive clearly the

The Play of Feelings

Pleasant feeling is pleasant when it persists and

pleasant feeling will continue to give us pleasure if it lasts,

us, nothing specifically joyful or painful, we do not feel much. If

Sometimes it seems that we prefer to have painful

hen we do something with a simple, clear mind, we have

When you do something you should burn yourself

EDITORS NOTE: When we first begin to practice meditation, we may feel

hen we start to do something meaningful and important,

If we feel resistance, one approach is simply to be

Photograph by Michael Wood. (Used by permission.) To see more of Michaels work

The Awakened View

Its Already Broken

EDITORS NOTE: Great spiritual teachers often have an ability to convey

an you prevent something thats breakable from breaking?

Whenever you use this glass you should reflect

of a cause. They must also cease because of a cause. Now if there

Photograph by Michael Wood. (Used by permission.) To see more of Michaels work go

The Good News

ur lives and societies certainly generate a lot of bad news

Photograph by Michael Wood. (Used by permission.) To see more of Michaels work go

Its always okay to admit you are struggling.

Impermanence creates a gap that makes your

remove decorations and see zazen in its naked nature, because

EDITORS NOTE: Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel has a fresh, clear, no-nonsense

s we study the life of the Buddha we realize that he asked

Photograph by Michael Wood. (Used by permission.) To see more of Michaels work go

hold on to experience until it turns toxic. The struggle we have