N. David Hubbard, MS, MA, LMHC

Taking CARE

8/22/2015

NOW is all there is. Yesterday – gone. Tomorrow has yet to arrive. So taking care of the self is taking care of now. NOW…is our life. If we fail to fully engage and commit ourselves to NOW we are neglecting the world and ourselves. After all isn’t the world always present NOW with you, as you? No separation and yet, separation, but no separation – fundamentally.

It’s like being on a journey, moving across time and space and yet at the same time it’s NOW and NOW and NOW, etc. Like being on a train, looking out the window (of our life) and then looking away NOW. Then, turning back to see a landscape and turning away again. When we reach our destination, and we can never repeat THAT same ride, no matter the same train tracks because like everything else, their tracks have evaporated.

The child sitting behind us singing a Christmas song, a beautiful woman turning and flipping her hair, the bird on the fence outside the track – all gone. They leave no tracks behind. So we may find that only a mile of track did we track our world, our life. Maybe only ten feet of the hundred-mile journey. And we can’t even repeat the same train ride. What a loss. And this is our life. So right now, how will we care for it?

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I'd like to share an excerpt from the work of Tibetan Buddhist meditation teacher,
Chögyam Trungpa. He compares how the Western view of self, informed by the Judeo-Christian tradition, differs from the Eastern, or Buddhist view of self and how this gives rise to problems. This excerpt is entitled, "Basic Goodness or Original Sin?"
By Chögyam Trungpa

"Buddhist psychology is based on the notion that human beings are fundamentally good. Their most basic qualities are positive ones: openness, intelligence and warmth...[T]his idea is ultimately rooted in experience—the experience of goodness and worthiness in oneself and others. This understanding is very fundamental and is the basic inspiration for Buddhist practice and Buddhist psychology.

Coming from a tradition that stresses human goodness, it was something of a shock for me to encounter the Western tradition of original sin. It seems that this notion of original sin does not just pervade western religious ideas. It actually seems to run throughout Western thought as well, especially psychological thought. Among patients, theoreticians and therapists alike there seems to be great concern with the idea of some original mistake, which causes later suffering—a kind of punishment for that mistake. One finds that a sense of guilt or being wounded is quite pervasive. Whether or not such people actually believe in the idea of original sin, or in God for that matter, they seem to feel that they have done something wrong in the past and are now being punished for it.

The problem with this notion of original sin or mistake is that it acts very much as a hinderance to people. At some point it is of course necessary to realize one’s shortcomings. But if one goes too far with that, it kills any inspiration and can destroy one’s vision as well. So in that way, it really is not helpful, and in fact it seems unnecessary.

According to the Buddhist perspective there are problems, but they are temporary and superficial defilements that cover over one’s basic goodness... This viewpoint is a positive and optimistic one. But, again, we should emphasize that this viewpoint is not purely conceptual. It is rooted in the experience of meditation and in the healthiness it encourages. There are temporary, habitual neurotic patterns that develop based on past experience, but these can be seen through. It is just this that is studied in the abhidharma, the Buddhist teachings on psychology: how one thing succeeds another, how volitional action originates and perpetuates itself, how things snowball. And, most importantly, abhidharma studies how through meditation practice this process can be cut through.

The attitude that results from the Buddhist orientation and practice is quite different from the “mistake mentality.” One actually experiences mind as fundamentally pure, that is, healthy and positive, and “problems” as temporary and superficial defilements. Such a viewpoint does not quite mean “getting rid” of problems, but rather shifting one’s focus. Problems are seen in a much broader context of health: one begins to let go of clinging to one’s neuroses and to step beyond obsession and identification with them. The emphasis is no longer on the problems themselves but rather on the ground of experience through realizing the nature of mind itself.

When problems are seen in this way, then there is less panic and everything seems more workable. When problems arise, instead of being seen as purely threats, they become learning situations, opportunities to find out more about one’s own mind, and to continue on one’s journey.

Through practice, which is confirmed by study, the inherent healthiness of your mind and others’ minds is experienced over and over. You see that your problems are not all that deeply rooted. You see that you can make literal progress. You find yourself becoming more mindful and more aware, developing a greater sense of healthiness and clarity as you go on, and this is tremendously encouraging."

This article is adapted from "The Meeting of Buddhist and Western Psychology," which appears in volume two of the Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa, published by Shambhala in 2003.

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10/17/2011

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I attended a portion of a meditation retreat with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and over 1,000 other participants in north Mississippi this week. I will share two memorable events that seem to capture the nature of both mindlessness and mindfulness.

Near the end of the first day, as the sun was setting I heard a female voice on the monastery speaker system float out across the huge expanse of the monastery grounds saying: “Can someone please move their vehicle? It is parked in the road…and it’s been running since 9am”. For me, there was first a moment of confusion. How does that happen? You stop your car in front of the retreat, open the door with it running, get out and head with determination to a mindfulness retreat. And yet, isn't this what’s happening all the time? We think we’ve parked our mind, but it’s still running, and we don’t know it. Talk about not being present!

Now the other event was just the opposite. People were beginning to gather for walking meditation. I was standing back a bit from the crowd so I could remain in the shade of a large oak tree when I saw Thay walk directly in front of me. He walked toward the crowd and took the hands of two children on each side of him and slowly they began walking as the entire crowd began to join in. I too stepped in right beside the children and Thay. We all followed, step by step, 1,000 people down a pathway through the woods in complete silence. Even the children were totally silent; 1000 people – silent. Just the sound of footsteps, leaves and sticks crackling under foot and the sounds of the wind through the trees. We eventually came out in a large field. Thay slowed, another monk provided him something to sit on and we sat, in a windy field, 1000 people in total silence. I looked out and studied each face. At some point a young girl pointed slowly to the sky, motioning for us all to watch leaves falling from the sky like butterflies. I saw Thay smile. He then rang the bell. Later he reached out and placed a child’s hand under the bell and rang it again. He then placed another child hand, and another, and another until all their arms formed a circle around the bell holding it and again he rang the bell. No one said a word. There was just this complete moment. Sounds of the bell, the site of leaves falling, wet grass, sunlight, the whole universe really. Eventually we all stood up and slowly, silently we began our walk back. I remembered something I read and have heard Thay say, “the miracle is not to walk on water, but to walk on the earth”.

Here are some pictures I took of this event.

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First Post!

9/25/2011

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There are many ways of describing Zen practice but one way I think of and experience it is "caring". Of course I'm stumbling at doing this every moment but that's why we call it "practice". And this "caring" is manifested, ideally - (but we don't live "ideally" but in actuality) every moment in innumerable ways like when you nursed or rocked your children or when I clean and cut an apple for my daughter. There is absorption in the details of those activities (or not) because they matter (or not). And isn't life just a stringing together of these moments, moment after moment?

In our dualistic mind we think "I'm cleaning an apple - for her" (I'm taking care of HER) but in the Zen way there is the understanding there is really no separation. Last night my daughter asked me to tickle her. When I'm lazy, it's me tickling "her" but when I'm really caring it's I'm tickling her AND I'm tickling me. We both benefit from tickling. So much so, we might just say there's tickling going on, no me, no her. In other words, this "caring"is not a thing that I give away and now she has it. It's more like the sun, it manifest in the heart of the sun and its rays reach every being on earth, its all sun. So when you rocked your daughter and your practice was intact you really were both being rocked. And what would our life be like if every moment we care for it? From driving our car, to cleaning apples, to greeting a stranger, to filling out a lease?

Clearly it takes effort at maintaining this type of attitudinal shift. But what advice would our death-bed-self give us now? I'm sharing all this of course not "just" for you but for me too. Right now, I need to hear this and perhaps we may both benefit.

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Taking CARE

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