One of the things that I love about Dharma practice is how it unfolds. On one hand, you must expend energy. You must be diligent. You must persevere. On the other hand, you must let go. You must be patient, and you must be kind to yourself.
Ajahn Chah was once accused of giving contradictory instructions to his students. But he explained that Dharma practice is like walking down the center of a road. If you veer too far to the left, you must move to the right. And if you move too far to the right, you must move to the left.
Dharma practice is like that. You can’t be lazy. You can’t just “be with whatever arises,” or that is all you will be able to do. But you can’t push too hard, either. My first practice was in Zen, and in retrospect, it felt like Marine bootcamp. It was miserable. So, you move to the right or you move to the left depending on where you are. You push harder, or you ease up, relax, let go, and exercise patience.
When you achieve the right balance, wonderful and unexplained things happen. They simply arise. You can never make something happen. You must put into place the conditions for something to happen. Then it will or will not happen when either of those is appropriate.
I have had something like that happen within the last year. Like so many people, I read all about the five kandhas, “skandhas” in Sanskrit. And I never could connect with the kandha on perception. Of course, I read all the books. I heard all the Dharma talks. I could even give a lengthy and erudite description of perception. But I never really understood it. I could never—as a friend used to say—feel it in my bones.
Let me back up for a moment and talk about that. When I was a young software engineer—and this was in the days when you had to even write the code to do something as simple as draw a line on the screen—I read about a core technology called “b-trees.” And I read every description and every article there was on b-trees. And still, for a long time, I could not wrap my head around b-trees.
And then, finally, it all became clear to me. In fact, it became so clear to me that I was puzzled about why it had been so hard for me to understand it. It seemed obvious and clear. To be sure, there was a month or two when my initial clarity about b-trees took some time to become fully integrated, to “feeling it in my bones.” But suddenly the previously inaccessible technology of b-trees seemed as obvious and clear to me as the fact that a tree is a tree.
The Buddha went through a similar process. After his enlightenment, it took him some weeks to fully integrate what he had experienced. The account in the Vinaya is quite detailed and quite clear. In the mastering of anything complicated, there is the initial “ah, ha” moment. But then there is a period where you settle into this knowledge. It becomes part of your being.
Over the years, I have heard many people say that they understood this or that teaching of the Buddha’s. The most obvious example of this is dependent origination. Dependent origination is the quantum physics of Buddhism. It is by far his most complex teaching. And yet, I have heard more than one person say, somewhat casually, that they understood dependent origination.
My understanding of the Dharma is that the only people who understand dependent origination are arahants, people who are fully enlightened. And even among arahants, not all of them fully understand this teaching. It is this deep.
And yet I have met people who simply declare that they understand dependent origination. It is like meeting a freshman in college who thinks that they understand physics to the same extent as Neils Bohr.
The Buddha once said that if he met an honest person, he could teach them. I used to think that being honest meant that what you say is true. But I think what the Buddha meant is more about being honest with yourself. I have known so many delusional people in my life. I once knew someone who was adamant that her husband was healthy and did not need hospice care. He died six days later. This same person once declared herself to be healthy. She died sixteen months later.
But I go back to my original point, and that is how Dharma practice unfolds. It is like going 55 miles an hour. If you are too slow, you speed up. If you are too fast, you slow down.
This year, for me, has been about the kandha of perception. Perception has two aspects to it. The first is simply how we go from a raw sensory experience to identifying something. We see this object. It has a name and a form. This name and form is converted to a perception. We see a “tree.”
But then we also assign a value to what we see. That, too, is perception. We like that tree or we don’t like that tree. And how we perceive the world is how we experience it. I saw this article today about how people are working to save the California Condor. It really warmed my heart. But then, I always look for these types of stories.
I know people who are always miserable and dismayed by the state of the world. Of course. I get it. There are always terrible things happening.
But there are always wonderful, inspirational things happening, too. These tend to get overlooked. I saw a news piece recently about the suffering in Gaza. But all I could see was the people who had come from all over the world to provide relief for the people of Gaza. Some of them were even killed. They did not see people of this or that national origin or religion. They saw only suffering, and they wanted to help. I was inspired and uplifted. I only wish that my age and challenging health did not prevent me from being there, too.
But back to the issue of perception. This is a good example. You see a news story. What do you choose to see, the suffering, or the people who have traveled from every corner of the Earth to alleviate that suffering?
I have often wondered, why did the Buddha choose to specify the importance of the quality of perception? Off all the qualities that one can possess, why did he think that it is so important that he included it in the very qualities that make us how we are?
It is because how we perceive the world is how we experience the world.
So here is our challenge. Do we see the suffering, or do we see the extraordinary efforts of those who risk their lives to relieve that suffering? Do we see the sensationalistic stories about the ugliness of the world, or do we see the stories about the people trying to save the California Condor? Do we want to be saddened by the state of the world, or do we want to be inspired by those who strive to alleviate it? Do we see only suffering, or do we see our way out of it? Do we see how to help, or do we see only despair? We choose how and what we want to see in the world, and how we want to relate to the world and the people around us.