Dance with Samsara, Deconstructing Ego's Drama

To each precious teacher,

human or otherwise,

who appeared in the guise of

friend or enemy

and briefly touched my heart.

Illustrations

Sharing Beauty

The Jewel Within

Dawn Breaking

Sitting Meditation

Communion

The Meditator

The Valley

Samsara

Contents

Dedication

Illustrations

Prelude

PART ONE: THE GROUND

Chapter One – Introduction

Our Current Predicament

Meditation Session One

Basic Cause of Our Dilemma

The Journey of Awakening

Why Meditation?

Meditation Session Two

Why the Buddha Path?

Approaching Meditation Practice

Traditional Meditation Protocol

Meditation Session Three

Chapter Two - Preparing the Garden of Meditation

Guidelines From Perennial Sages

Mental Afflictions

Three Poisons

Virtuous Qualities

Four Immeasurables

Meditation Session Four

Chapter Three - Meditation and Love

Coda

Meditation Session Five

PART TWO: THE APPROACH

Chapter Four - Meditative Mindfulness

Four Foundations of Mindfulness

Meditation Session Six

Chapter Five - Meditative Insight

Four Noble Truths

Four Reminders

Insight Practice

Meditation Session Seven

Chapter Six - Union of Mindfulness and Insight

Meditation Session Eight

PART THREE: INTEGRATION

Chapter Seven – Meditation and Beauty

Experience of Beauty

Meditation Session Nine

Chapter Eight - Search for the Self

Cloud Formations

The Nominal Self

The Self and Dying

Meditation Session Ten

Chapter Nine - Origin of the Self

Origin of Me

Composition of Self

The Self and Spaciousness

Meditation Session Eleven

Chapter Ten – Wheel of Dharma

The First Reality

The Second Reality

The Third Reality

The Fourth Reality

Dependent Origination

Meditation Session Twelve

Chapter Eleven – Recapitulation

Primordial Heritage

Continuing the Journey

Avoiding Extremes

Problem of Distraction

Session Protocol

Post Meditation

Conclusion

Song of Realization

Meditation Session Thirteen

Epilogue

Glossary

Credits and Consults

About the Author

Sharing Beauty

Prelude

Sitting in the shade of an umbrella tree

—dying (as are you),

Oblivious to the resonance of death’s distant drumming,

The immense sky, profound and unfathomable,

unmoved by its contents,

Deepened its spectral transition in blue

from azure to indigo.

Its spaciousness accommodated the sun’s radiance,

who displayed shadows across the mountain ridges.

Softly compliant, sunbeams caressed the warm earth,

enjoying the texture of every pristine peak and valley,

.

Feathery winds frolicked amidst the hedgerows.

Moving freely, they affectionately

combed and waved undulating fields of grain

Occasionally, small clouds passed over,

forming a complementary panorama of

light and shadow on the distant mountains.

As the sun was still bright, the ground beneath the trees

captured ever-changing shadows of leaves

dancing with the breeze.

The portent of nature’s imminently coming

period of stillness yet to reveal itself.

(Strangely, amidst the magic of this phantasmagoria,

subtle residues of anxiety tingled my solar plexus -

perhaps a harbinger of uncertainty in the unfolding

beauty of the stillness of heart and mind.)

In the distant background,

Children sounded their delights and displeasures;

In their separate yet parallel society,

Birds too voiced their joys and sorrows.

In resonance with far away traffic noises,

Ground squirrels expressed excitement and fear,

alarming their kin of real or imagined danger.

As one, all elements formed a coherent and rhythmically

changing spectrum of light and sound.

Joy permeated the entire mandala;

Nothing was out of place;

Distractions were not of this time.

Radiant Darkness approached and hovered over her brood,

gently drawing a blanket, enveloping all in love.

Visual patterns faded and sounds returned to their source.

Stillness settled naturally, without coercion,

Compelled not by withdrawal through fear or weariness

but from the spontaneous movement of order and grace.

Once again, wholeness rested in the benediction of

Absolute Luminosity,

The appearance of a new universe signaled and assured by

the dawning of the morning light.

PART ONE

THE GROUND

Chapter One

Introduction

Truth is not a spectrum of colors, but a single coherent beam of light that pierces the heart of delusion and can only be known through the lens of insight—an open mind. The color of truth is stainless and pristine, like the clear light of deep space. Ultimate truth stands alone and knows things as they are in reality.

On the other hand, conventional truth only knows the appearance of things. Under the right conditions, we may see a rainbow in the distance; but it disappears if we try to approach it. When we look in a mirror, we see our face and identify with the image. Our face seems to be there but it is not really there. In both cases, the object is there but it is not there. Relative truth is like a spectrum of diverse colors that takes on the hue of the perceiver. From a cat’s perspective, water is something to drink; from a fish’s view, water is a place to live. From some people’s perspective, a certain politician is a savior; from another’s view, that same politician is a devil in disguise. To approach the real truth, we must first attend to the relative truth of who we are and our current life predicament.

We are unwitting participants, spinning out of control, in samsara—a dualistic world obsessed with: pleasure/pain, gain/loss, fame/insignificance, and praise/blame. Our deluded life experience is marked by the ebb and flow of uncertainty and discontent. Nevertheless, our actions reflect the belief that our pursuit of self-centered concerns will bring us happiness. Beneath the façade of this delusion, we are vaguely aware of much suffering outside the boundary of our little sphere of being.

For those who wish to confront the causes and conditions of discontent in the present life, there is a journey of inquiry that probes into the very heart of our situation-in-common. It is not a journey of conquest but a path of cooperation with natural laws wherein we may learn to playfully dance with samsara. It is a process of deconstructing ego’s drama, the basic cause of our underlying dissatisfaction.

At the most fundamental level, all beings wish to be happy and free of suffering. Nevertheless, we experience delusion and an ever present substratum of feelings that arise when conditions are ripe. Positive feelings range from simple pleasures to rapture. Negative feelings range from mild discontent to extreme pain. So-called neutral feelings are marked with uncertainty and the ghost of anxiety. As we may learn from the vistas that open on this path, it becomes evident that all emotions are painful in essence. This inquiry seeks to illuminate the way out of the darkness of uncertainty and confusion into the bright space of joy and peace. It looks into the nature of our mind itself and develops experiential practices that ignite the flame of insight, the insight that knows what is real versus unreal. Its flame burns away false notions just as the sun dissipates the morning mist. Not for the faint of heart, this journey cuts through the painful landscape of ego’s obstacles and crosses over the river of no return. Skillful means are given to quicken the unfolding of our innate powers and initiate a process of holistic healing. This inquiry begins by focusing on prerequisite qualities that prepare us to face the reality of our predicament—the fact that most beings experience pervasive discontent and suffering.

Brief meditation practice sessions prepare the soil of the mind and heart to receive the seeds of transformation and connect with a renewing spiritual experience. These meditation practices help us relax into an inwardly oriented state of awareness that goes beyond conceptual understanding. Progressing in stages, each session is an integration that produces a measure of wholeness.

Our Current Predicament

On the surface, we may appear like the smiling face of a donkey with lips drawn back, carefully munching blackberries through a thicket of thorns. We may feel moderately content but others may not: witness the pervasive homelessness, addiction, and poverty in the world. How palatable is the quality of our personal happiness when confronted with the fact of the suffering of others?

We may mask our fundamental dissatisfaction, the feeling that something is not quite right or complete, by fabricating distractions to avoid facing the issue. Nevertheless, these realities inform our subconscious mind and mark our every action.

Can we be consistently happy when our direct experiences of happiness are brief and transitory? Unfortunately, the causes of our unhappiness, mental and physical, lurk in the background of our lives, ready to manifest under the right circumstances. Is this existential situation inevitable and beyond our control? It is taught that we may liberate ourselves by looking deeply into the nature and causes of suffering?

Imagine yourself as a child lying in the grass in a woodland meadow. While gazing at the sky, view in wonderment the ever-changing cloud formations. Bring to mind a scene of sitting on a river bank or ocean beach watching the wave patterns constantly dying and renewing themselves in their ebb and flow. Recall witnessing unexpected changes in the circumstances of life and the despair of death. Reflecting on these experiences, we must conclude that impermanence or change is inherent in all situations.

How does this understanding relate to our existential situation, our stream of life experiences? Because we live in a constantly changing world, uncertainty is inevitable and arises in parallel with