Anxiety and the breath

Robert Hass & Kobayashi Issa - birthdays and continuations

 After the Gentle Poet Kobayashi Issa

BY ROBERT HASS

New Year’s morning—

everything is in blossom!   

   I feel about average.

   A huge frog and I   

staring at each other,   

   neither of us moves.

   This moth saw brightness   

in a woman’s chamber—

   burned to a crisp.

   Asked how old he was   

the boy in the new kimono   

   stretched out all five fingers.

   Blossoms at night,   

like people

   moved by music

   Napped half the day;   

no one

   punished me!

Fiftieth birthday:

   From now on,   

It’s all clear profit,   

   every sky.

   Don’t worry, spiders,   

I keep house   

   casually.

   These sea slugs,   

they just don’t seem   

   Japanese.

Hell:

   Bright autumn moon;   

pond snails crying   

   in the saucepan.

Robert Hass, “After the Gentle Poet Kobayashi Issa” from Field Guide. Copyright © 1973 by Robert Hass. Reprinted with the permission of Yale University Press, http://www.yale.edu/yup/.

Hugh Byrne: Intention

Live Session Summary, Sunday, July 31, 2022: 

Good to be with you today. The theme of this week’s Live session was, ‘Intention: Remembering What Matters Most.’ I began by speaking of my own experience: how I am able to focus well and accomplish things when they are important, interesting, or enjoyable to me. But when space opens up and there are fewer obvious priorities to give my attention to I can feel stuck, unfocused, and, at times, feel a sense of malaise and lack of direction. I’ve found that at these times reflecting on intention and what matters most is the most helpful path to finding my way out of these ‘stuck’ states.

I discussed what intention means and why it is important in freeing ourselves from painful or difficult mind states. Webster’s dictionary defines intention as ‘the determination to act in a particular way.’ Meditation teacher Gil Fronsdal speaks of intentions as ‘often more basic than what we want; they are the deeper purposes for why we want what we want.’ And Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who wrote extensively about ‘flow states’, said ‘intentions operate as magnetic fields moving attention toward some objects and away from others, keeping our mind focused on some stimuli in preference to others.’

This sense of intentions as ‘magnetic fields’ is a useful one in illustrating the way they help us gather our attention and other beneficial qualities to help move us towards what is important to us. When we are clear about and focused on what matters to us we are much more likely to both achieve our goals and be happy—if our objectives are not harmful ones. Conversely, when we are disconnected from our intentions, we are much more likely to be moved by our unconscious habits and neither move towards what’s important to us nor be happy. As Yogi Berra said, ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere else.’ And Carl Jung: ‘What is not brought to consciousness, comes to us as fate.’

I spoke about three different understandings of intention in Buddhist teachings: 

• Volition (Cetana, in Pali), a mental factor that urges the mind in a particular direction—e.g., the intention to stand up or look around

• Intention as ‘resolve’ or ‘determination’ (Aditthanna), which is one of the ten perfections (paramis), or qualities that support awakening

• Wise/right intention (Samma sankappa), the second factor of the Eightfold Path, which is intention directed towards freeing ourselves from suffering. This involves the cultivation of the intentions of 1) renunciation or letting go; 2) good will or loving-kindness; and 3) harmlessness or compassion.

Finding my way out of the ‘stuck’ state required all three forms of intention: 1) the volition or will to make a change and put in the effort to let go of the painful state; 2) the determination to stay focused and avoid sliding back into the difficult and unhelpful mind state; and 3) the intention to commit to letting go of the unskillful mind states when they arose and to meet my experience with self-compassion. One of the most significant changes I have seen is how cultivating wise intention can help us move from difficult and unpleasant mind states to palpably happier and more contented states.

I shared Zen teacher Suzuki Roshi’s saying, ‘The most important thing is to remember the most important thing’; Mary Oliver’s ‘When I am among the trees’; some lines from Shantideva’s Prayer; and ‘Lost’ by David Wagoner. 

Please let me know if I missed anything or if you have any questions. I look forward to seeing you next Sunday, August 7 at 9am eastern for our 100th consecutive Sunday Live session. Please join us if you can—and have a lovely week. Warmly, Hugh 🙏🏼 🌻

Thich Nhat Hanh on… / The Mind as a Gardener | Plum Village

Thich Nhat Hanh on… / The Mind as a Gardener | Plum Village

It rains softly outside,
And yet I feel sadness and sorrow
Coming up in me.

Please go to sleep my little pain,
And let my in-breath and out-breath
Embrace you tenderly.

I know you are there
And I do my best to take good care of you.
You know, I am trying to plant and water seeds of harmony
So that from the soil of my consciousness
Flowers of peace, joy and forgiveness
Will bloom for everyone.

Please go to sleep my little knots, my little pains.
With this practice,
there will certainly be a transformation
And tomorrow we will be able to accept and love each other.

-- Thich Nhat Hahn

Before Life and After - Thomas Hardy

Before Life and After

Before life and after
A time there was - as one may guess
And as, indeed, earth's testimonies tell -
Before the birth of consciousness,
When all went well.

None suffered sickness, love, or loss,
None knew regret, starved hope, or heart-burnings;
None cared whatever crash or cross
Brought wrack to things.

If something ceased, no tongue bewailed,
If something winced and waned, no heart was wrung;
If brightness dimmed, and dark prevailed,
No sense was stung.

But the disease of feeling germed,
And primal rightness took the tinct of wrong;
Ere nescience shall be reaffirmed
How long, how long?

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)