GRATITUDE, again

Gratitude is joy, energy, trust.

GRATITUDE

• There is a sense of gratitude. And there is a sense of gratitude for something. These are entirely different.
• Gratitude and humility are inseparable.
• The light felt within gratitude is the light radiating from joy.
• Gratitude is not about gain.
• Listening to the world is a necessary step that must occur before an authentic moment of gratitude can visit.
• Gratitude is more likely to be in moments when the mind is uncrowded.

MY FAVORITE KAWABATA QUOTE

"It is easy to enter the world of Buddha. It is difficult to enter the world of devil."

The below picture is this phrase as written by Kawabata Yasunari in one of his calligraphic styles. When I suddenly understood something of how deep this comment was, five or ten years ago, I wanted to teach a class on Kawabata's novels, entering them through this gateway. This statement—not his, it is by the 13th century monk Ikkyū—explains well Kawabata's perspective, and completely un-knots the puzzle that consistently distorts an understanding of his juxtaposition of purity and shamefulness. But it also shines a thin flashlight beam into the darkness that his disciple Mishima explored. And it makes fragile the self-congratulatory attitude of those who see themselves as moral.

The world of the devil is so full of cross-currents. It blurs the boundaries of the self. The terror of this world is part of Buddha's world of non-essence.

WORRYING ABOUT HAVING TRIED TOO HARD

A couple of days ago I came across this quote:

“I admit I’m a battle-hardened version of my former self, more stoic, possibly more indifferent. Was I a better doctor then, when I knew less and felt more?”

Excerpt From: Dr. Anna Lembke. “Dopamine Nation.” — Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/dopamine-nation/id1534515648

Ah. This was a bulls-eye for me. I have also asked myself this question in the form of: "You have tried hard to improve your teaching, even on a day-by-day, session-by-session basis and yet somehow it seems like you am not as good a teacher now as you were ten years ago. Did you make a wrong turn somewhere along the way?"

But, well, what does it mean to be a good teacher? If it is to garner enthusiasm and/or emotional connections, it is likely I was "better" when I have fewer requirements, forgave more often, sweated the details less. But I came to think of teaching / learning as not always a feel-good process but instead effort and frustration as one tries to push past one's limits and one's understanding. I definitely understood my topics both more broadly and more deeply but perhaps I lost the ability to be introductory and inviting. Perhaps I taught fewer of my students but those that I did teach, perhaps I helped them go farther than earlier in my career.

What never happened was I never stopped caring, never stopped asking what is that thing I could teach which is going to be most helpful to my students now and in the future? That question was not asked every day—it was asked every minute while in the act of teaching and several times an hour on teaching days as I prepared material.

Ultimately we all need in our lives many types of teachers. But I think I surprised myself that I evolved towards the drier, a bit scary at times, type of teacher rather than the warm and friendly sort which was my self-image. Yet, I walked this path consciously. I felt, over and again, that this approach created for my students the context in which they could discover their best power, sharpen their understanding of the world around them to their best abilities, and thrive as their futures arrived with all the unexpected aspects that come with that.

Still, to be loved as a teacher is a wonderful thing and I passed up some love along the way, in service of their future. .... I think.

THE SUDDEN ENLIGHTENMENT / GRADUAL ENLIGHTENMENT DEBATE

Over the centuries, Buddhists have debated whether "enlightenment" is achieved in degrees (which seems to align with experience) or suddenly (which aligns with Buddhist understanding of the universe).

There was a stretch of time while I was younger that I felt enlightened, if that experience is described as a compassionate detachment, emotional poise and calm, perhaps a quiet joy. I was free or almost free of fear, and my heart was at ease. This only lasted maybe a few weeks. I don't remember. I do remember that it seemed fully true, then maybe true, then fully true, then not at all true, and then maybe true, and then ultimately most definitely not true. In other words, it drifted over a range of mental or spiritual states that seemed authentically to be a state of enlightenment and admittedly not at all enlightenment. So of course, after that time (then and now) the question of understanding what actually happened has to do with that word "authentically." Was I arrogant to think as I did? Was I fooling myself into thinking as I did? Do I simply have no idea what enlightenment really is?

Now, at this point in my life, those questions themselves seem to be the wrong ones. Rather, the better questions, it seems, is whether it is possible to be enlightened and not enlightened at the same time and whether enlightenment is a transient or permanent state. I suspect that answer to the first is "Yes" and that the answer to the second is enlightenment is as transient as anything else that is perceived or experienced subjectively. So, enlightenment as a metaphysical condition is nothingness which is neither permanent nor transient but from "this side" (living and breathing) it can only be as subjective as anything else when it is the subject having an experience. Put another way, spiritual masters—and I have met a wonderful half dozen of the best—can be grumpy. :-)

Hmm, the above might seem like rambling but I think I shaped my words exactly as I wanted, for as much accuracy as I can garner on this transcendent topic.