practice musing II: the guru, part one

I've been very mindful of the fact that I don't have a teacher, a guru, nor am I pursuing one, even though I've read many times that a teacher is considered absolutely necessary in Vajrayana. If you don't have a teacher, the path is fraught with dangers and uncertainty. These are things I accept as fact and would never go against and would parrot as being fundamental to the teachings. It's part of my self-doubt, fail-safe system against ego or any ego-driven "I don't need a guru" sensibility. It's part of the balance of my unorthodox path where I'm forging ahead on my own but won't let ego off the leash at the risk of megalomania or falling on the wrong side of delusions and dangers with which the path is fraught.

Still, I have no teacher nor am I pursuing one. I do recognize I'm solely relying on what is said in books about the necessity of a guru. It isn't something in my practical experience or intuition. I've never had the feeling that I'm stuck, I can't go on without a teacher, I need to find a teacher. Obviously I think I'm alright going about it alone for the time being and can still learn and progress; that I'm not doing too badly slogging it out on my own. I think it both has to be this way and is supposed to be this way. And this is my intuition. I think, to some degree feel, that with my current karma, my thinking and attitude, it would be fruitless to search for a teacher.

I'm sure I'm missing a lot. I'm sure there are tangible benefits of having a teacher. But on the other hand, I'm pretty confident and surprised about the things I'm getting without a teacher. There's a lot I get that I feel is karmic holdover from previous life practice; I get it because I've gotten it before. Even in the field of tantra and its focus on energies, I'm being extremely cautious and circumspect with the unorthodox practice I've developed, but I'm following intuition about something that is not intuitive. Intuitive would be taking the blue pill.

And with both tantra and Mahamudra, neither of which, despite my mentioning them, do I think I'm really practicing since I don't have a teacher, the inspirations are slow-coming, revealing themselves very gradually. These things have been years and years in the unfolding. Maybe the time makes up for the lack of guru. A guru might be able to tell I'm ripe for a practice and give proper instructions. Without a guru, I have to wait for inspiration and intuition, and still have to go through the process of figuring out a practice and doubting whether it is valid or not and developing safeguards to not overstep my ability or aptitude.

I daresay it's been a fascinating journey in itself without a guru. Again, not a point of pride or ego, just a lot of wow. Perhaps it would be even better with a guru, but that not being my current path, it's fine.

What about a worst case scenario whereby my guru were to suddenly appear and look at my practice and say it's completely wrong and I've totally lost the way? That's actually funny. I wouldn't contradict that assessment, but my path is still my path. If it's completely wrong and lost, that's part of my path. And if my guru were there to make such an assessment, then he or she is there to set me straight, no problem. Being told it's wrong is total fantasy. Unless, of course, it turns out that I'm the guru who suddenly appears and tells me my practice is completely wrong. Then it's not so funny. But still workable, I'd hope.

And I gather that's just Mahamudra right there. It's not striving for enlightenment nor cognitive over-analyzing, but looking around and realizing this is it, it's been right here all along. Confusion arising as wisdom. Wisdom arising as confusion maybe? But for me that's just scratching the surface, I'm just intellectually looking around and realizing this is it, which is different from actually experiencing it. That's what I've read. Not having experienced it, I can't personally attest to it. Then there are many more layers deep of the wisdom to unfold, even as confusion. Or even more confusing.

On the surface level, it's fine for it being even the music arising as wisdom. Listening to music has come to dominate my existence. It's totally superficial and ephemeral and meaningless, but it's still a dominant energy in my existence. If life is practice itself, then it's just practice whatever I'm doing. Even if it's something stupid as listening to music, I'm gonna suggest it's still beneficial as practice.

It's not lazy, passive listening to music for mere distraction or pleasure; turn it off and it's gone. It's focused engagement with the energies evoked and recognizing the reality in those emotions. Aural energy converted to psychic energy and manifesting as potent emotion. It doesn't disappear when it's turned off, but lingers as meditation, as reality but not permanent. If it's what makes up my existence, then it's not nothing. It's not a lot, but it's not nothing.

These are some positive spins on my practice. I know I can be accused of inventing practices and making things up as I go along based on dubious, unverifiable inspiration. That's definitely not ideal. What if everyone decided they could do that? Then I'd be a fool to do any different. Not good. I drop terms like Mahamudra and tantra just because they are what I come across while reading and they describe things I find inspiring, but I should be under no impression that's what I'm doing.

Notably lacking in my practice still are cultivating compassion, freedom and openness to the world and sacrifice. There are limits to practice when there is no human engagement and challenge. Not that I'm not working on them. Putting them down in words may make it seem like I don't have those things, but they're works in progress. As is the whole shebang.

practice musing I

I often express a disparaging, if not humble, view of my mindfulness practice. I've called it lazy and undisciplined, and without a teacher or community is perhaps dangerously unregulated. But I've been re-assessing my view of it in a positive self-affirming way so that it doesn't seem quite so bad.

I don't exactly live the hermit ideal, but I think living alone in urban isolation with minimal human contact is a good thing for the path. Or it has good aspects. It takes a lot of energy to interact socially with people, whether it's at work or for pleasure. I mean it takes lots and lots of energy that people don't notice because it's natural for them to expend energy in that way. I notice because I'm not.

During the few times I've gotten together with people over the past however many years, I've noticed that once engaged in social interaction, it's a steady stream of energy, of being "on". All the cogitating, processing, input, measuring responses and reacting is all energy expenditure. Again, all of it very natural and normal but a lot of fucking energy! Once good-byes are said, I can breathe and relax into myself into the state I'm in the rest of the time, virtually all the time. That state has benefits for practice.

It's hard to transform, as practice encourages, when so much energy is spent on normal, everyday social interactions. For me, without even noticing, I'm able to use that energy in self-observation and contemplation and allowing for transformation whenever opportunity arises in both affirming and challenging situations. And I think I have transformed a lot in positive ways on the path (and regressed mindfully on *ahem* occasion). One good indication is how terrible I am at interacting socially now. I used to be reasonably social, but now I couldn't meet a person and hold their interest for more than a few sentences. The opposite is true, too, mind you.

And not everyone can do that. Most don't even want that, I shouldn't wonder. They'd get lonely and start craving company. I daresay there's a lot I've cultivated being able to do in furtherance on the path that people would say is not for them. This is no point of pride nor tooting my own horn, mind you. It's just recognizing different ways of looking at things.

. . . a person's wisdom should be judged by the effect it has on his or her life. If that wisdom doesn't have the effect of settling the problems and difficulties in one's life – of creating a sense of ease, well-being, space, happiness, peace, and freedom – then it cannot be the real thing. - Ajahn Brahm (The Art of Disappearing)

My immediate reaction was to ask myself whether whatever wisdom I have is the real thing, followed by a quick, emphatic nöpe! Mind you, I absolutely do not disagree with him. Reading things like that, it rings right. And I have no problem with anyone, myself included, telling me my wisdom is flawed.

But that was just my quick answer and pondering it with more nuance, it turns out to be more perplexing than that.

Does my purported wisdom or practice have an effect that settles the problems and difficulties in my life? What problems do I really have? Obviously it seems and feels like I have many, but when I have a goal of bringing my life to a close, my "problem" is just being here. Not to put too fine a point on it, the reasons why bringing my life to a close is the goal are not a problem.

Within being here, all the normative things that might be perceived as problems don't amount to much. The role mindfulness plays is that it keeps me from being overly neurotic or angsty about it like I have been in the past. It keeps negativity and negative reactions in focus and at bay and promotes the opposite, or at least neutrality. There has been a settling effect on the problems, but it may not look like it.

What difficulties do I have? I can't say I don't have difficulties. There are things that I find difficult, but they're mostly neurotic things that are difficult only because I create them or let them be difficult. Again, mindfulness just observes the perceived difficulties and tries to understand they're my own creation and not to get bent out of shape over them. Rainy days are difficult. My neurotic reaction about my neighbors is difficult. They're not really difficulties. If pressed, they fly out the window.

How about separately considering sense of ease, well-being, space, happiness, peace and freedom? That's where it gets perplexing because contemplating dying brings exactly those feelings: sense of ease, well-being, space, openness, happiness, peace and freedom.

They aren't what psychiatrists might point out in some suicidal cases where there's a feeling of euphoria once they've made the decision to kill themselves. That's a false sense of those feelings because it's conditional on knowing they're going to be released from their pain, rather than having a settling effect on their problems and difficulties.

Contemplating death, those feelings are very real for me. The feelings aren't contingent on having made a final decision and looking forward to it as a relief. They are there with the very contemplation and vary in intensity depending on the depth of it. But are they connected to wisdom?

Some would say true wisdom would make me want to live. I would call that dogmatic, judgmental attachment to living just for the sake of preserving life that's ephemeral by nature. That's not wisdom, either. Wisdom is an understanding, it doesn't make people do or not do anything. It's morality's job to police behavior, not wisdom's, and I've never cared much for human or social constructs of morality.

I think it is very possible for practitioners to contemplate death and connect deeply with the reality that one day we will die and feel that sense of freedom and peace; that letting go. It's not an abandonment or a 'why bother?' letting go, but it's based on wisdom understanding, accompanied with mindfulness training to not be attached or overly sentimental about our lives.

(It resounds, reverberates and resonates: I don't need to be here anymore, I don't want to be here anymore. Same as it ever was.)

I broke out of my dearly-held daily routine today and did a recon of Taiwan's northwest coast. It only recently became easier to get to the northwest coast when the Taoyuan Airport MRT opened last year. I didn't pay much attention to it because it didn't affect me. From where I live, it's still easier and quicker to take the express bus from nearby Songshan Airport. But it turns out the MRT can be used to get to the coast.

My interest is in shorelines. Getting to the northeast coast is easy from Taipei, but the northeast coast is too cluttered and developed, too many people. From any point, look left, look right, there's something right there. The north coast is only realistically accessible for me by bike, and that's no longer an option. I doubt I have the fitness to even ride the 18 miles to Danshui, the start of the north coast. The north coast was ideal once, but only that once.

I have been to the northwest coast on bike before. Once, on what I remember as a pretty epic ride before I had a bike GPS so I don't have a record of it. It must have been among the longest rides I've gone on ever, riding up to the mouth of the Danshui River and then down the northwest coast and taking me past Taoyuan Airport to get back to Taipei. But the coastline struck me as very appealing as not so crowded with development. Just no way to get there.

The airport MRT came into my consciousness about a month ago when my mother was here, and I realized the last stop before reaching the airport is only about three miles from the coast, where I'd been on that bike ride years ago. Three miles, about an hour walk. I can manage that.

I decided to go today because there's been a dip in temperatures. The past month has been too hot to make the six mile round-trip walk realistic or without risk. I also got a bug in me to do something different from my dearly-held daily routine. I went out without full commitment to the journey and was prepared to turn back at any point. That was reflected in details that I missed: forgot to bring my GPS, wore the wrong sneakers, didn't do time calculations. I didn't even bother eating. Whatever I did, it was not supposed to be trying nor tribulating.

And there was nothing noteworthy about the trek except that it was way out beyond my daily life scope of the last many years. The MRT was just an MRT ride, the walk was just a walk. Good decision to go on a not flaming hot day, as that would've been quite miserable. On any other day this past month, I might have stepped out of the Kengkou MRT station and said, "nope". Not walking six miles in this.

My destination was Zhuwei Fishing Village. I didn't know about it on that bike ride years ago, but remember diverting there when I was passing by. There's a bright red bridge you can't miss, and on bike I couldn't resist exploring.

This time, once I got there I didn't linger. I underestimated the time and just did a quick walk-through before heading back to the MRT station. I didn't explore the coastline because it looked like there was work being done to it, perhaps development to make it more of a destination for visitors. Access wasn't immediately obvious.

I might do another recon in a month's time with better planning. Leaving early in the morning to avoid the heat and allowing for inspecting the shoreline further south of the fishing village. I also learned from this recon that Kengkou MRT isn't the best way to get to the coast. The stop before it, Shanbi MRT, has both YouBikes and buses that run to a stone's throw away from the fishing village. I think the bus is the better option.