Empathy

When is empathy a sin? When you're stealing. When you're a flim flam man, a soft shoes shuffler. Whoever is closed off to empathy must be exhausted, claustrophobic, agoraphobic. It's got to be pretty bleak to lead such a closed off and constricted life. 

Anyway, I'm reading Leigh Brasington's Right Concentration (2015) and he uses the word very, as in very mindful. What does very do in that sentence. Then he uses it again as in very important. Now I think using very in verbal communication is OK because there are lots of filler words because you need time to think. If you read transcript people don't think like brilliant writing. In writing I believe in using "very" very rarely. Let mindful and important speak for themselves. Just a writing opinion I've developed in my almost six decades. 

Last night we talked for a while, and then we meditated for 40 minutes. I don't like meditating too late in the evening because it keeps me up. Alas I've been watching Avenue 5 and I had 3 episodes left, but I went to bed. It's a combination of White Lotus and Rango in space. It's quite fun.

Here's a video of atheism explained in a nutshell (on Reddit, you don't need to sign up to see). I'm an atheist Buddhist, but I do love the mythology as mythology and find it very helpful. 

My 4 days of anapanasati are over, now it's a day of 6 element, a day of Buddhanasati, then back to metta. I do 4 days of mindfulness of breathing because I want to spend equal time as I do on the brahma viharas. I often follow my breath when I'm just sitting and off the cushion. I'm often trying to conjure the sublime abodes. 

The 6 elements are earth, water, fire (energy), air, space and consciousness. Most people don't see consciousness as an element, but in Buddhism you're mindful of how the mind creates the world for you, and indeed, your Buddha nature. 

I usually wake up, drink coffee and read, and then poop, and so the earth element isn't hard to imagine for me, it's recently come out of me, it's not me, it's not mine. If you eat a vegan diet, there's a copious amount of matter that comes out, but to compensate it doesn't smell as much.

Same with water, I take a sip of coffee and pee. Don't forget fluid of the joints and all the other fluids in your body. Water flows into, water flows out of me, it's not me, it's not mine. All the boogers, all the onanism. 

Energy is more subtle, it comes into, it comes out of me, it's not me it's not mine. I tend to see the energy as mine, but you know I've contemplated the skandhas enough to know in a way it isn't my energy. There is energy potential in food. Ideas really fire me up. The incense I light as part of my meditation ritual burns and is reduced to ash. How does energy work with me? How can I best marshal my energies? Almost 60 and I'm still trying to read more and watch less TV. What is that about?

Air is great, and I trigger all my mindfulness of breathing mindfulness with that one, I'm glad it's 4th and not right away. The exchange is more rapid than earth and water. 

Space is a little nefarious, but "move your feet lose your seat" is a kind of motto from childhood to encounter possessiveness. And of course consciousness is quite complex, too complex really, but it's not me, it's not mine. Read Susan Blackmore's The Meme Machine. I try to connect and apprehend my Buddha-nature. 

Ten minutes each for 60 minutes. This dismantling meditation is a culmination of brahma viharas and anapanasati, and I'm mindful of my mood, I support myself in the challenge of dismantling myself, trying to keep a smile on the sinking ship.

In similar ways I'm dismantling myself thinking about the skandhas. This is another dismantling meditation. The goal is to be a little less selfish, more wisely sensitive to others. Egoism is important, indeed it's so important much of it's unconscious, don't even want to be able to override it. And still, with tender gentleness. Listen to a Tara Brach talk after doing this meditation.

I include this meditation because I once had a very profound experience walking outside after doing a lot of this meditation on retreat. And then I build up an identity by doing Buddhanasati the next day. I've always felt you don't need a Buddhist identity handoff, but I still like one. I don't have a guru, so I don't have a proper sadhana, but that's OK, I know enough about it to do Buddhanasati, and I like the historical person who gave us the Buddhist version of mindfulness of breathing.

This blog is a personal blog, and of course I don't really spill all the beans, spiritual practice is quite private. I talk most deeply with my friend Mehdi. 

I'm just done with meditation and Mehdi calls to meditate. I can just lay down when the aversion of knee pain gets to be too much.

Mehdi is watching The Razor's Edge (1983), one of my favorite movies.