Speaking and writing inspired by the thermal baths

I was reflecting on the next #lojongchallenge slogan while relaxing in the thermal baths. This slogan is number 33, "don't bring things to a painful point." It's kind of an interesting thing to reflect on in an environment dedicated to promoting wellness and the absence of pain and suffering!

So what is meant by this slogan? It is about avoiding blaming others for your pain and suffering. Maybe it is especially easy to understand in a wellness centre, because the owners have thought for a long time on how to create an environment in which it is pleasant to hang out. This slogan asks us to create such an environment for the people around us. One way you can do this is to think before you speak or write something about the following:

Is it truthful? 

Is it helpful? 

Is it inspiring? 

Is it necessary?  

Is it kind?

The slogan is asking us to speak in a way so that we don't harm others. More importantly, it is asking us to see whether we can avoid blaming our own misery on others. This is typically a bit more challenging because it is so attractive to blame others for things. For example, in COVID-19, to complain about others' reckless behaviour, or alternatively, their fearful behaviour which makes us uncomfortable. But of course that is not really going to help much if you think about it--in fact, it probably only creates feelings of unrest and annoyance. Khandro Rinpoche also says that many obstacles are created because of our own stupidity or ambitions. And then we try to cover that up by blaming others for it. Of course that eventually creates painful situations. If on the other hand you are able to just be honestly who you are, with all your defects, not blaming anyone else for it, then there is less to protect and eventually also less to worry about.

Image from the wellness centre (captured by Stefani Nellen)

Amazing food at the thermal baths

Hotelfie at the thermal baths

It all seems so logical and simple. Then why is this so difficult? I think it is due to the heavy emphasis of our society on success, and the constant feeling that we do not measure up. Counteracting that takes a lot of reflection--again and again--until it becomes natural. That's why I do the #lojongchallenge!

Reconsidering "I told you so"

The next slogan in the #lojongchallenge series is "don't wait in ambush". This slogan talks about how we can brood on "getting someone back" if they've said or done something nasty to us. A more noble response would be to instead return their unkindness with kindness.

Now of course being kind to someone who has treated you poorly is not always that easy. My personal response is usually to simply avoid this person. Then at least you know you won't cause them harm, and they also cannot cause you harm. For example, today I was on the train to Amsterdam, and when I see people who do not wear masks, one response is to be nasty to them, but another response is to simply go outside their way (which may either way be a smart thing to do in either case...).

A more subtle tendency that this can refer to is put forward by Khandro Rinpoche. She says that it also refers to cases in which we may allow situations to worsen so we can say in the end: "I told you so", rather than preventing the mistakes to happen. I personally don't think this always works, because sometimes you just need to give people the space to make their own mistakes. Nevertheless, at that time it is still not very compassionate to respond with "I told you so", rather than helping that person to clean up the mess, which would be a bit more supportive. There is sometimes quite some satisfaction in the smugness of saying "I told you so", but it's a good reminder to self that it is pretty much never helpful when you think about it.

Ballerina waiting in ambush? Picture by Anna van der Meijden https://www.instagram.com/annamaypine/?hl=en

On the whole I must confess that i am lucky that I never enjoy seeing people suffer, not even when they have hurt me. What I am trying to cultivate more of is to enjoy it when people do well. This morning I was in a ballet class in Amsterdam and I was able to really enjoy some of the beautiful dancing of the other dancers in my class, instead of being jealous of them, which can also happen sometimes. That was my little win of the day. And in the end, it makes your own life so much better as well (but of course it requires changing of habits, which is always a challenge...).

Seeing the buddha in your chance encounters

Today my retreat finished and I am easing back into daily life. I already had my first interaction with a friend I randomly ran into in the marketplace. But in the end, the whole purpose of retreat is not to run from life, but rather to prepare to engage in life in a more productive way. This is why I felt it was quite a good idea to write these blogs while I was on retreat so I could think about how to interact with the world once I got back into it.

The 31st slogan of Lojong is "don't malign others." This is quite an obvious slogan: don't speak ill of people. As I mentioned quite a few times before on this blog, sometimes it feels good to take others down, so we can feel better about ourselves. But apart from the fact that this feeling good is only short-lived, in the end, it also does your relationship with the person you are talking with no good. After all, who likes to talk to someone who only complains about others?

Khandro Rinpoche also says that it's very easy to judge--it doesn't give the other space to make mistakes, to work with themselves. it may sound naive, but giving others the benefit of the doubt usually improves the quality of your interactions. If you assume others have good intentions then I find that often people feel that and proceed to interact with you in a more positive way than when you assume others' bad intentions. I find this relatively easy now but when I was bullied as a little kid, I always had the feeling that other kids were speaking bad about me, and this made me very anxious. So this habit is definitely shaped a lot by your experiences with other people. Now most people approach me positively I find it quite easy to do.

Saying hello to the door. Picture by Anna van der Meijden https://www.instagram.com/annamaypine/?hl=en

Yet, I don't think this means you can never criticize people. I actually sometimes have that tendency because I don't want to make other people angry. But that in itself doesn't help either because tensions are built and never spoken off. Or even worse, people who behave poorly and harm others get never any headwind and therefore step by step make their behaviour even worse because they think they can get away with it. So, just like all these slogans, I think they should be applied with care. Nevertheless, seeing things from the perspective that all people are inherently buddhas-to-be, and therefore inherently good, definitely makes the world a better place.

Playing the unpredictable in an uncertain post-COVID world

We are halfway in the #lojongchallenge! The 30th slogan is "don't be so predictable." This refers to our tendency to respond very habitually whenever we are challenged, mostly by feeling sorry for ourselves. Do you recognize this? I certainly do! In these days of COVID-19, this tends to happen for example when the internet breaks down just at a moment that an important meeting or teaching is happening (like yesterday). My natural reaction is to make a big drama out of that, which obviously won't make anyone feel better, not even myself.

More specifically it also refers to the case where someone causes you trouble. Our natural reaction is to respond nastily in response. In a way, this is also what society expects from us. But what if we don't follow that pattern? In a way, when someone causes you trouble, they hope you get annoyed, and if you don't, that not only surprises you but them as well, thereby breaking the chains of action and reaction that we call karma.

Picture by Anna van der Meijden https://www.instagram.com/annamaypine/?hl=en

Breaking this chain of karma is very significant because it helps us to break our habitual patterns of reactions. If you are able to do so, it feels so good because you have gained freedom! However, it is not so easy, so you have to start with small actions. Khandro Rinpoche for example suggests surprising yourself by being generous, or maybe try being patient. For example, right now it is quite hot. A natural reaction is to feel very sorry for myself it is so hot, and then to slump down in tiredness. But maybe I can also just feel the heat and enjoy it while it lasts (I mean, next week I am going to a sauna: even more heat, and then voluntarily ;-) ). 

The practice of meditation is also very much about not being predictable. Our predictable patterns are to indulge in thoughts, especially self-related thoughts, and forget about everything else. Meditation is instead an invitation to be curious: to watch your mind, to see where your awareness comes from, to explore just being, and just doing nothing, taking space. In our busy society that is almost a revolutionary act.

And maybe, when we are less predictable in how we respond to things, we can also respond better to an unpredictable world, which very much characterizes this COVID-19 situation, and which is probably one of the biggest challenges of it for most people. Maybe the attitude of playfulness towards our own reactions can also translate into a playfulness towards the daily surprises that COVID throws at us.

Dropping the self from the meditation

We're moving along quite nicely in the #LojongChallenge! Today I want to discuss slogan 29: "give up poisoned food." Of course it is never good to eat food with poison, but obviously here this is meant more metaphorically. The idea here is that when you practice, you do it not so that other people think you are an amazing person, but rather, for the benefit of others. This is not surprising, since the whole Lojong is pretty much about that. Nevertheless, it is important to keep examining your motivation in whatever you do.

Here I would like to focus a little more on the case of meditation, since I am currently doing a meditation retreat. In meditation too, it is attractive to want it to be a kind of quiet and peaceful state in which we feel good and feel like we are a great meditator. But of course, meditation isn't always like that! Often meditation is just like a big mess of turbulent thoughts that go all over the place. And many of these thoughts--in fact--are self-related. We know this from neuroscientific research: whenever people are left to their own devices, a brain network known as the default mode network turns on, which consists of a set of mostly midline areas such as the medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex that are thought to be strongly involved in self-referential processes. And in my lab I have demonstrated that the moment people are prompted to think about themselves, they get distracted and do worse on cognitive tasks such as a memory task.

So what to do? One strategy I am playing around with right now is to focus on the process rather than the result. Just the fact that you sit down to practise is awesome. Sometimes the practice will feel good, sometimes it won't, but slowly you will make progress anyway. It is also said that it is better to leave your analysis and judgment of how the meditation went until afterwards, and to during the practice mostly focus on being relaxed and spacious. One quote of Sogyal Rinpoche that illustrates this well is "meditation is becoming naturally assimilated in it." It says that instead of working hard to do something, it is more about un-doing, and trusting that you will land in your buddha nature. What a beautiful and soothing idea in this stressful world!

Can we be without a goal?

An intriguing slogan in the Lojong text is number 28: "abandon any hope of fruition." Here in the West, we are strongly conditioned in being very goal-directed, having specific, measurable, achievable and time-bound goals. This contributes to getting things done. So why are we to let go of a hope of fruition, or in other words, "achievement"?

Sometimes the tendency to try to achieve things can be in the way of accomplishment. This is particularly true with these Lojong teachings, because achieving something tends to often be associated with a feeling of self-cherishing. It's not bad to feel good a bout yourself, but feeling superior is a problem.

Moreover, the tendency to always be goal-directed also gets in the way of taking time to just rest and being present with what is. A large part of Buddhist practice is about sitting there and doing nothing--and through that, through observing what happens, becoming familiar with the nature of reality that is to be found within, rather than in busy activity.

Approaching the goal. Picture by Anna van der Meijden, https://www.instagram.com/annamaypine/?hl=en

But yet, how can we then still motivate ourselves if we shouldn't hope for fruition? Maybe it is the case that we will never reach fruition, but we will still make some progress along the way, and we can still celebrate those little moments in which we were able to transform an emotion or approach a situation in a different way. And at the same time realize that that is only a tiny step along the way. Then it is key to go back to your motivation and use that as your major impetus: whatever you do, be it action or inaction, can be with a motivation to help beings and eventually to becoming a truly healthy and happy person (something which Buddhists call enlightenment).

Looking for focus: a case for just being

The next slogan in the #lojongchallenge is number 27: "Work with the greatest defilements first." Of course the whole Lojong programme is about working with our emotions. A wonderful thing of this programme is that is has a fantastic array of methods. This is at the same time a challenge, because we can get lost in it and not end up making substantial progress in any of them. I notice this tendency most strongly in ballet classes I take: when I strongly focus on fixing one bad habit (such as forgetting to suck in my tummy or not stretching my legs fully) then I make much more progress than when I focus on whatever is that day's teacher's particular focus. The same applies of course to working with your negative emotions.

Just being happy with flowers. Picture by Anna van der Meijden https://www.instagram.com/annamaypine/ 

How do you know what is your most insistent emotion or habit? One clue is to look at what you tend to put off, because that is often where the strongest obstacle is located. The good news, according to Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, is also that all the different emotions are in some way related to self-cherishing. If you deal with one of them, then the others will automatically be improved as well.

For myself, I definitely recognize this tendency to try out many different things and not persist on one path until the end. It is just too easy to get lost in doing, instead of spending time in being--doing nothing in particular but just being with what is and seeing what emerges. Sometimes just being can be the most productive because, as Khandro Rinpoche says, it allows the natural compassion to shine out. It is also where we can drop our competitiveness and instead just connect.

Maybe this is for me the greatest obstacle or habit: to get lost in the doing. Getting lost in doing is an easy way to avoid facing things, and at the same time it is also often driven by the need for recognition--recognition by others for all the amazing things you are doing. This is just one manifestation of what Buddhists call "attachment"--in this case attachment to praise. But when you think about it from the Dzogchen perspective: you are already totally fine. Your nature is the Buddha, and if you only let it out, it will shine all by itself with brilliant wisdom and compassion. If only it weren't so hard to trust that... 

More thoughts on self-criticism and other-criticism in life and ballet

The next slogan in Lojong is number 26: "Don’t ponder others’ flaws." This is quite similar to the previous slogan, but whereas the previous one is about acting out your criticism in terms of speech, this one is about merely thinking about the flaws of others. For me that is a much stronger temptation than speaking of other's flaws. You may think "thoughts don't harm, right?" And indeed, they don't do so directly. But they are not particularly pleasant either.

The moment you start criticising others, first of all, doesn't really feel that good in the long term. In the short term, it may make you feel better about yourself, but to maintain this feeling better, you have to keep comparing yourself to others and that is pretty exhausting. One domain in which I am quite prone to mentally comparing myself to others is ballet. This is completely unnecessary because I am way too old for a career, so I am just doing it for fun. And yet, this is my mental habit. A few weeks ago I did a kind of home-made ballet intensive during which I stayed in Amsterdam for a few days and took many classes. This was my chance to play with these feelings! I found out that when I was doing a tough conditioning class, one strategy is to handle the challenge by comparing myself to others. As I just indicated, this is a quite a stressful strategy. Alternatively, I could just try to stay with the moment--with the unpleasant feelings of a tough exercise but not thinking about how long it's still going to last (long!) and not thinking about how well it's going--just staying there non-judgmentally. When I was able to do that, the whole experience became like a meditation, and quite relaxed (at least from a mental perspective). Moreover, practising in such a mind state feels so much more satisfying.

Picture by Anna van der Meijden https://www.instagram.com/annamaypine/?hl=en

I will end with one more tip that I found in Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche's book "Intelligent heart", which I found quite helpful. He said that if you are dealing with a very difficult person for whom criticism almost naturally arises, then try to realize that it's just your perception. Everyone perceives people differently, and there may well be people who see this person as amazing. The same is true about yourself by the way: the way you see yourself is probably quite different from the way others see you.

Exploring together-apart mind and reality in times of COVID-19

Last week I attended the European Mind and Life Summer Research Institute. I have been lucky enough to attend many such events over the course of my career, and it is safe to say they have shaped my career as a contemplative scientist. During these Summer Research Institutes, scientists and contemplatives get together to discuss about issues in the field of contemplative science, but also do a lot of contemplation themselves. Unsurprisingly, this year's edition took place online.

I was not sure how an online version of this event would work out, but I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of connection that I felt with the other attendees. This was achieved by some quite inventive meeting formats. Before the meeting itself, the faculty had recorded brief (20-30 min) lectures that you could watch and ask questions about. These questions were collected on a board that allowed for upvoting of your favorite questions. Participants who presented posters had submitted PDFs and 2-minute video presentations of their posters and all gotten a Slack channel to discuss these posters during the meeting. Every day of the meeting started with contemplative practices: a choice of meditation, and a choice between chi gong, yoga and juggling. I ended up mostly not following those but taking a ballet class instead. After that, the first session was a plenary meeting with the faculty in which they briefly recapped the essence of their talks, followed by a panel discussion, partly driven by the submitted questions. There was also a brief period in which we were put in breakout rooms to discuss possible questions to ask. I must confess that during most of these sessions I ended up instead just talking to the others about their fascinating work! In the afternoons, we then had breakout groups with the day's speakers in which we discussed a bit more deeply. Before that, we would often have a fun activity, for example answering a question with one word on mentimeter that then transformed into a word cloud. The afternoon ended by bringing everyone back together with reports from the breakout groups and more general discussion. As the week progressed, there were also more and more self-organized zoom meetings for discussions and chats. As usual, there was a much-needed silent meditation day in the middle of the week which also featured a teaching by Mingyur Rinpoche, who talked about his wandering retreat and meditation in general.

Now the contents of the meeting. We started the first day by talking about perception: how do we derive knowledge from the world? This questions was approached from neuroscientific, philosophical and contemplative directions. Michel Bitbol for example argued that our experience of the world is just the part we need, which is an optimal way to perceive the world, but we should remember that that is not reality. There were many discussions about how we continuously make up stories about the world, and then confuse them for reality. Yet even if science is just another story, Michel Bitbol argued that it is a very efficient way towards knowledge, for example in the case of a search for a COVID-19 vaccine.

The second day was dedicated to interoception and emotions. Holger Yeshe talked about how the Buddhist teachings give us tools to investigate where our suffering, and our negative emotions (which are the source of this suffering) come from. Micah Allen talked about interoception--the feeling of our body from the inside, and argued that many psychiatric disorders are accompanied by problems in interoception. There have been claims that meditation improves interoception, but the evidence for this is not unequivocal. He also argued that we need more replication in the field of meditation reserarch and called for a Many Labs experiment in this field. I fully agree, and I am working on a project to work towards that! On a more poetic note, Giovanna Colombetti argued that emotions are not a feeling of the body but a feeling through the body. A lot to think about!

Thursday was dedicated to embodying knowledge. All too often, we think that knowledge is just in our heads, but dancers will know that you can also know and investigate through the body--a perspective that was also shown by Asaf Bachrach and Hsuan-Hsiu Hung. Asaf Bachrach showed an intriguing experiment in which people were moving in virtual reality, where he found that people felt very calm, and he noticed that when people moved slowly, they felt more together than when moving quickly. Despite the wisdom there is to be found in movement, Guiseppe Pagnoni argued that by keeping body and mind still during meditation practice, you can detect changes in the body-mind complex with much greater precision, which affords you to be less enslaved in your habits.

The last day was dedicated to artificial intelligence. Luisa Damiano argued that in addition to the empirical cycle of scientific research, we need the synthetic cycle in which we simulate the world and explore the world in-silico. Father Tiso discussed how artificial intelligence allows us to appreciate the sphere of interconnected minds through the internet (as was indeed happening there and then during the summer research institute!). Venerable Aileen Barry summed up the Ai day very beautifully by arguing that behind every AI there is a human, and a motivation, and we should watch this motivation.

Altogether, the ESRI was a very rich and beautiful exploration of what it means to know, and what it means to connect as humans--through technology. My head was spinning by the end, and there was as always too little time to explore this richness in ideas, but it was definitely a beautiful experience. And now it is time to take that wonder into my own retreat.

What does it mean to do retreat in times of COVID-19?

As I am writing this, I am entering into a retreat. A retreat not at the Buddhist centre of  Lerab Ling where I usually go to, but at my own home. In one of the first sessions, it was mentioned that the moment you leave your home, the retreat is half accomplished. Of course that makes a lot of sense, because you have already physically retreated from ordinary life. This made me reflect on the question of what is means to retreat, when you do not leave your home. 

For me, retreat is about taking the space and time to reflect on the Buddhist teachings--something I nornally only have little time to do. When you are in a Buddhist retreat centre, the whole environment is conducive to thinking about this, and the place is usually so beautiful that meditation almost arises naturally. The aim of this is of course to transform our minds so that it works a little bit differently, with a little more sanity, in everyday life. So how can I create that in my own home?

The meaning of retreat is "boundary", so the first thing to do of course is to reflect on every single thing I do: is this necessary for my retreat, or can I drop it? Of course work has to go, for sure. Social media, also pretty clear. News? I noticed I am quite addicted to news since COVID-19, so ideally this should go as well. At the same time, it is important to know when something changes in the world situation that may affect the way I live my life. So I decided to have a short "news" moment every morning. I will still keep up my ballet practice because it is important for me to have a flexible and strong body, but I will do so with youtube teachings, rather than interacting with other individuals. The wonderful thing of a retreat is to momentarily drop social interactions (not so difficult when you live alone like me) so you can devote yourself with less distractions to the study and reflection.

I must confess that doing retreat at home is challenging because I can feel the pull of the habits that like to fill my mind and provide entertainment. So this is a time to work with this attachment--after all, retreat is about reducing attachment and aversion, according to the Richö teaching. At the same time it is also wonderful to have the space and time to do something as meaningful as study and practice. And here it is important to not go into overdrive either but make sure that while you adhere to a retreat schedule, you also take enough time to relax. This is particularly important because this is not only my retreat but also my vacation. As it says in the Richö: "Generally, refrain from any noise and busy-ness, whether outside or within the mind, and simply remain perfectly at ease, effortlessly. This is the true, essential solitude or hermitage."

In the end, while I miss the beautiful surroundings of the Buddhist centre, I think it is also lovely to create new habits that may more easily transpire to life after the retreat. I am planning to keep writing blogs, so I will keep you posted on how it goes.