Keys to a Living Buddha

This talk introduces a framework for understanding a Buddhist practice while honoring recent wisdom in neuroscience and human development. By zooming out, we see that practice comprises our depth of awakening, degree of liberation, and breadth of integration. Together, these keys give us a way to frame the different emphases we encounter in the buddha-dharma and make the best use of them in our lives.

Transcript

The purpose of this talk is to introduce the core concepts that I use to make sense of Buddhism.

Those core concepts are depth of awakening,

Degree of liberation,

And breadth of integration.

Together,

These three areas allow us to look at a Buddha Dharma that respects the various traditions that have evolved over time,

As well as the recent growth in wisdom from human developmental psychology,

Neuroscience,

And the like.

Now that we have access to so much information and the wide variety of teachings available,

It becomes increasingly important to pay attention to what teaching is coming from where.

What need are they trying to serve?

How is this of benefit to me in my life,

And in my practice,

And in my path?

Without this type of cohesion,

We can become very confused,

We can feel like the advice is conflicting,

And maybe even be delayed on experiencing the benefits of Buddhist practice.

By asking these questions and zooming out far enough,

We can take enough different angles at the Buddha Dharma to begin to identify some common threads,

Some essential practices,

And that which is shared in common among all these traditions.

This then allows us to put things in context for ourselves and make our journey through the vast amount of information available more efficient.

So this framework for making sense of Buddhism has three components,

Depth,

Degree,

And breadth.

First we'll define them,

And then we'll go into detail on each one.

Depth of awakening is a being's deepest liberating state experience that is stably integrated into the active pattern's awareness of itself and the capacity to know what depth we are functioning from in any given moment.

Degree is the current state of one's actualized cutting away of hindrances and cultivation of liberative qualities as well as their commitment to continue this right effort.

Breadth is the portion of the psyche,

Or the total number of what I call current eyes,

Which are included in the depth and degree practices.

Now before we continue,

It's important to take a moment to understand two key concepts that underpin this framework.

The first is the S.

E.

C.

E.

,

Or the Sensory Emotional Cognitive Experience,

And the other are current eyes,

Also called patterns.

The Sensory Emotional Cognitive Experience is a summary statement for what constitutes my identity.

We use S.

E.

C.

E.

Instead of ego,

Or I,

Or any of those other words because each of those reintroduces the idea of a permanent separate self.

And the whole idea behind Buddhist practice is that we are not a permanent separate self.

So what are we?

Well,

I,

Or my ego,

Is a wrapper to bundle together a series of experiences that I make an identity out of,

Which serves the evolution and survival of this particular embodied organism.

But we know that the ego is not a monolith.

With just the slightest reflection,

We can see that different situations call forth different sensory,

Emotional,

And cognitive experiences.

As those sensory,

Emotional,

And cognitive experiences are activated,

We run different patterns.

We make different cognitive and emotional shortcuts so that our behavior doesn't consume a huge amount of our energy.

We show up however we show up in relationship to driving a car,

Eating a meal,

Talking to our friends,

Talking to our partners,

Being at work,

Being at home,

Being in school.

All of these are current I's.

Whatever pattern is running at any given time is a current I.

And it's possible to get quite wrapped up and lost in identifying these patterns.

So we don't want to get too crazy here.

But also,

The big broad strokes that I just mentioned may not be granular enough.

So this is something that we each have to explore within ourselves.

And we will talk about more as we move through the framework.

So with this understanding in place,

Let's go back and take depth,

Degree,

And breadth in detail.

Depth of awakening has three components.

Those components are state experiences,

Or the experiences that we've had through meditation,

The integration of those experiences into the current I,

And our capacity to witness or to be aware of the current I's depth of awakening.

With state,

We're looking at the constant evolution of taking a experience,

Be that sensory,

Emotional,

Or cognitive,

Or the experience of awareness itself,

And detaching from it.

Not this,

Not this,

Not this.

And as we move through various states,

Which we're not going to get into in detail in this talk,

We are separating further and further away from identification of any sort until we eventually find ourselves in a non-localized,

Selfless awareness that provides us a basis for our functioning.

However well my current I remembers and functions with the truth of that experience is our integration factor.

So we can have a depth of awakening,

We can have a state experience that the whole entirety of the universe is one,

And we are completely not separate from it.

But if the current I,

Who is running,

Does not remember that and function with that as an underlying truth of its experience,

Then that depth of awakening,

Or that state experience,

Has not been integrated.

And therefore,

That current I,

Or that pattern,

Isn't actually operating at a very awake level.

It does not see itself as one with all.

It still sees itself as separate.

And so the current I is missing some of the awakening that would be available to it had this experience been more integrated.

The third component of the depth of awakening piece is the capacity to remain aware of what level of the current I is operating at.

So this would come into play where,

So say that I have gone into a deep state of meditation,

And the me,

Who goes on retreat,

Is very awake.

And while I'm on retreat,

I happen to remember most of the time that I am not a permanent separate self,

But I am an ongoing process.

Well I know that when I come home,

And my kids start jumping all over me and screaming in my face,

And I get really overwhelmed and tired and I snap at them,

That temporarily that I,

Frustrated dad I,

Has forgotten that,

And is no longer in touch with that deep and profound tranquility and love that permeates my experience while I'm on retreat.

Being aware that I have forgotten that truth is part of my depth of awakening.

That's part of how we measure the depth of awakening in ourselves.

And measure here isn't the best word,

Because it's always changing.

But this gives us an opportunity to continue looking at ourselves,

Which this inquiry into our experience is one of the most fundamental things we can do to advance our Buddhist practice.

Even if we take a view that advancing our Buddhist practice means to stop wanting to advance our Buddhist practice,

It's still helpful to be aware of whether or not we are trying to advance our Buddhist practice.

Whatever measure we use is kind of irrelevant in the sense that this framework will still apply.

So this is all about the depth of awakening here.

State integration and capacity.

So what practices can we use to induce these state experiences that we then integrate and watch ourselves live from or not?

Most commonly we have our breath awareness meditations,

Mantras,

Various visualizations,

Or concentration meditation.

Any of these can create the container in which we separate progressively from our experience and descend deeper and deeper into non-localized,

Selfless illumination.

The next piece of the framework is the degree of liberation.

Like depth of awakening,

Degree of liberation has three components.

The three components are cutting,

Cultivating,

And committing.

Cutting is to look at our lives,

Our habit patterns,

Our characteristics or traits,

And determine what is unskillful and to apply right effort to that.

In this case,

That means that we are looking to stop unskillful behaviors that are part of our patterns and choosing not to create new unskillful habits.

On the other side of that,

We have cultivating.

Cultivating is to notice that which we do which is skillful and to continue doing skillful things and to start doing more skillful things.

The third component is committing.

This is kind of like the how much do I care factor.

So if I have a certain habit where there's no stress in my life,

There's no suffering happening,

Not harming anyone,

Maybe even because of this I'm generally unconscious of it,

I don't care very much.

I don't care about going through a process of cutting away that which is unskillful and cultivating more skillfulness in that area because there's no problem there.

I don't notice it or feel it.

So we have to look within ourselves and identify how much do we care?

How much are we going to take this on?

How much are we going to work on applying our meditative life and our heroic effort,

Which is one of the perfections or the right effort of the Eightfold Path to cutting away that which is unskillful and cultivating that which is skillful.

As we do this,

We become increasingly liberated in whatever current I we are doing this practice in.

So for example,

Looking at food,

My relationship to food.

I could be very unskillful in my relationship to food in that I absolutely love to eat dark chocolate.

But every time I walk by the cupboard in the kitchen,

I grab a piece of dark chocolate.

This is essentially sensual lust.

And it is when this compulsion to eat a dark chocolate becomes so powerful that it takes me away from whatever I'm doing,

Makes me forget for a moment that I have a choice in the matter about whether or not I eat that dark chocolate.

Then this is a hindrance and it's unskillful.

So the current I that grabs that dark chocolate every single time,

To the point where I don't even think about it,

And I'm spending $15 a week on dark chocolate,

Needs some cutting.

It needs some adjustment.

It needs to be reduced in its unskillfulness and increased in its skillfulness.

So we can take a break from being wrapped up in sensual lust.

Now I might be able to feel completely differently with the same hindrance in a different current I.

For example,

Around wasting huge amounts of time on mindless phone games.

That might not interest me at all.

And I might notice myself being able to play them and have fun for a few minutes,

But then otherwise being able to step away from them whenever I want.

And so that particular aspect of sensual lust and that particular pattern or current I does not have the same ratio or the same need of cutting and cultivating.

Now as long as I don't care very much about my dark chocolate eating habit,

I'm not going to put the effort in to changing it.

That's where the committing comes in.

Over time,

We can look at a current I and a pattern and the various hindrances,

Which there are several.

Again,

We aren't going to go to in this particular talk,

But we can look at them and step by step decrease or cut away that which is unskillful and increase or cultivate that which is skillful as long as we care enough to do so.

So this degree of liberation practice is a primary focus in certain traditions and is something that I think all of us would want to take very seriously.

At this point,

I really think it's important to stress how the depth of awakening of a current I and the degree of liberation of a current I,

Even the same current I,

Do not directly correlate to each other.

I can have an I that's completely detached and capable of perfectly witnessing whatever is arising.

This would be very awake to not be reactive to whatever is happening,

But instead to choose what to do in response to the stimulus without any real sense of a personal identity or reactive pattern driving the behavior.

However,

Due to other unconscious processes and the general intention behind my activity and the values that I hold and the rest of the framework of my spiritual practice,

I still may make choices that do not demonstrate a high degree of liberation.

I can still be incredibly unskillful choices even though I witness myself doing them.

And this is a phenomenon that has gotten a lot of press.

So how can this be true?

Well,

This is true in the sense that we have different I's,

Different ego structures,

Different patterns.

It's also true in the sense that awakening and liberation are not the same thing.

Now it's true that they're linked and that a powerful awakening can immediately liberate us from certain behaviors and that by incrementally liberating ourselves,

We're preparing ourselves for an awakening experience.

Yes,

This is true.

They do have a relationship,

But they are not identical.

And accepting this and bringing this into our practice can be extremely helpful for understanding what's going on in our lives.

As we do this,

We're going to come to a realization of breadth of integration.

And this is really around the notion that if I am not a permanent separate self and instead I'm an ongoing process of a sensory,

Emotional,

Cognitive experience and patterns that are running to serve the needs of this organism,

Then each pattern has its own conditioning.

Each current I has its own conditioning.

Therefore,

It's my job to bring each pattern into its own depth of awakening experience,

To integrate that experience and to develop the capacity to be aware of whether or not it is living from that depth of awakening.

Each I also needs to have its own relationship to its cutting,

Cultivating,

And commitment ratio so that it can do its liberation work.

And just because I do a depth of awakening practice with my current I,

Which is the I who's giving this talk,

Doesn't mean that I'm doing my depth of awakening practice with the little boy who was abandoned by his mother and is deeply terrified and insecure.

That's a different piece of work.

We can bring this pattern online.

We can invite it along for the process.

We can take a mature self and invite an immature self to come sit with us and to engage in our meditation practice with us.

And as it also has a depth of awakening experience and integrates it and has that capacity,

When it comes online as part of its reactive pattern,

It can do so from a certain degree of awakening.

That has a dramatic potential to transform our lives,

To clear up our shadow states,

To show up in the world from the four sublime abodes of sympathetic joy,

Compassion,

Equanimity,

And loving kindness.

Because it's when we are triggered,

It's when we're functioning from a less mature version of ourselves that we leave those abodes.

So when we go on retreat,

We want to bring that stuff with us.

When we go into our meditation cushion,

We're not looking to get away from it.

We're looking to open and expand the breadth of our experience so that all of our patterns come into a deep awakening experience and are actively engaged in their own degree of liberation experience.

All together then,

Depth,

Degree,

And breadth give us a way to take any Dharma teaching that we encounter and put it in relationship to our practice.

It also allows us to look at the various aspects of our lives and to determine where we're at,

What do we need to be doing.

Maybe this pattern needs more awakening practice,

While this pattern needs more liberation practice.

Maybe I have a pattern over here in the corner that I've really been refusing to look at,

And if I don't,

I'm going to start to have some real issues in my life and I can't figure out why my meditation isn't translating.

Well,

Now we have a frame for that.

Now we know that this is a breadth issue.

That pattern is not being invited to the party.

That pattern is not being brought to the meditation cushion and is not being asked to do its liberation work because we're afraid to look at it.

And that's okay.

Sometimes it's not active in our lives and we don't care that much.

So we don't need to do these things because there's no urgency.

And this is where we return to the Four Noble Truths.

There is suffering.

Without coming into the angst of our lives,

Without stepping into that which is not going well,

Then there's very little motivation to practice.

There's very little motivation to understand the origin of these issues,

To take a hard look at the craving that drives them,

To awaken from that and engage in the liberation practices.

But when we do,

There is a cessation of suffering.

And as each of us does this work for ourselves,

Reduces the boundaries between self and other while maintaining a healthy,

Healthy ego structures,

Has a broad set of patterns that are running in the world,

Showing up with loving kindness,

Compassion,

Sympathetic joy,

And equanimity,

Then we're really bringing life to the Dharma.

Now we're really practicing being Buddha.

And this can only be a beautiful and wonderful thing for the world.