Tag Archives: cushion

Daily Buddhism

Real World Vs. Cushion Buddhism Part 2

1 Comment

Continuing from yesterday’s guest post, here is more from JJ Simon:

In Buddhism there are many practices for cutting away habitual responses and connecting to our existence. There are practices for relating to impermanence, egolessness, humility, loving kindness, compassion and emptiness. Here are a few that I use in my life to help me connect to my reality and work with my habits. In Tibet and India Meditators would go to Charnel grounds (places where bodies were broken apart for funerals) to meditate on impermanence. Pema Chodron has said the closest thing to that in the modern world would be a hospital. Since we can’t go and meditate in the middle of the emergency room I came up with a practice from a natural reminder. Road kill! When I see road kill it brings me back to attention. I say a prayer for the being and I remind myself that I too am going to die. My fate is no different and even the causes could be the same. I see my body dissolving to dust and I let it go. I do this for a few minutes. My world has provided me an opportunity to be present. To practice contemplating my own impermanence and to work with my fear of death.

I own 2 cats and 2 dogs. At times they can be annoying. I have a cat that likes only me and it pesters me for attention. My habit is to give it a little pet and then push it away and go about my business. One day I started paying attention to just petting the cat. I took my attention from the cushion and I used it to experience the cat, its fur and the way it moved when I pet it.jj_simon Then I began to reflect on the idea that this was an opportunity to be kind. The cat was providing me an opportunity to experience love and kindness and to work with my habits of impatience and lack of tolerance. I pet the cat…..I pay attention…..I send a thought of thanks to the cat for providing me with the opportunity to be consciously kind……I pay attention to my emotions…..I pet the cat. I begin to make this a practice. Soon it had spilled over into my personal relationships. I would be sitting with a friend and something would bring me back to attention. I would acknowledge the opportunity to be kind, to engage in a friendship. I would send a thought of thanks to my friend or my wife. My world has provided me with an opportunity that allows me to practice Attention, Loving Kindness, Gratitude, and Patience by simply petting a cat. If I did this on auto pilot like I have done through out my life there would be no connection. Instead I took the practice of Attention off of the cushion where I learned it and I applied it to my reality. The reality that is happening all the time and I’m given a blessing by a small annoying cat!

In the end, the questions of enlightenment, Holiness, and Spiritual Perfection are best left to the experts. Even I f I was blessed by every Guru in the world it would still be up to me to do the work. So we should work to make our life our practice. Take teachings when we can. Build our meditation up from short periods to daily practice and then long term practice; but none of it will do anything if we can’t bring it in to our world and be a holy person at the bottom of the mountain.
Good luck and remember train smart.

JJ Simon has 2 websites. One is his business http://www.explosivetattoosouth.com and the other is The Martial Arts Learning Community that he directs: http://www.themalc.org

Daily Buddhism

Meditation on a Whoopie Cushion

2 Comments

Meditation on a Whoopie Cushion

Here’s a little story and a lesson that I learned just this week:

As I explained a few weeks back, I always celebrate a traditional Christmas with my extended family on Christmas Eve and then again on Christmas Day with my closer family. It’s fun, and more of a family gathering than anything overtly religious.

On Christmas Eve, at the big extended family party, there are aunts & uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, second cousins and friends of the family and always a few I can’t quite identify. Always lots of people. In order to avoid paying out a fortune in gifts to exchange, everyone brings a gift valued at $10 and we play this oddball game where you can pick a known gift or unwrap a random one. I’m not going into the details of the game, but somehow, while others got DVDs, books, coffee cups, and store gift cards, I wound up with a deck of cards and a whoopie cushion.

I personally spent a good it of time looking for my contribution to the game, a nice set of frosted glass candles. Whoever bought the whoopie cushion not only wasn’t thinking about age-appropriateness, they couldn’t possibly have spent $10 on it. To make a long story short, I got ‚Äúripped off‚Äù in the game.

I know it would have bothered me a few years ago. I’d have sat there and seethed through the rest of the party and then griped about it for weeks to come. The thing is, it didn’t bother me. I was able to let go of it, not to be attached to my anger, and not to develop my resentment. I’m not going to say it wasn’t there at all, or I wouldn’t have noticed the slight and would never have considered writing this post, but the resentment was in control and limited and I was able to get rid of it quickly and mindfully. I was able to simply tell myself that anger was wrong and to let it go; and it went away. I even remember telling myself that it was better that I got the junk prize rather than someone who would have been disappointed with it or let anger take over.

I sat there in silence, enjoying watching others play the game and walk off with the good gifts. When the game was over, I handed my bag over to my 5-year-old nephew, the youngest one there, and he had a great time running around with the whoopie cushion, blasting it in everyone’s face. He loved it, and everyone got a kick out of him playing with it.

I credit my equanimity entirely to my Buddhist practice. I am far more mindful now than I was even only a year ago. When I got home from the party, I got on Twitter and joked about the cushion for a while with other Twitterites. Eventually someone suggested that the Dalai Lama would probably love to receive a whoopie cushion and that I should mail it to him. If you’ve ever seen the Dalai Lama interviewed, his sense of humor is very strong. There were a couple of rounds of great posts between myself and a few Twitter friends, and I probably ended up having more fun because of that stupid little rubber toy than I would have from a more ‚Äòserious‚Äù gift. Everything is subjective and open to interpretation. YOU make your own reality, whether it is contentment or resentment.

During the Twitter chat, someone asked, ‚ÄúIf one sits on a whoopie cushion, does one attain instant enlightenment?‚Äù My answer to him at the time was a joke, ‚ÄúYou’ll certainly attain something, but enlightenment probably isn’t it.‚Äù Upon further contemplation though, I could have been wrong. Maybe a whoopie cushion CAN be a step toward enlightenment.

Follow Brian on Twitter: http://twitter.com/DailyBuddhism