Buddhism — A Cheat Sheet for the Perplexed
A few years ago, I discovered Buddhist psychology. I use the word psychology rather than Buddhist “spirituality” because I am wary of beliefs around karma, rebirth and reincarnation, so I would describe myself not as a Buddhist, but as “Bhudd-ish”.
Most of the spiritual books on my shelf are those written by westerners: Alan Watts, Jack Kornfield, Pema Chodron, Eckhart Tolle, or those written by Tibetans but adapted for a western audience: Chögyam Trungpa and Yongey Mingyur. Even so, these books are not straightforward. Bhuddist philosphy is counterintuitive: “Stop seeking and you will find” …“Slow down and you will have more time”…. And the terminology can be outright mystifying: groundlessness, impermanence, non-attachment, emptiness, non-duality, mindfulness, awareness…to name a few.
Am I the only one who finds these overlapping notions hard to unravel? I have been interested in eastern spirituality for 5 years now but I still cannot keep all the basic principles in my head at once. If you are like me then permit me to share my Buddhist cheat sheet, or rather, my mental map of Buddhism. It is based on the image of a river. I hope it will be useful to other Bhudd-ish readers.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
− The metaphor of the river
− Impermanence — constant change
− Egolessness
− The path is the goal
− Acceptance & Non-Attachment
− Don’t be Flamingo, be a duck. And beware of your Monkey Mind
− Projection
− Summary Diagram
The metaphor of the river
“Life is a river always flowing. Do not hold onto things. Work hard.” — Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha)
A river is an apt metaphor for life; rich in parallels and symbolic meaning. River passengers set a course, drift, maneuver, stop, start. At times, we suffer setbacks or even injuries, but there are moments of calm, peace, and serenity. Along the journey we are forced to adapt to new conditions, but the river of life inexorably moves us forward. Eventually we all reach the river’s end — our own demise.
Now let’s extend this river metaphor and make it into a fully-featured mental map for recalling the essentials of Buddhist psychology. Below is our complete river scene labeled with brief summaries of basic notions and further down a more detailed explanation of each concept.
Impermanence — constant change
“If you’re invested in security and certainty, you are on the wrong planet.” — Pema Chödrön
One of the most mystifying and scary Buddhist notions is groundlessness. It is based on the assumption that everyone is always searching for safety and security, often in the form of permanent solutions, predictability, and absolute truths. In Buddhism, there are no guarantees of long term security. We must accept that nothing lasts forever and let go of all resistance and all grasping.
On the river, any attempt to freeze time is an invitation to suffer. Nostalgia for yesterday’s calm is understandable, but we must face today’s stormy or agitated waters with total acceptance.
The river of life is unpredictable, chaotic, and flows towards an inevitable end. It provides us no real “grounding” beneath our feet. This is an uncomfortable notion at first, until we realize that we have been imprisoned by our own delusion of permanence. We have to accept the unpredictability of life, or exhaust ourselves trying to control it.
Egolessness
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” — Heraclitus
Buddhists adhere to a theory of self denies the concept of an ego or self that is constant over our lifetime. So an adult river duck cannot say that she is the same “self” as the baby duck she once was. Similarly, the Buddhist deny that our ego is a unified entity at our core. Humans are an assemblage of emotions, thoughts, and bodily sensations as opposed to a unitary self. A useful comparison is an orchestra. The sound it makes is not a single unified sound. It is a coordinated set of many different instruments making sound. What is the risk of believing in a core self or a timeless self? It is an ethical risk. Buddhists maintain that human beings and animals belong to a unified life force. The idea of a self-contained self destroys this unity and replaces it the illusion of being separate and self-contained and ultimately would make people self-ish, self-centered, and self-serving.
Let’s use our metaphor of the river to illustrate the Buddhist notion of egolessness. The river is alive and active. But rivers have no essential core and are not separate from the rest of the environment. It is not a single entity but rather a symphony of water, foam, rocks, silt, sand, mountain springs and gravity. Like an individual, the river is unique and beautiful. It has its own personality and enriches its surroundings with its presence. But like a human being, the river’s identity changes all the time, and it is not an entity with an existence separate from the others.
The path is the goal
All that we are looking for in life — all the happiness, contentment, and peace of mind — is right here in the present moment. — Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
The cleric A.J. Muste once said, “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.” This statement has been often repeated in this form or in similar forms. The beloved zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh, was fond of this phrase. The Buddhist monk, Pema Chodron, has a version that says, “The path is the goal”. The assumption behind these statements is that we are already complete in some sense; that we have everything that we need to be at peace. So that in effect, we launch ourselves on the path of life having already reached our destination.
The river reminds us of the correspondence between the path and the goal. It winds its way through the landscape, rarely making a straight line towards its final destination. The river of life exposes us to life’s beauty, its obstacles, its failures, and its challenges. If we approach the river with curiosity, awake to all that life has to offer, we will soon realize that our path is all there is. It is its own reward.
Acceptance & Non-Attachment
“I have lived with several Zen masters — all of them cats. Even ducks have taught me important spiritual lessons. Just watching them is a meditation.” — Eckhart Tolle
Eckhart Tolle provides a funny anecdote in his influential book, The Power of Now (p190). He calls it “the duck with a human mind”. It begins with a fight between two ducks. If you have seen ducks fight, you would know that their fights don’t last. Ducks flap and quack at each other, but then quickly settle down and swim away as if the trouble had never occurred in the first place. Eckhart Tolle sees a lesson for us in this way of fighting.
“If the duck had a human mind, it would keep the fight alive by thinking, by story-making. This would probably be the duck’s story: ‘I can’t believe what he just did. He came within five inches of me… I’ll never trust him again. I know he’s already plotting something else to annoy me with.’ And in this way the duck’s mind spins its tale, still thinking and talking about it, days, months, or even years later. He may never see his adversary again, but that doesn’t matter. The single incident has left its impression and now has a life of its own deep within the duck’s mind.”
A real duck does not behave this way. Only Tolle’s imaginary duck — the one with the human mind.
There is a famous Buddhist saying: “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional”. When we think resentful thoughts, we add suffering to our original pain. Ducks remind us that it better to let go of old grievances. So when you feel yourself becoming attached to old wounds, think of the river duck. Stop the cycle of resentment so that you can continue moving freely down the river of life.
Don’t be Flamingo, be a duck. And beware of your Monkey Mind
“Push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.” — Pema Chödrön
Let’s imagine our river is the Nile. It has pink flamingos and monkeys in the trees. Our Nile flamingos are the ostriches of the nautical world. They are beautiful creatures, but they live with their head buried in the river bottom. If you take the opposite of the Buddhist concept of mindful awareness, you get the avoidance and unconsciousness of our Nile flamingos.
Our river monkeys are restless creatures. They jump around and never sit still.
Mindfulness is paying attention to the tricks that our mind plays on us moment to moment. Without mindful awareness, we tend to believe our own mental chatter, our “monkey mind”. According to the Buddhist theory of mind, awareness is what allows us to see through our delusions and correct our misconceptions. Our Nile flamingos are unconscious; locked in the illusion created by the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs of their own ego. Our Nile Monkeys have their eyes wide open, but they are always distracted and dizzy so that they don’t have to see what is in front of their eyes. They are literally swimming in denial (in the Nile). So let the Nile river remind you to be self-aware. Don’t be a flamingo. And watch your monkey mind!
Projection
The mind is the source of all experience, and by changing the direction of the mind, we can change the quality of everything we experience. — Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
The Bhuddist theory of living is wonderfully optimistic. Our mind has a tendency to create illusions and to generate useless mental chatter. But we need not suffer. How to avoid suffering? Firstly, we shouldn’t believe everything that the mind spits out at us. Secondly, the external world is not as bleak as it sometimes look. It is heavily filtered through our negative biases (mental fictions) and we can literally decide to exchange that negative filter for another.
River Boaters know all about changing what they see. They wear polarized sunglasses — special lenses that allow them to spot hidden obstacles beneath the water and to discern invisible wind patterns on the surface. The river can serve as a reminder that our reality is heavily filtered. We are all river riders wearing our own favorite brand of sunglasses. Rose-tinted, polarized, dark, light, yellow, prescription etc. and we can change sunglasses if we want. Off the river, changing our experience of reality is not as easy as putting on a new pair of sunglasses. Mindfulness is a practice that is cultivated over time. But let the river boaters remind us that the world can look very different depending on how we choose to see it.
Summary Diagram
