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Amaz­ing, as usual, how the pieces drift together.

I got some­thing from The Haven, men­tion­ing “the word of the year.” Ben and Jock started that tra­di­tion decades ago, con­nect­ing it to New Years Reflec­tions. The idea is to med­i­tate on your life and come up with a word that indi­cates your path, direc­tion, agenda, for the year.

Included was a link to my friend Peter Joyes’ site. He’s an artist and an all around inter­est­ing guy, and he’s doing Haven Words using an air­brush, on lam­i­nated card stock. (Check it out for yourself.)

Then, I was read­ing an arti­cle in the Winter 2009 Bud­dhad­harma mag­a­zine, called “Gau­tama vs the Bud­dha,” by Glenn Wallis.

I really liked the arti­cle, then thought about the Haven link, and decided that my word for 2010 would be

Unbind­ing.

Peter’s mak­ing me a lit­tle poster as a reminder.

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Any­way, I think there’s meat here for this blog, so let me touch on the article.

Here’s the summary:

If you’re look­ing for relief from suf­fer­ing, argues Bud­dhist scholar and author Glenn Wal­lis, you won’t find it in some myth­i­cal fig­ure named the Bud­dha but in the teach­ings of Sid­dhartha Gautama–an ordi­nary per­son like us, who became one of the world’s most gifted spir­i­tual teachers.

He then talks about the core of it all, and uses a Sutta to describe the process.

Des­ti­na­tion

I will teach the des­ti­na­tion and the path lead­ing to the des­ti­na­tion. Lis­ten to what I say.
What is the des­ti­na­tion? The erad­i­ca­tion of infat­u­a­tion, the erad­i­ca­tion of hos­til­ity, and the erad­i­ca­tion of delu­sion is what is called the des­ti­na­tion.
And what is the path lead­ing to the des­ti­na­tion? Present-moment aware­ness directed toward the body. This aware­ness is what is called the path lead­ing to the des­ti­na­tion.
In this way, I have taught to you the des­ti­na­tion and the path lead­ing to the des­ti­na­tion. That which should be done out of com­pas­sion by a car­ing teacher who desires the wel­fare of his stu­dents, I have done for you.
There are secluded places. Med­i­tate, do not be neg­li­gent! Don’t have regrets later! This is my instruc­tion to you.

Parayana Sutta

(If you like this Sutta, I’ve whipped it up as a 8.5x11 poster, in pdf for­mat
— right click to save the file )

All of that erad­i­ca­tion, called the des­ti­na­tion, is also known as Nirvana.

And, here’s an impor­tant part (and also con­tin­ued in the rest of the Wal­lis article.)

One can see the results of how one lives by look­ing directly toward the body.

In other words, the body tells us what we need to know. If we are angry, sad, depressed, bored, con­fused, infat­u­ated — then we are bound up in these things — in infat­u­a­tion, delu­sion, or hostility.

If we are present, at peace, aware, open, hon­est, vul­ner­a­ble, true to our­selves — we are unbound, and in that moment (what else is there?) we touch “all that there is.”

This ongo­ing process of see­ing into and being with is what med­i­ta­tion is all about.

As we learn to see when see­ing, hear when hear­ing, we begin to let go of our attach­ment — our “bound-ness” — to the causes of suf­fer­ing — namely, infat­u­a­tion, delu­sion, and hostility.

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Infat­u­a­tion is the same as attraction.

If I am drawn to some­thing, if I must have some­thing, or some­one, then I have sur­ren­dered myself to the thing I am attracted to.

I’m lucky, in that I’ve never been attracted to teach­ers or gurus. By this I mean that while I have known quite a few, I am not infatuated.

On the other hand, I some­times infat­u­ate myself with peo­ple whom I think are “get­ting it.” I tend to want to have them get what I get, and quite annoy myself when they per­sist in doing it their way.

When I was in train­ing in the 80s, my super­vi­sor wrote on my first eval­u­a­tion, “Wayne always has higher expec­ta­tions for his clients than they do.” I remem­ber ask­ing, “That’s a prob­lem??” She replied, “You need to let them chart their own course, even if they choose to stay stuck.”

On my final eval­u­a­tion, she wrote, “Wayne con­tin­ues to have higher expec­ta­tions for his clients than they do, and he is almost always right.”

Let me tell you, though, this propen­sity is not helpful.

I end­lessly put in more effort than most peo­ple, and am not a fan of stagnation.

But the real prob­lem with me is that I am infat­u­ated with the thought of some­one I care about becom­ing “special.”

Unbind­ing is let­ting go of my desire to make things hap­pen. So, my per­sonal path is learn­ing (end­lessly) to let peo­ple go —away, astray, wher­ever they choose. If I roman­ti­cize them, I pay the price of catch­ing myself.

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Hos­til­ity is the same as repulsion.

I do not suf­fer fools gladly. I still have a highly judge­men­tal streak. And I still set myself off over what I judge to be “dumb choices made by idiots.”

For­tu­nately, I have learned to con­tain this, and tend to “go off” not all that often. Usu­ally, I bend Darbella’s ear, while she laughs and shakes her head. Dar sel­dom gets her shorts in a bunch, and has dif­fi­culty (she tells me) under­stand­ing my obvi­ous delight in wind­ing myself up. Rather than pro­long this, let me just present a photo of Dar, look­ing at me, mid-wind-up.

If I go to hos­til­ity, I again am putting myself out there, as opposed to in here. I am caus­ing myself trauma, and blam­ing it on the behav­iour of others—and their behav­iour is none of my busi­ness and out of my control.

Unbind­ing would be see­ing the sit­u­a­tion clearly, and choos­ing what I can do to bring myself back to peace.

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Delu­sion is the same as being tuned out, unaware.

Delu­sion is think­ing that the world owes me something.

Or that, because I’m a nice per­son, I deserve spe­cial treatment.

Or that it’s scary out there and I have to be cautious.

Or that my job is to fix every­one else, and then it will be my turn.

Or that how I feel and what is going on for me is up for either debate or approval from others.

And on and on.

Unbind­ing, para­dox­i­cally, has to do with “don’t know,” with see­ing sim­ply, with­out a lot of drama or explanation.

I mostly don’t delude myself, although I could be deluded about that…

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Present minded aware­ness directed toward the body is all about pay­ing atten­tion to the very real signs our bod­ies give us, signs that point to either dis­tress or free­dom. I know how I am by being aware of what I am feel­ing, and observ­ing what I am think­ing. Once I get this, I can unbind myself from the games I am play­ing, the lies I am telling myself, and the dra­mas I am cre­at­ing, and I can be in my body, where I am, moment by moment.

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Unbind­ing is my word for the year.

Much like untan­gling wool so that it is use­ful, unbind­ing our­selves from our con­fu­sions and dis­trac­tions gives us the space and util­ity to be who we are.

Unbound. Real. Whole. Complete.

What’s your word for 2010?

How about think­ing about that, and shar­ing in the com­ments section?

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Make Con­tact!

So, how does this week’s arti­cle sit with you? What ques­tions do you have? Go to the top of this arti­cle, click on the title, and leave a com­ment or question!

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Work­shops, Retreats!

Dar­bella and I can help you to find a new, vibrant, rich path. We offer day-long and week­end events —just you and us—and we will work with you, to be the change you want to see.

Read about it here:

Day-long Inten­sives
Week­end Residentials

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Incom­ing search terms:

• unbind­ing

Related posts:

1. Drop­ping
2. Jewel Gaz­ing
3. The Straight-Jacket of Delusion
4. Body and Mind
5. The Watcher

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Tagged with: attention • awareness • blaming • Buddha • Buddhist

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