Spiritual Exercises

[Dharmavidya]

In Pureland Buddhism we say that "only nembutsu is real and true" meaning that it is the direct relationship between one's lived life and the Buddha that is the reality. All doctrine, dogma and concept, while sometimes immensely useful, is abstract and so is not actually real. All human knowledge is like this. All science is like this. It is abstract - hugely useful but not "the-thing-itself". All Buddhist wisdom is also like this - the Buddha spoke to, we say, 84000 different groups in his lifetime. Everything he said is abstraction. The reality was the life he lived and the most real aspect of that life was the relationship that his lived-life had to the "Great Lineage" - the Buddhas of past, present and future. This is what he tried to convey through all those teachings. So there is a relationship between the teaching and the thing itself. For this reason, Buddhism has many spiritual exercises. These are means by which one may attain to a more experiential understanding of the Dharma. On the one hand, such spiritual exercises are a way of making the teachings less abstract and more closely related to one's personal life. On the other hand, if the teachings are at one remove from "the-thing-itself" then an exercise to help one understand the teaching is at a second remove. Thus any "means-to-attain" is not "it". 

We can see an example of this principle at work in the Contemplation Sutra. There the Buddha meets Queen Vaidehi. Her situation at the time is extremely difficult, imprisoned by her own son. The exchange she has with Gotama is very touching and as a result she is flodded with an experience in which she sees myriads of Buddha Pure Lands and makes a choice for the land of Amida Buddha. This is an over-whelming spiritual ecstacy that she falls into spontaneously through the pressure of her situation and her love for the Buddha. Meanwhile, Ananda who is at hand is deeply impressed by what has happened to the queen and asks how he can have something similar happen. The Buddha then tells him a do-it-by-numbers series of visualisations whereby he can obtain an impression of what the Pure Land of Amida is like. Clearly this is an exercise and equally clearly Ananda is not going to have the fullness of experience that Vaidehi had. We can see here that there is a big gap between an exercise and the thing-itself, between a sadhana and a real encounter with a spiritual being, for instance.

With this caveat, however, there is much to be said for spiritual exercises. They are not the nembutsu itself, but they can deepen our appreciation of the Dharma if we take them in the right way. In this group I will share some spiritual exercises that you can work with if you like. As i say, none of these are essential to Pureland Buddhism - the nembutsu alone is sufficient - but they can help one to understand what the nembutsu is about and they can erode some of the barrier created by our habitual tendency toward abstraction. 

Please note that all of these exercises can be considered to be one or another form of either nei quan or chih quan.

[Dharmavidya]

Exercise One: Is this a prayer?

Elsewhere I have already written about the exercvise of considering each thing that one does in the course of the day in the light of the question "Is this a prayer?" and the follow-up, "If this is a prayer, what sort of prayer and a prayer to what?" By this means one can see all of life as worship and one can ask oneself "What is it that I am spending my time worshipping?" This is a very useful means of investigating one's life.

[richard meyers]

Dear Dharmavidya,

The question is this a prayer? seems a step toward real life and not just a rehearsal for it. Thus far I must admit. this is not much more than an intuitive response to the idea of the exercise. If this is a prayer, what sort of pryer and a prayer to what? Then the last one. I can't wait to try it! No time like the present. Is THIS a prayer...

Ask the question I think and then forget the question and just do what I am doing, whatever it might be. Or am I wrong? It does seem that digging the garden, with the scent of soil and the sensation of the spade slicing the earth - if fully entered into might be understood as prayer in itself.

[Dharmavidya]

Yes, anything might be a prayer. Writing this response to your discussion comment could be a prayer. It could be worship of the spirit of enquiry into things spiritual (a prayer to Apollo); it could be worship of friendship and of our relationship (a prayer to the god of friendship); it could be a prayer asking for help for both of us in our understanding (perhaps to Manjushri). It all depends on the motive with which the act is performed. Most things are done for a reason and that reason serves some ultimate goal which has a value component. Not all goals are good, of course, This post could be a prayer to my own ego, showing off what I imagine to be my superior knowledge, and so on. The question is, which god is one worshipping by doing what one is doing?

[Dharmavidya]

Exercise Two: Is this all?

We can reflect upon our conditioned nature - "conditioned" in the buddhist sense, by which we mean essentially dependent upon.

Part One
We can start with the body. The body has an origin in our parents and it relies upon food, air, warmth from some source, the ground to stand upon, clothes, shelter and so on. Some conditions are from the past, some are continuingly supportive in the present, some we hope will continue to be there in the future. We are grateful for these conditions and for the sheer fact that we have a human body.

Part Two
We can continue with our personal mind, which is the going-on of thought, imagination, emotion, sensation, intentions, feelings and intuitions of all kinds. All these elements have their origin in other factors - we got them from somewhere - they have their triggers that immediately precede them, they have supporting factors that hold them in being or perpetuate them. We are grateful for having a human mind full of all this dynamic activity and for the conditions that give rise to it.

Part Three
While doing this exercise we can hold at the back of our mind, lightly, the question or doubt "Is this all?"

[Dharmavidya]

Exercise Three: Nei Quan in two levels:

In Nei Quan we reflect upon the evidence of our life. We can take a short period of time - say, the past 24 hours - and reflect what has happened. We may then focus in upon a single incident or encounter. First we re-view what actually happened, physically, viewing it with no or as little as we can of judgement. Then, again as objectively as we can, and, in particular, avoiding blame, we look at our own psychological contribution to the event: our desire, our intention, our compulsiveness, our vulnerability, the anxieties and worries that were driving us, the skill or lack of skill with which we handled the situation. In this way we try to examine as objectively as we can our own personal equation as it was brought forth by the particular situation. Putting this in more technical language, we are examining our dependently originating nature - how things are triggered in us by conditions. As we do this a meta-level of feelings may be evoked: we may feel pleased with how we handled the situation or ashamed or contrite. We may resolve to do better next time. We may get insight into our bombu nature. But then there is a second part to this exercise. Although all this circling round the cycle of dependent origination seems to be "myself", as a spiritual being there is also something else going on. There is another dimension. It is possible to look at all this elation and dejection, habit and blindness as "This is not me, this is not mine, this is not my self" and to have some intuition that there is also something else.

There is a direct relationship, a direct line, from one's most basic aliveness to Buddha. This direct line is what underpins and outlasts all the ephemeral going on of the day-to-day. This is something truly sacred.It is important to do both parts of the exercise. To try to jump directly to an appreciation of the spiritual dimension of one's life without consideration of the messy personal stuff that obscures it can lead to a kind of ivory tower spirituality in which one is out of connection with real life. On the other hand, to become too immersed in the everyday and the personal is to enter upon a kind of self-analysis that will be interminable. On the one hand it is not necessary to dredge the pit of personal karma in order to be spiritually awakened, but, on the other hand, one cannot be robustly spiritual by ignoring the endless going-on of the personal cycle.

[Dharmavidya]

Exercise Four: Paramita Angels

When we do nei quan we are examining our interactions with and dependency upon the significant others in the world around us. We might take a period of time - say the past 24 hours - and reflect upon what happened: What did I receive? What did I give? What trouble did my existence cause to other? What kept me in being? and so on. There are many different ways of framing this kind of examination. One way is to see the others as angels. An angel is an intermediary between oneself and the radiant world of the Other Shore. In our interactions and encounters, there are two "in-betweens". The first in-between is what goes on between the other and oneself. The second in between lies in the fact thaqt the other is an intermediary between oneself and Amida. Every encounter gives us some feedback, some new learning, some insight. It sheds light. We can, therefore, do our nei quan thinking of each of the people, animals, plants, and even physical circumstances that we have encountered as paramita angels. We can then say a prayer to each of these angels. The prayer may include confession, contrition, petition, praise, blessing, offering and anything else appropriate, but the act of hallowing each angel will itself be beneficial.

Usually, after doing nei quan we follow with a period of chi quan in which we offer whatever remains from the first exercise to the Buddhas and then, having let everything go, dwell in their peace. If we have been doing our nei quan with angels, then in the chi quan we can visualise that all the angels return to the Other Shore or to the Pure Land, to be with the Buddhas, and we are left in a place of complete peace and safety with only the blessing of the Tathagata remaining to support and protect us. There we can abide in great tranquility, our heart open to the Light.

[Dharmavidya]

Exercise Five: Receiving Reality as Amida's Prayer

In this exercise we learn to use a modified form of the nembutsu in ten syllables:
"Sweet is the prayer of the Measureless One"

We can say this with or without a rosary. When we are doing this practice we say the prayer after each thing that happens, considering it as a prayer of Amida. Amida is always praying (vowing) the original and sacred vows and these are the unique and essential means for us to enter the Pure Land. So here we learn to see each thing that happens as one of Amida's prayers. If we are reading a book, for instance, at the end of each paragraph we think of that paragraph as a prayer from Amida and we say, in our mind,
"Sweet is the prayer of the Measureless One"
then we read the next paragraph. This will slow one's reading down, but one may take in more and appreciate what one is reading in a different way.

Or if one is eating one's meal, after each mouthful of food,
"Sweet is the prayer of the Measureless One"

Or, if one is walking down the street, each thing you encounter,
"Sweet is the prayer of the Measureless One"

Or listening to somebody, one might not say the verse, but one can appreciate their presence as a prayer of Amida, and consider it sweet

and if you want to practise intensely, then with each breath
"Sweet is the prayer of the Measureless One"

So we might be saying the verse thousands of times a day, or we might be saying it after each significant thing or series of things happens, or just when we remember, depending upon how intensively we want to practice. The developing facility to see everything that happens as Amida's prayer will gradually work a profound change in our outlook, reprogamming our unconscious mind, enabling us to appreciate Amida's unceasing prayer on our behalf, and closing the gate to Mara.

[Vimalashri yaakov matri]

Thank you very much Dharmavidya for continuing to give us those exercises from time to time. All these exercises are very helpful for our practice. Namo Amida Bu.

[Dharmavidya]

Exercise Six: Mounting the practice on the breath or the heart

When we say a chant silently, it is possible to match the rhythm to the pattern of the breathing or to that of the heart-beat. This approach can be carried to the point where the association is so strong that awareness of the breath or the heart as the case may be brings awareness of the prayer, so that the prayer becomes "self-acting" as it were.

The two major values of this type of practice are the degree of inner peace that it can conduce to and the fact that prayer does, to a degree, become self-acting. There may be other yogic advantages in terms of the harmonisation of body, speech and mind and the achievement of a degree of control over otherwise autonomous fuctions - slowing of the metabolic rate, for instance.

This type pf practice works best with a chant that has a strong metre. Thus, if one takes the nembutsu in the form
May I who am a foolish one
dwell ever in Your light and grace
which has a pronounced rhythmic structure
- ! - ! - ! - !
- ! - ! - ! - !
then the stressed syllables may fall easily one upon each heart beat. In my own case this works easily, but my heart rate is quite slow (52) whereas most people's rate is in the range 70-90 so they might need to adjust somewhat or the chant may be very fast.

Remarks and Pitfalls
# One has to remain very still to notice the heart beat. This in itself is good, helping to induce a deep tranquility. Remaining in complete stillness one notices the throp of the pulse at various points on the body and at the heart itself.
# Generally, if one centres the prayer on the heart, then the breathing will also keep time. This is OK, but there may be a tendency to over-breath or to constrain the breath too much so that one is getting too much or too little oxygen and this may generate unwanted side effects. It is important to break the rhythm of the breathing from time to time so as to avoid or compensate for this effect.
# I find that if I focus upon the heart beat at the heart itself then the left side of the body becomes hot and the right side cold. I have found that one can counter this by focusing upon a pulse point on the left side of the body - in the neck, say - but this departs from the traditional instructions for self-acting prayer which generally recommend focus at the heart.
# You are free to experiment, but I would not recommend doing this kind of practice for more than half an hour at a time until you have quite a lot of experience because there are dangers of introducing arythmia that can have bad physiological repercussions. For anybody who has heart problems or who has recently had a major emotional upheaval, I suggest this type of practice is not appropriate.

Mounting the practice on the heart is a practice found in Orthodox Christian literature. Buddhist texts generally recommend mounting the practice on the breath alone. The advantage of the breath is that it partakes of both the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. The advantage of the heart is its centrality to the whole vitality system of the organism.

This type of practice is a yoga. It is not necessary or even recommended for Pureland practice, but it may be found useful by some practitioners for its particular effects. Namo Amida Bu.

[Kaspalita]

Namo Amida Bu. Thank for this whole thread. I especially like the exercise in which one asks what am I praying too. It seems an essential questions especially when one is surrounded by the Idols of the material world....

I have found when I chant a rosery of nembutsu "Namo Amida Bu" the chant naturally matches my heartbeat.

Namo Amida Bu