All posts by Peter Goble

About Peter Goble

I am an Englishman aged 77 years, married with 3 adult children. I am retired from professional life which was in mental health and teaching. I have been a (sort of) practising (sort of) Buddhist for about 30 years, and was active in the hospice sector, and more recently served as a Buddhist chaplain specialising (sort of) in mental health. My wife and I now live in north-western France (Normandy).

Meditation 6: The Inward or the Outward Way

Meditation, Practice

 

blanket bath

(Nurses learn a practical procedure in the classroom circa 1950 – Google)

Recent posts on meditation and again on mysticism have provided a scaffold on which to arrange my thoughts about both, and appraise them a little.  In Meditation 4 I had something to say about possible alternatives to sitting meditation, including a practice I favour: “Standing Like A Tree”, a kind of yoga.

I shall now briefly address the issue of “introverted attention” and “extroverted attention”, as these terms seem to apply to, and perhaps differentiate, two rather different meditation practices, two different methods of meditating,  perhaps subserving two different purposes and leading to two different outcomes.

“Introverted attention”  or the “inward way” usually occurs within a religious or doctrinal context, the method set out in teachings or texts, follows tradition, and involves a specific decision or a set of decisions, and a commitment to continuing practice.

Methodologically, the meditator goes to a quiet place, adopts a cross sitting legged position, eyes closed or half-closed, and focusses attention on some chosen sense object, usually the breath or some component of breath, such as the sensations at the nostrils.  The starting-out object (and the possible result) is separation from sensuality, the quieting of discursive thought, some tranquillity, and perhaps an experience of pleasure and zest.

“Introverted attention” has as its purpose (if it is deemed to have any purpose) as the ultimate attainment of  “contentless experience” – a state of consciousness totally devoid of sensory input, memory, discursive thought, feeling, emotion etc.  A committed practitioner may attain by increments to a state of ‘contentless experience’ by moving through an ascending scale of states, each of which contains less content than the preceding one.   Perhaps modesty forbids that meditators lay claim to attainment of any position  on the notional scale, I don’t know.  But I do wonder how any such attainment would ‘spin off’ into action that impacted the world, and how we could recognise it, and learn from it.

“Extroverted attention”, again as I understand it, means “going outward” and may be called the “outward way”.   In contrast to the “inward way” it involves much less methodological consistency, and may “grow like Topsy” out of the routine activities of everyday life and workaday situations, without a specific decision  to practice, or any purpose beyond the utilitarian, such as learning a skill necessary to do a job.

Later on in this article I’ve included some nursing notes that – to my mind – conduce incidentally to “extroverted attention”; but I don’t think that they were intended to develop extroverted attention beyond their prosaic remit, and don’t exist within a recognisable religious or philosophical context.  I’m not making any special claim for them, but they may interest and intrigue you, as they do me.

Unlike the techniques of “introverted attention”, the “extroverted attention”practitioner (for want of a word to describe everywoman/everyman at large) has her eyes open, and is open to all her senses and all her immediate experience, including her orientation in space and time, her posture, her movements, and the physical presence of proximate objects and life-forms.  The lens of her experience is widely open, and takes in ‘the big picture’, while able to discriminate detail as well, notice change, and to act appropriately to it.

Paradoxically perhaps, she is relatively free from discursive thought, although she may have internalised a series of mental cues and prompts that operate at a level just below the horizon of conscious awareness, and are accessible as thoughts by a small act of intention, like a voluntary blink.

In “extroverted attention” her personal boundary seems to expand, and to become more and more permeable and blurred, so that the subject-object distinctions lose their valency.  It is, perhaps, in this way that the pianist’s fingers become one with the keys, the seamstress’s fingers with her needle and threads, the surgeon’s with her scalpel and the organ it incises; the jockey with his horse.

Because the aperture of attention is limitless, so the idea of an aperture between observer and observed is (as if) meaningless. The distinction between carer and cared-for is also lost, as is the notion of compassion as something that flows from one vessel to another, as if from an unidirectional nozzle.   Compassion can’t be contrived, but it can be apprehended as a stream of meaning in which both ‘carer’ and ‘cared-for’ are immersed, and in which their reciprocal agency is engaged ‘as one’.

I think there is always a question in the air about which meditation practice is ‘best’, and perhaps that question begs the question “Best for what?”.  For me (and please challenge me on this) I might argue that weighing the “inward way” against the “outward way” is like assessing the relative merits of breathing in and breathing out: the answer does rest/doesn’t rest on what’s the purpose of breathing at all……

Stafford Hospital

PRACTICAL NURSING NOTES (circa 1955) – edited extracts

*************
Performing a blanket bath or bed bath is an important nursing duty, not to be shirked by a nurse on grounds of her seniority, or because she may be called to more pressing duties.  A senior nurse will remind herself of her duty to teach and supervise her junior in the performance of such duties; she will pride herself in passing on her knowledge, skill and especially her dexterity, her economy of movement, and her powers of observation to another, thus kindling her charge’s enthusiasm for excellence in bedside nursing care;  encouraging her devotion to the nursing art; and earning her professional respect.

Aside from its importance in maintaining a level of personal hygiene – vital for health, for self-respect and for dignity, and the prevention of the secondary infections and decubitus ulcers (bedsores) associated with prolonged bed rest – the skilfully administered blanket bath confers a profound feeling of well-being on the patient, and helps him to develop trust and confidence in his nurse. This sense of security is necessary for the confidential exchange of information between patient and nurse, in order that she may build up a picture of his progress, its adequacy in response to his treatment and care, and any hindrances to progress that will need attention by the physician.

***************
Having collected the requisite equipment, lay up a bath-trolley (which should be scrupulously clean) as follows:

Top shelf: enamel bowl, large enamel water jug containing water at 45 degrees Celsius; large receiver or kidney dish containing two body flannels, suitably sized portion of white unperfumed soap, unperfumed talcum powder (the patient’s own talcum powder may be used if he permits its use), surgical spirit in sprinkler bottle, large enamel bowl of coarse tow or brown wool for peri-anal toilet, small receiver or kidney dish containing a nail brush, nail-scissors, a hair brush and comb; small bowl or receiver containing an enamel mug for mouth-wash.

Lower shelf:  Enamel bucket for used water; large enamel water jug containing water at 60 degrees Celsius; bedpan and/or urinal and sanitary cover; toilet tissue; bath thermometer; strong paper bag for disposal of used tow or brown wool; two large bath towels and a face towel; change of night attire or gown;  change of bed linen (normally one draw sheet, one bed sheet and one pillow case); one flannel bath blanket.

*****************
Check the contents of the trolley carefully before proceeding to the bedside to prepare the patient and the environment for the procedure.

Inform the patient about what you intend to do and so as to ensure his willing cooperation.  Close the nearby windows to exclude draughts and screen the bed or close the bed-curtains.

*****************
Carefully assist the patient in the removal of his night-clothing, taking care to preserve his dignity and privacy.  The nurse’s movements and gestures will be well-considered, economical, unhurried, firm, gentle; they will inspire confidence and they will reassure; nurse will have full attention for any indication in the patient’s response that her support is the occasion of any alarm, discomfort or his unwillingness to proceed.
******************

When washing the upper limbs, begin with the arm distal to the ministering nurse.   Ensure that the proximal arm and chest are covered so as to avoid drips. Wash the exposed arm from the shoulder down its length with a soaped cloth, using long firm strokes from above to the tips of the fingers, giving careful attention to between the fingers, and to skin creases and folds.  Note the condition of the nails and cuticles.  Rinse the wash-cloth and repeat the washing action to remove all suds, then dry the limb and hand carefully and cover with the flannel blanket to prevent chilling.

********************

At the end of a skilfully-performed blanket bath, it is not unusual for the patient to drop into a peaceful sleep, waking refreshed after a short interval.  Nurse will plan her procedure to take this into account, especially if the blanket bath is administered less than hour before a main meal is served.

 

 

Meditation 4: Meditate till the neighbours complain….

Ethics, Meditation, Middle Way Philosophy, Practice

Rowdy crowd

“You migglers seem a rowdy crowd!
You argue, cuss, and laugh out loud,
You seldom chant or bend a knee

Gilded effigy

Before a gilded effigy!”

Thus  begins the three stanza jingle I composed as part of a joint poetry spree with other participants at an early stage in the development of the society.    Although I experienced the ‘spree’ as fun, I had an inkling that it was also a serious exercise, intended as a marker for the direction of Middle Way Philosophy  as real-life practice, rather than as a distraction from real life (as traditional Buddhism sometimes seemed);  or as an intellectual take on life without actually engaging with it, as some Buddhist writers and teachers convey.

Writing of poetry as an integrative tool, Robert M Ellis* suggests that to write it is the best way to use it, especially if the writer can delight in her creation, which she produces for its own sake, and perhaps for the sake of others, acknowledging her imperfect motivations in doing so.  My own motives are still under examination, and as I read and re-read the words I strung together then with pleasure and a real sense of accomplishment and pride, they are beginning to reveal more layers of meaning than I might have imagined at the outset, and a presentiment of more to come.  Not all my notions are comfortable ones.

In developing the verses I envisioned and my lines suggested a slightly taken-aback observer of a group of migglers, plucking up courage to be forthright in his opinion of what they were about,  speaking to them directly, and with a hint of rebuke.  “A rowdy crowd”, seemingly.  At least that leaves room for a counter-argument, but not much.  The evidence in support of that judgement?   People arguing, ‘cussing’ and laughing out loud.  Immoderate and uproarious, in other words.  Irreverent too, and individualistic to the point of being “bolshie”.  Perhaps untroubled by the idea of breaching etiquette, or even of giving offence.

One can see plainly that in this verse I am setting out my own stall, or planting my own flag on the small mound of migglism, and that the poem is a rallying cry, summoning allies to my cause: to dissent, to discrepancy, to contrariness, to cussedness, to iconoclasm, and even to ridicule, or at least to the ridiculous, the absurd, and the plain silly.  For some of these give me delight, and I enjoy the sense of delight that comes with the freedom to dissent, to be silly, and I love to share my delight with others, and have them share theirs with me, and with their others.  Which you do!

In my several years of association with Buddhism, and my contact with Buddhists, it hasn’t been my experience that delight has figured at all strongly, and possibly not at all.  On the contrary, there’s been hardly any fun in it, let alone delight, and my overall impression has been of unremitting dreariness, with an apparent striving after piety, contrived seriousness, and apologetic self-effacement.  Some of this may well be authentic, but it gets lost (or so it seems to me) in an ocean of other-worldliness, with a fierce competitive edge (like a basking shark).  Do you know any really funny Buddhist jokes?

I’ve always wondered why meditation has been so drearily characterised in the literature, and by some teachers.  On the occasions when I wonder if I’m taking an extreme view, I recall an incident in a meditation hall when I witnessed a senior monk roughly push a meditating  novice off his cushion because he was sitting so close the senior’s exalted seat that it incommoded the latter’s stately progress, hands folded and eyes downcast, towards it.

I think I understand meditation to be an important ‘limb’ of the three-limbed  practice that Middle Way Philosophy proposes, a practice conducive to the incremental integration of desire, meaning and belief, and a means to dogma-free, non-authoritarian, and ethical life.  And I conceive of the possibility of  – and maybe the necessity for – a wide range of meditative practices in which freedom, creativity, enjoyment, non-conformity, fun, delight and ecstasy are vital constituents; and can be happily shared, experimented with, joked about, laughed at, and giggled over.  Practices that bring a flush to the cheeks, a glow to the eyes, a smile to the face and beyond it, and even an occasional  complaint from the neighbours.

I’m going to make my this starting point, and I want to enlist others to the cause.  So how about it?  All together now!

chant and be happy

 *  Ellis R M (2013) Middle Way Philosophy 3: The Integration of Meaning, Lulu (Publisher) Carolina, USA.

Meditation 2: Should I sit or may I stand?

Meditation, Middle Way Philosophy, Practice

Since Meditation 1, members have been actively discussing meditation, and writing about their own practice preferences and experiences. Interest was raised by podcast 9 in which John Bolwell talked about martial arts, their relevance to middle way philosophy, and as a meditative practice.  In this blog I offer a digest of the interesting and sometimes contentious issues raised by John’s podcast (and the comments that ensued), and I shall go on to describe the basics of my own current practice, why I’ve adopted it, how I experience it, and what I believe it offers as an alternative to sitting meditation, or as a complementary adjunct.

Meditation is quite likely to conjure up an image of someone sitting (or squatting) on the ground, cross-legged, with hands loosely placed in the lap, or rested palms downward on the thighs.  The eyes are closed or half-closed, the head is erect, the back straight.  The facial expression is enigmatic, or might be described as calm or ‘serene’, with a half-smile on the lips

Images like this are nowadays quite commonplace, and I feel justified in claiming that most people would associate meditation with sitting in the posture described.  I am slightly troubled by this.  It’s as if the image has become a ‘brand’;  indeed, the image of someone ‘meditating’ has been used widely to sell commodities ranging from air-fresheners to disposable nappies.  It’s not the commodification of meditation that concerns me, it’s the imperative that – for me –  the image seems to imply:  This is the way you meditate.   You sit.  On your bottom.  On the floor.  There is no reliable alternative.  This method enjoys authoritative sanction.  From the very top.

Rightly or wrongly, I associate this dogmatism with mainstream Buddhism.  I think I may not be alone in this respect, at least in its application to practice.  It ought not, I think, cross over to migglism, where the development of new forms of practice seems to be part of our agenda.

About three years ago I came across the practice called “standing like a tree”.  It’s a form of qi gong.  It’s widely practised and written about, but it’s not a practice that has been much associated with Buddhism here in the West.  As John Bolwell claims, qi gong is as much a meditative practice as it’s a kind of strengthening or health-giving exercise.  With just over two years of pretty consistent practice using the method,  I think that its meditative possibilities match those of sitting, and in some respects I think they’re broader and deeper.

How to do it?  Stand with feet slightly apart, knees unlocked.  Let arms fall to their sides.  Enjoy the feeling of standing.  Allow the body to move, supported by the softening feet and ankles, and imagine your feet taking root in the earth (floor, pavement etc.), so that your weight, and any tension or heaviness you experience, drains down into the earth.  From the knees up, feel energy rising up to the sky.  Allow your body to relax and to soften, but also to move, to breathe, and to feel.

Let the body balance itself, aligning itself with the earth through its centre of gravity.  You can’t do this by thinking about it, any more than you can think a key into fitting itself into a lock.  By letting the body move subtly, in a thousand different tiny adjustments, it finds its own alignment with the earth, and becomes (as it were) weightless, and effortlessly self-supporting through the spine (see image immediately below).  This requires patience, and letting go.  Alignment is recognised by an unmistakable sense of “fit”, like the feeling of a key fitting into a lock it’s designed to open.

alignment and effortless poise   Aligned, relaxed, effortless poise*

Then, gradually explore breathing, moving and attending, bringing these components of experience together. How? It depends on you, your body, and your patterns of holding yourself.  Just keep mixing your breathing, moving and attending – in relaxed and exploratory ways – until it takes very little or no effort to stand; no more than it takes to sit.  Patterns of holding gradually (over many sessions) give way to new freedoms, of thinking, feeling and responding.  And new insights emerge as energies ‘trapped’ in habitual holding patterns are released, and integrated.

The ‘full’ exercise combines this process of relaxation, attending and moving with careful re-positioning of the arms, in new postures, which give rise to subtle experiences of the re-direction of energy throughout the body.  As Robert points out elsewhere, the experience of ‘energy’ is subjective; one cannot categorically or dogmatically say that this is the experience of ‘energy’, but the word conveys the subjective experience for some.

More detailed instructions are available from George Draffan’s website at www.NaturalAwareness.com, and I acknowledge my adapting some of the material above, and my own development through using it, to George, with deep gratitude.

It’s suggested that it takes about 100 sessions to get used enough to the practice for it to communicate its value, and it’s recommended that you start with short sessions, no more than five minutes, building capacity and commitment gradually, in small increments: “little and often” is the watchword.  The practice can be combined (if you wish) with sitting meditation or, if you choose to do so, it may supplant sitting as your principal practice, leaving you the option of sitting as an adjunct if you wish it. I have no aversion to sitting, although I grouse about its being, or seeming to be, the default practice for meditators.

‘Standing like a tree’ doesn’t require, nor does it recommend, closing one’s eyes.  I meditate usually with eyes open and unfocussed (or relaxed).  I don’t find that this interferes with attention, nor does it necessarily distract me.  It’s my experience that balanced attention to experience is best achieved when all sensory modalities are accessible.  This is perhaps a matter for individuals to discern for themselves; and I don’t think closed eyes should be seen as the default position, as it seems to be generally and unquestioningly accepted.

‘Standing like a tree’ lends itself, unlike sitting, to practice in everyday situations.  Most of our waking time is spent erect, in some kind of motion, and in situations that require the kind of otherwise unaware alignment with the earth that makes purposive and useful action possible.  In this important sense the practice may be more congruent with everyday life and human behaviour.  Sitting meditators often lament the apparent ‘gulf’ they experience between ‘time on the cushion’ and life in general.  Standing like a tree may bridge that experiential gap.

I recognise that the method I’ve described briefly above may seem alien to some, and unachievable by others (including people who have difficulty standing, or those who are physically incapable of doing so unaided).  I offer it tentatively, and respectfully for consideration.  I’m open to further questions and observations.  I admit to no special level of expertise in the matter, either from a practical or from a theoretical point of view.  All the opinions expressed are my own, based on and within the limits of my personal experience and understanding.

* picture copied from Google images

The following pictures (taken by my wife) are of me, in each of the five positions making up the  ‘full  standing-like-a-tree set’, and in the suggested sequence.  Not all are in any sense strictly necessary, and each may be maintained for as long as one wishes to, and is able to comfortably.  Reading from right to left, starting at the top, are shown: the start position, arms to their sides (this position is returned to briefly between all changes of position, and at the end); “big belly” position; “balloon at chest” position; “pushing balloon at face” position; “standing in the stream” position.  In my own daily practice I maintain each of these positions for between 5 and 10 minutes, usually (not always) without any tiredness.

SLAT 1 SLAT 2 SLAT3 SLAT 4 SLAT 5

Representation and Meaning

Uncategorized

A recent trivial experience prompts this post.  It has come about because of a movement in my mind linking recent posts here: about the fate of Buddha-in-the-park (Altruism); about confidence to speak to others (Discussion Groups); and about the vague, murky and fuzzy nature of ‘felt sense’ (Thinking and Feeling at the edge).

It happened when I came across this image on the SBUK site:        green-blue-header

For a moment it mystified me, then I experienced something like recognition and my fingers almost twitched to pick a chess-piece (pawn) by its little round head, then I thought “It’s supposed to be a seated buddha-figure”.

Then I grinned, because I saw a comically-stylised condom.  I confess that my mind then toyed with the juxtaposition of the words “Freely Given Retreats……” and what the last image represented for me – a condom. The condom stayed in the foreground, where the other images or meanings jostled for second and third place on the podium of my mind.

A tinge of guilt crept into my thought-process as I chewed over my responses to the little green-blue-white image.  I imagined what might be the reaction of the trustees of Freely Given Retreats (not a happy one?) to my suggesting that others might see the image as I’ve seen it.  And I wondered if people on retreat have ever seen it or discussed it thus, in the context of ambivalence.  It’s definitely my experience that Buddhists are rather sanctimonious about such matters, and don’t encourage talk about sex, especially about its funny side…….

I’m posting this because it’s popped up in my life, it interests and intrigues me, and I thought it might encourage others to think about – and read about – representation and meaning, both of which are in the Middle Way site somewhere (see ‘Desire, Meaning and Belief’….), and which I’m going to read again now I’ve finished this.

I’m also aware that it may add another strand of representation and meaning to your perception of me, and I’m interested to know about that, if anyone is able to share it, and wants to.

Altruism

Uncategorized

I used the search function on this site to look up any Middle Way treatment of ‘altruism’ but, as nothing showed up, I decided to post my thoughts and questions for all to see, and to invite comments.

I recently posted comments on the Secular Buddhists UK (SBUK) site in response to a debate on “Buddha losing his religion”.  At some point the discussion turned to Buddha rupas, and a contributor wrote that he had carved a seated Buddha figure out of a dead tree-stump in a public park.  This carved figure was the object of further treatment by a person or persons unseen: spray paint, tar and amputation of the figures head and limbs occurred.

I need to add at this point that, lest I distort the content of the discussion, readers may wish to get its full flavour by reading it for themselves.  But I’ll try to set out the main points here, as I understand them, to advance the questions I have about altruism.

The creator of the Buddha-in-the-park is a secular Buddhist,  loves carving, and is good at it.  In reporting the fate of his artistic endeavour, his posting expressed some pain and disappointment (my interpretation of his words) rather than anger.

Some discussion on what had befallen his carving ensued, in which the word vandalism was used, and I was affected by the way motives of possible malicious intent, or ‘mindless’ impulses to personal gratification might be (or possibly were being) attributed to the person or persons involved in ‘modifying’ the Buddha from its creator’s intended form.  My position in the debate was that, as we had no direct knowledge of the person(s) involved in the secondary acts on the Buddha, we could not be certain as to her/his/their motive(s), and could only speculate.

It’s important to note that the Buddha-carver himself didn’t contribute to the discussion of motives after his first reporting of the incident.

As the discussion continued, consensus about the likely malicious (or ‘mindless’) motivation of the second person to work on the carving softened, so we agreed (more or less) that we didn’t know.  However, one protagonist suggested, wasn’t it  at least in order to feel saddened and solicitous (my words) for the original creator’s feelings, because he had wanted to bring beauty and happiness into the lives of others who visited the park, and saw his work?

Now I understand this as an inference of altruism.  Without knowing directly what the artist’s motive(s) might have been in taking his blade to the tree-stump, it is inferred that he did so – either primarily or secondarily – from an intent to bring beauty and happiness into the lives of others; persons whom it is unlikely he would know personally (unless he directed them to his work, or waited by his work to get to know them as they encountered it).  I think you probably get my meaning here.

My suggestion is that the motives of him who created the Buddha-in-the-park are as inscrutable and as closed to us as the motives of the one(s) who subsequently altered its appearance with spray-paint, tar and a Stanley knife or axe.  The artist may, like the one who followed him, have got busy on the stump because he could, and wanted to.  On an impulse. For personal pleasure (or personal gratification, which sounds slightly more unpleasant but means much the same, I think).

So there it is.  What does the Middle Way have to say about any altruism in this suburban saga?  How can I know how far my own acts intend kindness to or benefit for others, and how much they are influenced by my own wish for pleasure, fulfillment, or other benefit for myself?  And how much – if anything – does it matter?

The picture above is taken directly from the Wikipedia page on Altruism; I’m not aware of any constraints on my using it in this way.  If there are, and I’m made aware of them, I’ll comply with them.