Ode to Professor Anderson

Here I am after another long weekend of work. I worked about 25 hours in two days this weekend, and it looks like soon I'll be going up to three days per week of work (as melon season begins!) So, this week I've decided to take advantage of my last chance for a while to do a full weekday personal retreat at home here in Felton. I'll start this evening, and go until Friday afternoon. I'm really appreciating the value of this time.

On Saturday in Berkeley, walking up to my cash register to buy some veggies from me was none other than Professor Anderson from UC Berkeley. He was probably my favorite professor of my entire college experience, and taught my favorite class. It was the Inorganic Chemistry Lab class. It consisted of three hour-long lectures per week and two six-hour-long laboratory periods! Nothing beats six hours straight in a Chemistry lab! Oh... heaven.

I got to share my appreciation with Professor Anderson, and joked that I was now working at an organic farm, but that an inorganic farm wouldn't make much sense. He laughed and said, "yeah... Silica wouldn't taste very good, would it."

So, I dedicate this retreat to Professor Anderson and the chem lab. And, in the spirit of going back to the lab for the next three days, I want to see if I can be a bit more scientific with my meditation experiment. The trouble is that ever since Sattal, my meditation has been even more free-form and less structured. I find it difficult to put into words. But, I'll give it a shot anyway.

I think as a foundation, I still like what the Buddha called "The one and only way to total liberation" - which is the fourfold Satipatthana (also known as Vipassana meditation). One small problem, however, is that the Buddha spoke in Pali, and for those who haven't studied Pali, it may not be as useful a description. I'm not a Pali expert by any means, but I'll attempt my own humble translation.

Satipatthana means the establishing of sati. Sati is a very profound word which gets translated usually as mindfulness or awareness (which I think fails a little short of it's full meaning). It also has a connotation of memory - but not in the sense of remembering the past, but rather of remembering the now. Remembering that I am, and remembering that I am here, and remembering that it is now. If we translate sati as wakefulness, then we could see that the Buddha really gave us a reflexive definition - "the one and only way to completely wake up is by becoming completely awake." Oh, Buddha, you crazy cat!

Vipassana means to observe things in a very true and wise way, sometimes translated as "insight" or "seeing things as they are." In my opinion, this is really the goal which every true scientist should aspire too.

But, since the words Satipatthana and Vipassana still fail to explain the actual technique, I'll quickly give the actual instructions of the Buddha. It's as simple as this...

"This is the one and only way, bhikkhus, for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, for the extinguishing of suffering and grief, for walking on the path of truth, for the realisation of nibbāna: that is to say, the fourfold satipatthana.

Which four? Here, monks, a monk dwells ardent with awareness and constant thorough understanding, observing body in body, having removed craving and aversion towards the world [of mind and matter]; he dwells... observing sensations in sensations... he dwells... observing mind in mind... he dwells... observing mental contents"

- Buddha, Mahasatipatthana Sutta

The meditator dwells... That is job one. Just to dwell (viharati). To live. To be.

And, as the meditator dwells, the meditator observes the whole of body, heart, and mind (kaya, vedana, citta, and dhamma) arising and passing in it's infinitely varied forms and manifestations.

And that's it. So simple. So very very simple.

I was thinking of it this morning by analogy and thought of my recent meditation experiences much like a vast ocean of existential experience. And with each passing tide, life moves through awareness - arising, and then passing away. Each moment arising and then passing away, and then the next moment arising and passing away. Awareness then, is something like a net, though it has no dimensions and no material substance. It notices all that pass through the net, as the meditator dwells.

So, I think this is the most precise description I can come up with right now for what the meditation technique is that I plan to do for the next few days. But, the word "plan" itself seems a bit misleading, and same with the word "technique." At least right now, for me, neither the word "plan" nor "technique" seems to describe well what my plan is or what my technique is. And, that's a strange contradiction that I'm just going to accept.

To put it another way, in so far as I have a plan, I feel pretty certain that I will fail. And, in so far as I feel confident in my ability to allow into the unknown, I think I might just succeed (which is to say - succeed in the continuing process of waking up). But, it won't be by any skill or technique, but rather by the good grace of Nature's inviolable law alone.

Of course, this also could just be a bunch of useless rambling, because I really can't say what will happen or what I will do. So, I may have just wasted 30 minutes writing this, and you may have wasted your time reading it. Oh well. Ce La Vie.

See you on the other side.