I never have any trouble figuring out when I’m on vacation. I can tell because I start thinking about stuff other than music or technology. During the school year/symphony season, I’m just too immersed in taking care of my students, writing, listening, studying, analyzing, preparing lectures, and the like, to give any sustained thought to anything beyond the requirements of the present situation. Not that I’m griping, mind you: my thoughts are dominated by my work because I dearly love what I do, all of it. I wouldn’t trade places with anybody.
Still, vacation allows my head to wander about without periodic calls back to duty, just as the unscheduled time allows my physical self to spend some time every day roaming about, without a destination or time limit in mind, out in the sunshine instead of huddling in the cave as is my norm. And thoughts are willful critters, apt to come and go at will, without prompting or reason or logic. At 11:00 am enjoying the sight of the streetcar track repair at Church and 18th; at 11:05 am coasting along the rings of Saturn; at 11:10 am mildly pissed off at some moron bleating loudly into a cell phone; at 11:15 am contemplating lunch; at 11:20 am marvelling at the simple beauty of a greensward.
One of my Dhamma teachers likened the process to the operation of a popcorn machine at the movie theater. Turn it ON and the popcorn starts emerging from the bottom and pushes its way up to the top, bit by bit. The oldest popcorn is skimmed off the top to be sold while the new popcorn works its way up through the ranks, soon to become the old popcorn that is skimmed and sold. The only way to stop the process is to hit the OFF button; otherwise the popcorn will just keep coming and coming, and if we don’t sell the stuff on the top it will just spill out and wind up on the floor. It’s going to go up and up and up and up and then out, no matter what we want it to do, unless we turn the whole thing OFF. It’s utterly impersonal, automatic, and predictable.
More to the point, the individual popped kernels don’t have a say in the process. That kernel of popcorn gets created in the heat of the popper at the bottom –PPFFFFFHHT! — and it then begins its journey upwards, propelled by other kernels that have been PPFFFFFHHT-ed into existence immediately below. Nor is any kernel significantly more important than others, or fundamentally different, beyond the normal range of variance. Some kernels might be a bit more pungent than others, some might have gone PFHT instead of PPFFFFFHHT and are therefore still rock-hard in the middle, some might have burned a bit. But that’s no big deal; customers don’t buy popcorn by the individual popped kernel, after all. They just fill up a bag/box with the stuff, maybe dowse it in some vile greasy liquid seething with salt and trisodium monodiglucophosphate, and off they go.
So the thoughts come. The thoughts stay for a bit. The thoughts go. They start their journey in the kernel popper of my subconscious, float up into my head where they make themselves heard/seen/felt/whatever, then waft away into that mysterious void where all sold & eaten-up thoughts go. For all I know there is some Nth-dimension being hovering above me, buying a bag of my popped thoughts freshly skimmed from the top of my head, dowsing them in oily trisodium monodiglucophosphate, grabbing a handful of napkins, and heading off to the auditorium to catch a screening of Gone With the Sfhdflkwfehi^$%.
Lately a popped thought kernel got stuck in the works. It has to do with equanimity — that ability to dwell without attachment. Equanimity, or upekkha in Pali, is the fourth of the four brahma-viharas (abodes of Brahma), which are the four primary attributes of the enlightened mind. In order, they are: metta (loving kindness), karuna (compassion), mudita (joy in the happiness of others), and upekkha.
Each of the brahma-viharas (BVs from now on) constitutes a practice in and of itself, a set of meditation techniques. But more importantly, BVs are states of being, attributes that are acquired slowly, carefully, and not without a certain amount of trial and error, and that can’t be perfected in some absolute sense of the word, unless your concept of existence includes the possibility of unconditional, full and total enlightenment — i.e., a perfect state of grace.
Each BV mandates two stumbling blocks: the far enemy and the near enemy. There’s nothing particularly difficult or mysterious about the far enemy; it’s the polar opposite of the BV. Therefore the far enemy of loving kindness is hatred; the far enemy of compassion is cruelty, and so forth. Those aren’t particularly difficult to recognize when they arise, although in extreme circumstances the rationalizing mind just might manage to substitute one for the other, vide Orwellian doublespeak or the topsy-turvy logical contortions of dictators, torturers, and Safeway produce ads.
But the near enemy is more subtle; it’s a mental orientation that masquerades as the BV, but is in fact a negative and corrosive state of mind. For example, the near enemy of metta (loving kindness) is sentimentality — i.e., sloppy oh-I-just-wuv-woo-to-pieces attitudes about everything. That might sound a little odd at first hearing, but roll it around a bit and you realize that sloppy sentimentality is an ego trip, a form of self-pleasuring, a knee-jerk reaction without consideration, reason, or thought. I remember a woman at a retreat who remarked, during a discussion session, that “metta always makes me cry!” The teacher managed to tell her, somehow without sounding disparaging, that if “metta makes you cry” what you are experiencing isn’t metta. It’s sentimentality.
Likewise, karuna (compassion) can masquerade as pity, a dangerously attractive mindset and the unhappy source of myriad problems. Look around contemporary San Francisco and you see a lot of pity instead of karuna, as the city not only tolerates but encourages habits and lifestyles that are not only catastrophic to the individual, but are horribly corrosive to everybody’s quality of life, all in the name of feel-good “compassion”. The Tibetan master Chogyam Trungpa would have described such thoughtless permissiveness as idiot compassion.
Mudita (joy in the happiness of others) can easily turn into exultation, which doesn’t sound so bad on the surface — except that once again, like sentimentality, we’re dealing with self-pleasuring here.
Finally, the near enemy of upekkha, and it’s a doozy: the near enemy of equanimity is indifference, and there’s a world of difference between the two. It’s not a mystery why equanimity is the last of the BVs, and the last to be reached as a set of formal practices: it’s the toughest one to balance. Equanimity states that my wishes do not change the reality of change, decay, dissolution. It will happen, no matter what I think about it. But equanimity about the things of this world doesn’t imply that we don’t take care of them, protect them, or care about them. To treat a thing carelessly is indifference, not equanimity.
Consider your basic Soto (Japanese) Zen temple: non-attachment is a way of life, but at the same time please note how scrupulously clean and tidy the place is bound to be, how meticulously the temple goods are stored and protected, how respectful the inhabitants are to their living spaces and environment. That isn’t just Japanese anal retention in action, either; you see the same attitude at Spirit Rock Center, which is neither Zen nor Japanese — but a Westernized dialect of Thai & Burmese Theravada practice. In fact, most Dhamma centers are wonderfully clean places, with a strong sense of the immediate surroundings and scrupulously protected possessions. I’ve heard people criticize SF Zen Center as preaching equanimity while simultaneously getting hysterical over which foot comes first when entering a room, but those critics don’t understand the distinction between indifference and equanimity.
In fact, the care of one’s possessions is in many ways a sign of a developed sense of the BVs — in that metta and karuna apply to ourselves as well as others (can I have compassion for others if I lack it for myself?), in that mudita is not only joy in the happiness of others, but an acceptance of my own happiness, while equanimity keeps all of it in balance, understanding that while it all changes, it all disappears in time, it is still here now and is very much part of a happy, fulfilled life.
Example: I own a pair of Sennheiser HD 800 headphones. They’re extremely expensive, constructed out of premium materials, product of a long development cycle and assembled with meticulous care and integrity. The 800s come with a substantial storage case lined with satin, designed to cushion the headphones, keep them safe from harm. Now it’s true that they’re just headphones: they’re just things. But I keep my 800s in the storage case when I’m not using them. That way they don’t get dusty, their exquisitely machined ultra-light metal frame doesn’t get scratched, they won’t get knocked off the desk by my kitty (or me). Yes, they’re things which means that they won’t last, and all of my wishes cannot change that simple reality. They could get stolen, they could get lost, they could get broken. But equanmity about the headphones doesn’t revoke enjoying them, or caring for them. And that extends well past my own sphere: consider those master audio engineers who spent seven years designing the HD 800s, the skilled craftspeople who assembled them, the small but dedicated market that is willing to buy HD 800s and keep them all employed and able to do more designing and assembling. I take good care of my HD 800s and by doing so I’m honoring Sennheiser’s professionalism and high craft: I’m treating them, and myself, with metta, karuna, and mudita.
Moderation, in other words — the middle way, the high road, the path less travelled. Abuse comes easily: oh, I have metta for myself so I’m going to buy something expensive because it will make me happy. Just as easily: oh, I’m equanimous about impermanence, so why bother caring for this silly thing? But metta isn’t greed, karuna isn’t self-indulgence, mudita isn’t ego-stroking, and equanimity isn’t indifference. But how to maintain the balance, keep one’s perspective?
That’s where mindfulness comes into play — but there’s a topic for another time.