Dharma Glimpses Podcast

In exploring the idea of transmission, we’re looking into how the teachings are passed on, how the teachings are taught, and how the student can access the teachings • but what do we mean by transmission? • a helpful analogy is to think of music: you can learn to play all the notes in a song, but the music is not there • so what makes the actual music? • there’s a famous jazz phrase: “it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing” • that “swing” is related to the notion of transmission: it’s something that happens beyond the notes, beyond the words, beyond the videos • something alive and essential to what dharma is all about is transmitted, but it’s not the same as the words, the teachers, the students, or the rituals • transmission can be thought of as the living essence of a tradition; that living essence is non-conceptual, but we are pointed to it by various conceptual and physical means • it is that direct, non-conceptual understanding that brings the dharma alive, that brings us fully alive, opening and energizing wisdom and compassion for the benefit of ourselves and all beings.

The image of remaining like a log comes up in a number of different traditional Buddhist texts • think of a log rotting slowly in an ancient forest — it just lies there placidly, providing sustenance and a home for various critters as it gradually dissolves into the forest floor • sometimes remaining like a log is talked about in terms of vigilance: maintaining vigilance over one’s mind and heart • usually we associate vigilance with putting a guard at the door; so what does the remaining like a log have to do with vigilance? • there are many ways that we lose our minds and hearts: our mind strays, or we’re captured by some attachment or aversion or mental dullness • the idea of remaining like a log is that when we notice our mind is captured by the bandits of emotional chaos, mental fixations, distractedness, fickleness or wildness, we simply remain like a log — we recognize these tendencies within ourselves and just stay put • It’s not an image of struggling; it’s an image of simply grounding ourselves, letting ourselves settle into our own particular forest floor of in the midst of our mental and emotional chaos.

A common idea about the spiritual path is that it is punctuated by gigantic breakthroughs, by big revelations  •  but many deep and important insights don’t come in that way; they come in through glimpses  •  glimpses can be sudden or they can just kind of seep in; they are little openings or gateways into a sense of the whole  •  in some ways glimpses are similar to a jigsaw puzzle  •  we have all these pieces, and we have little insights that this piece fits into that, or this piece doesn’t fit into that  •  we begin to put some things together and we kind of swim around and we don’t really know actually where it’s going to end up  •  but eventually, step by step, the complete picture begins to emerge  •  the whole notion of practice and study is that we’re deepening our understanding, but it doesn’t happen in a linear fashion  •  it happens through glimpses, and sometimes those glimpses can be shocking; they can completely upset our whole view of things.

Early Buddhist meditators spent quite a lot of time alone in retreat in remote, rugged areas  •  as a result, they were very much in tune with the the five basic elements of earth, water, fire, wind, and space  •  they observed that everything inside is mirrored by what is outside, and everything outside is mirrored by what is inside  •  we can observe these elements for ourselves, and we can emulate their qualities  •  the earth element has the quality of being solid, embodied, unmoving; it is connected with the sense of presence and the “thingness” of so many forms around us  •  the water element has a quality of flowing, cleansing, and cohesion  •  the element of fire is connected with warmth, compassion, and burning through obstacles  •  the element of wind is powerful and energetic; it is connected with movement in our nervous system, a constant energizing and moving quality  •  finally, the element of space is like the sky: it is vast, unbounded, open; in terms of our internal experience, it’s connected with consciousness  •  in our lives and in our practice we can bring these elements into balance and harmony for the benefit of ourselves and all beings.