Adventures Of Sariputta & Mogallana: Leap Before You Look

You are listening to The Adventures of Saraputa and Mogulana.

I'm your host,

Morris Sullivan.

Today I'm going to tell you about one of my personal adventures,

But first I'll tell you how the Buddha explained spiritual powers to a group of rambunctious monks.

Once the Buddha was staying with Mogulana and some other monks at the Eastern Monastery.

This was one of the two most significant monasteries built during their lifetimes.

It was quite palatial.

In fact,

It was referred to as a palace,

Had two stories,

And the Buddha and Mogulana were staying on an upper floor,

While a large group of monks were down on the lower floor.

The monks downstairs were getting kind of rowdy and boisterous and not being very mindful of their practice.

So the Buddha said to Mogulana,

Those monks down there are behaving inappropriately.

Do something to get their attention.

Well,

As you know,

Mogulana had some interesting psychic powers,

And so he mustered up some psychic energy and with a nudge from his big toe made the entire monastery shake as if there was a hurricane.

The monks downstairs were terrified by this.

There's no wind,

They cried,

No earthquake,

And yet the monastery shakes and trembles like a leaf in a storm.

The Buddha went downstairs,

Saw them cowering in fear and said,

Why are you standing there terrified with your hair on end?

And they told him what was going on,

Why they were so frightened.

The Buddha explained Mogulana had done that just with his toe.

And then he said,

What do you think?

What qualities do you think might have given Mogulana such power?

Well,

They had no idea.

And they asked with all sincerity for him to explain.

So he gave them a teaching on the four bases of power,

Which come from developing four kinds of concentration.

Concentration that comes from a firm commitment to awakening,

Concentration derived from strong effort,

Concentration that comes from developing samadhi,

Advanced meditative skill,

And concentration that comes from developing discernment.

I think unpacking that would make for a good Dharma talk,

So I'm going to put that on my list of topics for the future.

But in the meantime,

The Buddha said,

It's through developing these four bases of power that Mogulana has such might.

Even more important,

He said,

As a result of this concentration,

Mogulana has achieved liberation.

Those of you who have been around for a while know that I used to be a journalist,

And I did a little bit of hard news.

But mostly I was a features writer,

Which means I got to do interesting things and talk to interesting people and then write about that.

And so one morning I sat down at my desk at the news journal and checked my email.

And I got an email from the PR director from a circus.

And he said he had a great idea that I should come over and they would shoot me out of a cannon.

So the winter headquarters of what was then a pretty big circus was a little over a mile from my house at the time.

That particular circus has shut down since then,

But back then during the winter performers would be there working on their acts and preparing for the new season.

And so I often worked with the PR guy when they were getting ready to go on the road again.

And this particular circus still operated under a big top,

One of the gigantic tents and everything.

And he thought it would be a great story if I would come over and get trained as a human cannonball.

Well,

He was kidding.

He really just wanted me to write something about the circus and he figured that would get my attention.

And it did.

But to his surprise and mine,

My editor thought that was a great idea.

Much to my relief,

The newspaper's lawyers thought it was a terrible idea.

But in talking with the PR guy,

We came up with some other interesting topics.

And we did think it would be fun to get me to do something that at least sounded kind of daring.

And so he suggested that I would get a lesson in the globe of death.

So the globe of death,

You've probably seen it if you've ever been to a circle.

It's a big mesh steel ball about 12 feet high or something like that.

And a bunch of guys get in there on motorcycles and they're right around inside it,

You know,

Upside down and around the sides and all that kind of stuff.

And lesson number one involves being on a beat up old trail bike,

Bicycle,

Try to ride in a circle inside the sphere while the guy who's teaching you how to do that holds on to you to keep you from falling over.

So it's not exactly death-defying.

You know,

For me it was more like the globe of skinned knees.

But it turned out that more former and current human cannonballs live in the land,

Or dead at that time,

Than just about any place else in the world.

And so I got to interview several of them and I got to watch a new one being trained.

So you all know what I mean by human cannonball,

Right?

It's a person at the circus who climbs up the cannon and climbs down inside and they shoot him out and goes flying across.

Anyway,

As I said,

As a journalist,

I got to talk to a lot of interesting people.

And most of them didn't do anything quite as death-defying as being shot out of a cannon.

But I did talk to a lot of people who were very passionate about what they did.

And there were some things that I noticed that were commonalities about them that kind of aligns with the Buddhist teachings.

You were wondering when I was going to get around to talk about Buddhism.

Whether somebody's getting shot out of a cannon or treating cancer patients or protecting sea turtles or just developing healthy relationships or committing to a spiritual path.

It kind of seems to involve about three key things.

Know what gives your life meaning.

Determine what needs to be done that's aligned with that meaning.

And then take action.

None of them talked about how they needed to identify their needs or get motivated or have self-confidence or manifest things or anything like that.

None of them talked about overcoming fear.

They all knew failure was possible and in some cases could be catastrophic.

And they went forward anyway guided by their sense of purpose.

So know what gives your life meaning.

Determine what needs doing and start doing it.

In Japanese psychology,

Which is basically spiritual principles from Zen and Pure Land Buddhism applied to psychology and then sort of in the West we sort of bring them back as spiritual principles again.

But they talk about that as living on purpose.

And that means really living according to your highest values by what's most important to you.

That sounds pretty simple.

But most of the time we're reacting to what seems most pressing from one moment to the next.

Avoiding discomfort,

Going for short-term gratification and stuff like that.

This actually came up in one of the online meetings I did I think it was last week.

When I talk on YouTube people can type in questions and somebody was asking about addiction.

And it kind of reminded me of something that I had done with people when I was facilitating recovery meetings you ask them to list what's important to you in their lives,

What's most important in your life and put that in order.

And so usually it's things like family,

Spirituality,

That kind of career,

That kind of stuff.

And then you say okay so now what are the 10 things that you spend the most time on?

And put those in order.

And a lot of the time the top thing is the thing that actually is the least important to you in terms of its contribution to your overall life.

And that can be a real eye-opener when you look at it that way.

So for many of us there are things that we want to do in life but we're often held back by fear.

Fear of discomfort,

Fear of uncertainty.

And that can get in the way of changing bad habits and starting spiritual paths and things like that.

We may know that we need to give something up or we may know that we need to develop some ability but we're afraid of what's going to happen if we do.

We may know that getting out of a bad relationship is something we need to do but then what?

And so a lot of the time that then what can keep us stuck.

It's interesting when we were chanting the Heart Sutra today,

You know,

It kind of jumped out at me that the translation we use says that Avalokitesvara was doing deep pranayaparamita,

In other words cultivating the perfection of wisdom and perceived the emptiness of all things and was freed from fear.

Freed from fear.

Didn't say it was freed of all suffering,

It says freed from fear.

So when we realize that a lot of what we're afraid of is basically fabrications of the mind that we can let go of,

Then that gives us a lot more freedom to move around.

We're often told in our culture,

Look before you leap.

And a lot of people interpret that to mean that we have to be ready to live fully.

We can't just move forward,

We have to somehow develop confidence first or be up to a challenge before we accept it.

But that's a little bit like saying you'll start going to school once you know everything.

In fact you prepare yourself for a challenge by challenging yourself.

So you might say leap and then look.

You take a leap,

You get moving,

Everything else follows along.

You see how that leap worked out and maybe you execute a series of leaps that will get you where you want to go.

I was talking with a guy once who was in a situation where he had to get up and give a talk and he was really concerned about public speaking,

Which many people have that concern,

Dealt with it myself.

And he started symbolically representing his fears and anxieties about that to himself as a backpack.

And he said,

I can put the backpack on my shoulder and I can get up and give the talk anyway.

It would be real easy to put the backpack down.

But he says,

You know,

If I can't do that,

I can just put it on my back and give that talk.

Now this doesn't mean don't prepare for anything,

But preparation a lot of times can be concerned mainly with getting you going.

And this can seem a little contradictory to some of the things that we talk about in Buddhism.

You know,

Liberation comes about through training the mind.

The opening verses of the Dhammapada or the phenomena are preceded by the mind,

Ruled by the mind,

Made of the mind.

If you speak or act with a dark tainted mind,

Then suffering follows you as the wheel of a cart follows the ox that pulls it.

If you speak or act with a calm bright mind,

Then happiness follows you like a shadow that never leaves.

But there's really no contradiction here.

Every action begins with an intention.

But the mind often houses conflicting intentions.

So our task is to develop the calm bright ones and avoid nurturing the dark tainted ones.

And sometimes that means doing things that are meaningful to us,

Even while we experience discomfort.

So for example,

We might consider doing something but realize that we have a fear of that.

And so a lot of people who want to overcome their fear of public speaking,

For example,

Will see someone giving a speech and think,

Oh,

I don't have the courage to do that.

But I read something once about British Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

And he said,

Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death.

And I think that's a good way of looking at it.

If you just go,

Okay,

Well,

I'm afraid,

And I'm going to do what I need to do,

Fear and awe,

You'll probably be the only person who knows how fearful you are.

So instead of trying to overcome the fear,

Feel frightened,

Do what you need to do anyway.

So one of my teachers calls that leading with the body.

A lot of the time we think,

Oh,

You know,

I know I need to do that,

But I don't feel like doing that.

Well,

If you lead with the body,

You don't have to lead with your feelings,

Get the body up and moving,

Your mind is going to come along for the ride.

It has to,

It has no choice.

And so a lot of the time your feelings will change.

The body gets up and starts moving,

The mind creates an intention,

And then the body fills the space created by that intention.

And then the mind comes along through the ride and through this collaboration between intention and action,

The mind eventually creates different feelings about doing what needs to be done.

So the action changes the mind.

So if you ever read meditation instructions by some of the great Zen masters,

They often talk at length first about how to sit.

And this is why it's not that special postures are going to make your meditation better.

It's that deliberately putting your body in a certain position,

Deliberately using it in a certain way,

Is going to change how your attention is reacting to mental phenomena.

You're going to develop the ability to train your mind by first developing your body's ability to sit properly.

So leading with the body is a good way to approach life.

And we often have to allow ourselves to coexist with uncomfortable feelings.

We really do it all the time.

I mean,

How many of you on Monday morning feel like going to work?

Right?

But we do it anyway because we know it's necessary.

So anxiety and depression and anger and all these kinds of feelings can be alleviated largely through accepting that they're there and getting up and doing what needs to be done.

If you ever take the Bodhisattva vows,

You're sort of committing to do what needs to be done despite all the reasons that your mind comes up with that you can't do it.

The Bodhisattvas are sentient beings are numberless.

I vow to liberate them all.

Well,

If they're numberless,

It's impossible to liberate them all.

But do it anyway.

Delusions are inexhaustible.

I vow to transform them all.

Dharma gates are boundless.

I vow to enter them.

The enlightened way is unattainable.

I vow to embody it.

And I like that last line,

I can't attain this,

But I can embody this.

I can if I lead with my body,

You know,

If I if I get up and go to the temple,

If I do the bowing,

If I do the chanting,

If I act out of compassion,

Even when I'm not feeling compassionate,

All of those things,

I am embodying the enlightened way.

So this is not a resolution to feel a certain way or have a certain quality.

It's a statement of purpose,

A determination to seek that purpose through action.

The spiritual way is impossible.

It's overwhelming.

So I best get busy.

I best live it.

So I was talking about living on purpose and having a purpose and letting values and meaning guide what you do.

But I haven't talked about how to find purpose.

And a lot of people,

I'm sure,

Come places like this hoping that they're going to find purpose.

I have a fairly well-defined sense of purpose,

But I can't tell you that that should also be your purpose.

You have to find your own.

One of my favorite books is by Viktor Frankl,

It's Man's Search for Meaning.

And Frankl says,

We shouldn't ask what is the meaning of life?

He compares that to asking a chess master,

What's the best chess move?

Depends on where you are in the game and what else is going on.

So instead of asking,

We should realize that life is asking that question of us.

What meaning will we give our time in this body?

And one way to answer that is really by considering your life and what you would like to do with it.

If you go around asking people what they want out of life,

Most of them will say,

Well,

I want to be happy.

And that's fine.

I want you to be happy too.

But there's nothing wrong with wanting to live a happy life,

But too many people confuse happiness with pleasure.

And to aim for pleasure is a pretty surefire way to miss happiness.

If we shoot for purpose,

If we aim for something outside and beyond our transcending ourselves,

We're a lot more likely to have a sense of well-being that's very expansive.

If you're compassionate,

If it makes a difference to the world that you have lived,

Then you're probably going to look at your life and feel pretty good about it.

So happy people,

Meaning people with a good sense of well-being,

Tend to see their part in the big picture,

In the grand scheme of things.

You might choose a very independent path,

But yet be aware of your interdependence with the world that you inhabit.

Happy people also tend to recognize that setbacks contain teachings.

In Buddhism,

There's nothing that can happen to us that we can't fit into our Buddhist practice.

Every adversity is an opportunity to awaken.

Also,

We should recognize the importance of serving others.

To be really happy,

We need goodwill and compassion,

And we need to make a positive difference in the lives of those around us.

There's a Japanese psychiatrist,

Takahisa Koro,

Who talked about this.

He said,

If we live a life contributing to others in our present circumstances,

Then our lives will blossom and our shoulders will straighten.

I like that.

If we live a life of purpose,

Of helping others,

In our current circumstances,

Our lives will blossom and our shoulders will straighten.

When we're needed by others,

There comes real significance to our living.

You see that when you look at statistics on what happens to older people when they don't feel needed anymore,

And that sort of thing.

We can contribute to others in our present circumstances.

We don't need to become a certain kind of person.

If you've been telling yourself that you're lazy or you're fearful or you're stuck or you're unfocused,

That's okay.

Be the best lazy,

Fearful,

Unfocused,

Stuck person you can and get moving.

So we don't have to wait for our shoulders to straighten and our lives to blossom.

We get started from where we stand right now in this moment,

And our lives will blossom because that's the kind of lives we live.

So thank you for your attention.

Thank you for joining me for episode 18 of the Adventures of Saraputa and Mogulana.

I hope you enjoyed the talk and that it will inspire you to not get shot out of a cannon maybe,

But to take yourself beyond your usual limitations and in the process develop the basis of spiritual power for yourself.

Now go save the world.