Anicca... anicca... anicca...

Every once in a while we might come across some juicy bit of wisdom that we had known and lived, but forgotten, or seemed to have forgotten. I have a downloaded program from the old student Vipassana website on my computer that quotes a Vipassana teacher or a Dhamma scripture to inspire my daily practice. Every hour a quote comes up, along with the sound of a gong, if you set it to do so. I had the gong for a while, but it can be startling. Still, I get a quote every hour, and the one the other day struck me at the core.

"Anicca when properly developed will solve almost all your problems. It might not even be necessary for you to ask questions for answers. As the appreciation of anicca grows, so will the veil of ignorance fade away."

These words are by Sayagyi U Ba Khin, who shared the teaching of Vipassana with S. N. Goenka, who in turn taught it to me through video discourses at many a 10 day course. Anicca ("Ah-Nee-Cha") is a Pali word that is best defined as (the quality of) the arising and passing away. In English, our best translation is the word impermanence, though that carries a slightly different meaning.

In the courses’ instructions, Goenkaji will continuously say, “Anicca... anicca... anicca...” There is a book called The Meditator’s Handbook that has a part explaining the reason for this repetition. When something is repeated again and again in a school setting, it is likely going to be on the test or exam. Therefore, it should be remembered. Anicca is this cornerstone, key point that is on the final exam of Vipassana, right through to Nibbana. And I forgot the vitality of it til I was reminded by this digitized quote from U Ba Khin.

(Sayagyi U Ba Khin)

Why is it so vitally important? It is the basic, rooted observation of anicca within the framework of your own body that liberates you from your bondage of suffering. As one meditates, this is not so much ‘remembered’ as it is ‘felt or experienced.’ It’s not intellectual, though it is useful to understand intellectually what it is you’re observing, or beginning to understand at a direct, non-intellectual level. To return to the quote which says, “almost all of your problems will be solved with this developed,” is not an overstatement. To truly realize, with an understanding in spoken language, but also as a developed, inner knowing-ness that is as true as knowing that you have hair, or hands, or anything like this that is indescribably taken as a ‘usual thing,’ is to have an imperturbability to all of that which is phenomenal.

What does that mean? It means all things that come and go are no longer problems as they were before. To take some of the great, exaggerated examples from Neil Gaimen’s ‘Make Good Art Speech,’ I can say that if your “husband runs off with a politician, your leg gets crushed and then
eaten by a mutated boa constrictor, IRS is on your trail, or your cat exploded,” you will remain more
balanced with a innate understanding that both the bad things and the good things are ever-arising and passing away. As Neil says in the speech, when these things happen, you can return to the salvation of “Making Good Art.” I don’t disagree with that advice, knowing that it can help, but that doesn’t help you actually see these things as lesser problems, but rather is a coping mechanism once the problem has problemed you. Obviously these are examples of negative things, but even the positive or wanted things do not last forever. It is easier to intellectually understand that a painful, unwanted circumstance will pass away. It is harder to full-heartedly be aware of the fact that the most pleasurable circumstances will do the same. When we cling to these, we are creating problems with as much ignorance as we would if we were to worry about the bad thing that has or could happen.

(Actual cover on the left. Alternate 'anicca' version on the right.)

In difficult, pleasurable or also neutral moments, I’ve found that the clarity of knowing and feeling within myself that this is passing has sustained more vitality , joy and true happiness than any other bit of knowledge in this world. Words themselves don’t cut it. We need wisdom of the reality of it within ourselves. Otherwise we can forget and doubt this truth. Even with a daily practice of directly observing and knowing this, we can forget about anicca. In some way, the feeling we cultivate remains with us in moments throughout each day and night. The awareness develops to be used at all times, regardless of how terrible or elating a situation can be. Then, we can fully enjoy or fully experience sadness, and never cling to it, never make a story out of it that creates a boundary to our successful, aware living.

This quote hit home for me so much because of my development in experiencing this impermanence directly. It’s not just words to me, but truth of being. This truth translates into seeing all things, whether it’s writing, eating, working, drawing, playing, moving, sleeping, living - as change. I sometimes get caught up in mental stories. I create them for myself and they cause me misery. Yet it isn’t long before I bring my head above the water and cease the drowning of my ignorance. Again, I arrive at a peaceful place, treading the water of the phenomenal with a smile in my Self. There is a saying in the Vipassana courses that illuminates this truth. Goenkaji laughs when he says, “You’re on the path of Dhamma. Nothing can go wrong.” That is not an overstatement. Take one step in the right direction and keep walking. Walk on the path consistently and you’ll never want to stop. You’ll only stop out of your own ignorance, and you’ll be the first to notice.

Anicca... anicca... anicca...

- Anthony

#work #conditioning
Soul-Project Challenges

"These ideas are not reality."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

BY ANTHONY ROSS

It's a fine thing to have a soul-project.  A project like this is both captivating and challenging.  It tests your will and it inspires you like nothing else does.  The challenges that come up with it are what breaks the patterning or conditions that one is accustomed to.  The project brings them up and inspires greater growth to places unknown and not yet reachable, or something.

The project I'm working on is super secret right now, but at some point it will be seen by the public and will be critiqued by many.  I am the artist on this project, primarily.  Meaning, all the pictures to it are my responsibility.  Such huge responsibility.  A lot of the times it's overwhelming, even though I am placing this on myself, and I know this, it is still something I am taking as a personal development project and something that I want to be good.
I realized that I had fallen into a trap here.  The trap is that I was thinking of myself as my work.  If the work fails, I'm a failure.

I don't think I'm alone in this, as someone who has done that to themselves.  A mental clinging to what you do, and the effort in which you do that thing.  This doesn't actually make the work better or the work more enjoyable.  Though, I think it's a fine line in these areas to determine how much 'want' you need to do a thing well, rather than just the doing of it with a detached ideal to do it as such. So the question is, can the desire be there without the attachment?  Can the understanding of what the result should be be there while the process is free to not have a conclusion?  Can I work on what I want to work on without feeling like I need to?  This is a bit paradoxical.  This is the very question of playing and of how to describe it.

It is fortunate to not have the conditions of life play the part of pressure on an individual.  In actuality, it is rare for most of us to have the pressure of conditions in such a manner.  The real conditions are mental, much more subtle, and they, when unconscious, control your ideas, action and aspiration.  So in this fashion, I continue to witness the coming and going of waves of uncertainty regarding finances, security in general, and future happenings.  What will I be doing if I don't do well on this project? Am I doing enough financially so that I can work on this project and will this project help me have security later on or should I do something else that's financially stable in the meantime?

These things have nothing to do with the art, and are of importance for anyone, yet, their importance must be secondary to the real wealth of life and of qualitative being.  If you plan for these, you could be missing a great deal of actuality.  These thoughts occur and they bring my attention away from my work, because the feeling is that there is not enough in them.  I run after these conclusions to what would be my preferred conditions, and I lose the unconditional and detached sense of well-being and peace. These ideas are not reality.

These same ideas of 'not now' can infuse any topic into their sense of self.  Meaning, I can think 'not enough' or 'not good enough' about just about everything.  This is also saying that 'now' is not enough.  Without a detached understanding, these mental convictions will contain themselves in the projects and things that we are most observably influenced in and by.  They will contain themselves in everything we see as conditions.  It's in this way that this project of mine is so very difficult and exciting.  The difficulty is something I attach to when I go to work on it.  It's the idea that it should not be difficult 'now' (when I work on it), when I try to do a 'good' drawing.  I have the conclusion of how it should be and the effort is to keep that conclusion in tact.  That is the way one must work to have something come out as good as they feel it can be, compared with other things.

I know what good art is, so I want to make my art good.  To know what that idea of good is and not be swept up in it is a skill.  It's basically having the space to be a complete failure that is detachment.  Anything goes.  When anything goes, one ends up playing.  When one ends up playing, the art or project generally turns out nice, or at least the making of it is fun.  When the making of it is fun, the result is secondary.  That is just how finances and security must be secondary to the fun that is the detached understanding.  So the question is, how does one work on anything with this detachment?  How does one remain in this detachment, and still do something that is just for fun?  Again, it seems the doing of something just for fun is an odd idea, and that maybe the fun is also in things like the difficulty, which are found to be so NOT fun so much of the time.  Thus the chasing of the conditions which is seen as fun is short-sighted.  Real fun is understanding these mental blockages we have in anything we do.  In that understanding, they transform.  Then everything we do is fun and free.