My spiritual blog & articles - My Spiritual Coach

What is the connection between eating mindfully and being mindful according to Thich Nhat Hanh in "The Miracle of Mindfulness"? How is it related to Buddhism (in general)?

1/11/2023

Mindfulness means paying attention to the present moment, instead of racing ahead to the next thing that needs to be done. It also means not getting lost in ruminating about the past, especially past suffering. And since Buddhism is all about healing our suffering, mindfulness of the beauty of the present moment brings us peace.

If we rush through our meals because they are an obstacle to getting things done, we turning our eating time into another arena of suffering. We gallop through the meal, barely tasting anything. Shoveling the food into our gullets so we can “get on with it.” Eckart Tolle tells about a meal he had with some accomplished professors. They stopped slamming down the food in long enough to make a verbal point, and then resumed their ravenous slurping.

Or, we can be ruminating about the past. Some past hurt that we felt and continue to feel because we bring it up again and again. We can go through a whole meal this way and not taste anything or appreciate the harvest of the earth. Not even appreciate the skill of whoever prepared it. This type of lack of mindfulness can actually bring on heartburn and other digestive issues. We are not at peace while our body is trying to digest food. We are secreting too much acid or not enough acid and we will feel it shortly thereafter.

The Miracle of Mindfulness is the abundant peace we feel instantly when we just stop with all this ruminating and anxiety about the future—or thinking that the future is better than right now. When we eat mindfully, we are not so intent on filling up the empty hole that we feel. This can help with weight management, because we are not just flinging food down our throats because we feel so empty inside. We don’t run to food for comfort because our mind is quiet enough when we are fully in the Now.

Eating mindfully means tasting each bite. Appreciating the flavors. Feeling gratitude for everyone and everything that made this food possible. It means slowing down and experiencing all the textures, flavors, aromas, and the vibrations of care and love with which they were combined and prepared. This is gratitude for what basically sustains us. It is living with appreciation and attentiveness. The future is not going to bring anything better than right now. And so we are in a state of bliss as we pay attention to the present moment.

Can a woman attain enlightenment in Buddhism?

1/10/2023

As a woman, whose entire life has been devoted to the Spirit and the unseen powers of the Universe, I have been dismayed by some of the antiquated views on the ability of women to be enlightened.

In some world religions, such as Svetambar Jains, women don’t have a chance of getting off the wheel of birth and death until they are reborn as a man. They were reborn as women as a result of being deceitful in a former life and have to work like crazy to prove themselves worthy of even being born a male next time around. One of the Jain sacred texts states:
“As the result of manifesting deception, a man in this world becomes a woman. As a woman, if her heart is pure, she becomes a man in this world.”

In the Aganna-Sutta from the Pali Canon, a record of the teachings of Gautama Buddha, imply that women are responsible for the downfall of the human race.

These attitudes toward women were imposed many, many centuries ago, when women were not seen as men’s equals. Historically they were seen as men’s possessions or as brood mares for ensuring the birth of a son. A girl birth was seen as a liability, especially when it came to the dowry for marriage.

In other religions such as Islam, women may not pray in public. They are also not permitted to pray during menstruation as they are not considered clean. Judaism also has constraints around women’s spiritual attainments with the concept of not being clean for the menstruating woman. If a woman is seen as not clean during the natural process that enables her to have a child, it brings a great stigma in terms of self-worth even if it not acknowledged.

Buddhism can then also be seen as a sexist religion in this way. Buddha himself was reluctant to take women as nuns. He was afraid of the various consequences that would arise if women were enrolled. The consequences he thought would have a negative impact on the society at that time, when women were held at little value. It was only upon the request of his stepbrother Ananda that Buddha agreed to take female followers into the worship practice.

And even when allowed to enter the practice, only women were required to follow the eight garudhammas. These are the “eight heavy restrictions” the male practitioners were not ordered to follow. These eight restrictions clearly kept monks at a much higher level than the nuns. One of these restrictions is:

"A nun who has been ordained even for a hundred years must greet even a newly-ordained monk by rising up from her seat and saluting with joined palms."

Therefore, women were not considered as complete entities in the old Buddhism of thousands of years ago. This attitude has still carried over to modern times in some Buddhist societies. Women's bodies are not considered fit to attain enlightenment and to become Buddha. There is a still a concept that women are not complete until they attain enlightenment when reborn as a man. The man’s form is required for completeness. The Bahudhatuka-sutta states that there could never be a female Buddha.

The psychological impact of this view is to keep women in a weaker and inferior position. Their morale is kept low because they think, “What’s the use? What if I get born as a woman again? How holy do I have to be before I get a chance at freedom from this bondage? There’s something wrong with being a woman.”

According to Ajahn Sujato, the early texts state that the first garudhamma, which states that every nun must bow to every monk, was instituted by the Buddha because of the customs of the time. But modern scholars doubt that the rule even originated with the Buddha.

The rules were written only after the people started to become literate. And in ancient times, men were the first ones to learn to read and write. It was only much later that women got the chance to be educated because they were seen to be more at the level of the animals. These rules were written by a male-dominant society to favor that male Buddhists. It was one more power play over women.

But now, the world has changed. Yet fundamentalist world religions have not changed. Their opinions and beliefs are based on what seemed practical many centuries ago. These beliefs do not apply today if they ever applied at all. As a deeply spiritual person, I know that we are not just these bodies, miraculous as they are. At the Soul level, we are beyond being men and women. The body and its endocrine and hormonal systems do not apply to the world of the Spirit. Any view about men being spiritually superior to women is not relevant when we know that women are capable of every task a man can do—and also produce children!

What was it about your spiritual awakening experience that allowed you to connect so deeply with your guides/spirits?

1/2/2023

It was actually through my Spirit Guides or angels that I became connected to the vast unseen realm of infinity and eternity.

I was four years old when both of my parents were afflicted with fatal illnesses (a brain tumor and pernicious anemia—both considered un-healable at the time in Brazil). And so I was left in the hands of caretakers who were sometimes neither kind nor honest. I began to play a game—if God is everywhere, let’s see if I can hide from Him. I discovered I couldn’t. That God, the Holy Spirit, the Source of All That Is, the Eternal One is indeed everywhere.

Just then, by grace, guides and angels visited. I needed them badly and they appeared with comfort,, compassion, love, and a sense of peace. They were not embodied. They were energy and waves of peace. Turmoil was around me, I had found the eye of the storm. I knew They were there and all I had to do, any time of the day or night, was let them in, acknowledge them, and thank them. They transferred their wisdom and deep knowing to me and they have been my companions ever since.

This was different from a child’s make-believe friends. I had them too and they were fun in a child’s world. But this was something much more profoundly touching. I wouldn’t be able to put words to what happened until I was 12 years old and began reading Alan Watt’s writings and other mostly Eastern approaches to the deeper questions of life and death.

And so, since I was four years old, my view of life is that we are in the Physical now, yet we are also connected to the endless power and beauty of the Universe. The messengers of this realization were my guides. Since then, I have added many more to the “team.” Beautiful Souls that have left their physical forms are still there for me—only they are not in the physical any more. This makes them stronger for me than even when they were alive, in terms of their wisdom and power.

And so it was my guides that initiated me into a life-long devotion to the underlying Wholeness of the Universe. Spirituality has been my biggest love, without which, the daily chores of bodily maintenance and taking care of business would be akin to an insect mechanically going about self-preservation. I would be busy and accomplish things but at base would be a meaninglessness and fear that would make life more pointless than beautiful.

This doesn’t mean I am a saint or don’t feel any of the negative emotions that cause suffering. It only means that my guides are clearly there for me. Inasmuch as I am willing to let them in, they impart everything I ever need to feel the profound beauty of the Soul. They came to me through grace and mercy and I am grateful for them.

What are some of the pitfalls that people often fall into while pursuing enlightenment?

12/23/2022

One of the greatest pitfalls in pursuing enlightenment is in the word “pursuing” itself. For in pursuing, we are always in the act of trying to get there. Enlightened existence is being acutely present in the here and now. It is not about something in the future that we need to strive for but may never achieve.
Many people, if we think of enlightenment at all, see it as an end state. We’ve finally arrived after so much time of practice. It is something that once achieved, is done permanently and we’ve reached at the end; the destination. And if we practice certain methods, we will be enlightened too.

In India I saw sadhus who stood on one leg for the majority of their lives, or stood with one arm permanently raised to hasten their enlightenment. I witnessed all kinds of self-punishing practices that were supposedly the ticket to getting off the wheel of death and rebirth. I saw all manner of deprivations, including the naked nagas, up in the sub-zero temperatures of the Himalayas. One one level it is admirable to show sincerity and deep desire to be free. Yet, on another level, it is very body-centered and unnecessary for attaining the deep peace of really living in the present moment.

People also see enlightenment as a state in which all our problems are permanently solved and we will never feel pain, fear, or suffering again. And so we will sit in the lotus position for twelve hours a day, chanting, thinking that this state will bring us into emotional. freedom. The more difficult the positions and practices, supposedly the better. It sometimes becomes a situation of spiritual one-upmanship. “I sat and chanted for 18 hours straight.” “Really? Well, I did it for 20 hours!”

All this self-immolation and punishment centers on the idea that we can bribe the Universe through certain acts and we will finally feel safe. That’s not what enlightenment is. Enlightenment cannot be defined in one sentence but it is about being conscious, in the present moment of the beauty and grandeur of the Universal energy at the core of everything that is physical and non-physical. Enlightenment is about living in the Now, and taming the wild monkey mind that anxiously hurls into the future or depressingly focuses on past hurts and failures.

Therefore, people can carry on with their entertainments according to the cultures in which they were indoctrinated—this is holy, this isn’t, this will lead to enlightenment, this won’t—but it has nothing to do being in a state of Now-ness no matter what we are doing or not doing. If we think that doing something now is going to bring us enlightenment in the future, we are missing the point altogether. We chastise ourselves for not meditating enough or properly and feel like failures because “everyone else seems to be able to do it.”

Pursuing enlightenment has become a tourist industry, with people going to far-flung regions to take ayahuasca or visit remote temples to make sacrifices. That may make people feel they are doing something to achieve enlightenment, but usually it wears off and they are back to their anxieties and self-doubts, self-comparisons, and hoping one day they will “arrive.” Enlightenment is not a state at which you arrive and it’s all free sailing from then on.

It is a constantly evolving deepening that we cannot influence through trade-offs, public display of spirituality, or wishful thinking. While we are in the physical, we will all feel pain and suffering. Enlightenment is not about pain-free euphoria. People have been trying for that for centuries and it has worked its way into major opioid epidemics. Being in a drugged-out trance in hopes of escaping the ups and downs of life is not enlightenment, though it masquerades as such.

No, pain is still there, no matter how enlightened any human is. But it hinges on how we view pain. How we hold it in our consciousness that makes the difference between enlightenment and mere suppression. Suppression is like holding our hands over a child’s mouth so she won’t cry—instead of alleviating her pain. Enlightenment is holding the pain in a state of presence, understanding that “this too shall pass,” It is also understanding that no one in the physical form is exempt from suffering, therefore, not taking pain personally—as if we are singled out to be picked on because of something we did or didn’t do.

Have you ever had an interaction with a guru that left you feeling changed or enlightened?

12/1/2022

I was walking through the forest in Rishikesh, in the foothills of the Himalayas, when I encountered a solitary, old sadhu. I had been walking all over India, from Kerala in the South all the way as far north as I could get. Until that time, I had not felt as powerful a presence as I felt with this man.

He told me of his daily routine, which consisted of arising at 4:00AM and beginning his meditation. His servant went down to the Ganges to get water for his tea. And wood with which to boil the water. It was a simple life and he was happy, in a serene way that I could feel in the air around him.

He conveyed his teachings to me wordlessly, for my Hindi and Sanskrit were lacking in some respects. But in his case, I didn’t need language.

I don’t even know his name.

The next day, I went to that same area of the forest. Or, at least I thought it was the same place. But there wasn’t even a trace of him, his fire, his hut. Nothing. I tried the next day, thinking I had taken a mistaken path, but no. Nobody. It was a one-day occurrence from which I osmotically received the powerful vibrations of this being.

And he has affected me ever since.

How does Thich Nhat Hanh's work differ from that of other mindfulness teachers?

11/15/2022

Thich Nhat Hanh’s message is the same of all the great spiritual masters of all time. He quotes the Buddha, Jesus Christ, and others. And his message is to find the peace of the Soul within and discover a path out of the whirlwind mind and its fearful, angry, and upset states.

To do this, he offers simple and nature-based meditations that allow us to gently return to the groundedness of the Now. His meditations are refreshing poems and tributes to all of nature: Flowers, trees, mountains, rivers, and oceans. So it is not his message, but the way he communicates it that makes Thich Nhat Hanh unique.

All mindfulness teachers have their favorite practices, from fire walking to exercises in letting go. Hanh doesn’t favor one way of achieving peace in the present moment. He goes back to the very basics. Breathing and walking.

We are a culture of shallow breathers and are barely conscious of the most primary act that keeps us alive. Hahn tells us to pay attention to the in-breath. Pay attention to the out-breath. They are different. Just sit still and breath, separating the two and even remarking, “This is my in-breath. This is my out-breath.” Just this practice clears away the cobwebs of endless old thoughts and well as clearing the path for new creative ideas. Because while we are paying attention to the breath, our mind doesn’t have room for other thoughts.

Walking is another very simple modality that Hahn uses as a tool for centeredness and being in the Now. Most people walk to get somewhere. They are impatient. The future is more important than the present. They are in a rush and the present moment is standing in the way of “getting there.” Thich Nhat Hahn says, “Take each step as is you have arrived.” Stop running. You have arrived home. In the Now.

It is the way he expresses himself that is impactful and different from others. He defines mindfulness as “The energy of being aware and awake to the present moment.” And he gives us the tools to allow this energy flow to enter our lives and bring us inner peace.

Here is part of one of his poems on walking:

“Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom under our feet.
Kiss the Earth with your feet.
Print on Earth your love and happiness.
Earth will be safe
when we feel in us enough safety.”

Do enlightened people believe in aliens?

11/14/2022

An enlightened person would probably call them, “extraterrestrials.” The word “Alien” means that we think we are the center of the universe and any other life form is a foreigner and doesn’t belong. But we all share the same Universe. It’s almost racist to call them aliens because it is such a people-centered outlook. It’s like, we are the only ones that count. Everyone else not on this planet, is strange and somehow not good.

It is also very people-centered to believe we are the only ones out there. There are about 125 billion galaxies consisting of 100 billion stars on the average. It is preposterous to think that everything in all this centers on earthlings and that the only possible form of life in all grandeur and complexity, is on earth.
Some have postulated that the reason extraterrestrials have not made significant contact with us is because we are not enlightened enough for them to communicate with. They are operating on a higher level of consciousness and why would they bother hanging out with a species still involved in petty ego conflicts as well as large-scale wars.

If they already have the resources to break through earth’s atmosphere and land, what possible benefit could it be to them to befriend us? Some say so they can make us into slaves and mine our resources for their project, but this is just a human view of grabbing things, enslaving people, and being a menace. The human view of extraterrestrials comes from TV and films. For example, Star Wars or Star Trek, where the extraterrestrials indulge in warfare and other power struggles, simply based on human social interactions.

Enlightenment is about expansion of consciousness to ackowledge more than the finite human struggles for survival. It is about acknowledging the vastness of the Universe itself. As Neil de Grasse Tyson says, “To declare that Earth must be the only planet with life in the universe would be inexcusably bigheaded of us.”

How can you tell if a spiritual teacher is genuine or not?

11/14/2022

The spiritual teacher is a vessel for Divine wisdom and insight into the eternal truths that are difficult to teach. They require an equal passion for discovering their spiritual natures from their students. They are not there to rescue anyone or to create a fantasy that sells dreams to frightened people who find life meaningless. Or to set themselves up as gods to be worshipped.

Many, such as Osho, or Rajinish, begin as clear vessels and then go haywire as the love of power and ego tendencies start to emerge. We can feel all kinds of inspiration and inner peace and finally belonging around such people, or just be carried along by the crowd in a blissful dance of loosened inhibition. But that has nothing to do with spirituality and everything to do with needing to feel that somebody has all the answers. As in cases such as Jim Jones of Jonestown: People felt wonderful around him until 900 people died because of his commands, including 200 children, who were murdered.

Just because we can escape into something other than our difficult lives and join a group that makes us feel safe is not enough basis for really knowing if the spiritual teacher is genuine. It is more than a feeling. Feelings come and go and are mostly based on our mind’s reaction to something first. If we have a wonderful feeling of peace because we have finally found the answer out of our misery, that may not be enough of an indication as to whether the teacher is genuine or not.

So many spiritual teachers have gone the way of power and corruption, it would be easy to trash them all. But, the genuine ones stand the test of time. “Satya” Sai Baba was discovered to have serially molested boy students for years. Yoga guru Bikram also indulged in sexual misconduct. They both had excessive collections of jewelry, cars, and other items of personal wealth in their multimillion dollar estates. Osho owned 94 Rolls Royces, and was aiming at one for every day of the year.

Yet, on the other hand, we have Sai Baba of Shirdi, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Lao Tau, Sri Ramana Marharshi, and so many other great spiritual teachers whose lessons have endured. These teachers were simple in their lives and acknowledged that they were only expressing the inner light and the truth of Spirit and Soul that was revealed to them through contemplation and grace.

As we can see through the years, ultimately the true teachers emerge. They do no harm to their students. They do not seek to get rich off of their students. If they charge a fee, it is because the student needs to show commitment. The student needs to work for it. But it is a nominal fee compared to the energy the teacher puts into sharing understanding and spiritual experience of lasting value. In my own experience, spiritual teachers put in three times the energy of any student. These teachers do not want to be celebrities or be worshipped. They see themselves as humble vessels who were blessed with the ability to communicate and then step out of the picture.

How does someone's personal belief system effect how they see the world around them?

11/13/2022

We are all products of our cultural conditioning. When we were children, we believed everything our parents told us. We needed to be loved and cared for. Going along with our caretakers’ beliefs and what they told us, helped us to survive. Often, if we went against these beliefs, we would be punished or ostracized. So we learned to conform. But those are not our personal belief systems. They are handed down to us, fully formed. Yet we think they are ours.

We may think we have a personal belief system, but if we scratch the surface, unless it is based on our own experience and direct apprehension, it is just one more set of ideas that someone came up with a long time ago and everyone around fell into. Then, if it is based on “belief” instead of direct knowledge, it is based on a supposition. We suppose something to be true when it is a belief. We don’t really know it. We observe, and based on our imperfect knowledge, come up with a plausible explanation.

For example, human sacrifice, was part of many of the ancient belief systems. People thought that was their personal belief. If a human was not sacrificed, the sun would not rise in the morning. It was believed to be important and necessary to kill adults, children, and babies to make sure the sun rose. Of course, now we know that the sun doesn’t “rise.” It is all a matter of the rotation of the earth and where we are on it, in relation to the sun. The sun is always there, just where it always was.

Then, as time went by, the belief about human sacrifice and the sun rising changed and was replaced by other beliefs. All beliefs are stories we have made up to make sense out of life or to get what we desire. But all beliefs are not based on any real experience—only on lack of it and lack of knowledge and actually the fear of the new and real.

As Thich Nhat Hanh says,

“Usually when we hear or read something new, we just compare it to our own ideas. If it is the same, we accept it and say that it is correct. If it is not, we say it is incorrect. In either case, we learn nothing.”

Beliefs are about, “This is right because people told me so and I haven’t figured it out for myself.” They are what have caused so much human turmoil. Animals have no such belief systems and are much more peaceful because of it. Especially when people start killing each other over their belief systems, which are based on conformity, illusions, and delusions that make them feel better for the moment. They can see all Christians as devils or all non-Christians as bound for Hell. And it is all based on unexamined ego patterns, shaped by fear and ignorance.

How does Zen help us deal with suffering and hardship?

11/13/2022

Thich Nhat Hanh, the great Zen master, says this:

“The seed of suffering in you may be strong, but don’t wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy.”

He is not saying that people don’t suffer. In fact, one of the fundamental observations of Buddhism is: Desire for and craving pleasure, material goods, and immortality is the root cause of all suffering. These desires are all wants that can never be satisfied. As a result, desiring them can only bring suffering.

Suffering means that we do not like what is happening in the present moment. We are not satisfied with it. It brings us emotional pain. Suffering is emotional and is a choice. Pain is inevitable and sometimes even a blessing when it lets us know that we need to take care of the issue. But suffering is chewing over in our minds the fears and anxieties that are merely add-ons and don’t help us at all.

He’s saying suffering may be a strong pull for us. We may want to wallow in it. And bask in feeling sorry for ourselves. We can ask, “Why me?”, as if this is something personal the Universe is inflicting on us, when we feel entitled to be happy every moment of the day and night. And furthermore, we never want our bodies to die. But because we know these bodies will go, we can’t allow ourselves to be happy because we will all end in death anyway.

Hanh says, stop this miserable cycle of anxiety. Don’t put off your happiness until the day when everything is picture perfect and your body won’t die. Be happy now. Even if your toe hurts and you just bit your tongue. Experience the pain fully and when it is divorced from suffering, it is just one more strong physical sensation.

Zen’s primary focus in on mindfulness in the present moment. It is not about the wild hurricane of the whirlwind mind. It is finding peace in every minute, joy in the kernel of timelessness, and gratitude for it. Suffering gets transmuted, through this awareness, into a profound revelation of perfection right now.