Unitarian Universalist Meeting of
“The Final Step on the
Right Concentration”
Rev. Kathy Duhon
For many months we have been walking
the
Right Concentration, sadly, is an
off-putting name, reminding us of a children’s memory
game, or worse, of studying for tests.
Those experiences seem far from enlightenment, while Right Concentration
is supposed to bring us full circle, home to our true selves and at one with
the universe.
A better word might be focus – although
having the “Right Focus” could sound like we are taking a picture. In a way, though, our mind is like a camera
or an eye that is usually out of focus and does not see the world or understand
it for what it is, and when we adjust to the Right Focus, have the Right Concentration,
then we know the Reality before us and within us. We pay attention fully and that gives us the
sense of being at one with it all. We
experience the world and ourselves in a new, awakened way, and that is what
happened to the Buddha, and to many Buddhists since
him, and to many people of the Spirit, whatever their religion.
Another way to look at this step is
that it is the place of peace, and joy.
One’s energy is naturally placed where it should be when there is Right
Concentration, and that makes for bliss.
This step could also be called Openness,
as in the open heart and open mind, which is what we have with Right Concentration,
with our full attention. Other ways to
look at Right Concentration is as a balance and an arrival, a
transcendence and a homecoming.
However we understand it, or name
it, I know that I don’t have Right Concentration, but I have come across
teachers in my life, in word and in deed, who have clearly been on a spiritual
path that brought them to this place.
Rarely do they seem to arrive there by sitting under a tree, however, as
happened in the final part of the Buddha’s journey. (Well, the Buddha had his struggles too.) Many have come by way of threatening tigers
and nibbling annoyances that place them in jeopardy of one kind or
another. The story about the tigers and
the strawberry is a scarier, albeit sweeter, way of understanding the step of Right
Concentration.
As Philip Simmons
wrote about this Buddhist story in Learning
to Fall. He said, “If
spiritual growth is what you seek, don’t ask for more strawberries, ask for
more tigers.” He didn’t ask for the
gnawing disease which took his life a few years ago, ALS, also called Lou Gehrig’s Disease,
but his beautiful wisdom is testimony that he used it to travel well the path
of enlightenment.
Philip tells his own version of the
tiger and the strawberry story. He
already had ALS, but was still able to walk, and he wanted to hike once more. Up a mountain. He made it halfway up
He was suddenly struck by the
awesome, majestic beauty of the mountains.
Philip wrote, “I felt the astonishment of the sublime.” His own sweet strawberry
moment. And that is the end of
the story – he doesn’t tell us how he got down, or if he was drenched or
rescued, or with people who carried him down, but he does tell us what this
tiger and strawberry experience meant to him.
For one thing, Philip said we all
have our edge experiences and we are all brought to the possibility of blessing
in them. He did not think of himself as
at all unique, in either facing struggles, or being awestruck in their
midst.
What he noticed, which I believe is
the fruit of Right Concentration, is that life is not a problem to be solved,
but a mystery. We tend to find ourselves
trying to outrun tigers, outmaneuver nibbling mice; working ourselves away from
all the edges of our lives, but all of this is done in our state of distracted
mind. We can never completely problem-solve
ourselves out of dying, or of suffering.
Philip says that when we are at our cliff’s edge, we should dwell in
presence, hand ourselves over, fully, consciously, to the experience. Right Concentration leads us to right action
in the face of all the tigers and scary edges of our lives, and also brings us
the presence of mind that is peace-filled and blissful.
We now end our series on the
Buddhist Eightfold Path, but we continue our journeys toward the light of
awakening. I leave with you with these
instructions as our final words – they come from a 10th century yogi
named Tilopa.
Neither giving nor taking
Neither
for nor against
Leave
your mind at rest
With
perceptions remain unconcerned
The
great Way is a mind open to everything
which clings to nothing
which fixates nowhere
Radiant
and stainless
Rest
in the unmoved, uncreated and spontaneous
and you will soon reach Buddhahood.
Blessed be.