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Was my experience significant?
Is the experience of sadness and grief all part of practice?
Is 'labelling' a necessary part of practice?
Are meat-eaters culpable in the death of animals?

Q. I had an unusual experience recently that I wonder if you could comment on. I had been in a rather busy city for a number of days when suddenly I noticed a significant change in how I was feeling come over me. I suddenly became more present, with a feeling of spaciousness and ease. It was so tangible and not due to any conscious cultivation on my part that I stopped to look around and see what was going on. It was then that it dawned on me that for the previous few minutes I'd been standing next to a waterfall (albeit man made). I can't help but feel that I accidentally happened on something important, but don't quite know exactly what.

A. Maybe your experience showed you how close you really are to that which is beyond our normal entrapment of self-perception. In those moments you lost your self and tasted the spaciousness and freedom that is so close to us, yet we rarely experience it. Usually we are looking somewhere for release from this self-confinement, and never realise that we are actually living out of that freedom each and every moment. Maybe your experience of the waterfall brought upon you the quietness of mind that sometimes allows us to glimpse the tranquility of our true nature.

Q. Some time back I had a discussion with someone whom I would look to as having a strong connection with dharma. In the course of the conversation he spoke about the demands of true practice and the need to let go of egoist desires. When he said this I was taken over by a deep sense of sadness and grief almost. It was if I had been told that my death was just around the corner and I was left with regret for all those things that I wished to do in life that I had never gotten to do. Honestly, I was almost depressed. In fact rather than being inspired to practice, I was more saddened about the passing of life. It really struck me how unwilling a large part of me is to truly let go of my own plans for my life. So I'm left wondering, whether in the absence of this basic (tough deeply critical, challenging and key) requirement for the arising of insight, is there really any point in practicing?

A. Dharma practice is about letting go. Letting go of our desires and aversions driven by this sense of self. This is a lovely ideal, but when we come to put the theories into practice and begin to taste how practice works, then we can have a few shocks as to what we've let ourselves in for. Our life begins to change, and also the aspirations that we previously cherished. We discover that when we begin to let go of our attachment to our desires, those very desires very often begin to fall away as well. We discover that those desires weren't for fulfillment in life, but were there for another reason, and that was to solely enhance the self. Now we are learning to let go of the self, certain life aspirations, as we had thought of them, begin to recede into the background as well. This can result in a sense of fear and loss. “What is life all about, if it isn't about pursuing what I want?” can be the cry. There will be emptiness and loneliness. To let go of self-motivating desires will be like dying, we will feel sad and desolate at our loss. But we learn to trust the Dharma, and stay with what is a basic existential experience. If we have faith and trust in the Dharma, through practice we begin to hand ourselves into that 'dying', to find a rebirth begins to take place. A rebirth that isn't self-possessed, but a rebirth that is truly mysterious. It is mysterious because it is our true self, and that true self is spacious and spontaneous, and beyond the cycle of birth and death. The true self that is fearless and warm-hearted.

Q. My question concerns labelling experience in and out of meditation. For example we can note our feelings, emotions and thoughts. Whether our experience is painful, pleasurable or neutral. We can also break our emotions down into the five hindrances or longer lists of mental states that exist within the Buddhist tradition. Doing this sometimes seems to help me objectify my experience and helps me notice when I am going down a certain path. At the same time I can't always define my mental states that easily, or differentiate feeling from emotion. I also experience some confusion as to what kind of breakdown is most helpful or necessary to practice. I would be grateful for any comments you may in this area.

A. This type of practice is something I'm not at all experienced with, and is definitely not in the spirit of the DharmaMind group or this website. My background is in Zen, whose spirit is not one of labelling or dissecting experience. While I do not consider myself to be a Zen practitioner these days, I have never left that spirit behind. The danger with wanting to label and compartmentalise what we are experiencing at this moment is that we can distance ourselves from the impact of the experience, and that can subtly lead us to disowning our relationship with that experience. We can take it into the realm of theory and labels rather than dealing with the emotional impact of whatever it may be. We discover through practice that in fact we spend so much of our time putting a space between ourselves and life's experiences anyway, seeing it to be a sort of safety device that allows us to avoid the emotional reaction that can be both fearful and challenging. This can create a sense of dissatisfaction and lack of fulfilment in life because we are only living a part of it. Noting that danger, Buddhism does offers us many fine practices that do use systems of labelling and box-filling in pursuit of wisdom.

Q. Considering that some of the Buddha's guidelines are a product of the conditions that were current in India at that time, we have to apply common sense in the modern world. We apply, for instance, the fifth Precept regarding intoxicants, to a range of things undreamed of in the Buddha's time. Then, I assume, animals for food were killed only as and when needed, whereas today they are killed in full anticipation of their requirement. Surely if we were to buy, say, a chicken in a shop, we are setting in motion its replacement, and we are therefore very culpable in its eventual death. Can you please comment?

A. This really is the old chestnut, and a subject covered elsewhere in the forum. I think both sides of the divide have a good case, so when all has been said I think it is a decision to be made by each of us as individuals, and that each 'side' needs to respect such decisions. I'm quite sure there were shops at the time of the Buddha that had lines of slaughtered chickens for sale. All I can add is that there is nothing in the traditional scriptures that instructs us not to eat meat. The Buddha's only involvement with this subject was to clearly explain the conditions that create unwholesome (akusala) karma by the taking of life for food. You may also like to note that none of the long-standing traditions are vegetarian. But if you wish to argue that man's consciousness has moved on since ancient Indian times, then let your own conscience define your ethical values, rather than wait to be told what to do.