Cranking Up and Cranking Down

Cranking Up and Cranking Down
Thursday, July 3, 2008

Dear Still Water Friends,

Sometimes I get cranked up: I’ve got to do this, and this, and also this, and, oh yes, this too. Do you know the feeling? For me it is accompanied by a tightening in my stomach and a feeling of anxiety—something bad is about to happen. It is an unpleasant mental state and it seems to feed on itself. When I’m cranked up, I’m not thinking straight, not open to other perspectives. Things get done, but not necessarily the best way, or with the best results, and certainly not with a sense of ease and enjoyment.

Being cranked up doesn’t correlate exactly with having lots to do. Sometimes I can have lots of things to do, and I am able to remain settled and relaxed. The work just gets done. And sometimes having just a few things to do will crank me up.

I think of myself as having a strong seed of cranked-up-ness or busyness in me. It is something I inherited from my parents and many generations of ancestors, who were often tense, fearful, and busy. The seed of busyness was nourished in schools and at workplaces, with incessant demands of “do this, and this, and this,” and with seemingly never enough time.

My strong attraction to mindfulness practice is related to my tendency to crank up. In meditation, and on long retreats, I experienced directly what it meant to live in a body that was much less cranked up. I experienced it as a quietly joyful coming home to myself.

Experiencing this shift is at the heart of spiritual practice. Deep inside our cranked-up-ness are a small ego, large fears, and confusion about our place in the universe. These spiritual issues are addressed not just with our minds, but also—and for many of us, especially—with cranking down our lives. Thich Nhat Hanh notes:

Everything in us and around us is a miracle: your eye is a miracle; your heart is a miracle; your body is a miracle; the orange you are eating is a miracle; and the cloud floating in the sky is a miracle. If they do not belong to the Kingdom of God then to what do they belong? From time to time we have the clear impression that the Kingdom is here, is available in our daily life. But since we are running all the time, we do not have the freedom to enjoy it—it is not available to us. ...That is why we need to learn to live, to walk, in such a way that we become a free person. That is the meaning of all the practice. (From a talk by Thich Nhat Hanh at Deer Park Monastery, Aug 22, 2001)

A related quote by Thich Nhat Hanh, from Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go, follows this note.

You are invited to join us this Thursday. During our program we will explore what we do (or others do) that cranks us up, and what we have learned to do to crank back down.

Warm wishes,

Mitchell Ratner
Senior Teacher

Be Sovereign Wherever You Are
From Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go by Thich Nhat Hanh

According to Master Linji, the businessless person is someone who doesn’t run after enlightenment or grasp at anything, even if that thing is the Buddha. This person has simply stopped. She is no longer caught by anything, even theories or teachings. The businessless person is the true person inside each one of us. This is the essential teaching of Master Linji.

When we learn to stop and be truly alive in the present moment, we are in touch with what’s going on within and around us. We aren’t carried away by the past, the future, our thinking, ideas, emotions, and projects. Often we think that our ideas about things are the reality of that thing. Our notion of the Buddha may just be an idea and may be far from reality. The Buddha outside ourselves was a human being who was born, lived, and died. For us to seek such a Buddha would be to seek a shadow, a ghost Buddha, and at some point our idea of Buddha would become an obstacle for us.

Master Linji said that when we meet the ghost Buddha, we should cut off his head. Whether we’re looking inside or outside ourselves, we need to cut off the head of whatever we meet, and abandon the views and ideas we have about things, including our ideas about Buddhism and Buddhist teachings. Buddhist teachings are not exalted words and scriptures existing outside us, sitting on a high shelf in the temple, but are medicine for our ills. Buddhist teachings are skillful means to cure our ignorance, craving, anger, as well as our habit of seeking things outside and not having confidence in ourselves.

Insight can’t be found in sutras, commentaries, or Dharma talks. Liberation and awakened understanding can’t be found by devoting ourselves to the study of the Buddhist scriptures. This is like hoping to find fresh water in dry bones. Returning to the present moment, using our clear mind which exists right here and now, we can be in touch with liberation and enlightenment, as well as with the Buddha and all his disciples as living realities right in this moment.

The person who has nothing to do is sovereign of herself. She doesn’t need to put on airs or leave any trace behind. The true person is an active participant engaged in her environment while remaining unoppressed by it. Although all phenomena are going through the various appearances of birth, abiding, changing and dying, the true person doesn’t become a victim of sadness, happiness, love, or hate. She lives in awareness as an ordinary person, whether standing, walking, lying down, or sitting. She doesn’t act a part, even the part of a great Zen master. This is what Master Linji means by “be sovereign wherever you are and use that place as your seat of awakening.”