Froth on Water

 The body is impermanent, it is not a solid entity. It quickly decays. It is a storehouse of afflictions and ill-health. Do not make it a place of absolute refuge. The body is like froth on water. It is not something that can be grasped -From Vimilakirti Sutra (Source: Thich Nhat Hanh, The Bodhisattva Path: Commentary on the Vimalakirtinirdesa and Ugraparitprccha Sutras, p.105).

I like Vimilakirti's comparison of the body to "froth on water", because it evokes a sense of dependence and insubstantiality. Buddhism uses a lot of colorful imagery to describe the body. I have once heard a Dharma teacher compare the human body to the puppet, in which the mind will manipulate the puppet's body. Buddhism also compares the body to a corpse. What can possibly be precious about something that is just a pile of meat and bones? Such a comparison reminds me that all suffering is from the mind. Without the mind, the body could not feel, and we can say that all sense of pain is a hologram or an illusion that starts with the mind. We only then project pain onto an illusory sense of solidity.

What I especially like about the froth metaphor is that it evokes interdependence. A body is always part of a larger body--whether it's nature, society or family. We don't just get hatched into the world from the sky or from a soul. Instead, bodies are nurtured from a series of other bodies, just like concentric circles. Bodies can flicker and fade. When I am ill, I sense a heaviness in my body, as though there were a hole in it where energies get blocked or leak out. Bodies flow or become obstructed but in each case, the body has a kind of liquidity. 

Another way of comparing the body is using the five skandhas or "heaps". Each heap represents a different way of being or experiencing the body. Form involves the shapes and physical contours of something, while sensations are felt, and perceptions are our mental impressions. Consciousness can often define our bodies in the context of social images and impressions, and this is where "body shame" or "body pride" might arise. Beauty standards even originate from cultural interpolations of an ideal or healthy body.  Each layer of the skandhas creates something new or adds a new dimension to the experience. Yet, the whole experience does not have a singular existence: it doesn't have reality without these different layers. I once compared this to those overlays on an anatomy book, where each "layer" of imagery gets peeled away to reveal a more inward view of the body.

When I think of the body as froth, I am invited to see the body as something that I temporarily use to accomplish things and hopefully uplift others in the process. Just like a pen inscribes words on a page, the body can albeit briefly express some core aspect of Dharma such as wisdom, insight, love, compassion or patience. But it's only temporary: pens run out of ink and the body also runs out of energy as we age. 

Just so, when the body-pen runs out of ink, we need to run out and get a new one.

Learning to Swim

  How we interact with phenomena is a kind of choice or an art. We can either respond to situations with a mindset of wanting things to be different, or we can deepen our appreciation of, and relax into, how they are unfolding. 

   It's a bit like learning to swim: we first struggle to keep afloat by kicking very hard and resisting due to the fear of drowning. When we finally get the handle of swimming, it feels more like a being with as opposed to a being against or being opposed. We allow more times when we can trust that our body will rise back to the surface, and all we need is a soft kick to steer our bodies forward and in a certain direction.

  Fear is often how we might first interact with something strange or new. When I am learning a new skill, I feel a part of me is awkwardly coming to grips with it, lacking the know-how to navigate it. Soon, if I have enough faith, I start to see how myself and the difficulty are not separate at all. What I thought was disconnect was actually just learning how to adjust and be part of a process using new parts of ourselves. But, in the beginning, learning involves a letting go of self. Simone Weil suggests that this kind of learning is a form of prayer in which we learn to empty the self and allow ourselves to be taken over by a difficulty or challenge. It's actually much harder to do this when we are experts in something. Our minds are lacking in the ability to receive things.

    I'd like to suggest that, rather than jumping in to fix something, or to "understand", that instead, we can leave larger parts of us to "just be" in this situation--even when we might risk looking (or feeling) dumb. There is no word in English for this soft receptiveness, which sometimes feels foolish, like when we are at a loss for words or enter a gap of uncomfortable silence. By allowing larger moments of just being, we can become more comfortable in the confusing and soundless forces of life, as well as to stop trying to put everything into boxes. There is tremendous power in this "just being" even if it sometimes feels sad or heavy in the beginning.

   Sometimes, the voices around us can fill the ear with answers, like wine spilling over the glass. There is too much sound and noise--much more, in fact, than what the mind can fully process. Times of overwhelm feel like losing and carrying too much. So again, we have to learn not to listen to all the sounds.