Six Words to Get You Through a Bad Day | Bonnie Duran
Bonnie Duran, a UW professor and Director of Indigenous Health Research, discusses the connections between Buddhist meditation and indigenous wisdom, exploring the Seven Spokes of Satipatthana and offering a six-word reflection for tough days.
Deep Dive Analysis
12 Topic Outline
Distinguishing Buddhist and Indigenous Wisdom: The Sundance Experience
Meditation as Ceremony and the Eightfold Path
The Three Categories of the Eightfold Path
Mindfulness as Data Collection for Wisdom and Non-Self
The Seven Spokes of Satipatthana and the Four Elements
Practicing the Four Elements Meditation
Indigenous Wisdom, Nature, and Decolonization
Mindfulness for Revitalizing Indigenous Cultures and Values
The 'Not Perfect, Not Permanent, Not Personal' Reflection
Non-Self as a Path to Profound Intimacy
Social Justice, Clarity, and the Role of Love
Buddhist Psychology and Mental Factors
9 Key Concepts
Ceremony
Ceremony is defined as setting a conscious intention to create sacred space. In both indigenous practices like the Sundance and Buddhist meditation, it involves orienting the mind in a specific direction to cultivate positive neural pathways and connect with a deeper reality.
Eightfold Path
The Buddha's framework for overcoming suffering, consisting of eight areas of mental cultivation. These are categorized into ethical conduct (sila), mental cultivation (wholesome intentions), and wisdom (insights that free from craving, aversion, and delusion).
Sila (Ethical Conduct)
A fundamental category within the Eightfold Path, emphasizing living an ethical life through practices like right speech and not stealing. It is considered a crucial prerequisite for making progress in mindfulness meditation and strengthening intuitive awareness.
Chitta (Intuitive Awareness)
A heart-mind knowledge system that is engaged in practices like the Sundance and deep meditation, distinct from the thinking, adding-things-up, conceptual mind. It represents a deeper way of knowing that can be cultivated when the thinking mind quiets.
Anatta (Non-Self)
The liberating insight that there is no permanent, solid, separate self. This understanding arises from collecting data through mindfulness, revealing that what we perceive as 'self' is constantly changing and interconnected with everything else, leading to profound intimacy.
Satipatthana
One of the Buddha's key teachings, often referred to as the four foundations of mindfulness. It outlines the four ways to establish mindfulness, providing a structured approach to meditative practice.
Seven Spokes of Satipatthana
Venerable Analayo's interpretation of the Buddha's precise instructions on how to practice mindfulness, derived from ancient texts. The second spoke, for example, involves a body scan focusing on the four elements.
Three Root Poisons
Greed, hatred, and delusion are identified as the fundamental causes of suffering in Buddhist teachings. These poisons can manifest in various aspects of life, including politics, and prevent true liberation if not addressed.
Bliss of Blamelessness
A state of inner peace and contentment that arises when one's actions in the world are supported by wholesome intentions and positive mental factors. It allows one to feel good about their conduct, even if external outcomes are not ideal or if they face criticism.
9 Questions Answered
While both are incredibly wonderful and share similarities like quieting the mind and engaging intuitive awareness, it's important not to 'overlap' or diminish their unique histories and cultural contexts. Instead, one can look for 'connections' that resonate between them.
Ceremony involves setting a conscious intention to create sacred space, which aligns with the purpose of the Eightfold Path to redevelop neural pathways towards positive and true realities. It's about making a decision to orient the mind in a certain direction.
The three categories are ethical conduct (sila), mental cultivation (noticing whether intentions are wholesome or egoic), and wisdom (which arises when the first two are done and frees us from suffering).
Mindfulness acts as a 'data collection instrument' for intuitive awareness. By simply observing phenomena without needing to do anything but watch it, wisdom arises, leading to insights that free us from craving, aversion, and delusion.
The four elements are earth (density, firmness), air (movement, pushing), water (liquids, coherence), and fire (temperature). Meditating on these elements in the body helps deconstruct the idea of a solid, separate self by revealing our nature as interconnected with the natural world.
Mindfulness can be used to create daily meditations based on traditional cultural values (like the Lakota Dakota's 10 values), reinforcing them in everyday life. This provides an 'everyday ceremony' to re-inculcate oneself with the positive values of traditions, complementing less frequent major ceremonies.
This reflection helps manage expectations and reduces suffering by acknowledging that nothing in conditioned existence can bring lasting satisfaction because things are always changing and are not inherently 'ours.' It helps to accept pushback and impermanence.
Social justice efforts without clarity and love are 'doomed to failure' because they may be rooted in anger and separation, leading to actions driven by the 'three root poisons' (greed, hatred, delusion) rather than true collective liberation and understanding.
Buddhist psychology (Abhidhamma) identifies 52 mental factors, some wholesome and some not. Mindfulness helps us recognize the underlying intentions and mental factors behind our actions, allowing us to cultivate wholesome ones and achieve the 'bliss of blamelessness' by knowing our intentions are positive.
18 Actionable Insights
1. Daily Reflection: Not Perfect, Not Permanent, Not Personal
Regularly reflect on the phrases “not perfect, not permanent, and not personal” throughout the day to cultivate realistic expectations, understand the impermanence of all things, and recognize the non-personal nature of experience, which can free one from suffering.
2. Mindfulness as Data Collection
Approach mindfulness as a data collection instrument, simply watching thoughts, urges, and emotions without striving for progress, as wisdom and transformative insights will arise naturally when the time is right.
3. Embrace 24/7 Mindfulness Practice
Extend your mindfulness practice beyond a dedicated morning session, aiming for a 24/7 engagement with what you are cultivating and nurturing, as this can create more lightness in your life.
4. Cultivate Wholesome Intentions
Practice mental cultivation by noticing whether your intentions for acting in the world are wholesome (e.g., generosity, kindness, compassion) or driven by egoic clinging, as this awareness is key to progress.
5. Cultivate Wholesome Mental Factors
Strive to have your intentions in the world rooted in wholesome mental factors (from the 52 identified in Buddhist psychology) to achieve the “bliss of blamelessness,” ensuring your actions are supported by positive objectives.
6. Approach Meditation as Ceremony
Consciously set an intention to create sacred space during meditation, recognizing it as a ceremony to redevelop and refocus neural pathways towards positive and true realities.
7. Manage Practice Expectations
Understand that the meditation path is a long process, so drop the expectation of “racking up wins” or making rapid progress, and instead focus on the journey itself.
8. Avoid Striving for Enlightenment
Do not strive too much for enlightenment, as it is an experience of non-self, and excessive striving can actually prevent it from happening.
9. View Thoughts as Natural Processes
During meditation or daily life, when thoughts arise (even embarrassing or trivial ones), take stock of the fact that they are simply “nature” unfolding, a natural process not separate from the universe, which can be liberating and reduce identification with them.
10. Observe Egoic Desires & Impermanence
Use mindfulness to observe egoic desires, such as wanting to be noticed or put on a pedestal, and reflect on their impermanent and non-satisfying nature, which helps to release the pressure of seeking fulfillment from external achievements.
11. Practice Mindfulness as the Middle Way
In daily life, practice mindfulness by holding your experience between obsession and denial, neither fully believing nor denying what arises, but simply watching it unfold in the middle way.
12. Practice Four Elements Body Scan
Engage in a body scan meditation focusing on the four elements (earth, air, water, fire/temperature) as taught by Venerable Analayo, scanning the body for sensations related to each element to foster insights into non-self.
13. Observe Element Sensations Naturally
During the element body scan, do not actively search for specific elements; instead, accept whatever sensations the body offers, such as density (earth), movement (air), liquids (water), or temperature (fire), without striving too heavily.
14. Meditate on Body Parts (32)
Practice scanning the body for its constituent parts (e.g., skin, flesh, bones, as part of the 32 parts of the body meditation) to deconstruct the sense of a solid self and foster depersonalization.
15. Integrate Cultural Values into Daily Meditation
Transform important cultural values (like the Lakota/Dakota’s 10 values) into daily meditations, making them an everyday ceremony to reinforce traditions and cultivate wholesome mental factors that guide interactions and prevent harm.
16. Cultivate Clarity and Love in Social Justice
Ensure that social justice efforts include the cultivation of clarity and love, as without these qualities, such efforts are doomed to failure and may not lead to true collective liberation.
17. Observe Internal Biases
Regularly observe the arising of biases like racism, sexism, or ageism within your own mind, aiming to see them before acting on them, as this awareness is crucial for preventing negative karma and fostering personal growth.
18. Prioritize Ethics in Dating
When dating, prioritize finding someone with strong ethics (sila), as ethical conduct is a fundamental condition for personal progress and intuitive awareness.
7 Key Quotes
No, you're doing the Sundance. So it was a message like, please don't try to overlap these. They're both incredibly wonderful, but they also enjoy a very unique history and cultural context.
Bonnie Duran
Mindfulness is the data collection instrument of intuitive awareness of wisdom. And we just collect all that data. We don't need to do anything but watch it.
Bonnie Duran
Enlightenment is an experience of non-self. So when you're really striving for it, that's absolutely preventing it from happening.
Bonnie Duran
There are no individuals in a forest.
Richard Powers (quoted by Dan Harris)
The reflection is not perfect, not permanent, not personal.
Bonnie Duran
Social justice efforts that do not include the cultivation of clarity and love are doomed to failure.
Bonnie Duran
I love it when I see it. So I say, oh, I see you, settler.
Bonnie Duran
2 Protocols
Four Elements Body Scan Meditation (Second Spoke of Satipatthana)
Bonnie Duran (referencing Venerable Analayo and the Buddha)- Scan the body from the top of the head slowly downwards for the earth element, noting sensations of density, firmness, and compactness (e.g., bones).
- Scan the body from the feet slowly upwards for the air element, noting sensations of air, pushing, and movement.
- Scan the body from the top of the head slowly downwards for the water element, noting sensations of liquids and coherence (e.g., phlegm).
- Scan the body from the feet slowly upwards for the fire element, noting sensations of temperature.
- At the end of each scan, reflect: 'earth element, earth element internally, earth element externally, all the same' (or similar for other elements).
- Accept whatever sensations are offered by the body without striving too heavily to feel specific elements, acknowledging that the elements are present.
- Reflect on 'not perfect, not permanent, not personal' throughout the day to cultivate insight into anatta (non-self).
Indigenous Mindfulness Curriculum Development
Bonnie Duran- Identify and select core cultural values from indigenous traditions (e.g., the Lakota Dakota's 10 values: generosity, truthfulness, fortitude).
- Develop these values into daily meditation practices.
- Integrate these daily meditations into everyday life to serve as an 'everyday ceremony,' reinforcing the positive values of the culture and making commitments to them.