The Case for Devotion, Kittisaro and Thanissara
Former Buddhist monk Kittisaro and nun Thanissara discuss their journey from monastic life to marriage, how deep meditation informs their relationship, and their advocacy for devotional practice and addressing the climate crisis. They share insights on navigating conflict and finding inner resilience.
Deep Dive Analysis
11 Topic Outline
Thanissara's Introduction to Meditation and Buddhism
Kittisaro's Path to Meditation and Meeting Ajahn Chah
The First Encounter with Ajahn Chah and the Dog Analogy
Thanissara and Kittisaro's Meeting and Forbidden Romance
Challenges of Monastic Patriarchy and Outgrowing the Form
Leaving the Order and Navigating a New Life Together
Applying Meditation Wisdom to Romantic Relationship Conflicts
The Case for Devotional Practice in Buddhism
Reconciling Sacredness with a Secular/Scientific Mindset
Addressing the Climate Crisis in Dharma Teaching and Practice
Shifting Refuge from External Certainty to Inner Abiding
6 Key Concepts
Nibbida
A Buddhist concept referring to a sense of emptiness or weariness about everything elevated in society, such as career, marriage, or making money, leading one to question conventional trajectories.
Dukkha
The Buddhist term for suffering, which Ajahn Chah described as a noble truth. The idea is that if suffering can be openly embraced, it can deepen one's capacity to engage with life's difficulties and lead to illumination.
Primary Relationship (Meditation)
Cultivating a direct relationship with the essential elements of experience, such as sensation and feeling, in one's own space. This skill in relating to inner experience can then be applied to interactions with others.
Devotion (Buddhist Context)
Dedication to the Dharma (the way things are) and shifting one's commitment from societal value structures and opinions to recognizing an inner awareness or reflectiveness. It's not about blind obedience but a profound inner turning.
Bowing Practice (Purpose)
A symbolic act of returning to the ground, honoring one's deepest nature and the timeless awareness that holds all experiences. It helps one to get out of their head, soften volition, and recognize the unmoving ground of being.
Sacredness/Awe
A feeling of reverence or awe evoked by profound experiences, such as observing nature or the vastness of the universe. It represents a deep connection to the conscious beingness of all things, moving beyond an extractive worldview.
8 Questions Answered
Thanissara was about 18 when she first attended a meditation retreat with her boyfriend in the UK, practicing a rigorous Vipassana method. She initially didn't know it was Buddhism but felt a profound peace and knew it was important, later realizing it was the Dharma that supported her practice.
Thanissara was questioning societal expectations and felt an emptiness (nibbida) about conventional life paths. She was drawn to a mystical, meditative approach and was profoundly impacted by meeting Ajahn Chah, which inspired her to ordain as a Buddhist nun for 12 years.
While a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, Kittisaro, despite his achievements, felt a deep weariness from constant striving. He found solace in silent contemplation and realized he needed an inner teacher, which led him to a meditation retreat and eventually to meet Ajahn Chah in Thailand.
When Kittisaro described his complex body-sweeping meditation technique, Ajahn Chah got on all fours and imitated a dog sniffing, then advised Kittisaro to focus on understanding one simple thing well, like the breath, rather than trying to understand everything superficially.
Their extensive meditation practice cultivated a 'primary relationship' with inner experience, teaching them how to relate to sensations, feelings, and the essential elements of being. This training in attention and inquiry helped them navigate the challenges of interaction, give each other space, and recover from conflicts by seeing patterns and letting go.
They learned to recognize their deeply ingrained, often opposite, conditioned patterns from their family backgrounds that emerge during conflict. By pausing, identifying these patterns, and understanding each other's needs (e.g., one needing space, the other needing to probe), they can move towards resolution and solidarity, even in moments of deep emotional activation.
Devotional practice is about being 'dedicated to' the Dharma and the way things truly are, shifting from blind faith in societal views to recognizing one's inner awareness. External acts like bowing are symbolic ways to humble oneself, let go of opinions, and connect with the timeless ground of being within, rather than worshipping an external deity.
They integrate the reality of the climate emergency into their teachings by helping people resource themselves and build internal resilience to meet challenging circumstances. While not 'flooding' people with disaster news, they name what's happening and encourage collective conversations, wisdom, and compassion to prepare for an unprecedented multifaceted crisis.
39 Actionable Insights
1. Open to Suffering’s Message
View suffering not just as a negative experience, but as a potential messenger that can deepen your capacity to be with life’s difficulties. Approaching suffering with awareness can lead to illumination and understanding.
2. Breathe with Struggles to Understand
When facing struggles, allow your awareness to touch and breathe with the difficulty, honoring these moments. This can illuminate how you perpetuate distress and help soften grasping and rejecting, connecting you with a deeper core.
3. Understand Family Conflict Patterns
Recognize that your approach to conflict is shaped by family conditioning, and your partner’s is too. Understanding these different patterns in yourself and your partner can help you navigate disputes more effectively.
4. Pause and Name Conflict Patterns
In moments of conflict, learn to identify when you’re caught in a conditioned pattern, then consciously pause to create space for understanding and resolution. This helps break reactive cycles and allows for clearer communication.
5. Communicate Needs During Conflict
Clearly articulate what is happening for you and what you need in moments of conflict (e.g., ‘I need some space right now’). This helps your partner understand your internal experience and avoids misinterpretations.
6. Show Solidarity in Distress
In moments of deep distress or conflict, sometimes an explanation isn’t needed; a simple gesture of solidarity, like holding a hand, can be a powerful way to offer support. This helps someone emerge from a difficult emotional state by feeling connected.
7. Focus on One Thing Well
Instead of trying to understand everything superficially, choose one fundamental practice (like being with your breathing) and understand it thoroughly. This deep understanding can lead to insight into everything, as all phenomena are interconnected.
8. Become a Doctor of the Heart
Focus on cultivating inner wisdom and understanding the nature of the heart or spirit. This path, as taught by Ajahn Chah, can lead to discovering that which is timeless and transcends birth and death.
9. Practice Symbolic Bowing to Deepest Nature
Use bowing as a symbolic act to momentarily set aside your opinions and return to the fundamental ground of being. This practice honors your own deepest nature and the timeless awareness within, rather than just an external image.
10. Soften Volition for Timeless Ground
Beyond constant striving and willpower, learn to soften your volition and effort. This allows you to notice the unmoving, timeless ground of being within which all experiences of pleasure and pain arise.
11. Shift Refuge from External Reliance
Use contemplative and meditation practices to move your sense of safety and security away from an over-reliance on external circumstances. External things are inherently uncertain, so cultivating inner stability provides a more reliable refuge.
12. Find Peace in Accepting Reality
Cultivate the ability to recognize and abide peacefully with things exactly as they are, whether pleasant, neutral, or painful. This practice helps you find stability rather than seeking certainty in an uncertain world.
13. Cultivate Primary Relationship via Meditation
Use meditation to develop skill in relating to the essential elements of experience – sensations, feelings, and the fundamental aspects of being. This enhances your ability to connect with others and the world around you.
14. Allow Space for Withdrawal
Grant yourself permission to withdraw attention from external responsibilities for periods to compose, calm, and center yourself. This refreshment and grounding allows you to skillfully re-engage with the external world.
15. Shift Devotion from Self-Righteousness
Recognize that you are already devoted to things like your views and opinions, often believing you are right. Consciously shift this devotion away from self-righteousness and blind obedience to your biases towards a more open truth.
16. Devote to Truth and Inner Awareness
Dedicate yourself to understanding ’the way things are’ (Dharma) through practices of training attention and inquiry. This helps you recognize your core source of reflectiveness, inner awareness, and inner listening.
17. Return to Simple Presence
When overwhelmed by complexity, return to the simplicity of being present with your immediate experience, such as sitting or standing. This practice helps you find grounding and clarity in the moment.
18. Question Objective Worldview Limits
Challenge the purely objective, extractive scientific worldview by considering the subjectivity of consciousness and the interconnectedness of all things. This expands understanding beyond seeing reality as mere objects to be exploited.
19. Infuse Life with Awe
Cultivate a worldview that recognizes the conscious beingness and subjectivity in all things, infusing life with a sense of awe, mystery, and deep respect. This perspective acknowledges that not everything is an object, but part of a living web.
20. Embrace Humility for Planetary Crisis
Acknowledge humanity’s role in the planetary crisis with humility, recognizing that current approaches are out of harmony and require a fundamental shift. This mindset is crucial for addressing global challenges effectively.
21. Cultivate Reverence for Nature
Develop a deep sense of reverence for nature, your own body, and all relationships, integrating this sacredness into your daily actions and interactions. This fosters a respectful and sustainable way of living.
22. Drop Back to Awareness
Practice dropping back from thoughts, stories, and emotions to perceive them playing out against the mysterious backdrop of consciousness or awareness. This creates distance from mental content and reveals a deeper ground of being.
23. Experience Interconnectedness with Vastness
Cultivate experiences that allow you to feel part of a vast, mysterious totality, recognizing the interflowing nature of all existence. This can be achieved by observing natural processes, like the breath exchange with trees.
24. Utilize Religious Structures as Tools
Approach religious structures, ceremonies, or rituals as tools for spiritual exploration and transformation, rather than as ultimate truths to be blindly believed. This allows for personal engagement without dogmatism.
25. Use Physical Practices to Ground
Engage in physical practices like bowing to shift your focus away from overthinking and into a more grounded, present state. This helps to ‘get out of your head’ and connect with your body and the present moment.
26. Meet Crises Realistically with Dharma
Apply Dharma teachings to cultivate the capacity to realistically face and engage with the multifaceted crises of the world. This means not spiritually bypassing challenges, but meeting them with clarity and resilience.
27. Build Internal Resilience for Challenges
Focus on resourcing yourself and building internal capacity and reliance to meet challenging circumstances, such as climate catastrophe, with greater strength and stability. This prepares you to navigate unprecedented difficulties.
28. Do Not Shy from Reality
While building resilience, do not avoid or pretend that difficult realities, like the climate crisis, are not happening. Acknowledge them directly to foster a truthful and engaged response.
29. Consciously Name Emergencies to Act
Clearly and consciously identify situations as emergencies (e.g., climate crisis) to recognize that ‘business as usual’ is no longer viable. This realization prompts the need for radical changes and urgent action.
30. Engage in Collective Conversations
Foster and participate in collective conversations within communities to share and discuss unprecedented, multifaceted crises. Individual approaches are insufficient; collective dialogue is essential for understanding and response.
31. Prepare Collectively for Future
Consciously prepare for future challenges by collaboratively developing practical skills and strengths within communities. This involves determining collective needs and strategies to enhance group resilience.
32. Rejoice in Simplicity and Presence
Learn to touch the world lightly, finding joy and appreciation in simple things like your breath, presence, sharing, and others’ good fortune. This fosters a non-exploitative way of living that values intrinsic worth over consumption.
33. Relinquish Appropriating Consciousness
Investigate and loosen your attachment to a consciousness that defines security solely by what you own, have, or control. Realize instead your interconnectedness with a vast, mysterious totality, fostering a sense of belonging beyond possession.
34. Practice Soft Surrendering
Cultivate a soft surrendering that allows you to hold the world more lightly. This fosters appreciation for your deep kinship with other beings and Mother Earth, promoting harmony and interconnectedness.
35. Compose Self to Bless Earth
By composing yourself and consciously changing your attitude, you can positively impact and ‘bless’ Mother Earth and your environment. Your internal state has a ripple effect on the world around you.
36. Question Societal Trajectories
Deeply question the path society expects you to be on (e.g., career, marriage, settling down) to explore alternative ways of being and understanding. This critical inquiry can lead to a more authentic life path.
37. Seek Wise Teachers
When exploring inner landscapes or spiritual paths, recognize the value of finding teachers who can share what they know, bless, encourage, and guide you. A good teacher provides invaluable support and direction.
38. Practice Silent Pausing
Find quiet places to sit silently and pause, allowing yourself to connect with the resonance of presence. This practice helps you discover what you might be overlooking in your life and fosters inner calm.
39. Learn to Shift Consciousness
If seeking alternative ways of being and understanding, consider meditation as a crucial next step to learn how to shift and open your consciousness. This foundational practice enables deeper self-exploration.
6 Key Quotes
If you understand one thing well, you can understand everything. If you try to understand everything, you might end up not understanding anything thoroughly. Why don't you learn how to be with your breathing?
Ajahn Chah
If you become a doctor of the heart, doctor of the spirit, you will learn the cure for birth and death. You will discover that which never dies.
Ajahn Chah
If it was so bad, the Buddha wouldn't call it a noble truth.
Ajahn Chah
Devotion means dedicated to, and devoted to, and we're devoted to all sorts of things already. People say, I don't have any faith. You know, we have a lot of faith. We have faith in our views, faith in our righteous opinions. We bow down and worship my idea that I'm right and you're wrong.
Kittisaro
Can we bow in the heart? Can we be humble now as humans and realize we've screwed everything up?
Thanissara
If you look for certainty in that which is uncertain, you're bound to suffer.
Ajahn Chah
2 Protocols
Bowing Practice (Mahayana Tradition)
Thanissara- Stand upright.
- Bring hands together, sometimes pointing them to the head (representing mind), then mouth (speech), then heart (feeling nature).
- Bring hands and head to the ground, symbolizing a return to the ground of being.
- Rise back up, honoring the experiences of life while also acknowledging the silent awareness holding it all.
Conflict Resolution in Relationships
Thanissara- Recognize and name the patterns of conditioning that are being activated in the moment of conflict (e.g., withdrawing vs. probing).
- Take a pause to create space and prevent exacerbating the situation.
- Understand each other's needs and where each person is coming from (e.g., needing space, feeling threatened).
- Communicate what is happening for oneself, even if it's just to name the feeling or need (e.g., 'I need some space now').
- Show solidarity and offer comfort, such as holding hands, to acknowledge the shared suffering without needing immediate explanation or resolution.