Kelly Yanni (Australia)*
Buddha Bird (Roomwithaview/Flickr.com)I had a boyfriend, an American Buddhist. He brought me to the Dharma. Helped me realize my independence. Always irritable, somehow he got needy and clingy. Wanting me to come to group meditation. I've got things to do. The guy couldn't even meditate in his own flat. I could, I could meditate there, not my place, but after I moved in with him.
"Enlighten me!" he would say after I attained. As if I could transfer my serenity-and-insight into his head. Don't think I didn't try. But what's so hard about it? Cheers, mate. Focus on the breath!
O.K., that's not quite it. Here it is: 1) Be silent. 2) Keep the Eight Precepts. 3) Focus on the breath to the exclusion of everything else. Don't think. (He thinks and talks way too much -- the opposite).
"Someone plugged you in. And sadly they clipped your wings. You can’t fly away, electric bird. Yeah, someone took your tweet when they fed you that bad seed. You can’t fly away, electric bird. Well your art, you fell into this part! You play the victim perfectly -- holding your beating heart. You used to be so smart; you fluttered round the yard making your magic. Got to set you free. You were blinded by deceit. You can’t fly away, electric bird. So now this room's your stage while you’re stuck there in that cage. You can’t fly away, electric bird" (Sia).
You'll see the breath. The mind will make it so. Ecstasy will override the body. So you'll be able to sit for a long time, hours. You don't want to come out. When the physical pleasure comes to seem coarse, go to the next absorption. It's happy, bubbly. When that seems coarse, go to the next one. There's peace.
If you get to just half of them, you're ready to practice insight. That's where I was ready to help him. But he wouldn't quiet down. He wouldn't even stop listening to music or complaining about irritating people. (Law of Attraction you'll just draw more crud in by complaining!) He couldn't appease his mind. Too desperate to attain.
It's what Siddhartha found out. Exactly the wrong way. Enlightenment does not come from craving, striving, and overexertion. It comes from calm-persistence. It comes from balanced effort. Exert and relax, exert and relax, until you build momentum. More concentration means less effort. Less concentration needs more persistence (with less frustration). Strive and let go, exert and relax, sit and enjoy, yin and yang together.
I wonder where he is now, lost in Samsara. Sometimes I worry about him. But then I remember a quote he taught me. Why'd he have to get so clingy? “No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path. Buddhas only point the way” (quote). I swear, that guy. Brilliant and beautiful, but like an electric bird. I don't have time to feel guilty about dropping him.
*EDITORIAL NOTE: This is a true story. We know the writer well. "Kelly," in this very life, has directly known and seen nirvana. The books say it's possible, yet no one accepts it. We wouldn't either if we didn't know the people involved. The American boyfriend has already been invited to share his side of it. It's tragic for him, wonderful for her, and wonderful for everybody else because there's a message here: It's possible for Westerners to make remarkable meditative attainments and gain enlightenment as lay people practicing intensively for relatively short periods of time. See the story of Dighavu (SN 55:3; V 344-46). We agree with the individuals here not to explicitly announce accomplishments or identities. But you can follow them to Perth: VIDEO
