Dharma Talk: Practicing with the 3 Poisons

We are continuing to immerse in the teachings of Zen Master Hongzhi’s Silent Illumination on Thursday nights.

Tonight we have this somewhat obscure line,

Drink the medicine of good views, beat the poisoned smeared drum. When they interact, killing and giving life are up to you.

When people hear this line, often they say, well I understand that we should drink the medicine of the teachings, right view; but what does it mean to beat the poisoned smeared drum?

Don’t we want to uproot the three poisons of greed, hatred and ignorance?

I want to pause and elaborate this teaching. It is called the teaching of the three poisons. Three ways that we “all human” misperceive reality and thus poison ourselves and the world. Sometimes I use the analogy of lenses, lenses that we place on top of what is.

One is greed. Greed manifests as wanting, it is often a reaction to an unpleasant sensation. Something arises that is uncomfortable, and the habitual tendency is to move towards something else. This can manifest as fantasy, planning, lust, wanting, hoarding, shopping, consuming in all the ways we do that. 

Another is hatred or aversion. Which manifests as pushing away. I don’t want this. This can take the form of habitual irritation, anger, rage, judgment, and criticism.

And then there is ignorance or delusion. In its essence, ignorance is not-knowing the freedom of mind’s nature found right here and instead feeling a sense of exile, not-belonging, not feeling good enough. It’s identifying with the sense of separation, as opposed to wholeness and interconnection. That is the most subtle form. In a more habitual form, ignorance takes the shape of fear, anxiety, worry, spacing out, day-dreaming, going to sleep, going numb.

Beat the poisoned smeared drum.

In one description of this line, a teacher commented that to make a certain traditional drum, a poisonous substance was rubbed over it, to seal the animal hide.

It was inevitable that to sound the drum in the dharma hall, one would be beating this poisoned smeared drum.

Perhaps this analogy speaks also to the inevitability of so called poison in our lives. To live a human life on earth, we live amidst greed, hatred and delusion. This is part of the human condition. Practice isn’t so much about ridding ourselves of these poisons, but learning to live more skillfully with them, perhaps even seeing them as opportunities to heal, transform and awaken.

In the Buddhist teachings we have three main ways of working with the poisons. They somewhat correspond with the three turnings of the wheel. All of which are important tools to have.

The first, which corresponds to the Theravada teachings, the teachings of the historical Buddha, is renouncing / replacing.

So here, a difficult emotion arises, we recognize it for what it is. Which is basic mindfulness. And instead of feeding it with our attention. We redirect attention back to present moment experience. So in meditation, this would be recognizing when the mind has strayed into planning, wanting, judging, worrying. And coming back to the meditation practice (breath, sound, body sensations). 

In daily life this might look like noticing that you are caught in a cycle of self-criticism and replacing it with self-compassion. Or noticing that you are habitually judging a co-worker, friend or partner for something and replacing those thoughts with appreciation.

The second way corresponds with the Vajrayana. And this method is transmuting the poison into wisdom. Peacock practice. It is said that peacocks can eat food that is poisonous and that this becomes the beautiful elaborate colors of their feathers. In this method we are working more with the energetic level of the afflictive emotion. Recognizing that the energy of the emotion, or the essence of the emotion is compassion, we are finding the wisdom energy of the poison, by going into it.

Like I said, this is working more on the energetic level. 

So in meditation, you would recognize that anxiety is present or anger or wanting. And instead of redirecting attention, you go into the emotion. Not the story. But the actual experience. You feel the anger directly. Notice, does it have a color, form, shape. What does it feel like?

Feeling the energy of the emotion, with curiosity, noticing—what is the energetic experience of this energy? What is its awakened quality?

In some traditions these emotions are represented as Dakinis, creative energetic beings. And you might dance from them, dance your anger, or paint your fear, or sing your anxiety. Not the content of the story, but the essence of the feeling. So you are feeling the power of the emotion itself.

And you may discover that anger in its raw form is clarity, mirror-like wisdom. Or greed is appreciation, celebration of form, the sacred–incarnate, love. Or that ignorance is the spaciousness, the all encompassing awareness of mind’s nature.

In meditation you would be invited to rest in the awakened energy. In daily life you would learn how to hone your attention and embody the power of the awakened energy to do bodhisattva work.

Perhaps developing ways to transmute the energy on the spot. Anger arises, you remember, ah yes this is powerful protective energy, this has the potential to transmute into clear seeing wisdom, if I investigate it, if I attend to its energetic nature, if I let go of the ego(ic) story line.

This is really powerful practice. And it starts by being willing to do this investigation in meditation first and in creative practice. We need to build the capacity of mind and body to really transmute the energy, so that we aren’t just leaking anger, righteousness, greed, etc. and calling it spiritual practice.

And finally we have the Zen method. In Zen, we recognize the One taste of all experience. We allow greed, anger, ignorance to arise, as the sky allows clouds and weather patterns to arise.

We entrust that everything that arises has the same source, the same basic nature.

That we need not apply any antidote.

Poison is only poison when ego identification is involved!

And so that is where we get the next stanza of Hongzhi’s poem, killing and giving life are up to you. When we fully function from this insight; which is the insight into radical impermanence / emptiness. We live out basic compassion.

We are true human beings, buddhas and bodhisattvas. Our functioning accords with our insight. Everything we do has deep purpose as it is aligned with the universe.

Honestly we function from this place in little ways all of the time. Entrusting ourselves to sleep, to wake up, allowing the body to take care of itself, to breath itself, to wash itself. 

So this week's awareness task is to pay attention to how the three poisons function in your life. See if you have a favorite one. And try the three methods.

Replacing

Transmuting

Non-abiding