Online Meditation this Sunday

Join us this Sunday August 30 from 9-10am PDT for an online meditation session. 

Learn how to meditate, ask questions, engage in dialogue with other practitioners. Learn the foundational practices for calming your mind, recognizing your own nature, and cultivating your own personal practice.

No prior meditation experience necessary, all students welcome.

• Be introduced to the key points of meditation
  
• Learn how to bring the mind to rest using various techniques
  
• Learn how recognize the innate qualities of the nature of mind
  
• Understand how we stray in the practice and how to eliminate errors in our meditation

Zoom login

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5965263632

Spiritual evolution and development.

 The beginning of the spiritual path starts with the seeker. We are looking for something authentic and true. We set out in search of a better life, looking for meaning, purpose, happiness and satisfaction. 

The seeker may or may not recognize it, but they are not satisfied with their current life. Something is missing, things could be better, our life isn't what it could be or should be. For the seeker, the current circumstances and the reality of their present situation set them out on a path to a better life, a better situation. They seek out teachers, teachings, books, all in a search for a path to fulfillment. The seeker always looks outwards, searching for something to latch onto and identify with, because they don't recognize their own inner wealth and potential. 

At some point on the path, the seeker may start to see how they are actually the source of all of their problems and obstacles. Our own mind, our emotions, our hopes and expectations, those are the fuel for all of the challenges we face. Recognizing the importance of this inner work, the seeker turns inward to examine their own reactivity. They start to see that by letting go of attachment, aversion and confusion, it is possible to break free from this cycle of reactivity. Focusing on this intention to break free from the bonds of our own reactivity and confusion, the seekers focus shifts from searching outwardly to valuing the inner work of freeing our own hearts and minds. The path to a better life no longer lies outside ourselves, but is something that we can cultivate and train in through our practice. 

While we may have this commitment to doing the inner work of freeing ourselves, the result that we seek is still off in some distant future. Our focus may be on doing the inner work, but right now we are not ready to experience the result. We need to train and practice. The present circumstances are too tough, not quite right, not good enough. We are not ready right now, and thus the result and fulfillment that we seek are not apparent to us. 

Gradually, as we do the inner work of freeing ourselves from reactivity and confusion, we start to recognize the reality of our mind when it is free of these temporary veils. We eliminate doubt and gain confidence on the path of discovering our own true face. We start to appreciate that the outer course of things, as they are, is sufficient to actualize the result that we initially set out in search of. We start to recognize that this life, these circumstances, these conditions, this body, all of it, is enough just as it is. Having a direct experience of our own natural condition, the result of the path becomes fully evident and accessible. That result doesn't lie outside of ourselves, but is the actual nature of our own mind, embodied in authentic presence. There is no longer any need to fight our circumstances or reject the world as it is, rather we learn to work with things as they are, responding with wisdom, openness and kindness. 

The seeker in search of better. 
Commitment to doing the inner work of freeing ourselves. 
Waking up in this life, as it is. 

Those are the three stages of spiritual evolution, each stage transcending and including the previous. Each stage comes with a more subtle understanding of who we are and the nature of the world around us. The practice grows and develops as we embrace a larger scope, moving from an outward focus to an inward focus, and then moving from a different time and circumstances to the present, just as it is.

The fulfillment that we seek does not lie outside of us, and it doesn't lie in some distance time or space. It is ever-present and fully evident, once you are prepared to recognize it. 

Fulfillment, found.

For many of us, wealth is an endless horizon of more and better. More stuff, better stuff, more experiences, better experiences. There is no limit to how much we can consume. Wealth as a measure of endless consumption can never be satiated. No matter how many wonderful things we have done or how much we have surrounded ourselves with nice things, if we continue searching for more we will never know fulfillment. 

Enough is the opposite of the endless search for more and better. Enough enables us to appreciate what we have, to tune in to what is available to us at this very moment, and to be satisfied and content. Enough still relies to some measure on stuff and experiences, but those things and experiences become tangible and within our reach. 

One of the five wisdoms that characterize the awakened mind is all-accomplishing wisdom, otherwise translated as spontaneous fulfillment (Tib. bya ba grub pa'i ye shes). All-accomplishing wisdom is not the experience of whatever you desire being fulfilled. If your fulfillment is dependent on desire being fulfilled, then fulfillment lies outside of you because there is no end to your thirst. A desirous mind is antithetical to fulfillment. 

What happens when we let go of our desires? We experience the spontaneous fulfillment of enough.

Things, as they are, are sufficient for my well being and happiness. The present conditions, as they are, are sufficient for a live well lived. My current circumstances, as they are, are sufficient for me to act with purpose and intention. Appreciating who we are, as we are, opens us up to how much potential and possibility are available to us at this moment. Appreciating the world around us, as it is, reveals the opportunity and natural abundance that are always available to us. 

In this way, all is accomplished as it is, right now. Spontaneous fulfillment is readily available to us as the ever-present reality of things, just as they are. 

Just as a wellspring bubbling up from the ground flows out as a spring, inner wealth and abundance naturally want to be shared and flow out to others around us. Those gifts, in the form of kindness, compassion and generosity, deepen our sense of belonging and connection in the world. Inner fulfillment leads to outer fulfillment, benefitting yourself and others. In this way, the two aims of yourself and others become effortlessly fulfilled as a result of the single act of waking up. 

The Royal Seat of Akanishtha

The Royal Seat of Akanishtha

Timelessly present, unchanging, indestructible-

The ever-present spacious expanse of freedom,

A great equanimity free of limits or bias,

Is the unsurpassed dimension of enlightenment, Akanishtha.

The ground of the marvelous primordial state.

In that spacious expanse there is a royal seat that awaits you,

Your legacy, your birthright, your own natural state.

As a descendant and heir of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas,

It is incumbent upon you to seize the stronghold of authentic presence.

Assume your royal seat and the power and responsibility that it confers.

 

I am the unchanging body of timeless awareness,

The eternal lord, Dharmakaya Samantabhadra,

In sensual union with all that appears and exists,

the vast expanse of space- Dharmadhatu Samantabhadri.

Basic space and awareness are inseparable, not-two,

Revealing the majesty and wonder of pure, open presence,

The authentic ground of being.

Enjoy the infinite play of dependent origination,

The unceasing display of emptiness,

In which no-thing arises and yet anything appears.

The inseparability of appearance and emptiness, clarity and emptiness,

Reveals the significance of the union of two truths without complication.

Not establishing anything at all,

One enjoys the effulgence of emptiness in all its variety,

Like a royal king and queen enjoying a feast in their palace,

The ever-present palace of spacious awareness.

 

The king and queen dance with spontaneous presence in the gardens of sensual enjoyment and ease;

They dance in the charnel grounds, in which the five wisdoms go unrecognized as the five poisons;

They dance with life- open, available and responsive;

They dance with death- tender, patient, without hesitation or fear.

In the spacious palace of timeless awareness,

Birth, aging, sickness and death, the good times and the bad,

Naturally unfold in a dramatic play,

The king and queen continually bearing witness with dignified presence and understanding.

 

This single sphere of awareness, unborn bodhicitta,

Transcends and includes all that appears and exists, whether of samsara or nirvana.

The kayas and wisdoms being inseparable,

It transcends and includes all beings in all their variety, all paths, worldly and transcendent.

With nothing to attain and nothing to accomplish,

One enjoys natural freedom, freedom upon arising,

The timeless freedom in which the significance of doing

Is no longer at odds with the way of being.

Effortlessly fulfilling the aims of oneself and others,

One directly encounters the embracing space of complete virtue,

The natural great perfection.

This was composed by Gregory Patenaude on the morning of the tenth lunar day of the month, July 29, 2020. May virtue and wholesome goodness flourish!