Four ways of working with the mind.

As we are learning to bring the mind to rest, settling into a calm and clear mind, we will encounter four different ways of working with the mind.

First, we encounter involvement with effort.

When we first sit down to settle the mind, we encounter movement. Lots of movement. It is not easy to rest the mind, to focus it on our intended object. The first stages of bringing the mind to rest require effort. If we don't bring effort into our meditation, we simply rest in our monkey mind and that will not bring any result, at least not the result we are looking for. We need to apply effort to settle our mind and to continuously settle as we experience distractions.

Second, we encounter involvement with interruption.

We have started to settle the mind and prolong that experience. Then, we experience interruption in the form of thoughts, emotions and sensations that pull us away. Using mindfulness and vigilance, we recognize that we are distracted and come back to our object of meditation. Settle. Wander. Come back. Our practice is involved with interruption from the stages of continuously resettling the mind through the stage of completely calming the mind, as we continue to learn how to work with agitation and dullness.

Third, we encounter involvement without interruption.

Once you have gained agility working with agitation and dullness, you arrive at the stage of single-pointedness in which you are no longer affected by these waves of thoughts and emotions. There is still some subtle effort of mindfulness and vigilance at play here, but one does not fall out of meditation into states of distraction.

Fourth, we encounter effortless involvement.

Having settled the mind into a state of equanimity, you can effortlessly maintain the practice without the need for additional applications or remedies. Applying effort at this stage would be a fault, contriving something to be done. One simply rests in complete evenness. The mind abides in a state of limpid clarity, with no stirring or wavering.

What do you need to do?

What do you need to do to be of benefit to others?

Learn more?
Master a craft?
A better position?

Those are all things you can do.  Get started.

What about being less busy, less distracted?
Dealing with your own hesitation or fear?
Being more available or attentive?
Being present?
More understanding?

All things you can work on.  Get started.

What if you are feeling inadequate?
What if you are not good enough?

Then you need to learn to sit with yourself.  Be patient and listen.

Once you can do that for yourself, you can do it for others.  

Preparation for solitude.

Retreats are often very intense experiences.  They are immersive in nature.  A retreat should offer no alternative to escape into mundane distraction and idleness. 

Solo retreats can be even more intense.  You don't have the support of other practitioners around you.  You don't have that companionship and the ability to simply share a cup of tea.  Those seeking to go on a retreat into solitude should prepare themselves.

Self-reliant.

Is your practice strong enough that you can be self-sufficient without the guidance and support of your teacher or fellow students?

Know how to work with resistance and uncertainty.

How will you work with doubt and uncertainty on your own?  How will you overcome emotional uprising and commotion?

Be healthy.

A retreat is not a time to work with illness or disease.  Enter the retreat in a healthy state of body and mind. 

Free yourself from mundane activities.

You are entering retreat with a strong intention.  You are committed to the practice and have isolated this brief moment in time.  Don't waste it checking your email, social networks, calling and texting your friends.  Pay your bills before the retreat, stock up on food and necessities and identify those moments when your mind is grasping for something to entertain it.

Be decisive about the view.

Understanding the view, all practices fall into place.  Doubts naturally free themselves and problems arise as opportunities to let go.  Resolve all doubt and uncertainty regarding the view with your teacher, when you are confident in the view you are ready for retreat.  

The limit of time.

I don't have time.  I ran out of time.  I was too busy.  I got distracted.  This is taking a loooong time.  When is this going to be over.

Time doesn't exist.  It is not real. 

Our experience of time is relative.  It depends on change and motion and how we measure it.  We are the creators of our world.  When we decide that something needs to get done, suddenly we have all the time in the world to do it.  We create the time for it.

The Buddha taught that karma or actions create your future experience.  You are the creator of heaven and hell, or at least your experience of them.  But your actions also create your perception of time.  Your choices, your decisions, your priorities, your intentions and your actions all create your experience of space and time.  You are a universal monarch, an all-creating king.   

What kind of world are you creating?

Freedom AND Opportunity.

Secure these two first.

Freedom.
Freedom for negative circumstances.
Freedom from negative mental states.
Freedom from ignorance.
Freedom from endless distraction.
Freedom from heavy burdens and debts.
Freedom from conflict.
Freedom.

Opportunity.
Resources.
Access.
Connections.
Knowledge.
Opportunity.

Freedom without resources and you are stuck.  Resources without freedom and they are wasted.  Cultivate both.  When making decisions, keep these two in mind.

What do you want to do today?

There is so much opportunity in that question.

We tend to fill that void with errands, entertainment, consumption and distraction.  We fill it with browsing, shopping, social media and all sorts of sudden urges. We fill it with many things that have no lasting value.  Illusions you could say.

So what do you want to do today?

I am tired of chasing illusions.  Tired and weary.

It is not so much that my life is really that busy.  I make it busy in order to avoid answering that question in a meaningful way.  It is easier to consume and be entertained.  Easier to remove myself from the irritation of being open and present with that incredible opportunity.  Easier to stay distracted than face the uncertainty and discomfort that arises when you don't actually have an answer. 

I can't say what value having a spiritual practice will bring to your life.  What I can say with confidence is that having your own practice will allow you to sit with uncertainty, with doubt and discomfort.  It will allow you to pause for a moment before neurosis leads you down illusion's game.

You might end up being honest and certain about who you are in an authentic and genuine way.

When you are authentic and genuine, you discover an inexhaustible wealth that wants to be shared.  It wants to connect, lend a hand, share a laugh and benefit others.

What do you want to do today?

Undermining fear.

Fight the temptation to fill boredom with busyness. 

Resist the urge to reach for your cell phone.  Relinquish the need to look something up.  Wait to check your email, your social media, your news outlet. 

For a moment, just sit with the irritation of having an open moment.  Witness all the momentum and inertia pushing you to keep moving, keep doing.  Feel all the subtle agitation and static energy that insist on you shifting your attention somewhere else.

In order to avoid the uncomfortableness of the present we consume- food, ideas, news, pictures, entertainment- anything we can fit in that space at that time.
In order to avoid the hollowness of the present we do- all kinds of things.

At the root of all of these lie fear, uncertainty and doubt.  We consume and do all sorts of things just to avoid these unpleasant feelings and perceptions.  Our assumption is that by consuming and doing we might be able to avoid them all together.  We haven't succeeded to date.     
 
Cultivate space in your life.  Carve out intentional moments.  Create boundaries.  This is your battle field. 

As you learn to rest with openness, all the irritation, boredom and anxiousness are undermined.  As you dig deeper, fear and uncertainty have no ground on which to stand.  No longer holding onto any ground, openness gives rise to a natural outpouring of inner wealth and fullness.  A wellspring of generosity, kindness and compassion springs forth with nothing left to hold it back.

Of course, when you share generosity, kindness and compassion you are making yourself vulnerable.  With openness comes vulnerability, with vulnerability comes fear. 

This is the dance.  Dance with openness.  Dance with fear.  And I'm sorry in advance if a couple toes get stepped on. 

Sprint.

It is nice to pace yourself.  Slow and steady wins the race.  But sometimes you need to push yourself.  Sometimes it is good to stretch the legs, see how how far you can go.

What is off in the distance that you have had your eye on?

It could be a project.  A goal.  Sure.  Could definitely be house cleaning.

But it could be your practice.

What if you sat in meditative equipoise for ten hours today?
What if you did 1000 prostrations today, or sun salutations for three hours?
What if you offered 10,000 mandalas this month?  Or recited OM MANI PADME HUNG 100,000 times?
What if you could replace your distracted, tired mind with a mind that was powerful and stable?  What if hesitation and doubt were replace with confidence and certainty?

Time to run.  What are you waiting for?

 

Is What You are Doing Meaningful?

You keep checking things off your to-do list, but does it matter?

Does what you are doing improve upon your situation, do you find any benefit?

Does it benefit others?

Struggling to stay afloat means you are always a moments notice away from being underwater.  If you are going to put effort into anything, cultivate bodhicitta.

Bodhicitta give your life meaning.
It gives you strength, fortitude.
It brings unimaginable benefit to others, it is the panacea.

If you are going to check anything off of your to-do list today, make sure you check off aspiring to bodhicitta. 

Treading Water.

Why does it always feel like we are treading water?  And juggling at the same time.

There is so much to do in a day-
work, special projects, manage your house, your family, all the commitments and appointments,
all the email, Facebook, Twitter trends and news to follow-
our day is so full of stuff to do that we rarely find any rest.

If we do find rest, or deliberately take it, sometimes we feel like we are sinking and giving up the ground that we fought so hard to gain.  Any progress that we had made is given back and we feel the need to work harder just to get caught up. 

If we are constantly flailing our arms and legs just to keep our head above water, when are we ever going to find the time for our own practice?  When are you going to find the time to share generously, to make an impact and to do something meaningful? 

To train on the path means that we change all of this.  It is not changing what you do but how you do it. 

You can learn a better technique.
You can change your habits.
You can be stronger.  Improve your endurance.
You might even be able to find a way out altogether. 

Static.

We are not very familiar anymore with static on the radio, but do you remember those days of dialing into a radio station? You would get close, close enough to hear the lyrics, but just off enough that you kept tweaking the dial. 

Then you would hit it.

The vibrance of the music would shoot through the speakers, its clarity would lift your soul.  Its energy enliven your mind.  Oh, how those hips would start to groove and that music would move you.

You would dance.

Today most of our days are filled with static.  The endless distraction, consumption and activity.  The static of our job, our situation, our chosen social network.  We are all supposed to be somewhere or something but where we are at is not it.  Most days we can barely even discern the lyrics, there definitely ain't no music coming through.

Every once in awhile though, we tune in.  We hear something that we connect with.  It moves us.

If that music stirs your heart, picks you out of your funk, makes you feel a little jive-  Follow it.  Let it move you and create the conditions for it to keep playing in your life.  Go deeper. 

Then you might find your music.  Your rhythm.

Share your music with the world.  Be Generous.  Be Loving.  Be Kind.  Let it lift the weak and enliven the weary.   Let it infuse your work, your life and your day.

It's good to be dancing again.  

Where has all the Wisdom gone?

All the branches of the doctrine
The Enlightened Sage expounded for the sake of wisdom.
Therefore they must cultivate this wisdom
Who wish to have an end of suffering.
Shantideva

A cursory glance discerns acts of folly, 
Men and women playing childish games, 
Crows chattering over shiny tin foil, 
A local gelato of self-aggrandizement. 

This suffering runs deep.  
No one even knows it's here.
Why would they wish to be free from it?

They don't see impermanence,
They keep moving and keep buying.
They never sit with discontentment
Because they are always distracted.
Days into weeks, weeks into years,
The days a blur and the nights unconscious. 

Why talk about conquering fear, 
Changing perception, building character?
What sense in acting with generosity,
Love and kindness?

Even a busy fool notices moments of raw discontentment, 
Catch one and look deeply into it, 
Sit with it, examine it, play with it,
And awakening is possible.  
You'll find your wisdom.

What's Your Mark.

A marksman knows exactly where her mark is.  

She knows when she has hit it, and when she has not.  

She will exert significant effort and a substantial amount of time to mastering her skills, cultivating the correct temperament and poise so that she can willfully hit her mark.  She learns how to handle external distractions and how to work with her own internal thoughts and emotions.  She knows how to adapt when the conditions change, how to stand in varied terrain.  

When she hits her mark, she is not lost in emotion and feelings of achievement.  Her's is the quest for mastery, for knowing directly and having the confidence that comes with that knowing.  The mark simply allows her to get there.  

What's your mark?

Do What You Want.

That seems to be the slogan of our day.  It also represents the hallmark of having obtained a life of freedom AND opportunity. 

In the process of doing what we want, we should also have a practice that is worth committing to.  A practice that we show up for and are accountable to, day in and day out, whether we have the time or not.

Our lives are all filled with busyness and distraction, but it is our commitment to our practice that brings us our intended result. 

Go.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

What are you waiting for?

More time.
More information.
More resources.
More room.
Better conditions.
A nicer day.
Something else...

The sun is setting, your shadow is growing longer.  You never know how this opportunity will present itself tomorrow.  Better to act now.

Go.

The Resistance

Our aims clearly set before us, if we fail to act now when shall this opportunity present itself again?

Caught up in my own idle behavior,
hiding in mundane activities and endless distraction,
negative thoughts, emotions and doubt are quick to strike.
My own self-cherishing and confusion prevents me
from doing work that actually benefits myself and others.

My constant fear of loss and the eight worldly concerns perpetually ensnare my mind.  I am like a bird trapped in a building, the door is wide open but I keep wanting to fly higher to get out. 

This then is my primary adversary, the source of all my troubles, suffering and discontent.

These are the ailments that keep me up at night, tormenting my mind with endless anxiety.

All my efforts will be directed at vanquishing this foe.  There are as many methods for accomplishing this as there are beings, but none are as quick and effective as resting in openness free from fixation.

This then shall be my supreme vehicle, my way of abiding.

When I am no longer bound by these veils that entrap my mind, may I come to find a natural freedom and ease and like a bird, soar effortlessly through the sky. 

A Goodbye Kiss

All we ever have is fleeting moments of opportunity.

Despite all of the distraction and busyness, all of our responsibilities and the momentum pulling us out the door, if we fail to act now, when will this opportunity come again?

Seize the moment.  Do the practice.  Share your generosity.  Take action. 

Give a goodbye kiss (or hug), you never know when it might be your last. 

Let's Move Beyond 'Like'

We all love to distract ourselves with stories that we believe in; stories that inspire us and give us hope.  Somehow, perhaps, if we can just get enough of the right content and knowledge then we might start to be that story.  Right? 

I do this all the time.  If I am interested in something I often find myself studying it first, mastering it intellectually before I actually go do the thing itself. 

But does 'Like' followed by no actual work equal anything?

It ain't a show people. 

It requires work.
It requires openness.
                 discipline.
                 patience.
                 mindfulness.
                 joyous effort.
                 focus.
                 and insight.

This life is short.  Our time is precious.  

I believe you can live a life of great purpose, but it's time to move beyond 'Like'.