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!

A metaphor for timeless freedom.

ཡེ་གྲོལ་
Tibetan: ye-drol
English: timeless freedom, liberated since the beginning, eternally free, already free

In Tibetan, there is a common metaphor for understanding the spacious awareness of rigpa, which is that of a thief entering an empty house. The meaning of the metaphor is that the thief has nothing to gain by entering an empty house, and the house has nothing to lose. When we have a decisive experience of resting in rigpa, or open presence, we experience the timeless freedom of that state and understand the significance of the metaphor.

Another way we can understand the metaphor for yedrol or timeless freedom is to imagine a room. The room accommodates everything that is taking place in the room, you might change the furniture around, make a mess, clean up, have fun with your family, or get in a vicious fight. The room accommodates it all. The spaciousness of the room is unchanging and ever-present. Recognize that for a moment, it's also your nature.

From the perspective of open presence, many things happen in our day. We are busy, dealing with problems and challenges. We are interacting with our families, friends, neighbors and community. We sit alone, we sit among others. We are silent, we are talking. We are awake, we are tired, we rest, we move. All of our day plays out in the spacious awareness of rigpa.

This awareness is timelessly free. It has never known bondage and yet within that space we have been tied up in knots and untied ourselves countless times. Distinguishing between mind and rigpa, we can see how this is possible. Mind goes through endless manifestation and fluctuation. Rigpa is beyond mind, it is the open presence in which mind plays itself out endlessly.

Getting caught up in mind, we struggle with ourselves and with the world around us. Recognizing rigpa, we recognize we are already free.

This very lifetime.

The practice traditions of Mahamudra and Dzogchen make a radical claim that we can achieve liberation in this very life. This life, as it is right now, is the ground of your awakening.

Not the life you are waiting to live. Not the life you will have after you go back to school or get a better job. Not the life you'll have once you have your finances figured out, fix your problems, find the right partner or make that move to a new city. Not the life where you have more time, the kids are out of the house, or you can take that extended leave.

This life. The life you have right now, as it is. This is the ground of your awakening.

Can you accept that?

Whatever reason you have for putting off your liberation and freedom for another life or another time, I ask you, I beg you, to call bullshit.

What are you holding onto? What story are you telling yourself? Whatever it is, it's all made up. It seems to be true, but there is a lot more space and opportunity there than you recognize.

Recognize the fear, uncertainty, hope, longing, and storytelling for what it is - bullshit. Recognize when you fall into those cycles and treat them as a call to presence. Right here, right now.

You will never discover freedom and liberation in the future. The ground of awakening is the ever-present unfolding reality, just as it is. 

Honesty.

Many of us try to be honest with others, to be a credible and reliable friend, partner and professional. Equally important though is to be honest with ourselves.

Being honest with ourselves requires openness and vulnerability. It sits us down with tenderness and awkwardness, makes us look at the everyday ordinariness of our condition. And embrace it.

We often chase after the highest, best, most profound, most amazing things, but what might be most useful is to come to terms with who we are and our natural state of being free from all the hopes and projections.

Simply being open to the present moment of our natural condition opens the doorway to the path of liberation. Being honest with ourselves is a prerequisite for being awake.

An important life lesson.

The question of where to start is ever more challenging today. We live in a world where climate change is out of control, where we face tremendous ideological divides, and our society is plagued by anxiety, despair and addiction. None of the problems that we face are easy. None of them have a clear starting point.

There is an important lesson that we are trying to learn in life. It is a hard fought lesson and one that we should teach our children as they move out into the world:

The world is more free when we are free in it. 

As we transform ourselves, we transform the world. As we learn to resolve our own limiting fear, uncertainty and doubt, we learn to participate and contribute to the well being of the community around us. As we learn to work with our own tight knots of attachment, aversion and ignorance, we also learn how to be more present, understanding and kind in the world. 

The individual and collective are inseparable. We are the culture. Know that each of us has this capacity to wake up to a deeper sense of self and that doing so benefits not only ourselves, but the whole world. Knowing this shifts our posture. It changes who we are and how we move through the world. It shapes our values and our choices. 

In times like these when all seems lost, perhaps the greatest gift we can share with the world is to be more true to who we are and our unique way of seeing the world. There is so much to be done to solve the problems of our times. The solution that we need isn't going to come from rushing headlong into the wasteland and hoping for the best. The solution starts by being committed to the inner work of freeing our own heart and mind. 

Freeing ourselves from our own inner constraints, we are more freely available to share the naturally present abundance that is the ground of our being.

Reclaiming liberty.

Liberty is a state of being free from oppressive restrictions over your way of life and having the power to pursue your own interests. 

Liberty is one of our society's core values, but do we enjoy it?

Are our own hearts and minds free from oppressive restrictions? What's holding us back? What is getting in the way of our ability to chart our own course and pursue our own happiness?

Our society is struggling with a mental health crisis. Opioid addiction is running rampant throughout the nation. Our communities are polarized, subject to extreme views and divisive actions. We are all busy, overworked and struggling to find meaning and purpose in our lives. Our attention is literally consumed by the vast amount of news and information barraging us each and every day.

Is this liberty? Is this what we stand for and aspire to?

We all aspire to have a healthy mind and an open heart. We want to embody sacred human values, we want to have composure, presence and a joyful mind. We want to feel a sense of balance and ease in our life. We also want to be prepared for action, ready to act when called on.

Being in a state of presence and preparedness, that is what it means to have a firm hold on liberty.

A life of liberty is lived in the pursuit of truth and serving humanity. It is a life centered on practice. Just as a soldier trains to be ready to fight, so too we all must train to be ready to act for the benefit of others. Training is our job. It's not easy. It's not always fun. It is our work, the most important work worth doing. We train to be present and ready, even if the battle never comes.

The challenge that we are faced with is to see the gap. Is there a gap between where we are and what we aspire to be? What are we striving for? What does doing it right look like? Does failure mean we lost or that we have room to improve? Where are you getting stuck- emotionally, physically, spiritually or mentally?

Change is possible. We can leave behind our small self. We can leave behind the self caged in the confines of its own limited self-talk. We can recognize our birth right, our innate potential, and follow that which is authentic and genuine.

The first step on this path of reclaiming our liberty starts with self-awareness. For too long we have been not listening, not seeing, not acknowledging and not understanding. We have been blinded by our indifference to our own oppressive restrictions. Self-awareness starts with seeing who we are, what do we value and how exactly do our actions align with those values?

Self-awareness leads to composure, to self-worth and to confidence. Self-awareness illuminates the nature of who we are and gives us a ground to stand on as we learn to adopt a posture of compassion.

With self-awareness we are able to manage our own thoughts and emotions. We are able to navigate the tension between how we feel and how we act. We can accept ourselves, which means we can start to accept others. We start to grow and change, and things start to make more sense.

This change won't happen overnight. It will ebb and flow, but through practice it will become more stable. A life centered on practice always moves through periods of learning, growth and change.

And this is enough. The challenge is to bring all situations onto the path. To be present and ready, to have the power to choose and the power to act.

This is how we reclaim our liberty.

Dharma practitioners don't just meditate.

The Buddha's teachings get a lot of press about meditation. A lot of people may even equate the Buddha's teachings with meditation. That's what the Buddha did, right?

The Buddha did not just teach about meditation.

Meditation is a critical step in a much larger process of developing insight and wisdom. The development of wisdom evolves through three phases- study, contemplation and meditation.

When we study, we learn key concepts and principles. We are exposed to ideas and use reason and logic to determine their validity.

Contemplation is the process of building connections, coming at the material from different angles and reflecting on our experience of the teachings we have been studying. Contemplation involves deeper aspects of our mind and heart, often within the sphere of contemplation we will experience flashes of insight or meaning that seem to come from outside our own conjecture.

Meditation is the process of moving beyond concepts and into direct experience. We can talk about what chocolate tastes like, we can compare it to other regional varieties, but at some point we need to actually taste the chocolate. Meditation is a direct experience of the teachings.

We gain a certain type of knowledge and wisdom through study. We gain a different type of knowledge and wisdom through contemplation. The wisdom of meditation is the wisdom of direct experience.

The fundamental problem that all dharma practitioners are trying to resolve is the human condition complete with all of its negative and positive aspects. We as humans experience a lot of pain and suffering. Mental illness runs rampant through our communities affecting both young and old. But we also see great examples of virtues like compassion, generosity and wisdom. As dharma practitioners work to solve this problem, they rely on the process of study, contemplation and meditation. Over and over again, they cycle through these processes, continuously trying to resolve the nature of their own human life, and sharing that wisdom with others.

Slowly, and tirelessly they gain wisdom about how to work with suffering and practice virtue.
Slowly, and tirelessly they gain wisdom about how to live with suffering and share virtue.
Slowly, and tirelessly they discover freedom in the midst of suffering and learn how to embody virtue.
Slowly, and tirelessly they learn how to embody virtue and discover freedom in the midst of suffering.

Where does one go?

The tathagata-garbha. The Buddha heart.

The Buddha taught that all beings are Buddhas, but that this is obscured by temporary defilements and obscurations. Just as a treasure buried under the earth, or a precious statue wrapped in a dirty cloth, once the obscuring factors are removed the treasure can be enjoyed in all its splendor.

But what is this Buddha heart and how can we come to experience it?

The Buddha taught many different vehicles by which we can actualize and realize this Buddha heart. The Mahayana sutras describe the tathagata-garbha as a seed or potential, which we can cultivate and nourish until it becomes manifest and bears fruit. The Vajrayana, or resultant vehicle, describes the tathagata-garbha as being fully manifest since beginningless time, but obscured and unrecognized. The Vajrayana employs various skillful means to try to purify and remove these obscurations. Within the Vajrayana vehicle, the highest understanding of the tathagata-garbha is understood within the Dzogchen tradition.

Dzogchen, or the Great Perfection, describes the tathagata-garbha as being timelessly liberated. There is nothing to change, manipulate or improve. The true nature of reality is perfect just as it is, there is nothing to purify, nothing to cultivate, nothing to attain. Failing to recognize this true nature, we wander in and out of various mental states. Recognizing this, one is primordially free.

Where does one go when they have actualized the tathagata-garbha?

Tathagata is a name for the Buddha, which means 'One who has thus gone', 'Beyond coming and going' or "One who has gone to the true nature'. Garbha means heart, essence or womb. So one who has actualized the tathagata-garbha is the 'heart of one who has gone beyond', or the 'heart of one who has gone to the true nature'.

The tathagata-garbha is beyond mind. It is not the coming and goings of our mind. It is not an idea or a projection of what should be. It is not a belief or a philosophy. It is not 'in your head'. Awakening isn't in your head- its embodied, manifest.

The practitioner of Dzogchen is introduced directly to awareness beyond mind. The are introduced to the timelessly liberated natural state of being. Once introduced to this unique state, the practitioner clarifies doubt and uncertainty about this unique state, until they have truly gone beyond to the true nature. Then, they can continue with confidence in liberation. As Garab Dorje wrote in his Three Words that Strike the Essential Point: 

One is introduced directly to one's true nature,
Be decisive about this unique state,
Continue directly with confidence in liberation.

Or as Garab Dorje also states:

Mind's nature is and always has been Buddha,
it is neither born nor ceases, like space.
When you realize the authentic meaning of the equality of all things,
To remain in that state without effort is meditation.


 

Three essential points.

In the practice of Dzogchen, we are introduced to rigpa, or intrinsic awareness. We cannot be directly introduced to rigpa without relying on the mind, so we need to recognize the way the mind arises, abides and ceases.

All that appears and exists within samsara and nirvana is the play of one's mind. If we understand this, then we are able to recognize and work with the appearances of the mind, whether they are thoughts, sights, sounds or emotions. It is not sufficient to simply recognize appearances as mind, we need to exhaust them into the basis of the mind itself. We need to sustain transparent awareness.

There are three ways of describing the apparent quality of rigpa.

rtsal is the potency or dynamic energy of rigpa
rolpa is the display, such as thoughts or negative emotions
rgyen are the ornaments of awareness as external appearances in all their variety.

Relying on this understanding, we can rely on three essential points to bring us closer to recognizing rigpa:

1. Recognize the nature of mind.
Through instruction, recognize your own face without doubt. All appearances manifest from the nature of mind and mind itself has not been found.

2. Mind settles into the ground itself.
When negative emotions, thoughts or appearances arise, we are able to recognize and let them settle in their own place, such that we do not fall prey to their arising.

3. Ability to gain freedom from mind.
Through practice, mind is no longer prey to whatever is coming up in our experience, even death, bardo, sickness or rebirth. Mind is free in its own place.

This upadesha was given by Younge Khachab Rinpoche on September 15, 2012.

Lifetime after lifetime.

A new job, a new relationship, moving, going back to school.  Change something. 

Discovering our own natural freedom and benefiting others is always just around the next corner.  Fulfillment and peace of mind is always just a couple of changes away. 

Yet we turn a corner and soon are looking for the next one.

We search, longing for a new opportunity, a fresh start, a new birth.

Lifetime after lifetime, we cycle.  Even in this lifetime. 

When do we no longer look to change our circumstances? 

Self-liberation.

རང་གྲོལ་
Tibetan: rangdrol
English: self-liberation, naturally liberated

In the Dzogchen tradition we talk about self-liberation, or natural liberation; liberated just as it is, in it's own place.  There are three types of self-liberation- like a snake uncoiling itself, like meeting an old friend, and like a thief entering an empty house.

Rangdrol like an uncoiling snake.
When a snake is resting coiled up it doesn't tie itself into knots when it moves.  It simply and effortlessly uncoils.  It doesn't need to think about it or create a plan of attack for uncoiling itself, it naturally goes on its way.

We struggle at this.

When we are tied up in knots we plot our best to escape.  We fight back, try to break out or just give up in exhaustion.  We struggle.  We see all of the struggle in our life and we know we are tied up in knots.  We also know that we don't know how to get untied.

The way that we experience self-liberation is to experience the nature of mind and the nature of phenomena directly.  It is not a conceptual process, we don't talk ourselves through it into a state of cessation or acceptance.  It is a direct experience.  This is what Garab Dorje talked about in the first of his Three Statements.  When we experience the originally pure and uncontrived nature of mind directly, we encounter the naturally liberated state.  Recognizing that we come to experience the timeless freedom of the nature of mind and the way in which all experiences, whether good or bad, are naturally liberated.  In this way, the knots of whatever is manifesting in our experience are naturally uncoiled and liberated in their own place.

The distinctive feature of this first stage of self-liberation is that prior to this experience you have been trying to use the craftiness of your mind to bring about freedom, freedom that has never manifested or never lasted.  Here in this tradition, you are using the direct experience of the nature of mind.

Rangdrol like meeting an old friend.  
It doesn't matter how busy you are, how crowded the place or even how long it has been, when you see an old friend you immediately recognize them.  "Oh, hello.  There you are, I recognize you dear friend".  It is a moments recognition, nothing more to do.

You are already intimate and familiar with the natural state of being and the experience of timeless freedom, yet there are moments when you get caught up, moments when you get tied up in knots.  So at this stage you are becoming more proficient at recognizing the naturally liberated state and dealing with problems and obstacles as they arise.  For you, problems and obstacles start to arise as friends.  As negative thoughts and emotions arise you instantly recognize them as a dynamic dance, free in their own place with nothing more to do.  You see them, but they don't necessarily bother you.

The key feature here is the familiarity you have gained familiarity of the naturally liberated state.  Familiarity allows us to recognize the natural liberation of thoughts, emotions and habitual tendencies as they arise, even though we may have a moment of distraction.  This is really a process of working with doubt and uncertainty in your practice, really sitting so that you start to gain that experience of liberation upon arising.      

Rangdrol like a thief entering an empty house.
This one is a bit more obscure conceptually.  The metaphor here is that the thief has nothing to gain and the house has nothing to lose.  This experience of self-liberation is connected to the essence of liberation in the Dzogchen tradition, which is liberation upon arising.  Normally what is manifesting in our experience can be viewed as an enemy or a problem, a thief.  Our house is secure, a safe zone where we experience freedom and peace of mind.  So our normal experience is that something manifests in our life and we lose something, our peace of mind or freedom get stolen from us and ultimately we get tied up in knots.  In this situation, the thief that arises- whether it be negative situation, thoughts, bad habits, karma or ignorance- doesn't threaten the house because the house has nothing to lose.  The nature of mind, your house, cannot be ruined by negative thoughts or emotions, it cannot be bound up in any way at all.   

Sometimes we are also the thief looking for valuable experiences and qualities.  We might start to have some 'real signs' that we are accomplishing something or be looking for confirmation or validation, but truly there is also nothing to add or improve upon in the nature of mind.   

The key feature here is that whatever arises in your experience is free just as it is, liberation is simultaneous with arising, with nothing to gain and nothing to lose.

You can always tell when you have fallen from this realization when you start to see thieves all over the place and long for the experience of a peaceful house.  Your work is a thief, those people, this problem, this thought, this emotion, all of it starts to tie you up pretty good again, doesn't it?

In the beginning, you discover the naturally liberated state,
In the middle, you recognize it again and again amidst confusion,
In the end, you realize that there is nothing to gain and nothing to lose.

Liberation.

གྲོལ་བ་
Tibetan: drolwa
English: liberation, release, let go, freedom, untied

Most days we have a pretty visceral experience that we are not liberated.  We are often tied up in knots, awkward, caught up in highs and lows.  We don't really know how to relate to ourselves, others and the world around us.  We are caught up in a subject-object, self-other duality in which everything has its own compartment and attachment and aversion are our constant companions.

We don't need to look to far into our life to realize that we are not liberated.  What is the biggest source of problems in your day?  Work, your relationships, money, internal politics, chronic disease or illness?

Liberation is an experience of release or freedom.  When we talk about liberation it is the mind that is liberated.  What is the mind liberated from?  Negative emotions, concepts, habitual tendencies, karma and ignorance. 

We all have an experience of mundane liberation.  You quit your job and walk out the door, everything is suddenly lifted off your shoulders.  You finish a hard day at work and step out into the wide open sky.  You pay off the last of your debts, nothing more to worry about.  You orgasm, an ecstatic release of blissful sexual energy.  Your illness subsides.  Your doctor tells you the scan is clear.  You are healed.

It is funny, at least to someone aspiring to awakening, because you can see directly that which binds you by identifying these moments of struggle and mundane release, these moments of struggle where we really wish we were liberated.   

Those areas should be the focus of your practice.

Can you include them?  Is it even possible?

Four demons.

The great female saint and realized pracitioner Machig Labdron taught about four demons in her practice of cutting-through.  A demon is not a black, scary monster.  It is anything that torments you and obstructs your freedom.  

Outer Demons
Outer demons are anything that we relate to with attachment or aversion.  Any material objects, forms, sounds, tastes or physical sensations that we experience getting ourselves caught up in.  We get hooked by our fixation which creates the conditions for bondage and suffering, which is why they are called 'demons'.  They are called 'outer' because they are objects of the five sense faculties.  

We should strive to cut-through these demons, strive to eliminate their influence and our habit of falling under their power.  We cannot stop them from appearing, but we can cut through our fixation on them as being real and permanent.  We can look through their outer appearance and see their true nature.   

Eliminate grasping and they are powerless.  You are liberated.  

Inner Demons
Inner demons are concepts that bring your fear and terror.  They haunt you at night and torment you ceaselessly.  Grasping at these good and bad thoughts causes the mind to become afflicted with negative emotions, bringing you great harm and causing you to act out like a fool, thus they are 'demons'.  They are 'inner' because they are the experience of your mind and mental states, a world of experience that you get wrapped up in and struggle to escape.  

We should strive to cut-through these demons.  We don't need to block thoughts or memories, but also don't hold onto them and dwell on them.  Recognize their true nature to be like waves on the water, rising and falling but leaving without a trace.  Relax into your own true nature and the disturbances naturally subside, liberated in their own place.   

Demon of Elation
The demon of elation is the result of mental attachment to delight and joy.  This could be the result of some worldly gain, fame, accomplishment, some great experience you had or some sign of success.  They are called 'demons' because they cause great arrogance and pride in oneself which becomes an obstacles to freedom.  

We should strive to cut-through this demon.  Whenever good things happen, don't fixate on the qualities of that experience.  Recognize them as being like a dream or illusion.  It is possible to enjoy experience free from fixation and grasping, as you integrate your experience with the path and achieve success in cutting-through the demon of elation, you will truly be able to extend yourself and benefit others.    

Demon of Self-Importance
The demon of self-importance is the root of all demons.  This demon arises from the self-grasping that is the root of all suffering and dissatisfaction.  It is the chronic disease that blocks the attainment of freedom and awakening.  

We should strive to cut-through this fixation on 'I' and 'mine'.  Cut-through to our true nature, our buddhanature, our originally pure and spontaneously present nature of mind.  

Where there is ego, there is also a demon.  Where there is no ego, no demon can be found. 

Ephemeral- without mental designations.

Mind free and easy- fixation on 'I' annihilated.

Pristine- incapable of disturbance by emotional conditions.

Clear- consciousness free of outer and inner duality.

Transparent- awareness free of attachment to anything whatsoever.  

~Machig Labdron

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.

Equal measure.

Cultivate these two in equal measure: freedom and resources.

You may have plenty of freedom and leisure, all the time in the world, but if you lack the resources to carry out your aims you will be stuck in states of misery.

What are those resources?  Knowledge, tools, assets, skills, support, connections.

You may have all the resources in the world, but no freedom to use them.  Stuck in a state of misery. 

What are those freedoms? Time, leisure, freedom from negative emotions and negative conditions. 

Seek to balance these two in your life, always.

A world of difference.

The person seeking there own freedom and happiness is constantly at odds with the world around them.  Karma and dependent origination serve as a burden, a constant reminder of entrapment in this unceasing wheel of life.  Fear exists at every corner, constant threats are always presenting themselves and our own well being is always in a precarious position.

For the person seeking the freedom and happiness of others, everything in the world around them is an opportunity.  Karma and dependent origination reveal a deep connection with the world and all beings.  This connection allows for responsiveness- impact and growth.  There is a natural freedom and ease, because this thing that is happening, this struggle, this problem, this seeming end- it's not permanent nor lasting. 

Yes, karma and dependent origination reveal a wheel that just keeps going. 

But so do we. 

Our human dilemma.

Take a walk in a forest or park.  What do you see?

Trees and flowers of various sizes, shapes and colors.
Beautiful ones and strange ones and ugly ones too.
Look at the small details.  Feel them.  Smell them.
Perfect in all of their imperfections,
a wonderful enjoyment of natural freedom,
no need to alter, left to remain just as it is.

Then we have birds and bugs, even spiders and mice,
how amusing these creatures,
beautiful ones and strange ones and ugly ones too.
Look at their details.  Listen to them, watch them.
Perfect in all of their imperfections,
a wonderful enjoyment of natural freedom,
no need to alter, left to remain just as they are. 

And then we see humans,
how amusing indeed,
beautiful ones and strange ones and ugly ones too.
Look at their details, how do they act.  What do they say when you interact?
Could they be smarter or pick up the pace?
Could they excuse themselves for their wayward ways?
Are they agreeable, friendly and nice?
Or should they act better, c'mon remember 'Leave no trace!'
Are they perfect in all of their imperfections?
Do you enjoy their natural freedom?
If you could alter, just a tweak, would you?  Could you?

This is the root of the human dilemma,
the source of our problems, our wars and our rage.
The problem doesn't lie in the natural world,
it lies in our mind and our own faulty vision.
We won't fix it if we keep trying to fix others,
for others are too many and our time is too short.
Better to change our own lens, train our own minds,
Resolve our own faults and imperfections,
and imperfections become perfections,
a wonderful enjoyment of natural freedom.
Left to remain, just as we are.

Judgment of one, judgment of all.
Conflict in one, conflict with all.
Resolving one, we resolve all.
The essence of the path isn't to gain something new,
it is to resolve your own condition,
and rediscover your natural freedom.
Liberate one, and all is liberated,
just as it is.

Let's take a walk in the park.  

Temporary and Final

Why do people meditate?

Is it to experience a calm mind?  To rest in peace?  Is it an escape from the constant turmoil and stress that pervades our day?  Is it to experience blissful mental states and profound happiness?

The reason people meditate varies, but all of them can be summarized as being of temporary or final benefit.

All of the teachings given by the Buddha were simply meant to accomplish the welfare of beings.  This welfare of beings is considered to be two-fold: the temporary goal of the joys of this life, a better future and a higher rebirth; and the final goal of complete freedom and total omniscience.   

Many people strive diligently for the aims of this life in hopes of securing happiness and a better future.  Actually, looking around that is pretty much the mold we are all made from.  Rare indeed is it to encounter those who honestly seek out complete freedom and profound insight into the human condition. 

Meditation can help you accomplish both.  In the beginning in brings you great joy, frees you from suffering and discontentment.  In the middle you abandon chasing temporary and fleeting apparitions and you encounter a deep sense of freedom and insight.  In the end, you tirelessly work to accomplish the welfare of beings.  Just like the Buddha. 

Why do you meditate?

Postscript: Awaiting your fate.

As a postscript while you wait,

Does it matter?

If you are going to live to see another day, how will you spend it?
If you are not and your time has come, what now?

Your freedom from the confines of your fate only comes right now.  There is no other time to be free.  The cycle is perpetuated right now, while you wait.  My own fear, doubt and uncertainty perpetuate the cycle.

Whether you have much time or little is not the point, the point is to be free as it arises.

Liberation upon arising means that you are not overcome by your fate, nor overcome by the world.  You take it as it comes- the good, the bad and the ugly.

Let it be, as it is.  

Open.  Unwavering.  Fearless. 

Everything is impermanent.

Things are impermanent, thank goodness!

The world is too sloppy for permanence.  Imagine holding a permanent black marker and wearing all white clothes.  Oh, and you don't have a cap for the marker.  What a mess!

Impermanence allows for change.
Growth.
Development.
Freedom.
Breaks.
Art.
Expression.
Flexibility.
Movement.

Sure, we are sad at the moment of death.  But you don't want its opposite.
Time to appreciate, rejoice, enjoy.
This life is a sacred ornament.