Consider giving.

2020 has been a challenging year for all of us. This holiday season I hope you consider giving to charities as one of the gifts you share. It doesn't need to be much, but every gift matters and opens doors of possibility and hope for others. Here are a few of the charities worth considering:

Feeding America

With the pervasive presence of COVID-19, many families are facing difficulty putting food on the table. There are numerous organizations that have met this challenge, and Feeding America is one of the highest rated and most efficient programs working to connect people with the food they need. You can also enter your zip code to determine local food banks if you want to focus on your community (Food Lifeline for Seattle). Every $1 donation provides ten meals to families in need. 

GiveDirectly

GiveDirectly gives cash to people in need, no strings attached. Studies have shown this to be the most effective way to help the poor and make an impact in their lives. They currently have campaigns in America and Africa to help those in need. Your dollar goes a long way to helping families in Africa, and we also have a pressing need to support those in our own communities across America. 

buildOn

buildOn empowers the youth to serve our country and the world in order to break the cycle of poverty, illiteracy and low expectations. They are a highly rated charity with various programs to help both in America and abroad. A $66 donation supports the education for three children in developing countries.

Charity:water

Charity:water funds clean water projects in developing countries, providing access to clean and safe drinking water. It's easy to overlook to impact clean water makes to our life until we don't have it. Millions of people around the world struggle to procure clean water every day, time that could be used for work or education. 100% of every donation goes to fund clean water projects.

Equal Justice Initiative

The EJI works to end mass incarceration, seeking racial justice and public education to protect basic human rights. EJI has a perfect score of 100 on Charity Navigator, meaning every dollar you donate has maximal impact. 

84,000

84,000 translates all of the Buddha's words into modern language, providing free and open access to all via its online reading room. $250 supports the translation of one page of the Buddha's teachings. Give a little, and then spend some time enjoying their reading room knowing that you are helping to make it happen. 

Buddhist Digital Resource Center

TBRC is dedicating to seeking out, preserving and sharing Buddhist texts through technology. For over twenty years they have been seeking out the hardcopies of texts and then scanning them into a digital format. I have been using their online library for over ten years to translate various texts, all of which are made freely available to translators and academic institutions. Projects like 84,000 and other Buddhist publications rely heavily on their work. 

There are a hundreds of other important charities to support. GiveWell provides a list of charities that make the most impact per dollar. Charity Navigator is a useful resource for evaluating charities and assessing the impact that they provide. 

Money is not the only gift you can share this holiday season. Our communities are in desperate need of kindness, patience, and giving each other a break. A smile goes a long way, but in a world where we often cannot see others smile, looking someone in the eye and being present for them can be a gift we can all aspire to share. 

Contributor.

Don't worry about what you can accomplish.

Don't worry about your status, or your role, or how this next thing is going to get you ahead of where you currently are. Don't worry about the results, the strategies or the tactics. 

Are you a contributor?

It's a simple question.

What can you do, right now, to contribute? It doesn't have to be amazing. It doesn't even have to be noticed. It won't be your last contribution, and it won't even be your best.

Notice the posture that this question begs. You either contribute, or you don't. You are either engaged, or not. There is no value assessment to the result of the contribution. What or how you contribute isn't even in the question.

When you make up your mind that you are a contributor, everything changes. Your intentions and actions naturally lend themselves to abundance and generosity. Your interactions and relationships change and enter into realms of possibility. You might even discover an inner sense of joy and contentment.

You don't need to contribute to everything, but figure out those couple of things that are really important in your life. Then ask yourself if you are being a contributor, and choose to take generosity as your compass.

What happened to happiness?

Happiness is everywhere today, in the media and marketplace that is. A cursory glance and it seems that the Buddha's teachings are all about cultivating happiness and being happy. Be happy. A guide to happiness. Project after project chasing after this elusive groundbreaking development, happiness.

Of course the Buddha did teach about happiness, but it was not the aim. The goal wasn't to chase happiness, try to develop it, cultivate it. Happiness wasn't the goal, it was an effect.

As he says in the Dhammapada:

All things have the nature of mind.

Mind is the chief and takes the lead.

If the mind is clear, whatever you do or say

will bring happiness that will follow you like your shadow.

And also:

Rejoicing in this life becomes rejoicing in the next,

the one who does good rejoices in both.

When you see how pure your actions have been,

you will be happy, you will rejoice.

The Buddha emphasized that we need to engender a clear and virtuous mind, and when we do, happiness will be the result.  The Buddha actually clearly taught what this mind looks like, describing eleven mental states that give rise to a virtuous mind.

1. Faith

2. Dignity, or integrity

3. Decency

4. Non-attachment

5. Non-aggression

6. Non-confusion

7. Diligence

8. Pliancy

9. Conscientiousness, or carefulness

10. Equanimity

11. Non-violence

Where is happiness on that list?

Instead the Buddha taught us how to generate a mind that leads to happiness. We can recognize and train in these mental states. We can pursue and have faith in that which is authentic and true. We can have integrity in what we do, a sense of decency towards others. We can practice without attachment, aggression or confusion. We can overcome our laziness and hesitation but showing up and putting in the effort time and again.  We can look within and see our intentions and how careful we need to be with our actions.  We can practice equanimity, seeing self and other as equal. And we can refuse to let our innocence be a container for violence, committing to do no harm.  

Practicing in this way, happiness will follow like a shadow. Happiness is fleeting, it comes and goes. If we cultivate a virtuous mind, we will give rise to the cause of happiness. With a virtuous mind, even if we are not always happy, we will not suffer dissatisfaction or discontentment. 

Nothing left to do.

What if you had nothing else on your to-do list? What if your projects were finished, loose ends all tied off? 

Would you be satisfied? Content?

Working, being busy, accomplishing things, all of those make us feel pretty good. We may complain about having so much to do, may wish we had less to do, but activity makes us feel like we are doing something. We are making progress.

But what if you were done?

Would you make up something else to do? Buy a book, dream up a new project? Would you entertain yourself, try out some new recipes?

Our mind quickly moves away from nothing left to do, right? So much fills the gap in time and space. Just as things are starting to settle, starting to be resolved, just as we are getting to done, something else comes up.  It is like a quantum vacuum state, it is never truly empty, something is always coming up.

The same can be said for the nature of mind. As we sink into the nature of our own mind, we realize its profound peace and clarity, but it is never truly empty. The clarity aspect always gives rise to appearances, whether they are sights, sounds, thoughts, sensations. We never reach completely empty space.

So can we ever have nothing left to do?

The answer is how we relate to appearances, to what is coming up in our experience. If we fixate and grasp after appearances, then no, we will forever spin the wheel of conditioned existence. If we can see through appearances, recognize their true nature, then we can experience freedom upon arising. Things are free in their own place, nothing left to do. You can start to enjoy doing and not doing.  When doing, things are free in their own place.  When not doing, they are also free as they arise.

Nothing left to do becomes the path of doing and not doing.  Doing or not doing, you find you don't need to struggle.

Not there yet.

Your practice will have certain goals and endpoints.  There are going to be practices that you accomplish.  You will finish some things.

But the defining characteristic of an authentic practice is that you are never done.

Never a time to hang up your shoes.
Never a time to retire for good.
Never a time to say that's it.
You will never arrive at the destination.  

Your practice will always require you to find a delicate balance between being overwhelmed by conditions or withdrawing your presence.  The more our minds grasp to situations the more we get sucked in and eventually overwhelmed.  On the other hand, without compassion and the intention to benefit others, we will often find ourselves being stagnant and withdrawn.

The balance is difficult to find. It is enjoying peace and fulfillment, but always standing up and moving forward.  It is being open and responsive, yet calm and stable.

Open and responsive.  Calm and stable.  Those you can identify in your meditation.  Those you can carry forward into the world.   

Throw back the fish.

The fruit of bodhicitta is the practice itself.

You must be willing to practice with no hope for signs or success.  Nothing to gain, nothing to elevate your status or ego.  No sense of accomplishing or finishing, nothing to hang onto whatsoever.

You must be willing to practice your whole day with no sense of achievement.

Then, if you do catch a fish, you must throw it back.

Dedicate whatever comes your way.  Share the fruit of your practice with others.

Blessings are not used up when shared. 

Our biggest challenge.

We are all looking for resolution to the problems in our life. 

Disease cured.
Work done.
Problem solved.

But resolution is momentary, impermanent.  Something is always arising. 

Problems keep coming up, more work needs to be done.  Aging, sickness and death continues to play itself out.

Our struggle is with the unresolved state.  It is uncomfortable, unpredictable, worrisome.  Not knowing how to work with it, we seek solutions in order to escape the unease.

Our biggest challenge is learning how to work with the unresolved state.   

Let's change how we orient ourselves to resolution.

Resolution does not equal done.
Resolution is allowing whatever is coming up to be free in its own place.

By changing our orientation we can work with whatever is coming up without being pushed over the edge.  The problem might not be solvable, maybe not even for many ages, but we simply work with our situation as it is. 

Then problems and illness become methods by which we engage in our practice of resolving whatever arises.  Resolving into their own place, we don't experience dissatisfaction from fighting against them.  We can occupy a space of presence, clarity and ease.  We allow for moments of enjoyment and reflection.  Generosity and abundance become possible amidst unfortunate conditions. 

The best part of learning to resolve phenomena in their own place is that we can enjoy the fruit of our practice now, not some day in the distant future when all of our problems are solved. 

Ten kinds of spiritual practice.

Forego making plans for the years ahead,

instead devote whatever resources you have 

to your spiritual practice. 

~Longchen Rabjam 

Your practice shouldn't be another project.  It shouldn't be simply another check box to mark at the end of the day.  

Often we confound our spiritual practice with one or two particular activities and then struggle to fit those activities into our day.  

Actually, there are ten types of activities that contribute to the development of your spiritual practice, meaning the opportunity to practice is always readily available.  

1. Copying sacred texts or transcribing teachings

2. Making offerings

3. Being generous

4. Listening to teachings

5. Memorizing teachings

6. Reading scripture

7. Explaining the teachings to others

8. Chanting prayers and liturgies

9. Contemplating teachings

10. Meditating

Contrived paralysis.

What we are doing is important.  There is a seriousness to this work.  We are serious about it.  It is important to us. 

And so we are contrived in its seriousness.  Contrived in its importance.  It's 'big deal'-ness.

Magic never arises from contrivance.  Art never arises from overtly conceptualized effort. 

It manifests spontaneously.  Naturally. 

We need to relax. 

We need to take the practice seriously, but not ourselves so seriously.  We still need to show up, everyday.  We still need to put in the work, put in the time and effort.  We need to commit and be dedicated and have a sense of urgency. 

Just don't get too hung up on yourself and your practice.

So hard to get started.

ལེ་ལོ་
Tibetan: lelo (actually pronounced lay-lo)
English: indolence, faintheartedness, procrastination

The Tibetan term lelo is a subsidiary negative emotional state that undermines one's enthusiasm for virtuous or productive activities.  Maitreya Buddha taught that this is the first flaw that we bump up against in our daily practice.  It is a flaw because it ensures that we do not start, that we don't apply ourselves.   It is a flaw because it ensures that we remain feeling stuck. 

We may want to do something important, want to accomplish an activity, but when we try to do so we run up against the inertia that is our own indolence.

There are three types of indolence:

Lethargy.

This is the fatigue and laziness that we all experience.  It is heavy, sluggish.  I could get started or I could rest for a second.  I could do a little bit today, or I could wait until tomorrow when I feel better.

Obsession with pointless activity.  

We all know these... 

Discouragement.

This is feeling inadequate or unable to start.  A lack of self-confidence that results in waiting or hiding.

It is easy to pass the blame to something else, something outside of ourselves.  But as a practitioner, or someone aspiring to be a practitioner, we need to look at our situation and our life.  We need to be honest with ourselves, our choices and our activities.

Are we really committed to making this happen?

To overcome these three types of indolence, Maitreya Buddha taught four types of remedies:

Belief. Intention. Perseverance. Pliancy. 

Belief is knowing there is something greater than this.  It is not blind faith, but rather our deepest aspirations and knowing there is a truth in them.   

Our intention seeks to purposefully accomplish our activity.  Clarify it.  Be specific. 

Perseverance pushes us to continue to show up.  Put in the time.  Do the work.  Make the effort.   

The result is pliancy.  We become adaptable, flexible, dexterous.  We become open to change, ready to change.  We become confident with the continuum of change which is life.

No longer too tired to go, too busy to go or too scared to go, we simply go.  We start, and figure out what else we need as we go. 

Are you going, or waiting?  What else do you need to start?

Reliance.

The arising of a fruit, such as an apple, depends on many conditions.  If those conditions are not met, no fruit is to be found.

Can the same be said about our practice?

What is the fruit that we are looking for?  What are the conditions necessary to give rise to such a fruit?  If such a fruit depends on conditions, is it lasting?  Will we be satisfied?

These are actually really hard questions to form answers around.  Sit with them and work them over.  Let them work you over.

Then ask yourself, what can I rely on?

Readily available.

So often we have big plans. 

In order to make an impact and matter we seek out large scale projects and initiatives.  We need non-profits and funding and community outreach and social platforms for that change to grow. 

What if we simply planned on being more available?

What if our project was to be available when others needed a hand,
if they needed advice,
or a shoulder to lean on.

What if you were always ready, always available when others needed you?  What if everyone shared this same willingness and preparedness?

What would suffering, problems, mental illness and inequality look like if we lived in a community of openness and acceptance?

You might be the one we are looking for.  

No lasting effect.

When searching for consummate meaning in our lives,
time and time again we go outside ourselves,
always asking ourselves what we should do now-
travel, food, friends, job, volunteer, family, kids-
all these goals once achieved have left us unfulfilled.
Why change now?

We either seek out escape-
spa, vacation, lazy Sunday, the new.

Or we seek out illusion-
food, fun, goals, experiences.

Neither have lasting effect. Both are conditioned.

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?