No one is watching.

Our culture is largely centered on doing things for show. You record yourself working out, practicing your art, going through the motions. We are constantly broadcasting who we are to the world, marketing the best version of ourself to others. 

How do you practice when no one is watching? 

What are your actions when no one is there to hold you accountable?

How you show up in the world when no one is watching is most likely your most generous act, but it can also provide us with an opportunity to be our most selfish. It's up to you. 

Our responsibility.

The Dharma is vast and profound. The impact that it can make on our mind and our heart is profound. It can literally shape our life, give it meaning and bring benefit to those around us.

But that Dharma is not best expressed in words and concepts. It is best expressed by the choices that we make and the way that we move through the world.

And that's our responsibility.

Culture of awakening.

I grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The culture of Green Bay revolves around the Packers. The front page of the Green Bay Press Gazette (which I diligently delivered as a teenager) always talks about the Packers. The community wears Packers gear, talks about the Packers, and responds to how the Packers are doing.

If you don't value the Packer culture, you also don't quite fit in. That doesn't make you bad. The community doesn't reject you, but at some point or another you just move along.

Culture has values. It shapes beliefs and actions. Culture can shift our posture, the way we sit and the way we greet each other. Without having to be spoken, culture says, "This is what we do around here."

Stephen Batchelor coined the phrase culture of awakening. I haven't read any of Stephen's work, but this notion that we do impacts and shapes others is powerful.

The Buddha taught that our intentions and actions shape the world. Our individual thoughts and actions impact our life. When we form communities with others who share our values, we create a culture. Others interact with that culture. They see what people value, how they interact, and what they do.

The culture becomes a contact point for change.

The change that a culture brings isn't always about making a quick impact. It is often more like a resonance or a vibration, something that can be felt minutely at first, but later can shape entire landscapes and tear down walls. 

A culture of awakening isn't about forcing you awake. It is like whispering in your ear, "It's time to get up."

Idolatry.

The Dharma was taught to make our minds more flexible, to liberate ourselves from selfishness and bad habits, and to allow us to be of service to others.

Our practice of the Dharma must be free from concerns of gain, praise, status or position. Correctly practicing the Dharma means that you do what you say, that you strive to live according to the teachings. Your actions, practice and lifestyle are emphasized, not your words, ideas or opinions.

When we start searching out positions, contriving situations for recognition, or using the Dharma to serve ourselves, our practice has missed its mark and becomes a source of bondage.

If we wrap the Dharma around our self, our mistaken practice becomes the source of idolatry. 

Karmic debt.

Your past actions and choices can be heavy.  They can wear on your present state, limit your opportunity, influence your choices and your experience of the world around you.

Karma can be a debt.  It can hang over your head for eons until it is paid back. 

Actions without mindfulness often lead to karmic debt.  Poor choices with short term interests often put us in a bind.

Actions with mindfulness can be an investment.  Generosity and patience, which seem like a lot to give now, often reap substantial rewards over a duration of time. 

How do you relate to your debt and what are you choosing to invest in?

The best thing about past karma.

Most of the time we look at our karma as a burden.  We are conditioned by all of our past decisions, actions and experiences, and perhaps we look back and wish how things could be different.

The best thing about our karma is that it has brought us to where we are today.

All of that hardship, pain and misfortune has brought us here, now.
All of those problems, lessons and bad decisions have allowed us to stand here, awake, at this moment.
If we had done things differently, we wouldn't be who we are right now.  Maybe we would still be asleep.

Maybe we needed to learn something through all of that pain and hardship.
Maybe we needed to work through something.
Maybe what we have to share is hidden in that struggle.
Maybe the wisdom needed to truly benefit others had to be experienced directly. 

So today, everyday, is a grand juncture.  We are the total sum of our past decisions and actions, and what we do with that now determines what and who we will be in the future.

The choice is up to you.

What should I do?

How often do we find ourselves saying this?  How often do we ask this to others?

We really don't know what to do.  The complexity of our lives and all of our decisions and responsibilities are overwhelming.  If someone has the right answer, please, tell me.

This question actually protects us.  Implicit in the question is that we want to do something remarkable, we want to live a meaningful life, a life of purpose, but we don't really know how to do it so we ask the question.  But asking the question actually shields us from the responsibility of the result, it shifts the fear and the possibility of failure onto the other person.  If this doesn't work out, it is her fault not yours. 

We all care about our life, how we live it and how we spend it.  But caring is not enough.  You need to take responsibility.  Responsibility for your actions- your thoughts, words and deeds.  You need to take responsibility for your health, your well being and your values.  

First we need to care about our practice, then we need to carry the responsibility. 

Oddly enough, then we might find ourselves asking, how do you do this?  Why do you do this?  What advantage does this have over that?

We become curious, active learners and experimenters.  Little scientists with big dreams.  Everything falls within our domain and we are always pioneering the next breakthrough.  

Gravity.

Gravity is very interesting.  We are all familiar with it, we learned how to operate within its bounds and even to use it to our advantage to do amazing things.

But what about the gravity of our decisions, actions and responsibilities?  Those have a lot of gravity, gravity that gives a lot of weight to our lives.  Weight that we often don't know how to deal with.

The interesting thing about gravity is that it always starts off with a fight and a fall.  We have to fight to get up.  We need to push and finagle and adapt.  We need to be persistent.  And then we fall.  The falling is inevitable really.  We may have succeeded in getting up but we still need to learn how to maintain that posture and even more so how to maintain it amidst movement and change.

But we persist.  The falling provides us with the tools to learn and we continue to examine and analyze until we succeed.  But the success doesn't stop there, once standing we move forward, we take steps and learn to hop and skip and roller skate and even fly.  We have actually learned to fly, even with gravity, not despite it.

So let's go back to the gravity of our decisions, actions and responsibilities.

Our initial reaction is to feel the heaviness of our situation.  We are often overwhelmed by the weight of our life, wishing that somehow it would all change and we could soar through the sky carefree and without any problems or conflict.  But it is important to realize that we are the weight.  That heaviness, it is us.  So we need to fight to pick ourselves up.  Or push ourselves up I suppose.

We will fall.

But recognize the problems and conflicts for what they are- learning opportunities.  Opportunities to adjust our posture.  Opportunities to find our balance.  Opportunities to make the right correction at the right time.

As we learn to stand with dignity and confidence, we can then learn to step forward with kindness and generosity.  As those develop momentum we can run with insight and develop the endurance it takes to accomplish great feats, great feats for ourselves and great feats for others.

We may even learn to fly.  Fly even amidst problems and conflict, amidst doubt and the impossibility of doing so because of the heaviness of our situation.  We learn to fly on the wings of skillful means and wisdom.  We can build those.

But first we need to learn to stand.