No shortcuts.

There are no shortcuts to anyplace worth going. 

Beverly Sills

The path to living a life of purpose and meaning often seems long and difficult. Many of us can see and feel the truth that is in our hearts, but the reality of our present situation obscures that truth and prevents us from fully enjoying it. We have this perpetual question that hangs out in our heads,  lingering in our life, waiting to for the right answer.

But there is no answer.

Your practice, call it spiritual practice, is to resolve this question in your life.

Can you get comfortable sitting with a question for which there is no answer?

How long are you willing to work on resolving this question in your heart and mind?

How hard will you work?

How much are you willing to sacrifice?

As with many things in life, your effort creates value. The more effort you put into your practice, the more meaning and purpose you will find. Mastery does not come easy, there are no shortcuts to a life of purpose and meaning. There is no hack, no app, no trick. Just effort.

If you want to live a life of purpose and meaning, you're going to have to do the work. Not work for work's sake, but the work of being more human and resolving the question of how to do that in your own life.

Seeds, imprints and predispositions.

We all know how difficult it is to start habits. We would like to work out more, meditate, spend more time with our family or friends, learn to paint.  We want to eat healthier, be more productive, be more generous.

Starting is hard. Continuing is harder.

Even harder is eliminating the imprints of bad habits.

The Buddha taught that we need to purify our karma, afflictive emotions, cognitive obscurations and habitual tendencies if we are to be completely awake.  Karma is our actions, we need to practice virtue and try not to harm others.  Afflictive emotions are things like attachment, aversion, ignorance, jealousy and arrogance. Cognitive obscurations are the way we perceive self and other, our understanding of reality. Habitual tendencies refer to the impressions, seeds, or predispositions of our past thoughts, actions and experience. Habitual tendencies are mostly unconscious. Most people rarely even think about them much less try to change them. 

Think about your perception of food. Why do you perceive some foods as wholesome and good, whereas others you perceive as disgusting? My dog has no problem eating an old hot dog off the street. The concept of 'this might make me sick' is not one that my dog has (or my child!).

Think about your perception of your body. In Nepal it is common to see men holding hands, it is a sign of friendship and affection. In the U.S. people might think you were invading their personal space or question their sexual orientation. One might incorrectly wonder, why are all these monks gay!

Why do you perceive yourself as strong, or weak, beautiful or ugly? Why do you seek out affirmation, or hide in the shadows? What is it that makes you outgoing, or shy?

These are not easy questions to answer, and often there is no answer. But the question is important.

Once you start to ask the question, you can start the hard work of relinquishing your grasping and fixation to concepts about the way things are or should be. Letting go of concepts is how we break free from the tight hold that habitual tendencies have over our minds and hearts. Then, as those seeds ripen, we can recognize them and let them go.

There is a chance that in our experience, we might catch ourselves asking 'why?', or simply notice how strange our reaction is. Recognize it and let it go.

Grab a shovel.

Answers don't allow us to go deeper.  Questions do.

As we process and contemplate the information available to us (and it's all available to us), we need to learn to ask better questions.

Ask a question.  Find an answer. 

Answers give you a resting point, a place to contemplate and a ground to dig deeper.

Questions are the shovel that opens up space for further exploration.  Don't sit on your laurels, grab a shovel. 

Exploration.

Sit for ten minutes.

What was your experience?
Where did you experience resistance?
How do you handle that resistance?
Can you know your experience without conceptually elaborating it as you experience it?
Is mental chatter necessary to know your experience?
What is mind?
What are its characteristics and qualities?
When your mind is stable and calm, look deeper, what is there?
When your mind is agitated and restless, why?  Why can't you fix that?  And if you can, how?
What is the nature of mind?
Is it permanent or changing?  Does it exist?  How so?

Start sitting regularly.  Start asking questions and looking for answers.  Then ask more questions.  Keep going deeper.

Where is the end?  Where does it stop?  When do you reach the ground?  Are you sure that is it?

Constant wonder.

The answer is not that important to the astronomer.  They have questions, lot of them actually, but the answers to those questions lead to more questions so there is a constant state of wonder.

The answer is not that important to the meditator either.  They also have lots of questions, but the answers to those questions lead to more questions resulting in a constant state of wonder.

Wonder and fascination fuel passion.  Amateurs are passionate.  Passionate amateurs become experts, masters in their trade.

The astronomer starts out by looking up at the clear night sky with amazement and wondering, "What is all of that?"
The meditator starts out by looking inside at a clear mind with amazement and wondering, "What is this?"

"I don't know what to do".

Which is why you practice.

To sit with uncertainty, fear and frustration.
To not get overwhelmed by waves of anger and fatigue.
To maintain openness, even a possibility of openness.
To practice patience when it no longer seems possible.
To push on when you feel like giving up.

You might not know what to do, and that is okay. 

You don't need to know the right answer for what you are up against.  Persevering in your practice might be the only answer available. 

Beyond the surface.

It is really difficult to identify objects in deep space.  Take for example the Helix Nebula, which is observable in our northern hemisphere.  It is observable.  People have identified it, named it, know its location.  But it is not easy to find.

Why?

Because we do not know how to orientate ourselves.  We are overwhelmed at the amount of information that needs to be gathered and applied.  Even if you are given the exact coordinates it really doesn't help you if you don't have a general orientation of the sky and how to apply that specific information.

We live in an age of information.  An era when any answer can be Googled in moments.  You might be able to give me the right answer, but does that help you?  Can you see deeper? 

Amateurs are passionate.  They are passionate enough to do the work it takes to orientate themselves to the worlds in which they inquire.  Their passion allows them to build the framework necessary to explore deeper.  Their passion carries them beyond the superficial.  It fosters depth and the depth feeds the passion.

Passion coupled with orientation, a framework for exploration and the ability to see deeper are the prerequisites for becoming an expert.

We need more experts.  Authentic ones that is. 

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?