Lighting up the world.

The other day I was reflecting on one candle lighting another candle. A single candle can light dozens of other candles and nothing is lost in the process. The candle doesn't become weary and doesn't concern itself with the results of lighting other candles. It just lights up the world that it interacts with. That reminded me of this verse by Shantideva:

May I be a guard for those who are protectorless, 

A guide for those who journey on the road.

For those who wish to cross the water, 

May I be a boat, a raft, a bridge.

May I be an isle for those who yearn for land, 

A lamp for those who long for light;

For all who need a resting place, a bed;

For those who need a servant, may I be their slave.

May I be the wishing jewel, the vase of wealth,

A word of power and supreme healing,

May I be the tree of miracles,

For every being the abundant cow.

Just like the earth and space itself,

And all the mighty elements,

For boundless multitudes of beings

May I always be the ground of life, the source of varied sustenance.

Thus for everything that lives,

As far as the limits of the sky,

May I be constantly their source of livelihood

Until they pass beyond all sorrow.

A bodhisattva is someone who has made a commitment to waking up in the world in order to better serve and benefit others. The bodhisattva relies on a set of principles that are focused on elevating our individual and collective dignity. Part of the bodhisattvas commitment is making a daily choice to be of benefit to others, not simply ourselves. That daily commitment can take many forms, both in intention and action. A simple way to set your intention for the day is to recite this verse of Shantideva's aspiration prayer for the bodhisattva vow.

The result of your practice is the consummation of your character, your willingness to be the reservoir of presence and dignity in a world that desperately needs more thoughtful, compassionate and caring people. Be the candle, the bridge, the guide. Dedicate the time and energy to learning how to do that so you don't wear yourself thin, but that you can commit to making it a daily practice for the rest of your life. 

A simple aspiration prayer.

Every morning as part of my practice I recite a few prayers before settling into meditation. There is one verse that encompasses my intention perhaps more than any other:

Please bless me to see the dharmakaya as my own awareness, 

Please let me take undesirable difficult situations onto the path,

and quickly returning the kindness of all father and mother beings of the six realms,

Bless me to come to the perfection of generosity. 

It is a simple aspiration. It doesn't involve any sort of big project or magical feat. It is within reach at this very moment, but also pervades all times, places and activities. 

Simple, yet its impact on your own life and the lives of others can be profound.

Barchay.

བར་ཆད་
Tibetan: bar-chay
English: obstacle, hindrance, cut-off

The resistance is real.

One of our main challenges on the path is barchay. We are constantly facing obstacles, problems, and resistance. Every time our aspiration seems to be culminating, some unseen force seems to be holding us back. 

We tend to label circumstances as the obstacle.  If we only had a chance to grab a coffee we would have performed better.  If we weren't caught up in these current projects we would have been able to help. There are all kinds of reasons things didn't work out like they should have. All of those reasons are the resistance, winning. 

This is the battle that we face. The fight between our aspirations and our reality. We know what we would like to do, but this is what our life actually looks like.  Between that gap is a lot of pain and suffering. That gap is a minefield for negative emotions, stress, anxiety and pain. 

This is the battle, turning Dharma into the path. We have a chance to glimpse the authentic and true, but we fall so easily to negative emotions and confusion. The resistance loves nothing more than prolonging our journey, convincing us to take a break, do it tomorrow.  The path, prolonged. Delayed.  We can turn Dharma into the path tomorrow. 

This resistance, all these obstacles and hindrances, they do not lie outside of us.  Outer conditions only supply the moisture for which the seeds of our own afflictions can ripen.  It is our own latent negative emotions, our own innate confusion and neurosis. We have become habituated to our afflictions, mindlessly succumbing to them for eons.  Now is our chance to break the cycle, and yet we feel weak and weary. 

And so we battle. We fight. There may not be so noble a battle as this war that we wage within.   

The hard part.

The intention is easy.  The aspirations and prayers increase your enthusiasm.

The hard part is maintaining a joyful practice of generosity.
The hard part is sustaining vigilance without getting caught up in mundane concerns.
The hard part is working with all of the obstacles, problems and distractions that come up.

It's easy to want to set out for the far shore.  It's much harder to get there. 

Missing the fullness.

If you have been around meditation circles long enough you will start to hear people say, "Meditation is boring, and that's just part of the experience."

Well, that's kind of true.

Once the monkey mind settles down and you achieve some kind of calm abiding or shamatha meditation, meditation itself can seem kind of boring.  You have passed one milestone and settled into some kind of space, but you are missing one key ingredient.

Compassion.

Compassion you say?  Of course I have compassion and generate the wish to benefit others through my practice.

Well, that's also kind of true.

You have the aspiration, but are you actually embodying compassion?  Free from a physical act, what does compassion look like?

Openness embodied.  Without center or limit, free of all reference points and elaboration.

Openness embodied is alive.  It is vibrant, luminous.  A spacious expanse.  It is blissful, full.

The state of completely open awareness is the embodiment of grace.  Grace, embodied.

Recognize boredom for what it is, a reference point for you and your experience.  Get a bigger bucket.  

What informs our intentions?

What informs our intentions and aspirations?

Hope for gain, fear of loss.
Concern for praise or blame.
Striving for happiness or avoiding pain and dissatisfaction.
To be famous, or insignificant.

Those are the eight worldly concerns, which invariably inform many of our decisions and actions.  The Buddha taught that our karma is based on our choices and the actions that it produces.  We all want to be happy, to have stability and accomplish our aims, but what informs our intentions keeps us bound in the cycle of suffering and dissatisfaction.

We want to choose actions that produce happiness, but our choices are informed by the causes of suffering.

We are informed by hope and fear for the eight worldly concerns.  Our choices are conditioned by attachment and aversion, ignorance, jealousy and pride.  Biased perception clouds our vision.   

With that information, it is a miracle that we ever make a good decision.

But we do. 

One of the best choices we can make is to practice, because all that that poor information is easily removed through practice.  Clarify your practice, let your practice clarify you. 


 

Sangha.

དགེ་འདུན་
Tibetan: Gedun
English: Sangha or community

The Tibetan dge means virtue, good, wholesome, merit.
'dun means aspiration, longing, intention.

The Sangha is a community that aspires to virtue.  The sangha is a community of men and women that purposefully connect out of a shared interest in supporting each other's practice.  They connect out of support, not power.  Connect with respect, not control.  Connect with kindness, not deceit.

The Sangha supports the transmission of teachings and keeps the practice lineage alive.  It is a culture of learning and teaching.  It brings together a range of experience and insight, fosters examination and critical thinking, opens perspectives and eliminates bias.  The Sangha gives you feedback exactly when you need it.

The Sangha is a culture of compassion and and kindness.  They show us what to care about.  They show us what is possible, even when it doesn't seem to be.  They show us what people like us do. 

A Simple Vessel.

What was your intention upon entering the womb in this life?

Was it to be rich, famous and successful?
To wine and dine at the finest restaurants?
Was it to see the latest blockbuster, buy the newest gadget?
To play in a band, write a book?
Was it to find your partner, raise a family?
To live a long time, to be healthy?
Was it to run wild, experience everything under the sun?
What was it?

It is a strange question, but if you had an intention for entering the womb,
what was it?

Was it one of those?

Or was it to awaken to the truth. 
To share generously and love. 
To bring benefit to others, to make an impact in people's lives. 
Was it to empower the weak, to feed the hungry.
Maybe it was as simple as to take impermanence as your vessel,
and to live a life of compassion. 

Dāna

The more we care for the happiness of others, 
the greater our own sense of well being becomes.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama

The Sanskrit word 'Dana' means giving.  

You have something to share and we want you to share it.  It is only when you recognize your own wealth and are willing to give it to others that the path to liberation begins. This marks the beginning of an altruistic attitude, caring for the benefit of others as opposed to yourself.  

Prior to giving there was only taking, egotism and concern for one's own welfare.  You know how that turns out.  You've already tasted that fruit and it grows more sour each day.  You know its bondage first hand.  

We bind ourselves with selfishness, 
We liberate ourselves through giving, 
So start giving.     

Dedicate

How do you prevent days of uncertainty?

Dedicate.

Seasons of drought?

Dedicate.

Years from being wasted?

Dedicate.

How do we keep this stream of merit flowing?

Dedicate.

This river of virtue that carries oneself and others to the ocean of fulfillment?

Dedicate.

It may not be immediately obvious, but dedicating everything that you do to the welfare of others is extremely powerful.  Remove the borders to your practice.  Share the fruit of your actions.

How is the river of your actions flowing? 

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. 

Your Work is Remarkable

Time and time again, you show up.

You are open and receptive, willing to be vulnerable.  You actually listen to what others need.  You operate with integrity, honesty and genuinely care for the benefit of others.  You do the work- sharing your generosity, love and kindness when no one expects you to show up.

You push through the hard parts.  You have the courage to look fear in the eye and keep going.  When in uncharted territory, your commitment to the principles of your practice and your understanding of the essence of the path let your forge ahead with confidence.

You make mistakes and fail.  Often.  But those failures give rise to wisdom and insight.

You do remarkable work.  But don't go thinking that you are remarkable.   

Then, we have a problem on our hands.

Then you have a ground to maintain.  A position to uphold.  Then you need to use force to assert yourself against dissenting opinions.  You might just throw people under the bus. 

You will offer up blame and shift criticism.  Things will get really bad when all you do is talk.

You will fear failure.

Do you see how these two cannot co-exist?

If you work for the benefit of others, your aims are simultaneously fulfilled.

If you work for your own aims, it will eat you alive.

Last week I was taking a ferry in the San Juan Islands and we saw a deer swimming in the ocean.  Everyone got up to look.  It was remarkable.  People were reaching for their cameras, pointing out how rare it was to see a deer swimming in the ocean.

Of course, for the deer this wasn't about her or her achievements.  She just knew this is what she had to do to get to the far shore. 

She was doing remarkable work. 

Your Practice

All teachings are instructions for practice.

Atisha

In our pursuit of happiness we are all practicing something.  

Central to all of the Buddha's teachings is the notion that all teachings are instructions for our own spiritual practice.   Every day we engage in actions of our body, speech and mind that seek to bring about our own welfare, our own happiness and peace of mind. 

If you understand the principles of cause and effect, or karma, then you also understand that we continually shape our experience and reality each and every moment.  But are we really sowing the seeds of our happiness or are we sowing seeds for our own suffering and discontent?  Are we planting seeds that bear their fruit one time or are we planting seeds that bring a bountiful crop year after year? 

Are you practicing generosity, patience and integrity? 


What about the practice of love, compassion, joy and equanimity?  

Do you find yourself unexpectedly practicing anger, attachment, jealousy or arrogance?

Would you like to be practicing for peace, contentment, mindfulness but instead find yourself practicing anxiety, stress and delusion?

If your life is your practice then what are you practicing?  Are you experiencing the desired result?  

Sorry if this seems rather heavy, but it is.  

What is your practice? 

Precious Human Life

This week a few of my vajra brothers and sisters have begun a year long contemplation on Mind Training, or Lojong in Tibetan.  The benefit of the mind training teachings is that they are very simple and precise. You can read the whole text or a portion of the text and then actually practice it. There is a directness to the teachings that each time you read it, there is something that cuts through misconceptions or internal struggles we are having. These teachings represent the simplicity of the Mahayana tradition.

First, train in the preliminaries.

The first preliminary is the contemplation on this precious human life.  The key point is that we need to take advantage of this precious human life endowed with freedom and opportunity.  

There are several implications to consider regarding this precious human life.  The first is the rarity of obtaining a precious human life.  By some strange chance we have stumbled upon this situation, much like a blind person stumbling upon a treasure.  If we do not use this great opportunity now, when will we have the chance again in the future?  

Take a look at the people around you.  People are extremely busy, many of them over stressed with work, chasing after momentary illusions for entertainment and satisfaction.  Many people in this world have opportunity- the presence of favorable conditions.  More and more people are coming to have freedom- the absence of negative conditions.  But it is extremely rare that a person has both opportunity and freedom.

We can look at our own life to see the rarity of having both opportunity and freedom.  How many times have we had extra time on our hands but we have lacked either the resources or the physical health to actually use that time effectively?  How many times have we had an abundance of resources and energy, but no time to actually meditate or enjoy the simple things in life?  How often have we wasted away days, nights and weekends caught up in worry, anger or scheming; no freedom from negative mental states to actually cultivate positive qualities. 

The second implication is that this life has great purpose.  We have somehow stumbled upon this great treasure, so we must put it to good use or like a fool we will squander it and return empty handed.  

When we understand both the rarity of this precious human life and its great purpose, then we can embrace a larger scope.   The Buddha taught that all beings have buddhanature, the inherent potential to attain awakening.  In the Sutra of the Great Parinirvana:

For example, just as butter permeates milk, likewise buddhanature pervades all beings.

In the Uttaratantra-shastra:

If buddhanature were not present, there would be no remorse over suffering;

There would be no longing for peace, nor striving and devotion towards its aim.  

When we are able to acknowledge our own capacity to achieve awakening, complete and utter enlightenment, it is like a seed taking root in our heart.  As that seed blossoms and grows stronger through the conduct of compassion and loving kindness, it spreads its branches out to shelter beings suffering from the heat of the afflictions.  As it reaches maturation it yields a cool ambrosia fruit that quenches the thirst of beings, establishing them in bliss and contentment. 

Recognizing this innate quality in ourselves, we see the great purpose that this life can accomplish.  It is with this recognition that we generate aspirational bodhicitta, or the aspiration to attain awakening for the sake of all sentient beings.  Just as Shantideva says in the Way of the Bodhisattva:

May I be a guard for those who are protectorless, 

A guide for those who journey on the road.

For those who wish to cross the water, 

May I be a boat, a raft, a bridge.

May I be an isle for those who yearn for land, 

A lamp for those who long for light;

For all who need a resting place, a bed;

For those who need a servant, may I be their slave.

May I be the wishing jewel, the vase of wealth,

A word of power and supreme healing,

May I be the tree of miracles,

For every being the abundant cow.

Just like the eart and space itself,

And all the mighty elements,

For boundless multitudes of beings

May I always be the ground of life, the source of varied sustenance.

Thus for everything that lives,

As far as the limits of the sky,

May I be constantly their source of livelihood

Until they pass beyond all sorrow.

It is with such an aspiration that we embrace the larger scope of this precious human life.  We cannot afford to waste more time, we must use such a rare opportunity at this very moment.

We then come to the decisive experience of having obtained a precious human life, bodhicitta in action, or traveling the path to awakening.  Again, in the Way of the Bodhisattva:

Today my life has given fruit.

This human state has now been well assumed.

Today I take my birth in Buddha's line,

And have become the Buddha's child and heir.

In every way, then, I will undertake 

Activities befitting such a rank.

And I will do no act to mar

Or compromise this high and faultless lineage.

For I am like a blind man who has found

A precious gem inside a heap of dust.

For so it is, by some strange chance,

That bodhicitta has been born in me.

This is the supreme draft of immortality

That slays the Lord of Death, the slaughterer of beings, 

The rich unfailing treasure mine

To heal the poverty of wanderers.

It is the sovereign remedy

That perfectly allays all maladies.

It is the tree that gives relief

To those who wander wearily the pathways of existence.

It is the universal bridge that saves

All wandering beings from the states of loss,

The rising moon of the enlightened mind

That soothes the sorrows born of the afflictions.

It is the mighty sun that utterly dispels

The misty ignorance of wandering beings,

The creamy butter, rich and full,

That's churned from milk of holy teachings.

Living beings!  Wayfarer's upon life's paths,

Who wish to taste the riches of contentment,

Here before you is the supreme bliss.

Here, O ceaseless travelers, is your fulfillment!

Again and again contemplate the meaning of this precious human life.  We are extremely fortunate, but we cannot remain idle, the days, weeks and months move too fast.  Now is the time to act!

 

Tibetan New Years!

This is a guest post by Daniel Patrick McNamara

This Tibetan New Year is, officially, no time for celebration-
too much loss, too much sadness, too much tribulation.  

So in lieu of celebration, aspiration.

May we all meet this Year of the Water Dragon with our heads held high, determination in our minds and deep compassion in our hearts.  
May all be free from suffering and its causes.
May all those whose minds churn with storms of judgement and negativity be calmed.
May we all let go of anger, of the urge to blame and seek retribution, so as to finally end these endless cycles of suffering.  
May all beings find contentment, freedom and peace.

Happy Losar!