Forging the path ahead.

The path starts right where you are.

You can follow the footsteps of those who have gone before you, but your path is not going to look exactly like theirs. You'll meet your own problems and challenges. You'll enjoy ease and contentment, as well as difficult times.

The journey of self-discovery and awakening is forged based on your own experience.

You'll share that journey with others. You'll travel with others who have a shared kindred purpose. You meet a variety of travelers on the path- teachers, spiritual friends, partners, mentors, students. Some of these travelers will walk with you for a lifetime, some for just a short way.

There is no end to the journey ahead. No accomplishment, and no non-accomplishment. The result is the path. Continue with confidence in liberation.

Clarify your path. Let your path clarify you.

Trying to find your self?

Have you ever lost your car keys? You know they are somewhere, but everywhere you look you don't find them. The act of not finding your keys perpetuates the cycle of looking, until eventually, hopefully, you find your keys.

What about when we look for a self?

When you look for the self as an independent, truly existing identity, you don't find it. The self is dependent and conditioned by the world around us. Keep looking.

When you look for the self as an agent or actor, you don't find it. Every intention and choice is predicated on something else, there is no agent who functions autonomously independent of the environment or situations. Keep looking.

When you look for the self as the experiencer or witness behind the continuum of your life, you don't find it. The subjective experiencer must experience some thing, so by its very nature experience is compounded and dependent. Keep looking.

When you look for the self as the awareness that knows oneself, you don't find it. Awareness isn't a thing, there is no location, no essential beingness, nothing to hold onto. Self-knowing awareness doesn't find a self, what it finds is selflessness. There is no ground of awareness, awareness is empty yet luminous cognizance.

Search for the self until you don't find it. When you don't find the self, you discover selflessness.  Stabilize that experience of finding empty but luminous cognizance, which opens the door to the path of meditation.

.   .   .   .   .

Still time to register for the Meditation Workshop this weekend.

Hope to see you on the cushion!

Who's the Muse?

What is the source?  Where does it come from?  How do you do it?

The answer to those questions depends on the artist and their art.  If your art is the practice of bodhicitta- the wish to bring about the benefit of others through generosity, love and kindness, then your muse is reality.  It is the interactions that take place, the conversations that unfold, the stories that are shaped like the convergence of the wind and leaves.

It is random and unpredictable, but if your mind is open and receptive you will be surprised at what you can hear.

You'll discover an unending stream that continuously unfolds, presenting you with opportunities to give gifts that matter, to practice your art. 

The Hardest Part is Over

You showed up.

That is actually the hardest part of your practice.  If you show up, then you can do the work.  You can continue to explore and go deeper.  The conversation can continue to unfold.

Our tendency is to hide.  To wait for someone else to do the work for us or give us a pass.  Maybe if we are lucky we can ride the wave of another's blessing.  Better to sit in the back and hope we are not picked.

So the only thing left is to continue to show up.

As you expose more and more of yourself, pushing through your perceived boundaries and the limits you have set, you will find that more and more falls away.  As more falls away, you continue to become more open, more patient, more kind. 

Your practice becomes an unending stream where everything is carried onto the path.  Drip, drip;)

Self-Help vs. Self-Liberation

Hold on a moment, what are you asking me to do?

You are asking me to be open and vulnerable?  You want me to expose my open wounds, to re-open those scars?

You want me to face my fears?  To acknowledge the things I would rather forget?  To dredge the depths of my pain and sorrow? 

I don't want to remember those that have had to leave me too early.  Nor do I care to relive those memories that haunt me to this very day. 

It is too scary.  Way to painful.  I am too tired, too busy to do this right now. 

But it is still there, right?

Even when we try to hide from it, it sneaks up on us.  If we fight to push it away, it keeps fighting back.  There doesn't seem to be any escape.

Everything that we have done to move on has failed.  Better to ignore it and hope it doesn't haunt our sleep.  But year after year, that date comes or we visit that place and we feel it looming over us.

How can we escape it?

The practice of self-help does not work, it only nourishes the ground. You need to rely on the path of self-liberation.

It rests on three principle aspects of the practice:
1.  Calm the coarse levels of your mind.
2.  Engender in that calm a sense of warmth, love and compassion.
3.  Rest in openness, your natural state of being.  

It will be painful.  Raw.  You will feel sensitive, embarrassed and inadequate.  You will feel hopeless.

And these are good signs.  This means that you are giving up your fixation.  Letting go of the ground you have been holding onto.

These are signs that you are becoming more open, more aware, that you are making progress.

As you move through the storm, through all the sheer winds and rain, you'll discover in its wake a calm, crisp freshness.  A natural openness and ease will ensue and your mind will be freed from its constraints. 

This is actually the most helpful thing you can do for yourself. 

Escape the Castle

There is a story going around town. 

It's in our schools, our workplace and in our retirement planning.  Even our healthcare, really. 

It wants you to believe that if you stay here, trust in the process, then everything will be provided for you.  It is safe and secure, providing protection against long-term risks.  You will be given lots of opportunity to enjoy yourself, make your mark.  If your good- which you are- then you will come to know money, power and status.  You will be provided with every comfort and need.  You will live a good, healthy life. 

The moral of the story is that if you put in the time and the effort then you can escape all the pain and discontentment that you are currently facing.  That someday you too can sail off into the sunset.

Of course the castle story is a fairy tale. 

Money, power, fame and position all bring their own attendants of suffering and discontentment.  Even if we can achieve a relatively comfortable lifestyle, their is still something missing, a hollowness that all of the excess and non-stop distraction cannot fill. 

It is time to escape the castle. 

But what does that mean?  How do we actually do it?

The first thing we need to do is shift our perspective.  Our current perspective is that our happiness, satisfaction and contentment come from things outside of us.  Our achievements, success, position; even our families.  What happens when our spouse or kids leave?  What then? 

So the shift in perspective is a shift from cultivating outer wealth and enjoyments to the cultivation of inner wealth and enjoyments. 

But let's be clear here- this shift in perspective is not about guilt.  If you feel guilty about your achievements, your success, your position, your outer wealth, then that is a reflection of your own poverty mentality.  Poverty mentality might have to take on a new meaning here as well, poverty mentality refers to the lack of your own inner qualities.  Your lack of inner wealth. 

So this actually requires a great deal of responsibility.  Actually, this burden is extremely heavy.  We are responsible for our own happiness and contentment.  We need to actually cultivate this inner wealth, we need to train our minds and push through all of our own insecurities, doubt and self-pity. 

No one can do this for us. 

But this is not the path of guilt, nor the path of poverty.  You have great potential and you have all of these resources available to you.  You have the opportunity to use your leisure and enjoyments for good use. 

Outwardly, you don't need to change a thing. 

You only need to conquer your mind. 

A Shift in Space

When you are on the ground, friction allows you to push an object away from you.  You can move big objects, but it takes a lot of force and effort. 

When you are suspended in space, you need to use creative forces to move objects (don't skip that link with all of its cool tools).  If you can learn to take your stance in space, then with very little effort you can send massive objects propelling in the opposite direction. 

So how do we hit a home run.  It doesn't matter how fast the baseball is traveling, how much inertia is has, if it is suspended in space thats all it takes is one good swing to knock it out of the park.  We just need to find our stance.

The question becomes, how do we eliminate the ground?  Or for starters, what is the ground that we are trying to remove?

Usually that ground is our own self-cherishing mind.  The layer upon layer of fixation, our cognitive and emotional obscurations, our habits and karma.  We can use logic and reason to demonstrate the falseness of this self-grasping- the confusion it creates, the problems it causes, the inherent limitations that it imposes.  But so what?  That doesn't actually remove the ground, we just know that it doesn't work and that it shouldn't be trusted.  Yet we end up using it anyways because that's all we've got.

What we need to do is get beyond mind.  Beyond all the concepts and justification.  We need to get into space and we need to figure out how to stand there.

That is not an easy proposition.

That space is unpredictable.  It is always changing and we can't use a reference point to justify ourselves for even a moment or we are stuck back on the ground.  We can't even give you the answers ahead of time because we don't know what is going to be coming up.

You have to be able to recognize that space as it unfolds.  It is not a mere nothingness.  Something is always going to be coming up.  Your options are either to recognize it or be caught up again in the cycle of ignorance.  If you can take a strong seat in that spacious expanse, then you can witness whole worlds of opportunity unfold and collapse right before your eyes.

There is a potential to act.  That is why your stance is important.

If there is a trace of self-cherishing and remnants of the ground not yet cleared, then the cycle of confusion repeats itself and you encounter lots of friction.  If there is no fixation whatsoever to be found and you are motivated by bodhicitta, seeking out the welfare of beings, then there is the arising of grace.  That grace manifests itself as generosity, love and kindness.

Its effortlessness can move worlds.

This One's For You

Normally you are told what to do for your homework.

Now we are asking you to do YOUR homework.
     Self-directed.
     Self-reliant.
     Motivated.
     Independent.
     On your own time.

And don't worry about failing.
Fail.  Fail often.
Then we will make sure you pass the class.

Join the Movement

Our communities have changed.

We are no longer surrounded by like-minded individuals who share our worldview.

We are no longer surrounded day and night by people who can help us get up when we fall, guiding us in the right direction. 

Our communities don't revolve around anything sacred.  They revolve around 'me', which is often caught up in a lot of mundane activity, meaningless work and a lifetime of distraction.

You are out in the battlefield all by yourself. 

You have your practice.  Keep it.  I am not asking you to buy in.  

I am asking you to own it.  And it ain't a show man.

I am asking you to take your stand, to cut away the frills and the fraud.

Once you can stand, take a step forward with your heart.  Be an artist who uses reality, people and interactions as their canvas.  If your a bodhisattva, your art is generosity, love and kindness. 

As you learn to walk with confidence, you will find that the world no longer fights you.  Every interaction is a support for your practice, an opportunity to dig deeper and to practice your art. 

You'll find you are not alone anymore. 

You are surrounded by community.  Join the movement. 

Dig Deeper

When you look at the world around you, mainly you will see people trying to get somewhere or achieve something.  Of course there is a good reason for this- the present is irritating, lonely, boring.

Better to paint a better picture.  Write a better story.  Hope for a better day. 

We might feel compelled to bring this habit into our spiritual practice, trying to achieve something that we didn't have before or to bring out qualities that we desire to see in ourselves.  But really, our practice is about digging deeper.

Dig deeper into your thoughts, feelings and emotions. 

Dig deeper into your doubts and fears.

Dig deeper.  Push through the places that scare you.

So often we turn away from places that scare us.  If you manage to sit through the irritation, through the fear and doubt, we might just break through to a place beyond fear, beyond doubt.

When we push through our doubt and our fear we can show our true face to the world around us.  We can actually bring benefit to others in an authentic and meaningful way.  If we are not able to dig deeper and to be open to ourselves, how can we be open for others?

Hope that Coffee Wakes You Up

It was a regular Wednesday morning.  I awoke from my slumber, showered and got ready for work.   Heading out the door I stopped by my local coffee shop for my morning ritual cup of coffee.  The barista in her usual morning charm asked how my day was going to which I replied, "Good, little tired this morning."  Handing me the cup of coffee she said, "Hope this coffee wakes you up." 

Doubtful.

One of the core teachings of the Buddha is that we all have this basic wakefulness.  Nobody really knows about this basic wakefulness or appreciates its potential.  We have all seen it with our own eyes.  It is very simple. 

The problem is it is too simple. 

It is dawn, the birds are chirping.  A ray of light swings across the room.  There is a garbage truck beeping across the street.  When we sit with our basic wakefulness we realize how awkward we are.  Our bodies are really uncomfortable, stiff and heavy.  We notice our feelings and emotions whether good or bad.  Our story lines become absurd. 

Basic wakefulness is raw. 

So for a moment sit with that rawness.  Create a gap in all the distraction and habit patterns, the compulsion to keep moving, to reach for that cup of coffee. For a moment, this is enough.  Just recognizing and resting in this basic wakefulness has the potential to change your whole day. 

It will definitely wake you up. 

Naked

'Our life is shaped by our mind, we become what we think.'
Siddhartha Gautama

Stand naked.  For a moment today stand naked before the mirror, the mirror of our own mind.  

It is incredibly difficult to stand in the present moment.  It is too simple, too raw, too naked.  We are quick to reach for a towel, flex our muscles, correct our posture, pluck our eyebrows or cover up our blemishes.  It is very difficult to stand tall in our inherent goodness, the basic dignity of being who you are, right now. 

It is not just the embarrassment, shame, guilt or fear of our own bodies; it is also our feelings, our actions and our past.  We don't know how to work with all of that when we stand before it, it is often easier to get dressed and keep moving.  

But this is the battlefield.  This is the meditation.  The present moment is the ground upon which all the work is done and it is simultaneously the result of fulfillment. 

This ever-present moment, if we can learn to face our fears and the darkness that we hide in our hearts, opens up into the eternally youthful present- peaceful, content and free of elaboration. 

It is only by abiding in this timeless state of complete nakedness that we can come to appreciate the wellsprings of the Great Perfection. 

Discovering Your Fundamental Ground

Do not prolong the past.
Do not beckon the future.
Rest in cognitive lucidity free from concepts.

The first step to the practice of calm abiding, or shamatha, is to tame or pacify the mind.

In our current state we have this mind that never sits still.  We are constantly replaying past events and interactions, needlessly caught up in future plans and speculation.  Whenever we do find a moment of freedom in our busy and stressful life, usually the first thing we do is turn on the TV or hop on the internet and mindlessly get caught up in a moments entertainment.  

It is a strange thing, but we are often so caught up in action and doing, that when we choose to rest or meditate we find a lot of anxiousness.  We spend so much of our time caught up in our heads that when we sit down to meditate we have a steady stream of thoughts and plans pulling us off into some far off dreamscape.  

When we sit in meditation we need to drop the baggage and armor that we have been carrying through the day.  We need to embrace an open presence that doesn't turn away from the rawness of the present moment.  

So the first step is to calm this monkey mind, this mind that is compelled to jump from one object to the next in its unceasing restlessness.  In this regard it is important to understand how the mind works.  The Buddha's teachings break down the mind, or what we normally consider mind, into eight different aspects.

Five sense consciousnesses- eye, ear, nose, mouth and touch
Conceptual consciousness- responsible for the infinite variety of thoughts, opinions and value judgements
Afflicted consciousness- our habitual tendencies, neuroses, predominant mental states like anger, jealousy and lust
Basis-of-all consciousness- the foundational stream consciousness, the subtle consciousness that carries through our whole life, and connects life to life.

The five sense consciousnesses simply experience their subject matter, they do not interpret, judge, express delight or contempt for whatever is appearing.  That is what the sixth, conceptual consciousness excels in.  It is this consciousness, this reactionary and fixated aspect of our minds that we are trying to calm and pacify.  

We have several methods that we can use to accomplish this task of calming the mind.  The two that we taught in the meditation class were:

1) Resting with a conceptual focus (the white thigle in the palm of the hands)
2) Resting in the natural state without a conceptual focus

The purpose of both techniques is to develop a state of natural rest.  This is not a state that is a lifeless and dull nothingness.  Rather it is an open, calm lucidity like that of a perfectly pristine ocean during the daytime.  To rest in that state of cognitive lucidity free from concepts, that is how we approach the practice of meditation and calm abiding.  

That is how we grasp the mind that previously has not been grasped.  That is the start of the journey, and the destination has never been too far away.  

Weekly challenge:  Start meditating, today.  Set aside five minutes of your day to establishing your ground.  Simply rest in the present moment for a few minutes each day, and you will find that the practice naturally develops on its own.  You will find that in the wake of your previous thoughts and emotions, there is an open clarity that is beyond description.  

 

Barefoot Living

You've heard the news,
barefoot running is the hot new trend.
Its benefits are applauded-
Less pain in the feet, better form and more fun.

What if we made the jump to barefoot living?
     Simple.
     Free.
     Open.
     Raw.

What if we simplified all our projects, goals and expectations?
What if we freed all our pains, plans and problems?
What if we opened our hands, hearts and minds?
What if we lived in the present, opened our hearts to tenderness, and enjoyed the rawness of every interaction in the world around us?


It is possible.
Everyone would applaud its benefits-
Life would have less pain, better form and be more fun.


Go ahead.  Take your shoes off.

A Path of Discovery

'The bad news is you're falling through the air,
Nothing to hang on to, no parachute.
The good news is there is no ground.'
Chogyam Trungpa

Scientists are often surprised.

A routine experiment yields a new discovery.
New evidence provides another lead to follow.
A changing landscape provides the opportunity to plot a new course.


Setting yourself up for discovery is a conscious choice.


The meditator never believes they have it all figured out.  Their experience never testifies 'this is it' but rather continues to open up new ground.  Contemplation, investigation and insight are all indispensable on the path to discover the awakened mind.