Easier to carry the familiar.

Form is much easier to carry.

Many of us, most of us perhaps, find that our situation is not quite what we would hope it to be. Maybe we have a few pounds to lose, or maybe our relationships are not quite as good as we would like them. Maybe we could get a better job, or a nicer house in a better neighborhood.

But we already know all of this. We think about it every day, or whenever it's a slow weekend, or maybe whenever we get a chance to get out of the city. We think about what our life could be.

But it isn't what it could be, it is what it is.

There is a gap between the life we imagine and the life that we are living. In that gap lies uncertainty.

Uncertainty is formless. It is by nature unknown. The unknown is rather scary, certainly much scarier than our current situation however miserable it might be.

You see, our current situation has a form that we recognize. We know it and even if we don't like it, we develop various ways to cope and more often than not to dream.

But uncertainty has no form. We don't know how to carry it. We don't know how to leverage the possibility or to leap into the darkness. Surely we must land somewhere, for we must all be somewhere right? But alas, it is perhaps more in our nature to grit our teeth and keep on working harder. We are good at working harder.

Have you read this?

A key aspect to the preservation and transmission of the Buddhas teachings lies in the way that they are passed on from generation to generation.  There are certain teachings that anyone can read or practice. 

Choose a book, read it, reflect on it, use it to support your practice.

There are other texts that traditionally require a lung (pronounced with long u).  Lung is the Tibetan for oral or reading transmission.  It is an authorization to study or practice a text, but also more than that.  In order to receive the lung for a text, you need to get it from someone who already has the lung.  So the lung is a living transmission from teacher to student from generation to generation.  The teachings are alive because the lung is intact. 

The key aspect of maintaining the living tradition of the Buddha's teachings is the teacher-student connection. 

This also goes much deeper.  There are hundreds of teachings of the Buddha and other great masters that no longer have a living lineage of transmission.  You could find one of these texts, have it translated and read it.  It might be an amazing teaching that profoundly impacts your life, but who do you talk to about it?  Have you ever read a book that makes a huge impact on your life or perspective?  You want to share it with someone, you want to talk about it, discuss challenging sections. 

The tradition of passing on the teachings through an oral tradition from teacher to student ensures that the student has someone to come back to with questions.  They have a network they can tap into if they need it.

If you could only read books if you received the oral transmission, what do you think you would receive?  If you gave out oral transmissions of books that made an impact in your life, which ones would you want to pass on (assuming you had received the lung to begin with!)? 

If we only read books due to connections we had with others, would you be advocating for giving as many lungs as possible?