Carry on.

Opportunity is formless, without center or limit. It is often hard to appreciate much less recognize the opportunity available to you right now.

So how do you take advantage of the opportunity available to you?

Let's start to narrow the focus. Who is the 'you' that we are referring to?

Is it your profession? That's surely a part of you, but not the whole you. Is it your hobbies or passions or side hustles? They are also a part of you, but not the whole you. All those parts come together to make up your identity as an individual.

You as an individual are also part of a family. You might be a father, mother, sister, or partner. Part of who you are in the world is shaped by that role you play. All the little parts of you as an individual support and influence and shape how you appear and function in your family.

Your family is part of a community. The community in which you live, the intentional communities in which you participate. Each part of you as an individual and the dynamics of your family support and influence and shape your community. How you act in your community influences the world around you.

Communities are part of the larger collective, the cities and states in which we live. Intentional communities are formed around ideas and shared interests that influence and shape the culture and the world in which we live. Intentional communities have much more power and efficiency to carry and spread ideas, resources and values than the individuals that make up those communities. Those intentional communities become a nest for both ideas and individuals. The individual, like the idea, can take birth there, be nurtured, supported, grow and develop. Eventually, the individual and the idea reach maturity and are continued to be carried by the community. It is the community that carries the individual and the idea.

Know that there is great purpose in carrying something. Recognize that your power to carry it is limited but that contributing your efforts to the community relieves you of the burden. Then carrying something brings connection and joy.

Then you can stop worrying about opportunity, especially lost opportunity. Turn your attention instead to responsibility and the roles you play in carrying that forward.

Unpaid debt.

In the past, others have benefited us greatly and we have only brought them harm. In our search for control, status and well being, we have indiscriminately left others behind, turned our backs on them or exploited them for our gain.

We owe them a great deal, yet the debt has not been paid.

We owe karmic debts to the living and deceased.  To those whom we have accidently harmed, broken their trust, stolen from, beaten or killed.  That debt weighs us on, we can feel its burden and often feel trapped by its presence.  That debt continues to define our present experience, influencing the choices we make, the habit patterns we play out and the neurotic behavior that we pretend isn't there.

We will continue to feel our karmic debts pulling on us in unhealthy ways as long as they are not settled. The process of resolving our debts starts with forgiveness, generosity and learning to rest in openness.

Forgiveness is an act of acknowledgement and a claiming of responsibility.
Generosity is a willingness to be present and to benefit others, to repay their kindness.
Openness is the practice of acknowledging and letting go of whatever it is that we are holding onto, in all of the nooks and crannies of our mind.

Our debts will never be completely resolved, but we can do our best to repay them. That opportunity is always available to us. 

Diligence doesn't mean intensity.

Diligence doesn't mean intensity.

It doesn't mean you have to sprint all the time.  It doesn't mean working yourself to death.

Diligence is the constant application of your practice to the circumstances of your life.

Diligence is continued effort.  Effort today, tomorrow and the next, month after month, year after year.  Effort when times are good, effort when times are bad.  Effort, when it is convenient and when it is not. 

Your list of goals will change, your responsibilities will shift and flux, yet you continue with dedication in your practice.

That is diligence. 

A mind divided.

Man is often divided unto himself. 

He seeks out leisure, but must act on his responsibilities.  He pursues his passion, but must be held accountable.  He follows his curiosity, but must produce results. 

There is tension between these two, leisure and responsibility.  Constant opposition and internal struggle.  Struggle to find your place in the world, the enduring battle between what you want to do versus what we have to do. 

The one requires space, silence, idleness, even solitude.

The other demands interaction, checklists, deadlines and diligence.

How do we dissolve the barrier between these two?  Can we cross the chasm over this great divide?  How do we reconcile this internal struggle? 

Lend your leisure to virtue.  Rely on virtue for your responsibilities. 

Virtuous is the pursuit of knowledge, patience and kindness.  The virtues of generosity and wisdom bear fruit in both leisure and responsibility.  Silence, mindfulness, and fortitude, these too are fertile ground for both leisure and responsibility. 

Virtue removes the struggle from our lives.  It allows us to find our balance, to find reconciliation.  Reconciliation is a gift we can give ourselves, and a gift we can carry into the world. 

Following in their footsteps.

In the beginning, we give our teacher our attention and interest
by listening, contemplating and deepening our understanding.

In the middle, out of respect and devotion we offer them our support-
investing our time and energy because of the impact their teachings have had on us.

In the end, it is our responsibility to preserve and share the teachings,
so we choose to embody the teachings, to become their working basis.
That is the way of commitment and generosity, the way in which we follow their example.
This is the greatest offering we can make to our teachers. 

Difficult to accept.

It's yours.

All of your problems, your negative emotions, your anger and frustration, your suffering and discontentment.  All of it, it's yours.

I know that is hard to accept, but if we can accept that they are ours, then we can also accept our responsibility.  We have a habit of shifting the blame, being the victim and not claiming any control.  The consequence is we are waiting for others to fix our situation, to pick us as the fortunate one and offer us reprieve.

But we have to pick ourselves, we have to take the responsibility.

This moment is the start of our practice.

Setting sun mentality.

As the sun sets we have a tendency to get our things in order, to settle in and make ourselves comfortable.  We might grab a drink, start a fire (or a movie), reach for our book or tuck in our loved ones.

Establishing a state of comfort and rest is important.  And necessary.

As the sun rises we might get up, meditate, get ready for the day, grab breakfast and our coffee and move with deliberate intention.  The day ahead is ours to make, we have much to do and today is the only day I have to do it.

Establishing a state of responsibility and enthusiasm is important.  And necessary.

When we approach our days in this way, we are balanced and in harmony with the world around us.  We run into conflict when we try to alter this balance.

How does your day go, when from the moment the sun rises you are looking for a state of comfort and rest?  What happens when conflict or problems arise in your morning and disturb your pleasure?

Too often we set out at the beginning of our day with the intention, "I hope today is an easy day".  This is a setting sun mentality and we will only encounter obstacles and problems on our path.  What we do not realize is that we are actually the creator of our problems, because our intention at the beginning of the day is to already start preparing for sunset. 

Start your day with the right intention.  That intention is to take responsibility, maintain your discipline and to benefit others. 

Very simple.  Hard to do, but I trust you. 

Lineage.

Lineage is a legacy available to you,
one that you can contribute to. 

Your practice is your opportunity, it is the doorway.  By entering it you contribute to your legacy and the legacy of the lineage.

You're not the first, and hopefully you are not the last.  

What do teachers teach?

Does a good teacher teach you the method, the skills?
Is it all about the information? 
Once you have gathered all the knowledge and can do the practice by rote, are you learned?

The best teachers teach you the path, the journey.  They push you to your limits and then give you the resources and support needed to figure out how to break through them.  They inspire you to look deeper.

They encourage the evidence based doubt of the scientist and the reason based doubt of the debater.  They understand the value of a good question and teach you to be brave enough to ask it.

The truly great ones teach you how to carry the ball yourself.  They show you how to bring your practice and knowledge into a new environment and still be able to connect the dots.  They teach you how to stand up, shoulder the weight, and to do it with patience, kindness and generosity.

You should read Stop Stealing Dreams by Seth Godin, it redefines what school is for and lays out a new approach to teaching and learning. 

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. 

No Excuses.

This vehicle operates under the assumption that you are busy.  That you have a lot of responsibility.  That you have others that rely on you and that you need to take care of.  

You already carry a heavy burden.

Your life is not perfect.  It's messy.  You have real wounds, they might even still be bleeding. 

So that is our basic requirement.   That is our ground zero.

Other vehicles might ask you to give it all up.  To walk away, leave it behind.  Escape it all together.  They might ask you to start over, start fresh.

Here, take a reprieve.  A 'Get Out of Jail-Free' card.

That might work, maybe.  My bet is that it won't though.

Better to deal with what we have.  This situation that we are in, it might not look so good.  It is heavy, it gets pretty tiring.  But it is not fixed, it is not permanent.  There is room here.  You can work with this. 

That is why we call this the Mahayana, the Great Vehicle. 

It is called great because it is greater in scope- fulfilling both your own aims and the aims of others.
It is called great because it is greater in aptitude- asking more from you.

We are asking more from you. 

A Goodbye Kiss

All we ever have is fleeting moments of opportunity.

Despite all of the distraction and busyness, all of our responsibilities and the momentum pulling us out the door, if we fail to act now, when will this opportunity come again?

Seize the moment.  Do the practice.  Share your generosity.  Take action. 

Give a goodbye kiss (or hug), you never know when it might be your last.